Billie Eilish had “no idea who she was” when she made ‘Happier Than Ever’.
The 22-year-old megastar has just returned with her favourite work to date, ‘Hit Me Hard And Soft’, and has confessed its 2021 predecessor was penned when she wasn’t as “comfortable” in her own skin.
She explained to Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1: “I think for that one we just didn’t put that much into it. That’s why there’s 16 songs. Nobody needs that many songs… As much as [it] was coming from this place of like, ‘We’re so good, this sounds so good,’ it was also, at least for me, not knowing at all who I was. ‘Hit Me Hard And Soft’ is almost the reverse of that… We were like, ‘I don’t know if we’re making anything good. This might be terrible.’ Now when I think about it, I’m like, ‘Yeah, but I’m comfortable in who I am now.”
Billie – who underwent a style makeover for her second LP, leaning into the Hollywood glamour style with blonde locks – and her collaborator and brother, Finneas, admitted they were a little “cocky” making the LP after all the accolades and adulation they received for her record-breaking 2019 debut album, ‘When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?’.
They explained: “It was two people that had just been told the nicest things imaginable and we sat around making these songs. And I know from remembering it that we sat around being like, ‘We are so good.’ […] there are songs where we’d work on something for one day and I’d be like, ‘Done!’”
Sharing her pride of her latest record, the ‘Lunch’ singer wrote on Instagram: “HIT ME HARD AND SOFT” my third album is f***ing out now i don’t even know what to SAAYY… @finneas and i put so much into this album and have never ever ever loved something more. we hope you enjoy it so much and i’ll see you on the other side EEEEEEEEEEEEEK HMHAS OUT NOW EVERYWHERE LOVE YOU ALL TO DEAAAAATH!!!! (sic)”