Amidst our current pandemic, in these most difficult and trying of times, when sometimes things seem as if all is lost, with the dysfunction and division extant in America just down south, with the passing of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and, locally, with this morning’s revelation by Charlie Smith in the newspaper where he has been the publication’s respected editor since 1991, The Georgia Straight, that Raymond Young, long one of our city’s and our nation’s most esteemed lawyers, whose practice focuses on all things municipal, recommending that Green Party of Vancouver City Councillor Michael Wiebe resign his seat on Council, arising from an egregious conflict of interest … well, these are not easy times for Michael, one imagines in particular today, nor for any of us.
Yesterday, I scrapped a Stories of a Life column I had written that, in essence, held my daughter to account for not using her many gifts to make a difference in the world that would benefit us all — if there was ever a person capable of achieving such, it is my very bright and compassionate daughter, Megan. The column was neither hopeful nor helpful — and who needs that given our current dire collective societal circumstance?
With that thought in mind, I looked to publish something today that is possessed of hopefulness, something inspiring and life affirming, and that has been for me much of last year and all of this year, the début of sisters Mimi & Josefin — the daughters of soprano Hélène Lindqvist, and music professor Philipp Vogler — on the German version of The Voice Kids, whose harmonies in their unique and compelling rendition of Thom Yorke and Radiohead’s 1993 hit, Creep, is both transporting and almost otherworldy.
So, without further adieu, Mimi & Josy …
On March 29th of last year, 17-year-old Billie Eilish entered the public consciousness, and the Billboard charts, with her self-produced début album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, the 2nd-biggest album of 2019, and the third-largest streaming week for an album by a woman, with six Billboard Hot 100 top 40 songs: When the Party’s Over, Bury a Friend, Wish You Were Gay, Xanny and Bad Guy, the last of which became her first number one single stateside, in the U.K., Mexico, and Australia.
The rest, as they say, is utterly unique, groundbreaking rock ‘n roll history.
Billie Eilish’s accolades include 5 Grammy Awards, 2 American Music Awards, 2 Guinness World Records, 3 MTV Video Music Awards, and one Brit Award. Eilish is the youngest person and second person ever to win the four main Grammy categories — Best New Artist, Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Album of the Year — in the same year. No mean feat that.
The daughter of teacher, actress, and screenwriter Maggie Baird, and construction worker and part-time actor, Billie Eilish and her older brother / producer and co-songwriter, Finneas O’Connell hail from decidedly working class roots. Both parents encouraged the siblings — who were homeschooled — to express themselves and explore whatever they wanted, including music, art, dancing and acting.
In October 2015, at age fourteen, Billie recorded the song Ocean Eyes, co-written and produced with Finneas, after his sister’s dance teacher asked them to record a song for a dance routine. In 2015, releasing the song on SoundCloud, and the next year on YouTube (at present, Ocean Eyes has 293,733,254 views), coinciding with a deal Finneas had made to sign Billie with Apple Music, Billie’s budding music career began to kick into high gear.
In March 2017, Billie recorded songs for the soundtrack to the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why — one song, Lovely, recorded with Khalid, was certified platinum in North America — and that same month, Billie was showcased at the South by Southwest music festival. In February 2018, Billie, Finneas and their parents embarked on the Where’s My Mind World Tour, where they débuted the songs constituting the tracks on Billie’s first album. By January 2019, Billie reached an unprecedented one billion Spotify streams.
Billie kicked off her When We All Fall Asleep World Tour at the Coachella Festival in Indio, California in April 2019, travelling across the U.S. and Canada, and then the globe, before returning to the Americas and concluding her world tour on November 17, 2019 in Mexico City.
Why does VanRamblings write in the headline that Billie Eilish (and her brother Finneas) constitute the new Beatles? Watch the videos directly above, and feel the emotional reactions of Billie’s fans, how those in attendance know the lyrics to the songs, and are clearly moved. In more than 50 years writing about music, aside from the reaction to the Beatles that could be observed in the mid-1960s, no other artist or group has come along with stronger album sales, and a larger, more devoted fan base. Although radio doesn’t quite know what to do with her, Billie Eilish is making her own career, and together with Finneas, making decisions about her career. And, fortunate for all of us, in the summer and fall of 2020, that means Billie’s full-throated support for the Democratic Party in the United States, and the candidacy of Joe Biden, no matter the impact on her career. Woebetide the right-wing, Trump-supporting political candidates and QAnon-supporting conspiracy theorist journalists who take Billie Eilish on.
And, finally for today, we’ll leave you with a bit of human-scale Finneas and Billie, and all the painstaking work the two of them put into recording the first track for the When We All Fall Asleep album release. When you watch the video below, you’ll also come to realize that Billie and Finneas are, very much, the 21st century John Lennon and Paul McCartney for our new age.
There is nothing we love more than to walk along Spanish Banks, ear phones snuggly tight in our aural canal, powering down the beach listening to beat music remixes to energize our appreciation of the great outdoors.
Dating back to the late 1960s, we have written a regular music column, first for the city wide Vancouver student newspaper, then as arts & review editor of Simon Fraser University’s student newspaper, The Peak, and after that in mainstream media, and since the turn of the century online, both on VanRamblings and a raft of other online non-affiliated online publications.
Today, four of our favourite remixes, which we listen and dance to again and again on our slidey living room floor (and elsewhere) …
Cake | Rhianna | Sweater Beat Remix
Cloud Number 9 | Bryan Adams | Chicane Remix | (long my ringtone)
Need U (100%) | Duke Dumont | Skreamix | (80s funk done up right)
That Thing | Golden Boy | Eton Messy Remix | (thank you Lauryn Hill)
Julia Natasha Stone was born on the 13th of April 1984 in Sydney Australia.
Julia’s parents, Kim and John Stone, were both well-regarded Australian folk musicians who played locally. Two years later, on April 27th 1986, her brother Angus was born. At family gatherings, it was not uncommon to see the two siblings perform — all was well until, in 2000, their parents split.
After finishing secondary school and while on a holiday with her brother in South America, Julia was impressed by her brother’s musical talent, “Angus was writing amazing songs … he had shown me how to play guitar when we were traveling in Bolivia, and those songs had gotten me through that year (Julia had, earlier that year separated from her boyfriend, from all reports a turbulent relationship, which left Julia emotionally devastated)”.
Within a year, in 2004, Julia began writing her own songs.
By 2005, and back in Sydney, Angus and Julia began to play gigs at open mic nights, with Angus performing backing vocals for Julia, as in time Julia did for Angus, on the songs he wrote. Finally, in 2006, the two formed a duo, Angus and Julia Stone. In March of that year the pair recorded their début extended play, Chocolates and Cigarettes, a remarkably chill amalgam of songs written and recorded live at home.
The EP, released in August, went on to win the ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) 2006 Best Album award, with Angus and Julia also taking home the Best New Group prize. The rest, as they say, is history.
Chocolates & Cigarettes directed by Angus and Julia Stone — from their 2006 début EP.
Angus and Julia Stone’s second album, Down the Way (March 2010), débuted at number one on the ARIA Albums Chart and was certified 3x platinum in 2011, It was the highest-selling album by an Australian artist for 2010. At the 2010 ARIA Music Awards the duo won ARIA Album of the Year for Down the Way and ARIA Single of the Year for Big Jet Plane, attaining the number-one position in the Triple J Hottest 100 in 2011, as voted on by radio station listeners across Australia.
Angus and Julia Stone last played in Vancouver on November 28th 2017, to a sold-out audience of 1280 fans at The Vogue.
