Entertainment
Everything We Heard At Billie Eilish's Hit Me Hard And Soft NYC Listening Party
For the singer, it was a 45-minute cardio sesh.
Over 19,000 people converged at Brooklyn’s Barclays center on May 15 not for a game or concert, but to listen to an album. A few days prior, global pop star Billie Eilish announced that she’d be grant several thousand fans in New York City the exclusive privilege of hearing her third album, Hit Me Hard And Soft, early, and for free — if they were able to win tickets (a second listening is scheduled in Los Angeles on May 16). No other details on what to expect were given, but the ticket distribution seemed to have been democratic and plentiful: As my train rolled into the nearby Lafayette Ave station at 8 p.m., my entire car of chattering teens emptied onto the platform.
Inside Barclays, the merch stand was popping, with the item of the night being a limited-edition poster with Eilish’s contemplative face plastered across. At the main stage, the lights glowed a serene ocean blue (the apparent color scheme of this album), as the album’s title was projected in huge letters across the floor. In front of me, two friends, one with Eilish’s face as her phone background, chattered excitedly about whether she was coming out, before screaming to get the attention of other friends sitting in another section.
It was clearly a fan-first event, but I’d also inadvertently found myself in the industry section. A few rows up, Highsnobiety editor-in-chief Willa Bennett chatted up an editor at Seventeen, while one of Eilish’s publicists filed in behind me. (Via Instagram, I learned that Lourdes Leon and Alex Wolff, were also here.) I said hi to a friend, who was with his younger brother, Luke, a 22-year-old Eilish fan who began his journey with her sophomore record, Happier Than Ever. He was excited to hear her play “Lunch,” the bass-blasting, horny song she previewed at Coachella, and convinced that Eilish was here, and going to appear.
And at 9:33 p.m., she indeed did, strolling out in uniform (a cap, oversized shirt, and basketball shorts) to meet a single spotlight. “Guys, I could shit myself,” she said, before promptly kicking the party off with a heavy but ornate ballad that included the sighing lyric, “When I step off the stage/ I feel like a bird in a cage.” (Yes, it’s heavy on the angst.) Immediately, everyone was up with their phones to shoot grainy footage of her running around the floor, not really dancing or listening. Then, “Lunch” came on and we snapped back to attention. The rest of the song is as explicit as what was teased, as I caught the lyric, “You need a seat? I'll volunteer.” Spicy.
Over the next 45 minutes, Eilish never stopped moving and was either walking, spinning, or sprinting from one end of the arena to the other with linebacker agility. The only other person with her was Finneas, who followed her around with a video camera, which she at one point stole to turn on him. Meanwhile, the songs arrived dizzyingly, with a mid-album apex being an EDM banger that was accompanied by a laser show. Luke leaned over to tell me the song was called “The Greatest” and critiqued it to be “the greatest — it’s as good as I was expecting.” When I told him I was surprised he knew the title, since the tracklist isn’t out, he demured that he only “knew some.”
One song that everyone clearly did know, because the arena erupted when it started playing, was penultimate track “Blue,” formerly called “True Blue,” a fan-favorite unreleased tune that’d been circulating online for years. It spurred a horde of fans from rows above me to sprint down to the floor, chased by ushers screaming for everyone else to “stay!” That song was then followed by a serpentine seduction with slinky drums and Eilish cooing dirty phrases that I couldn’t quite catch. Then, it was over. The music stopped and Eilish grabbed the mic to scream, “I F*CKING LOVE YOU SO MUCH,” and bolted off stage. Still blinking as the lights turned on, we filed out wondering what we’d just experienced — the show, music, and otherwise. Someone behind me remarked that “she just made her money,” and I was too much in a daze to correct her.
