Optimist enters into dialogue with recent albums by other young stars disenchanted with success and the world that gave it to them:

Lorde, Clairo, and, of course, Eilish herself. Aesthetically, these records are united in their movement away from pop bombast and towards softer, slower sounds with less commercial traction. Finneas is on board, to some degree—about a third of these songs are piano ballads; one is an instrumental interlude that does little besides demonstrate his proficiency. The O’Connell siblings share a well-documented fondness for mid-century standards, and Finneas sings in a warm, searching baritone—often double-tracked for maximum texture—that performs nicely in songs indebted to them.