Fans of Billie Eilish have accused Taylor Swift of ‘nasty’ behavior after the pop star made a new announcement about her Tortured Poets Department album.
Swift took the world by storm once again when she dropped her 11th studio album on 19 April, surprising fans with a whopping 31 tracks which she has since started adding to her ongoing Eras Tour.
Taylor Swift released Tortured Poets Department in April. (Kevin Mazur/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management)
The release broke records as it shot up the charts, prompting Swift to thank her fans for all the support they’ve given the album – but one month on, some music fans have accused her of acting in bad faith.
The accusations came as Eilish released her new album, Hit Me Hard And Soft, today (17 May), marking her first release since the 2021 album Happier Than Ever.
Eilish has been promoting the release on social media, saying she ‘could not be more proud of this album’, but some fans believe that the release has been overshadowed by an announcement Swift made this week.
Eilish expressed her excitement for the album online. (Instagram/@billieeilish)
The ‘Shake It Off’ singer unveiled three new digital editions of The Tortured Poets Department for fans to get their hands on; versions which have proved particularly intriguing thanks to their inclusion of first draft phone memos of her songs ‘The Black Dog’ ‘Cassandra’ and ‘Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?’
As for the timing of the release – well, the new versions arrived today, on the same day as Hit Me Hard And Soft.
Fans of Eilish have called attention to the timing in posts on X – with many criticizing Swift.
“Doing this on her album release day is so nasty,” one Eilish fan wrote after hearing the news of Swift’s new album editions.
Another commented: “I loved Taylor Swift but this is not done. So bad of her for trying to block young artists like Billie Eilish.”
Swift’s new versions released on the same day as Eilish’s album. (X)
However, other music fans stuck up for Swift, with some arguing the release of the new versions had only brought more attention to Eilish’s album.
“i think it’s very unnecessary to turn these 2 woman simply promoting their freshly new albums into an imaginary beef,” one person wrote.
“Like look at me in the eyes and swear to me that u think that taylor hates billie and it’s promoting her album for the sake of ruining billie’s career…”
The conflict over the albums comes after Eilish spoke to Billboard about different types of albums, saying: “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.”
Fans criticised the timing of Swift’s announcement. (X)
Eilish continued: “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***ing 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***.”
After Eilish made her comments, some speculated she may have been talking about Swift specifically – but the singer has denied those claims.
In a post on Instagram, she clarified: “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 it’s about all of us being part of the problem and trying to do better sheesh.”