Happier Than Ever - Billie Eilish: Review

Billie Eilish

is a California based pop artist who emerged a few years ago and quickly became one of the biggest stars in the music industry. Her album was a commercial smash and took home a number of major Grammy's, quickly propelling Billie to superstar status. Since then Billie has weathered a few controversies in order to reach her sophomore record. Happier Than Ever had five singles some of which date back to over a year before the albums release, and faced lots of criticism from fans and critics alike for the handling of the era. Despite that Happier is likely to be one of the most talked about records of the year and is on track for further commercial success.

Review By Lav:

Well here we are again. While some of my most controversial opinions rest in the realm of hip hop Instagram admin tastes, Twitter stan is well known for their backlash. In 2020 it was Hayley Williams/Paramore stans in my DMs and earlier this year it was Chai, but in 2019 I incurred the wrath of the burgeoning Billie Eilish following. In their defense I was pretty harsh on her album, but in my defense it was an underwritten edgelord take on contemporary pop trends that wasted massive amounts of time with underwritten songs and tacky production tricks. I haven't listened to the record as a whole since 2019 because even I have a limit to what I'll tolerate but Billie has been a cultural force that's popped up everywhere in that time. Whether it's high profile collaborations or internet born controversies Billie has experienced the blunt effect of the music industry that has been so toxic to so many pop stars before her, which is why I was happy to see this record called Happier Than Ever. Unfortunately this record is not really about being happy, and Billie's emotional palette continues to manifest itself through dreary occasionally agonizing pop ballads. It's an improvement on most fronts from her debut, but it's baby steps. 

This record is SIXTEEN tracks long, and while it still runs under an hour that is quite a lot of Billie music for one sitting. Much like the Hayley Williams album I mentioned earlier this thing gets off to a rough start, the first six tracks are a mixed bag with some major duds before a brief oasis. The best song the record has early on is the opener Getting Older. It's grown on me a bit as I listen to it probably due to the slog that follows. Despite some very sleepy vocals there are compelling lyrics, though they are often contradicted heavily by what we know about Billie through her public persona. I with the song has some kind of compositional progression at all to it as it gets pretty tedious after 4 minutes, but it at least provides a slick transition into the next song.  my future is a single that sounds pleasant but doesn't really hold up to any level of scrutiny. The gentle bouncing beat is tolerable and Billie's lyricism is certainly thematically aligned but everything about the track is so relaxingly calculated that it makes no impression whatsoever. 

This is the point where I should probably talk about Billie's brother and primary producer Finneas. I complained about his production quite a bit on her first album as he enabled the extremely hard to swallow aesthetic of her music with unbearable vocal effects and trite edgy beats. I was also quick to point out the potential I heard in his sound and thankfully the production this time around is improved, even if the songs themselves aren't. I Didn't Change My Number would be a pretty good song if it was left instrumental as it has a significant texture to it that I really enjoy. Unfortunately I don't get much from Billie's refrains and even less from her vocals on the song. Oxytocin is similar with a really strong beat featuring a memorable bassline and some rattling punchy drums that keep up it's infectious energy. On the vocal side the breathy vocalizing is pretty difficult to tolerate on the hook and the flaws in the songwriting and lyricism are too fundamental for the instrumental to totally save the track. 

Occasionally neither Billie or Finneas bring it and those moments can be unrelentingly taxing. Billie Bossa Nove sounds like something from r/popheadscirclejerk. It's literally a painfully generis and utterly forgettable bossa nova song that Billie awkwardly creaks her way through sounding a shade away from Lil Xan. Goldwing starts off as a very stark ballad that is somewhat compelling in its own right before transitioning into a wonky distorted mess. Billie tries out her Lana Del Rey impression and it isn't a great one. It certainly doesn't help that the song has no momentum to it whatsoever and by the end I am beyond ready to move on. 

