{"id":953898,"date":"2024-05-17T14:04:27","date_gmt":"2024-05-17T11:04:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=953898"},"modified":"2024-05-17T14:04:27","modified_gmt":"2024-05-17T11:04:27","slug":"5-takeaways-from-billie-eilishs-new-album-hit-me-hard-and-soft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=953898","title":{"rendered":"5 Takeaways From Billie Eilish\u2019s New Album *Hit Me Hard and Soft*"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Columns<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

5 Takeaways From Billie Eilish\u2019s New Album Hit Me Hard and Soft<\/em><\/h1>\n
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The pop phenom\u2019s third album, released with no advance singles or videos, strikes a melancholy chord while fleshing out her sound with strings, mid-song switch-ups, and vocals that can rise to a scream.<\/div>\n
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By <\/span>Eric Torres<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Image by Chris Panicker. Photo by William Drumm.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n
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In the three years since Billie Eilish\u2019s sophomore album, 2021\u2019s self-reflective, jazzy Happier Than Ever<\/em>, the pop phenom hasn\u2019t lost an ounce of cultural relevance. Thanks to her Grammy- and Oscar-winning song for last year\u2019s Barbie<\/em> soundtrack, the crushing ballad \u201cWhat Was I Made For?,\u201d the 22-year-old is as ubiquitous as ever, putting the hype for her new music at an all-time high. After she announced her third album last month\u2014the curiously titled Hit Me Hard and Soft<\/em>, to be released with no advance singles or videos\u2014she revealed in an interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music that she and her brother and longtime producer, Finneas, had \u201cmade an album without any or much thought of other people.\u201d One couldn\u2019t help but wonder if a surprising pivot was in store.<\/p>\n

The resulting Hit Me Hard and Soft<\/em>, however, largely returns to the menacing, sometimes theatrical palette of Eilish\u2019s record-breaking debut. Swirling with midtempo beats, synthy mid-song breakdowns, and the occasional suite of strings from Attacca Quartet, the album doesn\u2019t tread too far into new territory, instead settling into a brooding sweet spot that Eilish knows well. Here are five takeaways from the new album.<\/p>\n

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\"Billie<\/span><\/div>\n
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Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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$33<\/span> at Rough Trade<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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$33<\/span> at Amazon<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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$35<\/span> at Target<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Trying on New Vocal Styles<\/h2>\n

Billie Eilish has made a name for herself on a specific sound: murky beats, earworm melodies, and ominous, whispered vocals. She switches up the latter a bit more on Hit Me Hard and Soft<\/em>, moving from clear, sugar-sweet vocals on the breezy pop confection \u201cBirds of a Feather\u201d to a pitch-shifted scream during the ecstatic, pinwheeling outro on \u201cL\u2019Amour de Ma Vie.\u201d It\u2019s fun to see Eilish flex her different vocal modes, lending depth to songs like \u201cBittersuite,\u201d where she matches waves of swelling synths with jazzy vocal backing tracks.<\/p>\n

A Looser, More Mature Billie Takes Shape<\/h2>\n

One of Hit Me Hard and Soft<\/em>\u2019s most memorable songs is the punchy synth-rock jaunt \u201cLunch,\u201d where Eilish is up front about finding another woman so hot she could \u201ceat that girl for lunch.\u201d It\u2019s a sleek, sly sex song that sounds like the most fun Eilish has had on record yet, fusing her earlier, playful sound with a more mature touch. She carries that blend of maturity and winking irreverence further on the narrative-driven \u201cThe Diner,\u201d assuming the perspective of a stalker over a deranged funhouse beat. \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid of me\/I\u2019m what you need,\u201d she sings in a quietly pleading tone, \u201cI saw you on the screens\/I know we\u2019re meant to be.\u201d Knowing Eilish herself has been the subject of a terrifying stalker\u2019s fascination in real life adds a macabre undertone to the song\u2019s already unnerving tale.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Beat Switches Aplenty<\/h2>\n

Finneas, the lone producer of Hit Me Hard and Soft<\/em>, switches the sound a lot across the new album\u2019s 10 tracks\u2014often even changing styles in the same song. The waterlogged, reggae-inspired thump in the opening stretch of \u201cBittersuite,\u201d for instance, falls away for a series of cresting synth freakouts. Elsewhere, the winding electric guitar that guides \u201cChihiro,\u201d titled after the protagonist of Hayao Miyazaki\u2019s Spirited Away<\/em>, moves at a midtempo clip before collapsing into a trancy finish. Eilish shapeshifts between genres and moods to keep listeners on their toes and, importantly, reflect the unpredictability of her own roving mind\u2014by the time the nearly six-minute closing song, \u201cBlue,\u201d veers from stomping pop-rock to swooning piano ballad to ruptured hip-hop beats, you can fully grasp Eilish\u2019s delightful unruliness at work.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Billie Can Still Knock Out a Ballad<\/h2>\n

Eilish has said that Hit Me Hard and Soft<\/em>\u2019s tender opening ballad, \u201cSkinny,\u201d was made as a way to break through a bout of writer\u2019s block while trying to work out \u201cWhat Was I Made For?\u201d You can hear traces of it in her tender, featherlight vocal delivery, swaddled in fingerpicked guitar used to underscore discerning, heartbreaking lyrics on body image and celebrity. \u201cAm I acting my age now? Am I already on the way out?\u201d she asks, voice slipping into a falsetto to confront criticisms she\u2019s faced her whole life in the public eye. It\u2019s a track that confirms Eilish remains one of the best of her generation at crafting a ballad that can just pull the rug out from under you.<\/p>\n

Memorable Lyrics<\/h2>\n
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  • \u201cPeople say I look happy\/Just because I got skinny\/But the old me is still me and maybe the real me\/And I think she\u2019s pretty\u201d (\u201cSkinny\u201d)<\/li>\n
  • \u201cYou need a seat? I\u2019ll volunteer\/Now she\u2019s smiling ear to ear\/She\u2019s the headlights, I\u2019m the deer\u201d (\u201cLunch\u201d)<\/li>\n
  • \u201cCan\u2019t change the weather\/Might not be forever\/But if it\u2019s forever\/It\u2019s even better\u201d (\u201cBirds of a Feather\u201d)<\/li>\n
  • \u201cYou seem so paralyzed\/It\u2019s so romanticized\/If this is how I die\/That\u2019s all right\u201d (\u201cBittersuite\u201d)<\/li>\n
  • \u201cYou were born bluer than a butterfly\/Beautiful and so deprived of oxygen\u201d (\u201cBlue\u201d)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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    Source URL: https:\/\/pitchfork.com\/thepitch\/takeaways-from-billie-eilish-new-album-hit-me-hard-and-soft\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Columns 5 Takeaways From Billie Eilish\u2019s New Album Hit Me Hard and Soft The pop phenom\u2019s third album, released with no advance singles or videos, strikes a melancholy chord while fleshing out her sound with strings, mid-song switch-ups, and vocals that can rise to a scream. By Eric Torres May 17, 2024 Image by Chris […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":953900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[54],"class_list":["post-953898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-pitchfork-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=953898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/953900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=953898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=953898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=953898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}