After three years of anticipation, Grammy and Oscar winning musician Billie Eilish released her third full studio recorded album, HIT ME HARD AND SOFT (HMHAS), following her two previous albums, WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? (2019) and Happier Than Ever (2021), along with her EP dont smile at me (2017). Lasting 43 minutes with 10 tracks in total, HMHAS dives into Eilish’s blue and bittersweet world.
Eilish has established herself with an alternative, melancholy, and breathy style of music. She achieves this sound with the help of a unique production by her brother and producer Phineas O’Connell and her high-pitched, airy vocals encased in tones of sorrow. Her signature style has evolved with this album, however, including a more mature sound and hardier vocals. HMHAS traces the story of Eilish falling out of love with a toxic man and, for the first time, falling in love with a woman. Other songs, like “SKINNY” and “THE DINER,” address tales as old as time such as the perils of fame and ever-changing beauty standards forced onto women everywhere. As a whole, this record is a tear-drenched rabbit hole into Eilish’s life over the past few years and a display of her unshakable talent to continuously create masterpieces.
The opening track, “SKINNY,” is a seamless transition from her last album Happier Than Ever to her current sound. Happier Than Ever was heavily centered around her newfound fame after the explosion of her career with WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?, and that has trailed along with her into HMHAS. Lyrics such as “Am I acting my age now? Am I already on the way out?” confront her fears of society being done with artists, treating them as a toy to throw away as soon as they are deemed “old.” Eilish also reflects on her body and the industry being a poisonous atmosphere with unachievable body standards constantly forced upon women. “SKINNY” is a somber and contemplative ballad on her past and future, with a violin-filled symphony bringing the song to a close and the album to an open.
“WILDFLOWER” falls through the veil into a complicated situation between Eilish and two other people. The song begins with a quiet acoustic guitar melody and slowly progresses into the lapping of her voice and background harmonies until the pre-chorus and chorus begin. Each voice then merges into a gradient channel of whispers and pain-stricken pleas. As the song continues, this pattern is repeated until the end when a crescendo of every instrument and harmony crashes together into a beautiful, thunderous polyphony. Vocally, lyrically, and instrumentally, this song seeps with pain-staking, unfathomable guilt. “WILDFLOWER” is a well of emotions waiting to be uncovered and to release its sparkling despair on the listener.
Inspired by Writer and Director Hayao Miyazaki’s 2001 Studio Ghibli film Spirited Away, “CHIHIRO” takes on the point of view of the lead character Chihiro, a ten-year-old girl navigating through a mystifying spirit realm, and brings to life this story with Eilish’s own underlying meanings. “CHIHIRO” amalgamates motifs of loss, unification, determination, and abuse that are apparent in Spirited Away along with lyrics that weave in her own experiences to mirror Chihiro and Eilish’s story. Possessing a profound meaning is one thing, but being able to retell a story through her own eyes to illustrate how Spirited Away can mean something entirely different in the context of Eilish’s life events is an artistic feat. Sonically, “CHIHIRO” contains excellent movement, rhythm, and atmospheric background vocals to bring the lyrics to life. Eilish and her brother have a remarkable ability to transport listeners into their realm of creation, and this song is one of many perfectly executed examples of that.
The final track, “BLUE,” is a reimagined rendition of Eilish’s unreleased-and fan favorite-song “True Blue.” “BLUE” is a double feature, two different songs bridged together to create an evolved, more polished final form of the draft that was “True Blue.” It also contains notes of “Born Blue,” an unreleased track from Happier Than Ever. Eilish begins the song with vocals and instruments reminiscent of her earlier music, with a softly sung interlude detailing a somber series of unfortunate events that have unfolded in someone else’s life following. Traces of Happier Than Ever’s sound can be found in the bridge, with the final part of the song taking on the mood of HMHAS as a whole to close out the song and album. However, the ambiguous message “But when can I hear the next one?” is quickly inserted at the end leaving room for speculation of what is to come next. Overall, “BLUE” is a beautiful and melancholic song, and a perfect way to bring HMHAS to an end.
Eilish and her brother have stepped out of the current music trends to put together a moon-struck, tear-drenched, tragic love story that explores Eilish’s first queer relationship. Everything about this record is polished, thought out, and meticulously structured to create the sensation that is HIT ME HARD AND SOFT. This album truly is the greatest.
