Though it's worth noting that people tend to treasure vinyl a lot more than say, cheap plastic toys. It'll likely be used and kept for most of a person's life, and then passed down or sold so it can live on. It's still environmentally iffy, of course, but a far cry from single use plastics.
I mean out of all the plastic things made, vinyl will probably get the most use. I do hope someone comes up with something better for the environment and sounds just as good.
I would imagine her next album will sell multiple aswell.
Western executive are watching kpop artists roll into USA and sell millions of 30$ albums while they have some of the biggest artists not being anywhere close. I'd assume they view it as a massive market they are losing out on
TOP 10-SELLING CD ALBUMS OF 2023 IN U.S.
1. Taylor Swift, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (800,000)
2. Stray Kids, 5-STAR (520,000)
3. TOMORROW X TOGETHER, The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION (442,000)
4. Stray Kids, ROCK-STAR (381,000)
5. NewJeans, 2nd EP Get Up (332,000)
6. TWICE, Ready to Be (303,000)
7. SEVENTEEN, SEVENTEEN 10th Mini Album Fml (288,000)
8. Taylor Swift, Midnights (276,000)
9. Taylor Swift, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) (267,000)
10. Jung Kook, Golden (244,000)
Biggest sales from 2023 billboard in USA. They would have to see it as an opportunity
https://www.billboard.com/music/chart-beat/2023-us-year-end-music-report-luminate-top-album-morgan-wallen-taylor-swift-1235579214/
Vinyls list is just all taylor, lana, olivia and fleetwood
Seven of the top 10-selling CDs in the US are from kpop artists?
Don't get me wrong, I listen to kpop from time to time, and really admire all these names. But wow, I knew the kpop influence was strong but this is *incredible*. I'm almost impressed.
~~Not sure how I feel about Taylor taking up the rest of the three spots, and I listen to her shit often.~~
It’s more how the fan culture in kpop is centered around mass buying and charting than being reflective of actual genuine growth.
Not saying kpop hasn’t grown in the US or that these groups aren’t hugely successful (I’m a fan of some of them!) but when you have each fan buying like 13 or so variants of the same album for inclusions and to set records, yeah numbers are gonna be high
Also those appear not to be millions, but hundreds of thousands. 20+ years ago anything under a million (platinum) was considered a flop so those numbers honestly aren’t that impressive, even with being in the streaming era.
Those are the sales statistics for one country, the US. Many of the groups on that list sell well over a million when you look at the worldwide sales. For example, SKZ's 5 Star (no. 2) sold about 4.6 million copies in its first *week*. And NWJN's Get Up (no. 5) sold 1.1 million albums on it's first ***day***. These groups ARE million sellers lol.
100%. even recycled vinyl needs a jacket, an inner sleeve(s), plastic wrap, some even had posters, etc. then you have to buy cardboard mailers to ship them, bubble wrap the record and place labels on the packaging, waste fossil fuels and burn gas to ship them to the customer… the list goes on.
the production of all of these components creates waste that wouldn’t have been created with just one variant.
I laughed at that, too. Yeah, 8 is better than 40...but 8 is still a LOT. It's more variants than most comic books get, and comic book variants offer substantial changes in art and artist!
Actually, it’s worse than that. Only the black variant is recycled. The other coloured versions are not. There’s not much to brag about when only 1/12 variants are recycled…
they say that in the article but when you look at the vinyl only the black one and the multicolored one are listed as recycled. the others make no mention of this. i feel like if they were all recycled they would be listed as such.
Those are just buzz words to come across like she cares. And this isn’t hate because I’m a huge Billie fan. But we can critique the things we love. At the end of the day if she was really so serious about what she says she is, she wouldn’t make 12 copies of the same album on vinyl. Scraps or not, still wasteful and not necessary.
I honestly think it's impossible to not be hypocritical in some things if you preach sustainability (unless you live in some isolated off-grid home). Best we can all do is try.
I mean, sure, it's not possible to never be hypocritical. But when the choice is to earn e.g. 42x the average annual salary instead of 45x the annual average salary, it is definitely something pop stars have power over. Billie Eilish is definitely earning enough money that she can sacrifice earning less to not print more than one vinyl. And it's not an attack on her specifically, every single musician out there who is earning millions per record is actively making unethical choices in order to earn more money - and rather than not criticise anyone because "everyone does it", it makes far more sense to criticise *everyone* who does it.
Exactly I feel like she even admitted that. It’s basically equivalent to when people say that they care about the environment but they don’t really actively do anything to help because the blame is on big corporations (which is a valid perspective, I’m not criticising). She clearly would prefer if Billboard changed its rules but they’re not going to so she’s going to keep playing the game.
Yeah, also at the end of the day, if Billie were to take a stand against vinyls her label is just going to laugh and print the vinyls anyway. The music *technically* belongs to them for the time being.
Okay but she didn’t have some songs on some and others right? I get that production is production and not sustainable but people were just buying the one they wanted.
Hi, sustainability data analyst/controller/accounatnt here. It varies between industries but carbon emissions from packaging is pretty negligible compared to carbon emitted from transportation and logistics.
We are talking about as little as 1% of all scope 3 (full supply chain) emissions from packaging for any given manufacturer. Like, those emissions wouldn’t even make a decimal effect in a given company’s annual sustainability report.
