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 sought-after and revered 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.
Is the Next Housing Bubble About to Burst?
The 2007-2010 housing crisis was caused by large banks selling tranches of subprime mortgages, many of which were–in a move that can be described at best as morally ambivalent–rated AAA by Standard and Poor's. These loans, given to buyers with startlingly bad credit, were gradually defaulted on, causing a major financial crash. Now, ten years later, there's cause for concern once again.
Amidst the collapse of Bear Stearns and the bailout of AIG, it's easy to forget about the federal government's hand in creating the 2008 recession. Back in the 1990s, Barney Frank, with the help of the United States Department of Housing and Development, decided to raise Fannie Mae's quota for purchasing loans from low income buyers. Over the course of about 15 years, from 1992-2007, these rates jumped from 30% to 55%. By the early 2000s, Fannie Mae was offering no-down payment loans and had bought over a trillion dollars in subprime mortgages. Of the 27 million outstanding subprime loans during the 2007 crisis, 70% were owned by the federal government.
The sudden fall of Bear Stearns' stock
Last year, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac redefined the term subprime, lowering the credit threshold for what constitutes poor credit from 660 to 620, almost as if these agencies suddenly contracted amnesia. To make matters worse, the Federal Housing and Finance Agency's goals are to finance loans on about 400,000 low income homes each year from 2018-2020. While these loans aren't necessarily subprime, it's safe to assume that a good portion of them are. On top of this, Fannie Mae has also raised their debt-to-income (DTI) ratio limit from 45% to 50%, and the share of loans with high DTIs has jumped from 6% to 20% over the past year. The argument for these incredibly lax regulations is that many people had their credits decimated in 2008 and that millennials, the newcomers to the housing market, have more debt than other generations. It makes sense for the government to help struggling people find homes, but raising the DTI threshold while lowering credit requirements for mortgage loans is one of the riskiest methods conceivable.
The private sector isn't much better though, and investment in subprime mortgages is back; they've just been rebranded as nonprime (which isn't even a real word). Some companies, like Carrington Mortgage Services in California, are offering loans to people with FICO scores as low as 500, about 250 points shy of the current average for agency-backed mortgages. Obviously, there's a higher down payment associated with these lower credit scores, but the resurfacing of subprime loans is disturbing, particularly when a spokesman for Carrington says something like, "We believe there is actually a market today in the secondary market for people who want to buy nonprime loans." Never mind that this isn't a sentence, listen to what this person is saying. Banks are also latching onto this idea, and some have been known to offer mortgages for 0% down.
Fico credit score chart. During During the 2008 financial crash, a credit score under 650 was considered subprime.
Another disturbing development is the current popularity of Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans. Currently, the FHA controls 21% of the total mortgage market and 35% of loans purchased by Millennial homeowners. These loans are traditionally designed to help lower income Americans buy houses. Nowadays, their loan limits don't necessarily reflect this. Loan limits, depending on the area, range anywhere from $294,515 to $679,650, and for buyers with a credit score of 580 or higher, these loans only require a 3.5% down payment. If someone's credit score is between 500-579, they can purchase a home for 10% down. Even if a mortgage company tacks on a 1.5-2% fee, this gives large swaths of people with ostensibly terrible credit the option to put only $25,000 down on a $500,000 home. The DTI threshold for an FHA loan? 57%.
To compound things further, 93% of FHA loans issued in 2016 were handled by mortgage companies, not banks. These companies, for obvious reasons, are much less resistant to liquidity issues than big banks, and there is research to suggest that mortgages issued by nonbank lenders tend to be associated with much lower credit scores. Not only are these companies woefully unprepared for an uptick in delinquencies–an uptick that's almost certain with the Fed increasing the interest rate–they're actively selling loans to high risk candidates. In the event that homeowners default on their mortgages, there's no way these companies can eat the cost. This is bad news for the Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae), the agency that manages and insures the FHA. While lenders dealing in FHA loans have considerable financial responsibility, if they can't foot the bill, the worst thing that happens is their company goes under. That financial responsibility doesn't disappear, it just gets passed up the ladder to Ginnie Mae, who would in turn be required to consolidate the tsunami of debt.
1.7 Trillion in outstanding loans...
It's worth noting that American citizens, unlike the federal government, have learned from their mistakes. For a while, adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) were undesirable, shunned for the hand they played in the housing crisis. Over the past few years people have slowly warmed to the idea of purchasing these loans, but it's unlikely that this will have any major effect on the economy for some time. That said, subprime lending is back up to 2006 levels. FHA loans have also taken a small dip, as quarter four of 2017 marked an increase in 'seriously delinquent' FHA loans in all but three states. While these things aren't necessarily harbingers of another economic apocalypse, there's definitely some reason to worry. The U.S. is over 21 trillion dollars in debt, and if there is another housing crisis, it probably won't end in a government bailout. The volatility of the housing market has been amplified to a deafening volume, and if we're hit with another subprime mortgage crisis in the next five years, the American economy will be decimated. The dominoes are in place. The only question is: what will tip the first one?