Billie Eilish’s Mouthful of an Album Is an Overdramatic Tumblr Post Brought to Life

Do we really need an entire track devoted to her removing her Invisalign?

Dafydd Owen/Avalon via ZUMA Press

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Dropping “Ocean Eyes” on Soundcloud a few years ago, 15 year-old Billie Eilish never expected it would lead to an impressive cult following and a well received EP, don’t smile at me. And yet, it did. The EP introduced a young new artist who was doing her best to redefine the alt-pop genre, in her many memorable tracks. Songs like “bellyache” mixed acoustic guitar strums with intriguing beats, “&burn” paired Eilish with Vince Staples into an explosive and perfectly produced feature. Then there was “party favor” a satisfying contrast of the joyful ukulele juxtaposed with heart-wrenching lyrics. This all brought an artist with enormous promise who inspired high expectations into the mainstream.

Well, the long awaited debut LP WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? finally dropped last week, and it’s time to reassess those expectations. Overly melodramatic and completely lacking in self-awareness, the LP is full of tracks that don’t have much to offer. Eilish and her brother/producer FINNEAS may have created an album that superficially sounds unique, but with a close listen, it’s clear that in terms of authenticity and depth, they fail to deliver.

To give some perspective on this, probably the best track on the album is the opener, “!!!!!!!”, a 13-second immersion in the experience of Eilish slurping and taking out her Invisalign. It’s difficult to differentiate “xanny,” “8,” “listen before i go,” “i love you,” and “goodbye,” from each other. The cringey lyrics flow relentlessly through tracks like “xanny,” and “listen before i go.” The most interesting aspect of “wish you were gay” is that it gets worse with each listen.

“xanny,” could have been an introspective reflection by someone experiencing the self-destructive behavior of their peers. Instead, it comes off as self-righteous, self-indulgent, and dismissive. In “listen before i go” Eilish tries—and fails—to musically explore the agonies of depression and suicide. Rather than wrestling with the intense and existential hopelessness of wishing to take your own life, Eilish opts to romanticize it. “Tell me love is endless, don’t be so pretentious/Leave me like you do.

I wish the dangerous tendency to romanticize suicide was the only low point on the album. Eilish, perhaps unintentionally, uses the idea of queerness as an excuse for her own inability to handle being rejected. “I just kinda wish you were gay/To spare my pride/To give your lack of interest an explanation/Don’t say I’m not your type/Just say that I’m not your preferred sexual orientation.” Eerily reminiscent of Katy Perry’s homophobic “Ur So Gay,” it’s a narrative many LGBTQ+ people are too familiar with: straight people using our queerness as the butt of a joke. She’s unapologetic. “The whole idea of the song,” she told PopBuzz, “it’s kind of a joke.” 

In the end, only two tracks of the 14 are worthy of a listen at all. “bad guy” utilizes Eilish’s trademark creepy whisper-pop in a work that is aware of itself lyrically and complicated in its production. Even “my strange addiction,” which would take the crown as the best track on the album is undermined by the unusual and unfitting The Office samples. Nonetheless, Eilish’s delivery is firm and clean, her voice dances along a groovy beat.

Together it all reads like an especially bothersome, utterly oblivious Tumblr post—“you should see me in a crown” is literally inspired by a Sherlock episode. That same lack of awareness is what prevents the melodrama from being either ironic or emotionally resonant. Instead, it becomes something silly and trivial, like a bad story-line on Riverdale. Coupled with her inability to tastefully address narratives of importance, it’s all is too rough to ignore. 

WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? is an example of how impeccable pop packaging can nonetheless conceal and sell an empty, even insulting, product. It’s also evidence of what pop music sounds like in the hands of a stereotypical gen-Zer. This may be a genuine reflection of who Eilish is, but it also reflects more broadly some of the worst parts of the oversharing internet. Are they one and the same? This album seems to think so.

When you aren’t sufficiently self-aware to lean into the stereotype, you become it, and this is what happens here. Eilish comes off as so preoccupied by trying to create her own genre, she ends up replicating a personality and persona that comes straight from wince-inducing “skater boi” posts. It’s not that there’s no promise, there’s lots. Now we just need to wait and see if she’ll redeem herself and fulfill her early potential, or just inhabit the two-dimensions of a walking internet persona.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate