John Dewey provides a look into experiences with his essay, “Having an Experience.” He begins by describing the fact that experiences are continuous. We, as human beings, are always experiencing something, but then he breaks it down further into two different kinds of experiences: an experience and a “real” experience. “We have an experience when the material expressed runs its course to fulfillment.” (555) His examples provided are writing a book, playing a game, and such.  “Experience in this vital sense is defined by those situations and episodes that we spontaneously refer to as being ‘real experiences’; those things of when we say in recalling them, ‘that was an experience.’” (555) This can be seen in either small instances that you recall and find amusement and enjoyment in, like a dinner in Paris as he explains, or as something bigger that, as you recall it, doesn’t quite leave you feeling enjoyment or amusement, but nonetheless has an impact on your perception enough to be recognized as a real experience. They're of tremendous importance, typically in hindsight. He provides an example of a quarrel with your partner or narrowly escaping peril. The difference in experiences is almost like the differences in quoting and italicizing works of art. A short piece like a song or a chapter, something that doesn't run a course as there is more to follow, is put in quotations; however, a book or a music album, something with a beginning and end, a course to run and fulfill, is italicized. This, I think, is evident in the stylistic choice Dewey makes in discussing the types. One is italicized while the other is often seen in quotations. This is a distinction that I think makes his nearly 20 page essay easier to navigate and visualize, and will go hand in hand with my example. Dewey utilizes art as an example in his essay frequently, and I will do the same. I will utilize one of my favorite music albums, Happier Than Ever by Billie Eilish, to explain an experience and why I think people refer to this album as a “flop.”

First, let’s look at an experience a little closer. Dewey says, “Nevertheless, [an] experience has satisfying emotional quality because it possesses internal integration and fulfillment reached through ordered and organized movement.” (557) To break this down further for my example, internal integration would be the act of not only listening to the music, but actively listening. You must utilize your internal structures of hearing as well as cognition to understand the words being said and the emotions being felt. Without active listening, you encounter an issue Dewey mentions briefly, “it is possible to be efficient in action and yet not have a conscious experience.” (558) This can be seen in children. For a quick example, at six years old, I didn’t know why my mother didn’t like me singing Brittany Spears’ “Slave 4 U.” It was just a fun song with a fun little dance, but at 24 I cannot believe that I knew every word… and the dance. Moreover, this means that Happier Than Ever, like all albums, should be listened to actively, in order, and to the end. The album tells a tale of Billie’s personal life, life in the limelight, and life in the entertainment industry. These aren’t things you pick up on without actively listening; you get carried away in the beats and melodies, the synths and different vibrations, as I did when I was six. Without listening to the lyrics and story, which are integral to the artform that is music, you simply experience a “real experience” rather than an experience. In addition to that, Dewey says that, “without an act of recreation the object is not perceived as a work of art.” (571) And, previously Dewey uses “a piece of work finished in a way that is satisfactory,” (555) as an example of an experience; therefore, the work of art, art in which the artist has finished it in a way that is satisfactory, is seen as an experience if it can be recreated by the perceivers. In other words, your audience has to be able to put themselves in your shoes to experience what you are portraying to them, without that, the audience is lost and cannot understand or resonate, which results in your art “flopping.” (That is, to be bad or not received well by audiences.)

