short biography billie eilish

Billie Eilish

Musician Billie Eilish became a pop superstar by way of her distinctive musical and fashion sensibilities and songs like “Ocean Eyes,” “Bad Guy,” and “Therefore I Am.”

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2001-present

Latest News: Billie Eilish Makes History with Oscar Win

Billie Eilish made Academy Award history on March 10 with her win for Best Original Song for “What Was I Made For?”

Eilish and O’Connell performed the song live during the ceremony, drawing a standing ovation from the audience. “What Was I Made For?” also won Song of the Year earlier in 2024 at the Grammy Awards .

Listen to “What Was I Made For?” on Amazon Music , Apple Music , or Spotify .

Quick Facts

Early life and family, brother finneas o‘connell, albums and songs, clothes and style, tours and documentary, personal and social issues, who is billie eilish.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Billie Eilish was barely a teenager when her song “Ocean Eyes” became a viral hit. She teamed with her brother, Finneas O’Connell, to create the tracks for the breakout EP Don’t Smile at Me and the smash album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? , establishing the artist as a global sensation and seven-time Grammy winner before the age of 20. To date, she has won nine Grammy Awards and is known for the songs “Bad Guy,” “Everything I Wanted,” and “What Was I Made For?” from the Barbie movie soundtrack.

FULL NAME: Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell BORN: December 18, 2001 BIRTHPLACE: Los Angeles, California ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Sagittarius

Billie Eilish was born on December 18, 2001, in Los Angeles. Her full name is Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell. Her first name is in honor of her maternal grandfather, William; the second was inspired by a conjoined twin her parents saw in a documentary; and the third came from the insistence of her older brother, Finneas.

Billie’s parents, Maggie Baird and Patrick O’Connell, were longtime actors before joining their teenage daughter’s professional team. Raised in a two-bedroom house in Highland Park, where she and her brother were homeschooled, Eilish was encouraged to pursue her interests in dance, gymnastics, horseback riding and especially music. She learned to play the Beatles' "I Will" on the ukulele at age 6; joined Los Angeles Children's Chorus at age 8; and began writing songs in earnest by age 11, her talents nurtured through her mother's songwriting class. Eilish has said her first "real" song, "Fingers Crossed," was penned around that time after watching an episode of The Walking Dead.

The elder sibling by four-and-a-half years, Finneas became his sister's indispensable collaborator, co-writer and producer, the pair continuing to compose and record together from a bedroom in their Highland Park home even after Eilish's emergence as a global phenomenon.

"Probably 75-80 percent of the songs are written with us sitting next to each other at a piano or with a guitar, singing a melody together," he told Variety in 2019. "It's like a relay race — we really feel like we both have to kill our portion of it to get to the finish line."

Finneas, who released the solo EP Blood Harmony in October 2019, has also co-written and produced tracks for other popular artists like Justin Bieber , Selena Gomez and Camila Cabello.

“Ocean Eyes”

Originally written for Finneas' band, "Ocean Eyes" sprung to life when infused with a 13-year-old Eilish's ethereal vocals and became a viral sensation upon being uploaded to SoundCloud in November 2015. A second SoundCloud offering, "Six Feet Under," was followed by her summer 2016 signing with Darkroom Records, which re-released both tracks as singles later in the year.

Don’t Smile at Me

Eilish's popularity surged with the steady unveiling of singles from her August 2017 EP, Don't Smile at Me , with tracks like "Bellyache," "Copycat" and "My Boy" showcasing her willingness to explore dark and prickly terrain amid a stream of shifting but danceable electronic beats. Don't Smile at Me peaked at an impressive No. 14 on the Billboard 200 in January 2019, around which time Eilish became the youngest artist to top 1 billion streams on Spotify.

When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? and “Bad Guy”

The March 2019 arrival of Eilish's full-length album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? came with the simultaneous release of "Bad Guy," the song that became the first megahit of her career. Still, the chart-topping album retained the early hallmarks of her unique style, from the whispered ruminations on drug use in "Xanny" to the jarring imagery of "Bury a Friend." Eilish also displayed her theatrical sensibilities in the riveting videos for those and other tracks; "When the Party's Over" shows the artist singing through the black liquid pouring from her eyes, while "You Should See Me in a Crown" features a spider crawling from her mouth.

James Bond Soundtrack: “No Time to Die”

In January 2020, it was announced that the 18-year-old Eilish had become the youngest artist to write and record the title track for a James Bond movie. The ominous ballad "No Time to Die" landed the following month, before the film of the same name was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and became her first single to reach the top spot in the U.K. The song would eventually win the Oscar for Best Original song in 2022.

Eilish has also contributed to the soundtracks of other projects; "Bored" and "Lovely" appeared on the controversial Netflix teen series 13 Reasons Why , and "When I Was Older" was among the musical selections that accompanied Alfonso Cuarón's 2018 drama Roma .

“What Was I Made For?”

A collaboration with her brother, Finneas O’Connell, “What Was I Made For?” is Eilish’s latest hit. The song, written for the 2023 Barbie movie, reached No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100, and the siblings earned Golden Globe, Grammy, and Academy Award nominations for their work.

Eilish began earning her first major accolades in 2019 when she claimed wins at the MTV Video Awards and American Music Awards and was named Billboard ’s Woman of the Year . But her big moment came at the January 2020 Grammys , when she became the first woman and the second artist overall to sweep the big four categories of Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist, adding Best Pop Vocal Album for good measure.

Eilish won two awards at the 2021 Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year for “Everything I Wanted.”

In January 2024, Eilish took home her second Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song - Motion Picture for “What Was I Made For?” from Barbie (2023). At the 2024 Grammy Awards, the song earned Eilish and her brother, Finneas O’Connell, two trophies for Song of the Year and Best Song Written For Visual Media. “What Was I Made For?” was also nominated and won at the 2024 Academy Awards for Best Original Song.

Eilish became known for wearing oversized clothing, a style born from discomfort with her body that bolstered her appeal as the antithesis of the polished pop starlet. She met the demand for her signature apparel with the early 2018 launch of her online shop, Blohsh, and established her own niche in the fashion world by signing with Next Models later that year.

The artist embarked on her first headlining tour to back Don't Smile at Me in fall 2017 and returned to the road for much of the next two years, though her 2020 Where Do We Go? Tour was cut short and eventually canceled by the Covid-19 pandemic. Eilish has also drawn attention for performances at some of the industry's biggest festivals, including Coachella and Glastonbury in 2019.

Her whirlwind schedule and life inside the eye of the storm became the focal point of the February 2021 documentary Billie Eilish: The World's A Little Blurry , which also features childhood footage, interviews with family members and the singer putting together her debut album.

A life-long vegetarian, Eilish made the transition to a vegan diet in 2014.

Eilish has been open about her struggles with mental health, telling Gayle King in early 2020 that she considered suicide even as she was being fêted the next big thing in pop music. The singer also revealed in November 2018 that she was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome as a child.

Outspoken in her concern for environmental issues, Eilish joined actor Woody Harrelson in 2019 for a video that highlighted the dangers of climate change. She has also urged her fan base to become active voters, notably pairing with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on an initiative to register high school students in 2018.

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Billie Eilish

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Billie Eilish has gone from tinkering in her bedroom to racking up billions of streams worldwide, setting a new path to fame in a post-genre landscape.

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Pop wunderkind Billie Eilish has already passed the litmus test of being the next big thing: young people hang on her every word and their parents have no clue who she is. But all of that changed in 2019.  Since releasing her viral hit ‘Ocean Eyes’ in 2015, Billie Eilish has become one of the biggest pop stars in the world following her debut album  WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?.  After becoming the voice of her generation, Eilish has been embraced by the old guard as well, as her numerous Grammy wins can attest to. Eilish has signalled a new path to fame in a post-genre landscape.

