Billie Eilish / Melancholy Rising
Billie Eilish is the latest teen singing sensation to burst onto the pop music scene. After practically sweeping the Grammys – most notably winning trophies for best album, best song, and best new artist – the 18-year-old wunderkind was also thrust into the spotlight with the release of No Time to Die, the title track for the upcoming James Bond film now rescheduled to hit the theatres in November. She was even asked to sing at the Oscars in February where she did a cover of The Beatles’ “Yesterday” for the “In Memoriam” segment (although she later slated her performance, calling it “trash.”)
Eilish, born Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell, has managed to turn herself into an object of mass appeal with her melancholy Goth-pop melodies that are as entrancing as they are intense. She’s also managed to keep her perspective amid the rocketing kind of idol worship that has descended upon her.
“I’m pretty happy…” Eilish said. “Like, everything around me is just a little bit perfect, y’know? It’s kind of perfect. I’ve never really used that word to describe anything about my career and I have been lately, which is a huge, huge blessing to me…”
Her extraordinary debut album, “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?,” finished at Number One on the record charts in 2019 with 2.5 million total album-equivalent units in 2019, selling 400,000 more units than any other artist. Even more impressively, Eilish has racked up a staggering 15 billion combined streams thanks to the album’s oft-whispered tracks of darkness, teen angst and existential longing. The record is seen as a game changer in the pop universe and has established her as a brave new talent still in the process of defining her already formidable aura and groove-pop vibe.
What makes her sudden ascension to the musical pantheon so stunning is that she has relied only on herself and her former Glee actor older brother, Finneus O’Connell, 22, who serves as her co-writer, producer, and musical accompanist…