Billie Eilish has hit back after being criticized by furious Taylor Swift fans for “singling out” the Anti-Hero popstar.
The Bad Guy singer had spoken out against the now-common practice of artists releasing multiple vinyl versions of their albums in different packaging without regard for the negative impact on the environment.
Eilish, 22, who has been one of the music industry’s most outspoken campaigners on sustainability issues, shared her frustrations in an interview with Billboard published on Thursday, March 28.
While she didn’t list any artists by name, Swift’s fans, known as Swifties, began to speculate that her comment was a thinly veiled dig about their idol, 34.
The Eras Tour star has become known for not only releasing rerecorded versions of her early albums, but putting out multiple slightly tweaked physical and digital versions of all her new studio recordings.
Swifties flocked to social media to defend her over the practice and slam Eilish for what one of them referred to as “the shady diss of our queen”. Some even pointed out Swift’s superior album sales compared to Eilish’s.
The furore prompted Eilish to try and clear things up by posting a statement to her Instagram Stories and tagging her original Billboard interview.
“Okay so it would be so awesome if people would stop putting words into my mouth and actually read what I said in that billboard article,” she wrote. “I wasn’t singling anyone out, these are industry-wide systemic issues,” she explained, referring to sustainability.
She went on to admit that she too was guilty of releasing variants to get fans to buy the same album multiple times, although she wasn’t clear on if those are her decisions or that of the record label.
“When it comes to variants, so many artists release them, including me, which ! clearly state in the article,” she added, before concluding with: “The climate crisis is now and it’s about all of us being part of the problem and trying to do better sheesh.”
Eilish had said in the Billboard article: “Some of the biggest artists in the world [are] making f—king 40 different vinyl packages that have a different unique thing just to get you to keep buying more.
“It’s so wasteful, and it’s irritating to me that we’re still at a point where you care that much about your numbers and you care that much about making money — and it’s all your favorite artists doing that s–t.”
Last year, Oscar and Grammy winner helped launch and fund Reverb’s Music Decarbonization Project, which aims to eliminate carbon emissions created by the music industry.
Eilsh’s second and latest album, 2021’s Happier Than Ever, was released in eight different colored vinyl versions. However, in her commitment to sustainability, she used recycled black vinyl plus recycled scraps for colored variants, and shrink-wrap made from sugar cane. the Oscar and Grammy winner continued.
The What Was I Made For? singer expressed that she is disappointed other artists do not share her commitment to the environment.
“I can’t even express to you how wasteful it is,” she added about the growth of numerous vinyl versions of the same album.
“It is right in front of our faces and people are just getting away with it left and right, and 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,” she added.
