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In April, Billie Eilish gave an interview to Billboard about her new album and her attempts to change the music industry and make the industry more environmental and less wasteful. One of the big headlines from Billie’s interview was that she said that too many artists are being wasteful with how many variants they do. In music parlance, “variants” are multiple versions of the same album, offered in vinyl, CD or digital. Many big artists are “gaming the system” for record sales and charting by offering twenty different variants of their albums with “new songs” or remixes or what have you. While Billie didn’t name names in the Billboard piece – because multiple artists are guilty of it – many people did think of Taylor Swift immediately. The variant issue is Taylor’s whole deal these days, it’s her modus operandi for dominating the charts and sales. She gets her Swifty army to buy the same album like twenty different times, all to get “new songs” or whatever.
Skip ahead to last week. Billie Eilish released her new album, Hit Me Hard and Soft. On the very same day, Taylor decided to drop new variants of The Tortured Poets Department, an album which had only been out for less than a month. Coincidence or conspiracy?
Earlier this year, Billie Eilish was forced to hit back after she was accused of shading Taylor Swift in comments about “wasteful” artists during an interview with Billboard. Speaking to the publication for a sustainability-centered interview, Billie criticized how normalized it has become for artists to sell multiple variants of the same album. At this point, it’s important to point out that Billie herself sells multiple vinyl variants of her albums, but they all have the exact same tracklist so that fans aren’t forced to buy every version in order to hear all of her songs. She also uses 100% recycled vinyl and scraps for each variant.
“We live in this day and age where, for some reason, it’s very important to some artists to make all sorts of different vinyl and packaging… which ups the sales and ups the numbers and gets them more money,” she explained in the interview. “I can’t even express how wasteful it is. It is right in front of our faces, and people are just getting away with it left and right,” Billie went on. “I find it really frustrating as somebody who really goes out of my way to be sustainable and do the best that I can and try to involve everybody in my team in being sustainable — and then it’s some of the biggest artists in the world making fucking 40 different vinyl packages that have a different unique thing just to get you to keep buying more.”
Taylor Swift did not publicly acknowledge any of the discourse at the time, but people believe they have now spotted some seriously shady activity from the star. On Thursday, it was announced that Taylor will release three new digital versions of her latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, on Friday, May 17. Each version includes a first draft phone memo of one of three of Taylor’s songs; either “The Black Dog,” “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” or “Cassandra.” To hear all of the original drafts, fans must purchase all three of the newly available variants at $5.99 each.
And it didn’t take long for people to notice that the three new variants were dropping on the same day as Billie’s third album, Hit Me Hard and Soft — thus putting the two in competition in the music charts.
I’m including some tweets below, cited in Buzzfeed’s coverage, which seem to be gaining traction. Like, I don’t pay attention to Taylor’s eleventy billion variant drops because I’m not a Swiftie and I really don’t give a sh-t. Taylor is going to bleed her fans dry if it’s the last thing she does and her fans play her games willingly. The answer is convincing her fans to stop playing her stupid cash-grabbing games. And yes, Taylor absolutely did this on purpose, dropping these digital variants on the same day as Billie’s album drop. Petty petty petty. While I do think Billie was referencing Taylor in the Billboard interview, Billie was also generalizing in the hope that more artists would rethink their wasteful, system-gaming, fan-scamming variant strategy. I hope Billie says some sh-t about Taylor’s private planes next. This could end up being a pretty good beef.
billie’s statement about artists releasing 40 vinyl packages to get people to buy more really got into her… doing this on her album release day is so nasty https://t.co/T9Q0oj4hA9
— pop culture gal (@allurequinn) May 16, 2024
the same day as billie’s release……. and yall swear that taylor is a girl’s girl. https://t.co/kW9tAbKY5b
— rudy (@rudyIopez) May 16, 2024
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
BEVERLY HILLS, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA – JANUARY 07: Taylor Swift wearing custom Gucci and De Beers jewelry arrives at the 81st Annual Golden Globe Awards held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 7, 2024 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States.,Image: 835211435, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Taylor Swift, Credit line: Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon
BEVERLY HILLS, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA – JANUARY 07: Taylor Swift wearing custom Gucci and De Beers jewelry arrives at the 81st Annual Golden Globe Awards held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 7, 2024 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States.,Image: 835219093, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Taylor Swift, Credit line: Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon
Oscar® nominee Billie Eilish arrives on the red carpet of the 96th Oscars® at the Dolby® Theatre at Ovation Hollywood on Sunday, March 10, 2024.,Image: 855656342, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Mike Baker / Avalon
Finneas O’Connell and Billie Eilish pose backstage with the Oscar® for Original Song during the live ABC telecast of the 96th Oscars® at Dolby® Theatre at Ovation Hollywood on Sunday, March 10, 2024.,Image: 855770928, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Avalon.red / Avalon
BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA – MARCH 10: Billie Eilish attends the 2024 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Radhika Jones at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on March 10, 2024 in Beverly Hills, California.,Image: 856338223, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Billie Eilish, Credit line: Jeffrey Mayer / Avalon
Taylor Swift Taylor Swift at the 81st Annual Golden Globe Awards held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, USA on January 7, 2024. Copyright: xZoonar.com/Lumeimages.comx 21170854,Image: 863979483, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: imago is entitled to issue a simple usage license at the time of provision. Personality and trademark rights as well as copyright laws regarding art-works shown must be observed. Commercial use at your own risk., Model Release: no, Credit line: IMAGO/Zoonar.com/Lumeimages.com / Avalon