So how does one go from tinkering in your bedroom to racking up billions upon billions of music streams and over 45 million fans on Instagram? To celebrate her 18th birthday, we look back on Billie Eilish’s eight steps to fame…

Listen to the best of Billie Eilish on Apple Music and Spotify .

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‘Ocean Eyes’ was a game-changer for Eilish, but it wasn’t the only song the sibling duo self-released before signing to the UK-based A&R company Platoon, and, later, Interscope in 2016. Even with major-label backing, however, Eilish continues to write and record with her brother in his bedroom studio, where they create her debut album, WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? She’s involved in all aspects of her career, from tour visuals to album cover and merch design, and maintaining her massive social-media presence.

Defy labels

Billie Eilish’s success is very much predicated on how streaming has influenced music tastes. It’s the reason she’s able to notch over a billon streams before even releasing her first album. From her first single to her 2017 EP Don’t Smile at Me, Eilish continues to defy convention and genre. She’s been painted a pop star, but what is pop nowadays and do her fans even care? From the macabre dance hit ‘bury a friend’ to the cowboy twang of ‘bellyache’ and the fragile ballad ‘lovely’, featuring R&B star Khalid, Eilish has found success delivering a new sound with each release while avoiding being pigeonholed. The beauty of Eilish is there is no Svengali-type manager or label executive trying to mould her image or sound to fit some preconceived idea of what a pop star should look or sound like.

Be an open book

Social media and a 24/7 news cycle have required all musicians to be more transparent with their lives than ever before. As Cardi B and Ariana Grande have proven, fans connect to an artist’s personality just as much as their musical output. In Eilish’s case, this is especially true due to her age. Her teenage fans see her more as a peer than an enigmatic idol. She talks about her struggles with Tourette syndrome, her increasing fame and losing friends like the late rapper XXXTentacion. Eilish has the aloofness and self-assurance of a SoundCloud rapper more than a groomed pop starlet. She often talks about letting her music speak for itself and allowing art to be open to interpretation. “One of my favourite parts about making music is that people take it in the way that they take it, and I have no control over that,” she told Hot Ones host Sean Evans.

Stay grounded

Even with the gruelling schedule of a global pop star and living under the constant scrutiny of the press, Billie maintains the silliness of being a teenager. From talking about her orthodontics to singing along in the car with her friends to Panic! At The Disco, Eilish retains some semblance of teenage life. That’s also allowed her to tap into her unbridled imagination and write songs about experiences she’s never had. “When you’re little, songwriting is the same thing as playing a game. You can be whatever you want,” she told Fader .

Be original

Citing influences like Tyler, The Creator, PARTYNEXTDOOR and 21 Savage, it’s clear that Billie Eilish aspires to carve out a singular career as a musician and creative at large. She’s extremely fashion-conscious in the sense that she’s aware of trends – and then does the opposite. Her expressive style reflects her love of Japanese anime, streetwear and 90s rave culture. Both visually and musically, Eilish stands apart from her peers. What other 18 year olds are singing about napalm skies and burying their friends? Inspired by her love of horror and actual nightmares, Eilish’s melancholic pop blurs the lines between reality and a dream state.

Absorb everything

From a young age the home-schooled Eilish had a lot of freedom to explore every creative impulse and was encouraged to consume all kinds of art. Her father would make her mixtapes featuring everything from Green Day to The Beatles, and, aged nine, Eilish would later perform ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’ at her home-school talent show. As she grew up and developed her own musical tastes, she fell in love with hip-hop and other genre-defying artists like Earl Sweatshirt and Childish Gambino.

Keep creating

Like many of her peers, Eilish is of the generation who finds her voice in real time. Instead of keeping everything confined to a journal, her artistic progression is chronicled online. Eilish is very much a product of the internet, both in what she has been exposed to and how she interacts with fans. In an era when artists are expected to be multi-hyphenate, Eilish is poised to conquer more than just the music world. She talks about starting her own fashion line and even directing her own music videos in the near future. Her collaboration with famed Japanese artist Takashi Murakami for the animated video ‘you should see me in a crown’ reveals an artist who likes to push buttons and has a whole career ahead of her to do so.

Billie Eilish’s WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?    can bought here .

February 14, 2020 at 6:52 am

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Billie Eilish Just Wants to Feel Good

By Arabelle Sicardi

Photography by Cho Gi-Seok

The first thing Billie Eilish does when she walks into the room is challenge me to a game of Ping-Pong. I accept, despite knowing none of the rules and having the coordination of a hallucinating puppy. We are in a studio space in LA, not too far from her current home and the house she grew up in. Her mother flits through the space briefly before departing, and soon enough I’m being taught the rules of Ping-Pong as Billie politely demolishes me, serve after serve, finding my weak spots (I have many) and delighting in the surprise of a return serve that earns me one point. I am not totally humiliated, which is kind of an accomplishment when you face a 21-year-old who has as many Grammys as there are days in the week.

Valentino shirt and tie. Chrome Hearts rings.

When we sit down to chat, Billie pulls her freshly dyed hair — a halo of bright red at the scalp that morphs to black ends — into a ponytail. It’s a return to a previous look. She’s gone through many hair moments that have been replicated, riffed on, referenced by her fans: the slime-green ombré, the blond bob , the Marilyn homage, the pastel Tumblrcore teal, the space buns, the list goes on. Her hair moments are so surveilled, she’s worn wigs of old styles to hide her upcoming looks, buying Halloween-costume versions of herself to keep her secrets. Today’s version of Billie is, on the outside, familiar enough to fans, but the person inside is someone new even to herself. She’s spent time, serious time, wading out of the rough waters she used to surf.

Let her explain: “I do this thing where it seems like it’s good to find out all the things that are going to hurt you the most,” she says, “because when you know all of it, then you can have a sense of control about it. And once you know, you can heal from that. Then I’m invincible! But what I’ve learned...is that time goes by, and I’m still scarred. You don’t have to push into pain to get out of pain. I’ve done that, and I don’t want to do it again.” She’s in motion the whole time she contemplates this, her own self-sabotage, moving from sitting cross-legged to holding her feet to twirling her hair and redoing it. The room transforms from a studio space to something like a confessional.

Rains cape. Bulgari earrings.

As Billie toys with the perfume bottles on the table between us, I sense her longing to return to Ping-Pong. Maybe it’s one of the ways she comforts herself after she’s been vulnerable. I ask what she does to get back into her body when she feels overexposed.

She picks up the bottles, which are miniature busts of herself in profile. It’s possible that the assembly before us, and her interest in fragrance more broadly, which she’s said has been a constant in her life, could be part of the answer. Eilish No. 3 is on the table, the latest in a line of successful scents , sculptural like its predecessors, just in red now. Eilish No. 1 launched in 2021, and Eilish says this third scent (limited edition and out in November) will be the last in this collection.

The red bottle before us holds only water, as it’s still in production. The real perfume is in the sample bottle next to it. She cradles it and sprays the scent in the air. We both smile and wait for the fragrance to diffuse in the room. The scent is sweet but metallic.

Balenciaga hoodie and coat. To get the beauty look: Noir Lash London No. 6 and Alima Pure Velvet Lipstick in Stella. (Eilish is vegan and only vegan makeup was used on this shoot.)

“I love that it reminds me of metal,” says Billie. “If you combined Eilish No. 1 and No. 2, you’d have this sweeter, more romantic version,” she explains, before considering my earlier question on returning to herself.

“I watch things that bring me comfort” — she’s known to be a big fan of The Office — “swim in my pool, but I feel best right out of the shower , with my lotions and my smells and I’m in a clean environment. When you’re in a shitty spot emotionally, when you change the things in front of you, it can help so much. I’m trying to prioritize. I wrote in a song years ago...” she says, mentally sifting through her back catalog, fingers flipping through the air until she talk-sings, “‘to keep myself together and prioritize my pleasure,’” a lyric from “Getting Older,” a song on the album Happier Than Ever . “I said that three years ago, and then I didn’t do it!” She waves her hands in the air. “So I’m doing it now. And I’ve made enough people feel good that I deserve to feel good too.”

