Billie Eilish announces new album, ‘Happier Than Ever’

After Billie Eilish’s long pandemic year of a James Bond theme with no Bond movie, a Grammy for record of the year and a candid documentary about the 19-year-old’s rise to pop’s top tier, on Tuesday the singer announced the imminent release of her second LP.

“Happier Than Ever,” the 16-track follow-up to her 2019 Grammy-sweeping smash debut, “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?,” is set for a July 30 bow.

“This is my favorite thing I’ve ever created and I am so excited and nervous and EAGER for you to hear it,” she wrote on Instagram. She also teased it with a brief, languid video clip of a new song. Eilish said the album’s first single would be out Thursday at 9 a.m.

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Eilish said the music — which she writes with her brother and Grammy-winning producer, Finneas — will reflect the long period of isolation and time away from touring.

She told Stephen Colbert in February, “I don’t think I would’ve made the same album, or even the album at all, if it weren’t for COVID. That doesn’t mean it’s about COVID at all, it’s just that when things are different in your life, you’re different. That’s just how it is. So, I have to thank COVID for that, and that’s about it.”

Eilish, raised in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles in a family of actors, had a swift ascent up the pop charts after posting her first single, “Ocean Eyes,” in 2015. The chart-topping “When We All Fall Asleep,” which clocked 2.3 billion streams in 2019, was led by the Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single “Bad Guy.” The LP went on to win all four major categories at the 2020 Grammy Awards, making her the youngest person to win album of the year. Before the pandemic shut down concerts in March 2020, Eilish sold more than a half-million tickets for her planned arena tour in less than an hour.

Eilish has released a number of singles in the time since her album, including the Bond theme “No Time to Die” and the melancholy “Everything I Wanted,” her 2021 Grammy winner for record of the year, along with “My Future,” “Therefore I Am” and a collaboration with Rosalía, “Lo Vas a Olvidar.”