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Rating: As a lover of true music and not of the fake kind, I always stay quite far from the mainstream circuit, to the point that I don't even know who the personalities of the moment are and I am not able to recognize the trendy tunes; at most, I learn their names by hearing them mentioned repeatedly on social media. That's how I came to know of Billie Eilish when, by pure chance, Thom Yorke's statement praising the talent of this girl, who was not even eighteen yet, popped up. My thought was: if Thom Yorke speaks well of her, there must be a reason (then again, there was also a jab at Muse, maybe it stings him that they are more mainstream than Radiohead, who knows, but that's another discussion, not everything a serious artist says should be taken as gospel), so why not try to listen to her debut album (which had already been out for a few months)?! So I tried, and it ended up accompanying me for quite a while.
On several occasions, I take the opportunity to reiterate that being pop (if it's really necessary to be so) is not at all a justification for producing subpar products since pop is nevertheless a music genre and not a label to put on the garbage bin, and it should therefore adhere to the rules of decency and compositional quality. Billie Eilish at least in this first album (the future is yet to be seen) seems to respect them, although much of the credit should be given to her brother, who carries a rather heavy responsibility in the writing of the songs. Plus, she imposes herself on the scene as an original and unconventional personality.
Starting from the voice, in the era of talent shows that are all strictly vocal (imagine if they made one that instead enhanced instrumentalists) and seem to all aim at finding a copy of Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, or Giorgia, this girl breaks the mold by presenting herself with an extremely delicate, whispered, velvety voice that is somewhat sexy. A voice that is effectively an instrument that fits into a sonic plot that doesn't need to shout or pump to be appreciated; the sound remains delicate even when it touches on more robust electronics. Let's be honest, a calm and sweet sound has never been in fashion, never really loved by the young, at least for about thirty years; all these years, young people have been indoctrinated by dance, house, the more vulgar and crude r&b where breaking the sound system seems to be the prerogative, the goal. Billie Eilish, on the other hand, is not afraid to propose such a whispered sound, even at the cost of being called "dull"; this benefits the instrumental work, which, although not particularly sophisticated, plays a rather important role, while much of the chart pop does not boast significant arrangements because it only thinks about making "noise" here instead, pop remains first and foremost "music".
The stylistic variety is tangible, and this ensures that the listening never becomes boring, also favored by a not substantial duration. Referring back to the discussion of sweetness, let's say that songs like "Xanny" and "The Party Is Over" certainly don't have a trendy sound, a radio appeal; they have a relaxed atmosphere, even reminiscent of a certain jazz, but even when it comes to winking at more popular sounds, there is a noticeable effort to maintain composed and well-constructed arrangements and not fall into flatness. Think of "All the Good Girls Go to Hell," where an incursion into hip-hop is attempted while still maintaining a warm voice and accompanying it all with a rough, metallic, and precise bass line that is hard to find in a chart song; even when one falls into one of the worst ills of today's music, trap, it is done in an absolutely decent manner. "You Should See Me in a Crown" indeed gives a severe lesson on how to use those hypnotic sounds without them sounding like disarmingly flat electronic trash.
The forays into the minimalism of "Bad Guy" and "Bury a Friend" are no less impressive, with deliberately sparse but always well-curated sound. Even the lullaby "8" turns out to be tremendously intelligent in its extreme simplicity, from choosing to give Billie a deliberately childish tone (nothing like the Aqua of "Barbie Girl"...) to the use of the ukulele, here employed in a new reflective and lulling guise, where everyone else uses it to create the usual tacky Caribbean summer hit.
And without fear, one also ventures into the most courageous experimentation; if we mentioned Thom Yorke and his Radiohead earlier, we can certainly find some small allusions to the British band. Already, Billie's voice itself is reminiscent of Thom's subdued and depressive one; the comparison, however, is mostly in the album's final part. "Ilomilo," with its haunting and hypnotic electronics, seems to have come out of "Kid A" (it might even remind one of the title track) or "The King of Limbs," but the entire end of the album emulates the group's more intimate compositions, with tracks that could easily have been part of "A Moon Shaped Pool," particularly "I Love You," which easily recalls "True Love Waits."
But the choice not to want to be the umpteenth cookie-cutter character is also reflected in the girl's image: an angelic face that she doesn't want to ruin with tons of makeup, hair of improbable colors with a vaguely punk aftertaste, loose clothes with patterns of drawings or colors. In practice, she stands exactly opposite of what society demands one to be, that is, you have to play loudly, you shouldn't look like a clown, and you have to show off ass and tits. Sure, ass and tits are never bad, but it's nice to see that there are also those who know how to go against the current. It's surprising that all this is still bringing her a wide consensus in a world where overly alternative personalities are instead marginalized and have to be content with a narrow audience; so it's not that true that people aren't open to things a little different from the usual, even though it's worth noting that it's still pop music and that behind it is still a commercial label like Interscope.
However, this girl scares me; she raises doubts about how long all this machinery can actually last. I fear she might soon sell out to easy melodies, throwing away all the good she built in this debut; someone who cites Avril Lavigne, Justin Bieber, Rihanna, and Ariana Grande as sources of inspiration risks being easily swallowed by less respectable characters; even sudden success can become a dangerous vortex that might drag her into annoying compromises to increase her fame. Billie Eilish finds herself in a dangerous zone, halfway between becoming the new Björk and the new Rihanna. I just hope my fears dissolve; meanwhile, this debut album gets full marks.
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