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.
This week's protest was labeled a "Meditation Rebellion," and it featured speakers from a variety of different faiths, who gathered to call for unity and solidarity on the steps of the New York Public Library at Bryant Park. Though the event wasn't linked to any specific religion, in spirit, there was an underlying sense of worship.
Newsweek
Personally, I'd been a bit worried about the event's theme, worried it would be a bunch of white people idealizing Eastern religions, especially because it's widely argued that XR and the climate movement have a race problem. Plus, climate activists have long been written off as hippie tree-huggers.
The event wasn't free from these issues, but at the NYC rally, speakers didn't over-emphasize the meditation aspect and mostly featured speakers of color, who all called for an intersectional approach to fighting the climate crisis. Overall, the event's organizers emphasized compassion, interconnectedness, and solidarity. The result was something that felt immensely powerful and regenerative.
After several speeches and songs, protestors marched silently down to 34th Street. To march in silence in New York City, especially on Black Friday, is a bit of an eye-opening experience, to say the least. Even if you weren't meditating, simply being silent with a group of protestors sharing the same pain and hopes created a sense of unity, despite or maybe because of the lack of conversation.
ny.curbed.com
During the march, I found myself feeling my grief about climate change and its related and intersecting issues for the first time in a while. The grief formed a heavy mass in my chest. But I knew I was walking alongside people who felt the same thing, who were aware that this pavement-covered, ashen city was built on top of forests that were stolen from the Lenape, that it still bears the scars of that breach.
I knew I was walking alongside people whom, instead of marinating in fatalism, still hoped and believed change was worth fighting for and whom were willing to stand up and sacrifice to see that change become real.
Once the group reached Herald Square, which was completely lit up by garish Black Friday advertisements, 27 protestors sat down in the middle of the street and blocked traffic until they were forcibly removed by the police. (It's important to note that despite the aggressive police presence, the relatively peaceable nature of this removal was something that only could have been afforded to white protestors).
In the glow of Sephora, right outside of Macy's and H&M, the circle of trust formed by the protestors risking arrest felt temporarily unbreakable. As they were handcuffed and taken away by the dozens of cops that showed up at the scene, crowds of supporters cheered and sang from the sidelines.
Why Protest Black Friday: The Connections Between Capitalism and Climate Change
Why protest Black Friday as a climate change-focused organization? Climate change and capitalism have always been blood brothers. As Naomi Klein writes in This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, "Our economic system and our planetary system are now at war. Or, more accurately, our economy is at war with many forms of life on earth, including human life."
The consequences of this war, of course, are not distributed equally. Climate change disproportionately affects low-income communities and communities of color, who are often on the frontlines of the crisis's worst consequences. Like the climate crisis, capitalism (particularly in its vicious neoliberal form) disadvantages those who have less while propping up those who already have more (hence why a billionaire can effortlessly announce himself as a top-running candidate).
While individual consumers' choices won't singlehandedly end capitalism or stop climate change, mass movements, paradigm and consciousness shifts, and massive government action (such as plans like the Green New Deal) have that ability.
AOC and Bernie Sanders unveil their Green New Deal for Public Housing Grist
The climate crisis is not the fault of individual consumers and working people, and eradicating consumption isn't the answer. Instead, change will come through creating a movement large enough to pressure governments into holding corporations accountable for their actions, and it's going to be vital for these movements to connect issues like capitalism, climate change, and the ways they influence us internally as well as externally, and to stand in solidarity with those who they most affect.
Extinction Rebellion is part of this movement. It's also an arm of a worldwide reaction to frustration with economic inequality and neoliberalism, a movement that stretches (in different forms) from Chile and Hong Kong to Indonesia and Iran.
In recent months, NYC has seen an increase in anti-authoritarian protests (though they are far from new). For example, in October and November, the organization Decolonize This Place held two massive rallies in response to the MTA's crackdown on subway fare evasion.
Daily Mail
Globally, a rising disillusionment with the false promises of billionaires and age-old toxicities rooted in white supremacy seems to be coalescing into a cohesive, if unstable, movement. Certainly, as these movements grow, things will break down and shatter, and roles and ideologies will shift and change.
As people with the privilege of choosing whether or not to protest, we have to be willing to be quiet and learn from each other during this time of instability, rage, and irrational, beautiful hope.
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