My Complicated Relationship With Billie Eilish

So Billie EIlish is gonna be a thing now huh? I didn't expect her to be having a massive #1 album debut last year when I first heard you should see me in a crown on the Alt-8, but yeah here we are. I didn't like that song when I first heard it. I still don't. That was basically my only exposure to her for a while aside from one of my best friends stanning her. So I didn't like her for a while. I started to give her a chance a few months later. I was at the gym, and was listening to the Alt-8 (again). Instead of having the original version of you should see me in a crown, they had an in studio acoustic cover of it that she did. It was....not awful? While it's been a few months, I do remember being kinda fond of it. So that's the baseline of my Billie knowledge, but that's far from the end of the story.

In October(?), Billie released a new single, when the party's over. Now while I normally wouldn't have bothered to listen to it, I had to because of the Wake The Pop Up podcast (which you should all go listen to right now, its quality content). I didn't like it. But I also didn't hate it. It was just there. And besides, it dropped the same week as Sunflower, so my attention was elsewhere, and I ultimately ended up kinda forgetting the song. The really over the top "creepy" spider music video didn't help things. 

Then November came around. I saw that Billie released yet another new song, called come out and play. I was on a cruise at the time, and had a really bad case of travel sickness and had basically been stuck in bed all day. I figured I might as well listen to the song, since I had nothing better to do. To my great surprise, I actually liked it. The guitar was god damn amazing in it, and Billie sounded pretty good. I also remember I said something about it in the Hits 1 Discord, then that dickhead Miles was all like "boo Billie is trash stream Mia Khalifa". 

Since I actually liked a song of hers a lot, I decided to re-visit a lot of her other stuff to see if I would enjoy any of it. Songs such as ocean eyes, lovely, and even when the party's over clicked with me and became favorites of mine for a short period of time. Other songs like bellyache (one of my current favorites of hers) took a while to grow on me, but I did end up enjoying her. I became a reluctant Billie Eilish stan for a good period of time.

Then bury a friend was released.

I hate that song. Its a blatant sell out song that took away anything that made Billie special (also at this point, when the party's over had shrunk on me again). It took the overly fake creepiness from you should see me in a crown, and the boringness and weak vocals of when the party's over and made them into one shitty song. Everything in it just comes across as so fake. The trackless for her album dropped the same day, and that only continued to lower my expectations for her. Why would I want to hear an album with song titles such as "all the good girls go to hell" and "xanny"? They sounded like exactly the type of stuff I don't like hearing from her. 

Also, three of her best songs that weren't even on previous albums didn't make the tracklist. I do kinda get why. Those three songs wouldn't fit in with the album. A majority of WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? is like the same exact song. Its a dull beat with Billie whispering pandery "emo" lyrics. Pandering is a big issues I have with this album. Most of the stuff her just feels like she's making songs for the sole purpose of teens relating to them. For example, she made a song about The Office. AJR also made a song about The Office, and they pander hard.

To wrap things up, no I don't like Billie now. I think her album was really mediocre, and she's given up what made her special for chart success. I still do have hope for her in the future, but honestly my expectations are quite low.