Happier Than Ever by Billie Eilish // 5 Year Anniversary Album Review + vinyl and splatter CD!
When looking back at Billie Eilish's career thus far, her sophomore release Happier Than Ever served as a pivotal stepping stone in her evolution. It is almost an impossible feat for any artist to be able to follow up a massive debut like Billie had with WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP WHERE DO WE GO?, Happier Than Ever stands out as a moment of artistic progression and experimentation in numerous ways.
The historic Grammys sweep that came for her debut album intensified the pressures and attention placed on her, often in ways that obviously would overwhelm anyone, nonetheless a teenage girl who just a couple of years prior just started making music with her brother, Finneas, in their childhood home. The level of scrutiny and high expectations that were placed upon her, for better or worse, greatly shaped the experience of creating this second album.
"There are things we are super proud of on Happier Than Ever, but I know from thinking back and thinking about the year we made that album that it was two people who had just been told the nicest things imaginable," Finneas said in a 2023 interview with Apple Music. "I know from remembering it that we sat around being like, 'We are so good.'" That confidence - or what they took it for in the moment - later brought out a sense that, in reflection, they perhaps "didn't push themselves" to create the best work they could have at the time. "As much as Happier Than Ever was coming from this place of 'we are so good,'" Billie added in the same interview, "it was also, at least for me, not knowing at all who I was."
It ultimately turned into something largely representative of who she is as an artist beyond the persona she crafted early on. Happier Than Ever captures Billie growing up, finding herself, and reckoning with the new life she was suddenly thrown into at her coming of age. This album is indicative of the growing pains that come with achieving an unprecedented level of success so early in one's career.
In an effort to find herself, Billie largely went against everything she was doing up to that point - starting with bleaching her hair and stepping into an entirely new aesthetic. She counteracted her signature edgy, gothic, oversized style with a more traditionally feminine look, leaving behind the neon green roots for something intentionally softer and most of all, different, than what she had been known for up to that point. Billie was met with scrutiny in every single aspect of her life, especially when it came to the way she dresses and how her body looks; but what stands out is how she truly used this moment to reclaim autonomy and assert her control over the narrative about her with this album. In retrospect, she has talked about the ways in which she didn't feel necessarily the most "herself" at that time in her life, and Happier Than Ever being what Finneas called their "...identity crisis album" years after its release in an interview with Apple Music.
While much of those thoughts came in hindsight, in the moment this album was essential in signaling to the rest of the world that she refused to be put in a box or remain seen as one thing forever. That same philosophy then carried into the music as well. Across its 16 tracks, the album jumps from heartfelt ballads to a sultry, jazzy bossa nova moment (Billie bossa nova, if you will), to a wild EDM track, to a spoken‑word reflection on body image, to morbid ruminations on life and death, to her screaming over electric guitars, and finally to a beautiful acoustic closer. It is intentionally sprawling and unpredictable in every way.
If one thing is true about Billie, in every single aspect, it's that you cannot box her into one style or sound. She's the true embodiment of what it means to be a multifaceted artist in constant evolution, and she's always carried a certain attitude in the way she works that feels like the embodiment of the notion that whatever people say I am, that's what I'm not - whenever people expect something from her, she'll instinctively move in the opposite direction. And she does all of this by being completely herself, whatever that may mean in the moment. During the Happier Than Ever album cycle, that sense of self shifted and changed quite a bit, both sonically and personally, and the music became a reflection of that ongoing transformation.
While Happier Than Ever features several of the best songs she has ever made, it was largely met with mixed reviews and didn't live up to the commercial success of her debut or even the critical notoriety of her third record, HIT ME HARD AND SOFT. Beyond that, the significance of this album lies elsewhere in Billie's discography. It is a powerful reflection of the vulnerable, and at times messy, sides of her life and experiences thus far, and remains one of the most important chapters in understanding Billie's evolution as an artist.
