Every young person wants to know, “Am I satisfactory?” Billie Eilish actually asks it in “Bury a Friend,” her single climbing the music charts this week. The singer-songwriter’s hit is No. 14 in the country, and she’s only 17 years old.
Her age is her advantage; it’s what allows her to express such vulnerability in her music. Eilish follows artists such as Lorde in dissecting insecurity, fame, and relationships, all through the eyes of a teenager.
Lorde rose to fame with her 2013 hit “Royals” when she was just 16 years old. The song asks why pop has to be so vapid (“Every song’s like, ‘Gold teeth, Grey Goose, trippin’ in the bathroom’”) and says the singer would rather stay away from the mainstream (“We don’t care, we aren’t caught up in your love affair”).
Now that Lorde is in her 20s, Eilish steps into the same space: sharing what it feels like to be a teenager, wrestling with universal emotions while struggling to be unique.
The anthem of the American teen could be “idontwannabeyouanymore,” almost a self-directed break-up song. Or it could be “lovely,” Eilish’s collaboration with 21-year-old Khalid. The song may address the bewildering isolation of a generation that has never known life without the Internet: “Isn’t it lovely, all alone?”
For his part, Khalid sings about this explicitly in his 2017 hit “Location,” which includes the line, “I don’t wanna fall in love off of subtweets.”
Eilish and Khalid are the musical voices of Generation Z, the vanguard looking for meaning in Instagram followers (Eilish told Clash she used to think that was a “big deal”) and love in subtweets.
Eilish’s ethereal sound is not for everyone, and her songs have stayed on the charts with little radio support. But her perspective, and her vulnerability in interviews, fit the moment.
