Billie Eilish - 'Happier Than Ever' Album Review

Born 18th December 2001 in LA, California, Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O'Connell was barely a teenager when her song, Ocean Eyes, became a viral hit. She teamed up with her brother, Finneas, to create the tracks for the breakout EP Don't Smile At Me, and the smash album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, thereby establishing the artist as a global sensation and multi-time Grammy award winner before the age of twenty.

As she and her brother were homeschooled, Eilish was encouraged to pursue her interests in dance, gymnastics, horseback riding and especially music. At age 6, she learned to play The Beatles' I Will on ukelele, joined the Los Angeles Children's Chorus at age 8 and began writing songs at age 11. Eilish has said that her first 'real' song, Fingers Crossed, was penned around that time watching an episode of AMC and Fox's 'The Walking Dead'.

The older sibling by four-and-a-half years, Finneas became his sister's invaluable collaborator, co-writer and producer, and the pair continued to compose and record together from a bedroom in their two-storey home in Highland Park even after Eilish emerged as a global phenomenon.

Happier Than Ever is the second studio album by Billie Eilish, and was released July 30th 2021 by Darkroom and Interscope Records. Eilish has cited self-reflection as the biggest inspiration for the record, with lyrical themes including fame, emotional abuse, relationships and mistrust. Prior to its release, Happier Than Ever became the most pre-added album in Apple Music history, and upon its release the album was acclaimed by music critics, who emphasised its subdued, stylistic production and insightful lyrics.

The opening track of the album, Getting Older, has a staccato rhythm which immediately draws the audience in and makes the song catchy. Already, the dark themes which are to be explored throughout the album are made apparent. The dark themes are being presented under the guise of a happier sounding song than Eilish has previously released. Unfortunately, the vast majority of lyrics in this song are unintelligible, however that is the way in which Eilish sings and so it can hardly be criticised as it is what appeals to her fans. The theme of sexual harassment is sung about in this song in a very simple way. It is chilling.

I Didn't Change My Name is about a past relationship and Eilish separating herself from that person. The song was previously titled 'Laura', and is incredibly relatable with a very positive message of somebody growing away from a previous relationship which might not have been very healthy for them. The song itself is full of energy that makes you want to get up and dance. Like the majority of Eilish's discography to date, it sounds completely unique to anything that is out at the moment and has come before. It's fresh and distinctly Billie Eilish, and you won't hear anything else like it.

The third track, Billie Bossa Nova, is a complete experiment, and one that is carried off exceptionally well. It is a combination of Brazilian jazz-samba and the new wave sound which is getting incredibly popular and will continue to be so in future albums by other artists who attempt to compete with Eilish. It's smooth, unexpected and slightly mysterious, and is completely awesome. 

my future reflects on Eilish's past and her future. The words are, thankfully, easier to understand on this song than a lot of other ones on the album, and so it is more easy to appreciate it. It is a hauntingly beautiful song, and I believe this is because it starts to slow and gives you a chance to process what is going on musically before it kicks in and more starts to happen in it. It is my personal favourite on the album because it is such an earworm.

Oxytocin has a futuristic song and is a horny hormonal-rage, very funky and fun sound at the same time. It has a really powerful sound to it, and whilst we're back to only being able to distinguish every fifth or sixth word, the song brings out goosebumps on my skin. 

The sixth song on Eilish's second studio album is GOLDWING, and is a heartbreaking, angelic song which is very powerful because of the emotion which it conveys. It is Eilish's words to another young woman in the music industry who is still pure - and not in that she is a virgin - but that she has not been touched by the impurities of the music industry yet. It is, in a way, a warning to anybody who will come after her, and for that reason it is heartbreaking because what she sings sounds like what she wishes somebody had said to her when she released her first album and her breakout EP, when she was barely a teenager. It is over quickly, but that's okay. Musically, this might be the best on the album, and I think it certainly the most perfect I have heard in a long time.

