With ‘Hit Me Hard and Soft,’ Billie Eilish is continuing to do things her own way. It keeps paying off

By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN

(CNN) — Billie Eilish has always done things her own way.

Whether it be releasing her 2016 viral hit “Ocean Eyes” onto Soundcloud, a DIY music streaming site, or writing and recording her record-breaking debut album “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” with her collaborator and brother Finneas O’Connell in her childhood bedroom, Eilish, 22, has never been shy about straying from industry norms – and it seems to be working well for the two-time Oscar-winner.

With her third studio album “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” which drops on Friday, she’s remained consistent. The sound of the album is sure to be a surprise to all, because Eilish intentionally chose to not release a single prior to launching the album – again, a rather unorthodox move.

“I wanna give it to you all at once,” she wrote on her Instagram page last month when announcing the album.

Her 2019 debut album “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?,” along with 2021’s “Happier Than Ever” and the new record, were all co-written and produced by O’Connell. It follows Eilish and O’Connell’s Oscar win in March for their original song for the “Barbie” movie, “What Was I Made For,” which was one of 2023’s biggest hits. The duo previously won the Oscar for original song in 2022 for “No Time to Die.”

However “Hard and Soft” sounds, which we shall soon find out, Eilish hinted in an interview with Rolling Stone last month that she found herself harkening back to her roots with this record, bringing to mind a time in Eilish’s musical journey where she first set her own precedent for being in control.

“I feel like this album is me,” she told the outlet. “It’s not a character. It feels like the ‘When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?’ version of me. It feels like my youth and who I was as a kid.”

Her penchant for bucking the norm is continuing into her plans for her upcoming “Hit Me Hard and Soft” tour, which kicks off in Baltimore this fall. Eilish is choosing to skirt scalpers by restricting ticket transfers for those purchasing tickets to her shows.

“The tour wants to give fans, not scalpers, the best chance to buy tickets at face value. To make this possible, they have chosen to use Ticketmaster’s Face Value Exchange,” Ticketmaster’s Eilish ticket page reads. It further notes that if fans can’t attend shows in the US or Canada that they’ve purchased tickets for, they have the option to resell them at face value.

The move comes nearly two years after the fervor surrounding the purchase of tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour crashed the Ticketmaster site, resulting in fans not having access to tickets, scalpers trying to resell the tickets at ungodly prices and a subsequent congressional hearing.

Eilish was clearly paying attention and appears to be one of the only major mainstream artists to adapt, in hopes of preventing scalpers being able to hawk tickets at exorbitant resale fees.

And with “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” Eilish is also trying to stand out and apart in the industry with her effort to protect something else she’s historically passionate about: the environment.

The “Bad Guy” singer made waves when she lamented in a March interview with Billboard about the “wasteful” practice of releasing a multitude of album variants which, in turn, “gets them more money.”

“It’s so wasteful, and it’s irritating to me that we’re still at a point where you care that much about your numbers and you care that much about making money – and it’s all your favorite artists doing that s—,” she said at the time.

To back up her complaint, Eilish posted a manifesto on her website describing her sustainability plan for the release of “Hit Me Hard and Soft” after announcing the album. She wrote that she will only release eight vinyl variants “each on the same day, containing the same track-listing across the board” – to remove the incentive for die-hard fans who would purchase all the variants for any differing bonus tracks – “and all produced with the most sustainable practices available.”

Environmental sustainability has remained at the forefront for Eilish to the current moment, as on her Instagram stories on Wednesday, she included sustainable transport plans to her New York album listening event.

Perhaps emboldened by the two Oscars or nine Grammys that she’s won, or the fact that her first two albums have hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, the young entertainer has a proven track record of success doing things her way.

And why should she change now, if it’s working?

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