Beyond that, she recently announced her third album, HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, to be released May 17, 2024. She spent the days leading up to the announcement building excitement by adding all of her Instagram followers to her “Close Friends” list. Eilish had the most Instagram followers in 48 hours…with her count increasing by 7 million followers total.
While her debut album, when we all fall asleep…where do we go?, was a chart-topper in its own right, it landed Billie every GRAMMY it was nominated for at the ripe age of 18…Eilish has solidified herself as one of the most revered and sought-after popstars in the world.
Eilish recently caught media attention for quietly revealing her sexuality. In an interview with Variety, she states that she’s always liked girls…and assumed people always knew that. In a viral snippet from her new song, LUNCH, she details a love affair with a girl.
But people don’t only adore Billie for her catchy tracks that consistently top the charts. It’s not just her songwriting ability and unique vocals that keep us hooked. People love her because she’s unafraid to speak her mind.
Whether it be complaining about too many influencers being at an awards show, or calling out other artists for using unsustainable practices…Billie does not hold back.
Billie Eilish On Sustainability
Eilish home
rethinkingthefuture.com
The Eilish home is iconic for many reasons: it’s where Billie and Finneas recorded her debut album, countless other songs, and EPs, in an effort to conserve water there’s no grass, and the roof is covered in solar panels. And being environmentally conscious extends beyond the four walls of their home.
When the hottest young talent is discovered at such an early age like Eilish, record labels are chomping at the bit to sign them. It’s like when a D1 athlete is ready to commit to college…you have your pick.
But what Eilish and her mom, Maggie Baird, were looking for wasn’t about money or label-perks…they were seeking a solid sustainability program. And while that may seem like standard practice, most labels didn’t bring up environmental policies during these meetings at all.
After signing to The Darkroom via Interscope Records, the struggle didn’t stop there. Billie Eilish and her family have been consistent contributors to the fight against climate change.
Maggie Baird has since started Support + Feed, which focuses on the climate crisis and food insecurity. Support + Feed helped Eilish’s 2022 Happier Than Ever tour save 8.8 million gallons of water through plant-based meal service for the artist and crew members.
During Billie’s 2023 Lollapalooza performance, she aided the launch and funding of REVERB’s Music Decarbonization Project – which guaranteed all battery systems used during her set were solar powered. The MCD’s overall mission is to lower – and eventually eliminate –the music industry’s carbon emissions.
But more recently, Billie Eilish called out other artists for releasing multiple versions of vinyls in order to boost vinyl sales. In an interview with Billboard, she says,
“We live in this day and age where, for some reason, it’s very important to some artists to make all sorts of different vinyl and packaging … which ups the sales and ups the numbers and gets them more money and gets them more…”
Artists convince fans to buy different versions of their albums by offering exclusive features on each vinyl. Take Taylor Swift, for example, who released five separate vinyl versions of Midnights, each with a different deluxe “Vault” track.
While Billie may not have been trying to shade one artist in particular, the point is that she’s fed up. After being the rare artist in the industry who go out of their way to remain environmentally conscious, Eilish sets the bar high.
How Eilish’s New Album Is Sustainable
Billie for "Hit Me Hard and Soft"
William Drumm
Social media users were quick to claim Eilish was hypocritical by announcing that HIT ME HARD AND SOFT will have eight vinyl variations. However, each vinyl is made from recycled materials – either 100% recycled black vinyl or BioVinyl, which replaces petroleum used during manufacturing with recycled cooking oil.
This just illustrates that Eilish wasn’t directing criticism towards other artists for using vinyl variants to gain album sales…but she does think there are better ways to do it that benefit the environment without hurting their sales.
Blame It On Pluto: Finally, an explanation for all the WTF moments of the past decade
Why is so much happening at once? What gives?
Academics and economists point to the widening gap between rich and poor, the scarcity of resources, the stresses of living in a hyper-connected world, the growing numbers of disenfranchised people as well as the stress of climate change and the enormous amount of toxins in the air, earth and water as some of the potential causes of disruption. All of this may be true, but astrologists around the globe agree; if you want to know the root cause of all this disruption and destruction, look no further than 4.67 billion miles away, to Pluto.
Pluto was discovered in 1930 by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh.
