Billie Eilish Announces New Album Coming in May
Billie Eilish announced on April 8 that her highly anticipated third studio album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, will be released on May 17.
The news arrived via Instagram, where Eilish shared the album artwork showing the pop singer floating in a body of water after being thrown out from a door. In the caption, she wrote that she will not release singles before the album is released, telling her fans she wants to "give it to you all at once."
"I truly could not be more proud of this album," she captioned the image.
The announcement came a few days after Eilish changed the status of all of her 111 million Instagram followers to "close friends" — allowing them to view her stories on the app. The excitement created by the status change gained Eilish seven million new followers in just two days.
Attracting so many new followers will certainly help Eilish sell her new album, but she has told Billboard that having such a large audience was "a huge responsibility and privilege" and that she wanted to "use that privilege to do some good in the world."
On her website Eilish has released details of how her new album and related merchandise will be sustainable and eco-friendly. All vinyl copies of Hit Me Hard and Soft will be made from recycled or eco-vinyl and all the packaging will be made from recycled material too.
Eilish told Billboard that she hopes other musicians will follow her example.
Eilish worked with her brother and longtime collaborator Finneas on Hit Me Hard and Soft. The pair recently took home their second Oscar for their Barbie song "What Was I Made For?" In doing so, Eilish, 22, became the youngest person by far to have won two career Oscars.
Earlier this month, Eilish signed a new open letter submitted by the Artist Rights Alliance nonprofit, calling on AI tech companies, developers, platforms, digital music services and platforms to stop using artificial intelligence "to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists."
