A full year after the unleashing of the first single from Happier Than Ever, “my future,” was released on July 30, 2020, we now have the complete product. A “sultry” sixteen-track rumination on heartache, mortality and the bizarre form of existence that occurs as a result of being famous.
Unlike most “L.A. ladies,” Eilish is a bit fond of irony, calling an album Happier Than Ever while admitting, “Almost none of the songs on this album are joyful.” Yet part of becoming “happier than ever” stemmed from releasing these demons into a sonic format. Like a Horcrux for these dark emotions, Eilish has released out of her body and onto a record. Now we bitches can all deal with it instead. And even if the parts about the pratfalls of fame don’t quite resonate, there’s something designed to touch a nerve in the proverbial “human experience” for everyone. Starting with the first track, the somewhat laughably titled “Getting Older” as, to reiterate, Eilish is nineteen. With a musical background that sounds like it would be used in a Sufjan Stevens song or a Wes Anderson movie, Eilish alludes to that aforementioned sense of irony in verse one with the lines, “There’s reasons that I’m thankful, there’s a lot/I’m grateful for/But it’s different when a stranger’s always waitin’ at your door/Which is ironic ’cause the strangers seem to want me more than anyone before/Too bad they’re usually deranged.” Too bad indeed, but that’s what you get from a town that spawned the Manson Family.
She continues to address her newfound sense of vague inner peace thanks to the supposed maturity that comes with getting older, remarking in the chorus, “Things I once enjoyed/Just keep me employed now/Things I’m longing for/Someday, I’ll be bored of/It’s so weird that we care so much until we don’t.” In other words, spending so much of her (still germinal) life trying to attain what some people spend their entire existence wanting to achieve (“fulfillment” through artistic recognition))—and actually getting it—has somehow turned out to be rather hollow. Or at least not as “end all, be all” as previously thought. This is where she treads on Lana Del Rey territory once more, a woman who notoriously declared on “God Knows I Tried,” “I’ve got nothing much to live for ever since I found my fame” (and, obviously, Del Rey remains a major influence on the lyrical tone of Eilish).
The cheekier “I Didn’t Change My Number” is established as such with the dogs barking during the intro (in a tamer way than the ones that initiate Sublime’s “Waiting for my Ruca”) and has an accordingly moodier backing track that sounds like a modern update on the church organ as Eilish taunts, “Don’t take it out on me/I’m out of sympathy for you/Maybe you should leave/Before I get too mean/And take it out on you.” In many respects, this won’t be the first time Eilish channels the sass and overconfidence of Amy Winehouse on her first record, Frank. Case in point, the initial instance of spotlighting her jobist tendencies (that will become more full-fledged on “Lost Cause”), Eilish goads, “I gotta work, I go to work.” As in to say: you don’t.
A jankier kind of scatting happens at the outset of “Billie Bossa Nova” that harkens back to Winehouse’s “Intro” on Frank. And, speaking of that name, since Eilish cites Frank Sinatra (whom, yes, Amy named her debut after) as one of her main influences while making the record (apart from Peggy Lee and Julie London), it’s only natural that she should toss out that cliché, “There’s somethin’ ’bout the way you look tonight”—even though when phrased like that it sounds more borrowed from Elton John than Sinatra. Even the bossa nova style of the song is something that would be signature to Amy, who went so far as to do a cover of “The Girl from Ipanema” that later appeared on her posthumous album, Lioness: Hidden Treasures.
The motif of fame runs as a constant throughout Happier Than Ever, whereas someone like Britney Spears chose to spread the theme of being constantly stalked and overexposed in the media across several albums and songs, including Oops!…I Did It Again (“Lucky”), Britney (“Overprotected”), In the Zone (“Outrageous”), My Prerogative: Greatest Hits (“My Prerogative,” “Do Somethin’”), Blackout (“Piece of Me”) and Circus (“Kill the Lights”). Eilish uses the word “obsess” and “obsession” in the back-to-back songs of “I Didn’t Change My Number” and “Billie Bossa Nova” as though to accentuate how disgusted she is with everyone’s fixation on her. But as they say, it’s better to be talked about than not at all. In the latter track, Eilish mentions the Anna Scott practice of checking into hotels under different names, which adds to the intended retro feel of the record and its nod to Old Hollywood glamor (either that, or this particular song is a nod to Carrie Bradshaw sneaking around with Mr. Big during their affair in cheapo hotels of New York Shitty). For as we all know, getting a hotel room in 2021 comes across as less illicit/arousing and more horror-inducing than anything else.
