Billie Eilish and the interweaving of culture and technology

I never quite got the music of Billie Eilish until I saw her live last night. And I think the reason why is quite interesting.

I was accompanying my teenage daughter who has long been a fan. This was a gig we’d been talking about going to for a couple of years. Yesterday the time finally came and it was incredible. What at first appeared to be a very stripped-back stage set actually proved to be very sophisticated, adding drama without ever distracting from Eilish’s gigawatt star power.

But what really struck me was the sound.

Radio Reviews

To explain why, I have to rewind a bit. I used to do gadget reviews for the BBC and what is now Radio X. This being the 00s and 10s, two of the categories of gadget we got sent the most of were headphones and bluetooth speakers.

Even during the relatively short time that I was reviewing these devices, I noticed the profile of the sound they produced was changing.

While the higher-priced brands had traditionally focused on a very neutral sound mix, over time we found that even expensive headphones and speakers were really amplifying the bass and treble over the midrange. A bit like what the ‘Loudness’ button might have done on older stereos. But while that button was there to compensate for the strangeness of human hearing when playing at low volumes, these devices were really amping those frequencies at whatever volume you were listening.

Beating Beats

The prime example of this was Beats headphones, which sounded noticeably different to their peers when launched in the late 00s. And I didn’t like it.

For me, good sound was always about faithfully presenting the music the way the artist created it. But it’s hard to deny the impact of boosting the low and high frequencies. Music sounds more urgent, more exciting. And so more and more devices started to pursue this sound.

There may have been a technological aspect to this: presenting good sound from tiny enclosures is really hard. Maybe there was some advantage to cutting back the mids? Lots of people were listening to music on their computers, where the speakers were often based around a sub (bass) and two little satellites (mostly treble).

And there was a cultural aspect too. From hip hop to garage, a lot of the music dominating the charts made - and makes - strong use of heavy bass and treble. More so than rock, for example.

Either way, before long the majority of devices were reproducing sound in something like the Beats profile of boosted bass and treble.

Raised on Bass

This is where my theory about Billie Eilish comes in. When Beats headphones launched, she would have been seven. Her formative years, musically, would all have been in the period where the music mix was completely different from the one I grew up with.

Being an old fart, my sound systems and headphones are all still picked for a pretty neutral representation. And through those, Eilish’s music was good. But I just didn’t quite get it.

Last night at the concert, in a venue famed for its excellent sound - Co-op Live - I noticed straight away that the mix was different. To my ears, it had that Beats profile. And it sounded incredible. The songs made more sense.

Now, this could just be the excitement of the live event. So this morning I tried listening with the bass and treble boosted on my headphones and stereo system.

Guess what? It sounded exactly right.

Looping Influences

Now, I’m no musician. Nor a producer or sound engineer. I could be talking absolute guff here. But if I’m right, I think this tells a really interesting story about how technology influences culture, and culture influences technology, in a loop. How when we’re thinking about the future we always have to look at forces flowing in both directions.

And if I’m wrong? Well there’s still a good takeaway from this: go and see Billie Eilish live.