Fans Are Accusing Taylor Swift Of Sabotaging Billie Eilish's Album Drop

Taylor Swift drew criticism online this week after unveiling three new editions of her album The Tortured Poets Department just one day before Billie Eilish released her latest record, Hit Me Hard and Soft.

The Tortured Poets Department variants were made available digitally Thursday evening. Each edition includes a bonus version of one of three Swift songs: The Black Dog, Whos Afraid of Little Old Me? and Cassandra.

Eilish, meanwhile, has been teasing the release of Hit Me Hard and Soft  since April. Given the fervent anticipation for the nine-time Grammy winners latest, it didnt take long for some fans to accuse Swift of making a transparent attempt to outpace Hit Me Hard and Soft on the charts.

One person on X, formerly Twitter, wrote : i love you taylor, but this is just greedy. couldnt have released this last week or next week? but now that you know theres competition for #1 this week, you gotta go and play these stunts. its honestly tiring.

Another X user suggested that Eilishs recent criticism of excessive album variants really got into Swift, adding that doing this on her album release day is so nasty.

Others, however, came to Swifts defense by suggesting it was simply indicative of the music business as a whole.

This is a competitive industry, shes not playing any stunt shes following the rollout, one person wrote . Still, even if it wasnt why should Taylor move?

The Tortured Poets Department has remained in the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 chart, which measures the 200 most popular albums in the country, since its April 19 release. The album sold more than 2.6 million copies in its first week.

Though the new Tortured Poets Department versions are currently only available digitally, the Eilish-versus-Swift discourse comes shortly after Eilish criticized musicians who have opted to issue multiple vinyl editions of their albums and singles in an effort to generate higher sales figures.

I cant even express to you how wasteful it is, she told Billboard in March.

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 its some of the biggest artists in the world making fking 40 different vinyl packages that have a different unique thing just to get you to keep buying more.

Notably, Eilish didnt identify any of the artists she may have been referring to in her comments. Still, many interpreted her remarks as a dig at Swift, whose Grammy-winning Midnights hit the shelves in 2022 with a handful of different vinyl editions . 

After irking the fanbase of Swift and other artists, however, Eilish clarified on Instagram that she had only hoped to draw attention to industry-wide systemic issues in her Billboard interview. 

She wrote : 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.