July 2021 wasn’t nearly as prolific of a month for music as May and June, but it still produced some very enjoyable projects. While I found some highly anticipated projects to be disappointing, including Logic’s return mixtape Bobby Tarantino III and the new album, Take The Sadness Out of Saturday Night, from Jack Antonoff’s solo project, Bleachers, there were also plenty of highlights from the month. Some of the fantastic music from July includes the raw UK hip-hop album We’re All Alone In This Together by Dave, and the depressive blackgaze on sonhos tomam conta’s hypnagogia; however, my favorite project from this month is undoubtedly the introspective R&B of Billie Eilish’s sophomore album, Happier Than Ever.
At this point in her career, Billie Eilish is an artist who needs no introduction. Over the past few years, she has created smash hit after smash hit, her music ubiquitous on Top 40 radio stations. Her 2019 debut album, WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?, was one of the most innovative electropop records in recent memory, so anticipation for her second LP was incredibly high. While I don’t think Happier Than Ever is quite as good as her debut, it’s still a fantastic album that builds on her strengths and explores new sonic landscapes.
The album opens up with the ambient pop track, “Getting Older,” which introduces some of the record’s central themes. At its core, Happier Than Ever is an album about abuse and toxic relationships, whether it be with her romantic partners, friends, or the music industry. On the first track’s outro, Billie gives a thesis statement for the album, singing, “I’ve had some trauma, did things I didn’t want to/Was too afraid to tell you, but now, I think it’s time,” representing the anxiety and negativity present in her life.
In the following song, “I Didn’t Change My Number,” Billie recalls ending a romantic relationship after her friends made her see its unhealthy nature. She writes, “I didn’t change my number/I only changed who I believe in,” implying that her ex-lover thought she had changed her phone number, not realizing they had been blocked.
The track’s outro is one of the album’s production highlights, allowing Billie’s brother and producer, FINNEAS, to feature some of the most abrasive synths he has used in a song thus far. On “Billie Bossa Nova,” she falls in love with another partner in a hotel lobby, crooning, “I’m not sentimental/But there’s something about the way you look tonight.” While primarily about positive aspects of love, the lyrics do hint at the future abusive nature of the relationship with lines like “I’m sorry if it’s torture, though.”
Following this is the bedroom pop track, “my future.” While I enjoyed this song as a single, it does feel a bit out of place on the album, and I feel as though it kills a bit of the musical and thematic momentum the album has gained so far. It’s undoubtedly a good song, but its inclusion on the record is one of my very few complaints with Happier Than Ever. Luckily, the album picks up again with the next track, “Oxytocin.” Billie’s relationship from “Billie Bossa Nova” grows more unhealthy, as the couple finds themselves in a parasitic situation, with Billie singing, “Can’t take it back once it’s been set in motion/You know I need you for the oxytocin.”
Next, the art-pop track “GOLDWING” describes the relationship of a young musician with the brutal music industry as corporations exploit the musician’s talent and subsequently abandon them. In the second verse, Billie sings, “They’re going to tell you what you want to hear/Then they’re going to disappear/Going to claim you like a souvenir/Just to sell you in a year.” While this isn’t Billie’s own story, it describes a narrative that she’s most likely seen countless times already throughout her career.
“Lost Cause,” the next track, is almost the opposite to the aforementioned “my future.” While I enjoyed “my future” on its own but not in the album’s context, I found “Lost Cause” to be a very disappointing single but excellent when placed among the rest of the tracks on Happier Than Ever. It features a very catchy bassline paired with Billie’s trademark whisper-singing against some trip-hop-esque percussion.
Billie’s unhealthy relationship continues on the pop-soul track “Halley’s Comet.” She begins to realize that she might not want to be with this partner, as she sings, “I don’t want to want you/But in my dreams, I seem to be more honest/And I must admit, you’ve been in quite a few.” Next, the spoken-word piece “Not My Responsibility” splits the album into two parts; Billie speaks to the music industry and the general public about how they judge her fashion choices. She feels that no matter what decisions she makes, she will always be judged harshly for what she wears: “If I wear what is comfortable, I am not a woman/If I shed the layers, I am a slut.”
On “OverHeated,” the same theme continues with Billie lamenting the constant gaze of the paparazzi, as she sings, “I don’t even really know how it happened/I started watching them photographing…Instead of stopping, they still were flashing.” In the second verse, she equates her relationship with the media to her unhealthy relationship with her lover throughout the album: “You want to kill me?/You want to hurt me?/Stop being flirty/It’s kind of working.”
Later, on the folk-pop track “Your Power,” she confronts her partner about their toxic relationship, asking him not to abuse the power he has over her. She sings, “Try not to abuse your power…You might not want to lose your power/But having it’s so strange.” In the second verse, she reveals that her partner gaslighted her into believing that she deserved his abuse: “I thought that I was special/You made me feel/Like it was my fault, you were the devil.” She feels trapped by his control and dominance: “Does it keep you in control?/For you to keep her in a cage?.”
She attempts to further distance herself from him on the following two tracks, “NDA” and “Therefore I Am,” despite still having some Stockholm Syndrome-esque romantic feelings for him. On “NDA,” she sings, “You couldn’t save me, but you can’t let me go/I can crave you, but you don’t need to know.” These feelings seem to mostly dissipate on “Therefore I Am,” where she mocks her ex-lover in the chorus: “I’m not your friend/Or anything, damn/You think that you’re the man/I think, therefore, I am.” While she has moved on, she’s not directly addressing her hurt and trauma and is masking it under the same bravado and machismo present in her ex-lover; however, this changes in the next track.
If someone had told me a year ago that the climax of Billie Eilish’s second album would be a two-part song consisting of a Sinatra-esque vocal jazz section and a noise rock section sounding like a Bury Me At Makeout Creek-era Mitski outtake, I would have found it ridiculous; yet, here we are. “Happier Than Ever,” the album’s title track and climax, is, simply put, probably the best song of the year. Even ignoring the thematically rich lyrical content, the song is a genuine musical masterpiece. The first section continues the jazzy folk influence throughout the album with a mellow acoustic-guitar-based tune until around the two-minute mark when a low drone enters the track. The guitar soon picks up pace and is replaced by electric guitars. The slow build leads to two minutes of pure catharsis from pent-up anger, frustration, and trauma as the blown-out drums and guitars back Billie’s singing. The most moving part of the song comes around the 4:10 mark when Billie stops singing and just screams over the roaring guitars because, at this point, there’s no way to verbalize the pain she’s in- but that’s the power of music. Even without words, the musical landscape painted by Billie and FINNEAS lets the audience experience her complex combination of heartbreak, anger, frustration, and sadness; when words fail to evoke, music can tap into primal emotions that no other art form can.
Billie Eilish’s Happier Than Ever masterfully chronicles the journey of an abusive relationship, from its romantic beginnings to its violent climax. The combination of Billie’s beautiful vocals and lyrics with FINNEAS’s endlessly creative production is a perfect match; the duo does a fantastic job conveying the emotional hurt of falling out of love. If it wasn’t already clear, Happier Than Ever solidifies Billie Eilish as one of the most incredible pop artists today.
The Verdict: For its innovative production, emotional journey, and the extraordinary second half of the title track, Happier Than Ever is July 2021’s Album of The Month.