It was named after the ancient Roman god of the underworld in a contest by Venetia Burney, an 11-year old English school-girl, and designated the ninth planet of our solar system. It had a nice run, until 2006 when Pluto was demoted to a dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union because of its diminutive stature. Astrologists, however, continue to hold it in high esteem, recognizing Pluto as an extremely powerful force for us folks here on Earth.
Back in our day..Pluto was a planet! So much has changed...
Pluto, like the ancient god it is named for, represents death, destruction, rebirth and transformation.
Astrologers like to say that Pluto shines a light into the dark recesses of both our individual and collective conscience and demands that the truth be exposed. Pluto's awesome power is particularly evident when it enters into the astrological cycle of Capricorn, as it did in November 2008, the year that saw the U.S. election of the first black president as well as the duel implosions of the housing and financial markets. Capricorn is an earth sign that rules structure, government, monetary systems and tradition. Added to this heavenly hash, the planet Uranus (disruption and revolution) then entered into Aries (individual rights and liberty). Astrologers knew what was coming, warning that Pluto the destroyer would waste no time leveling Capricornian structures. As astrologist Rose Marcus explains, "When that which Capricorn has held in check…is released, it is done with great force. It can be radically so when extreme Uranus in Aries squares destructive Pluto in Capricorn.
This duo is most formidable, eruptive, disruptive, and explosive of all planetary combinations.
Beyond all levels of human existence, its life-altering reach is powerful enough to produce geophysical disturbances and earthquakes. The perilous years when the transit of Uranus in Aries squares Pluto in Capricorn are signature razor's edge times, when both life on the planet and the planet itself undergo major upheaval and critical transition. In addition to the progressive fall-out from global warming, our rage, anger, frustration, and aggression can heat to the boil-over point, the result of which can ignite a particularly merciless episode of man's crimes against man, and against humanity, too. Brutality, ruthlessness, violence, crime, sexual violation, murder, and war can run rampant in such desperate times."
Okay. Wow.
But, say the skeptics, isn't this just coincidence? Perhaps, but take a look at how the so-called Pluto/Capricorn effect has lined up with major events in global history throughout the past centuries.
From 532-551, the world experienced what is known as the Dark Ages. Around 540, a huge volcanic eruption of the Rabaul Caldera caused a cataclysmic series of events. Culture collapsed and earth went into a deep freeze. Winter was coming, and it stayed --- for over two decades. The existing world structure of the Roman Empire fell and Barbarian hordes swept civilizations away.
The years 1517 to 1533, throughout the entire transit of Pluto in Capricorn, coincided with that sweeping and transformative era called The Reformation.
Martin Luther challenged the authority of the Catholic Church by nailing up his proclamation for all to see in 1517, ushering in radical religious and social upheaval. Not that far away, in good old England, Henry VIII established The Church of England, breaking with the Catholic Church to marry Anne Boleyn. This was also the period of the rise of the Spanish empire and the destruction of the Aztec and Incan empires.
The last time Pluto was in Capricorn was from 1762 to 1778.
The world saw the writing of The Declaration of Independence, and witnessed The American Revolution. The United States of America was born, and with it a new and enlightened form of government came on to the world stage. On a darker side, this period gave rise to the barbaric slave trade in Africa, which would eventually lead to the Civil War. In France, Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI came to the throne in 1770--and we all know how that ended.
There has been a tremendous amount of upheaval since Pluto once again entered into Capricorn in November, 2008, bringing us up to the present day and the election of Donald Trump. Once accepted social norms, like sexual harassment, are being turned on their heads and exposed for what they are. Yetothers, like open racism from our government officials and attacks on our system of justice, are being tolerated. With every day that passes, it seems that we, and the traditions and structures we've relied upon, are being tested as never before.
The good news is that nothing lasts forever, and, if history is any guide, what comes around, goes around. Though Pluto does have an erratic and long orbit, it will exit Capricorn in six years, in January 2020, at which point many astrologers are predicting a full reckoning. Until then, fasten your seat belts, and blame it on Pluto.
What Water Holds – on memory, perseverance and action
I took a walk this morning. The biting chill in the air was giving way to a cooling thaw, and it felt as if spring might be coming early this year. At Bear Mountain park, near where I live, a grayish white vapor rose off of the frozen surface of the man-made lake, hovering, stretching out like an altostratus cloud. It was early, and I was the only person on the trail. It was so peaceful – the sounds of the breeze through the still bare trees, their fallen branches reaching out from the underneath the veil of ice like giant hands and the smell of the wet earth, ready to release new life.
