“Happier Than Ever”: A Billie Eilish Album Review

Ever since Billie Eilish rose to stardom with “Ocean Eyes” in 2016, I’ve been a huge fan of her completely unconventional style on all fronts, from her music to her brand to her street style. Her debut album WHEN WE FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? (2019) became the soundtrack to my early college years and, from day one, she’s made a name for herself as an artist completely untethered to what will keep people happy or music most friendly for radio airplay. 

 However, with her new album Happier Than Ever (2021), which she released this past July, I’m not as convinced this approach worked as well in her favor. It’s tough because this album had all the makings of a classic. I adore the cover art featuring Eilish’s 1960s blonde shag, warm peach colors, and overall image as timeless and evergreen as Joni Mitchell’s Blue (1971) or Marianne Faithfull’s 1965 self-titled debut album, which makes sense considering she’s cited Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra, and Julie as influences for this project. From the get-go, she’s saying, This is a different Billie than the one you’ve known. 

I also appreciate the themes she explores throughout the record, including fame, abuse of power, manipulative men, and misogynistic standards placed on young women in the entertainment industry. “Your Power,” for example, is my favorite song from the tracklist and easily one of the best songs she’s ever released, from her honest lyricism to the specificity in her storytelling. The whole time she’s singing, a soft but moving guitar track behind her vocals, she puts an older man on blast for taking advantage of and controlling younger girls, including herself. “You swear you didn’t know / you said you thought she was your age” is a line I literally can’t stop thinking about, even weeks after the song originally came out. 

“Billie Bossa Nova” and “Male Fantasy” are other fantastic guitar-accompanied songs, the former with light salsa-like percussion to break up the other monotonous rhythm, and the latter rounding out the record with more folk influences, something I could picture being played around a campfire. Her vocals especially shine in these songs, embracing a deeper tone and range than we’ve heard from her previously besides 2019’s “bad guy” in the style of classic soul and jazz vocalists. 

 The title track was also a highlight for me, embracing the thematic softness of the record (this time with a ukulele) with an unexpected switch to rock opera halfway through the song. It actually reminded me of Olivia Rodrigo’s “traitor” in tempo, pace, intensity, and unabashed female anger. Even their vocal inflections shared similarities.  

In that sense, there’s technically so many different genres being explored throughout the whole album (jazz, R&B, techno, country, bossa nova, trip-hop, electro, trap, etc) but it doesn’t feel like it when a lot of songs blend into each other or just fall flat. 

“Oxytocin” and “NDA”, both techno-pop tracks, might’ve been more at home on WWFAWDWG but even then I didn’t care for their experimental approach, neither of which supported or enhanced Eilish’s vocals in the slightest but only obscured. “OverHeated” and “Halley’s Comet” were relatively forgettable and felt generally underdeveloped, and, queerbaiting accusations aside, “Lost Cause” didn’t stand out to me even when released first as a single. 

These last three tracks especially suffer from the same problem of feeling like nothing more than filler to pad out the album rather than songs that say anything of their own. Production-wise, they’re just not as interesting to listen to as, say, “my future” or “GOLDWING” where multiple genres are being explored within their runtime, while also captivating the listener with clever and vulnerable lyricism.  

Honestly, Happier Than Ever could’ve been a five or six tracks shorter and been much stronger as a cohesive record. Its minimalist and understated approach, as much as it was its overall strength and an interesting deviant from her previous work, was also its greatest weakness that mistook subtlety for flatness. 

I’m glad Eilish is displaying her growing maturity in her music and style (these days, gone are her inches-long nails, baggy clothing, and wild hair colors of her previous era) but my hope for her moving forward is that she continues to embrace what makes her special, including her trademark authenticity that has made her popularity evergreen. She’s an artist completely in a league of her own with the ability to make her own rules and achieve more than even she knows she’s capable of (five Grammys in a single night, anyone?). 

 Suffice to say, Happier Than Ever won’t be hard for her to beat next time around.