this is a pretty bad hobby for obsessive people

i'm thankful that d's vinyl of the new billie eilish album, happier than ever, finally came last night and i'm thankful that we tried to coldbox the room with the air conditioner (which we've usually been having on all evening) so we could turn it off in respect to the music (i'm thankful for our fan, which is much quieter but still cooling). i'm thankful we are listening to it again tonight.

i'm thankful for the lofi beats to study for bass forward mix of "billie bossa nova" and for the (i'm thankful for the shape she's holding her mouth in to inflect the timbre of the high chorus melody, which reminds me of lana in the chorus of "florida kilos")

i'm thankful for the lyrics of "my future", as someone who doesn't always vibe with billie and finneas's music on a lyrical level (there can be, even in songs that i think are beautiful, a theater kid forcedness sometimes to the couplets, a trite rhyme) but despite i think the message of the song is just so beautiful and unique and i would think the way that the disco beat kicks in in the middle would cheapen it but somehow it doesn't, it just makes me happier.

side B
i'm thankful for how "oxytocin" makes me think of peaches, which is both a diss and a compliment. it's a very well-produced and interesting but it also feels, a bit, like play-acting and the chorus melody isn't as interesting. but i like the instrumental textures a lot (it kind of sounds like "turn down for what" in parts at the end)

i'm thankful for the beginning of "GOLDWING" which is so left field but honestly gorgeous, makes me think a little bit of the mary hansen tribute "dear marge" and "writer in the dark" but also then there's the second part and i feel like the beat is kind of flat and obvious but there's this little thing that her voice does in the chorus that is a post-punk punctum

i'm thankful for "lost cause" which i think is probably the weakest song—it does its thing well but it doesn't feel like a song only she could make, it's not idiosyncratic enough—but which i will also be sentimental to this song because d sang it at karaoke very beautifully.

i'm thankful for "halley's comet" which is inject melodrama piano ballads into my veins with a side of jon brion. i'm thankful for how fluid and gentle her voice is, how playful. i'm thankful for the pumping slow attack of the bass and how that works in this push pull with the drums. i'm thankful for the extremely corny dad rock lead guitar that gets me right in the feels. i'm thankful that d, driven from the couch by dust on the record causing the needle to pop and sputter during this song now squatting beside it with her phone camera illuminating the surface of the disc, said "this is a pretty bad hobby for obsessive people"

i'm thankful for the loop of ASMR ticking and tocking of "not my responsibility", gently space echoed, which makes me think of "time" by pink floyd and i'm thankful that though the monologue falls flat for me (d: it shouldn't be on the album) it seems like it was cathartic for billie.

i'm thankful for the skipping in "overheated" and for all the interesting filters and that are applied to the layers of her voice, it reminds me of how important to me the distorted sound of karen o's voice on the first couple of yeah yeah yeahs albums was.  

i'm thankful for the melodies of "everybody dies", the way she goes from being so gentle and breathy in the verses to pushing out this intense left turn in tone and scale in the chorus.

i'm thankful for the sebadoh chime-y guitars of "your power" (and for the couplet "how dare you / and how could you?" which d and i appropriate inappropriately and put in the voice of miso when she is unhappy with us. i'm thankful for the lyrics here, which i think are some of the most resonant and sharp of their recent songs—there's something about "try not to abuse your power", like the "try" is so heartbreakingly sad. the strength of her voice in the chorus and how it gets so big, that she is not alone in her sadness because the music is harmonizing with her.

i'm thankful for "NDA" and "therefore i am" which i think are both not bad songs ("NDA" very good actually "therefore i am" very fun though the really terrible video that billie directed has sullied that song in an auteur theory kinda way) that i have enjoyed but that imo are mistakenly sequenced at a point in the album where they are doing more harm than good to the flow, length for the sake of length, they should have stayed singles or at least been earlier (i would have made the album two tracks shorter and replaced "i didn't change my number" with "therefore i am" and "lost cause" with "NDA"). still can't get over how viscerally satisfying the chorus of "NDA" is and even though i feel like the carnivalesque qualities can coalesce into schtick, it's very fun schtick to sing along with.

i'm thankful for "happier than ever", which, if the pixies invented loud quiet loud, billie and finneas are really love to be quiet loud–the fact that this song goes from standards-y ballad with such a thick richness in the vocal ("interviews" / "avenues" / "passing through") but then transitions like "a day in the life" into the second part, the chunky muting explodes into "where is my mind" at the end of fight club levels of 90s distorted guitars. the blown out vocal and drums, the way that the bottom drops out as she sings through the chorus and then thunders back in. i'm thankful for how snotty and baroque and glam it gets in the end as the bitcrush comedown kicks in hard.

i'm thankful for "male fantasy" which, i agree with d that i think "happier than ever" is a great last song in terms of like burning the building down to close things up, but i'm thankful for how watching the live version of "male fantasy" d wanted to see made me appreciate again what an incredible performer she is, how it's not just a studio construction (which would be fine) but she has such a powerful instrument, and i'm thankful that coming back to the song, i appreciate the layers of harmonies in the chorus more.

i'm thankful, always, for harmonies in the chorus.