The second half of the album is a drastic, DRASTIC improvement but I'll go ahead and rip off the bandaid with the last pair of tracks I really can't stand. I find it hard to recall anything about Everybody Dies to even mention, in a sea of forgettable songs it may take the cake as being the most lacking in any kind of defining characteristic. Finally there's Not My Responsibility, which is by far the worst and most tedious track on the album even rivaling the awful ukulele song from Billie's first record. It's a spoken word song with a good point at its core but an instrumental so bland you can forget it while it's on and purposefully evocative vocal performances that I find completely intolerable. 

So that's the bad parts, funny enough we covered exactly half the record in that section. If you stuck around, thank you. I appreciate your willingness to sit through the rough parts in order to see the record through to what it does right, I'm sure Billie also appreciates it. Your Power is the breathy acoustic single that I feel like I haven't been able to escape for the past few months. While it was obviously a really weird decision to release this track as a single and even worse to pair it with the album announcement, it's still a decent song. The idea at the core of it is pretty compelling and I think the hook is even a little bit catchy. The closing track Male Fantasy is similarly okay. It has an agreeable lyrical point and no tacky sonic approach to undermine it, as a closing track it does a delivering another compelling lyrical idea and feels like the perfectly meh conclusion. 

Lost Cause is the oasis that saves the record from it's opening run. While there has been a lot of negative discussion out there about the lyrics of the song I definitely see what Billie is going for even if the point is somewhat muddled. I'm more willing to defend the song because it has the first good hook on the album with an infectious bassline and refrains that slide perfectly in around it. Even the slow verses add some lyrical context to the hook and it's an all around highlight. Hailey's Comet has grown on me quite a bit it's one of the only songs here where extremely slow pacing works to create compelling moments. The stark instrumental is broken down and rebuilt into a completely different style in the last minute of the track which is just one element of it's pretty compelling composition. 

Overheated was a nice surprise with a wiry instrumental that I can easily get behind. There is a slight personality to the vocal performances here which comes out even better on the hook. This song succeeds at being exactly what a number of the early ones couldn't. NDA reminds me of one of my favorite Billie songs You Should See Me In A Crown with the way I can't help but cringe at the songs aesthetics but also can't deny the solid songwritng and compelling refrains all over it. The instrumental is an off-kilter hard-hitting blur that pairs perfectly with the overall lowkey demeanor of Billie's performance. 

Therefore I Am was the only single that I really liked coming into the album and I still enjoy it a lot. Billie has a vocal swagger to her delivery on the song that I've never heard her deliver on any other track and it's totally infectious. The song is full of catchy refrains and has a rumbling unique instrumental, there really isn't anything not to like about it. The title track Happier Than Ever has been the most talked about song on the album in the week since it came out and it's easy to see why, it runs laps around every single other track here. It begins as a stark acoustic ballad that lyrically helps consolidate many of the records themes nicely. In the second half it starts to take on a much more direct narrative tone as Billie's vocals rush into the front of the mix and the electric instrumentation joins in backing her. The whole second half is a triumphant, emotional, 1975 style pop rock anthem and I can't get enough of it. 

So where do we stand now? Happier Than Ever is a mixed bag just like it's predecessor but I think you could argue that Finneas in particular has made major improvements. On this record he helps Billie channel her style with instrumentals that are both more sonically compelling and less aesthetically cringey. He also understands when to tone it down, making for a couple tracks here that actually use their minimalism strategically. While Billie makes a lot of the same mistakes both lyrically and in particular vocally, I think her consistency has improved ever so slightly. Honestly "ever so slightly" is really the theme of this review, the album shares a lot in common with her debut but I think it's ever so slightly better. While I would love to see Billie and Finneas make a major improvement next time around, I would even be willing to settle for every so slightly better again, and eventually she will build up to that great record she really does have the potential to make. 5/10

Album Cover Review By Tyler Judson:

I really like this cover and it's a total 180 from Billie's previous cover. The composition, styling and colors are simple and effective. The photographer behind this is Kall McClusky, who I was able to work under as we share the same alma mater. Her style is airy and soft which is a nice look for Billie's new era. The only downside to this is the text. It makes the entire cover seem cheap. The typeface is fine but if it had been entered at the top of even formed differently in the area it currently resides it could've made it so much stronger. 8.5/10

For more pop check out my review of the new Marina album Ancient Dreams In A Modern Land here