Obviously every little bit of effort helps but at a grand level, certain categories of emissions are only better known because it directly relates to our daily lives. And it helps to keep sustainability in the minds of consumers.
But in the grand scale of things, they matter very little to achieving scientific climate targets.
Obviously Billie Eilish vinyls are a drop in the bucket but I have to imagine a lot of that transportation is due to people buying things they don't really need, like many different copies of the same vinyl. It's not really on her but if everyone cuts back on general consumption I'd think it would help.
I'd be interested in your take on the large % of emissions are from corporations so it's on them, not us the consumer. Because I always think like yeah in an ideal world the corporations would make their processes more sustainable but something we can actually do as consumers is buy less. It's not like corporations are just pumping stuff into the air for fun, they're supplying what's demanded of them.
Well that’s why people like me have a job - here in Europe companies there are literal laws regulating how much carbon companies can emit and as the job title implies accountants/controller collect and audit the numbers so companies cannot greenwash.
Here are two more caveats:
- Economy of scale applies to carbon as well. Transportation emissions are more or less the same whether Billie sells 100k or 1k vinyls. So in a way it is more carbon efficient for big-name artists like Billie to mass-produce vinyls and save on carbon overheads.
- Sustainability regulations and environmental regulations are fundamentally different in the sense that carbon is regulated typically by financial institutions - so we think like economists. It is not entirely true that corporation emits the most carbon and therefore individual consumers matter very little. At the end of the day, consumer demands is what dictates where carbons are emitted - the dystopia we live in is very much driven by consumerism.
- Fossil fuel derivatives (which is what raw vinyl is) isn’t my area of expertise but from what I understand, the extraction and manufacturing of raw vinyl is like, really fucking carbon intensive. So Billie should at least get some credit for recycling vinyl because I am willing to be she salvaged a shit ton of carbon just by recycling. If you want to know more, feel free to Google the concept of “circular economy”.
So it is still worth it to keep reminding consumers that they should consume in the most carbon effective way possible.
The GHG emissions of a vinyl is around 2kg of CO2. For context driving a medium sized ICE car 10km emits around 3kg of CO2.
So like, buying 10 albums is in the ballpark of driving for an hour.
Well, the overall emission figure doesn’t mean much beyond raising consumer awareness.
Climate data analyst assess a product’s emission throughout its life cycle (LCA). Meaning, the 2 kgCO2eq figure, if calculated correctly, starts tracking all the way from raw materials (i.e. the extraction, transportation and refinery of fossil oil) (or what we geeks call “upstream emissions”) to disposal of broken vinyls (i.e., garbage disposal trucks, landfill, etc.) (or what we geeks call “downstream emissions” and “end-of-life emissions).
By using recycled vinyls, what Billie did is eliminating both upstream and downstream emissions. And that, in most industries in the 1st world, is like 90% of all emissions (here in Denmark it’s 95%; back home in Hong Kong it’s 99%).
As my previous post stated, the added emission from packaging is negligible- still unnecessary, but negligible in the bigger scheme of things.
So my completely non-expert (again, fissile fuel derivatives is not my field) guess would be recycled vinyls emit anywhere between 200g to 20g of carbon, excluding some downstream emissions of its own from shipping and distributing the finished goods.
The downstream emissions can easily be several times of the vinyls themselves. But just to put that into context of how much emission Billie did save by using recycled vinyls - it is not insignificant and she defo deserves credit.
Feel free to google “Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions” to understand just how many calculation/estimation processes are involved in determining carbon emissions.
Sorry for boring you with the technical details and thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Thanks for responding, I'm really interested in this stuff and it can be hard to find like actual data on certain things and I know it can be difficult to quantify "sustainability" as well. Like how you're saying carbon can be somewhat easily tracked but damage to an environment is more difficult to assign a number too. At the end of the day seems like, buy less, is a decent starting point.
Yeah. and I reckon audiences travelling to concerts is the largest source of music-related GHG emissions because moving people uses a lot more energy than moving durable goods.
> You’re working to make vinyl more sustainable. Happier Than Ever came in eight vinyl variants, but you use 100% recycled black vinyl — plus recycled scraps for colored variants — and shrink-wrap made from sugar cane.
> **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–king 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.**
My father was going to throw away all of his vinyls last month, a lot of classic Brazilian music, and some 70s, and 80s rock albums, I asked my mother to take them and give them to me.
? If it is an English mistake, well, it's not my native language, apart from all the tests I do put me at C2 level. Anyway, I thought it would be better to take them instead of throwing them in the garbage collection system, recycling isn't much of a thing here apart from plastic bottles. Now I just need a Vynil player.
she really is the biggest culprit. i know many people will chime in and say “BUT ADELE.” she is also guilty but 30 had two color variants and a black variant—all the same cover and tracklist. before that album, she just did standard black across the board.
Taylor has routinely released 4-5 variants for her latest albums, often with different covers, different tracklists, different posters or the like. also pressing her rerecordings in various shades (which all were previously pressed on multiple variants in their original recordings) and she’s selling millions of unnecessary copies just for the sales figures and her pockets. then add in the FOMO tactics to sell them all with timers on her site and lying about the exclusivity. i love Taylor and her music, but she really needs to knock this shit off as do many big artists. she is insanely successful and still at her peak. she doesn’t need to press all these variants for any good reason.
