Most teens make their bedrooms their sanctuaries; not many make them into recording studios where they record hit songs. Enter Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas O’Connell.
Eilish recorded her first album, “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” on March 29, 2019, in her brother’s bedroom.
The album didn’t zoom to number one in the United States, it started there. It won three Grammys and dominated the charts worldwide. She was 17 at the time.
Eilish was the first artist born in the 21st century to have a number one album on the Billboard 200. Everything about her is 21st century, and she is an example of how the music industry has converted in the digital age.
Musicians pre-internet and social media hoped to get noticed playing in bars and local dance halls. They would send in tapes to music companies hoping somebody might take the time to open them and listen to them.
In 2015, when she was only 14, Eilish downloaded her song “Ocean Eyes” to the music sharing site SoundCloud, so her music teacher could listen to it. When she woke up the next morning the song had gone viral. It had several hundred thousands of listens in its first two weeks. Using a pre-internet cliché, the rest is history.
Our Song of the Day, “Bad Guy,” was the fifth single released from the “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go” album. She co-wrote it with her brother.
"Bad Guy" became her first number one single on the Billboard 100, won two Grammys in 2019 for Record of the Year and Song of the Year, and has more than 1.2 billion views on YouTube.
Song of the Day is created by Sheldon Zoldan, and produced by Pam James for WGCU. To receive the Song of the Day in your inbox every day, email shzoldan@comcast.net with the subject line ADD ME TO SOTD.
