happier than ever, a review

something happened to the girls in 2021. maybe it was covid, maybe it was ancestral rage, maybe it was the stars. but we all wanted to scream. over distorted guitars.

“good 4 u” broke charts, & SOUR sported determined punk bangers like “brutal”, with olivia rodrigo chasing the rock sound further over the next years. she was brilliant at it, formula be damned, she just knew what slapped. & i was awestruck.

two months after SOUR, billie dropped “happier than ever”. & somehow, i was less surprised. billie hasn't made a rock song since but the diversity of her’s and finneas’ sound design guaranteed they were bound to make atleast one rock ballad some day or the other, and more so, as i made my way through my first listen of the album to get to the penultimate title track (prelude to album closer, “male fantasy”), and she started singing over her uke, i just knew, deep in my gut, there was only way this was going to end.

we first hear the titular phrase, “happier than ever” in the first song of the album, “getting older”, where she sings “i’m happier than ever, atleast that's my endeavour.” like a daily affirmation. & although she says she wishes she could explain it better, i wonder if anyone could. she's not just happier than she was after meeting him but happier than she was before that too. & that's what getting older feels like to her- learning to negotiate her space & “prioritise her pleasure”. to be with him was one step in that process & to be away from him eventually, another. we all know the feeling of there being no other way forward.

like the form of the song- in the first half, an old, almost wistful sounding white heroine swoons over a ukelele, like she's somehow also some indie bedroom pop darling on 2010’s youtube. verse chorus verse chorus and then- single strums tighten around your neck, a muted electric guitar determinedly drums, gradually picking up, looking you dead straight in the eye, as a cymbal swells in the background, like, the music is saying “what did you expect?”

& then you remember this was the same album with the track “not my responsibility” at the heart of it.

by the time she yells, “i don't relate to you”, if you're not in your feet, you're listening to the song wrong. the first unmuted electric guitar note is unleashed for a fraction of a second- it pulls you by the neck- “i don't relate to you, no, cuz i’d never treat me this shitty.” & the way the guitar is harmonising with her voice, you know this is going to be an exorcism- when the chorus of voices kick in, & you're screaming along, “you made me hate this city”, the words can take you home.

a whole wall of sound that could send my bloody valentine a run for its money crashes in by the end and leaves you alone with the extended buzz of the amplifier, like even she she missed the song enough to let it linger.

i wish she made more cathartic, noisy ballads to scream along to man. i wish everyone did tbh. that's why i’ll always be a bit more of an olivia rodrigo girlie than a billie eilish boyyo. but point being, a song that knows how to get into your veins is a song that you will need for a very long time. & sometimes, it feels like it takes forever- becoming happier than ever. but hey, atleast you’ve got a song to scream along to until you get there.

does he?