Billie Eilish : Pop Icon of Generation Z
Billie Eilish is undoubtedly the pop icon of the Z Generation, this despite the teen singer-songwriter’s counter-pop-star image. Her young fans catapulted her to Number 1 in the Billboard Hot 100 chart since August 2019; to which her award-winning “Bad Guy” locked-in for 48 weeks. So far, she has been in the Hot 100 for 79 weeks, with 18 of her songs making it to the chart.
What Makes Billie Eilish Adorable to the Young Generation?
There are several reasons why someone as unconventional as Billie Eilish can make it to the top spot of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart and stay in long enough to release more. Even the music industry’s award-giving body, the Grammy, found a lot of things delightful about Billie’s music despite the antithetic themes.
Apparently, Billie Eilish epitomizes what millions of the Generation Z population wants to see, hear and do. Projecting a cool, “couldn’t-care-less” and “this-is-me” personality by wearing loose, baggy outfits, layers and layers of chunky silver necklaces, loud graphic T-Shirts and hair that went from platinum to blue-gray to fluorescent slime-green.
Some think her fashion statement is weird, coming for a pop icon; but it’s just the kind image that kind of matches the creepy stuff one hears in her music.
Billie Eilish’s style of singing is a contradiction, since she almost always whispers her lyrics with a mellowness that soothes rather than hurts the ears. In fact the softness of her voice makes listeners want to watch her weird, enigmatic music videos as well. Doing so enables them to visualize their idol’s train of thoughts when singing “Bad Guy;” or something as delightfully spooky as “Bury Your Friend” and engagingly satirical as “Wish You Were Gay.”
The 17-year old singer-songwriter had no qualms in admitting her struggle with “Tourette Syndrome.” Her condition only made it clear to the young generation that they can aspire to be what they want to be, regardless of what they are going through.
Even her birth name seems non-traditional, “Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell.’ Nonetheless, Billie is of irish-descent, and Pirate is something folks in Ireland would name their baby girls because it’s the irish version of Elizabeth. Born December 18, 2001, she also made record as the first 21st Century-born artist to make it to Billboard’s Top Charts, and the youngest music artist to win four major Grammy awards in a single year.
If being born under a lucky star has anything to do with her success, Billie is a Saggitarian; Saggitarius being one of the star signs under which many highly revered musicians were born: Tina Turner, Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus, just to name a few.
BIllie Eilish’s music captured her generation by storm without intending to at age 14, when she uploaded “Ocean Eyes” at SoundCloud. Although she made the video just to impress her dance teacher with her songwriting ability, her fresh style of singing and her originality hit the right chord. Her music career launched that day, as “Ocean Eyes” went viral overnight at the streaming site.