Gucci shirt and pants. ERL shoes. Gucci earrings. Cartier rings.

Speaking of songs, I bring up her latest megahit, “ What Was I Made For? ” Shortly after our interview, it already had over 200,000,000 streams on Spotify alone. By any measure, a blazing success. For Billie, it seemed to emerge from within. “It was as if this song was a tiny creature inside of me for years, scratching the inside of me,” she says, staring into space. “As soon as we got that prompt, the creature was like, ‘Okay, I’m out,’ and we [meaning Billie and her brother-collaborator, Finneas O’Connell] wrote that song in an hour or two.” It seems prophetic.

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She leans back, remembering the moment vividly: “We wrote it in a period of time where we couldn’t have been less inspired and less creative. That day we were making stuff, and were like, ‘We’ve lost it. Why are we even doing this?’ And then those first chords happened, and ‘I used to float / now I just fall down’ came out and the song wrote itself. I have the whole video of us writing the song, and the first thing we wrote were those lines in the first 10 minutes.” She smiles a little at the memory. “We wrote most of the song without thinking about ourselves and our own lives, but thinking about this character we were inspired by. A couple of days went by, and I realized it was about me. It’s everything I feel. And it’s not just me — everyone feels like that, eventually.”

Gucci shirt and earrings. Bulgari necklace. To get the beauty look: Noto Hydra Highlighter Stick and Charlotte Tilbury Vegan Lip Lustre in Ibiza Nights.

“The way the song has been heard and seen by women is so special to me,” Billie says. “All the videos are devastating. I go on TikTok, and it’s video after video of how hard it is to be a woman, with that song playing.” Her eyes are wide with emphasis.

It must be overwhelming, I say, to be the doorway to all those experiences. I’ve seen the videos — they’re the life story of the patriarchy over and over again, and the rebellion against it. They’re love stories, tragedies, victories, and hard-won battles, escapes from abusive marriages, celebrations of lives fought for and well lived. And Billie’s voice is the connective tissue through them all.

Asai dress. 

“It’s wild,” she says. Does she ever want to hide from the exposure, the weight of all that fandom? She stills, then shakes off the question, or the troubles it leads to. “All the time. But I can do that. That’s the thing about diving into the hurt — I don’t need to do that. I’m starting to do better, but I’ve not been doing so great, to be honest. For a while. I have impending-doom feelings most of the day. When I think too much about it, how I can never have privacy again, it’s enough to make you want to do all sorts of crazy things. But you have to let it go.”

Letting things go is a hard lesson to learn for anybody, but a brutal one to learn when your every move is in the news, every relationship hyper analyzed. (I don’t ask her about her relationship status.) But it is clear she’s done some letting go herself, shaped by epiphanies she had on the road during her world tour. “There was this moment when I was in Paris, we were driving around, and I was in a bad place. It was not a good time for ol’ Bill. I was not getting better, and didn’t know when I would. And this motorcycle pulled up next to the car, and this guy’s helmet had a sticker on it that said in all caps, ‘Move on.’ I was sitting there like, Oh. Message received. I have a really big problem with control,” she adds, “so I’ve been trying to teach myself that there are things out of your control and you have to move on.” That means keeping things moving even when it might hurt. Her focus now is refusing to settle. “I have settled many times with things and people and life. I’ve settled for less than I deserved, and I’m not going to do that anymore.” She shifts again in her seat, and I consider whether we should get back to Ping-Pong so she can hit something and watch it sail through the air.

It's the closest thing to closure I can offer, really. By now she’s been in the music industry for seven years and counting, and she’s on her third perfume. There’s no sophomore slump for her in either industry — her songs sell well, her perfumes do too. But in either space, beauty or music, she’s still likely to be one of the youngest in the room, surrounded by people who think they know better than she does. Both are industries that defer to older experts. She smiles, wickedly now, revealing the mischievous nature you see in her music videos. “I have to give credit to the person I’ve always been — I did not give a fuck at all. Between being a 14-year-old girl, and Finneas being a 17-year-old boy, and us making these little songs — we had to be very clear we weren’t going to just do what anybody said. People could have done crazy shit, and I didn’t let them. It was many, many years of having to convince a room full of people that I was going to do what I knew was right for me. I had ideas; I had plans.”

To get the beauty look: Alima Pure Natural Definition Brow Pencil and Mascara and Charlotte Tilbury Vegan Lip Lustre in Ibiza Nights. 

She stops and nods to herself. “But the thing is, people should know — women should know — you don’t have to be exceptional. You can just be a person, and you should get awards for just being. Sometimes artists don’t have plans, and that’s fine, but I did, and I wasn’t going to waste them.” She has been headstrong and sure of herself from the start, somehow managing to preserve that commitment to her ideas through years of public performance and the roller coaster of growing up. Still, she realizes how lucky she’s been in her own evolution. 

Eilish No. 3 will be the last fragrance in the collection that launched in 2021.

“When I was 17, I was like, I found it. I found the person I am, forever. This is how I’m going to do it. I found all the ways!” She laughs at her own naivete, leaning back in her chair — moving, moving, always moving, even when she’s sitting down. “These are my boundaries. These are the things that make me happy, and this is my recipe for how I’m going to make music and be happy. Then I grew up a little, and suddenly life was like, These aren’t going to work. You've got to change. You're not that person anymore." 

She throws her hands up in the air, smiling and grieving at the same time — conflicting feelings that on her shoulders feel perfectly synchronized. “But the more I think about being myself, the better my life is. The more I am myself, the better my life is,” she says, leaning closer in her chair to make her point. It sounds like a secret shared between us, however simple the notion is. You can tell she means it.

Our time together is just about over. The perfume has settled into the couch, a final parting gift that conditions the leather just a bit. It’s still sweet but not cloying; it dances through the air with little effort. Just like Billie, a dancer at heart. She gets up to head outside. I look at the Ping-Pong table behind us. She turns to me as she opens the door, already moving on. “I’m going to win next time,” I say, nodding at the table. She cackles. “Yeah, right,” she says, perfectly confident in her skills, her talent, and, hopefully, herself. And then she’s gone.

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Billie Eilish

• Born December 18 , 2001 · Los Angeles, California, USA
• Birth name Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O'Connell
• Height 5′ 3½″ (1.61 m)
• Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O'Connell is an American musician, singer and actress from Los Angeles. She performed hit songs such as "Bad Guy" and "No Time to Die," which was used in the James Bond film of the same name. She provided ADR for Ramona and Beezus, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules and X-Men: Apocalypse. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Christian Frates
• Children No Children
• Parents Maggie Baird Patrick O'Connell
• Relatives Finneas O'Connell (Sibling) Brian Baird (Aunt or Uncle)
• Baggy clothing and chains
• On February 9, 2020, she performed at the Academy Awards during the In Memoriam sequence with a song "Yesterday" along with her elder brother Finneas O'Connell .
• Became the youngest artist in history to write and perform a James Bond theme, which she did for No Time to Die (2021) .
• She won five Grammy Awards in 2020 becoming the second person (after Christopher Cross in 1981), first woman and the youngest person ever to win the four main Grammy categories, Best New Artist, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Album of the Year in the same year.
• She began singing at a young age and began writing songs at age 11, taking after her elder brother Finneas O'Connell , who was already writing, performing, and producing his own songs with his band.
• Billie was named after her maternal grandfather, Bill Baird who died before she was born. Her middle name, Eilish is the Irish form of Elizabeth. Pirate came from Finneas because he really wanted her to be named that, Baird is her mother's maiden name and O'Connell is her paternal family surname. Originally, she was going to be named Eilish Pirate O'Connell.
• I've always done whatever I want and always been exactly who I am.
• In the public eye, girls and women with strong perspectives are hated. If you're a girl with an opinion, people just hate you. There are still people who are afraid of successful women, and that's so lame.
• I hate smiling. It makes me feel weak and powerless and small. I've always been like that; I don't smile in any pictures.
• Me and my brother get along super well. We're, like, best friends. So we'll stay up until, like, five just talking because we get along and, you know, it's cool. And he respects my opinions, and I respect his, even if we don't have the same opinions, but a lot of the time we do.
• In real life, I'm a really smiley person. I smile when I talk and I laugh.

