Music Evaluation: Billie Eilish’s ‘Hit Me Exhausting and Tender’ is zealous outsider pop in a league of her personal
“Am I performing my age now?” Billie Eilish, 22, wonders aloud on the opening observe to her formidable third album, “Hit Me Exhausting and Tender.”
“Am I already on the best way out?”
The ten-track launch sees a once-in-a-generation pop performer as soon as once more rewriting the foundations: If Eilish’s first file launched the world to her sensible horror-pop, with its macabre humor, off-kilter beats and teenage Invisalign slurps, and her second wiped away these black tears for pop crooning and bossa nova ruminations on the expectations of fame, her third is an amalgamation of each, with daring new surprises.
“Hit Me Exhausting and Tender” proves Eilish to be an outsider in modern pop in a couple of methods: That is an album meant to be heard and loved in full, working opposite to the present single-centric mannequin of the music trade. And she or he earns that distinction, with a fuller sound, courtesy her brother, producer, and lifelong collaborator Finneas O’Connell, now joined by Andrew Marshall on drums and the Attacca Quartet on strings.
Opener “Skinny” launches into the saccharine falsetto of her award-winning “Barbie” ballad “What Was I Made For?” The track’s messaging, too, has an identical sort of resonance — she tackles physique picture, singing “Individuals say I look comfortable / Simply because I received skinny” — echoing her quick movie and spoken phrase interlude “Not My Duty” from 2021’s “Happier Than Ever.”
A string part carries “Skinny” to its coda, paying homage to Eilish’s efficiency of her “Barbie” track on the 2024 Oscars, the place she was joined by an orchestra.
From that time onward, the whole lot modifications. Pretend outs outline “Hit Me Exhausting and Tender.” Assume a track goes in a single course? Guess once more.
Within the final 5 seconds of “Skinny,” pulsating drums enter the equation, a beat that carries into the sapphic anthem “Lunch” — a soon-to-be fan favourite.
Then there’s the languid bass and ethereal chorus of “away from me” on the midtempo “Chihiro,” probably named after the 10-year-old protagonist in Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli traditional, “Spirted Away.” That track, like many on the album, begins mushy and ends onerous. An erotic crescendo of thumping techno-house reaches “Challengers”-level of audial elation.
“The Biggest” might be thought of a thematic sequel to “the whole lot I wished” from her 2019 album, “When We All Fall Asleep, The place Do We Go?” now with a plucky, nylon string guitar. Three and a half minutes in, it turns into atmospheric, enviornment rock. Blown-out guitars are executed in a method that feels acquainted to the 2021 title observe, “Happier Than Ever.”
The deceptively cheery sounding “L’amour De Ma Vie,” too, is true to the kind of the jazzy, lounge moments of her final album. “However I have to confess / I instructed you a lie,” a clear-eyed Eilish sings. “I mentioned you / you had been the love of my life.”
Later, the track ascends into synth-pop bliss – autotuned, distorted vocals in a hyperpop, Eurodance rave — lest anybody neglect this is similar pop performer who wrote the commercial observe “Oxytocin.”
So the place did the “unhealthy man” singer go? “The Diner,” duh. Right here, her haunted carnival trip sound returns. “Don’t be afraid of me,” she opens her gothic vaudeville (now a command somewhat than the inquiry “Why aren’t you fearful of me?” from 2019’s “bury a good friend.”) She teases, “Wager I might change your life / You might be my spouse.”
The place different artists would possibly pull from their previous to make spinoff, impressionistic portraits of who they was once, Eilish evolves her ghosts.
That is true within the breathy nearer “Blue,” a sonic reminder of Eilish’s lengthy love of Lana Del Rey data, till it takes a Huge Assault-style trip-hop detour. Two issues may be true — and blue — directly.
“Hit Me Exhausting and Tender” is the loudest Eilish has ever been on file — not singing virtually completely in attractive, hushed tones simply above an ASMR whisper, buried beneath sweeping, revolutionary manufacturing. Clearly, she’s gained the self-assurance to belt above the combination.
The one skip will be the penultimate observe “Bittersuite,” which suffers beneath its personal subtlety — one thing she manages to keep away from on the largely-acoustic “Wildflower.” There, her sonic sweetness muddles after a crisp drum fill someplace within the center. It’s understated, however effectual. Lyrically, Eilish particulars a preoccupation with a present companion’s former lover: “Each time you contact me,” she sings. “I simply surprise how she felt.”
All through the album, Eilish is a chook: She’s a chook in a cage in “Skinny”; she needs to stay collectively on the baroque pop observe “Birds of a Feather,” and by the album’s nearer “Blue,” she realizes they weren’t “birds of a feather,” in spite of everything — and he or she’s again in a cage.
It is a welcomed change from the tarantulas that outlined “When We All Fall Asleep, The place Do We Go?”, nevertheless it additionally serves as the best metaphor for Eilish’s third album. She’s motivated by a need for freedom. And on “Hit Me Exhausting and Tender,” she’s allowed herself to speak the strain — and let it take flight.