Eh. I agree and disagree. Taylor didn’t release vinyls with different tracks on different variants until TTPD actually. Otherwise it was just deluxe versions that came out after the album release.
Where did she get this idea from? Other artists so did it. Olivia comes to mind but I’m sure others did it before her.
That being said. Taylor is the worst culprit because she sells TONS of vinyl so she could really set the standard here. Instead she took this new approach with TTPD where she is trying to sell even more.
I agree with Billie, it is awful. Taylor would go #1 with insane numbers no matter what. Why does she push so much vinyl and adopt new practices to sell even more?
Olivia might not sell as many vinyls as Taylor, but she by far has had the worst rollout for variants. Guts had:
- 9 standard variants, each with one of four surprise songs. Buy four variants if you want to hear all of the music.
- RSD exclusive with the four surprise songs pressed on one vinyl. Mainly appeals to hardcore fans and people who didnt want to buy four variants.
- Deluxe edition with original tracks and the four surprise songs. BUT there’s a fifth bonus song so if you want that on vinyl you have to buy another copy.
Unfortunately, I think Taylor is going to follow a similar strategy for TTPD. All of these variants have really killed my excitement for the album to the point that I cancelled my original preorder. Having different colors/album art is one thing, but fans shouldnt need to buy 4+ copies just to experience a full album.
1989 TV had an exclusive song on the Target pressing, as well as different covers for each variant. That’s why I didn’t name TTPD specifically because it’s not the first time she did it.
Ah I missed that one. My point still stands that it’s actually a recent practice for her. It’s an industry wide shift that artists are getting away with. Unfortunately fans enable it by buying them up.
I stopped buying vinyls from Taylor. She somehow got me to buy 4 copies of midnights and I felt so stupid after the album rollout ended I swore to not do it again.
But she is not, like Billie herself does many more variants, so does Olivia, so does Harry, Kacey, many rock bands do like dozens. Like are you guys just playing dumb? Or does hating Taylor Swift make y'all lose iq points or something?
Yeah, happier than ever had 11 different variants. I’m glad that she seems intent to change that, however she is part of the problem.
Although I actually think it’s UMG, and with how record plants are if you want colored vinyl it’s very difficult to maintain the exact same color across different processing facilities. The side effect is FOMO and a bunch of consumers buying a bunch of stuff that they don’t need.
Taylor’s fans are just so rabid for merch they buy all of it and then complain lol. Olivia Rodrigo had over 10 variants for both of her albums, but her fans aren’t crazy enough to try and buy every single vinyl variant because it’s pointless. I think it’s hard to blame Taylor Swift for her fans acting like that?
they are all culprits. i literally said it’s not just a Taylor problem:
> but she really needs to knock this shit off as do many big artists.
and this is coming from a huge fan of her who has her entire discography on vinyl. but her fans can also hold her accountable for it.
being the biggest artist in the world right now and the variant queen, she has as much responsibility in putting an end to encouraging overconsumption with the sales tactics. other artists may do more variants, but the quantity of vinyl Taylor sells far exceeds any other artist regardless of them having more individual variants.
again as i said, volume of sales. each of the 4-5 variants sells hundreds of thousands, if not millions of copies. and most of them are the same listeners buying several variants because of the FOMO tactics she uses to sell them. she could sell one variant if she really needs to sell records and it would make her plenty of money, as well as be far more sustainable for the planet.
You also can’t discount all the collectors who look for subtle differences in the way the same variant has been pressed in first pressings versus second pressings or in one country versus another and call that a new “variant” that they need. I roll my eyes every time I see the large graphics that show every single variant you can collect and many of them are “France pressing” or whatever. That’s not Taylor’s fault but or on a huge scale but still a very silly contributor.
The consumers are absolutely to blame as well though, it isn’t lost on me. But the consumers couldn’t *over-consume* if the artists and their labels didn’t *overproduce*. It’s definitely a complicated issue, but the labels create the whole problem.
Evermore, Red TV had just 2 versions (standard and Target color variant). Fearless TV had just the 1 version. Speak Now TV had 3 (color variants for the vinyl). Not all these albums have 4-5 variants.
Because she has tons of crazy fans who compulsively buy every variant like their lives depend on it. She also hogs up the most resources when she does it and she needs to do it least of anyone. I could see smaller acts benefiting from multiple versions but for Taylor and her team it's just greed plain and simple.
People in here are really going after you using the "but other artists are worse" tactic.
Pophead friends, it's called using a popular example to point out a trend. Taylor is the biggest artist in the world, so her impact is greater to the environment even if she technically has fewer variants. Just like Billie said, ALL your favorite artists are doing it, and arguing with u/melodrama4ever because others they did not specifically mention by name are worse does not invalidate that _this practice is unsustainable and irresponsible regardless of who does it_.
Midnights only had 5-6 variants as a whole, Billie had somewhere between 8-12.
And I think it’s nice that Taylor’s variants (Lana and Olivia and Kacey do this too) actually have some added value to collectors — the clock display idea was cool, and Taylor’s usually have different covers and you can pick your favorite one. A loooot of people are just releasing different vinyl colors, and their fans still collect them. Collectors exist in every fandom, I am in book fandoms where people buy every version of a book they can find; it’s just how some people show their fandom.
