Finneas and Billie Eilish channel 2000s boyband gold on ‘Turning Red’ song ‘Nobody Like U’

Disney has shared a new song from Pixar’s upcoming movie Turning Red, wherein powerhouse siblings Finneas and Billie Eilish – the former appearing as part of the fictional boyband 4*Town (a tongue-in-cheek riff on *NSYNC) – take fans right back to 2002.

Titled ‘Nobody Like U’, the song is an almost scarily accurate pastiche of early ‘00s pop. It starts with washed-out vocals, clicky synth beats and quasi-flamenco strumming, before bursting into a lively bop driven by bold, modulated piano chords and stacked lead vocals.

Opening the intently cheesy, ultra-nostalgic track, the fictional 4*Town quintet – flanked by Eilish on backing vocals – croon: “I’ve never met nobody like you / Had friends and I’ve had buddies, it’s true / But they don’t turn my tummy the way you do.”

Check out the lyric video for ‘Nobody Like U’, replete with scrapbook-esque nods to relics of ‘00s culture, below:

Finneas voices the role of Jesse in Turning Red, with his “bandmates” rounded out by Robaire (as portrayed by Jordan Fisher), Aaron T (Topher Ngo), Aaron Z (Josh Levi) and Tae Young (Grayson Villanueva). 

The film is set for a worldwide release on March 11. It was initially slated for a theatrical release, but got shifted to Disney+ in the wake of COVID-19’s Omicron variant. Eilish and Finneas wrote three songs for the soundtrack – the other two being ‘1 True Love’ and ‘U Know What’s Up’ – with the latter credited exclusively for their instrumental versions.

“When we first started talking about Billie Eilish and Finneas – back before they’d won a billion GRAMMYs – we could see then how they had their finger on the pulse,” Lindsey Collins, the film’s producer, said in a statement. “We were big fans. We met with them and pitched this crazy idea of a boyband, asking if they’d be interested in writing and producing the songs. They were!” 

Set in the early 2000s, Turning Red will centre around 13-year-old Meilin “Mei” Lee, who has the unfortunate quirk of turning into a giant red panda whenever she feels a strong emotion. It stars Sandra Oh, Orion Lee and newcomer Rosalie Chiang, and is directed by Domee Shi (who previously helmed the Pixar short Bao).

Meanwhile, Finneas and Eilish recently met with US President Joe Biden in The White House. The musician siblings were invited, along with their parents Maggie and Patrick, to meet the US President following their support for Biden during the 2020 US election.

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