Billie Eilish announced her new album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, will be dropping on May 17.
“HIT ME HARD AND SOFT MY THIRD ALBUMMMMMMMMMMMMM COMES OUT MAY 17THHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHHHH🥹🥹🥹 so crazy to be writing this right now i’m nervyyyyy & exciteddd 🫣,” Eilish, 22, wrote via Instagram on Monday, April 8. “Not doing singles i wanna give it to you all at once :PPP Finneas and i truly could not be more proud of this album and we absolutely can’t wait for you to hear it. love you love you love you. 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃.”
Alongside the message, Eilish shared the album’s artwork, which featured a pic of her underwater fully clothed and barefoot as she sank beneath a door.
After declaring that her album was mastered in February, Eilish had begun to tease fans about her new music. She shared a clip of her falling into water via Instagram on Sunday, April 7, with the caption, “READY?”
Eilish, who’s been outspoken about sustainability issues, will only be releasing two vinyl versions of her album. In March, she slammed musicians who released multiple vinyl versions of their albums in different packaging.
“Some of the biggest artists in the world [are] making f–king 40 different vinyl packages that have a different unique thing just to get you to keep buying more,” Eilish told Billboard at the time. “It’s so wasteful, and it’s irritating to me that we’re still at a point where you care that much about your numbers and you care that much about making money — and it’s all your favorite artists doing that s–t.”
After her comments made headlines, fans of Taylor Swift began to speculate that the remark was about the Eras Tour performer. (Swift, 34, has been known to rerelease rerecorded versions of her albums as well as drop tweaked physical and digital versions of her studio recordings.)
Eilish subsequently took to her Instagram Story to clear up the rumors she was referencing Swift. “OK so it would be so awesome if people would stop putting words into my mouth and actually read what I said in that billboard article,” she wrote. “I wasn’t singling anyone out, these are industry-wide systemic issues.”
Eilish admitted she was guilty of releasing multiple versions in order to have fans purchase the same album multiple times. (Eilish released eight differently colored vinyl versions of her 2021 album, Happier Than Ever, but she used environmentally friendly materials.)
“When it comes to variants, so many artists release them, including me, which ! clearly state in the article,” she continued in her Instagram Story. “The climate crisis is now and it’s about all of us being part of the problem and trying to do better sheesh.”
