It is quite serendipitous for me that two artists, Billie Eilish and Willow, that I have relied on for years to provide me with my sad Autumn emo vibes are now releasing fun Spring music this year, without sacrificing their natural sound too much! I have listened to Billie Eilish since her very first don’t smile at me tape back in 2017. She’s always had such an ethereally haunting voice that captured me, and played well with her morose, often borderline frightening aesthetics.
When it comes to angsty self-pity, there are few projects that do it for me like don’t smile at me. This album became my beautiful melancholic sanctuary as I went through the emotional turmoil of my first relationship. Songs like “idontwannabeyouanymore”, “hostage”, and “ocean eyes” are achingly melodramatic in all the best ways, while tracks like "my boy" and "bellyache" added a snap of groove and attitude. Vince Staples' appearance on “&burn” was also an unexpected treat at the time and an early peek into his versatility as a rapper.
While I am a Billie Eilish fan, I wasn’t the biggest fan of her last effort Happier than Ever that saw a very dramatic departure from her typical songs, and saw her attempt to make a much more pop-influenced album with punchier production and higher bpm bops that I felt sought to capitalize off the success of the track bad guy off her previous album When we all fall asleep, where do we go and ultimately didn’t matched her style or voice well for an entire project.
With that said, after hearing this album, I think it was a necessary stepping stone for Billie in finding the best ways to channel her sleepy style into something more poppy. Much like its title, this album hits its listeners both hard and softly, with pounding bass and soft vocals.
One thing that I think is impressive is how Billie continues to produce multiple good albums with few to no features. This isn’t to say that collaborating with other artists would denigrate it, but I think it says something that Billie is able to sit at the center of all of her albums, and I think it contributes to the her ability to pull listeners into the musical dreamscapes that serve as the setting for most of her albums.
How I’d Recommend Listening to This Album
As a general rule, I would recommend listening to Billie Eilish albums all the way through, and sequentially (except maybe Happier than Ever imo). With 10 tracks and 43min in length, Hit Me Hard and Soft is a fairly quick and enjoyable listen. With that said, these are the songs that stuck with me the most, or contributed the most to whatever message or feeling I took away from the album.
is a track that is classically Billie Eilish, with her singing achingly over an acoustic guitar. It’s a very Disney channel in its musical style and lyrics, something I could’ve seen catching fire is Demi Lovato sang it on Sonny With a Chance back when I was a kid. It’s a nice intro song to the album, and a good slow walk into the sound of this album before it gets into its different, dancier vibe.
was the first song that really caught my attention on this album. It serves the purpose that “bad guy” did off her previous album, being the catchy, beat-thumping follow up to the calm intro, and specifically playing up Billie’s fuckboi persona that she likes to embody every now and then. It is also the first indication that we get of this album's particular dance/EDM bent that makes it stand out against the rest of her catalog. I think it's the most straightforwardly catchy song on this album which originally made me nervous about its replay value, but I have played it many times since its release and it has aged just fine.
My first few times listening to this album, I had a very hard time remembering this song with it being sandwiched between the two bangers of LUNCH and BIRDS OF A FEATHER. With Billie using her lowkey whisper-voice for most of the track, and the track’s slow, hypnotic beat, that eventually evolved into a glittering trancelike synth passage makes this whole song feel like getting lost in a daydream in the middle of the album. Though I would never throw this song on on its own, after listening to the album quite a few times, I think it fits well into the flow of the album.
is a slight but refreshing change of style for Billie, seeing Billie singing over a sparkling 80’s inspired beat that is very reminiscent of 070 Shake’s Guilty Conscience. It’s giving middle school dance in Stranger Things, or really the climactic dance scene at the end of any teenage coming-of-age movie. Apparently this is also the most streamed song from the album on Spotify, so I guess the people have been vibing with it.
THE GREATEST
is one of the best songs on the album that sounds quintessentially Billie Eilish, and also sports some of her best vocal moments of the entire album! The song is almost 5 minutes long, and builds up steadily and beautifully until the climax of the song that comes through with wailing electric guitars and the passionate screams of Billie exclaiming her love, just as a ballad should be!
L’AMOUR DE LA VIE
is, if not the best song on the album, definitely the most surprising and refreshing. The track has two major components to it, marked by a dramatic beat switch at the end of the track. The first half is some Billie’s classic melancholic relationship musings, to a second half that honestly feels throwback to some late 90’s to early 2000’s pop songs like “Barbie Girl” by Aqua or “Butterfly" by Smile, when we were being overly reckless with auto tune. If you know these songs and the era I’m talking about, you will know that though this sounds like a diss, it’s an absolute compliment! Billie was also kind enough to release another version of the track that is an extended version of the second half, which she didn’t half-ass for money, adding extra verses and musical transitions to it.
