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Most
of my friends are strange in one way or another; but that's a good thing
because I am as well, so I fit in more or less, here and there!
This was demonstrated nicely this Christmas by one of the gifts I
received; a CD from Lex of
Titanic and Bowie & Halihal fame (
links below).
The cover of the CD gave me a start when I began to examine it! The visual is reminiscent of
Poltergeist,
Nosferatu or some such
horror/
shock flick. The image on the cover is SUPER eerie!
However, I
wasn't able to play it for several days (Christmas stuff) but when I
did play it, I thought to myself, "What the hell?" I hadn't used my CD
player in over a year so was concerned about the distortion I was
hearing. Was my player malfunctioning?
I put the CD in the computer but there was the distortion again, so, I figured
the CD was defective and would have to return it. Then it occurred to me to go to
YouTube. It was
from listening to it on that site that I realized it was not a defective CD, a malfunctioning CD player
or my computer in the process of dying. It is the way the music/sound
was meant to be!
Also, the videos for the songs are REALLY weird and compliment the weirdness of the music!
bury a friend is obviously about drugs and it is pretty frightening (
YouTube links below).
After I played it a couple of times, I began to hear the real beauty(???) of it. How do I describe it? Think
Julee Cruise teaming up with
Marilyn Manson; the result is
Billie Eilish! The music is truly ASTOUNDING!
Her
vision of the world is, well, extremely scary and the photo on the
album cover reflects that vision! The lyrics deal with the not-so-nice
things of life (
link below).
The
photo is by
Kenneth Cappello. The photo shoot took
place on Eilish's birthday in December at a studio in
Los Angeles. Eilish had prepared sketches for the album cover which were
inspired by the album's themes of night terrors and lucid dreaming, as
well as Eilish's interest in horror films. Cappello told
MTV News
that he "knew she wanted it moody". In order for it to "feel real,"
Cappello added no additional lighting to the end photo so as to give the
impression that "a door was opening and that was the light coming into
the bedroom." He additionally shot different variations of Eilish
sitting on the bed expressing a range of emotions. Eilish wore contacts
to fill in her eyes completely with white. She further wished to use a
minimum of additional special effects and touch-ups on the end product
to retain a sense of "realness and transparency."
I researched
When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? and discovered it
has become a top selling album. Will wonders never
cease?
Although it is different in many ways, everything about the album puts me in mind of the last album by
David Bowie, ★
(Blackstar) (
links below). The cover design for the Bowie album by
Jonathan Barnbrook is not the same yet the feeling of it is. And of course, the music is similarly weird in different ways.

Tracklist:
1 - !!!!!!! - 0:14
2 = Bad Guy, Producer [Additional Production] – Billie Eilish - 3:14
3 - Xanny - 4:04
4 - You Should See Me In A Crown - 3:01
5 - All The Good Girls Go To Hell - 2:49
6 - Wish You Were Gay - 3:42
7 - When The Party's Over - 3:16
8 - 8 - 2:53
9 - My Strange Addiction - 3:00
10 - Bury A Friend - 3:13
11 - Ilomilo 2:36
12 - Listen Before I Go 4:03
13 - I Love You - 4:52
14 - Goodbye - 1:59
Companies, etc.
Distributed By – UMG Commercial Services
Published By – Universal Music Corp.
Published By – Drup
Published By – Last Frontier
Credits:
A&R – Justin Lubliner, Sam Riback
Legal – David Ferreria
Management – Brandon Goodman, Danny Rukasin
Mastered By – John Greenham
Mixed By – Rob Kinelski
Producer – Finneas*
Written-By – Billie Eilish O'Connell* (tracks: 1 to 6, 8, 10 to 14), Finneas O'Connell (tracks: 7, 9)
Notes:
All titles stylized in lowercase.
Debut
studio album released on March 29, 2019. The songs "You Should See Me
in a Crown" and "When the Party's Over" were released as the first two
singles from the album. The third single, "Bury a Friend" was released
with the album pre-order on January 30, 2019. The fourth single, "Wish
You Were Gay", was released on March 4, 2019 and the fifth single, "Bad
Guy", was released on March 29, 2019, shortly after the album's release.
Most of the album's tracks were written during the production of
Eilish's 2017 EP "Don't Smile at Me". These songs were supposed to be
part of an album that was to be released in the summer of 2017, instead
"Don’t Smile at Me" was released.
Barcode and Other Identifiers
Barcode (Printed [UPC-A]): 6 02577 42762 6
Barcode (Scanned [UPC]): 602577427626
Matrix / Runout (Variant 1): B002972702 333572104
Matrix / Runout (Variant 1): 02/20/2019 08:32AM#33545
Mould SID Code (Variant 1): IFPI LN09
Matrix / Runout (Variant 2): B002972702 3335721 07
Matrix / Runout (Variant 2): 02/20/2019 09:35.AM#33549
Mastering SID Code (Variant 2): IFPI LN09
Mould SID Code (Variant 2): IFPI 1025
Rights Society: ASCAP
Viewfinder links:
Net links:
YouTube links:
Lex, you've come a long way since Titanic!
Styrous® ~ December 30, 2019
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