The early returns are excellent for Billie Eilish’s third album, Hit Me Hard and Soft. The album enters the Billboard 200 at No. 2 with 339,000 equivalent album units — Eilish’s largest week to date by units earned. Of that sum, 191,000 are traditional album sales — her best sales week yet.
Critical response has also been strong. The album has a solid 89 rating at Metacritic.com, the review aggregation site. That’s Eilish’s best mark to date. Her debut, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, posted a 82 rating. Her follow-up, Happier Than Ever, had a 86.
The question now is how well Hit Me Hard and Soft will do at the 67th annual Grammy Awards. When We All Fall Asleep dominated the awards in early 2020. Eilish became the first artist to sweep the Big Four awards – album, record and song of the year plus best new artist – since Christopher Cross in 1981. Her follow-up, Happier Than Ever, was likewise nominated for those Big Three awards, though she didn’t add to her Grammy collection that year.
With the strong early showing, it’s very possible Eilish could join the short roster of artists to receive album of the year nods with their first three releases.
Nominations for the 67th annual Grammy Awards will be announced on Nov. 8. Final-round voting runs from Dec. 12 to Jan. 3, 2025. The awards will be presented at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Feb. 2, 2025.
Here are artists who were nominated for album of the year with their first three releases. Because release patterns were so different in the early years of the Grammys, we’re also including artists who were nominated for album of the year the first three years they were eligible.
The years shown are the years of the Grammy ceremony.
