At first glance at the tittle of this album, the first impression I got was “what kind of tittle is this”. Another thing that came to my mind was how could someone get so sick of life to make music and tittle it this. I was anxious to know more about the artist. Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connel is an 18 year old teenager who was home schooled and started playing music at about the age of 10 as stated by Wikipedia.com. She started early and became a pop star on her own right with her song going viral in 2016. Recently she released this album titled “When we all fall asleep, where do we go” and it is a really weird album. This album is like playing a horror movie theme that was done by a hiphop version of Enya. The reason being that Billie has this cinematic feel in her songs. After listening to Billie Eilish, I could recommend her to Colombia pictures, 21st century fox and Universal for their demonic, horror and epic war movies. She has the voice and skills to make more money creating movie scores than being a pop star. The fact is only music fanatics like me are going to love her song because she is just weird with her sound. I am not a fan of this album and it might end up being the flop album in cillacritic.com 2019 archives. This is because music as it is supposed to be a tool that lifts up ones soul but Billie’s song dampens it with her sound. I believe her songs should be used in making horror movies because her voice and production is scary. It no doubt a diversion from the norm and is obviously a wonderful art but not an art many will love. When we all fall asleep, where do we go is really a piece of wired art.
THE THEME
“8” is the first song that the windows music player of my writing device played first and to be honest; I was confused. Billie sings about having a partner in a relationship with you that you barely have a real connection with. She sings about wondering whether her partner has feeling because he or she never shows it.
My personal best song in the album is “all the good girls go to hell”. Weird as the tittle is; its a song that talks about being a good lover/friend and having ones heart broken. In this song, she uses the metaphor “hell” to explain the heart break they normally have from breakup. She however says she does not want to live that kind of life hence she is breaking up with people without thinking about it. She claims that even God has enemies therefore she does not mind making a new enemy as a result of break ups.
“Bad guy” is a song dedicated to persons who do what they want to do without owing anybody any apology. She also describes herself to be the nemesis of anybody who will want always have his or her ways with her. She claims that if anybody is having his or her way with her is because she allows it. She claim that she can be the bad guy to reduce the person’s position.
Some other song that is worth listening to is “I love you”. The song talks about the effect a guy was having on her. The song talks about she allowing somebody for the first time see-through and break her defenses. She claims that she does not want to tell this guy that she loves him but is drown to him.
THE PRODUCTION
This album is totally different from what any music lover is used to. It is not pure soul, EDM, RnB or Hiphop. Working closely with her brother Finneas O’ Connell, Billie made a sound which fused soul, trap and electro-pop. On striking feature of this album is the sad voice that Billie uses in her vocals. Her voice sounded like someone in agony, pain and tears. She does not use any form of high pitch but keeps hers her voice at a steady pitch around key C4.
Another uniqueness of this album is the cinematic feel of the album. In the song “Listen before I go”, the production and the vocals was sequenced to sound like a movie scene where someone died from an accident. Another feature of this album is the use of the baselines and sound effects. It always had this way making someone feel like you are in a movie theater.
The last and most unique feature of this album is the quality of the engineering of the sound. Using celestial and church bells and sequence loops with baselines and still finding a way to keep the sound scanty and noiseless is perfection at a very high magnitude. I also love the backup vocals provided by Finneas.
Hits and Flops
All the songs in this album have the tendency to fade away with time because they are not pop music. Billie did not really sing for the crowd but a certain group of person who appreciate her craft. None of these song will be played in clubs but will be perfect suits in funerals. For example “When the Party” and “Good Bye”. However my personal best is “All the good girls go to hell” and “I love you”. This is because the stories are good with suiting melody at its best. However, a creative Dj could make the album jam in a club because music is all about the art.
