Five years ago — when Billie Eilish dropped her groundbreaking, Grammy-winning debut album, “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” — there was a seismic shift in pop.
At just 17, she emerged as a goth-pop princess whose spooky, synthy sound was eerily prescient of the doom to come when the pandemic shut the world.
And the Billie effect was felt with everyone from Olivia Rodrigo to SZA to, yes, even Taylor Swift.
While Eilish broke out of the “Bad Guy” groove of her biggest hit on her second album, 2021’s “Happier Than Ever,” there was still no stopping her power.
And even when she made the most anti-blockbuster ballad for last summer’s “Barbie” smash, “What Was I Made For?” went on to win both the Song of the Year Grammy and the Best Original Song Oscar — even though the single didn’t even crack the Top 10.
Now 22, Eilish is hot off of accomplishing that rare Grammy-Oscar double as she releases her third LP, “Hit Me Hard and Soft” — and she continues to go against the mainstream.
In fact, she chose not to release any singles leading up to the album, wanting the collection to be consumed as a “family of songs.”
Forget the fact that listening to an album from start to finish in the streaming era is a pretty radical concept.
And when the LP gets off to the sleepiest of starts with the dreamy “Skinny” — where Eilish displays her new thing for strings, courtesy of the Attacca Quartet — you might think you accidentally shuffled it to the end.
Just like Prince rebeled against the “Purple Rain” mania with “Around the World in a Day” and Radiohead tried to shake off the “OK Computer” masses with “Kid A,” Eilish has refused to play to the basic crowd to meet any sort of commercial expectation.
And yet, it still works for her.
Because while it may take some time to sink in, “Hit Me Hard and Soft” shows that Eilish — with older brother Finneas back as her trusted co-writer and producer — is just way ahead of her peers even when she misses.
She’s that good.
Shape-shifting songs such as “Bittersuite” and “Blue”— back-to-back tracks that close out the album — are alternately weird and whimsical, with a sinister undercurrent that recalls the darkness of “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?”
Meanwhile, “L’Amour de Ma Vie” finds the sultrier-than-ever chanteuse embracing her inner Edith Piaf before it turns into a pulsating rave-up.
And although there aren’t any obvious hits by design, Eilish still can’t help herself with the catchiness of “Birds of a Feather,” a flight of fancy that glides through a breezy groove.
Ditto “Lunch,” which, packing an extra punk from the live drums, shows that Eilish is all grown up with its sexually explicit lyrics.
But in true Eilish fashion, this bop is bold as an ode to performing oral sex on another woman: “I could eat that girl for lunch/Yeah, she dances on my tongue.”
Just ahead of Pride Month in June, she pulls out a queer anthem.
And true to its title, Eilish’s latest hits you hard and soft — sometimes within the same song.
While it’s hardly the kind of summer blockbuster that you’ll be rocking at the beach, that hardly matters when you can bring it like Eilish — whenever the season.
