Millions of sales around the world, more than 64 billion streams for Bad guy, a multi-award-winning debut album (including five Grammys in 2020), a documentary on Apple TV… Since the release of his first album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? in 2019, Billie Eilish, icon of Generation Z, became a true global phenomenon. At just 19 years old.
And inevitably, the singer’s fans were impatiently awaiting the sequel. It’s now done this Friday, with the release of 16 tracks from his new album Happier Than Ever, “Happier than ever” in French. A slightly ironic title (in line with the photo of
the album cover), for a Billie Eilish who, however, seems much more at peace with herself.
“Life can be good too”
“This title above all expresses the feeling, new to me, that one can one day achieve happiness,” the singer recently explained to Telerama. It is a path to take, difficult for all, on which one can get lost at any time. On the cover, apparently luminous, I cry. Considering what I’m saying, the title could also be sarcastic. But I finally manage, after years of anguish, after years of grumbling, to fight against my complexes, to perceive that life can be beautiful too. “
The consequences of celebrity, her adolescent discomfort and her injuries, her difficulties in accepting herself physically… These are all themes that Billie Eilish tackles with hindsight and maturity. A very introspective album that she herself qualifies as “therapeutic”, co-composed and co-produced with her brother Finneas O’Connell, her faithful sidekick. Musically, she mixes bossa-nova, electro and pop ballad, and always this so identifiable voice that made her success, both drawling and melancholy.