Swifties turn on Eilish over dig at ‘wasteful’ vinyl sales

BILLIE EILISH has sparked a backlash from Taylor Swift fans after criticising artists for releasing vinyl special editions to boost album sales.

The Bad Guy singer said she was outraged by “some of the biggest artists in the world” selling multiple versions of the same album, claiming they cared more about making money than protecting the environment.

Vinyl editions are often released with different cover art or with additional tracks, encouraging fans to buy them all to complete their set.

“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 favourite artists doing that s---,” Eilish told Billboard music magazine.

The comments were widely seen as a dig at Swift, who frequently releases vinyl variants of the same album – such as her 2020 disc Folklore which was sold in eight special editions.

Swift’s army of fans, known as “Swifties”, flocked to social media to defend their idol and criticise Eilish’s perceived slight.

However, the 22-year-old insisted she had been taking aim at the music industry rather than any individuals and admitted that she was guilty of the practice herself. “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 on Instagram.

“I wasn’t singling anyone out, these are industry-wide systemic issues … when it comes to variants, so many artists release them – including ME! Which I clearly state in the article.”

Eilish said in her interview that she goes out of her way to be sustainable, having grown up in a household where everything was reusable – to the extent that they never used wrapping paper or paper napkins.

Her Happier Than Ever album was released in eight vinyl editions in 2021, but was made out of recycled materials.

She said the process of producing multiple variants of the same album “is right in front of our face” and people are “getting away with it left and right”.

“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.

Eilish went on to compare the “messed up” music industry to the Hunger Games, a dystopian series in which children are randomly selected to fight to the death.

“It’s the only way to play the game,” she said.