Lost Cause was the fourth single released from the album, and is very synth heavy. It's quite passive aggressive considering the fact that it seems to be a letter to a past lover who dragged Eilish down. Eilish has taken a page from Taylor Swift's 'How to Hit Back at an Ex' book, which was so recently borrowed by Olivia Rodrigo for her debut album SOUR (the review for which can be found here). It poses the question as to whether or not the hit back songs at exes are dated and maybe getting a bit boring.

The next song, Halley's Comet, is a sweet and romantic earworm that features beautiful vocals from Eilish.

Not My Responsibility is a spoken track which was first heard on Eilish's 2018 tour. It is entirely different, once again, to anything in the industry and for this reason is really intriguing. I cannot think of one album which features spoken vocals against a musical backing track, and is an empowering message for her fans, especially the young girls.

With perhaps the best transition between two songs in modern pop music history, Not My Responsibility flawlessly flows into OverHeated, which has a faintly garage-esque sound to it, is quite synth-y and is actually really cool.

Everybody Dies is quite dark in its message, and somehow comforting. Eilish stated this in an interview, and I totally agree. The song is about how pleasing it can be that eventually, everyone and everything draws to a close and dies. It is in complete contrast to the title of the album, Happier Than Ever, but that doesn't matter because Eilish has somehow managed to turn a song about death into a relaxing song which provides comfort to her listeners.

The third single from her Happier Than Ever album, Your Power is about an abusive relationship, though Eilish confirmed in an interview that it is not about anybody specific and rather abusive relationships in general. It has a really soft, really beautiful guitar part and is raw and emotional, almost too much so to be shared.

NDA, which stands for non-disclosure agreement, doesn't follow Eilish's usual song structure, and so is quite fun because it is an entirely new Billie to her listeners - one who is not so rigid in how her song is written. Personally, I prefer this new structure of song to her old one, and I think it sounds awesome. The vocals are something which she hasn't done before, however the song is not relatable for people outside of the music industry and so may not appeal to her fans as so many of her other songs do.

Therefore I Am is a very catchy song which uses gurgling synths and a relatable message to appeal to a wide audience. The tune is infectious and so are the lyrics, and will have anybody and everybody who hears it singing it for the rest of the day. The lyrics in it are entirely differentiable from each other, which is not usual for Eilish, and are hazy and dreamlike in addition to that. It's one of her best, to be sure, and the highlight of the album overall.

A distinctly vintage sound is audible on the penultimate track, Happier Than Ever, which is also the title of the album. It gives me Elvis vibes at the beginning, specifically that of Can't Help Falling In Love (1970), but in the second part, it reminds me of A Day In The Life (1967) by The Beatles because of the staccato rhythm which makes the song seem like it is building up to a climax, which just so happens to be the end of the song. It is quite possibly Eilish's finest vocal performance laid to record to date, and is almost ear-gasmic because it is so perfectly controlled and sung. To tell the truth, it sent goosebumps down my spine the first time that I heard it.

The final song on the album, Male Fantasy, is a song directed at the 'male fantasy' of the music industry - the white, aristocratic male image - and is a melancholic ballad, and an emotional climax to the album. It is simple, but not to its detriment, and is instead a perfect finish to a great album.

Pop's princess of darkness returns with a second studio album which, whilst her lyrics are not always audible because of the nasally way that she sings, is more or less perfect. There are, of course, some songs which stand out - Therefore I Am and the titular Happier Than Ever in particular.

The album spans many different genres and captures them all perfectly. However, despite claiming to be 'happier than ever', there are places where Eilish seems more scared and vulnerable than she was on her first album, When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (2019), but for a nineteen-year-old, this album is an incredible feat to reach.

Once again, the coronavirus pandemic has inspired another great artist to create a career defining album, and whilst I am not a great fan of Eilish nor her brother, Finneas, I am intrigued as to what the duo will come up with next.