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Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter who blends ethereal indie electro-pop with dark thematic tones.

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Billie Eilish finally remembers who she is

Leila Fadel

Phil Harrell

Billie Eilish's third album, created as always alongside her brother and collaborator Finneas, is titled Hit Me Hard and Soft. William Drumm/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

Billie Eilish's third album, created as always alongside her brother and collaborator Finneas, is titled Hit Me Hard and Soft.

• Billie Eilish

On Eilish's new album, Hit Me Hard and Soft , her voice resounds with new confidence when a song calls for it, though she can still return to her signature whispered vulnerability when she wants to devastate. The song "Lunch" is one of the catchiest songs she and her brother and collaborator Finneas have ever served, with openly lustful lyrics that are equal parts silly and sultry. "Skinny," meanwhile, is a delicate masterpiece, with Eilish exposing inner thoughts about her body while turning the public's gaze back on itself.

Morning Edition host Leila Fadel talked with Billie Eilish and Finneas about how their years of collaboration have changed them, as artists and as people, and the new sides of their creativity that have surfaced on Hit Me Hard and Soft . Hear the radio version at the audio link, and read more of their conversation below.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Leila Fadel: I want to start with your voice, Billie: You seem more confident pushing your voice in different ways. What's different about this album?

Billie Eilish: So many things. You know, I started recording when I was 13 — my voice was very young, and I could only do so much with it. And of course, at the time, the way we always do, I was like, "This is my voice, and this is how it's going to sound forever." I didn't think about how you grow up and everything changes. Over time, touring for many years and getting back into voice lessons, my voice has completely matured and changed and grown. I'm able to do things that I never thought I would be able to. It's been the most amazing journey ever.

Hit Me Hard and Soft was really the first time that I was aware of the things that I could do, the ways I could play with my voice, and actually did that. That's one thing I feel very proud of with this album — my bravery, vocally.

Billie Eilish: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert

Fadel: Is there any one song where you were like, "Hey, I did that with my voice?"

Eilish: "The Greatest" — that one, for sure. But I think the main one that I couldn't even believe that I hit was "Birds of a Feather" — there's a belt on the last chorus. I was playing around with different melodies because I wanted it to be a little different than the others. And I remember being like, "Oh, I should probably go up there , but I really don't think I can," and trying everything else that I could possibly do instead of that, to get away from it. Then I was like, "You know what? I'm just going to have to try."

Fadel: You told Rolling Stone about the making of this album, "This whole process has felt like I'm coming back to the girl that I was. I've been grieving her." What do you mean by that?

Eilish: I think that a big part of us being able to finish this album was me needing to be shoved out of my comfort zone: I had to be pushed out of it to figure out what I was doing and what I wanted and who I was. I started out really young, and people decided who I was for a long time, and that made me feel insane — so I really wanted to prove everyone wrong all the time. For this album, I finally got over the need to prove everyone wrong. I just figured it out myself, and it wasn't about explaining myself — it was about expressing myself. I think that's what we did.

Fadel: Has that been hard? I mean, it's kind of incredible what you've done at just 22, all that you've already created and been recognized for. But you've grown up very much under scrutiny in the public eye.

Eilish: You know, so much of my life is f***ing awesome, and I'm so aware of how privileged I am. But becoming an adult in front of everyone is very scary and stressful and really means that you never grow up, in a way. I'm not complaining, but I also am: It's kind of horrible, you know, starting at 13, and then " Bad Guy " came out when I was 16. It was a lot, and it still is a lot. Every day I struggle with figuring myself out. Instead of just getting to feel how it feels to learn something about myself, I have to hear about what everyone else thinks about it.

Fadel: Finneas, some of these arrangements are spare; some are very lush and layered. I'm interested to know about the secret sounds a producer layers into a mix.

Finneas: What I always try to go for when I'm working with any artist — but Billie and I obviously work the closest, she's really in the room for 99.9% of everything that I'm doing, production-wise — it's to inspire her. If there's drums that we're writing on a song like "Lunch" — or "Skinny," where I'm sitting with an electric guitar playing as we're sitting there writing — to me, it's just about helping to articulate the story and the sentiment of the song. If there's a line that I think should suddenly be three-part harmony, it's because of the content or the emotionality of it. I think production is all about context.

The thing that was novel for me on this album, as opposed to our other albums, was the incorporation of a string quartet [the Attacca Quartet ]. I've spent a fair amount of time in the last two years composing for film and have had the opportunity to write parts for string quartets and have loved doing it, learning that craft.

Fadel: How has your approach to working together changed since " Ocean Eyes ," that first single of yours?

Finneas: I think that it hasn't changed in some ways — and it's changed immensely. The real truth is that we've just gotten better and better at communicating and articulating. Like Billie is talking about with her vocal confidence, I had barely ever produced anything. Now, we've made her albums together, I've produced music for other artists, and I feel more confident. I've just had more hours behind the keyboard, so to speak.

Music Interviews

Billie eilish can't wait to see the future.

Making this album felt, for me, like two people who had the opportunity to learn their craft over the last seven years. We were just kind of having fun with it, with all the tools that we developed.

Fadel: I'm one of five kids — and I love my siblings, but we also fight like crazy. I feel like that's part of love. Do you guys ever get sick of each other? Do you ever fight over the process?

Eilish: We don't get sick of each other, but we definitely fight — I mean, we're siblings, that's going to happen. But honestly, it's almost better that it happens. I feel like when you work with somebody who isn't a sibling, when you have a disagreement, it's really hard to say it. You really don't want to offend them. What if they never want to work with you again? With your family, it's much harder to burn a bridge and break up. It takes a lot of effort. I think that when Finneas and I have a disagreement, we don't waste time trying to be nice. We, politely- ish , say, "I don't like that." And then, if we do get into an argument, we're siblings and we'll get through it because we love each other. It's nice, honestly.

Fadel: Is there any specific song on the album where you kind of duked it out, and the finished product was a product of you guys working through it?

Finneas: I feel like "Blue" was a song that really puzzled us.

Fadel: And I hear you singing on that one, right?

Finneas: No — we wrote that part in a different key, and then we shifted it into the key that it was in. When you shift the vocal, it changes the formant. It's just Billie's voice pitched down — but I'm prepared for everybody to think it's me.

"Blue" has elements of a piece of music from before Billie's first album came out. It has elements of a piece of music from Billie's second album that never came out. I don't know that we had it out or anything, but we were both so puzzled by it that we had a debate about what to do for various parts. It was something that was driving Billie crazy. We always knew we loved the second half, but the first half, we were like, "It doesn't feel right." I remember I just layered tons of drums on it, and it changed the whole vibe.

Fadel: We have to ask about "Lunch." It's about raw, animal attraction. What inspired that song?

Eilish: This was one of the first ones that we made for the album. We only had the hook, and then, honest to God, like a year later, we came back and we wrote the rest of it.

As soon as we wrote that hook, it was like, "Oh, OK, we got something here!" — but we were stumped on it for a long time. It's really hard to know that something could be really good, and also could be bad if you make it bad. We put a lot into that one once we finally got back to it. I love that song. It's so fun and it's silly and it's ... I don't know. Life is so unserious. It's important to remember to have a little fun with it.

