“This industry is fucking horrible, but if I wasn’t doing this I would probably be miserable because this is always what I’ve wanted,” Billie Eilish recently confided during an interview for NME. “No matter how horrible fame is and how horrible this and that is: a lot of things make all of this worth it, y’know?”
Billie Eilish: the new muse of US pop
For the Californian singer, everything began very early. Born in 2001 into a family of actors and musicians, she was only fourteen when she dropped “Ocean Eyes” on the audio distribution platform SoundCloud. Within a few hours, that first track took off, spreading far and wide. Acclaimed by adolescents all over the world, Billie Eilish was soon being pursued. All the big labels were after her.
It was Interscope (Lana Del Rey, Madonna) that finally hit the jackpot. The wheels were in motion. In 2017, she established her preference for pop in a mini-album (Don’t Smile at Me) full of lively melodies. With her yellow coat, guitar in hand, and crooked smile, Billie Eilish was about to be transformed by Netflix.
Enlisted by the producers of the series 13 Reasons Why to make a soundtrack, she recorded “Bored”. In that song, the events leading to adolescent suicide found a voice. The new neo-gothic heroine, Billie Eilish now looks like she just came from a black mass. With the bizarre appearance of an ultra-cool witch, the American plays with her appearance a lot. Looking like a hungry zombie, with her neck wrapped in chains, she spits out tarantulas in the video for the excellent “You Should See Me in a Crown” and drinks poison in the video for her hit song “When the Party’s Over”.
Elevated by their rock-solid production, these new tracks, which have a newfound darkness, live up to the hype created by the single “Bury a Friend”.Last week, at a press conference, the leader of the Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl, drew attention to the singer: “My daughters are obsessed with Billie Eilish. The connection she has with her audience is the same thing that happened with Nirvana in 1991. […] People say, ‘Is rock dead?’ When I look at someone like Billie Eilish, rock and roll is not close to dead!”
At the end of March, the new star will release her second album, the title of which has already been revealed: When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? A question that suggests it will be a big hit.
BILLIE EILISH 25/2, 20.00 La Madeleine
Read more about: Brussel-Stad, Muziek, La Madeleine, pop
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