For me, it's not about whether I like the music or not. Billie Eilish is not making music for old men like me. What I find interesting is the connection she has to her own generation. To how they are thinking and feeling. And how incredibly good she and her brother are at creating and articulating their songs. On the one hand there is so little to them, and on the other there seems to always be another surprise to find each time I listen.
The 'industry' is full of highly paid professionals that cannot grasp what these two teens (a little older, now) have grasped, innately. Real musicality. Because these kids are artists, not trained pop performers. And they write real song about real things, not wanna-be pop hits. Keep in mind there were no "boy bands" before the Beatles did it. And all of those that followed were mostly derivative hacks intent only on becoming rich and famous by riding a vacuum that the Beatles created and then left behind long ago. And it's the same today with the endless chain of wanna-be 'Modonnas' prancing around in their bras and panties and mimicking sex with near-naked dancers. These are all corporate generated copycats out to cash in on some sick corporate view of 'teen girl fantasies'. To me, they don't count. It's not art, and it's not even creative. it's just a big money machine exploiting whatever gimmick it can for maximum profit.
I watch out for the real thing; that comes along rarely, and creates a whole new 'genre' of it's own. When I was a teenager (late 60s early 70s) there was an explosion of that kind of creativity, and I thought it was the norm. But it wasn't. And by the mid to late 70s music had become a wasteland of derivative wanna-bes looking for the big pay-out. So I'm pleased to spot a spark of the real thing in Billie Eilish and her brother Fineas. And happy to pass it on to anyone that might also be interested in something more than nostalgia and corporate generated schlock.
