Happier Than Ever
Happier Than Ever is the second studio album by American singer and songwriter Billie Eilish, released by Darkroom and Interscope Records on July 30, 2021. Eilish co-wrote the album with her brother and frequent collaborator Finneas O'Connell, who also produced the album and played every instrument. Eilish cited self-reflection during the COVID-19 pandemic as the biggest inspiration for the record.
Primarily a downtempo pop record, Happier Than Ever is characterized by sparse, jazz-influenced, electropop arrangements set to meditative tempos, departing from the upbeat, trap-led sound of Eilish's debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?. Consisting of torch songs about the downsides of stardom, Happier Than Ever draws heavily from Eilish's rise to fame and the drawbacks that come with it. Upon release, the album received acclaim from music critics, who praised its stylistic, restrained production, and insightful lyrics. At the 64th Annual Grammy Awards, the album and its title track received a total of seven nominations, including Album of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Album, Song of the Year and Record of the Year.
Seven singles were released in promotion of the album: "My Future", "Therefore I Am", "Your Power", "Lost Cause", "NDA", the title track, and "Male Fantasy"; the first three peaked within the top 10 of the US Billboard Hot 100. "Therefore I Am" was the highest-charting song from the album, peaking at number two, followed by "My Future" at number six, and "Your Power" at number 10. Happier Than Ever debuted atop the Billboard 200 as Eilish's second number-one album in the United States, and topping the album charts in 27 other countries. Eilish performed the album's tracks in the Disney+ concert film, Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles, which was released on September 3, 2021. To further promote the album, Eilish embarked on her sixth concert tour, titled Happier Than Ever, The World Tour, which began on February 3, 2022, and concluded on April 2, 2023.
Background and recording
Eilish released her debut album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? on March 29, 2019. It was met with critical acclaim and commercial success, and spawned the Billboard Hot 100-topping single "Bad Guy", her first number-one on the chart. The album and the single helped Eilish win five awards at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, including the "big four" Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best New Artist. Eilish released a number of singles since the album: the stand-alone "Everything I Wanted", the James Bond theme song "No Time to Die", and the Rosalía collaboration "Lo Vas a Olvidar", the first two of which won Record of the Year and Best Song Written for Visual Media at the 63rd Grammy Awards, respectively. In a January 2020 interview, Eilish stated she would begin working on her upcoming second studio album during the year. In March, Finneas confirmed this, stating that it would be "pretty pure in its intention" like Eilish's debut, with the two continuing to make the type of music they like to "play live". In January 2021, Eilish stated that the album "feels exactly how I want it to", with her not wanting to change a single thing about it. Her documentary film, Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry, was released the following month. Later in February, Eilish announced the album would have 16 tracks.Happier Than Ever was recorded at Finneas' home recording studio, located in the basement of his Los Angeles residence. According to Eilish, recording took place between April 1, 2020, and February 16, 2021, in weekly schedules, starting with "My Future" and ending with "Oxytocin". The title track was the first song she wrote from the record, dating back to the European leg of her When We All Fall Asleep Tour. Eilish revealed that all of 16 songs on the final track listing were the only songs the duo worked on during the album's creation, yet there were two songs, namely "What I Wanna Hear" and "Born Blue", that were omitted from the record since she "just couldn't figure them out". In 2024, the singer released "Blue" as the concluding track of her next studio album Hit Me Hard and Soft, which is a mash-up of "Born Blue" and another unreleased song "True Blue".
Eilish has revealed that the creative process of Happier Than Ever felt "very natural", unlike her previous projects where she constantly felt anxious and under pressure. With earlier works, Eilish also felt that she was not good enough and simply was not talented, but has since gained much more confidence in her craft. According to Eilish, her record label did not have any input on the album, unlike her debut album where she felt pressure from deadlines, constant meetings and "an expectation that a star was about to be born", all of which she "literally hated".
In an interview with Vevo, Eilish said that she wanted to create "a very timeless record", mostly being inspired by jazz singers that she listened to growing up such as Julie London, Peggy Lee and Frank Sinatra. She also said that the songs on the album are "all over the place and very, I think, versatile, different to one another, but also very cohesive," which she cited as one of her biggest goals. Another one of her goals she had during studio sessions was to surprise her fans as well as herself. She aimed to be uncomfortable during the creative process, using "NDA" as an example of a song that was not made in her "comfort zone". Eilish cited self-reflection as the biggest muse behind the record, and revealed before its release that "almost none of the songs on this album are joyful", despite its title. She noted "Male Fantasy" as a song that "pretty much wrote itself" and helped her realize feelings she had not processed before.