Best Music Of 2019

Billie eilish is the weird achiever of the year.

Fadel: How do you stay so open and vulnerable in your music as you also deal with being so public, because of what you chose to do in life?

Eilish: When we write a song, I'm not really thinking about, "Everyone's going to hear this and have something to say!" That headspace can really block you. I think it's important to write songs with the idea, "I don't have to put anything out if I don't want to." You should just be as vulnerable as you can without thinking about how people are going to hear it, and then go from there. Make the song while thinking, "No one's going to hear this." Then, if you love it and you feel comfortable, you discuss if I'm OK with this out in the world.

Finneas: Two things. One: She makes music with her brother. You know I'd never play anyone anything that she was uncomfortable with. And then the other thing is, sometimes a song can feel incredibly vulnerable the day that you write it, because you're living through it. And then that song comes out a year later, and you have perspective. The situation has become history.

Fadel: It must be a blessing to have that safe space with somebody you've known your whole life, that you know you can trust in those moments when you're figuring it out with the music before anybody else ever hears it.

Eilish: Oh my God, it's such a blessing. I can't even. When I talk to fellow artist friends of mine and they say they're in the studio with some random person they don't know for the next two weeks, I'm like, "How the hell are you going to do that?" It's so crazy to me.

Having Finneas is the coolest thing in the world for me. I'm an open book — maybe to a fault — in my life. But I also am not super-comfortable with vulnerability or weakness. Being with my brother and having him be someone who knows me so well, sometimes he can see something that I'm doing or feeling before I even know that I'm doing or feeling it, and that is really powerful and special. I think without that, it would be really different.

This story was produced for broadcast by Mansee Khurana and adapted for the web by Phil Harrell.

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Billie Eilish

• Female Vocalists

Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell (born December 18, 2001), known professionally as Billie Eilish, is an American singer and songwriter signed to Interscope Records. California…

Billie Eilish facts for kids

Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O'Connell ( EYE -lish ; born December 18, 2001) is an American singer and songwriter. She first gained public attention in 2015 with her debut single "Ocean Eyes", written and produced by her brother Finneas O'Connell , with whom she collaborates on music and live shows. In 2017, she released her debut extended play (EP), Don't Smile at Me . Commercially successful, it reached the top 15 of record charts in numerous countries, including the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.

Eilish's first studio album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (2019), debuted atop the US Billboard 200 and UK Albums Chart . It was one of the year's best-selling albums, buoyed by the success of its fifth single, "Bad Guy", Eilish's first number-one on the US Billboard Hot 100 . This made her the first artist born in the 21st century to release a chart-topping single. The next year, Eilish performed the theme song " No Time to Die " for the James Bond film of the same name, which topped the UK Singles Chart and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2022. Her subsequent singles "Everything I Wanted", "My Future", "Therefore I Am", and "Your Power" peaked in the top 10 in the US and UK. Her second studio album, Happier Than Ever (2021), topped the charts in 25 countries. She wrote and performed "What Was I Made For?" from the fantasy film Barbie (2023), which became her second number-one single in the UK and earned her a second Academy Award win.

Eilish has received multiple accolades, including nine Grammy Awards , two American Music Awards , two Guinness World Records , three MTV Video Music Awards , three Brit Awards , two Golden Globe Awards , and two Academy Awards . She is the youngest artist in Grammy history to win all four general field categories— Record of the Year , Album of the Year , Song of the Year , as well as Best New Artist—in the same year. She is also the first person born in the 21st century to win an Academy Award. During the 96th Academy Awards , she became, along with her brother Finneas , the youngest 2-time Academy Award winners ever with their win for "What Was I Made For?". She was featured on Time magazine's inaugural Time 100 Next list in 2019 and the Time 100 in 2021. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Billboard , Eilish is the 26th-highest-certified digital singles artist and one of the most successful artists of the 2010s. She was honored as one of the BBC 100 Women in December 2022.

Eilish has a history of political activism, focusing on climate change awareness , body positivity, women's reproductive rights, and gender equality .

Early and family life

2015–2017: don't smile at me, 2018–2020: when we all fall asleep, where do we go, 2021–present: happier than ever and guitar songs, musical style, songwriting, and music videos, personal life, discography, opening act, filmography.

Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O'Connell was born in Los Angeles, California, on December 18, 2001. She is the daughter of actress and teacher Maggie Baird and actor Patrick O'Connell, both of whom are also musicians and work on Eilish's tours. Eilish is of Irish and Scottish descent. She was conceived via in vitro fertilization . Her middle name, Eilish, was originally meant to be her first name, while Pirate was to be her middle name. She was raised in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Eilish and her brother Finneas were homeschooled by Baird, a decision their parents made to spend time with them and give them the freedom to pursue their interests. Baird taught Eilish and Finneas the basics of songwriting. Eilish said her brother and mother inspired her to get into music. Their parents encouraged the siblings to express themselves and explore whatever they wanted, including art, dancing, and acting. Eilish also performed at talent shows and joined the Los Angeles Children's Chorus at age eight. At age six, she started playing the ukulele. She wrote her first "real" song at age 11 for her mother's songwriting class. The song is about the zombie apocalypse, inspired by the television series The Walking Dead from which she took script lines and episode titles for the song. Eilish had gone on some acting auditions, which she disliked; however, she enjoyed recording background dialogue for crowd scenes and worked on the films Diary of a Wimpy Kid , Ramona and Beezus , and the X-Men series. Eilish also took dance classes until 2016, when a growth plate injury put an end to her dancing career and she turned her focus toward recording music.

In 2015, 13-year-old Eilish began working on songs with her brother Finneas, who had been writing and producing for several years and had his own band. The first songs they recorded together were called "She's Broken" and "Fingers Crossed", the former written by Finneas and the latter by Eilish. "We recorded them and put them out on SoundCloud, just for fun," she recalled.

On November 18, 2015, Eilish released the song "Ocean Eyes". The track was written, mixed, and produced by Finneas, who had originally created it for his band the Slightlys, before deciding it would be a better fit for Eilish's vocals. He gave it to Eilish when her dance teacher at the Revolution Dance Center asked them to write a song for choreography. The siblings uploaded the song to SoundCloud, where Diaz could access and download it. The song received several hundred thousand listens in two weeks, and Finneas's manager, Danny Rukasin, reached out to him to discuss Eilish's potential. In Rukasin's opinion, she could achieve significant success with Finneas's help.

In January 2016, Finneas and his manager arranged a deal in which Apple Music signed Eilish to A&R company Platoon, specializing in packaging emerging artists before they get a major-label contract. Eilish then got a publicist, who connected her to the luxury fashion brand Chanel , and a stylist, both of whom helped shape her image. On March 24, 2016, a music video for "Ocean Eyes" directed by Megan Thompson was premiered on Eilish's official YouTube channel. "Ocean Eyes" and Eilish would receive praise and promotion from various media outlets and marketers, including radio stations and music supervisors such as Beats 1, KCRW, BBC One , Zane Lowe , Jason Kramer, Annie Mac , and Chris Douridas.

On June 23, 2016, Eilish and Finneas released "Six Feet Under" through SoundCloud as her second single. A homemade music video for the song was released on June 30, 2016. It was directed by Eilish and edited by her mother, Maggie Baird.

In August 2016, Justin Lubliner, who had noticed Eilish's talent back in 2015 when he first heard "Ocean Eyes", signed her to Darkroom and Interscope Records . He developed her rollout as an artist, taking inspiration from the model of hip hop artists such as Travis Scott and Chance the Rapper, not relying on one big single and focusing on creating a "persona and distinct aesthetic". Darkroom and Interscope Records re-released "Six Feet Under" and "Ocean Eyes" as singles for digital download and streaming on November 17 and 18, 2016, respectively. On November 22, 2016, a dance performance music video for "Ocean Eyes" was uploaded to Eilish's YouTube channel.

