Billie Eilish is perhaps the most talented artist of our generation…and I don’t throw that around lightly. At only 13, Eilish wrote “Ocean Eyes” alongside her brother Finneas and launched her prolific career. And at the fair age of 22, Eilish has 24 GRAMMY Award nominations and nine wins, two Oscars, two Golden Globes, and countless other accolades.
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.
It Wasn't All Velvet...Pavel Zajíček Crosses The Line
“In the dark times will there also be singing?” – Bertolt Brecht, 1939
Czech poet, lyricist, musician, immigrant, refugee, examinee of the State's Secret Police, enemy person, artist Pavel Zajíček died in Prague on March 5, 2024. He was 72. Zajíček was a seminal influence in the Prague Underground, which stood in crazy, colorful opposition to Soviet rule. Critic Ingrid Marie Jensen provides some historical background concerning the world Zajíček grew up in – and the world he helped change:
After the Soviet Union took control of Czechoslovakia
and turned it into a satellite state in 1968, the Czech art
world took a massive hit. Things were especially tough
for musicians. Busking was illegal. Any music broadcast
over the radio was heavily censored. Only the most banal
pop was permitted. Musicians were not allowed to write
songs with English lyrics or to wear their hair long in the
fashion of American hippies.
Not the place, one would think, for some down-n-dirty rock n’ roll.
It turned out that Czechoslovakia was precisely the place rock n’ roll needed to be. Jensen and other writers have described how the flame of rebellion was kept alive by listening to such “decadent” Western groups as the Velvet Underground and The Mothers of Invention, Frank Zappa’s iconoclastic conglomeration of freaks and geeks. The dissenters didn’t just listen – many of them started their own bands.
Zajíček provided lyrics for The Plastic People of the Universe and later founded DG 307 – described as Czech underground sound poetry. The Communist authorities did their best to silence him. As Prague Radio International reports:
In one of the most notorious incidents of the political
clampdown of the 1970s, Pavel Zajicek was among
several musicians charged and sentenced for
“breaching the peace.” As a blatant violation of basic
civil liberties, the episode was one of the catalysts for
the most famous initiatives of the dissident movement,
Charter 77.
Like many lyricists, Zajíček wrote poetry that came out in samizdat form – banned literature that's clandestinely printed and distributed often by hand. He's the author of hundreds of song lyrics and twenty poetry collections. In 1976 he and members of the band The Plastic People of the Universe were arrested and Zajíček was sentenced to a year in prison. In 1980 he left Czechoslovakia for Sweden, after which he lived in the United States of America. In the wake of 1989’s “Velvet Revolution” – which ended 41 years of Communist rule – he returned to Prague, where an erstwhile colleague named Václav Havel had been elected President.
The poet Percy Bysshe Shelly once observed that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” Havel and Zajíček and their compatriots helped shape contemporary Czech history and culture. It’s safe to say their achievements have been acknowledged.
In the dark times
will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times.
- Bertolt Brecht, 1939
Poet, Pavel Zajíček Typing - Photo by Minna M. Pyyhkala