Music Review - Billie Eilish "When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go?"

Billie Eilish "When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go?" **

I was not looking forward to reviewing this.  And not because I was expecting it to be bad, either.  It's because after hearing "You Should See Me In A Crown" I felt...gross.  I felt...uncomfortable.  Manipulated even.  This song does things to me I don't understand and really don't like.  It was a unique reaction to have to music, so I explored more of her work to see if I could piece it together.

Listening to the album, I figured it out by track 2.  It's ASMR.  Which has always creeped me out.  "Bad Guy" REALLY provoked a negative reaction in a way I didn't think possible from something so unassuming.  I've never been skeeved out by how a song sounded before, but DAMN this gets under my skin in ways that makes me want to run for the hills.  The hell of it is it's not a bad song.  Its sarcastic sense of humor and understated delivery work really well, but the way she's singing it and the way its mixed and layered is making me feel unpleasant in the extreme.  It's not even bad singing; I'm just...allergic to it.  It raises my hackles in a way I can't handle.

"Xanny" is not a great choice for the second song on the album because it's way too sleepy (see: the title).  Again, not a bad song; it paints a decent picture that I can relate to having bussed tables in a bowling alley in the 90s, but its placement is a momentum killer in the first degree.  We were just getting started; "Bad Guy" had a bounce to it, and then all the steam escapes and we're waiting for "Crown" to come and get us off the tracks.

"You Should See Me In A Crown" isn't as bad now that I understand what's happening, but I'm still not gelling with it.  I'm normally a sucker for a song like that: slinky, dark and hits hard like a lead pipe cinch.  But because of how its constructed, it gives me the heeby geebies and I don't want to hear it again.

"All The Good Girls Go To Hell" is a better Lily Allen song than Lily Allen has done in a decade.  It's not particularly great or anything; it's still trying to paint Billie Eilish as the Sadako stand-in on the album cover by referring to Lucifer again (which I don't buy, but I'm willing to suspend my belief in a pro-wrestling way for the conceit of the project I guess), but other than that it's pretty unremarkable.

"Wish You Were Gay" continues that theme, a plodding number with an undeserved provocative title and the barest hint of swing.  Again, not bad, but only slightly above competent.  "When The Party's Over" is better, but it's the kind of song that only works for me if I like the ones surrounding it; it's not strong enough on its own to do anything.

Another thing I've noticed is the deliberate distortion of synth bass (and some distorted vocals) on most of the songs.  We're talking like Vine compilation distorted.  A lot of critics who have made their bread and butter out of tearing albums to pieces on their "heinous production" aren't saying shit about this issue; they're just gushing about how awesome this album is.  I get why non-critics overlook it: Vine videos with distorted sound in them are a trope; a genre even.  That kind of sound is so ubiquitous people don't bat an eyelash at such a mixing oversight anymore.  But the real reason this has become accepted practice is Soundcloud rap.  It's from nearly a decade of amateurs who have no idea how to produce a record uploading the first thing they've ever made to Soundcloud and having it blow up.  That happened so many times that the bad production became a legitimate stylistic decision; a genre unto itself.

And it's awesome to observe something like that happen in real time.

Music needed a shake-up.  There needed to be new sounds, new ways of doing things.  Whether I like it or not is irrelevant; art needs to progress to stay alive.  Still, I think Billie Eilish's use of it is a little too blatant.  It toes the line and then goes over, then brings the other foot.  She's standing there for all to see, and specifically for her to be seen saying "Yeah.  This is intentional.  Deal with it."  Which...I can respect well enough.  The results are pretty underwhelming though, and I think that's why it doesn't feel like a bigger deal.

"8" is a SPECIFIC type of hell for me.  A breathy, high-pitched voice like that makes me believe 100 percent that this is some kind of demon coming to kill my ass.  Holy SHIT that made me squirm.  I already sort of felt that way about Eilish's voice to begin with, but pitching it up an octave takes it somewhere I'd rather be waterboarded to avoid.

"My Strange Addiction" has a bunch of random samples from The Office, and a synth line repurposed from Iggy Azalia's "Fancy", et somehow it winds up being one of the best songs on the album.  I think it has the best hook and it's the least ASMR-ey.

"Bury A Friend"'s hook is ugly, but on purpose.  It's the most cinematic song on a record full of images.  As a song it's a skeleton; there's nothing there.  But as a scene in a bigger picture it's pretty striking.

"Ilomilo" feels like it almost goes somewhere, but winds up being too whispy to materialize.  "Listen Before I Go" is another one like "When The Party's Over"; it would have had more impact if its surrounding material was more substantial, but without the support it crumbles.

"I Love You" has a cool guitar line; I feel like it came from a Zelda game, but it's the third ballad in a row.  Are we being lulled into soporiphia to be forced to confront where we actually go when we fall asleep?  Because man these last four songs could have just been one.  (They're also all about the same thing: relationships.)

Out of fourteen tracks, I liked "Bad Guy", "You Should See Me In A Crown" and "My Strange Addiction" as songs, but only the last one as an experience.  I have respect for this as art, but after hearing this album, I figure the secret ingredient has to be ASMR.  It gives you the tingles because of sympathetic vibration; the sound makes your nerves do things they don't normally do like an instrument striking the right note to make another unattended instrument in the same room vibrate.  And if that's your jam, that's your jam.  I'm not here to judge or stop you.  But it's not for me.  (When you think of it, adding an extra experience on top of the music besides just something pleasing to hear is both a brilliant way to get noticed and get over the digital wallpaper problem, but it's also damning for the rest of music that it will never be enough on its own again to get anyone's attention.)  (Oh, you mean like when bands had to make music videos to get noticed?)  (Oh.  Right.  Fair point.  You wanna grab lunch?)  (Thought you would never ask...)

(One more thing: For people who think Billie Eilish is an "industry plant", and thought that's where I might have been going with the introduction...do you even know how most music is brought to your attention?  Even if the artist is "independent"?  The industry.  Streaming platforms themselves are part of "the Industry" now.  They work hand in hand with "the Industry" to be able to stream music in the first place.  If you use Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Google Play (even Bandcamp to a certain extent, since smaller labels allow their artists to post there), you're hearing the music because of "the Industry".  It's the only reason those platforms are financially viable.  There are no "plants".  Monsanto has always owned the farm.)