On January 14, 2017, Eilish released an EP with four remixes by Astronomyy, Blackbear, Goldhouse, and Cautious Clay for "Ocean Eyes", and released another EP for "Six Feet Under" featuring remixes by Blu J, Gazzo, Jerry Folk, and Aire Atlantica. Following the success of the "Ocean Eyes" remixes, Eilish released "Bellyache" on February 24, 2017, A music video for the song was released on March 22, 2017, and was directed by Miles and AJ. Eilish later released "Bored" on March 30, 2017, as part of the soundtrack to the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why . A music video for "Bored" was later released on June 26, 2017. In March of the same year, Apple Music showcased Eilish at the South by Southwest music festival. On June 30, 2017, Eilish released "Watch". Eilish later released another single, "Copycat", which was released on July 14, 2017, and announced the release of her debut EP, Don't Smile at Me . Eilish later released "Idontwannabeyouanymore" and "My Boy". On August 11, 2017, Eilish released Don't Smile at Me . The EP was a sleeper hit, reaching number 14 on the US Billboard 200 . Eilish embarked on the Don't Smile at Me Tour throughout October 2017 in support of her EP.

Eilish's team worked with Spotify , which promoted her on its most popular playlist, "Today's Top Hits". The Baffler described Eilish's sound as fitting into the "streambait" genre consisting of largely "mid-tempo, melancholy pop" influenced by Lana Del Rey , whose "singing style, bleakness, and... hip-hop influenced production" shaped the aesthetic. Eilish's commercial success expanded with her Spotify promotion. In September 2017, Apple Music named Eilish their Up Next artist, which followed with a short documentary, a live session EP and an interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music's radio station Beats 1. That month, the live EP titled Up Next Session: Billie Eilish was released. On December 15, 2017, Eilish released her collaboration with American rapper Vince Staples titled "&Burn", which is a remix of her previously released single "Watch". It was later included on the expanded edition of Don't Smile at Me.

In February 2018, Eilish embarked on her second headlining concert tour, the Where's My Mind Tour, which concluded in April 2018. For Record Store Day 2018, Eilish released "Party Favor" on a pink 7-inch vinyl , along with a cover of "Hotline Bling", written by Canadian rapper Drake as the B-side. Eilish collaborated with American singer Khalid for the single "Lovely", which was released on April 19, 2018, and added to the soundtrack for the second season of 13 Reasons Why . She later released "You Should See Me in a Crown", in July 2018, In July of the same year, Eilish performed at the Mo Pop Festival.

On the day of release for her single "When the Party's Over", Eilish was featured in Vanity Fair ' s "73 Questions" rapid-fire questionnaire video series by Joe Sabia who revisited a previous interview from October 2017. The resulting video was a side-by-side time capsule of both interviews showing her growth in popularity over one year. She signed a talent contract with Next Management for fashion and beauty endorsements in October 2018. She was placed on the 2018 Forbes 30 Under 30 list in November of that year, and released the single "Come Out and Play" in November 2018, which was written for a holiday-themed Apple commercial. In early January 2019, Don't Smile at Me reached 1 billion streams on Spotify, making her the youngest artist to top 1 billion streams on a project. That month, Eilish released "Bury a Friend" as the third single from her debut album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? , along with "When I Was Older", a single inspired by the 2018 film Roma , which appeared on the compilation album Music Inspired by the Film Roma . In February, Eilish partnered with YouTube for a documentary mini-series titled "A Snippet Into Billie's Mind". "Wish You Were Gay", her fourth single from the album, was released on March 4, 2019.

When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? was released on March 29, 2019. Spotify launched a "multi-level campaign behind the album", creating a multi-media playlist and "new product features" that Spotify stated "allow for vertical video content, custom assets, and editorial storylines all with the goal of creating more meaningful and engaging context for [Eilish's] fans." In Los Angeles, Spotify set up a "pop-up enhanced album experience", which included different artwork and a "multi-sensory" experience of each track for fans. The album debuted atop the Billboard 200 as well as on the UK Albums Chart , making Eilish the first artist born in the 2000s to have a number-one album in the United States, and the youngest female ever to have a number-one album in the United Kingdom. Upon the album's debut, Eilish broke the record for most simultaneously charting Hot 100 songs by a female artist, with 14, after every song from the album, excluding "Goodbye", charted on the Hot 100. The fifth single from the album, "Bad Guy", was released in conjunction with the album. A remix of the song featuring Justin Bieber was released in July 2019. In August, Bad Guy peaked at number-one in the US, ending Lil Nas X 's record-breaking 19 weeks at number-one with "Old Town Road". She is the first artist born in the 2000s and the youngest artist since Lorde (with "Royals") to have a number-one single.

Eilish began her When We All Fall Asleep Tour at Coachella Festival in April 2019, with the tour concluding on November 17, 2019, in Mexico City . In August 2019, Eilish partnered with Apple Music for Music Lab: Remix Billie Eilish, part of Apple Stores' Music Lab sessions during which fans deconstruct her song "You Should See Me In A Crown" and learn how to create their own remix on Apple devices and GarageBand . On September 27, 2019, Eilish announced her Where Do We Go? World Tour. The tour began in Miami on March 9, 2020, and ran for two more shows on March 10 in Orlando and March 12 in Raleigh respectively, before Eilish ended the tour prematurely due to the COVID-19 pandemic . The tour was set to conclude in Jakarta on September 7.

On November 7, 2019, Jack White 's Third Man Records announced that the label would be releasing an acoustic live album of Eilish's performance from the record label's Blue Room, exclusively sold on vinyl at Third Man retail locations in Nashville , Tennessee , and Detroit , Michigan . On November 13, 2019, she released her next single, "Everything I Wanted". On November 20, 2019, Eilish was nominated for six Grammy Awards including Record of the Year and Song of the Year for "Bad Guy" as well as Album of the Year and Best New Artist. At age 17, she became the youngest artist to be nominated in all four General Field categories. In the same month, Eilish was crowned 2019's Billboard Woman of the Year.

On January 14, 2020, Eilish was announced as performer of the title track for the 25th installment in the James Bond film franchise, No Time to Die , written and produced with her brother. With this announcement, Eilish became the youngest artist to write and perform a James Bond theme song. Shortly after, it became the second Bond theme song to top the British official charts and the first Bond theme performed by a female artist to do so. It was also Eilish's first number-one single in the UK. At the 62nd Grammy Awards, she became the youngest person to win the four main Grammy categories – Best New Artist, Record of the Year , Song of the Year , and Album of the Year – in the same year. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Eilish and her brother performed for both iHeart Media's Living Room Concert for America, and Global Citizen's Together at Home concert series, singing a cover of Bobby Hebb 's "Sunny" for the latter. Both virtual concerts were an effort to raise awareness and funds towards fighting the disease. On April 10, 2020, "Ilomilo" was sent to Italian contemporary hit radio stations by Universal Music Group , as When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? ' s seventh and final single. On July 30, 2020, Eilish released "My Future", her first original release since "No Time to Die", along with an animated video. In 2020, she became the youngest person to feature on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list, with earnings of $53 million. In September 2020, Eilish released a collection of branded ukuleles with guitar manufacturer Fender.

In October 2020, Eilish announced a livestream concert titled Where Do We Go? The Livestream set to air from Los Angeles on October 24 of that same year, with proceeds from the show's merchandise raising funds to support event crew members affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In a Vanity Fair interview, Eilish said she was working on "sixteen new songs and lov[ing] them all", revealing an upcoming musical project. Eilish won three Billboard Music Awards on October 24— Billboard Music Award for Top Female Artist, Billboard Music Award for Top Billboard 200 Album ( When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? ), and Billboard Music Award for Top New Artist—out of the 12 that she was nominated for. In that same month, she also announced a new single, entitled "Therefore I Am", which was released along with its music video on November 12, 2020. Eilish performed "Therefore I Am" and "My Future" at the Jingle Ball in December 2020.

