Essay

What makes Billie Eilish stand out in the music industry?

For my specialist study I have decided to research all about Billie Eilish and what makes her so different and able to stand out in the industry.  I have researched how she started out as a musician.  I would like to further understand how she became so popular whilst being so young.  In such a short amount of time she went from releasing her own songs with her brother on Soundcloud to achieving worldwide success and a huge following over night. By studying Billie Eilish I hope to gain more knowledge about the music industry and I would also like to understand more how to connect with an audience which is something Billie does very well in my opinion.

I really admire Billies songwriting skills and the way she connects with people. Billie Eilish became very popular very fast with her first debut song called Ocean Eyes, this song was released in 2015 when Billie was just 13 years old. The song was released onto sound cloud on the 18th November 2015 as a single and a year later it was put onto her album ' Dont smile at me'. The song was written and produced by Billies older brother Finneas, Billie tends to collaborate on the majority of her songs with Finneas and he even performs on stage with her during some of her shows. Ocean eyes is a powerful love song which highlights the caution you should have to falling in love, the lyrics within the song are beautiful and carry so much meaning to whom the song is sang about. Although Billie didnt write this song ( her brother Finneas did) you still feel and believe every work that she sings through the powerful and emotional lyrics that she sings. Billies audience loved ocean eyes when it first came out and still love it now, fans like myself appreciate the mystery within the lyrics and the relatability to what she sings and the way that she sings it. Billie received so much love for this song and still to this day receives positive reviews on the song. https://www.albumoftheyear.org/album/138503-billie-eilish-ocean-eyes/user-reviews/ i decided to have a look at a few different websites to see what people really think/ thought about Ocean eyes, as i expected almost all of the reviews are positive commenting on how beautiful and meaningful the song sounds with Billies outstanding vocals.

 https://songoftheday.ca/2023/02/24/ocean-eyes/

https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/4/18/18412282/who-is-billie-eilish-explained-coachella-2019 

When Billie released her debut album 'When we all fall asleep, where do we go?' onto Spotify, one of the songs from the album (Bad guy) was Billies first number 1 single on the billboard 200 chart and it also ended up winning a Grammy in 2020 for song of the year and record of the year in 2019. The whole album overall was named album of the year and also in 2019 Billies song' Everything i wanted' came to be record of the year. Billie has always looked up to Lana Del Ray, the two spoke to each other for interview magazine in 2023 where to pair quickly became close. Billie said, "you really paved the way for everyone". People have been trying to look and sound like you since you first started. I talk about this with Finneas. You changed the way the music industry hears and sees music, and you changed the way people sing." Along with Lana Del Ray, Billie has spoken about being heavily influenced by Hip Hop artists Childish Gambino and also Tyler The Creator. On Apple music, on the segment of "me and dad radio" Billie discussed a few of her favourite artists particularly specifying Childish Gambino (Donald Glover). She said that she first felt Gambinos affect on her when she heard his song Bonfire from his 2011 album called Camp, this was the first Childish Gambino song that Eilish and Finneas had both heard and they were both amazed by what they heard. Eilish said "This is the first song i've ever heard from him, and was actually i think the first song i heard that was like rap, was 'heartbeat' from this album. From then on everybody knows Donald Glover is like... one of my all time favourite creators."

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Billie-Eilish 

 https://www.billboard.com/music/pop/billie-eilish-body-image-interview-9396887/ 

Billie Eilish's image has changed a lot throughout her many years in the spotlight, she said " Sometimes i dress like a boy, sometimes i dress like a swaggy Girl." When Billie was just 18 years old she suffered from body issues due to never getting the appreciation she so deserved my past boyfriends and people in her life. During this time Billie stuck to wearing very baggy clothing that completely hid her figure due to her feeling so low in herself, she wanted to hide herself in layers of clothes. Eilish said during an interview, " I dress as i dont like to think of you guys- i mean anyone, everyone, judging it, or the size of it. But that doesnt mean that i wont wake up one day and decide to wear a tank top." Billies image evolved through the years as she gained more confidence in herself, though her streetwear fashion and love for baggy clothes never changed. Whilst looking into Billies style and body image i also found out a lot of information to do with the double standards in the industry, within the industry there are many more men than women. Rolling stone reported that "In 2019, 14.4% of songwriters were female, compared to 11.6% in 2018 and 11.5 in 2017." This wasnt to much of a shock to me as i already know that much like a lot of other career sectors, this industry is unintentionally dominated my males and although you may not see this as any issue it just means that female artists like Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift and Lana Del Ray have to work twice as hard.