It’s easy to tell now that “my future,” despite being released mid-year of 2020, is distinctly part of Eilish’s Happier Than Ever era. It’s stripped-down sound that emphasizes Eilish’s lounge singer-esque vocals could be part of no other period of her musical career, it seems now. As she muses on the positive feelings she has for her future (note that these feelings do not necessarily extend to the collective of plebes in this world), we’re jarred by the contrasting transition into “Oxytocin.” While many have classified this album as, somehow, “electropop” (and clearly, “Oxytocin” must be what they’re seeing as part of that category), it frequently sounds like a more palatable form of industrial rock. As is also the case on “NDA,” which could be an auditory companion piece to “Oxytocin.” A word that somehow looks as though it should be Oxycontin (considering Eilish had a track called “xanny”) but isn’t. Yet when you listen to the lyrics, perhaps told from the perspective of an abuser or perhaps from Eilish flipping the script on a man and herself becoming the abusive one, the title makes, again, ironic sense. Called the “love drug,” increased amounts of oxytocin are released in women during an orgasm (and also during childbirth—so go figure: the female “no pleasure without pain” curse).
The post-chorus is where Eilish does her Nine Inch Nails bit (only right since this is one of the industrial rock moments) as she announces, “I wanna do bad things to you/I wanna make you yell/I wanna do bad things to you/Don’t wanna treat you well.” How very, “I wanna fuck you like an animal.” And yes, it’s somewhat awkward, even still, to hear her speak sexually considering her erstwhile image of being a sexless pop star. Yet she appears to be throwing it back in the average male sexual predator’s face when she says, “Can’t take it back once it’s been set in motion/You know I need you for the oxytocin/If you find it hard to swallow, I can loosen up your collar/‘Cause, as long as you’re still breathing/Don’t you even think of leaving.” Who knows how many times Harvey Weinstein thought something to a similar effect (though far less eloquently)? Elsewhere, the consistent study of fame phenomena shines through in the paranoia of being watched or spied as Eilish wonders, “And what would people say, people say, people say/If they listen through the wall, the wall, the wall?”
One of the more chilling statements on being a “snack” as a teenage pop star in the male-dominated music industry, “GOLDWING” has an intro that is as close to Ariana Grande’s “raindrops (an angel cried)” as Eilish is going to get. Taken from a Hindu poem, the translation amounts to, “He hath come to the bosom of his beloved/Smiling on him, she beareth him to highest heav’n/With yearning heart/On thee we gaze/O gold-wing’d messenger of mighty gods.” Eilish maintains her chirpy sound as she chants “goldwing” before warning, “Gold-winged angel/Go home, don’t tell anyone what you are/You’re sacred and they’re starved/And their art is gettin’ dark/And there you are to tear apart.” Likely a message she wished someone would have told her before she agreed to go down Finneas’ path—the one where he said he could make her the most famous pop star in the world.
The urgency of “GOLDWING” gives way to a far more laid-back tone on “Lost Cause.” The song that brought us the queerbaiting video seen round the world, as well as the one that overly calls attention to the unhealthy jobist mentality that continues to spread and infect Gen Z. Apart from sounding a lot like Madonna’s “Secret” in terms of sonic vibe, this is easily one of the less likeable songs on the album.
Bringing it back to the more “old-timey” sound Happier Than Ever is meant to connote (here, too, “ooo-ooo-ooo” is thrown out again in the same intonation it was on “Lost Cause”), “Halley’s Comet” employs such baby boomer tropes as “silly me,” “what a drag” and “what am I to do?” Considering this is the girl who played Twister in the “Lost Cause” video, it’s no wonder her underlying affinity for boomer culture continues to shine through as she fears for her emotional safety while knowing full well that all love is doomed—most especially “young love.” To that end, Eilish parallels the “intensely felt feelings” of youth as her contemporary, Olivia Rodrigo, does on Sour in a way that she didn’t quite do on her first album despite being Rodrigo’s age at that time. Almost as though the teen girl angst is getting in one more final burst before she turns twenty. Or, as some of us can tell you, that angst could potentially last a lifetime.
Seemingly “thrown in” because it was so well-received on her Where Do We Go? World Tour, “Not My Responsibility” veers on the long side for something that should be an interlude (then again, it was meant to be a visual one), but still sounds vocally cohesive overall. Trippy and psychedelic, Eilish berates those who would deign to judge or pick apart her body as she offers, “We make assumptions about people based on their size/We decide who they are/We decide what they’re worth/If I wear more, if I wear less/Who decides what that makes me?/What that means?/Is my value based only on your perception?/Or is your opinion of me not my responsibility?” Evidently not, based on her recent revamp from baggy clothes and slime green hair to normie drag.