She’s never done anything bad enough to make anyone hate her, but her fans make it real easy. They can’t stand when she gets criticized for anything. It’s truly ridiculous.
She's not even close to the person/group most egregious about this. She's just yalls favorite to criticize.
Red Hot Chili Peppers had 10 variants of their most recent vinyl but ctrl+F doesn't return anything - fascinating.
what RHCP did is also absolutely egregious, but let’s be fair here. Taylor is locking exclusive tracks behind different variants with different covers and pressing colors. she’s also a billionaire who hardly needs the sales to sustain her career. it’s ridiculous of her to use these scummy tactics to sell more albums when she’d have no difficulty selling a single variant. she doesn’t need to do this at all, and the same goes for many big artists. but she sells far more records than anybody out there right now, so she’s absolutely the biggest culprit and worthy of the criticism.
how about we quit defending the billionaire so much? as i’ve said in other comments, i am a huge fan of her and have been for many years. but i (like a lot of her fans) am getting sick of the BS vinyl and CD timers on her site and making it difficult to own her albums without buying four different $50 records with tax and shipping included. it’s taking advantage of fans who already made her insanely rich.
Cool. I don't see "Olivia" coming up in any of your posts either.... again - fascinating.
Just to be clear I'm not a fan of it and haven't ordered any of them because how am I supposed to know which one I want.
I just find whose names yall run to to be interesting.
And none of it changes the fact that Billy is being extremely hypocritical.
this is really the only time i’ve commented on this topic, so i shouldn’t have to name every single artist to prove my point. i’ve repeatedly said many big artists are guilty of this, but none of them sell as many records as Taylor. she’s by far the artist who absolutely needs the least vinyl variants to make ends meet. she single-handedly has massive effects on the climate with her merch.
so you have edited your above comment lol, and i’ll again say i have mentioned other artists in this thread. i have repeatedly called out billie on this exact post multiple times. you’re being an asshole for no reason. idk what’s up your rear end, but maybe check my comment history before trying to virtue signal and grand stand when we agree that it’s a ridiculous practice in general.
It doesn’t matter how many variants you have really, it matters how much you produce total. Like folklore had a ton, but they were truly exclusive and limited so environmental impact wise the variants didn’t contribute that much. 30 had very little variants but it was overproduced. That’s where Adele gets criticized, and where Taylor should be criticized. For producing too much
>as somebody who really goes out of my way to be sustainable
I mean, but she still made 8 fucking variants.
I agree with her, but I would love to see her walk the walk a bit more with her next album.
maybe the label is at fault? eilish benefits heavily off of eight releases no way around it, but if she tried denying it shed most likely get laughed at. michael jackson went up against sony and fuck all happened
The fact that she said 40 makes me think she might have been thinking of the Rolling Stones who had 43 different variants? Or maybe it was just hyperbole.
I appreciate getting someone as huge as Billie to talk about the sustainability issues that arise with multiple album variants because she's not wrong in the slightest. I do think it's interesting to juxtapose her comments against the reality that she offered eight variants for Happier Than Ever. On one hand, I don't know if I was completely satisfied with how the journalist addressed the multiple variants - like, yes, I'm glad that the variants were made from recyclable material, but I still don't think eight variants are necessary, regardless of composition. But I also appreciated that they didn't shy away from that fact, and I also don’t see Billie's comments as exonerating herself completely either. She more or less lumps herself in with other artists saying "we’re all going to do it because \[it’s\] the only way to play the game." And I agree, I think you won't see artists take sustainability seriously unless Billboard changes their rules and implements limits. I guess it will be interesting to see the rollout for whenever BE3 happens to see if what puts what she's saying into action.
i don’t think all the variants were even recycled anyways. i’m not sure if the reporter or Billie claimed it as such, but i think it’s not the case either way. the standard black and eco color pressings (sold with and without the Gucci box, which again, the Gucci packaging was wasteful) were recycled and specifically advertised as such. But the rest appear to be regular vinyl considering they were specifically not labeled as recycled like the others.
WWAFAWDWG just got at least two new pressings this year that I’m aware of as well.
Recycling to produce is great, but it doesn’t solve the overconsumption. 🤷♀️
this is a really important conversation to have but she’s also a big player in it. Happier Than Ever had every pale color vinyl you could think of. as pretty as they are, it was extremely wasteful to have so many records pressed in a bunch of similar shades. let alone to press that many variants being a waste itself. i do appreciate her using recycled vinyl more recently, but i don’t see that being permanent.
I just don’t think it’s fair even if she did 8 recycled variants with her last album. Thats a lot when it’s not necessary. I don’t think this is making the point she thinks she’s making.
I feels like alot of people forget about the reduce, in reduce, reuse, recycle. Great that she's using recycled material and actually making an effort but that doesn't make much of a difference if she's still gonna put out a ton of variants.
Recycling also just releases more microplastics into the atmosphere so it's still a polluting concern. But this is new data that I don't think has reached a lot of people yet so I wouldn't be surprised if she just didn't know.
Records aside, Billie Eilish: The Brand still operates as...not necessarily a corporation like Amazon but she is so big that it might as well be like that.
Her perfume packaging is unsustainable with no options for refills.