Across its sixteen tracks, there are moments that feel like entirely different records stitched together, which is something they have acknowledged over the years, noting that this long of a tracklist is not something they will likely do again. They have largely expressed a desire to move forward with tighter, more streamlined albums devoid of any filler, as exemplified by HIT ME HARD AND SOFT and Finneas' various solo projects that have been released since. They largely went in the complete opposite direction when it came to the album release of Billie's third record, instead opting to release the entire album all at once with no prior singles.
"I feel that I sound very, like, I'm just fucking around. I'm just joking and shit. You know that, 'Stop, what the hell are you talking about?' It's like, come on. It's so real and natural and don't take me seriously, you know? I love it," Billie said in an interview with Zane Lowe when it was released.
The entire album truly builds up to the title track, "Happier Than Ever", which is the most insanely cathartic moment of her career. She has never been one to hold back in her writing or in the way she puts her entire self on the line for her music and this is the full embodiment of that. It begins with a gentle confrontation of an ex over a soft acoustic instrumental as she sings, "When I'm away from you, I'm happier than ever, wish I could explain it better, I wish it wasn't true," in the opening lines of the song. It slowly builds until it erupts into the second half. To be able to relive the moment of hearing that switch for the first time, going in completely blind, would be a dream. It remains one of the most iconic transitions in modern pop and genuinely one of the best songs ever.
"I don't relate to you, no, 'cause I'd never treat me this shitty, you made me hate this city," she sings in the defining climax of the song. "And I don't talk shit about you on the internet, never told anyone anything bad, 'cause that shit's embarrassing, you were my everything and all that you did was make me fuckin' sad."
In an interview with Spotify, Billie said this is "...probably the most therapeutic song I've ever written or recorded, like ever, ever, ever." She added, "'Cause I just screamed my lungs out and could barely talk afterwards, which was very satisfying to me somehow. I had wanted to get those screams out for a very long time and it was very nice to."
Every emotion keeps building until the final verse: "You ruined everything good, always said you were misunderstood, made all my moments your own, just fuckin' leave me alone," by which point she is fully screaming over a wild range of electric guitars, finally allowing herself a full‑on rockstar moment, which is something long overdue by that point. This is absolutely a defining song of her career (although there are many at this point), but the unfiltered emotions she lets out at the end is unmatched.
Although "Happier Than Ever" absolutely feels like the perfect way to end the album, Billie instead leaves the record on a much softer, introspective note. "Male Fantasy" is a gorgeous dissection of so many different aspects of her life, sides that often aren't explored in music in this way, but again connects back to the themes she presents throughout the entire album, but especially on the opening track, "Getting Older". It is a powerful coming‑of‑age exploration, a journey into her mind at that point in her life as she entered her 20s and tried to make sense of the experiences she had gone through up to that point. Breakups, both romantic and platonic, linger throughout the song, the latter of which she explores with such vulnerability that is deeply comforting to anyone who has gone through similar situations in life.
"And it's all I think about when I'm behind the wheel, I wonder if this how I'm always gonna feel, but nothing lasts I know the deal," she sings in the second verse. She sings specifically about the ending of a friendship and the enduring after‑effects it can have years later, as well as the ways in which people who may no longer be in your life, for a variety of reasons, still forever remain a part of who you are.
"'Male Fantasy' is really a hopeless realization and a horrible thing. It's terrible to feel something that you don’t want to feel," Billie said in an interview with Spotify. "'Happier Than Ever' was actually gonna close the album and then we wrote 'Male Fantasy' and it actually felt better to close it with that. Not ending on a angry note, I think, was important 'cause nothing should end on a bad note, I feel like."
"I loved you then and I love you now, and I don't know how, guess it's hard to know when nobody else comes around, if I'm getting over you or just pretending to, be alright, convince myself I hate you," she sings in the chorus. She ends the entire album with such a beautiful sentiment, "Can't get over you, no matter what I do, I know I should, but I could never hate you."
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