In the Bible, water is mentioned over 700 times. It symbolizes cleansing, but also creation and God's awesome power. In Genesis, before there is light, sun, earth, plants, leaving creatures, there was water—it existed before existence itself. In Chinese Taoist philosophy, water is home to our essence. It represents wisdom, and great force, as well as perseverance.
Everywhere I looked this morning, ice was melting, becoming liquid. Bubbles formed underneath the surface of the frozen water on the rocks, sliding and turning over and around the bumps and crevices like tad pols in a stream. The sound of the melting release was everywhere. The applause of the filling streams running down off of the mountain, the rain storm of the current under my feet. In the distance, there was the crack-crack sound of something breaking --- a giant tree falling, or perhaps the roll of a machine, clearing a path Today, however, it reminded me of gun fire.
I often work from home on Thursdays and Fridays, partly to give myself a break from a grueling two-hour commute to work, but mainly to be home to drop off and pick my daughter up from school and to be present. My child is the most important thing in the world to me. Her infectious laughter, the feel of her cheek against mine when I kiss her goodnight, the furrow in her brow when she's worried, how proud I am of all she has achieved and my hopes for all that is yet to come --- this, and everything else about her is part of me, like the heart in my chest or the soul that lives someplace even deeper.
Six years ago, when she was in second grade, I watched images of grieving, broken parents of Newtown, Connecticut on CNN. I lived in a small town very much like Newtown, and I had a daughter who was exactly the same age as those children who were murdered with an assault rifle. Not a day has gone by since when I don't, at some point, worry that I might drop my child off at school in the morning, and not see her alive in the afternoon. After February 14, 2018, I watched CNN again, and, again, the same images of broken and grieving parents as they endure what no parent should ever have to; the senseless murder of a child.
It is said that everything is cyclical. There are some cycles that ground us; nature, aging, good times and bad. Some that challenge us; sickness and health, success and failure. These can't always be controlled – we just have to go with it. And then there are the cycles of another sort; violence, insanity, corruption, dishonesty, dereliction of duty. These are the kind of cycles that, if not controlled, if not broken, will break us. These are the cycles that Lori Alhadeff, the mother of 14-year-old victim Alyssa Alhadeff inveighed against when she pleaded into the camera, "President Trump, we need action. Now!" It's the cycle that sophomore Isabella Gomez took on when, in response to President Trump's declaration that We are here for you. We are here to ease your pain, that "He really needs to take into consideration gun control."
Memories are our foundation. This is one of the things that is so cruel about Alzheimer's --- it robs a person of their past, and with it, their identity. After Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and the rest of the now over 150 mass shootings*, as a country, it is tempting to say that these horrors keep happening because we are suffering from collective Alzheimer's. But that's not it. We do remember. Who could forget? But what does that matter? Is that the point? We'll never forget you? I am reminded of Susan Sontag's brilliant post-9/11 piece in the New Yorker; "Our country is strong, we are told again and again. I for one don't find this entirely consoling. Who doubts that America is strong? But that's not all American has to be." Who doubts that we will remember mass shootings? If our thoughts and prayers are really with the victims in Parkland, Florida, we need to offer them a lot more than a place in our memories.
Water, like life itself, is full of contradiction. We develop and thieve in a watery womb, yet once we are born that same water will drown us. Rivers and oceans are sources of peace and tranquility, but also of flood and devastation. Of the many qualities water has, perhaps the one that most comes to mind after this latest mass shooting is reflection. In the words of 17-year-old survivor David Hogg, "This is a time for our country to take a look in the mirror and realize there is a serious issue here."
Note: *This is an approximate number, at best. As pointed out in a recent piece in The Atlantic, "The lack of reliable information on school shootings and other gun-related mass violence isn't just a matter of inconsistency in definitions; political factors have also played a role in limiting access to information. Under pressure from the National Rifle Association, Congress in 1996 prohibited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from funding public-health research on issues related to firearms. These prohibitions have largely persisted, and there is still no comprehensive federal database on gun deaths, let alone on school shootings."
