Billie Eilish discusses her favourite Green Day songs
Few artists have seized control of pop culture as profoundly as Billie Eilish has in recent years. Transforming from a teenage underground sensation to a chart-topping phenomenon in the blink of an eye, Eilish’s ascent has been nothing short of meteoric.
Eilish’s music stands out in the pop landscape with its distinctiveness that withstands all scrutiny. Collaborating with her brother, Finneas, Eilish crafts compositions marked by stark contrasts and slightly haunting soundscapes, blending elements of bedroom pop with nightmarish parallel universes.
Following the tremendous success of her debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, Eilish embraced a slightly jazz-infused and more mature direction with 2021’s Happier Than Ever. Demonstrating her versatility, she also delivered one of the standout James Bond themes in recent memory during the interim period between albums.
Being an unconventional pop star, Eilish draws inspiration from a diverse array of sources, including the pop-punk legends Green Day. Having been a fan of the band since childhood, Eilish once named ‘All by Myself’ from the band’s celebrated album Dookie as one of her favourites. In fact, her appreciation for their music makes complete sense, given her own penchant for exploring unchartered territories in music.
Although she enjoys ‘All by Myself’, the ‘Bad Guy’ singer also told SPIN that she appreciates ‘Jesus of Suburbia’, particularly the video because “it goes so hard”. She explained, “I remember my brother wouldn’t let me watch it for years, and I remember when I could finally watch it, it was like the fucking sickest thing ever.”
She deemed ‘Jesus of Suburbia’ the moment Green Day came into their own, revealing their prowess as a promise of everlasting talent and intrigue. In her own words: “Not that their prime went away, but this was their prime and they it stayed that way. Like, it never went down from here is what I meant. Look at the hair!”
Eilish’s brother evidently turned her onto the power of Green Day’s sonic tapestry, even if she felt he was trying to emulate the iconic look of frontman Billie Joe Armstrong. As she puts it, Finneas was a huge fan of the band as a teenager, copying Armstrong’s “little undone tie and the guyliner”.
She once told Armstrong, “He was basically a downgrade of you,” to which he responded, “Well, he’s an upgrade now.”
