What is going on with Billie Eilish?

For the record, she has a surprising debut album (co-written and produced by his brother Finneas O'Connell) that has received a bunch of very good reviews, and I do not pretend to question her enormous talent or projection as an artist. As a matter of fact Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters) even dared himself to compare the phenomenon with the connection that occurred in the 90s between young people and Nirvana. Almost nothing, but in fact these days it seems that everyone has lost their minds with Billie Eilish (Los Angeles, 2001).

Since in 2015 she uploaded the song "Ocean Eyes" to the SoundCloud platform while being only 14 years old, everything has gone very fast for the young Angeleno artist that has been compared to Lana del Rey or Lorde. Through disturbing videos, subversive pop melodies with hints of hip-hop and electronic and dark lyrics that explore suicide, loneliness and mental illness Billie dominates today Spotify's lists and YouTube trends, where she has several videos with more than 150 million views (search for 'Bellyache', 'lovely' or 'when the party's over').

With only one record on the market (released March 29, 2019) Billie's was one of the most anticipated performances last weekend in -once musical referent and now the temple of the hipsters- Coachella festival, and her name already shines with very large letters in more than one summer festival poster.

I confess that I often find myself looking through old festival posters. It certainly entertains and amuses me to see how the bands have evolved over the years. You can see how names that first appeared hidden, little by little were gaining importance in the posters to sometimes get to be deserved headliners. Now the rules of the game seem to be changing!

But hey, it is clear that Eilish has touched the postmillennial generation, no doubt about it and in the end music is all about connecting with the people. We have learnt that on these days of streaming music it is not even necessary to have a published record to occupy the honor positions of some festivals, rendered to an adolescent audience that is often ignorant in the musical, although skillful in the handling of glitter.

Cover photograph promo Billie Eilish