Billie Eilish’s ‘Happier Than Ever’: What We Know About Her New Album
Launch Gallery
One of the biggest albums of 2021 is almost here. Billie Eilish will release her highly-anticipated second album, ‘Happier Than Ever,’ so here’s what you need to know.
Turns out, “Everything I Wanted” winning Record of the Year at the 63rd Grammy Awards was merely just the beginning of the year of Billie Eilish. Shortly after Billie added to her growing number of Grammys – she swept the top four categories at the prior ceremony, becoming the second only artist to do so – the “Bad Guy” singer announced Happier Than Ever, her long-awaited follow-up to her debut studio album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where DO We Go?. The news came along with a new blonde makeover, a new fashion aesthetic – but the same attitude that has made Billie one of the hottest stars in music today.
Billie first began to make a name for herself in 2015, when “Ocean Eyes,” a song her brother Finneas originally wrote for his band, went viral after being uploaded to SoundCloud. Her debut EP, Don’t Smile At Me, arrived via Darkroom/Interscope in 2017 and has since been certified Platinum by the RIAA. Then, in March 2019, Billie dropped her debut album, a critically acclaimed, commercially successful landmark release that cemented Gen Z atop the pop landscape. The album, which has gone Platinum four times as of June 2021, was named the best album of 2019 by Consequence, NME, and Variety, while other publications – Rolling Stone, Billboard, etc. – placed it near the top.
After a year of delayed albums and canceled concerts, the music landscape is primed for a huge album from Billie. The first cuts from the new album – “Therefore I Am,” “Your Power,” and “Lost Cause” – have found some success. While they haven’t blown up like “Bad Guy,” the biggest song on When We All Fall Asleep, keep in mind it was the fifth single from the debut. It’s possible that Billie’s got a banger in the chamber, so get ready for it to go off. Until she pulls the trigger, here’s what you need to know about her upcoming album.
When Will Billie Eilish’s New Album Be Released?
July 30, 2021. Pre-sales/pre-saves are already ongoing.
“MY NEW ALBUM ‘Happier Than Ever’ OUT JULY 30TH!,” Billie posted on Instagram on April 27. “This is my favorite thing I’ve ever created and I am so excited and nervous and EAGER for you to hear it. I can’t even tell you. I’ve never felt so much love for a project than I do for this one. hope you feel what I feel. alsoooo new song out thursday at 9am too!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.”
What Is Billie Eilish’s New Album Called?
Billie Eilish’s second album is called Happier Than Ever. Duh.
Billie stopped by The Late Show With Stephen Colbert in February 2021 to talk about her second album and how the global pandemic influenced the creation of Happier Than Ever. “I don’t think I would’ve made the same album, or even the album at all, if it weren’t for COVID,” she said, noting that the lockdown of 2020 was her first extended period of time off in four years. “That doesn’t mean it’s about COVID at all, it’s just that, when things are different in your life, you’re different. That’s just how it is. So, I have to thank COVID for that, and that’s about it.”
What’s Billie Eilish’s New Record Going To Sound Like?
Happier Than Ever will continue to feature the sound Billie established on When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go, but she promises to show an unexpected side of her on this new project. “Anytime I see an impression on the internet, it just reminds me how little the internet knows about me,” Billie said in a June 2021 interview with Rolling Stone, one month before Happier Than Ever’s release. “Like, I really don’t share shit. I have such a loud personality that makes people feel like they know everything about me, and they literally don’t at all.”
“Anytime I hear somebody say, ‘Oh, your songs sound the same,’ it gets me. That’s one thing I really try hard to not do,” she said. The new album will, judging by songs like “Lost Cause,” see Billie stretch her wings and lean into her voice and embrace a more jazzy delivery to her singing. The album’s opener reportedly sees Billie sing over a “delicately plucking synth beat,” while the album’s title track “starts like a mopey breakup song, then fires off into an electric-guitar-driven rager.” The rest of the album, according to Rolling Stone, features “sexy, electronic beats and warm folksiness” that harkens back to her earlier music.
“For most of this year, like the first half of this year, I felt very trapped in my own facade weirdly,” Billie told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe in November 2020, after releasing “Therefore I Am.” “Because I kept feeling like a parody of myself, which was crazy and very weird and hard to maneuver. And I don’t really know how I got out of it, but it was very … I mean, it happens occasionally still, but there was a couple of months in there where I was like, everything I wore, I was like, “Oh, I look like Billie Eilish.” Everything I said, everything I did. And then we would make music and I would be like, this feels … I kept feeling like … What’s the word? Inauthentic. Yeah, inauthentic version of myself, because I felt like I was being myself too much.”
Who Will Feature On Billie Eilish’s New Album?
Happier Than Ever will follow When We All Fall Asleep in that it too will not have any featured guest appearances. Billie’s debut album put her directly in the spotlight, with no high-profile feature to shift attention off of her, and this sophomore release continues to focus strictly on Billie.
Billie has collaborated with others in the past. She teamed with Khalid for “Lovely,” a song off the soundtrack to Thirteen Reasons Why: Season 2. In addition, Billie joined RosalÍa for “Lo Vas a Olvidar,” a Spanish-English-language single for Euphoria: Music from the HBO Original Series. But, for the most part, Billie goes it alone when it comes to her music. There may be a time in her musical career that she is more open to collaborations and music that benefits from a guest verse, but at this time, when she’s one of the brightest stars in music, she shines alone.
What Songs Are Going To Be On Billie Eilish’s New Album?
When Billie announced Happier Than Ever, she also shared the track listing. The songs also didn’t list any guest vocals, so barring any uncredited cameos, Happier is pure Billie. In addition to the previously released “Your Power,” “Lost Cause,” “Therefore I Am,” and “my future,” Happier Than Ever will contain:
“Getting Older”; “I Didn’t Change My Number”; “Billie Bossa Nova”; “Oxytocin”; “GOLDWING”; “Halley’s Comet”; “Not My Responsibility”; “OverHeated”; “Everybody Dies”; “NDA”; “Happier Than Ever”; and “Male Fantasy.”
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Two years after her landmark debut, Billie Eilish is set to continue her meteoric rise in the music world. For fans eagerly waiting for new music, her new album will leave them happier than ever.