Music and lyrics
Musically, Happier Than Ever is a subdued, pop, electropop, downtempo, and jazz-pop record, incorporating elements of R&B, techno, country, bossa nova, bedroom pop, trip hop, folk, electro, trap, and 1990s sophisti-pop. It consists of torch songs set to slow tempos, with restrained, minimalistic arrangements of acoustic guitars, delicate synthesizers, and burbling beats. The lyrics deal with struggles faced by young women in the entertainment industry, fame, stardom, emotional abuse, power struggles, mistrust, and misogyny, imbued by Eilish's self-consciousness. In Robert Christgau's opinion, Eilish's songwriting had inspired Finneas to devise a sound for the album that is "calmer and less sprightly" than her earlier breakthrough work.Songs
The opening track, "Getting Older", is a song about abuse and was "particularly harrowing" to write. The song deals with sexual coercion. The second track, "I Didn't Change My Number", features a heavy beat. "Billie Bossa Nova", the third track, presents "a more mature side of Eilish". The fourth track, "My Future", starts as a slow synth ballad that "transitions into a laidback funk groove". Lyrically, the song is about self-discovery. "Oxytocin", the fifth track, has a techno pulse. The song references the titular hormone. The sixth track, "Goldwing", loops its a capella introduction throughout the song. The eighth track, "Halley's Comet", is a ballad featuring stripped-back vocals, light synths, and a backbeat. The ninth track, "Not My Responsibility", is a spoken word interlude with an ambient instrumental that debuted on Eilish's Where Do We Go? World Tour.The interlude then transitions into the tenth track, "Overheated", which samples the production of its predecessor and explores stardom in the era of social media. The eleventh track "Everybody Dies", is a downtempo alt-pop ballad, driven by dark synths and light guitar strumming, with "Eilish's voice again standing out". The twelfth track, "Your Power", is a soft acoustic ballad about sexual abuse and being taken advantage of by your partner. The thirteenth track, "NDA" discusses the lack of privacy in her life due to her rise in fame over a dark electropop beat which transitions into the fourteenth track "Therefore I Am", which is lyrically about dismissing the haters and critics. The fifteenth track, "Happier Than Ever", is a rock opera song. It has been described as "a mopey breakup song", before breaking into "an electric-guitar-driven rager", while the rest of the tracks "bare different kinds of catharsis, teetering between sexy, electronic beats and warm folkiness, reminiscent of her earliest music." It has been dubbed an album highlight. The album closes with "Male Fantasy", a slow-tempo ballad that finds Billie reflecting on relationships and sexual growth.
Release and promotion
On April 26, 2021, Eilish began hinting at upcoming music, and revealed the title, Happier Than Ever, in an Instagram post on April 26, including a 15-second snippet of the title track, which had been previously teased in the documentary film. The following day, Eilish announced Happier Than Ever as the album title, after billboards announcing its title and release date reportedly began appearing in various cities. Happier Than Ever was released on July 30, 2021. It was available in a variety of physical album formats, such as eight differently colored vinyl LPs, including retail-exclusives for Amazon, independent record stores, Target, Urban Outfitters and Walmart, ten CD variants, including autographed CDs at independent stores, a version with alternate packaging hand-painted by Eilish, three premium box sets, a Target-exclusive edition packaged with a poster, and multiple cassette tape variants, including a deluxe box set.On December 2, Eilish announced that she has teamed up with Italian fashion house Gucci for an eco-friendly limited vinyl edition of Happier Than Ever. The set was released the following day, featuring vinyls created entirely from leftover recycled materials gathered during the original pressing of the record and a Gucci-branded nail stickers. The box and stickers were designed by the brand's creative director Alessandro Michele. Additionally, the collector's edition was sold in a physical Gucci stores throughout the world. The cover of this edition has a "psychedelic pattern" in the background. Next month, during the 30th anniversary of Interscope Records, the label announced a museum exhibit, Artists Inspired by Music: Interscope Reimagined, featuring new cover arts of the projects released by the label. Those artworks were featured on the limited vinyl release. Happier Than Ever new cover was designed by American artist Lisa Yuskavage.
Eilish appeared on the cover of June 2021 issue of British Vogue, wearing a corset. The photoshoot provoked polarizing reactions. The singer also were interviewed for that magazine, and also for such publications as the Guardian and Rolling Stone. To support the album in the United Kingdom, a television special titled Billie Eilish: Up Close was broadcast on BBC One on July 31, in tandem with Eilish's debut on the BBC Live Lounge. All of the album's tracks received lyric videos on YouTube upon its release. For the first anniversary of the album's release, Eilish shared voice memos of her recording takes for "Billie Bossa Nova", "Lost Cause", "Your Power", the title track, and "Male Fantasy".