BLUE
is nice close to the album. It wraps up the narrative of the album, with Billie seemingly reflecting on the loss of the chaotic relationship she had been discussing throughout the album. Longing for them, even as she recognizes that it was what needed to happen, singing
I don't blame you
But I can't change you
Don't hate you (don't hate you)
But we can't save you (but we can't save you)
You were born reaching for your mother's hands
Victim of your father's plans to rule the world
Too afraid to step outside
Paranoid and petrified of what you've heard
Showing that the aspects of the relationship that led to its demise are, at least in Billie’s eyes, beyond both of their immediate control. For Billie because there is nothing she can do to change how her partner feels as a result of her upbringing, and for her partner because the process of unlearning deep-seeded thoughts about yourself that were cultivated throughout your upbringing takes time to work through, something that their relationship clearly didn’t have. The song that directly precedes this song is called BITTERSUITE and I believe the two make a good closing pair to this album, with BLUE concluding the lyrical narrative of the album, and BITTERSUITE punctuating the emotional sentiment of the entire album, which is truly bittersweet. From the contrasting melancholic lyrics and twinkling instrumentation, songs that make you want to jump up and down at a rave, and songs that make you want to lock yourself in a tool shed for a quick tear.
Conclusion
If there is some deeply profound message buried within this album, I can unequivocally say that I missed it. I would say that of the albums I truly listened to, don’t smile at me When we all Fall Asleep where do we go? And now Hit me Hard and Soft, I would say that this album is the one that has the least overarching theme behind the album’s concept. It’s not that the songs in this album have no meaning, or that the meaning within them has changed that drastically from her previous work, but rather that this album is unified sonically more than it is by its lyrics. With that being said, I like that and think it fits this album very well. In contrast with the last album of hers that I enjoyed, When we all Fall Asleep where do we go?, which was essentially a sonic dreamscape where the songs explored the different fears and anxieties that plagued Billie’s consciousness, this album’s songs feel like they seek to embody the experience that Billie is living through rather than describing it.
What is that experience? I would say it's the euphoria of emotional turmoil. Where every other Billie Eilish album has felt like music that I would want to listen to at midnight, by myself in a dark room, drinking Chamomile tea and running my fingers across the sharp edges of my past memories, this album feels the opposite of that. It sounds like sunshine and day parties. It sounds like those summers you never forget, full of action and events that occur so quickly, you barely have the time to reflect on them.
Songs like LUNCH, CHIHIRO, and L’AMOUR DE LA VIE are the backtrack as you go to the pool party, join a spontaneous game of water polo, and meet a cute girl that you catch some rhythm with. And then songs like SKINNY, THE GREATEST, and BLUE are the sobering moments of reflection that are peppered throughout those unending days: SKINNY is the insecurity that runs through you as you are preparing to go out, checking out your body and fit in the mirror, and not being quite sure if you’re killin it or not. THE GREATEST is the argument that you have with your friend or partner halfway through the day of fun that is somehow both unnecessary and unavoidable. That point where the bright sun is draining instead of energizing, you’re coming down from your high, and whoever you’re hanging out with keeps tapping their foot on the dashboard in the most irritating way, grating against the very last slivers of your last nerve until you can't help but explode!
And then BLUE is the soundtrack of the quiet drive home at the end of it all, as you reflect on the events of the day. That’s all describing vibes. If we are talking lyrically, this album is very much a relationship album, and quite the tumultuous one at that. I haven’t read anything or watched any interviews, so if Billie explained the album title, I don’t know it or care. I think the title of the album pertains much more to the lyrics of this album, referencing Billie’s experience of this(these) love(s) and the impact that it had on her, both positive and negative.
Last time I ended by giving some examples of settings that this album is good for, but I feel I have already done that to some degree so I will keep this portion brief:
Midnight drive through a sleeping cityscape, or through a suboceanic wormhole as displayed at the beginning.
I would say this is also some pretty good background picnic music.
Anywhere you can lie down and see a blanket of stars twinkling overhead.
The more upbeat cuts like LUNCH and L’AMOUR DE LA VIE are good for some rave vibes or EDM dance parties.
There are definitely way more settings for this music, but pop and hyper-pop are on the outer edges of my music taste, so I don’t quite have any more to list. If you have any settings to mention, feel free to do so. Ultimately I really enjoy this album, and I think enough time has gone on for me to say this is currently my second favorite Billie Eilish album.
Comments