Billie Eilish’s HIT ME HARD AND SOFT World Tour Recap
Photo Credit: Julia Spicer via The New York Times
At only 23 years old, Billie Eilish has become one of the world’s most influential voices in modern music. Her newest album, HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, which was released on May 17, 2024, has taken streaming services, music charts, and radio stations all over the globe by storm. Here’s the latest on what she’s been up to this past year.
HIT ME HARD AND SOFT: THE TOUR concluded on Nov. 23. It was Eilish’s most recent world tour, in which she played 106 shows in North America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania. She was accompanied by both big-name and indie artists during the tour, such as The Marías, Men I Trust, Young Miko, YOASOBI, Lola Young, and Eilish’s own brother FINNEAS.
After a brief hiatus in late summer, Eilish came back to the tour to perform additional shows this autumn. However, not all concertgoers were kind with their welcomes. At Miami’s Kaseya Centre on Oct. 9, Eilish was pulled back and dragged down to the floor aggressively by a man during the barricade walk she does at every show. This ruined a highlight for Miami fans — especially those in the general admission pit — because during her tour, she was known to do barricade walks around the perimeter of the pit where she hi-fived fans, had mini interactions with them, or gave hugs. Luckily, security and other fans in the crowd, namely 18-year-old Aniyah Saint-Surin, known by many on the internet as “Red Bandana Girl,” restrained the hostile attacker until he was handed over to the authorities. As a thank you to Aniyah, Eilish later sent her concert merchandise, and Stubhub reached out to her to provide a free ticket to the show the night after.
On top of that, many videos have surfaced from Eilish’s concert at UBS Arena in Long Island, New York, on Oct. 26, where her interrupted attempt to harmonize left many fans in that night’s crowd disappointed. At her concerts, Eilish asks for complete silence for roughly a minute (which her crowds are usually more than happy to give) during her performance of “when the party’s over,” because she does a live harmony build-up of her voice that gets looped to become her backing track. However, many concertgoers at the Long Island show screamed and cheered loudly while she was looping herself. This left Eilish and other fans frustrated, as she needed concentration to harmonize and couldn’t keep her voice in tune over the noise.
On a more pleasant note, at a Manchester show on July 29, Eilish announced she would be working with Titanic director James Cameron to create a 3-D concert film for HIT ME HARD AND SOFT: THE TOUR. “So you may have noticed there are more cameras all over here,” she said to an excited crowd. “Basically, I can’t say much about it, but I can say that I’m working on something very, very special with somebody named James Cameron, and it’s going to be in 3-D. So, take that as you will.” At the closing night of Eilish’s tour in San Francisco on Nov. 23, she premiered the movie’s trailer and informed fans that it would be released on March 20, 2026.
Eilish and her brother Finneas O’Connell (known professionally as FINNEAS) have been creating music together since 2015, when FINNEAS produced a song for his band called “ocean eyes”, which he thought would sound better with Eilish’s voice. This began a long journey of singing and songwriting that eventually brought the duo fame they never could’ve expected. When asked by Variety Magazine in October about the next musical project he and Eilish were working on, FINNEAS responded by saying: "We are really excited to make it. I wish I could give you an exact date, but I don't wanna give the wrong date and then come too early or too late. So I can't give a date, but we're excited, we're working on stuff."
Since Eilish and FINNEAS are often secretive about their work, many fans have begun speculating about their next project. One theory, known as the ilomilo Theory, hypothesizes that HIT ME HARD AND SOFT is only the first half of a double album release; this theory has taken off, with fans finding a plethora of evidence to back it up. Ilomilo is a 2010 puzzle-style video game that follows two characters named Ilo and Milo who search for each other. The game was a major inspiration for Eilish’s song titled “ilomilo,” which was featured in her first studio album, WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?. Since the two characters in the game, Ilo and Milo, are themed red and blue respectively, and HIT ME HARD AND SOFT’s colour motif is blue with a track on the album named “BLUE”, some fans theorize that Eilish’s next album will feature a red cover in contrast to her previous one.
Eilish is already a nine-time Grammy winner, 34-time nominee, and two-time Oscar winner. She holds world records for being the youngest to win all four major Grammy categories in a single year, the youngest to win Album of the Year, and the youngest double Oscar winner, as well as the artist with the most consecutive Record of the Year wins and the most Grammys for Song of the Year. But once again, Eilish has broken records with HIT ME HARD AND SOFT and sparked award buzz.
One song from HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, “WILDFLOWER,” has set a record for being the longest-charting solo song by a female artist released this century on the Billboard Hot 100, lasting 72 weeks, which is over a year. “WILDFLOWER” has been nominated for Record of the Year and Song of the Year for 2026, giving fans hope that she will take home a Grammy for her latest album.