lovely

“lovely” is the collaboration from young musicians Billie Eilish and Khalid, who have both dominated the pop music scene for the past year and on and off. Khalid, with his mellow and slow R’n’B beats and pop ballad lyrics combined with Eilish’s dark, slow and intriguing instrumentals and emotionally grabbing lyrics, “lovely” is nothing short of an incredible song.

Written for the second season of the hit Netflix show “13 Reasons Why” directed by actress and singer Selena Gomez (originally a book written by author Jay Asher), the track discusses dark issues that occur in the series such as depression, feelings of helplessness and never feeling able to be happy mentally. The song is different from what has been released by both Eilish and Khalid, with the use of violins and a very orchestra-like instrumental, only fuelling the emotional intention of the track even more. Eilish and her brother have both spoken about “lovely”, Billie told Zane Lowe on Apple Music’s Beats 1 radio station: “And what’s really insane about it, like, if you look at the soundtrack it’s like Selena Gomez, who produced the show, and then, me!” Finneas, Eilish’s brother, who is also the producer and co-writer of the track, also spoke about the track on his Instagram: “Khalid is one my favorite artists in the world and I feel lucky to call him a friend. His dedication to music and his endless appreciation and enthusiasm for songs he loves is beyond inspiring The three of us wrote this together in my tiny little bedroom. Just like we always do. I spent the next few months building the production around their beautiful voices and the piano l’d played while we were writing it. Special thanks to Madison Leinster for playing violin on this song, You can’t fake strings like that.”

The music video was released a week after the track on Billie Eilish’s official YouTube channel. Directed by Taylor Cohen, it features both Eilish and Khalid in a glass box, unable to leave. The box starts raining inside and the water starts freezing, but as the ice metls Khalid and Eilish are nowhere to be seen. As of July 2019, the video has almost 400 million views.

Release Date: 19th April 2019

Songwriter/s: Billie Eilish, Finneas O’Connell & Khalid Robinson

Producer/s: Finneas O’Connell

Label/s: Darkroom / Interscope

Music Video Release Date: 26th April 2019

Music Video Director: Taylor Cohen

Chart Rankings & Certifications: “lovely” hit the charts worldwide, ranking in mainstream charts in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Switzerland, the UK, the US and many other more countries. The track received Gold certification in five countries: Austria, Brazil, Denmark, Italy and the UK; Platinum in Sweden and the US – and lastly 4x Platinum in Australia, 3x Platinum in Canada and 2x Platinum in New Zealand.