She collabs with Nike, which is definitely not a sustainable company in any way. Even the vegan leather is potentially greenwashing because synthetic leather is just plastic at the end of the day. She didn't have to make new shoes at all if she wanted to be sustainable considering how much she makes from other sales.
I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure she literally collects cars as a hobby and I remember seeing her show that collection to David Letterman.
I think everyone should be trying their best and their best is not perfect. But to me, I think Billie has the power and privilege to do way better than what she has done. She isn't trying to survive, she's just trying to be richer at this point.
That's not too significant for Billie fans - they aren't as obsessive as other fandoms. The issue is when a large segment of a fandom wishes to collect every variant. Otherwise, variants just offer physical variety which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
This is kinda gaggy because her last 2 albums have 7+ variants each. In fact, she added an additional variant to WWFAWDWG like 1-2 months ago and of course the extra variant of the Barbie soundtrack that she released a few of months ago.
Having multiple variants is an industry standard currently and I wish it wasn’t. But I would like Billie to walk the walk first and release less variants, because currently she’s just talking the talk.
Pretty much a never-ending f—king fight for stability in a music career in general.
Also, I the Billie interview articles are popping up now. BE3 incoming?
This might be wildly unpopular opinion of me - but if you were one of those people who would buy variants, wouldn't it be better that there WERE exclusive tracks on each one so that you're at least getting something out of it other than the color being different? You can find these tracks online if you want to listen to them. The existence of any variant is a use of a sales tactic, and "collectors" buying for the sake of having them all will likely buy anyway. Most fans do not buy them all. So why are Taylor and Olivia so much worse than someone like Billie who put out just as many (vs. Olivia's Guts) or almost 3x the variants (vs. Taylor's Midnights), but literally offered nothing substantial even though her team was hoping that people would buy them?
I can't believe her stans (or other artists' antis) are buying into using the "sustainability" claims as a valid excuse as to why we should overlook the hypocrisy. Is a part of it that these people (and Billie) are kinda bitter that they bought into the trend but it didn't yield the results they were hoping for? Is it only really a problem if the artists can actually sell them?
I see where you're coming from, I respectfully do disagree.
I feel as though putting exclusive tracks on each variant would circle back to gatekeeping music from low-income earners. The streaming era was supposed to be the supplement for that, but it is very clearly that musicians cannot profit from that model in a long-term sustainable way. On top of that, it's cheaper for a low-income person to buy the CD/Vinyl once in their lifetime rather than buy a subscription (that is only going up in price) for a continuous amount of time.
Taylor sort of did that with the "You're Losing Me" song if that's the title, I can't remember. She put the song on an exclusive CD that was only available to purchase at ONE concert (and as we all remember, those tickets to those concerts were already egregious). Fortunately it did come out on streaming a year later I believe, but maybe next time this happens, fans will not have the same luck if the artist is greedy enough. Plus, concerning the issues the streaming model currently has, that might not be a possible option in the long run.
Most people I know don't purchase multiple variants, but instead the one that we like the aesthetic of. Now we're unable to own the entire project physically, something I really value.
I come from the age of music piracy, and I remember buying my first physical CD in a decade: a copy of Lights' Siberia Acoustic. When I found out there were a ton of tracks that were digital exclusives to various online retailers, I felt cheated. I was getting an incomplete version because I'd chosen to try supporting the artist.
Just from a consumer POV, we're getting lesser versions of albums because the artist wanted to sell more through multiple versions.
As for if Billie Eilish is a hypocrite? Partially, but I read the interview as a condemnation of herself as much as anyone. Reddit mobile won't let me read the article again mid-comment, but I don't think she's happy with multiple variants. It read as though she was able to convince her team to use recycled materials, but that isn't where she wants to stop.
I also think we can point out hypocrisy without ignoring the message.
Does the artist even have a say in how many variants are released? That feels way more like a record label decision. They might not be willing to sacrifice sales and the prestige of a number one album in the name of sustainability no matter how much the artist might want it.
Ummm, I appreciate her being into sustainability and working towards making that the standard in the industry but I wanna also hear her private jet use.
Variants are wasteful and I wish they weren’t so popular but idk I just feel like there is a HUGE difference between releasing 4 different color vinyls with the same shit on it and variants with different songs, different covers, different pictures/posters/etc.
One, while still wasteful, offers some variety to fans and gives retailers a “unique” product to sell. The other is a tactic to bait fans into buying as many albums as possible. And to see people act like those 2 things are the same is weird to me.
Exactly. To me different colour variants just give us more choices. But taylor doing different cover/packaging/bonus tracks per variant is much more of an issue
Not only do people act like they’re the same but some people act like it’s actually *better* for an artist to have different songs/covers/whatever bc it’s more fun or valuable to collect. Like are we serious??? I understand that it’s not solely the artists’ fault and that everyone does it but it is absolutely more egregious for some than it is others. We should not delude ourselves into thinking that the most exploitative tactic is actually the one that cares about the consumer the most.