In any case, perhaps not since “Chromatica II” into “911” has there been a more seamless transition from one song to another as “Not My Responsibility leads into “OverHeated” (the same goes for “NDA” into “Therefore I Am”). Persisting in remarking upon The Fame as she does with regard to its effect on her mental health, she seems to be directly acknowledging that moment back in October of 2020 when paparazzi took photos of her in a tank top that prompted an outpouring of memes and negative commentary about her “wine bod.” As such, Eilish sings (in a manner Lily Allen would approve of), “And everybody said it was a letdown I was only built like everybody else now/But I didn’t get a surgery to help out/‘Cause I’m not about to redesign myself now, am I?/Am I?/All these other inanimate bitches, it’s none of my business/But don’t you get sick of posin’ for pictures/With that plastic body?”
She also appears to have already had the foresight (or braggadocio) of knowing that her cultural impact at this juncture is already too strong to affect any attempts at “cancellation” (as was done when a video of her saying “chink” resurfaced, as well as the barrage of clips featuring her blaccent). So it is that she gibes, “I’m overheated, can’t be defeated/Can’t be deleted, can’t un-believе it.”
“Everybody Dies” (Kim Petras has a better song called that) is Eilish’s mortality PSA to perhaps help her listeners not to fuck around with their time (“don’t waste the time I don’t have”). She commented of the lyrics, “It gives me comfort to know I’m gonna die. I don’t know why. I’ve talked about it since I was a kid. It makes me happy that all things end. It’s also very sad and sentimental. This song is really just about knowing that you only have so long to do what you want so just do it. Enjoy your life.” Like MARINA said. Of course, it’s always easier to do that when you have a famous person’s bank account. The song pretty much seals her fate for what will be played ad nauseam upon her own death, but maybe she’s fine with that. On another note, it would make a great addition to the soundtrack of Interview with the Vampire as Eilish says, “‘Everybody dies,’ that’s what they say/And maybe in a couple hundred years, they’ll find another way/I just wonder why you’d wanna stay/If everybody goes/You’d still be alone.” Oui, ‘tis a lonely life for a vampire. But then, we are all vampires now.
Keeping le drame going on “Your Power” but with a more upbeat sonic lilt, Eilish again explores the issue of abuse, namely of, you guessed it, power. Specifically the kind that arises when an older male takes advantage of someone in Eilish’s “lamb to the slaughter” age group. A gentle urging for a new world order in which men can actually be swayed not to conduct themselves based on what their dick tells them to do, Eilish requests simply, “Try not to abuse your power.” The accompanying video, which is rife with parallels to Britney Spears’ “I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman” one, features Eilish being slowly strangled by a snake. This additional connection to Spears’ iconography is also interesting, for while Britney Jean preferred to sexualize the snake she interacted with in the 2001 MTV VMAs performance of “I’m A Slave 4 U,” Eilish isn’t so ready to make light of the phallic symbol.
On “NDA”—perhaps the ultimate “fame song” on Happier Than Ever—Eilish delves into the highly specific vexations that come with the celebrity spotlight. From stalkers to spending a bulk of one’s budget on security (something Harry and Meghan wouldn’t mind talking about either) to making a cursory love interest sign an NDA just to come over and hang out. Yet still, it has to be said that we must never fall too far down the rabbit hole of “pity” for the famous ones. They’re still in the one percent, after all.
An additional “hitting back at the critics” song in the spirit of “OverHeated,” “Therefore I Am” was another early single from the record that found Eilish using the pandemic to her advantage to shoot the video in the Glendale Galleria. Still sporting her black hair with green roots at the time, the song now feels like part of an in between era—even if, like “my future,” it works well among the other songs of this sophomore effort.
The eponymous “Happier Than Ever” is one of the standouts, though some might prefer to have the second half of the song mirror the first—but that wouldn’t be in keeping with Eilish’s “experimental flair.” Echoing the way in which The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” switches gears entirely at its own crescendoing midpoint, the video for the song also borrows certain aesthetics from some musical heavyweights, chiefly Lana Del Rey and Beyoncé.
The finale, “Male Fantasy,” broaches on the many issues with porn solely in the first verse as Eilish rues, “…tryin’ not to eat/Distract myself with pornography/I hate the way she looks at me/I can’t stand the dialogue, she would never be that satisfied, it’s a male fantasy.” She then sort of devolves into singing an apologia to the one she will probably “always love” (like LDR said of that dude she wrote Born to Die about). Her intonation mimics “when the party’s over” as she sings the chorus, “Guess it’s hard to know when nobody else comes around/If I’m getting over you/Or just pretending to/Be alright, convince myself I hate you.” She concludes, in the end, “Can’t get over you/No matter what I do/I know I should, but I could never hate you.” Just proving once more that women are masochists when it comes to men. But one must admit, they do get some good songs out of those fuckers. Something Winehouse, too, once knew all about—and yes, her ghost seems to flicker in and out of this record, just like those lights in the “Happier Than Ever” video.
