“Am I acting my age now? / Am I already on the way out?” Billie Eilish croons in a beguilingly sweet tone in “Skinny,” the opener from her new album, Hit Me Hard and Soft . It’s a jarring turn in a tune that otherwise just catches us up on romantic wrinkles since her last release, 2021’s Happier Than Ever , wondering why we always conflate a petite frame with a satisfied mind. “Skinny”’s trip into the artist’s concentric layers of stress — it traces her grappling with self-love, relationship turmoil, and ever-shifting public perceptions — outlines the sky-high expectations weighing on Eilish to cut an elegant figure and use her platform responsibly while continuing to release work worthy of the voice-of-a-generation whispers that come with joining Elton John and Randy Newman in earning two Academy Awards for Best Original Song at 22.
Soft picks up where Happier left off, offering a peek at a life in the shadow of mass adulation but also obsession and aggression. The album is a people pleaser’s contract renegotiation: You’ll get the hits you’re looking for after you hear how much of a trip it is to answer to countless observers harboring opinions about her every move. The sense that Eilish faces unique stakes is apparent both in a surprisingly self-deprecating assessment of her sophomore album — “Anybody who was a big fan of what I was doing originally must have been completely astonished, and in negative ways, for sure,” she told Rolling St.