One day, Billie Eilish may make the greatest pop album of her generation. Today is not that day, but she’s getting there. Her music is moving in the direction of profundity; in the future, I can see it slowly coming to rest at a version of pop that is traditional, essential. Billie has always reverse engineered pop music, but now, rather than trying to find its final, elemental form, she is beginning to look back to its platonic ideal. At times, there is a plainness and an innocence to the way Billie expresses herself on HIT ME HARD AND SOFT that calls out to the 60s, to those girl groups, to Blossom Dearie. Meanwhile, her production (with brother FINNEAS) has never been less classical and her arrangements more conventional, reaching back to the 70s more often than before.

All of this significant because of Billie’s withering, pure voice. As a singer, she is capable of communicating something genuinely timeless – her Oscar-winning Barbie contribution ‘What Was I Made For’ confirms as much. Not many other pop stars working today have that gift. I look forward to hearing her music arc towards its logical endpoint. Her voice contains a secret; someday, the truth may out.

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Sam Gollings

18 May 2024