HIT ME HARD AND SOFT
by Billie Eilish
This album has been added to 20 public lists:
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blue
hasanella✧THE DINER✧
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Favorite albums of 2024
NtsikaThe best album released in 2024. Omg Billie. 😭 What an ALBUM. Every song is just a hit. One minute you cry and minute you just sing your lungs out.
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Vortex's Album of the Year List '24
TomBillie Eilish has been one of my favourite artists out for a hot minute, and the announcement that her latest project, HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, would not have any singles prior to release... Be still my beating heart! The commitment to the album as an artform in itself is rare these days, and so it got me very very excited for this record. After a sophomore album that recieved middling reviews, bogged down by a surplus of singles that obscured the absolute gems hidden in the tracklist, I was looking forward to the much tighter third album. Man, does she deliver.
I remember this album coming out and me being completely godsmacked at how damn solid it was, top to bottom. Two tracks in, we get LUNCH, the most openly lesbian track you could possibly ask for. ("It's a craving, not a crush/I just wanna get her off"). Wait, holy shit, Billie Eilish swings both ways?? Yes indeed, and this is the first time we got confirmation! It's a chewy track, too; drenched in 90's grunge, vocals treated with the lightest touch, and just the right amount of edge. It's so damn fun, man.
Pushing on, CHIHIRO is unreasonably good. Subdued, thirsty bass laps over Billie's dry, lilting expressions of a push/pull relationship, exploding into immense meaty synths that are pitch-perfect. Speaking of pitch, Eilish's voice has never sounded this good before, soaring over her previous quiet delivery to deliver cloudlike punches to the gut at every opportunity, and just when you think the song has peaked she delivers one of the best verses of her career. Her writing is tight and vivid throughout, actually, but it really shines here: "Wringing my hands in my lap/When you told me it's all been a trap/And you don't know if you'll make it back/I said no, don't say that" This kind of writing is impeccably vague, allowing feeling to shine through without specifics clouding the rays. An absolute epic of a song.
CHIHIRO goes straight into BIRDS OF A FEATHER, which is quite simply one of the best feelings I've ever had listening to music. It's seratonin in a song, from the gorgeous textured bass to Billie's expressions of absolute, joyful, self-sacrificing love. This is damn good pop, guys! "I knew you in another life/You had that same look in your eyes/I love you, don't act so surprised".
Billie's never been this romantic before; nestled deep in the petalled guitars of WILDFLOWER is simmering emotion that crests over into raw feeling as the track blooms into a fevered mess. This song has grown on me the most out of all of them.
What makes this album so good is the devotion to experimentation outside of Billie and Finneas' usual style. You hear it in THE GREATEST, a gorgeous song reminiscent of Happier Than Ever's best track where she pushes even further into the rock genre. But the real standouts come later, in the form of L'AMOUR DE LA VIE. It's so meaty and satisfying in its first half, condemning a lovebombing partner. All fine stuff, until out of nowhere there is a complete tonal shift. Synths! The flattest drums you've ever heard, autotune, a yowl, lyrics shooting out out like daggers (sparingly and furiously), and now the former half of the track is recontextualised; despite the emotional restraint, this is how Billie really feels. It's stunning.
From here, we get THE DINER, which is spooky as fuck. It's narrated from the point of view of Billie's stalker; ("You could be my wife") he follows her down the street, climbs over her fence, leaves a calling card... sees her in the car with her boyfriend, finds her phone number, and threatens to kill anyone who gets close to her. Not a fun time, and it's pretty brave of Billie to tell it this way; often the main thing stalkers want is attention.
BITTERSUITE is like a mix of CHIHIRO and L'-AMOUR; drenched in wet, firm synths, then plunged deeper into the depths and planted firmly in the realm of "weird". What makes it, however, is the transition; really, this album has twelve tracks. Billie drowns, pitchshifts out of centre stage, in her place a grief-stricken synth and quiet whispers. The synth whispers to us, and it's only after BLUE begins that we understand BITTERSUITE as an introduction. BLUE is stunning, a collation of three tracks cut from three different eras of Billie and picked up, assembled into one stunner of a track. It has the absolute best chorus on the album; like its precursor, the synth, Billie's voice is laced with pain, until it's submerged again, accompanied by the best lyrics she's ever penned: "You were born bluer than a butterfly/Beautiful and so deprived of oxygen/Colder than your father's eyes/He never learned to sympathize with anyone". Spooky, and it gets spookier when the bottom falls out of the track, giving way to the bass that hits you as hard as it can; pitchshifted voice, morphing back into reality with hard kicks and... is that the violin from SKINNY?
HIT ME HARD AND SOFT is the best thing Billie's ever made, hands down. Even before pop was flipped on its head by the newcomers, Billie showed that she could still make something that pushed the culture forward. Both painfully emotional and achingly brutal, she's created another project we'll look back on as redefinining the pop landscape.
...but when can I hear the next one?
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Best, Favorite, & Most Interesting Albums Of 2024
Mark- Genre: Alt-pop, Bedroom Pop, Indie Pop.
- Influenced by: Lana Del Rey, Lorde, The Weeknd, Radiohead, James Blake.
- Similar artists: Olivia Rodrigo, SZA, Doja Cat, Halsey, Clairo.
- About this album: "Hit Me Hard And Soft" is Billie Eilish's third studio album. The album delves into themes of vulnerability, self-discovery, and navigating relationships. Eilish co-wrote and produced the album with her brother and frequent collaborator, Finneas O'Connell. A more introspective album that isn't afraid to explore darker themes.
- Metacritic Score: 89 (universal acclaim).
- Grammy Nominations: Album of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Album.
- Song To Sample: The gloomy but soulful "Wildflower."
- Trivia Bonus: In 2020, Eilish became the youngest person to win all four major Grammy awards in a single year. She began writing music at the age of eleven.
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z0z4
jzfski 💭🇺🇸
Alt-Pop
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Favorite Albums of 2024
ArtemisThe instrumentation and rather innovative production on this album took me by surprise. It actually sent chills down my spine hearing those instrumental outros or breaks. I loved her voice, her vulnerability and her naissance of sapphic anthems. Specifically, I would like to highlight the song L'amour de ma vie which had such a flawless transition into a disco-esque production which kept going for the rest of the album.
With this album, she has stayed true to her roots of hiphop-inspired beats/production while venturing into new realms. Chihiro is her best song to date. The synths are absolutely epic. Need them tattooed on my soul. And the disco influence already starts shining on this song.
”Sometimes the music is so fucking good, you get high without the drugs” best describes this album as a religious experience. I love the synths mixed with the disco beats in Chihiro soooo much. The 80s JPop vibes from Chihiro extend to Bird of a Feather. The latter is where those elements of that time and place truly manifest. Best album I’ve heard this year so far - front to back.
This is the best album reimplementing retro stuff. The bass in conjunction with an e-guitar is ingeniously orchestrated. The variation between the electronic disco, hiphop or some r&b-esque beats is just a masterpiece. Leave it upto FINNEAS to produce perfections. As if all this wasn’t enough, there is one melody that keeps appearing on the album in form of snippets until it gets its time to shine on the closer.
Absolutely gagged by this album, it seriously has me by the balls. She manifested what Hostage was all about lol.
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Best Ever
Oliverowned
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2024 Listen Log
MRSHAWNLIU[June] I'm into it.
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2024 Listens
BarryAs always, Eilish's albums sound great. Nothing has grabbed me so far. Well, except for "LUNCH". 😆
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