"Lo Vas a Olvidar", a single featuring Rosalía as a part of HBO 's Euphoria soundtrack, was released in January 2021, almost two years after initially teasing the song. The R. J. Cutler–directed documentary film Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry was released on Apple TV+ and in select movie theaters. The film was praised by critics and fans for its in-depth look at Eilish's personal life during her ascension to fame. At the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, Eilish took home two awards: the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media , for her Bond theme and the Grammy Award for Record of the Year for her 2019 single "Everything I Wanted". In her acceptance speech for Record of the Year, Eilish said that Megan Thee Stallion "deserved to win", but still thanked her fans and her brother Finneas for her award.

2021 saw the publication of her personally selected comprehensive book of photographs which shared "an intimate window into her life" both on and off stage. Her photo filled book is titled, By - Billie Eilish.

On April 27, 2021, Eilish announced on her Instagram account that her second album, Happier Than Ever , would be released on July 30, and the tracklist was made available on Apple Music. The album was released on various formats, including collectable vinyl and cassette colours. The album's release was preceded by five singles: "My Future", "Therefore I Am", "Your Power", "Lost Cause", and "NDA", and was accompanied by the title track. On December 2, 2021, Eilish announced an eco-friendly limited-edition vinyl version of Happier Than Ever made from recycled vinyl scraps. The collector's item was only made available at a number of Gucci stores around the world and included Gucci-branded nail stickers designed by the brand's creative director Alessandro Michele. To further promote the album, Eilish worked with Disney+ for the concert film Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles , released in September 2021, and embarked on the Happier Than Ever, The World Tour, which began in February 2022 and concluded in April 2023.

In June 2021, Eilish was criticized online for videos in which she mouthed the anti-Asian slur " chink " while lip-syncing the song "Fish" by Tyler, the Creator , while Matthew Tyler Vorce, her reported boyfriend at the time, received criticism for alleged social media posts in which he used offensive language and slurs against gay and Black people. Eilish was also accused of queerbaiting after using the caption "I love girls" to promote the music video for "Lost Cause". On June 22, she posted an apology to Instagram stories for her usage of "chink", saying that she was "appalled and embarrassed" by the video and that she was "13 or 14" at the time and did not know the slur was a derogatory term. She also addressed a separate video of what was viewed as her mocking an Asian accent, writing that she was actually "speaking in a silly gibberish made up voice". .....

Eilish started formulating ideas for her third studio album's songs with Finneas in December 2021. In a July 2022 interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music, she commented that she hoped to start writing the album in 2023. In 2022, Eilish won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for the song " No Time to Die " from the film of the same name, becoming the first person born in the 21st century to win an Academy Award. That same year, she became the youngest headliner to date for two festivals, specifically Glastonbury and Coachella . The Pixar film Turning Red was released that year, for which she and Finneas wrote three songs. These are "Nobody Like U", "U Know What's Up" and "1 True Love", which are performed by Turning Red 's fictional boy band 4*Town.

In June 2022, during her world tour's Manchester show, Eilish debuted the then-unreleased ballad "TV". The next month, on July 21, she surprise-released the two-track EP Guitar Songs , which includes "TV" alongside "The 30th". Eilish explained her decision to surprise-release the EP during the interview with Lowe. She told him that while work on her third studio album was coming soon, she refused to wait until that time to put "TV" and "The 30th" on a track list. She wanted to spread their messages to her fans as soon as possible, noting the immediacy of its lyrics: "These songs are really current for me, and they’re songs that I want to have said right now." Another reason was Eilish had grown tired of doing heavy, traditional promotion for upcoming music. She wanted to release songs like she had been doing early in her career, previewing them for fans in live concerts before releasing them without much marketing.

Eilish worked with Apple Music to exclusively host a film of one of the Happier Than Ever tour concerts, specifically one of her shows at The O2 Arena in London. She billed the film as a way for fans who missed out on tickets to experience the tour for themselves, wanting more people to recognize her for her showmanship live. Three concerts, titled Happier Than Ever, The Hometown Encore, were held at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, California from December 13 to 16, 2022, as part of the tour.

Eilish wrote the song "What Was I Made For?" for the soundtrack of the 2023 movie Barbie . According to statements posted on the singer's statements on social media, she was inspired to write the song after seeing unfinished scenes of the movie during its production. Eilish made her acting debut in Amazon Prime Video's Swarm . She played the role of Eva, the leader of a cult inspired by NXIVM, and received positive reviews for her character.

Eilish possesses a soprano vocal range. Avery Stone of Noisey described her vocals as "ethereal", and Maura Johnston of Rolling Stone characterized them as "whispery". Doreen St. Félix of The New Yorker opined that she has a "husky, slurring voice that she can thin out to reedy". Music critic Robert Christgau wrote that while Eilish is musically and commercially pop, her brand also "reminds us how amorphous [pop] has become", describing her soprano as "too diminutive for vocal calisthenics", adding that her "playful version of teen- goth angst" and "electro-saturated debut album" captivated a diverse audience. Her music incorporates pop , dark pop, electropop , emo pop, experimental pop, goth-pop , indie pop , teen pop , and alt-pop .

Eilish and her brother, Finneas, collaborate on songwriting. Finneas writes for Eilish's albums, produces her music, and also performs in live shows. Eilish and Finneas "like to completely make up things and become characters" and "have songs that are really fictional". Eilish said a number of the songs also derive from her and Finneas' experiences. They try to write "really interesting and conversational" lyrics: "We try to say stuff that doesn't have to be that deep [...] but you say something way deeper in a certain way that makes sense, but you haven't really thought about." Finneas has stated that when he writes for his sister, he aims to "write [songs] that I think she'll relate to and enjoy singing and empathise with the lyrics and make her own". When he writes with Eilish, he tries "to help her tell whatever story she's trying to tell, bounce ideas off of her, listen to her ideas", and use a language that fits her voice telling the story.

Eilish had wanted to direct her own music videos since age 14 but was initially not given the opportunity due to lack of experience. In 2019, she made her directorial debut with the video for her song "Xanny".

Eilish grew up listening to the Beatles , Justin Bieber , Green Day , Arctic Monkeys , Linkin Park and Lana Del Rey . She has said that stumbling upon Aurora 's "Runaway" on YouTube inspired her to pursue a music career. Hip hop is her favorite genre and biggest inspiration. Eilish has cited Tyler, the Creator , Childish Gambino , and Avril Lavigne as major musical and style influences for her. Other influences include Adele , Earl Sweatshirt, James Blake , Amy Winehouse , the Spice Girls , Lorde , Marina and the Diamonds , Britney Spears , Taylor Swift , Nicki Minaj , XXXTentacion , and Twenty One Pilots. Eilish has also named Rihanna as an inspiration for her style choices after she called fashion her "defense mechanism" during an acceptance speech. She has also credited Damon Albarn for changing the way she views art and music creation.

Eilish has been compared in the media to Lavigne, Lorde and Del Rey, the last of whom she says she does not want to be compared to, stating, "That woman [Del Rey] has made her brand so perfect for her whole career and she shouldn't have to hear that." Eilish said that Ariana Grande 's 2019 album Thank U, Next inspired her to continue making music.