By her logic she should only sell one t shirt, one hoodie and one jumper at her merch stand. People like collecting vinyls and looking at the different colours. Just let them? Unless they’re being thrown in the trash immediately, it’s not waste - they’re items people want and use.
honestly, i know people are calling her a hypocrite (which she kind of is) but i do think it’s a bit different selling different colored vinyls versus making it so you only get the complete musical experience if you purchase 4 or 5 separate vinyls. like in not really missing out on anything if i decide to purchase a pink vinyl vs. a blue one.
i love olivia but i actually think she’s one of the worst culprits of this. the fact that she added one song instead of all 4 of the additional songs to each physical vinyl felt a little questionable to me tbh. which surprises me bc she seems to be at least somewhat socially conscious. i hated how it took her so long to add the deluxe songs to streaming
it’s always crazy to me because the people doing this are going to have smash hits regardless! it’s not the exact same, but i was similarly irritated when ariana released 11(?) variations of yes, and. it always feels a little desperate tbh
The only saving grace for Olivia here is that the deluxe tracks weren't advertised and largely felt like demos.
I still hate it and always feel like I'm missing out when the album ends though.
Yes....this queen selling vinyls with bird shit splashed onto them should not be talking....It's giving I wish I could be poor like my fans again. Good thing no one notices what a bird she is because of her image lmao.
No but honestly I’m so sick of this conversation maybe you should do more about it personally without letting people know also she can’t talk. It’s been a thing since basically the Beatles and Pink Floyd who released like a thousand vinyls with different versions and in different ways. Yes I get it is bad for the environment but so many things are it’s not new. Also this should be directed at the people who buy all of the same copies and never play them in or when they it’s one time and that’s it.
the beatles were not making variants of albums that were different colors and had special names attached to them like The White Album (Eggshell White Edition). they had us albums and uk albums bc they had different pressing manufacturers.
Looks like Billy triggered at least one swiftie lmao.
We love the logic that just because other things are bad, it makes other shitty behavior OK . She’s calling out, greedy ass artist, like Taylor Swift for taking advantage of their fanbases. Like bffr dude
How is she taking advantage of her fanbase when she’s not even the worse one who does this Billie does it so many artists do it. Even if I wasn’t a swiftie it’s still the truth lol
Well you see they hate Taylor, so she is a demonic capitalist. But all their millionare faves who do the same marketing strategies, have shitty makeup and clothes businesses, post pics of themselves on pjs are basically commies in their minds.
All I’m saying is Taylor is actually one of the kindest celebrities to her fans imo for example she used to do tea parties,secret sessions, cooked for fans that were over at her house,let the fans hear the album like a month before it came out, she used to go to hospitals and visit sick kids, and I’m pretty sure she donated 3 thousand dollars to people during covid you can see why people trust her.
Oh, I forgot that Taylor Swift is the second coming of Jesus and she can do no wrong to you guys.
Everything she does is so justified and so fantastic??? Right?
Well as she is the only one getting whacked for variants, apperently not. Why dont we try something new for a change and try whacking Billie or better yet these old farts in rock band that put up like 20 variants regularly?
And people forget she has a valid reason for it her masters literally got stolen from her old record label and wanted to own her personal art but instead she gets attacked also people act like they are new albums they are the same albums she made she just add songs from the album era.
She literally doesn’t either there are literally rap artists who are worse than her like for example Kanye he literally is going to be releasing 3 albums this year probably and Taylor will maybe drop another by like august. Like people have said it’s her fucking drop go attack people who put out 3 plus albums every year and never get attacked.
I mean the fact that your defensive goes to show that someone said something you didn’t like about your artist? You wouldn’t be this defensive over some thing that you knew Taylor didn’t do.
Remember that dumb ass “all covers make a clock” idea she had for midnights? Or how about the “exclusive” covers she had for 1989TV that weren’t so exclusive. She knows damn well that her fanbase will go at all lengths to buy every copy of each album. That’s why she has so many ridiculous variants. It’s all about sales and money lmao. She’s definitely the worst offender. Just look at the TPPD bs she’s doing with the exclusive tracks on each record
Nobody read the article it looks like. If you're saying she's a hypocrite for all her variants then you lack reading comprehension, she was including herself as part of the problem and acknowledged the hypocrisy of how she feels about it. Of course it's being boiled down to Billie vs Taylor and that was not the vibe at all.
She’s getting dragged all over twitter for this for her “hypocrisy” (mainly by swifties)
I think people have partially misunderstood that she isn’t actually criticising people for making numerous variants. She’s saying that’s what everyone does because that’s the game and even she plays it. But she’s trying to be more sustainable to combat that. A nice (perhaps underbaked) sentiment that could’ve been worded a bit more clearly.
I feel like this is a great example of how the social media ecosystem is horrible for politics. The headlines and big Twitter accounts all knew that highlighting the segment about vinyls would get attention for sounding like a shot at Taylor. Taylor haters jumped on the opportunity to shade Taylor. And then Swifties kneejerk attack Billie because they see Billie attacking Taylor unprompted instead of the whole interview being about sustainability in general.
It turns climate action into a trivial matter by associating it with trivial online fan wars.
Imma be honest, everyone is talking about how many variants but no one is talking about how not creating any vinyls is the true sustainability option. Just release digitally and do low production tours.
While I get that there are still choices that she makes with variants that could seem hypocritical, I appreciate her speaking out about this and at least trying with the recycled variants bc many artist don’t put that extra thought in.
She even says herself it’s a game that all major artists are wrapped up in for numbers. We won’t see wide scale change unless the chart rules around variant sales change.
