WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?
Billie Eilish makes me feel old. 17 years old, blue-haired, most frequently clad in outrageous Gucci jumpsuits, Eilish is the first major pop star to feel like she’s from a whole other generation from me. She’s like Lorde, who was 16 when “Royals” debuted, but for the generation who grew up on Pewdiepie and unboxing videos. She’s probably the first artist born after 9/11 to have a platinum record.
To talk about the darkness of growing up in the age of screens, Eilish’s gorgeously produced debut studio album WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? chooses horror as its aesthetic. Its tracks are sullen and nightmarish, but, like most horror movies, deeply comic. If Tim Burton made a movie about teenage depression, this album would be the soundtrack.
The title comes from the chorus of the album’s major hit, “bury a friend.” On the track, Eilish’s ghostly vocals float just above her brother Finneas O’Connell’s hypnotic production. Sounds of broken glass and Slasher-like screams break up her lyrics, which, at times, are troubling: they are somewhere in the gray area between youthful exaggeration, and honest vulnerability, with lines like: “Honestly, I thought that I would be dead by now” or “Bury a friend, I wanna end me.” It’s hard to tell: how much of this gloom is just instrumental to the album’s dark ornament, and how much is really Eilish?
Wedged between WHERE DO WE GO?’s thumping, horror tracks are softer ballads, like “xanny.” It’s about being the only sober person at a party: “On designated drives home / Only one who’s not stoned / Don’t give me a xanny now or ever.” It’s a different stance on party culture than that of, say, Bhad Bhabie, who is the closest in age to Eilish in popular music. But it’s also a reevaluation of drug use in the music industry in general, especially after the deaths of Lil Peep and Mac Miller.
There are also some unfortunate moments, such as the cornball, dubsteppy “you should see me in a crown,” or the annoying interludes littered throughout the album. But the most confusing choice of WHERE DO WE GO? is a track halfway through the album, titled “wish you were gay.” It’s a love song, ostensibly to a straight boy. His love is apparently so painful for Eilish that she tells him in the chorus, “I just kinda wish you were gay.” Eilish makes her instructions even more clear in the second verse: “Don’t say, I’m not your type / Just say that I’m not your preferred sexual orientation.”
It’s weird, it’s kind of problematic, and it’s a distraction from the rest of the album (and from the song itself, which otherwise, is totally there). Eilish is still a maturing artist (she is 17, I say again!) but her debut is well-crafted, and frighteningly, darkly stylish.
