The wunderkind of pop music Billie Eilish has already cleared the litmus test for being the next big thing: young people are glued to every word she sings, while their parents are completely unaware of who she is. Since 2019, everything has changed. Billie Eilish is now one of the biggest pop sensations in the 21st century since releasing her first album WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? in 2015, which included the viral smash “Ocean Eyes.” Eilish has been accepted by the old guard after becoming the embodiment of her generation, and her multiple Grammy victories bear the proof. In a post-genre world, she has blazed a new trail to stardom. Take a look at her musical journey that started in the last decade and now she seems unstoppable in 2021.
The music world hasn’t been spun into such a frenzy about a preternaturally brilliant pop artist since Lorde’s entrance. While most of the attention on Eilish’s rise has been on her youth, her abilities and lyrical depth are impossible to ignore. She began singing in the famous Los Angeles Children’s Chorus and creating melodies with her brother Finneas by the age of eight, despite the fact that the two were homeschooled. When Eilish was 13, she and her band released their beautiful song “Ocean Eyes” on SoundCloud, and the song became viral almost immediately, amassing over 200 million Spotify listens.
Her childhood:
It was December 18, 2001, the star was born in the heart of big dreams, Los Angeles, California. Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell is her real identity. Maggie Baird and Patrick O’Connell, her parents, were both well-known musicians. As a result, she was exposed to a wide variety of music and instruments from an early age.
Billie, on the other hand, does not come from a wealthy family. She grew up in a chaotic environment where her parents slept in the living room so that she and her brother could have their own beds. Both she and her brother grew up with homeschooling. While the other kids were busy with playing and studying, Billie was penning her debut song, “Fingers Crossed,” which she once said that she was inspired by the show “The Walking Dead”.
Eilish, who was home-schooled, always got enough creative freedom and was pushed to absorb all sorts of art from an early age. Her father would help her to create her mixtapes with artists ranging from Green Day to The Beatles, and Eilish would later play ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’ at her home-school singing contest when she was nine years old. She came close to the hip-hop culture and other bona fide musicians like Earl Sweatshirt and Childish Gambino as she started to grow up and formed her own musical interests.
The 18-year-old singer rose to fame at a young age, and at one time, she thought it was the worst thing that had ever happened to her. She turned suicidal but that was just a phase that she had ever addressed it so far.
Breakthrough record from the bedroom studio:
Although ‘Ocean Eyes‘ was a pioneering experience for Eilish, it wasn’t the only song the brother-sister duo self-released before signing to Platoon, a UK-based A&R firm, and then Interscope in 2016. Despite her major-label support, Eilish continues to compose and make music in her brother’s old bedroom studio, where they created her debut album, WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? She is engaged in all areas of her work, from tour graphics to cover art and merch design, as well as maintaining a large social media following.
Billie Eilish’s popularity is largely due to how streaming has changed music preferences. It’s why she’s racked up more than a billion listens before even releasing her debut album. From her debut song through her 2017 EP Don’t Smile at Me, Eilish has defied music taste and expectation. She’s been dubbed a pop star, but what really is pop anymore, and why should her followers care? From the macabre dance song “bury a friend” to the rodeo twang of “bellyache” and the delicate ballad “beautiful,” which features R&B singer Khalid, she has succeeded in providing a mellow vibe with each song while escaping being stereotyped.
The charm of Eilish is that she doesn’t have a Svengali-esque manager or studio executive attempting to shape her persona or sound into some false perception of what a pop star should look or sound like.
Frenetic connection with her teen fans:
Because of social media and a never-ending media world, all performers must now be more open about their personal lives than ever before. Fans relate to their icons’ personality just as much as their musical production, as Cardi B and Ariana Grande have demonstrated. This is not an exception in Eilish’s situation because of her age. Her adolescent followers regard her as a peer rather than an unfathomable celebrity. She discusses her Tourette condition, her rising popularity, and the loss of friends like the late musician XXXTentacion. More than a polished pop princess, she possesses the earnestness and identity of a SoundCloud rapper. She frequently mentions allowing her music to speak for itself and leaving art free to interpretation.
Despite having the demanding schedule of a worldwide music artist and living under intense press attention, Billie retains her youthful antics. From discussing her orthodontics to singing along with her buddies in the vehicle to Panic! At The Disco, Eilish maintains a glimpse of her adolescent self. This has also allowed her to unleash her strange sense of humor and compose songs about things she’s never experienced.
“Songwriting is similar to playing a game when you’re a kid. She told Fader, “You can be anything you want.”
Distinctiveness in the industry:
Billie Eilish aims to build out a unique career as a musician in general, like Tyler, The Creator, PARTYNEXTDOOR, and 21 Savage as influences. She’s quite chic in the sense of the latest fashion trend, and she’s aware of current fashions and then goes against them to make her appearance in the media. Her creative style is influenced by her passion for Japanese anime, streetwear, and rave subculture from the 1990s. She Eilis distinguishes out from her contemporaries both physically and musically. What other group of 18-year-olds is singing about napalm sky and leaving their pals? Her gloomy splash of pop melodies blurs the borders between existence and a fantasy experience that she consumed from her horrors and nightmares that kept her awake with surreal dreams.
Top 10 songs:
With her unique style and commitment to remaining “genre-less,” she is destined for greater prominence in the music business.
- Bad guy
- When the party’s over
- Bury a friend
- Lovely (feat. Khalid)
- Wish you were gay
- You should see me in a crown
- Come out and Play
- &Burn (w/ Vince Staples)
- Ocean Eyes
- Bellyache
List of awards won:
- Grammy Awards
2020 Record Of The Year
2020 Best Song Written For Visual Media
2019 Record Of The Year
2019 Album Of The Year
2019 Song Of The Year
2019 Best New Artist
2019 Best Pop Vocal Album
- American Music Awards
2019 Favourite Artist – Alternative Rock
2019 New Artist Of The Year
- MTV Video Music Awards
2019 Best New Artist
2019 Push Artist Of The Year
2019 Best Editing
Eilish, like several of her predecessors, is part of a generation that is discovering its own voice in high definition. Rather than recording everything in a journal, she documents her artistic development on the internet. She’s very much an online sensation, both in terms of what she’s experienced while connecting her soul to the rhythms of life and how she interacts with people. She is set to dominate more than just the music industry in an era when musicians are assumed to be multi-hyphenate. She is slowly planning to launch her own fashion brand and possibly create her own music videos. Her animated video “you should see me in a crown,” which she collaborated on with renowned Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, portrays an artist who enjoys pushing buttons and has the potential to defy the genre-based music industry.