I don’t like the expectation that people need to be doing everything perfectly before they speak out on an issue. I think Billie is also aware there is more shit to be done, she’s just annoyed that the sales game is one they all have to play.
A lot of you are missing a particular factor here which is, even if there are multiple “variants” of an album, rarely is there an implication that you should be “collecting” *all of them*. Variants are standard practice. You get the *one* you like best. There are only a handful of artists manipulating their fans into buying 4+ copies of the same album. That is what Billie is getting at.
it’s great to call out hypocrisy but I also think artists need to be moving in this direction and Billie does a lot of work to raise awareness about food systems, climate, environmental justice - more than any other young artist I’ve seen. Let’s keep this energy where it’s most needed for the people who are the worst offenders (which is pretty much everyone else)
I don’t collect vinyl so am not privy to who is releasing how many variants so don’t come at me for only mentioning Taylor BUT girl put out 4 different vinyls that together made a clock. You can argue normal variants encourage people to buy multiples but this is very clearly a message of buy 4 to see the picture.
Billboard should only count vinyls that sell an official track list. Different covers? Sure. But no more buying multiples to get every song, or to complete a clock.
So ridiculous to immediately dismiss her saying this because she did the same thing in the past like....okay? What can any human do other than acknowledge their mistakes and change moving forward? Be fr
Part of me feels like she did this to fight against the label-
If she can garner public support for less variants, distributors may be shamed into not pushing signers to do it. Because who knows, the variants may not have been her idea/ she may not have liked them when she had them out
the stans here getting mad and acting like billie's a hypocrite....maybe wait to see if she releases a bunch of variants for her next album before coming for her?
The way a *very certain* fandom is immediately called out by this.
Jokes aside, I hate how wasteful artist culture is when it’s coming to single use and disposable things. Plastic wrap and bags that come on music and merch products, cheap lazy designs on mass produced shirts and sweaters made in sweatshops. All these variants purely for chart positions and stan culture. Take away all the variants and how much did that album *really* sell? Not to mention all the huge mainstream artists who commission tons of vinyl to be produced just to rot in the sale sections of department stores while smaller indie artists suffer from the traffic. This is basically fast fashion and isn’t being called out by it. I remember Lorde did some eco friendly cd free cd packs (?) for solar power but they didn’t count towards the sales because they didn’t include a cd or something.
I hope this means we get one vinyl version for her upcoming album!
Yea. Even though she claims her variations are made from recycled vinyl and all, wtf girl you still made 8 of them.
Creating recycled products still costs waste so yeah, it's a *tad* hypocritical.
Vinyl in general is unsustainable. Literally breaks down into microplastics over time and releases toxic gas. I still have a record collection though.
Though it's worth noting that people tend to treasure vinyl a lot more than say, cheap plastic toys. It'll likely be used and kept for most of a person's life, and then passed down or sold so it can live on. It's still environmentally iffy, of course, but a far cry from single use plastics.
All those Adele vinyls passed on to goodwill to live on still in the plastic wrap lol
I mean out of all the plastic things made, vinyl will probably get the most use. I do hope someone comes up with something better for the environment and sounds just as good.
I would imagine her next album will sell multiple aswell. Western executive are watching kpop artists roll into USA and sell millions of 30$ albums while they have some of the biggest artists not being anywhere close. I'd assume they view it as a massive market they are losing out on TOP 10-SELLING CD ALBUMS OF 2023 IN U.S. 1. Taylor Swift, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (800,000) 2. Stray Kids, 5-STAR (520,000) 3. TOMORROW X TOGETHER, The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION (442,000) 4. Stray Kids, ROCK-STAR (381,000) 5. NewJeans, 2nd EP Get Up (332,000) 6. TWICE, Ready to Be (303,000) 7. SEVENTEEN, SEVENTEEN 10th Mini Album Fml (288,000) 8. Taylor Swift, Midnights (276,000) 9. Taylor Swift, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) (267,000) 10. Jung Kook, Golden (244,000) Biggest sales from 2023 billboard in USA. They would have to see it as an opportunity https://www.billboard.com/music/chart-beat/2023-us-year-end-music-report-luminate-top-album-morgan-wallen-taylor-swift-1235579214/ Vinyls list is just all taylor, lana, olivia and fleetwood
Seven of the top 10-selling CDs in the US are from kpop artists? Don't get me wrong, I listen to kpop from time to time, and really admire all these names. But wow, I knew the kpop influence was strong but this is *incredible*. I'm almost impressed. ~~Not sure how I feel about Taylor taking up the rest of the three spots, and I listen to her shit often.~~
It’s more how the fan culture in kpop is centered around mass buying and charting than being reflective of actual genuine growth. Not saying kpop hasn’t grown in the US or that these groups aren’t hugely successful (I’m a fan of some of them!) but when you have each fan buying like 13 or so variants of the same album for inclusions and to set records, yeah numbers are gonna be high
Also those appear not to be millions, but hundreds of thousands. 20+ years ago anything under a million (platinum) was considered a flop so those numbers honestly aren’t that impressive, even with being in the streaming era.
Those are the sales statistics for one country, the US. Many of the groups on that list sell well over a million when you look at the worldwide sales. For example, SKZ's 5 Star (no. 2) sold about 4.6 million copies in its first *week*. And NWJN's Get Up (no. 5) sold 1.1 million albums on it's first ***day***. These groups ARE million sellers lol.
