Two years can seem like an eternity when you're 19 It can seem like a blink of an eye later. It can happen quickly later. That is why many listeners may have been surprised by Billie Eilishs latest album Happier Than ever. This feels like a huge transformation from the jumpy, slinky playfulness that was her full-length debut, 2019,s When We All Falls Asleep, What Do We Go? In the meantime, humanitys collective rhythm fell into an unimaginable Covid-19-shaped hole, which seems impossible to believe for anyone older than Eilish. Many people feel more subdued and shaken than ever, and Eilish is no exception.AdvertisementHappier Than Ever's title is dual-edged. If you were expecting a more upbeat and carefree record from the 21st century pop goth known to be able to channel nightmare-channeling lyrics, then this isn't it. Her defining songs are slower and more serious than this album. The album shows a mature artist overcoming her difficulties to find happiness, and asserting her right of self-possession in ways that make long-term happiness more possible.AdvertisementAdvertisementSubscribe to the Slate Culture newsletter and receive the best movies, TV, music, books, and other news straight to your inbox. Signing you up was not possible due to an error Please try again. To use this form, please enable jаvascript. Email address: I would like to receive updates on Slate special offers. You agree to our Privacy Policy & Terms by signing up. Thank you for signing up! You can cancel your subscription at any time.Eilish was seen raking at the nasties beneath the bed in the darkness, which was a large part of her debut. However, her main foes aren't the Babadooktheyre stalkers and internet haters, poor boyfriends, body shamers or power abusers. Eilish's fanciful horror movie world-building was hard to resist at first. In 2019, supported by Finneass, her sibling producer and co-writer, it felt like a new, unpredictable, and liberating presence in mainstream pop. Eilish, paired with Lil Nas X's Old Town Road success the same year, seemed to be a harbinger for a further-out and clich-crushing Pop-Generational turn.AdvertisementEarly celebrity can be a powerful force, especially when it comes to being under surveillance via social media. Eilish and Nas X, whose debut full-length Montero is due to be released anytime now, have perhaps inevitably used a lot of their energy to defend their psychic and personal integrity in the face of intense scrutiny. This is something that few people can imagine. Eilish pointed out that flattery can sometimes be just as damaging and confusing as criticism in interviews. Eilish's penchant for wearing baggy, camouflaging clothes was countered by the sexual excesses and sexiness of female pop stars. It made her a willing party to slutshaming but also implied that she would make a mistake if ever she wore more openly. Eilish, who had been photographed in voluminous lingerie by Vogue for the cover, changed her signature dyed-green hairstyle in the lead up to the release. This caused another backlash.AdvertisementAdvertisementHappier Than Ever has lines that criticize the internet peanut galleries' presumption to understand what is actually happening in their lives. They only have rumors, speculation and old online breadcrumbs. Eilish has been the most affected by the attention to her body. The album revolves around Not My Responsibility, a mid-album spoken-word monologue. It was premiered on her short-lived 2020 world tour. A short film shows Eilish slowly taking off clothes and then sinking in a pool of oil. She reveals that you have opinions about me, my music, my clothes and my body. You are always watching, she says. Eilish has not yet been through the same thing as Britney Spears, but she is surrounded by trusted family members and business associates who are well-vetted.AdvertisementAdvertisementA second album on fame and the pressures it brings is a industry standard. It often marks the moment when artists lose the connection to their audience. They are left seeing the world only through the eyes of publicists and travel. Eilish sings in the album's opening salvo, Getting older, and I started to worry about it. She still gives us another reason to keep going.AdvertisementHappier Than Ever's best moments are when it is most at its best. It is grounded in a desire to testify in a way that would have been beyond the Eilish 2019 while also allowing for enough privacy to request her autonomy. It combines the fame album, post-#MeToo feminist protest album, and the breakup album. The songs are repetitive enough to include complaints about a relationship to recall Olivia Rodrigo's single-minded debut Sour in May. There is just enough Billie-andFinneas sardonicism to not be an endless bummer.AdvertisementIt could have been shorter. A song about a fantasy clandestine hotel rendezvous feels like a Finneas-led musical exercise. Everybody Dies is an attempt to reach for a larger idea, a return of some When We All Fall Asleep preoccupations. While it is a refreshing change of pace, its poignancy is lacking in depth. Eilish's ability to mix themes from song-to-song and within songs allows her to connect relative banality with her unique life experiences as a young-adult celebrity. This is the public aspect of growing up today, regardless of how famous you are. An Instagram post or a tweet that is too outdated can ruin a young person's reputation or make them bullying bait. Although they don't have to deal with interviews and articles, which Eilish mentions in many songs as things she dislikes and wants to be remembered by her intimates, ordinary people can feel the same about their online interactions.AdvertisementThis complexity is matched by the musical switch she made with Finneas. They are less inclined to resort to homespun-trap, which was what made When We All Fall Asleep so they rely more on jazzy torch-song textures. Eilish credits Julie London's influence for the jazzier torch-song textures. The songs often start with retro mellow, then change to beats halfway through, such as the strummy title track and the ambient My Future. Happier Than Ever is an example of this. Eilish shouts, "Just fucking leave us alone" which may be the hidden subtext of every torch track.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe flipped version at the end, Male Fantasy, could be just as effective. Eilish can be seen distracted in a moment by porn and pondering the way the male gaze creates unrealistic depictions of womens satisfaction. But by the song's conclusion, it is about another distracting fantasy about males and how he might have made her happier.The albums most thematically encompassing and memorable track is probably the single Your Power, on which Finneas uses 1970s acoustic-singer-songwriter textures to couch gently some of Eilishs most confrontational lyrics about male power abuse, touching briefly upon personal experience while weaving in stories shes heard from or about others, to make a more universal point. Lyrics such as She was sleeping in your clothes/ But now, she has to go to school and You swear that you didn't know/ You thought her age. This is reminiscent of Phoebe Bridgers song about Ryan Adams brief relationship: "You said you were bored when you first met me/ But you were in a group when I was born.AdvertisementSome tracks are more bops-oriented than others. Last summers sarcastic-yet-Socratic single Therefore I Am, the one with the great pandemic-minded video of Eilish scarfing snacks in an empty food court, is represented. The NDA is also represented. It winkily hints at the off-the-radar romances that must sign non-disclosure agreement and recaps several of the album's other songs in its second line. I Didnt Change My Number is an anthem for fully-justified-ghosters everywhere, with some classic Finneas-and-Billie musical humor in the loops of menacing dog barks. Oxytocin has a Bad Guy-esque keyboard and vocal stylings but with more mature, eroticized lyrics. Eilish is both the pursuer, and the pursuer in this fully consenting-aged pleasure pretzel with a newer sensuality.AdvertisementThe sparkly moments that make Happier Than Ever shine are essential to keep fans going through the balladry, hush and other nonsense. But it does so sparingly. And then there is the beginning of Goldwing, preluded by layered Eilish voices performing a verse from early-20th-century English composer Gustav Holsts orchestral transliteration of the Hindu Rig Veda, and ascending to a whole other Kate Bush-fusion-hemispheric level of transcendencesomething I would never in a century have guessed she would include. It makes me think that Billie Eilish's second album is a cultural phenomenon, a statement about Gen-Z womanhood and an intervention in pop musics possible directions. Both Billie Eilish and Finneas could do almost anything in the future, given the brief history they have. If the future allows them.
