New month, new music! Billie Eilish is back and, honestly, it pains me to see how much talent she has at 17 years old. She was literally born in 2001 and has already carved a promising career for herself in the brutal music industry. She’s from Los Angeles and was surrounded as a child by a family bursting with creativity; actors, musicians, and screenwriters made up her household and it is no wonder that her debut EP, Don’t Smile At Me, was one of the most praised debuts of 2017. She’s collaborated with fellow teen sensation Khalid as well as Vince Staples, and she looks to go from strength to strength as her debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do You Go?, will be released in March this year.
This single, bury a friend, is the first to be released ahead of that album and is typically Eilish; dystopian, creepy, but with obvious pop elements sewn into the track. It is produced by her brother, Fineas O’Connell, and is a very solid track to kickstart her album promo.
The drumbeat unapologetically drags you through the song and at the start, as a listener, the rhythm feels uncomfortable. This sensation is heightened by a lot of high pitched screeches and her twisted lyrics throughout. She constantly draws on her own death, citing “I want to end me” repeatedly in the chorus. The music video also embodies the creepy aurora of the song, as Eilish is dragged through an abandoned block of apartments by non-descript hands, with the tone of the video perfectly matching that of the song in general.
Eilish is a very unique artist. In an interview with Annie Mac on BBC Radio 1 this week, she said that she is very entertained by scaring people, and her music style reflects this mischievous tendency. In the same interview, she details how the album was written from the perspective of “the monster under the bed”. A dark album then, but that is what her fans, myself included, love her for. She has a unique melancholy and distress to her songwriting that feels raw and real, and that’s why I think she has exploded the way she has and the way I think she will continue to do so.
Her album artwork also draws a lot of inspiration from the horror genre, with straitjackets, hospital beds and completely white eyes combining for a particularly creepy cover that should be avoided by those of a nervous disposition! I have no doubt, though, that this project will just solidify her legitimacy as an artist and I am excited to hear the rest of the album in March. You will be hearing this song again, I promise you.
Spotify Playlist Link: https://spoti.fi/2CKuVex
A Song A Day 