Eilish employs a fairly unusual technique, but what’s probably even more important in determining her signature sound is the way she sings incredibly softly, bordering on a whisper. The key element uniting all of these tracks is the artist’s distinctive vocal performance. When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? features a number of tracks which put a twist on fairly conventional approaches: 8 is based on a straightforward ukulele ditty with pitch-shifted vocals When The Party’s Over is a piano-and-layered-vocals breakup ballad at heart Listen Before I Go is a pared-back piano-and-synth arrangement interspersed with unusual bass synth stabs.īad Guy is structurally quite unusual, but its instrumentation isn’t particularly complex to recreate, focusing heavily on quite simple layered synth sounds, organic percussion hits and 808-based drums. Unsurprisingly, her deadpan persona has given rise to thousands of memes and gifs. It’s a gloriously disdainful exclamation, expressing how obvious it is that Eilish is the alpha female in this scenario. The lyrical payoff in the chorus is the announcement that Eilish herself is “that bad type/Make your mama sad type/Make your girlfriend mad tight/Might seduce your dad type”, before the backing drops to silence and she announces in a processed drawl that she’s the bad guy. The structure of the track is also unusual, with just two verses and choruses before the track shifts entirely around the two-and-a-half-minute mark, dropping from 135bpm to 60bpm (arguably a halftime 120bpm) for a bridge/outro, a contrasting section with notably different instrumentation in the form of trap hi-hats, a heavily distorted kick, snare and spoken vocals. Musically, the track is a simple chord progression in the key of Gm, with Eilish’s naive, repetitive melodies adding a sinister feel and placing the focus squarely on her multitracked vocal delivery, in which she harmonises with herself and reinforces key phrases.įor much of the track the production is sparse, best exemplified by the minimal drum arrangement, with just a few finger clicks here and there, a shaker in the chorus and some hand claps in the second verse (during which the bass and synths drop out entirely for a few bars).
Like so much modern pop, Bad Guy mixes and matches tropes from different styles, cherry-picking the minimal aesthetic of experimental electronica, the bass-heavy mix of trap and the organic percussion of ‘90s R&B.īad Guy is one of the more energetic tracks on the album, with its swirling, woozy synth breaks adding a certain sense of humour to the arrangement and acting as a tongue-in-cheek counterpoint to the dark subject matter, with its lyrical references to bloody noses, bruised knees and sexual power dynamics.Ībove all, the track is driven by Eilish’s distinctive vocal delivery, which is apparent almost immediately from the start over minimal synths and heavy bassline.Ībove all, the track is driven by Eilish’s distinctive vocal delivery, which is apparent almost immediately from the start over minimal synths and heavy bassline.
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