EXTENDED PLAY 071: BILLIE EILISH | HIT ME HARD AND SOFT | ALBUM REVIEW

Words by Sofia Perica.

Billie Eilish has done it again. She just pumps out the greatest album of this decade.

I’ve been obsessed with her since her dont smile at me era, and I have essentially grown up with her. She has a way of perfectly capturing and articulating emotions and it’s fucking gut wrenching to hear. 

HIT ME HARD AND SOFT just shows you the musical genius of Billie and Finneas and I am in awe at how lucky we are to live in the same realm as them.  I didn’t think they could get any better after Happier Than Ever, but they did. For me, this album could not have had better timed. I have no joke played it 10 times over since it came out. The blend of the introspective lyrics and atmospheric musical production just leads itself to a sound that is totally unique and ground-breaking. 

Here are my favourite songs on the album: 

SKINNY

‘People say I look happy…just because I got skinny, but the old me is still me and maybe the real me and I think she’s pretty.’

To me, this song is about getting older and getting what you wished for, but still wondering why you’re still unhappy. This song is about growing up as a woman learning to love your body, who you are as a person and letting go of the shame and self-loathing that comes with being young. So many women can relate to this; looking back at yourself, remembering the state you were in and giving yourself grace and love to that past version of you. 

As women, we are constantly scrutinised for the way we look, and our worth in society is unfortunately very much tied to our bodies. 

Women are getting closely scrutinised more than ever, as people, particularly men, are able to anonymously hide behind their screens. In an age of pornography and the rise of anti-women content (Andrew Tate) so many men feel entitled to comment on the female body and it is so disappointing to see.

Particularly in the age of social media, all this subliminal messaging about diet culture, anti-aging and body shaming, it’s no wonder so many women are so insecure about their bodies. 

Billie, because she’s in the public eye, has faced so much criticism of her body, particularly as up until recently, she was hiding her body behind baggy clothes.  

LUNCH

I love this new Billie. This song really shows she’s getting comfortable in her queerness. It’s so playful and sensual and I feel like it shows a side to Billie that we haven’t really seen before. 

I personally LOVE how a lot of the songs on the album have that Happier Than Ever esqueness when the beat completely switches in the middle of the song. The beat drop that uses sexy, bass guitar sounds, electric synth and sporadic breath noises is just *chef’s kiss* so hot oh my god!!! Every time this part comes on, I can’t help but have a lil boogie.

It was a good choice to use this song as the teaser for the album. I feel like it’s a good representation of the album conceptually. It shows Billie getting comfortable in herself and her identity.

CHIHIRO

CHIHIRO is just fantastic. It’s so ominous and eery. The whispered, echoed voices combined with the harsh beat gives me chills. 

I know this song is loosely based on the character, Chihiro, from Spirited Away who gets trapped in a spirit realm and tries to escape it and save herself and her family. To me, CHIHIRO articulates feeling lost and lonely as a young adult. 

It shows how much her voice has matured and her vocal range – the signature Billie whisper voice contrasted to her belt voice, is just phenomenal. 

I love the middle of the song when it completely switches to the electric synth that rises in pitch and intensity. Combined with echoed screams of ‘I DON’T KNOW WHY I CALL, I DON’T KNOW YOU AT ALL’ It makes me feel like I’m floating in the universe, being flung from Earth and transported to outer space. This song has made me a changed woman. It makes me feel alive again. I want to sprint as fast as I can to this song, preferably in a forest. 

BIRDS OF A FEATHER 

This song slaps so hard too, and is my favourite song on the album.  I feel like it really showcases a playful love that is simultaneously just as meaningful.

This song makes me think about the platonic love I have for my friends. Being young, I feel like it’s so easy to prioritise the search for romantic love that you forget how friendship is the most fulfilling love you can possibly have. 

Particularly, female friendship; it’s such an intimate, deep connection and I honestly do not know where I would be without it. It’s like the Dolly Alderton quote “everything I learnt about love, I learnt from my long-term friends with women” and it couldn’t be more true. My friends make me feel so beyond, like I’m invincible and I feel so inspired every day just being by their side. 

The lines ‘I know I said I’d never think I wasn’t better alone’ and ‘it was always you’ resonates with me, because it correlates to the realisation that love doesn’t need to be searched for, it’s already contained within friendship. 

WILDFLOWER

This song makes me want to cry every time I hear it. The soft drumming of guitar, combined with the soul-crushing lyrics makes this song one of the most emotional songs on the album. 

Retroactive jealousy is so real, and it can ruin so many relationships. Constantly thinking about a past relationship your partner has had, creates such a sabotaging internal conflict; the constant comparison and inadequacy of ‘every time you touch me, I just wonder how she felt.’

‘I know that you love me, you don’t have to remind me, I should put it all behind me shouldn’t I.’ This battle of trying to let it go but being addicted to hurting your own feelings or even holding onto an unspoken hurt that your partner has caused in the past shows how resentment can be built up and cause a breakdown in a relationship.  

This song is hauntingly beautiful and perfectly captures the complexities of dealing with past relationships in order to build new ones.

THE GREATEST

This song showcases Billie’s struggle of always trying to be bigger person that ultimately has no reward. She contemplates the strength it takes to do the right thing, and putting up with behaviour she doesn’t deserve, waiting for someone to change that doesn’t want to change.

The build up with the strings and the belted harmonies is literally the best thing I’ve ever heard. The line ‘I loved you, I still do, just wanted passion from you, just wanted what I gave you, I waited and waited’ hit me so hard. 

L’AMOUR DE MA VIE

This song on the album is different thematically. I think here, it shows her acceptance of losing someone and her realisation that the person she dated wasn’t right for her in the first place.

It explores having an infatuation with someone that you realise after the relationship is over, that the love that you had for them was not really real. It’s kind of brutal to be honest.

The line ‘thought I was depressed or losing my mind..but when I left it was obvious why’ is interesting. It’s crazy how your intuition knows you’re not right for someone before your mind makes sense of it.  

‘You said you’d never fall in love because of me, but you moved on, immediately’ - this is the case for so many people who are incapable of being alone, and crave the validation of having a romantic partner in their life. It’s a hurtful experience to realise another person was just using you in this way, but for Billie, this must have been freeing, noted by the unseriousness of the lyrics and the subtle laughs sprinkled throughout.