On April 12, Billie Eilish appeared on the Apple Music exclusive podcast, The Zane Lowe Show, to chat about her upcoming album, Hit Me Hard and Soft. The record, which she co-wrote with brother Finneas, will be her third LP.
"Aren't you tempted to just leak a little bit of music every once and while?" Lowe asked the 22-year-old, "That, sort of, like, 'Brat Billie'...Let's just do it."
"I'm kinda down," she responded. He chided, "Do it!"
Eilish has yet to release a single for her new era, stating that there would not be any before the album. She has shared the album's name, cover and release date, but fans were left with no idea of what the record would sound like. This was intentional on Eilish's part.
"I've never done no single, and it's fire. I've always wanted to do that. I hate singles. Oh my god! I hate them," exclaimed Eilish. For her last album, Happier Than Ever, she released seven separate singles between July 2020 and December 2021. The album was released in February 2021.
"But this isn't technically a single, right? This is an artist approved leak," said Lowe, justifying the snippet's appearance on his show.
"See, I'm gonna be leaking the thing," mused Eilish.
"I'm sending you, like, fourteen seconds," she said as she sent the music file to Lowe.
"You're not gonna troll me? You're not gonna Rick Roll me?" asked Lowe jokingly. Rick Rolling is the act of playing Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up," rather than the actual song intended.
Eilish responded that while it was only fourteen seconds, the file she sent was, in fact, her upcoming release. Lowe got excited, saying that it felt "dangerous" and remarked that "We don't do anything like this anymore."
Before playing the track, Lowe excitedly announced that this is the first anyone has heard of Hit Me Hard and Soft.
"Not today, maybe tomorrow/Open up the door, can you open the door?/ I know you said before you can't cope with anymore," sings Eilish over a minimalist bass-heavy beat. The snippet is from "CHIHIRO," which had a line "leak" in a Spotify session with Eilish: "Saw you turn around but it wasn't your face/Said, 'I-'"
"I'ma play it again. I might play it for three minutes, so it's like a song," shouted Lowe before playing the "leak" one more time.
"Fire! Fire!" exclaimed Lowe after the fourteen seconds played. He blasted an explosion sound over the speaker. Eilish laughed in response.
In the interview with Lowe, Eilish also spoke about a music video for the song "Lunch," which she was in the midst of filming and directing.
Eilish recently won her second Oscar for "What Was I Made For?" off of the Barbie soundtrack, making her the youngest person to win two Academy Awards. She and Finneas received the award in 2021 for "No Time To Die" from the James Bond film, No Time to Die.
Hit Me Hard and Soft releases on May 17.
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