“WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?”
BILLIE EILISH ALBUM REVIEW
By Tayler Shaw, Staff Writer
Seventeen-year-old Billie Eilish has been in the music industry since the age of 13. She writes and produces music with her older brother, Finneas O’Connell, 22. Based off their music and production, both of them seem talented and intelligent, and based off the interviews I’ve seen, both of them seem to be very sweet people.
Eilish’s first original song, “Ocean Eyes,” boosted her music career, but she wasn’t well known yet. The song was dedicated to a love interest, comparing his eyes to the beauty of the ocean and how deeply in love she was. She released “Ocean Eyes” in 2016 on the music platform Soundcloud. Before she broke into the mainstream charts, Eilish was doing covers of songs from other artists, such as Drake’s “Hotline Bling.” “Ocean eyes” went viral overnight and now has 19 million Spotify plays.
On August 11, 2017, she released the EP “dont smile at me.” This EP clearly expressed that she wasn’t in a very good place at that time, and she has publicly said as much.
As an artist, Eilish likes to keep in contact with her fans, and she seems to have a very close connection with them. The fanbase she developed during her early years considered her to be their “little secret” because of her relative obscurity.
The most recent hype surrounding Billie Eilish is about her first debut album, titled ‘WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?’ Released March 29, 2019, she recorded it in 2016 in her brother’s home studio. The album has been nominated for many awards. It has recently been announced as “Album of the Year” at the Apple Music Awards and was nominated for “Favorite Album — Pop Rock” at the American Music Awards.
The album is a mixture of emotions and multiple meanings, a complexity that is showcased throughout. The first song was released as a single — “Bury A Friend,” expressed how she suffered from sleep paralysis during her years of being in the music industry.
The title of the album takes place in that song: “Why are you scared of me? / Why do you care for me? / When we all fall asleep, where do we go?” which became the iconic line for the start of this journey. Another chart-topping song is “bad guy” in which Eilish came off with a very upbeat bass-blasting tempo.
“Bad guy” in particular is my favorite because it is very upbeat — not that she’s never had upbeat songs, but it was unusual to hear something from her in that category. As she shifts into the pop genre, she takes it and develops it as her own, which makes her stand out from other pop stars.
Going down the tracks, the album constants a spiral of upbeat and happy to slow and sappy songs that you might’ve heard from her younger years such as ‘you should see me in a crown’ and ‘when the party’s over.’
“WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?” deserves praise and recognition — the songs express conflicted emotions and larger themes that relate to current events. In the song “Xanny,” she reaches out to youth who may be in the midst of using drugs, and she tells them these things shouldn’t be needed to feel better or feel happier.
Although one of her recent songs, “all the good girls go to hell” addresses the climate strike, the song and video aren’t understood as much but relating to the climate strike as some adults saw it as “demonic.”
The song and video were spot-on regarding climate change, such as the line “Hills burn in California.” The visuals in the video are the strongest message — in the background you see her fall in some sort of tar, representing oil. The trees began to go up in flames, representing the wildfires raging in California. I love that she decided on having a song specifically dedicated to climate change because it seems rare to hear things like this from the young music community.
Towards the end of the album, Eilish features her brother on “I Love You” a very slow and deep song. The song is cute — usually her brother doesn’t feature in her songs since he is behind the scenes as a producer. The actual meaning behind the song might be dedicated to her brother, but potentially also to her fans.
The album ends with the song “Goodbye,” which closes out Eilish’s album with one lyric from each of the songs on the album that are bunched in the song with more of an eerie vibe, but her vocals are very light on your ears.
I want to praise everything about this album. I’m impressed by the work she had to do to get this album together, made and released in two weeks. Eilish’s musical talent is unbelievable, while also giving credits to Finneas O’Connell for the behind-the-scenes work. Some of the songs on this album took me a minute to get used to, such as “Ilomilo” and “Strange Addiction.” Those two songs weren’t my favorites until I took the time to actually listen to them and catch the meaning behind them.
‘WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?’ is emotion-wrapped and blastful, and I feel should be acknowledged and recognized. I hope to hear another impactful album from Eilish as she continues to grow.
