Music

Middle-Aged Men Are Mad That Billie Eilish Doesn’t Know Who Van Halen Is

"Wow 17-year-old girl doesn't know of a band who's peak was nearly 40 years ago, that's crazy."

by Michelle Rennex  3 December 2019
Billie Eilish Van Halen

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Billie Eilish revealed that she didn’t know who Van Halen was in a recent interview with Jimmy Kimmel.

During the Jimmy Kimmel Live! interview, Jimmy claimed that 1984, the year it was when he was 17, was the “greatest year in American history”. As Billie Eilish is currently 17, he decided to quiz her on what she knew from that era.

Billie blitzed through Madonna and Cyndi Lauper, but struggled in knowing others like Run-DMC and Huey Lewis. However, it’s the clip that revolves around Billie and her lack of knowledge around the rock band, Van Halen, that has gained the most attention.

Billie turned the internet into a frenzy when she couldn’t name a Van Halen member, instead asking “Who?” while being quizzed.

Some began to criticise Billie for not having knowledge of a band as big as Van Halen, regardless of her age. But people were quick to come to Billie’s defence, questioning how a 17-year-old is meant to know of a band who hasn’t produced any significant music in her lifetime.

Unsurprisingly, it was the middle-aged men who were most enraged by the revelation that not every person in the world is aware of a band that peaked in the ’80s — which was at least 20 years before Billie Eilish was even born.

In a strange turn of events, the conversation quickly shifted. Van Halen fans went from using “well I’m sure they don’t know her either!” as a defence, to likening the work of the band to that of Mozart and Michelangelo.

People soon fired back at defensive Van Halen fans by pointing out the flaws in their arguments, highlighting how ridiculous it is to expect a single person to know every artist that has ever existed.

And others chose to poke the bear, asking the middle-aged men to pinpoint other culturally relevant things that, by their logic, they should be across.

While some brave souls decided to do the exact thing that would anger the fans most — purposefully getting information about the band wrong altogether.