Eilish has a history of political activism, publicly expressing her views on a multitude of political issues. She has been vocal with regards to environmental causes, including climate change awareness. Among other pursuits, Eilish signed an open letter to world leaders urging them to take action against climate-induced poverty, embarked on an ad campaign encouraging young people to use technology for environmental advocacy, and hosted a six-day climate seminar in London titled Overheated to discuss topics such as sustainable fashion and youth activism. Her 2019 single "All the Good Girls Go to Hell" and its subsequent music video centers around climate change and uses heaven-and-hell imagery to criticize ignorance about rising sea levels, and she permitted the non-profit CoralWatch to use "Ocean Eyes" as part of an online awareness campaign about Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Eilish was raised as a vegetarian, and became vegan in 2014. She is a regular advocate on social media for animal rights and veganism , and has criticized the dairy, wool , and mink fur industries.

Eilish has spoken in multiple occasions about women's rights . A supporter of body positivity, she wrote and produced the 2020 short film Not My Responsibility as a response against body shaming towards her and the double standards placed upon women's appearances. During the 2022 Glastonbury festival, she performed "Your Power" to condemn the overturning of Roe v. Wade . She spoke of the decision: "Today is a really, really dark day for women in the U.S. I'm just going to say that as I cannot bear to think about it any longer in this moment." She included a reference to Roe v. Wade 's overturning in her 2022 track "TV", much of which she wrote after a draft of the court decision was leaked online in May.

In March 2020, Eilish encouraged fans online to register to vote for the 2020 US presidential election. In August 2020, she performed at the 2020 Democratic National Convention and announced her endorsement of Joe Biden's presidential campaign .

Eilish previously lived with her parents in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles until 2019, when she moved out. She said in 2021 that she still spends many nights in her childhood bedroom to be close to her parents. She stated she received a diagnosis of Tourette syndrome when she was 11; she says she has synesthesia and has experienced depression.

Eilish previously dated rapper Brandon Adams, who goes by the stage name 7:AMP. She dated singer Jesse Rutherford from October 2022 to May 2023.

• When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (2019)
• Happier Than Ever (2021)
• Don't Smile at Me Tour (2017)
• Where's My Mind Tour (2018)
• 1 by 1 Tour (2018–2019)
• When We All Fall Asleep Tour (2019)
• Where Do We Go? World Tour (2020)
• Happier Than Ever, The World Tour (2022–2023)
• Florence and the Machine – High as Hope Tour (2018–2019)
• List of artists who reached number one in the United States
• List of American Grammy Award winners and nominees
• List of most-followed Instagram accounts
• List of most-streamed artists on Spotify
• List of most-subscribed YouTube channels
• List of vegans
• This page was last modified on 11 March 2024, at 13:59. Suggest an edit .

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Where to Buy Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft Album Online, Including Exclusive Vinyls & CDs

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After much anticipation, Billie Eilish ’s third studio album has finally been released. The singer celebrated this past week by throwing album listening parties in both Los Angeles and New York City, in which she danced around the venue floors while letting the whole album play without pauses or interruptions. Those who were unable to attend these exclusive gatherings can still catch Eilish on tour later this year . 

Walmart Exclusive Grey Bio Vinyl

Target Exclusive Eco-Mix Yellow Vinyl with Poster

Amazon Exclusive Red Vinyl

Target Exclusive CD with Poster

Urban Outfitters Exclusive Milky White Eco Mix/ Bio Vinyl

For this reason, the exclusive vinyl editions will feature recyclable or recycled compounds and packaging that is made from recycled paper/boards. The ink on these vinyl’s is raw plant-based and water-based dispersion varish, while the sleeves are entirely recycled and re-usable. In addition, CD packaging is made from “softpaks, 100 percent renerable fibers and up to 30% post-consumer recycled fibers that are 100% recyclable,” her website reads .

All the exclusive Hit Me Hard and Soft merchandise has begun to sell out on Billie Eilish’s website, so look to the above retailers to score your own before it’s all gone.

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Spotify’s ‘Listening Party’ feature falls short of expectations

It’s been three years since Spotify acquired live audio startup Betty Labs, and yet the music streaming service isn’t leveraging the technology to its fullest potential — at least not in our opinion. 

Betty Labs-owned Locker Room launched in 2020 as a sports-focused social audio app where sports fans could engage in live conversations, create watch parties and react to games in real time. When Spotify bought the app, it rebranded it as Greenroom, a Clubhouse clone that catered to all types of fans, whether they’re interested in sports, fantasy football, music or other topics. Like other social audio apps, Greenroom users could create a virtual room and participate in live discussions with others who share the same interests. 

Greenroom was then renamed Spotify Live in 2021 but ultimately was short-lived and officially shut down last year. The failure to gain traction could have been due to several factors, including the sad reality that social audio is struggling (just look at Clubhouse and the now-defunct Reddit Live Talk ). Also, some users complained that the standalone app was full of bugs and glitches, while others noted the audio was poor quality (which looks pretty bad for a music streaming giant). The room capacity of only 1,000 users was another letdown. 

Fortunately, Spotify didn’t completely give up on live audio. In December 2023, the company launched an in-app experimental feature called “ Listening Party ,” letting superfans join invite-only live listening parties where they get to hear directly from the artist, ask questions in a live chat room and even request to join the artist as a speaker. (Listening Party was previously a Spotify Live capability that the company found to be the most promising feature, a spokesperson told us at the time of the shutdown announcement.) 

Spotify has been testing the feature with several artists, such as Zara Larsson, Bleachers, MGMT and Lizzy McAlpine, among others. More recently, Billie Eilish hosted a Listening Party for her top fans (who were selected based on Spotify data) last Friday, May 17, to celebrate her latest album, “Hit Me Hard and Soft.” It was a decent turnout, with 2,500 users in attendance, including myself. A spokesperson told TechCrunch that a typical listening party has between 1,000 and 3,000 listeners.

The Listening Party experience was a mixed bag. On one hand, the fans’ excitement was palpable as they flooded the live chat with comments. On the other hand, besides opening remarks from Eilish and her brother Finneas O’Connell (songwriter and producer), there was little use of Spotify’s live audio capabilities. Instead, Eilish took to her keyboard, telling fans how excited she was to perform her new song “CHIHIRO” live. 

Rather than leveraging real-time audio tech to the fullest, Eilish’s live session was mainly a 50-minute stream of her new album with zero interruption. It then ended abruptly without a goodbye from Eilish. 

We weren’t the only ones who reacted to a Listening Party this way. MGMT fans expressed similar complaints during their session. “I thought they were taking questions afterward,” wrote one fan in a Reddit thread . “MGMT isn’t saying anything,” said another. 

Billie chatting with fans during her spotify listening party today! 💙 pic.twitter.com/FxBjC1L9TR — Billie Eilish Society (@BillieSociety) May 17, 2024

For whatever reason, Eilish’s event also missed out on a key feature that Listening Party offers — “Onstage,” where fans can request to speak to the artist during the live discussion. Fans only participated with written reactions, hoping Eilish would see it and respond. So, rather than being a live discussion with users as the social audio capability is designed for, it was treated more like a group listening sesh, eliciting a similar response when in a boring Zoom call — “This could have been an email.” 

To be fair, Eilish’s Listening Party was better than nothing and offered an alternative experience to the two in-person listening parties that she hosted in New York City (May 15) and LA (May 16). We also realize that it’s not up to artists to utilize certain features. Still, we couldn’t help but be disappointed. 

Another downside to the feature is that you have to be considered a “highly engaging” listener to be invited to a Listening Party, which excludes hundreds of thousands of fans from connecting with their favorite artists. (But it should be noted that the maximum capacity is likely to prevent the server from crashing.) 

Despite the setback caused by the end of Spotify Live, the introduction of Listening Party signifies that Spotify is trying to make the most of its $62 million investment in Betty Labs. However, based on our evaluation of the feature, Spotify still has significant ground to cover in order to establish itself as a leading player in the live audio space.

Listening Party is currently in the early testing stages, so luckily, it still has room to grow. It’s only available to users in the U.S. and Indonesia.

Spotify reuses its live audio tech through Listening Party feature

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