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Billie Eilish is one of the most successful singer-songwriters in the world right now. Her unique sound has brought a sardonic, gothic edge to pop music. Before turning eighteen Eilish had been nominated for six Grammys and ten MTV video awards, performed at the Academy Awards, and sold out massive tours.
How did Billie Eilish go from a homeschooling kid writing songs in her brother’s bedroom to one of the biggest names in modern music?
A Brother and Sister Team – Billie and her Brother Finneas
Billie Eilish, born Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell, comes from a family of entertainers. She started dancing, writing lyrics, and singing at a young age, including performing in the LA Children’s Chorus at age eight – but she wasn’t alone. From the beginning, she and her brother Finneas always worked on music together.
The homeschooling siblings Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell wrote songs together while growing up. Both agree that it took some time to find their unique sound, and that it got easier when they stopped trying so hard.
“I think when we first started, we were trying to make music that sounded like the music that we liked…” O’Connel explained to NPR, “And I think as we progressed, we stopped trying to make music that fit with any other music or was in comparison and any other music.”
“Ocean Eyes” to “When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go?”
When Eilish was thirteen, the brother and sister wrote and produced a song for Billie’s dance class, so her dance teacher could choreograph a routine to it. That song was “Ocean Eyes,” and it would send Eilish straight to superstardom.
Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell uploaded their song to SoundCloud, and shortly after it went up it gained millions of plays – an overnight viral sensation.
The duo would go on to sign with UK-based Platoon, and then Interscope in 2016. Despite being signed with a major label, Eilish continues to write and record with Finneas – sometimes in her brother’s bedroom – which was where they created her debut album “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?”
The album debuted at number one on the Billboard Top 200, reached triple platinum, won Eilish a spot in Grammys history with awards for best new artist, album, record, and song of the year.
“Bad Guy” – Glorifying fears on Film
If there’s anything people love about Billie Eilish as much as her sound or her lyrics, it’s the intense, gothic videos.
“I just love the idea of glorifying people's biggest fears,” Billie Eilish stated, “You know, people are freaked out by needles, people are freaked out by things under the bed and people are really afraid of the dark ... I just really wanted something that's going to kind of make you jump a little bit.”
Eilish’s video for her hit “Bad Guy,” which opens with the singer bursting through a yellow wall and handing her Invisalign to a man standing next to her, made headlines for passing one billion views, just over a year and half after the video’s release.
Eilish’s videos for “You Should See Me in a Crown” and “When the Party’s Over” gained public attention for their bold imagery, including black tears running down the Billie’s cheeks and a massive spider crawling out of Eilish’s mouth – which the singer confirmed were all real – including the tarantula: “I just hate doing everything CGI.”
Billie Eilish and Hollywood
Eilish is no stranger to Hollywood. In the Spring on 2017, before her first album was released, her song “Bored” was featured in the controversial Netflix series “13 Reasons Why.”
Now Billie Eilish has also been producing original songs for soundtracks of new TV shows and movies. Famously, she wrote and sang the title track for the new Bond film, “No Time to Die,” being the youngest artist to write a song for a Bond film. She also collaborated with Rosalína on a song for the HBO series Euphoria.
In February of 2021, a documentary covering Billie’s life from 2018-2020 called “Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry” directed by R.J. Cutler was released on Apple TV+. Eilish was drawn to participate because of her passion for film, she told Vanity Fair, “I just have always loved cameras. and I loved being on camera, and I’ve always loved watching videos of myself, since I was a little kid. I remember being 10 and being like, ‘Mom, can I watch home movies?”
Billie Eilish Live
Although she initially gained success by releasing her first song online, Eilish is a talented live performer. Critics called her Cochella performance “a triumph”, and her first two tours were enormously successful. Her third tour, “Where Do We Go? World Tour” had to be cancelled due to COVID-19.
Sources: NPR, Seventeen, udiscover music, Magic 98.3, Vanity Fair, Vox