To start out Billie was just a teenage girl with the dream of becoming a dancer, this dream swiftly changed when Billie was given the amazing opportunity by her brother to sing and release a song that he wrote and produced by himself originally for his band (Ocean Eyes). Although this wasnt what Billie had initially thought her life would be she is incredibly grateful for all her fans and for the life that she gets to live. When Ocean eyes released on streaming platforms Billie quickly became an overnight sensation all over the world and this led to her amazing career in music. After releasing Ocean Eyes Billie continued making original music and in 2016 she released her debut EP called "Dont smile at me". Billie also released her song Bellyache as a single from this album as she wanted to further express her feeling of guilt and pain, Billies music makes you feel like you know her which is what makes her and her music so undeniably relatable. After all this amazing stuff was happening to Billie, one of her songs "Bored" was featured in a Netflix show which was called Thirteen reasons why. Her and her brother Finneas both co-wrote this song together and it was released in 2017, this was another incredible opportunity for her at the time the show was extremely popular therefore she got so much exposure leading her to such a larger fan base. In the year 2018 Billie collaborated on a song with singer Khalid on her song lovely which again featured on the soundtrack of Thirteen Reasons Why, this song got to number 64 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the US and also made it into the top 40s in many other countries. In 2019, Billie had a fantastic year starting with releasing her debut album "When we fall asleep, Where do we go", this album contained many of Billies hit singles such as Bad Guy, Bury A Friend and also When The Party's Over. This album ended up winning Billie multiple Grammy awards including, Album of the year, Best vocal pop album and the best engineered album. She also won best new artist at the Grammys. She was also just 17 years old when she was crowned Billboards women of the year. Since then she has released 2 amazing albums, in 2021 she released her album Happier than ever and went all over the world touring it, she also wrote What Was I Made For for the Barbie movies soundtrack which is a song that i believe all girls and women all over the world are inspired by. This song is so beautifully written and is so emotively driven, after watching the barbie movie myself and hearing the sing in the movie i can understand why the song gained its popularity all over the world. What Was I Made For went on to win best original song at the academy awards in the year 2024. In 2024 Billie also released her album "Hit Me Hard And Soft", this is my favourite album she has released so far as i feel i relate to a lot of the songs on the album, as it says in the name of the album it really does hit you hard and soft with the different songs. Sadly Billie didnt win a Grammy with this album but she is currently doing a world tour which started in 2024 and ends on July the 27th 2025. Overall Billie Eilish has already had the most amazing career in her lifetime and i hope that she goes on to releasing more music and surprising all her fans at such a young age.

Billie and her older brother Finneas have made music together since 2015 when Billie was 13 years old, Finneas had years of experience already working within his own band so this was almost like a head start to Billie having an amazing music career. To date, Finneas has produced all of Billies albums and has done an amazing job at it. Billie chooses to work alongside her brother as she struggles with social anxiety and states that she dislikes the vibe of being in a studio. I think that this is something that also makes Billie such an admirable person, she is very open about her own struggles and i think that this is one of the things that makes her so relatable as not only an artist, but a person with very real feelings. Finneas is one of the reasons why Billie got her to where she is today, he is her brother and her closest collaborator. Billie didn't work with anyone other than Finneas for around 6 years until quite recently where she collaborated on a song with Charlie XCX, this song (Guess) was released in 2024 and surprisingly Billie really enjoyed it. 

Overall i feel that everything i have spoken about in this dissertation contributes to how Billie stands out above other artists. Billie is an inspiration to millions of young people and everything she has done and that she has been through has made her the person and the artist she is today, she started out as an overnight sensation at just thirteen years old and now she is one of the most popular and most listened to artist in the world.