Billie Eilish Directs Veiled Criticism Towards Taylor Swift for Producing Mass Vinyl Records

Oscar winner Billie Eilish recently revealed her eco-conscious side in an exclusive interview with Billboard, REVERB's Music Decarbonization Project, which seeks to eventually eradicate carbon emissions produced by the music industry, was started and funded in part by Eilish last year. During the discussion, Eilish criticized well-known musicians for reissuing their songs in hard copy formats.

As per The US Sun, fans instantly pointed out that the Hotline Bling hitmaker subtly referenced Taylor Swift, she said, "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." Eilish confronted, "I can’t even express to you how wasteful it is." She criticized, "It’s some of the biggest artists in the world making f***ing forty different vinyl packages that have a different unique thing just to get you to keep buying more."

Eilish continued, "It is right in front of our faces and people are just getting away with it left and right," the Lovely songstress continued. She went on to explain that re-releasing music on vinyl form is "really frustrating" as someone who goes out of their way to be "sustainable" and does the best she can to make sure everyone in her team is also "being sustainable." Eilish stated that she was extremely troubled by the fact that some musicians care more about their financial success and numbers than the impact that this wasteful practice has on the earth. 

TMZ reported Swift publishes her albums in several editions on various media, including vinyl, and she's getting ready to do it again with her upcoming four-album release. Although Billie has released several hard copy copies of her music, she has taken care to ensure that the materials used to make her vinyl albums are recyclable, as seen by the labels "100% recycled black vinyl" and "recycled scraps for colored variants." The record packaging itself is also comprised of environmentally friendly materials, including "shrink-wrap made from sugar cane." 

As per Forbes, the 1989 (Taylor's Version) album by Swift has been proclaimed the world's best-selling vinyl record of 2023 by the IFPI, or the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. According to the organization, the title sold 1.4 million music units worldwide in the previous year. The only vinyl album to sell one million copies worldwide in 2023.

The Lover hitmaker holds the top three positions in the total. No. 2 is Speak Now (Taylor's Version), which debuted earlier this year. Just the vinyl version of that project sold 684,000 copies worldwide. With 562,000 sales, her 2022 full-length album Midnights comes in third position.