A few days ago, Billie Eilish made comments about how some artists engage in the “wasteful” practice of releasing multiple vinyl variants of their albums. Some thought Eilish’s criticism was directed towards Taylor Swift, but now Eilish is setting the record straight.
Last night (March 31), Eilish wrote in an Instagram Story post, “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. 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. the climate crisis is now and its about all of us being part of the problem and trying to do better sheesh.”
As for what Eilish actually said in the Billboard interview (alongside her mother Maggie Baird) published on March 28, here’s the excerpt:
Eilish: “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 and gets them more…”
Baird: “Well, it counts toward No. 1 albums.”
Eilish: “I can’t even express to you how wasteful it is. 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 — and then it’s some of the biggest artists in the world making f*cking 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 sh*t.”