Chill pop prodigy, Billie Eilish, has kept her thumb on the pulse of ambition during quarantine. From promoting her debut album to releasing a new single, it should be no surprise she and her brother/collaborator Finneas took the time to perform at NPR’s Tiny Desk series, which has been adapted for the pandemic to feature home performances.
Eilish began with a rendition of her new single, “My Future”, pairing the barebones musical apparatus with her signature warped, sullen expression.
She followed the rendition by elaborating on the importance of the song to her. “Quarantine’s been weird. I know you all feel the same. It’s been weird. We don’t know how long it’s gonna go. There’s barely anything that feels like there’s any hope in, but I think the future is something to be super hopeful in.”
Despite quarantine disrupting Eilish’s capacity to perform in-person concerts, she has excelled in digital consumption worldwide. She currently sits at ninth on Spotify’s monthly ranking of the most streamed musical artists.
The intimate performance from the mainstream musician continued with the 2019 single, “everything i wanted,” a four-minute harmonic tune dedicated to her relationship with Finneas that now holds over 650 million streams on Spotify.
The two-song rendezvous ends with both siblings looking down; Finneas at the keyboard and Billie twirling with her thumbs, a humble send off from one of the world’s largest musical acts.