The quality that has made Billie Eilish such a prodigious popstar is, in my opinion, vision. Yes, Eilish was also brimming with personality that A&Rs would sell their souls to recreate, and who can forget that gorgeous, wistful voice of hers? But what really propelled her through her two albums has been vision: the ability to visualise so clearly exactly what she was going for, in a manner far more refined and mature than her older peers.
‘Hit Me Hard And Soft’ makes no question about Eilish’s ability to maintain her vision. Its title, an impossibly violent and intimate request, juxtaposes several contrasts to fulfil its brief. Each song usually begins with a simple instrumental conceit and metamorphosises into something entirely different. Eilish keeps us on our toes throughout the whole album, and often with a knowing grin.
Eilish shines the most when she creates space and atmosphere; there’s a particular beauty in the ukelele of ‘The Greatest’ (an instrument young Billie used to play, rendered here with a maturity that echoes the uke’s childhood innocence without sounding twee, as it did on ‘8’). Eilish and Finneas have incorporated more outright ambient and trip-hop references on this record, and Eilish’s haunting, earthy vocal tone slots in perfectly with the ghostly, aqueous worlds she creates on songs such as ‘Bittersweet’.
There’s a lot of artistry showcased throughout ‘Hit Me’ – Eilish, for instance, incorporates key motifs from her previous songs and weaves them in the album’s final two tracks. It’s a feat she’s attempted before on her debut album, but here it’s more powerful: all the symbols representing Eilish’s unrequited affection gathers into an intense whirlwind, released only with the understanding that she can’t save her lover.
It wouldn’t be a Billie Eilish album without some dark twist. ‘Birds of a Feather’ asks a lover to say “’Til I rot away, dead and buried / ‘Til I’m in the casket you carry”, whilst ‘The Diner’ is an especially unnerving track which sees Billie inhabit the mind of a stalker. I wonder whether it’s her way of processing her own stalkers – if it is, it adds an extra disturbing layer to a song already made creepy with its plodding reggae skanks.
Eilish is able to hit soft and play it subtle, but hit hard? That’s another question. There’s so much concern with sophistication here that the album rarely bats a hardball. It does try – ‘L’amour De La Vie’ attempts to string together four different musical ideas, never truly cohering (even if the guitar tone used at the beginning is really cool). Meanwhile, ‘The Greatest’ treads the familiar path of ‘Happier Than Ever’ structurally and lyrically but loses its surprise factor because of this.
Still, it’s a very mature and layered production from Eilish and Finneas, who have managed to evolve their artistry with style and grace on ‘Hit Me’. Whilst the contrast could have been yanked up a little and the lyrics written with more precision, it’s hard to deny the raw talent the duo possesses in creating pop for the ages.
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