This is where my discussion begins. Happier Than Ever fits the criterion of being an experience until you try putting yourself in the creator’s shoes because the album focuses on a lot of female oriented issues and, mostly, Billie’s personal life, which most, if not all, of her audience has no clue how to resonate with. This is why I think the album is seen as a “flop” and referred to as, in articles, “the end of her career.” It’s a harsh sentiment for sure, but people can’t recreate most of the emotions and situations involved in the songs to see it for the art work that it truly is. For example, based on a brief search on Reddit and Quora, people bring up her song “NDA” frequently as being one they dislike the most. This song deals heavily with her life in the public eye with lines such as “30 under 30 for another year/ I can barely go outside, I think I hate it here” and “I bought a secret house when I was 17/Haven't had a party since I got the keys/Had a pretty boy over, but he couldn't stay/on his way out, made him sign an NDA.” These lines aren’t exactly easy for the masses to resonate with. Personally, I barely had $100 when I was 17, I know nothing of buying a house. I have six years left to be in Forbes’ 30 under 30 [years old] list, and while I can’t tell the future, I probably won’t be seeing that. None of these things are things I can even begin to recreate for myself; therefore, the song, and album as a whole, is seen as a “flop,” and by Dewey’s view, not a work of art, or an experience. Another great example of this is the album’s title track “Happier Than Ever.” This song was by far the most popular on the album, but only the last half. The first half of the song was written off almost immediately by people, most didn’t bother trying with the lyrics, so Billie cut it out and released an edited version of the song to include only the last, upbeat, highly resonated half of the song. The first half of the song is more personal to her, it tells a story that we haven’t experienced, but the second half offered a story that resonated with a primarily female audience. With lyrics like, “You call me again, drunk in your Benz /Driving home under the influence /You scared me to death, but I'm wasting my breath /'Cause you only listen to your fucking friends /I don't relate to you /I don't relate to you, no /'Cause I'd never treat me this shitty /You made me hate this city,” and song ending lyrics, “You ruined everything good/ Always said you were misunderstood /Made all my moments your own /Just fucking leave me alone.” These lyrics alone allowed people to resonate with the song and make it the most popular song on the album, and one of her top streamed songs on Spotify. Without these lyrics, though, the song would hold no powers of resonance and wouldn't qualify as an experience, which is why the rest of the album isn’t popular.

Based on a Billboard Article written closely after the album was released, the least favorite songs on the album were all those more personal to Billie; however, if you actively listen to the songs, you might find more there to resonate with than you find topically. Take for example these lyrics out of the second worst song, according to Billboard, “Overheated”: “And everybody said it was a let-down/I was only built like everybody else now/But I didn't get a surgery to help out/'Cause I'm not about to redesign myself now, am I.” These lyrics are deeply personal for Billie, who hid her body underneath extremely baggy clothing for the beginning of her career as she was a minor and uncomfortable showing it off, and once she did she faced backlash and reports of letting people down. She has a naturally curvy body and not at all the stick figure-esque stereotype that society deems “attractive.” Nevertheless, are these lyrics not enough to recreate for others to make the song meaningful to them? I know for a fact there is something in these lyrics that people can recreate because they resonate with me, someone who is the stick figure-esque stereotype. “I was only built like everybody else now/But I didn't get a surgery to help out/'Cause I'm not about to redesign myself now, am I,” are lyrics that resonate with me, but if we put it on a spectrum of societal standards, they resonate on the opposite side as what they resonate with Billie. On the contrary, one of the better songs on the album, according to Billboard, is titled “Male Fantasy.” As the title suggests, it talks about being the center of a male fantasy and pornography as well as, what I take as, her relationship with a younger self. This is obviously ripe for others to be able to recreate for themselves and resonate with, which makes sense as to why Billboard ranked it so high. On a broad scale, however, the album as a whole focuses too much on her personal life and the life in the entertainment industry to soar as well as her first album did, which didn’t focus on such experiences.

If this album is so personal to her, why is it my favorite? How can I see it as a work of art? I think there is more value in “real experiences” than an experience. It’s not the playing of a game or finishing of an equation that makes me who I am. Those are just things, just accomplishments. They’re just checks being ticked off of a to-do list or just things done without much thought at all. The “real” experiences, those that make you look back and go wow, those carry emotional weight, just like Happier Than Ever. I might not be able to put myself in her shoes and know what it is like to not trust someone, or have a secret house at 17, or have people sign NDAs in order to be friends, but I can feel and hear the emotion, I can imagine the weight of those things, which translates into my own experience with them. I recall the songs on this album and I think “yeah, I gotta listen to the whole album now,” because it takes me on a journey and transports me to a place where I feel what someone else is feeling, and that, to me, is what art does.

Citations

Dailey, Hannah. “Every Song Ranked on Billie Eilish’s ‘Happier than Ever’: Critic’s List.” Billboard, 18 Apr. 2023, www.billboard.com/media/lists/billie-eilish-happier-than-ever-ranked-9608324/.

Ryanx1231. “Dive into Anything.” Reddit, 3 July 2021, www.reddit.com/r/billieeilish/comments/od1oh2/is_anyone_worried_that_happier_than_ever_is_gonna/.

“Why Is Billie Eilish’s Second Album ‘Happier than Ever’ Not so Good When the First Was Great?” Quora, 2022, www.quora.com/Why-is-Billie-Eilish-s-second-album-Happier-than-Ever-not-so-good-when-the-first-was-great.