The Sound of Music: What FINNEAS’s “Producer of the Year” Grammy Means to Music Today

With only one album and five Grammys to his name while relying heavily on iPhone-recorded sound bites, FINNEAS may have effectively democratized innovative music production.

The Sound of Music breaks down how every little noise ― that instrument, that sample, that oh-so-significant pause ― makes a song special.

Written by Ellen Daly

Photo courtesy of AP News

After taking home production-credit Grammys for Song of the Year, Record of the Year, Album of the Year, and Best Engineered Album (Non-Classical), it’s no surprise that 22-year-old Finneas O’Connell was crowned Producer of the Year at this year’s ceremony. His primary collaborator and younger sister Billie Eilish is a star. Her album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (stylized in all-caps), debuted at number one on the Billboard charts, and her single “bad guy” eventually dethroned “Old Town Road,” which spent a record number of nineteen weeks as the number one song in America, from its historic reign on the charts. 

So what is it about this sibling duo that not only guaranteed radio play for nearly all of 2019, but also swept the Grammys with a debut album? It could be the pair’s organic chemistry, their SoundCloud origin story, Eilish’s cynical-yet-relatable lyricism, or the music’s general catchiness, but there’s a certain something different which seems to characterize Finneas’s production style — and Billie’s album.

The album’s lead single was sonically a bit risqué. “bury a friend” kicks off with a deep voice simply announcing “Billie,” followed by a thumping bassline. It proceeds with Eilish tauntingly singing questions like “What do you want from me? / Why don’t you run from me?” and establishing her characteristically “creepy” brand. The track frequently relies on quick starts and stops, using a Prismizer effect (which essentially creates a chorus out of a single voice). During the song’s pauses, it features the sound of a dental drill that Eilish recorded on her iPhone while getting her Invisalign removed.

As a lead single, “bury a friend” shocks its listener — not just from a lyrical perspective, but also through its attention to detail. It doesn’t follow the conventional structure of a pop song. Its sounds are sometimes hard to listen to, and the volume is startlingly inconsistent. Whether these practices are simply used to gain attention is debatable, but the choice to send this track to radios first is respectably risky.

“bad guy” ― the smash single, the Song and Record of the Year at the Grammys ― uses similarly “weird” sounds and dismantles traditional ideas of song structure, but it still feels like a typically catchy radio song. It keeps the heavy bassline, swaps dental drills for the beeping sound of an Australian crosswalk, and includes frequent starts and stops. Aside from its strange post-script of a bridge, what makes “bad guy” particularly unique, especially in the realm of radio pop, is its lack of a vocal hook ― “bad guy” is ultimately driven by its beat.

The rest of the album plays with these unconventional ideas while still neatly creating a cohesive piece of art. Its intro ― simply titled “!!!!!!!” ― is nothing but audio of Eilish taking out her Invisalign and joking about it with Finneas while introducing the album. “xanny” artfully uses autotune to make its listener uncomfortable, developing a metaphor for the discomfort the teenage artist feels in the presence of drugs and alcohol. “my strange addiction” has a bouncing beat and repeatedly uses soundbites from Eilish’s ― and much of America’s ― favorite TV show, “The Office.” 

Photo courtesy of CBS

By defying traditional pop structures, Finneas forces radio listeners to think about every little sound they hear in his songs. This practice gives his music a very “DIY” feel, regardless of how realistic it is for his listeners to create Grammy-winning records at home. The duo does like to brag about the “authenticity” of their music by inviting shows like CBS Sunday Morning into the childhood bedroom where they recorded the album, but this makes them all the more alluring. They’re young, they break rules, and somehow they make music that perfectly walks the line between weird and popularly likeable. 

In an era of accessibility in music production, Billie and Finneas keep young producers hopeful. They encourage genre-bending, experimentation, and having fun while making music. They defy the idea that big producers rule radio and that pop music has to sound a certain way. They take risks, embrace eccentricity, and rightfully reap the rewards of their decisions.