On Monday, April 8, Billie Eilish posted a captivating video of herself submerged underwater, seemingly from a door which is shown above her, accompanied by music playing in the background. She later confirmed the upcoming release of her third studio album, “Hit Me Hard and Soft.” As the week progressed, buzz around Coachella reached an all time high, and despite not being one of the 150 artists performing at the festival, Eilish ingeniously used the event to promote her upcoming album.
Following a touching performance with Lana Del Ray on Friday, Eilish extended an invitation to her fans via Instagram for a surprise party on Saturday. During this gathering, she teased many of her songs on the new album, including “Chihiro,” “Lunch” and “L’AMOUR DE MA VIE.”
“Billie’s new album shows how she has developed her style of producing music overtime. Her style of music is beautiful and emotional,” said sophomore Emiliana Dajdea.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Billie described “Hit Me Hard and Soft” as being a return to her true self. In the interview, Eilish remarked that the whole process felt like “…coming back to the girl that I was. I’ve been grieving for her, I’ve been looking for her in everything, and it’s almost like she got drowned by the world and the media. I don’t remember when she went away.”
The album resembles Eilish’s debut album “when we fall asleep where do we go.” The song “Blue” especially makes note to Eilish finding herself. The song stands out in her album, reworking two previously unreleased songs, starting with “True Blue,” an unreleased song that Billie Eilish made as a teenager. The second half of the song uses “Born Blue,” a song which was initially meant for her second album, “Happier Than Ever.”
“I think that the album is some of Billie’s best work with songs like ‘Lunch,’ ‘Birds of a Feather,’ and ‘The Greatest.’ I still think that ‘Male Fantasy’ and ‘Happier than Ever’ are her best songs but as a whole album, HMHAS is the best,” sophomore Calum Rouzier said.
The album starts with the song “Skinny,” discussing body image issues and falling in love. The third song on the album, “Chihiro,” is named after a character in the movie “Spirited Away.” Much of the song is in reference to the 2001 movie with the lyrics “saw your seat at the counter when I looked away, saw you turn around but it wasn’t your face” is likely inspired by a scene in the movie in which Chihiro’s parents turn into pigs. “The Diner,” the eighth song on the album, talks about a fan experience that Billie Ellish had, with the fan breaking into her home and leaving by a note. She wrote the song from the perspective of the fan.
“A couple of Billie’s new songs have been stuck in my head and trending on TikTok since they were released, like ‘Lunch,’ ‘Chihiro’ and ‘Birds of a Feather,’” junior Jashlene Jayant said.
One thing which made “Hit Me Hard and Soft” especially unique is the decision to not release any singles prior to the album’s release date. One reason this decision was made was in order to force listeners to listen to the whole album and for environmental reasons. In an interview with Billboard, Billie expressed her disappointment in artists who make multiple vinyl variants, leading fans to buy multiple vinyls to listen to all of an album’s songs which is extremely wasteful. In compliance with her conservation efforts, last year, Eilish took the initiative to create the Music Sustainability Alliance which works to bring the music business to “adapt to a climate changed economy accompanied by new regulations.”
