At 22 years old, American singer Billie Eilish releases her third album on Friday May 17, 2024, feverishly awaited by her millions of fans. For this disc entitled Hit Me Hard and Softthe mystery will have held until the listening session organized in the United States on the night of Wednesday to Thursday and of which Rolling Stone published a few excerpts on Instagram to discover below. Until then, little sound had filtered through on this disc.
The successor of Happier Than Ever, released in July 2021, contains ten songs, and is 43 minutes long. It was, like the previous two, entirely co-written, recorded and produced with his brother and lifelong musical partner Finneas O’Connor, in Los Angeles.
If Hit Me Hard and Soft is her first album in almost three years, Billie Eilish has not been idle in the meantime. In addition to carrying out a long world tour including the Accor Arena in Paris Bercy in June 2022, then Rock en Seine in August 2023, she released the EP Guitar Songs last summer. She mainly contributed to the soundtrack of the phenomenon film barbie by Greta Gerwig, with the poignant ballad What Was I Made For?which earned him a new shower of awards, including an Oscar for best original song, and two Grammys, including Song of the Year.
Here are seven questions around this third album, which she presents as the one with which she reconnects with her true self.
1Why is the album not preceded by any single?
She made this clear from the outset when announcing the release date of her new album at the beginning of April: Hit Me Hard and Soft will not be preceded by any single “because I want to give you everything at once”. While singles, and even excerpts from singles on TikTok, reign supreme, the singer is pushing her fans to experience listening to an album in its entirety.
“Whenever an artist I like releases a single without the context of the album, I tend to hate it”justifies Billie Eilish in a long interview given to Rolling Stone (in English). “I really don’t like it when things are out of context.” And added: “This album is like a family, I don’t want one of the kids to be alone in the middle of a room.”
“I like being immersed in the world of the author of an album (…) that you like to listen to from start to finish”recognizes Finneas in the same article. “It makes me a lot happier than when I hear a good song.”
2 What kind of album can we expect?
Little information (and sound) has filtered out about the content of this album. However, Billie Eilish confided last fall to the journalist of Variety Katcy Sephan that this record “sounds different” of what she has done so far, “but not in a weird way. It just looks new. It changes. Change is one of my favorite things in life.”
“I feel like this album is me”she adds in Rolling Stoneof which she adorns the cover of the month of May. “He’s not a character. He looks like the version of me from When We Fall Asleep Where Do We Go? (his first album, released in 2019). He looks like my youth and the person I was as a child.”. Because after the dazzling success and the whirlwind of fame, the young star needed to find herself.
For the journalist of Rolling Stone Angie Martoccio, who interviewed the singer and her brother Finneas at length and had the privilege of listening to the album before anyone else, this disc would be her best. An album in which the strings of the Attacca Quartet, a string quartet, constitute the common thread, “an intense but delicate element that ties the ten songs together”.
3What does the album title mean?
His titleHit Me Hard and Soft East “a perfect summary of what this album does”assures Billie Rolling Stone. “It’s an impossible request: you can’t be hit hard and soft. You can’t do both of these things at the same time. I’m a very extreme person, I love it when things are really physically intense, but I also love it when things are tender and gentle. I want both at the same time.”
The press release in English, which boasts “his most daring work to date”also mentions an album “which does exactly what its title suggests, hitting hard but soft, both lyrically and sonically, while mixing styles and defying trends”.
Finneas seems to confirm the roller coaster side of the album in Rolling Stone. It actually describes the opening title, Skinnyas “a total false promise”because if we know What Was I Made For? we think of ourselves on familiar ground. Except that “when the battery arrives” on the second title, Lunch, it’s like killing the main character in a film, he compares. “It’s like Drew Barrymore showed up in the first five minutes of Scream and they killed her. You’d be like: They can’t kill Drew. Oh my God, they killed Drew!”.
4What song does Billie come out to?
Billie Eilish revealed her attraction to women in November 2023 in an interview with Variety. “I am physically attracted to them. But I’m also intimidated by them, by their beauty and their presence.” Questioned by the same media in December for confirmation, she replied: “Wasn’t that obvious? I didn’t realize that people didn’t know that.” A homosexual coming out to which she has since half-returned: “I like men and women, leave me alone with that”she wrote on Instagram.
However, his song Lunch, the second of her new album, which she unveiled on stage in April at the Coachella festival, is particularly explicit on the queer identity of the young woman who says she is not “never really felt feminine”. “I could eat that girl for lunch / Yeah she dances on my tongue / Tastes like she might be the one / And I can never get enough”, she begins. (“I could eat this girl for lunch / Yeah she dances on my tongue / She tastes like the one who might be the one / And I’ll never get enough”).
HAS Rolling StoneBillie Eilish says she started writing this song “before you do anything with a girl.”, and then finished it. “I’ve always been in love with girls, but I didn’t understand it until last year.”she specifies.
5What are the other songs on the album about?
It’s difficult to get an idea of the content of the pieces based solely on their titles. But if the secret of this album has been well kept, excerpts and lyrics from several songs have already been revealed in one way or another.
So the opening title, Skinny, talks about self-acceptance, and points out the mistake of thinking that losing weight will make you happy, teaches us Rolling Stone.
Chihiro, which refers to the animated film by Hayao Miyazaki Spirited awayand which was unveiled at Coachella, resembles a song of love and break-ups, which navigates the twists and turns of memories.
Bluewhich would be an old song played live from 2016 under the title True Blue, speaks of a sentimental disappointment – “I wish I could say I’ve moved on but that’s not true.”, say the lyrics. Finally, Love of my life is also a song of wounded love, but this time, the singer of Bad Guy describes his former partner as “poor” and ensures : “We’re so happy to be done.” while “the girls are chasing me”.
6What does the album cover suggest? ?
The cover of Hit Me Hard and Soft shows the singer underwater sinking, just after having been thrown from a door visible above. A dreamlike image which seems to suggest that the interpreter of What was I Made For? has still not emerged from the depression from which she has suffered since adolescence and which has always fueled her lyrics.
Yet, “my life is going well”she said again to Variety in November 2023.”In many ways, I feel like I’m waking up.”
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In fact, the reveal of the cover was accompanied in April by a video extract of a few seconds (beginning of a probable future clip) carrying a vision of hope. She took up this image of Billie Eilish sinking, deeper and deeper into the blue abyss, until a hand entered the frame and grabbed her wrist as if to save her. in extremis. What is this friendly hand? A love ? A friend ? A concept ? Has Billie finally risen to the surface? The album should tell us more.
7Does his tour pass through France?
Billie Eilish will undertake a world tour to defend this album, kicking off on September 29, 2024 in Quebec. It will not arrive in Europe until spring 2025, after having traveled the United States and Australia during the fall and winter. The European section, which includes around thirty dates, many of which are already sold out, will begin on April 23 in Stockholm (Sweden).
In France, only two stops are planned, at Paris Bercy (Accor Arena), on June 10 and 11, 2025. Both dates were sold out within a few hours when tickets went on sale at the beginning of May. However, French fans are a little angry about the price of tickets for this tour produced by Live Nation.
In fact, we had to pay 151 euros for a place in the pit, that is to say standing, and probably rather in front (places were offered at 74 euros in category 3). A price considered rather expensive by its young audience. But the incomprehension mainly came from the fact that we had to pay the same sum, 151 euros, for a place in “golden square”, that is to say seated and with supposed good visibility. “It is shameful !“, “It’s a joke I hope“, annoyed fans on social networks. Once the record is released on Friday, we bet that the pill will go down better.