Album Review: Billie Eilish - WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?
Lorde's Royals is arguably the most culturally impactful song of the decade, to the extent that one can view with disturbing clarity a difference in the tone and trajectory of pop music both before and after its release. As much as phenomena like the election of Donald Trump are credited for the general malaise settling over modern culture, that so many people are (consciously or not) ripping off Pure Heroine or similar works like Lana Del Rey's Born To Die is a testament to their role in mainstream music's turn for the depressing. But of the recent flood of second-rate synthpop angst, its most popular and intriguing star as of yet is 17-year-old Billie Eilish, whose uniquely youthful (read: immature) brand of moodiness launched her from Soundcloud to her debut EP dont smile at me in 2017 to this, her debut studio album. Yet where dont smile at me was a respectable and promising display of talent, WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? is anything but: meandering, unoriginal, repetitive, and disappointing.
The accusation that her talented brother Finneas (who produces nearly all of her songs) is to blame for her success has always hounded Billie, yet on this album it becomes impossible to ignore. Any fabricated charisma or individuality present on her EP is fully and truly gone, and only the occasional clever beat switch or interesting tempo change makes any of this material remotely interesting. Not that she isn't contributing to the infectious, bass-heavy groove of bad guy, a notable high point, but for every clever lyric like "I like it when you take control/Even if you know that you don't", there is an equally appalling description of herself as "I'm that bad type/Make your mama sad type/Make your girlfriend mad type/Might seduce your dad type". Still, the vibe of the song is undeniably compelling; at least until the ugly and unnecessary trap breakdown ruins the song just before it ends.
Similarly questionable production choices plague many of the tracks on this record; xanny is maybe the most befuddling, a somewhat uplifting digression about not needing drugs to have fun that nevertheless sounds as warped and unpleasant as the opioid highs it disparages (likely an intentional decision, but the result is still nigh unlistenable). Cuts like you should see me in a crown and wish you were gay are built around slapped-together 808 percussion that sounds woefully amateurish, whereas 8 is a disgusting blend of pitched-up vocals, callous bass thumping, and a ukulele. As a whole, the juxtaposition between synth-heavy trap cuts and slower, acoustic ballads driven by piano or guitar is interesting, but the former often sound far too rudimentary to generate interest, and the latter tend to highlight Billie's lyrical shortcomings.
Where this album does distinguish itself from its (many) contemporaries is in its obnoxious immaturity; certainly age is no guarantee of quality, but the lack of forethought that would lead her to splice in bits from The Office on my strange addiction is uniquely millennial. It would perhaps be forgivable if it had any relevance to the track (it doesn't), but instead Billie litters the verses with offensively terrible quips like "Shoulda taken a break, not an Oxford comma". wish you were gay strings together a half-hearted countdown motif throughout its verses that just comes off as forced, and ramps up the energy in the chorus to match Billie's melodramatic, almost saccharine delivery of the already terrible lyric "I just kinda wish you were gay" to create the most repellent climax possible.
As it progresses deeper into its second half, the album doubles down on its more twisted and depressing themes, with mixed results. On one hand, bury a friend is easily the most consistently stellar track here, the moody bass and frequent interjections from UK rapper Crooks establishing a muted yet catchy vibe to compliment Billie's frequent, almost-whispered drawl that for once matches the song's tone and even enhances it with fitting lines such as "The way I'm drinking you down/Like I wanna drown, like I wanna end me". The stripped-down guitar line on i love you, the second of a three-track sequence which ends the album, is intriguing and almost heartfelt, yet the song's painfully generic lyrics sap any and all interest in Billie's story. Preceded by listen before i go, a chilling (if slightly clumsy) dirge about suicide, the act and the album finish with goodbye, which consists solely of lyrics borrowed from every other track, seemingly attempting to string together a cohesive narrative that would be clever if it made any sense at all.
Many of her admirers (Pitchfork included) would call Billie's aesthetic rebellious, an angst-filled blend of pop, trap, and electronic music from a young star who does what she wants and doesn't care about what the public or the industry think of her. But in reality, that rebellion has already come and gone; in a post-Royals world, every pop artist declaring that they are 'different', unconstrained by genre boundaries and unaffected by outside opinions, is shouting at imaginary critics. Billie Eilish is simply the latest self-serving artist to adopt this antiquated label, which might be more acceptable if her work wasn't so laughably inadequate compared to that of Lorde and her peers. When everyone is rebelling against the standard, nonconformity becomes the new norm, and WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? is merely a particularly exasperating example of fabricated defiance.
4/10
Favourite Tracks: bad guy, bury a friend