If you checked out Billie Eilish's album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? and just so happen to love The Office, a particular song may have stood out to you. I had a genuine GUFFAW when I first heard "my strange addiction" use clips from The Office. The clips come from the season seven gem "Threat Level Midnight." This is a sentence I am typing: "Billie Eilish Sampled The Office." I love this kid.
Via Rolling Stone:
In case you haven’t seen “Threat Level Midnight,” Agent Michael Scarn has a “Scarn Dance” in the film-within-a-sitcom. Eilish uses Scarn-Dance-related dialogue from Michael Scott (Steve Carell), Jim Halpert (John Krasinski), Ryan Howard (B.J. Novak) and Kelly Kapoor (Mindy Kaling) to introduce the song, then brings them back to serve as interludes throughout, punctuating the slinking, bass-heavy track.
“When we made the beat for ‘my strange addiction,’ it reminded me of the song they play when they do the Scarn dance,” Eilish toldMTV News. “I thought that was really funny, so we literally just ripped the audio from Netflix and put it in the song, not at all thinking that they would say yes to it and we’d be able to put it out. Also, it’s about strange addictions, andThe Officeis mine, so…”
Novak says he already had Eilish’s hit “bury a friend” on a playlist before the request to sample his vocals came in, but he wasn’t very familiar with the rest of her work. “They had to get approval of all the cast that was on it,” Novak says. (This means Steve Carell also had to approve his vocals before the song was released. Steve Carell did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.) “I was fine with it regardless,” says Novak, “but I was like ‘Wow, bonus: This is a banger.'”
From co-executive producer Daniel Chun:
Chun was even more surprised. “Until you told me about her, I didn’t know who she was,” he says. “It’s not a knock on Billie Eilish, it’s more a commentary on how old I am. It was a real double whammy, learning someone’s existence and then learning that they used [the episode]. I looked at the song and I loved it. It’s great.”
And writer Eve Nelson:
But Nelson, who composed the music for the episode, was ecstatic. She’s a fervent supporter of Billie, and seemed genuinely shocked that Eilish and company would be inspired by her work.
Read more HERE and check out Billie's "my strange addiction" and The Office's "Threat Level Midnight" below!