Sister-brother act returns: Billie Eilish set to release third album

What a list: The most-streamed Spotify artist worldwide in 2019 and 2020, nine Grammy awards, the youngest recipient ever of two Oscars, and countless silver, gold and platinum rankings.

Behind these accomplishments and superlatives are a sister and brother act from Los Angeles who have turned the music world on its head over the past five years: Billie Eilish and her older brother Finneas have, at a young age, achieved virtually everything that long-established musicians dream about.

While 22-year-old singer and songwriter Billie is the one in the spotlight, Finneas is working behind the scenes as producer, songwriter and musician. "The love, trust and intimacy between the two is something special," says Copenhagen University musicologist Jessica Holmes. "This is what I see as the reason for their great success."

It's a view shared by Derek von Krogh, artistic director of the pop music academy in the German state of Baden-Württemberg: "You can see that there's not much coming from outside, but that the two of them are doing their thing together."

On May 17, Billie Eilish's third album - "Hit Me Hard and Soft" - is to be released. No singles have been issued, nor has there been any advance streaming for the press. Only a few brief audio snippets making the rounds on the internet and a few tracks played at the Coachella Festival give an idea of the musical direction the new album will take.

Gloomy choral voices and an out-of-tune piano

The track "Chihiro," which fans say could allude to protagonist of the animated classic "Spirited Away," sounds like a typical Eilish mix of a danceable beat and soft vocals, a sound already heard in "All the Good Girls Go to Hell." Other song snippets, which fans say is from the song "Bittersuite," sound atmospherically dark with choir voices, an out-of-tune piano and dark beats in the background.

Especially exciting looks to be the song "Lunch" in which Eilish breathes almost innocently over a concise bassline: "I could eat that girl for lunch." As if any explanation of that wish is necessary, the 22-year-old self-confidently and with disarming honesty told Rolling Stone recently: "I've been in love with girls for my whole life, but I just didn't understand — until, last year, I realized I wanted my face in a vagina."

A little more quietly, however, she later admitted that her previous outing on a red carpet in December was not planned and that she tends to share too many things from her private life. "I have overshared my whole life," she told Rolling Stone. "I was never planning on talking about my sexuality ever, in a million years. It’s really frustrating to me that it came up."

"Eilish doesn't need queerbaiting"

In the past, some have accused Eilish of so-called queerbaiting - the deliberate marketing of a queerness that does not exist in reality. Musicologist Holmes is furious about such accusations: "Eilish doesn't need 'queerbaiting' to sell her records. That's an extremely sexist, unfair criticism." The artist herself said that no one should be pressured into labelling themselves. "I'm just finding out for myself who I am."

And this path apparently has led Eilish back again to her legendary debut album "When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?" in 2019 - and thereby to darker topics like depression and anxiety. In an interview she said she had been searching for the girl she had once been.

Now, the links to her debut album can be seen in the sombre cover of the new album which shows Billie Eilish alone, under water. Musicologist Holmes: "We see a continuity in the imagery with some of the images we know from before: Billie alone in life-threatening situations, an unknown danger outside the picture threatens her."

The calligraphy of the two albums is also strikingly similar. There are ten songs on the track list of "Hit Me Hard and Soft" and all of them, like the album title, are in all-capital letters. "This makes it especially exciting, because we tend to think of Billie Eilish as more of a quiet singer with a soft voice," Holmes said. But, she is also known for contrasts, he noted. "Maybe it's also a 'hit me hard with the capital letters and soft with the voice'."

Pop music academy director van Krogh is certain about one thing concerning the latest production by Billie and Finneas: "No matter which direction the new album takes, it's definitely not going to be boring. Art like this is simply good for the world."