Billie THE KID grows up
Pop princess is back and she’s moved on from skater girl to mature songwriter
BILLIE EILISH: Happier Than Ever (Polydor)
Verdict: Understated success HHHHI BARBRA STREISAND: Release Me 2 (Legacy)
Verdict: Hidden gems ★★★☆☆
WHEN making her first album two years ago, Billie Eilish wasn’t a household name. Creating music with her brother Finneas in their childhood home, she was a rising star rather than a global phenomenon.
Now, at 19, she’s one of the biggest names in pop, with seven Grammys and a Bond theme under her belt. That debut, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, reached No1 in 18 countries, and she has 88 million Instagram followers. She’s also been an inspiration to a host of other introspective teen stars, with Olivia rodrigo the latest to take the charts by storm.
Given the anticipation surrounding her second album, a little apprehension would be understandable, with Eilish’s trepidation heightened by her decision to hold the record back until live shows are again possible.
With a u.S. tour starting next month, and uK dates in June 2022, Happier Than Ever is finally here, and the singer’s young, female fans will be relieved it’s a smart sequel — business as usual, but with unexpected turns to tempt older listeners.
The album’s 16 songs were again written and recorded by Billie and her brother, 23, at home in LA. With no outside producers or co-writers involved, the duo’s working practices weren’t unduly disrupted by lockdown.
TruE to form, the tone is laid-back and woozy, with lots of electronic beats and hushed vocals. Eilish stoops quietly to conquer. Intimacy and honesty remain her calling cards, but she now has more to sing about: growing up in public; the perils of fame; a broken romance. And just as she’s changed her image — baggy skater shorts and green hair have given way to a softer look — so she has matured as a songwriter.
She no longer has the air of a sulky adolescent who refuses to tidy her bedroom. ‘I’m getting older, I think I’m ageing well,’ she murmurs on Getting Older, her whispered voice cushioned by Finneas’s deliberately wonky keyboards and a sweet, Beatles-like melody that seeps through his cutting-edge production.
It’s one of several songs that address the darker side of success: there are deranged strangers at Billie’s door, and she’s forever being judged on her appearance.
Given that she made her name by capturing the everyday concerns of her fans, you might think that complaining about the ensuing fame is ill-advised, but Eilish is clever enough to add twists to the tale. On Billie Bossa Nova, she uses the act of avoiding the paparazzi (booking hotel rooms under an assumed name) as a metaphor for a secret love affair.
Her anxieties are tempered with romantic yearning on Halley’s Comet, a 1960s-style piano ballad. Elsewhere, the mood is more troubled. Your Power confronts an abusive older man, examining a concerning issue against a backdrop of strummed acoustic guitar. Overheated tackles social media at its most sinister: ‘You want to kill me? You want to hurt me?’ But there’s a fearlessness amid the gloom on Therefore I Am, a rap-influenced kiss-off to an attention-seeking impersonator.
Happier Than Ever loses momentum in places. Its blurry moods become repetitive on Everybody Dies and Goldwing, and there’s nothing here as catchy as 2019’s kooky pop single Bad Guy.
But its brightest songs add something to Billie’s less-is-more approach. The beats-heavy Oxytocin is a full-blown dance number, and the title track features booming drums and guitar. On Billie’s Bossa Nova and My Future, there are hints of jazz and musical theatre — enough of a progression to confirm she’s no flash in the pan. n SIXTY years Eilish’s senior,
Barbra Streisand maintains an admirable work ethic. Having surprised fans with an album of protest songs in 2018, Broadway’s greatest singing star dips into the archives for a second volume of songs she had previously shelved.
Barbra, 79, maintains that release Me 2 isn’t a case of secondhand roses, and the ten, careerspanning rarities, updated with fresh touches, are largely highquality blooms.
The earliest track, a bright take on the 1940s standard right As The rain, offers a glimpse of an emerging talent. Streisand was Eilish’s age when she cut the song in 1962, but her range and control are remarkable.
DESPITE her Broadway roots, she also embraced the singer-songwriter boom of the 1970s, covering Graham Nash and randy Newman, and two tracks from that era surface here: she sprinkles sophisticated razzle-dazzle on Newman’s Living Without You and Carole King’s You Light up My Life.
No Streisand compilation would be complete without marquee duets, and this one contains three. A collaboration with Kermit The Frog is a novelty, but she sparkles with Barry Gibb on If Only You Were Mine and lays on the schmaltz, without being too mawkish, with Willie Nelson on I’d Want It To Be You.