Watch Billie Eilish Perform Happier Than Ever and Male Fantasy

The “Bad Guy” singer brings down the house with two hit songs from her second album ‘Happier Than Ever.’

billie-eilish-snl-social — Image via NBC

Saturday Night Live is back to make your holiday season brighter and the host/musical guest for its first of two Christmas shows was superstar singer/songwriter Billie Eilish. She joked in the monolog that she was not an actor, but the 7 time Grammy winner killed the acting part of the gig. However, arguably the best part of the night was Eilish completely in her element performing two songs from her Grammy-nominated second album Happier Than Ever.

The first performance was of Eilish’s title track “Happier Than Ever” and it was a family affair with not only her brother and long-time collaborator Finneas playing guitar, but their parents, Maggie Baird and Patrick O’Connell who are long-time actors themselves, joining in to introduce the song. Both performances were a more intimate experience when compared to Eilish’s last SNL appearance with the song “Happier Than Ever” starting off in a small confined room before it opened up to reveal the audience behind the singer.

Like the song itself, the performance starts off with a slow somber pace and the simple color set design reflects that. However, what makes this song unique is the mic drop transition in the middle where it goes from a slow bittersweet love ballad to an unapologetic rock concert for the ages and this performance did that vibe justice. Eilish goes from sitting on a chair in the middle of the stage while the camera panned around her to Finneas changing over from an acoustic to an electric guitar as both performers do their own anxiety-fueled take on the classic Peanuts shuffle. With the Christmas lights flickering on and off behind them, they brought their A-game to this performance even though the more emotional parts of the song were censored due to this being on TV.

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billie-eilish-finneas-snl — Image via NBC

Next, Eilish performed her other hit song “Male Fantasy” which compared to the previous performance was even simpler in its design, but it still had the same haunting effectiveness that fans have come to love from the singer. The song saw Eilish and Finneas sitting in the middle of a living room crisscrossed applesauce with a Charlie Brown-style Christmas tree behind them. The two were dressed down in their pajamas which were perfect for the type of self-reflective song this piece of music is.

“Male Fantasy” is purely focused on Eilish’s voice and her great ability to tell a relatively tragic story. We have all sat in our living room in the middle of the night thinking about our past mistakes and our futures when we should be sleeping and this somber tale reflects that. Like “Happier Than Ever” Eilish brought down the SNL house, but in a much more subtle way.

It takes a lot of commitment to perform as both the host and musical guest on SNL, but in typical Eilish fashion, she killed it in her own uniquely charming way. Next week will be SNL’s final show of 2021 with the sexiest man alive Paul Rudd hosting with musical guest Charlie XCX and you can watch both of Eilish’s performances down below.