Already Decided

The video for Bury a Friend unsettled me in a way I hadn’t expected. Michael Chaves directed it, and it doesn’t try to be disturbing so much as sit with genuine unease. Billie Eilish was seventeen, working with her brother Finneas on production, and they moved together in the mix like they’d already done this a hundred times.

What struck me was the absence of reaching. No moment where she sounded like she was trying to be a pop star or prove something. Every production choice—the minimalism, the way her voice sits in all that space—felt deliberate and actual. And the visual side matched it exactly. The aesthetic was fully formed.

I’d been watching a lot of artists her age trying to find a lane, shifting direction every few months. Billie Eilish sounded like she’d already seen that game and opted out. *When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?* came out in March, and it felt less like a debut and more like someone following through on something she’d already decided. Tracks like All the Good Girls Go to Hell, My Strange Addiction, Listen Before i Go—there was range within a locked sensibility. Production that knew exactly what it was doing.

That kind of certainty at seventeen is disarming. You don’t expect it. Most people that age sound like they’re testing things, trying to figure out what works. She sounded like she’d already chosen and made peace with it.