Billie Eilish Tightens Her Commanding Grip on Pop Music on HIT ME HARD AND SOFT
Working again with the instrumental talents of her brother Finneas, Eilish’s third album yanks her out of her former teen stardom and gives her the space to reckon with the complexities of her own confusing and liberating adulthood.
By Matt Mitchell for Paste –
Billie Eilish’s awaited third LP, HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, is exactly the kind of album that pop music needed right now—if only because it’s not a bloated misfire. It doesn’t hurt that Eilish’s latest is also pretty good. Even when the 22-year-old isn’t putting out records, she’s still winning awards and outpacing her peers without missing a step. Her 2019 debut, When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, put her into an icon status that not even her 2017 EP Don’t Smile at Me could have foreshadowed—nabbing her five Grammy Awards out of six nominations, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year (“Bad Guy”). Cut to her sophomore release, Happier Than Ever, and she left the Grammys with zero wins out of seven nominations. Happier Than Ever wasn’t a measure of any kind of sophomore slump, but rather a comedown from an unparalleled genesis. Few artists have ever put out a debut as commercially and critically decorated; Billie Eilish became a phenomenon in 2019 and her star-power hasn’t let up for one moment. And with her multi-hyphenated, generationally talented brother (and Glee alum) Finneas O’Connell helming the producing, engineering and arranging of all of her work, you can expect nothing but above-average work from the duo in perpetuity.
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