Goth-pop sensation Billie Eilish. Her music is as heavily produced as any new-generation pop – but it's produced with soul and a bloody,red,beating heart.
Gen-Z internet sensation Billie Eilish bounded onstage in an oversized T-shirt and launched straight into the galloping rhythm of mega-hitBad Guy,anchored with the magic"duh"that hooks you into its infectious spirals.
Spooky forest-scapes rendered in red and extraterrestrial imagined worlds alternated in the projections behind her,positioning her at the axis of musical styles in the goth-pop genre she's created for herself.
This year's debut albumWhen We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go mashes Eilish's niche variety of grotesque dystopian-pop with wry,oddball observations about love and status.
Her eyes bled black on the screen behind while her lush voice floated high above the (still screaming) crowd,swept along the lilting keys ofWhen the Party's Over and built to a stunning crescendo.
It was easy to forget that her roots are in sun-drenched West Coast anthems like 2016'sOcean Eyes and 2017's&burn but she treated them with the sincerity they deserved,too. And there was a good dose of attitude,too:blasé critiques of gendered double standards inIdon'twannabeyouanymore and mindless pill-popping inXanny came off as astute,rather than precocious.
The unsettling initial sweetness ofYou Should See Me in a Crown broke down after the drop to a growl with an overlay of thudding bass and dark electro beats. Her brother,collaborator and producer Finneas,made up most of her band,taking on keys,bass and guitar as needed.
But the flat,cavernous space of the Hordern didn't quite do enough to hold and project the gritty basslines and heavy,thudding drums so essential to her music,especially in competition with her screaming fans.
Eilish closed withBury a Friend,in which monsters run wild and she sings such tiptoe-ing lyrics as"Step on the glass/Staple your tongue"before shifting gear to a gristly drop.
With its heavy bassline and thudding electro,her music is as heavily produced as any new-generation pop – but it's produced with soul and a bloody,red,beating heart. Delicate and deadly.