Billie Eilish, "When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?" (Interscope)
If being a teenager is so often such a torturous living hell, why is teen pop such a slick, smoothed over, and artificial enterprise? Because sex and romance and escapism sell, I suppose. But so can alienation and awkwardness and uncertainty when packaged in a properly appealing way.
That's where Billie Eilish comes in. "The pop icon who defines 21st-century teenage angst"-that's according to the Guardian-is a 17-year-old California songwriter who makes homemade, woozy, deceptively accomplished goth-electro songs with the aid of her actor-musician older brother, Finneas O'Connell. Eilish was already fabulously popular before this big-question-pondering debut album came out-the often blue-haired songwriter started gathering commercial steam when her "Ocean Eyes" debut single went viral in 2016, and, along with hundreds of millions of song streams, she's acquired 16 million Instagram followers. (And because she's a little devilish, she follows 666 other users.) The speed with which the Los Angeles daughter of two actors who has perfected a Marilyn Manson dead-eye stare has become successful has led to the suspicion that she's a mere industry creation. Not so. "When We Fall Asleep" is a thoroughly assured effort cloaked in darkness and sputtering effects that features spot-on songwriting at its core, along with the occasional ukulele and a say-no-to-drugs message on "Xanny." Parents, don't be concerned your daughters are listening to this disturbingly disaffected new music. Instead, congratulate them on their good taste