Melissa Kacar

Happy Record Store Day! To celebrate the semi-annual independent record store event, Billie Eilish released a special 10" vinyl commemorating her acoustic performance apart of Amazon's Songline series.  She performed four songs off of HIT ME HARD AND SOFT ; "SKINNY", "L'AMOUR DE MA VIE", "WILDFLOWER" and "BIRDS OF A FEATHER". It's just Billie, her brother Finneas , her band, and three backing singers in an empty studio space performing them live in one take. These versions aren't available on streaming, other than this rendition of "BIRDS OF A FEATHER" , which is exclusively on Amazon Music. The videos of these performances are available to watch on YouTube though, and they are really incredible. I love that she chose to perform "SKINNY" first, as it is such an emotional and vulnerable introduction into this album. It sounded so beautiful in a stripped down format like this and reminded me of the way sh...

"BIRDS OF A FEATHER" by Billie Eilish is a sweet and simple love song, one unlike anything she has ever made before. Nearly left off the tracklist of HIT ME HARD AND SOFT due to how much she and Finneas overthought it, the song ultimately went on to quickly become one of the most beloved in her entire discography. This is also pretty much the first love song Billie ever wrote, and easily the poppiest up to this point in her career too with such a bright, soaring melody. At the same time, it still carries a morbid edge, infused with her signature dark humor, while still remaining undeniably heartfelt.  The song radiates so much joy, yet its lyrics lean into themes of death and devotion in a way that feels both intense and endearing. "I want you to stay 'til I'm in the grave, 'til I rot away, dead and buried, 'til I'm in the casket you carry," she sings in the opening verse. "If you go, I'm goin' too, 'cause it was always you an...

Happy Record Store Day! One of my most anticipated releases for the Black Friday drop this year was a special version of Billie Eilish 's incredible album HIT ME HARD AND SOFT , which features only her isolated vocals. You can only slightly hear parts of the instrumentals in the background because she recorded the songs without headphones, but this variant of the album puts a major emphasis on only her gorgeous vocals. It's a really cool concept, it almost sounds like you're in the studio with her hearing it recorded live.  There is so much depth to her vocal comps with all of the hidden vocals and ad libs that are hidden underneath the production. There are so many small details that otherwise get buried in each song that now get the chance to fully shine. Billie and Finneas ' creative process is so fascinating, and this record give a glimpse into the way all of these songs came together. An album like HIT ME HARD AND SOFT  is meticulously produced and every layer is s...

Ten years ago,  Billie Eilish  uploaded her very first song onto SoundCloud. When she recorded "ocean eyes" she was only 13 years old, yet instantly cemented herself as one of the defining voices of this generation of music. The track was written, produced, and mixed by her brother,  Finneas , who was 18 at the time. Originally intended for his band, he realized his sister's voice would suit the song much better. They recorded it together and uploaded it independently to SoundCloud, simply with the intention of wanting Billie's dance teacher to choreograph a routine to it. What happened next was beyond anything they imagined, with the song organically going viral overnight. "So my brother wrote it, and he kind of just came into my room one night and said, 'I have this song, and I want you to sing it.' I sang it, and it was weirdly exactly what I was going through at the time, which was weird," Billie said in a 2017 interview for Lexus' Artist Spo...