Billie Eilish opens Happier Than Ever by one-upping Nirvana

“Serve The Servants” does this in one of the most direct and meta ways imaginable: “Teenage angst has paid off well / Now I’m bored and old,” sings Kurt Cobain, the very first lyrics on the band’s heavily anticipated follow-up to smash hit Nevermind. “Self-appointed judges judge / more than they have sold.” It was simultaneously a snide kiss-off to media critics of Nirvana and a wry, funny commentary on the bizarre fact of becoming world-famous for writing noisy rock songs. Rather than trying to draw in listeners with an inviting, “gather ’round, and let me sing you a song” attitude, Cobain was drawing a line in the sand; he’s essentially saying, “You’ve never been through what we have and you never will, so fuck off, you’re making this not fun.”

“Getting Older,” the opening track on Happier Than Ever, not only follows suit, it does Cobain one better: It directly calls out fans themselves, instead of just media figures and critics. At first, it seems like Eilish is going to deliver the sort of heartfelt, revealing confessional that made her seem so vulnerable on her first album: “I’m getting older, I think I’m aging well / I wish someone had told me I’d be doing this by myself.” It’s the kind of universal sentiment that cuts deep, and she continues in that vein with the second line, before dropping in a reference to her newfound fame: “There’s reasons that I’m thankful, there’s a lot I’m grateful for / but it’s different when a stranger’s always waiting at your door.” It’s a shift in the tone of the song, albeit still a tender, mournful one—but then, Eilish slides in the knife.

“Which is ironic, ’cuz the strangers seem to want me more than anyone before / Too bad they’re usually deranged.”

The song flips the entire script of the usual “you, the fans, keep me grounded” approach, turning from a rumination to a reprimand. It’s cutting, and caustic, and playful all at once—in other words, it’s exactly what’s great about Eilish and her music, a smart and sly way to kick off the first post-fame album. And she matches Cobain again, this time on the “bored and old” front: “Things I once enjoyed / just keep me employed, now.” The entire track runs the gamut of emotions, but always with a clear, gimlet-eyed look at the unusual position she’s in, and the double-edged nature of the acclaim she receives.

As second acts go, this one has a hell of an opening salvo; time will tell if the record holds up as well or better than her debut, but Eilish is already one step ahead on that front, too: “It’s so weird, that we care so much—until we don’t.”