FEATURE:
Growing Up in Public
IN THIS PHOTO: Billie Eilish in 2022
Billie Eilish and Young Artists Developing and Changing Between Their Teens and Early Twenties
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SOMETHING interesting came about…
when I was listening to Dua Lipa’s podcast, At Your Service, and her chat with fellow artist Billie Eilish. Last week, NME published an article reacting to the conversation and something that was raised. Eilish is now twenty-one, but her career started in her teens. Her debut album, WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?, was released in 2019. Eilish was seventeen when that came out. Her second album, Happier Than Ever, was released in 2021. Eilish was nineteen. Most of her professional career has been conducted and lived out when she was in her teens. In fact, Eilish (or Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O'Connell to give her full name) was credited as Billie Eilish O'Connell on her 2017 debut E.P., Don’t Smile at Me. She was fifteen at the time. Now in her twenties, Eilish is looking ahead to her third studio album. She is also in that strange position of, as a young woman, asking if she is still worth it. At her best. Her voice is changing too, so that impacts the music and possible lyrical direction. That maturation in the public eye is something artists have faced for decades. I will look at that phenomenon – artists who enter music in their teens and then reassess and reflect when they are in their twenties – in a second. This is what NME wrote about Billie Eilish’s recent conversation with Dua Lipa:
“Eilish’s debut album ‘When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?‘ came out in 2019, followed up by ‘Happier Than Ever‘ in 2021. She’s now working on her third, confirming back in November that she and her brother/collaborator Finneas had recently “started the process of making an album”.
“Everything is different about it,” she said of the music making process. “I’ve been trying to compare recently, just because I’m getting used to doing it in a different way. And trying to be like, ‘It’s OK to do that. I’m OK. I’m still able to do that; I’m capable still.’”
The singer also reflected on the shift from making music in her childhood home to working out of Finneas’ basement studio for ‘Happier Than Ever’, feeling like they had “figured out” their process after the last album.
“We were like, ‘We’ve got it all figured out, this is how we’re going to do it from now on, and it works really well’,” Eilish said. “And, you know, touring for a year-and-a-half, then coming back to it, and being way older – and not even much older, but again, the jump between 18 and 21 is a big jump. Just mentally and physically, and realistically. It’s just been completely different.”
The singer went on that she had been trying to “convince myself that it’s OK and that I haven’t lost it, it’s just different”.
She elaborated on exactly what’s changed, explaining: “The way that I exist in the room is different, my voice has completely changed since then…The voice-changing thing is a trip! It’s all kind of shocking.”
“I’ve gotten a little bit more like, ‘OK, it’s just change and I’m figuring that out.’ It’s hard to accept change, it’s hard to get over, ‘But I did it this way for so long, and it worked so well!’ Well, you can’t anymore.”
Eilish also said she appreciated the “fearlessness” of her younger self, adding: “When you’re a teenager and so much of your career is based around the fact that you’re young, and then you get older and people are used to you being young, it’s hard for you even.”
“But nobody told me that when you grow up you stop recognising your younger self”.
The Los Angeles-born icon – I think she has already achieved that status! – is getting more remarkable with every song. Her latest, What Was I Made For?, not only showcases her incredible voice at its most emotional and impactful. Having directed the video (Eilish has been directing a while), she is growing even stronger in that department. I did write about that song. As Eilish has talked about age and doing something older people would do – when it comes to assessing progress and weighing up their success and whether they are still at their peak – I wanted to go into that more. I never thought before about artists in the past who became famed and successful in their teens but also missed out on a lot of ordinary experiences. Eilish has been schooled and has friends, yet music has taken her away from a sort of life that many of us experience. That normal perspective on growth and what it means to age from your teens into your twenties is measured differently in music. Billie Eilish’s fashion tastes have changed – from baggier clothes, I think she is changing that -, so too has her perspective on the world. Her body and voice have changed, and a lot of that is processed through music and the media. It must be a very strange experience for artists so young to grow up in the public eye. What caught my ear most from Billie Eilish’s conversation with our very own Dua Lipa was that sense of her feeling free and it being quite high-energy and whirlwind in her teens. That sense of going in at the deep end and everything being hectic. She questions whether she has that special edge and she is as good as she was on her first or second albums.
It must be mad having to process how much she achieved as a teen! In addition to number one albums, she also headlined Glastonbury. I guess contemporaries such as Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears are among those whose music life started in their teens and there was this change and dynamic shift when they entered their twenties. Harry Styles too. Artists like Billie Eilish have decades ahead as artists. Her music will change dramatically when she enters her forties and fifties. It is natural for a young artist hitting their twenties and seeing how things have changed since their teens. We do it as adults. Graduating from university, many look back at their high school and college days and realise things were a bit more care-free and fun then. Maybe it is that sense of now having accomplished a lot and entered a new decade of life. I guess there is a certain expectation now that artists who release music in their teens tour a lot and try and get as many streams and sales as possible. Articles like this mention artists such as Ángela Aguilar and Ayra Starr. They are all under twenty-one. Maybe things like that provides pressure. These twenty-one under twenty-one who are names to watch. Now Eilish is twenty-one – she is twenty-two in December -, she might look at those kind of articles and wonder if she has peaked or seen as valid.
One of the advantages of being in her twenties is that Eilish has accomplished enough and can take more control of her career. She has proven herself and is one of the most influential artists of her generation. I look at her and artists like Olivia Rodrigo and what they have achieved so young. Rodrigo is twenty. Her second album, GUTS, is out next month. Maybe a scary thing of artists coming from their teens to their twenties is a certain naivety. Maybe that initial fun of being new and learning as you go. Things being a bit more learned, routine. Some of those peaks are gone. Also, the lyrical perspective changes. Maybe less inward-focused, artists tend to think more outwardly at the world out of their teens. Eilish is an artist still looking at herself – What Was I Made For? seems to suggest that, but there is that sense of society in a wider sense -, though I get a feeling her as-yet-untiled third studio album will be more about the state of the world she is currently living in. One of my biggest fears for young artists is how much pressure is on them so young. If they become huge and dominate, how easy is it to switch off and be ‘normal’?! I wanted to highlight Billie Eilish’s interview with Dua Lipa and what she noted about her age and looking back at her teens – now that she is twenty-one. It makes me wonder if many people are writing about teen artists and how difficult and different it is compared to the past. Not only in terms of that pressure to hit big streaming numbers. They also reveal a lot of their lives through social media. The wonder, oddness, eventfulness and excitement of…
GROWING up in public.