Billie Eilish Doesn't Know Who Van Halen Are

Poor Billie Eilish -- no matter how much she appeals to the rock world, she just can't win. Due to being young and famous, Billie has become the new poster child for "those damn kids" for many rockers, even as she sings Green Day's praises on television and pays homage to death metal with her merch. Now, Billie has a whole new generation of rock fans grumbling about her, as she admitted to Jimmy Kimmel that she doesn't know who Van Halen are.

Speaking to Jimmy in the video below, Billie is overall a good sport -- she talks about how she doesn't feel the need to be competitive with other artists, and how she still lives with her parents. It's Jimmy who brings up that he was Billie's age in 1984, to which she gives a light jab with a 'LOSER' hand sign. Jimmy then starts listing the stars of 1984, seeing if she knows them.

"Do you know who Madonna is?" he asks.

"I do know who Madonna is," she replies.

"Can you name a Van Halen?" he asks.

"Who?" replies Billie, looking mystified.

"I'm going to start crying," says Jimmy.

Watch the whole interview here:

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Of course, this has now pissed off countless Van Halen fans on Twitter, who grumbled away about how they don't know who Billie Eilish is either, and how dare this young pop star blah blah blah. In turn, Billie's fans responded arguing that Billie has no reason to know who Van Halen are because she was born after the band really meant anything, hair metal sucks, yadda yadda.

If there's a right answer here, it's the latter point: of course Billie Eilish doesn't know who Van Halen are. They were a band who were on top of the world when they first emerged, but who made crotch-thrusting party rock more than anything else. Eddie Van Halen's guitar playing was revolutionary, and the band's songs are deeply memorable, but there's absolutely no reason that the girl who wrote Bad Guy would've spent any portion of her life in her room listening to Hot For Teacher or I'm The One. To put it another way, are most Van Halen super-fans deeply knowledgeable about Tommy Dorsey's work with Frank Sinatra? Probably not.

All that said, if a Billie Eilish/Van Halen collaboration develops, we'll be the first to let you know.

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