Billie Eilish never dragged Taylor Swift over packaging sustainability: 'I wasn't singling anyone out'

Eilish called out artists, including herself, who release vinyl variants to push sales.

Billie Eilish spoke out about sustainability in the music industry. Now, she's taken to Instagram to ask people to stop "putting words in my mouth," as Taylor Swift fans say Eilish was taking a shot at the "Shake It Off" singer.

Eilish, in an interview on sustainability with Billboard, called out artists who release a string of vinyl variants — multiple releases of the same album with collectible variations that can juice sales and help push an album up the charts. "I can’t even express to you how wasteful it is," she said.

She took to Instagram to seemingly defend herself against accusations that she was taking a shot at Swift, who was not mentioned by name in the interview or her Instagram response. "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," she wrote.

“I wasn’t singling anyone out, these are industry-wide systemic issues,” Eilish said. In the post, she went on to mention that she is also guilty of releasing variants. Her album Happier Than Ever came in eight vinyl variants. However, she made efforts toward sustainability in those releases. The standard version was pressed on 100% recycled black vinyl, and variants were made using recycled scraps, one of which is referred to as a "waste free swirl variant" on her site.

"It's a never-ending f---ing fight," she told Billboard. "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."

She elaborated on Instagram, "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."

While Swift was not mentioned by name, she certainly fits the example. Swift released eight versions of Folklore, four of Midnights, and there are even variants of her recent "Taylor's Version" releases of past albums, to name recent examples.

But Eilish is correct that it takes place across the industry. Olivia Rodrigo and Ariana Grande have recently done this, to name a few other high-profile artists. But it's not just smaller artists or even current artists. Target has an entire page dedicated to its "Target exclusive" releases that feature variants from Shakira, Queen, Kacey Musgraves, Creed, the Weeknd, Justin Timberlake, and more.

"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," Eilish said in the interview.

She continued, "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--t."

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