This is not a phenomenon specific to Eilish. Nirvana and Linkin Park, two bands that Eilish has listed as influencing her music, (Bruner) have also gone against the current of mainstream music and achieved great success. These bands, including Eilish, appeal to the outsider inside us. At some point, everyone has felt like they were different than those around them. Maybe we like different things or have different opinions. Maybe we have undergone hardships that we don’t think that anyone else could understand. Regardless of the cause, that feeling of alienation exists. Because of that, we resonate with these melodies that don’t fit the mold. The ironic thing is that, even though the connection that is being made is from feeling like we are on the “outside,” the fact that these artists have done so well shows that the listeners aren’t so much on the “outside” after all. With so many people connecting through the music, the standards are turned inside out, creating a new “inside.”

Bruner, Raisa. “Billie Eilish Is Not Just for Gen Z.” TIME Magazine, vol. 193, no. 13, Apr. 2019, p. 54. EBSCOhost