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.
Much of the media continues to report absolute number of cases by location, which is misleading because a location's population matters in terms of what's known as local severity.
This is better described as case density, or the number of cases per capita. For example, if 10 out of 50 people were infected on a small grass field, the case density would be 20%. If 25 out of 500 people were infected on a larger grass field, the case density would be 5% even though there are more cases.
Therefore, even though 2.5 times more people were infected on a larger grass field, the case density would be 4 times less, and therefore the local severity would be less critical. The same is true for deaths per capita. With that in mind, here are the updated charts.
Figure 1: On a per 100,000 population basis, the rises for New York City and New York State are quite steep. When plotted with other locations, the plots of the other locations are squashed significantly and misrepresent the actual condition. Therefore, the plots of NYC and NYS have been removed for the sake of clarity. However, for the rates of change chart, NYC and NYS plots remain as they don't obscure the other plots significantly.
On the left of Figure 1, we see that Massachusetts is experiencing the largest surge in cases so far. It is said that Massachusetts may soon become the new epicenter of case growth in the US.
But to maintain perspective, NYS still carries 31% of all cases in the US and 9.9% of all cases in the world. By contrast, Massachusetts carries 5.2% of all cases in the US and 1.7% of all cases in the world. However, case density in Massachusetts has surpassed that of "The Rest of the US" (US-NYS) by more than a factor of 3, but less than half of NYS.
On the right of Figure 1, the number of daily new cases in Italy peaked on March 21st, 12 days after their lockdown with daily cases continuing to fall over the last 33 days. For NYS and NYC, the number of daily new cases peaked on April 9th, 23 days after social distancing began, and has continued to fall over the last 2 weeks.
For the UK, the number of daily new cases peaked on April 11th, 15 days after lockdown but 19 days since increasingly stringent social distancing began. This downward trend has been ongoing over the last 12 days.
For Ireland, the number of new cases peaked on April 11th but is currently escalating again. Belgium's number of new cases peaked on April 16th, but it's too early to tell if it will increase again. It looked as if Belgium was on a downward trajectory in terms of rates of change, but the country experienced a subsequent surge. The same holds true for Northern Ireland.
Sweden, like Massachusetts, is on a surge, but with much less magnitude.
Figure 2 illustrates the relative lag times between the peak of new cases and the peak of daily deaths. The arrows correlate to when the daily peak cases occurred (not the peak of deaths, although they may coincide by chance).
In general, deaths follow cases. One would expect that the peak of daily deaths for any location would arrive after the peak of daily new cases. This is true for Italy, where the peak of daily deaths occurred 7 days after the peak of daily new cases, which in turn occurred 12 days after lockdown. 19 days of lockdown were required to lessen Italy's death rate.
The UK needed 15 days of lockdown to simultaneously reduce both the number of daily new cases and the death rate. This could be because the UK may be under-testing, resulting in a delay of the peak of daily new cases.
It's also conceivable that the peak of new daily cases can arrive after the peak of the daily death rate. Further support for this notion is the fact that Ireland has a higher case density than the UK, yet the UK has a higher number of deaths per capita.
NYS required 24 days of social distancing to reduce the death rate; a reduction which occurred 1 day after the peak of daily new cases. Again, this could be due to the lack of testing. In NYC, deaths are on the rise again but to an unknown extent. The same is true for Massachusetts, Northern Ireland, Belgium, and Sweden. It's too early to tell what will happen in Ireland.
For "The Rest of the US," the death rate peaked 8 days ago, 29 days after social distancing was instigated.
Sources of data: Worldometer.com, Spectrum News NY1, New York State Department of Health, Massachusetts Department of Public Health, HSC Public Health Agency
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