Billie Eilish “What Was I Made For?” released

What Was I Made For? Billie Eilish

Writer(s): Billie Eilish O'Connell, Finneas O'Connell (see lyrics here) Released: July 13, 2023 First Charted: July 29, 2023 Peak: 14 BB, 30 AC, 5 A40, 11 UK, 13 CN, 13 AU, 18 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.6 UK, 2.70 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 231.10 video, 1069.35 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Entering 2023, Billie Eilish already had a resume most artists could never hope to emulate. The singer/songwriter was born in Los Angeles, California, in 2001. Her debut album, 2019’s When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? and its #1 single “Bad Guy” thrust her into the spotlight. She became the first woman to win the “Big Four” at the Grammys – Best New Artist, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Record of the Year. She released “Everything I Wanted” in late 2019. It was another top-10 hit and won another Grammy for Record of the Year. The following year she wrote “No Time to Die” for the James Bond film of the same name. It won the Oscar for Best Original Song. In 2021, she released her second album, Happier Than Ever. It produced three top-10 hits in the United States and topped the charts in 25 countries. This brings us to 2023 when Eilish contributed “What Was I Made For?” to the soundtrack for Barbie. Released in July, the movie made more than a billion dollars, putting it in the top 20 of all time. Her song reached the top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and garnered her another pair of Grammy nominations for Record and Song of the Year, winning the latter. Greta Gerwig, the movie’s director, showed Eilish a rough cut of the film. Billie and her brother then wrote “What Was I Made For?” The focus was on the movie’s concept of Barbie being cast out of her utopian existence and into the real world and suffering an existential crisis. SF Eilish said, “I was purely inspired by this movie and this character and the way I thought she would feel, and wrote about that.” WK Resources: SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 1/3/2024; last updated 10/16/2024.

Dua Lipa “Dance the Night” released

Dance the Night Dua Lipa

Writer(s): Dua Lipa, Caroline Ailin, Andrew Wyatt, Mark Ronson (see lyrics here) Released: May 25, 2023 First Charted: June 10, 2023 Peak: 6 BB, 4 AC, 12 A40, 11 UK, 4 CN, 3 AU (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- US, 0.6 UK, 1.37 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 184.60 video, 641.88 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: The pop singer/songwriter Dua Lipa was born in 1995 in London, England. She released her self-titled debut in 2017 and it reached #3 in the UK, generating five top-ten hits there, one of which (“New Rules”) also reached the top 10 in the United States. Her second album, 2020’s Future Nostalgia, reached #1 in the UK and #3 in the U.S. She garnered four more UK top-ten hits, including “Don’t Start Now” and “Levitating,” which both reached #2 in the United States. After another UK #1 dueting with Elton John in 2021 on “Cold Heart (Pnau remix),” she landed a song on the 2023 soundtrack to the Barbie movie, a live-action adaptation of the iconic Mattel doll. The song, “Dance the Night,” gave her yet another #1 in the UK and her fifth top-ten hit in the United States. It was released as the lead single for the album. The pop/disco song is “an anthem that embodies the spirit of dancing through the night, transcending sadness caused by a turbulent romance.” SF It is featured in the movie during a highly choreographed number. Director Greta Gerwig reached out to Mark Ronson to create the song and then he and Andrew Wyatt created a backing track. WK Ronson then reached out to Lipa, saying, “there’s a song with a huge 60 person dance number with the whole cast…I would…love it if you would consider co-writing and starring in it…I honestly think the movie’s going to be incredible.” SF “Dance the Night” was nominated for Grammys for Song of the Year and Best Song Written for Visual Media. It also received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song. Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Dua Lipa SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia First posted 1/19/2024.