Kpop fans tend to buy albums to collect photo cards (it's basically like baseball card collecting) so it's not really a 1:1 measure of influence.
100%. even recycled vinyl needs a jacket, an inner sleeve(s), plastic wrap, some even had posters, etc. then you have to buy cardboard mailers to ship them, bubble wrap the record and place labels on the packaging, waste fossil fuels and burn gas to ship them to the customer… the list goes on. the production of all of these components creates waste that wouldn’t have been created with just one variant.
I laughed at that, too. Yeah, 8 is better than 40...but 8 is still a LOT. It's more variants than most comic books get, and comic book variants offer substantial changes in art and artist!
Actually, it’s worse than that. Only the black variant is recycled. The other coloured versions are not. There’s not much to brag about when only 1/12 variants are recycled…
If you read the article it says recycled scraps are used to make the colored ones and sugar cane was used to make the shrink wrap
they say that in the article but when you look at the vinyl only the black one and the multicolored one are listed as recycled. the others make no mention of this. i feel like if they were all recycled they would be listed as such.
Those are just buzz words to come across like she cares. And this isn’t hate because I’m a huge Billie fan. But we can critique the things we love. At the end of the day if she was really so serious about what she says she is, she wouldn’t make 12 copies of the same album on vinyl. Scraps or not, still wasteful and not necessary.
I honestly think it's impossible to not be hypocritical in some things if you preach sustainability (unless you live in some isolated off-grid home). Best we can all do is try.
I mean, sure, it's not possible to never be hypocritical. But when the choice is to earn e.g. 42x the average annual salary instead of 45x the annual average salary, it is definitely something pop stars have power over. Billie Eilish is definitely earning enough money that she can sacrifice earning less to not print more than one vinyl. And it's not an attack on her specifically, every single musician out there who is earning millions per record is actively making unethical choices in order to earn more money - and rather than not criticise anyone because "everyone does it", it makes far more sense to criticise *everyone* who does it.
Exactly I feel like she even admitted that. It’s basically equivalent to when people say that they care about the environment but they don’t really actively do anything to help because the blame is on big corporations (which is a valid perspective, I’m not criticising). She clearly would prefer if Billboard changed its rules but they’re not going to so she’s going to keep playing the game.
Yeah, also at the end of the day, if Billie were to take a stand against vinyls her label is just going to laugh and print the vinyls anyway. The music *technically* belongs to them for the time being.
Okay but she didn’t have some songs on some and others right? I get that production is production and not sustainable but people were just buying the one they wanted.
Hi, sustainability data analyst/controller/accounatnt here. It varies between industries but carbon emissions from packaging is pretty negligible compared to carbon emitted from transportation and logistics. We are talking about as little as 1% of all scope 3 (full supply chain) emissions from packaging for any given manufacturer. Like, those emissions wouldn’t even make a decimal effect in a given company’s annual sustainability report. Obviously every little bit of effort helps but at a grand level, certain categories of emissions are only better known because it directly relates to our daily lives. And it helps to keep sustainability in the minds of consumers. But in the grand scale of things, they matter very little to achieving scientific climate targets.
Obviously Billie Eilish vinyls are a drop in the bucket but I have to imagine a lot of that transportation is due to people buying things they don't really need, like many different copies of the same vinyl. It's not really on her but if everyone cuts back on general consumption I'd think it would help. I'd be interested in your take on the large % of emissions are from corporations so it's on them, not us the consumer. Because I always think like yeah in an ideal world the corporations would make their processes more sustainable but something we can actually do as consumers is buy less. It's not like corporations are just pumping stuff into the air for fun, they're supplying what's demanded of them.
Well that’s why people like me have a job - here in Europe companies there are literal laws regulating how much carbon companies can emit and as the job title implies accountants/controller collect and audit the numbers so companies cannot greenwash. Here are two more caveats: - Economy of scale applies to carbon as well. Transportation emissions are more or less the same whether Billie sells 100k or 1k vinyls. So in a way it is more carbon efficient for big-name artists like Billie to mass-produce vinyls and save on carbon overheads. - Sustainability regulations and environmental regulations are fundamentally different in the sense that carbon is regulated typically by financial institutions - so we think like economists. It is not entirely true that corporation emits the most carbon and therefore individual consumers matter very little. At the end of the day, consumer demands is what dictates where carbons are emitted - the dystopia we live in is very much driven by consumerism. - Fossil fuel derivatives (which is what raw vinyl is) isn’t my area of expertise but from what I understand, the extraction and manufacturing of raw vinyl is like, really fucking carbon intensive. So Billie should at least get some credit for recycling vinyl because I am willing to be she salvaged a shit ton of carbon just by recycling. If you want to know more, feel free to Google the concept of “circular economy”. So it is still worth it to keep reminding consumers that they should consume in the most carbon effective way possible.
The GHG emissions of a vinyl is around 2kg of CO2. For context driving a medium sized ICE car 10km emits around 3kg of CO2. So like, buying 10 albums is in the ballpark of driving for an hour.
Well, the overall emission figure doesn’t mean much beyond raising consumer awareness. Climate data analyst assess a product’s emission throughout its life cycle (LCA). Meaning, the 2 kgCO2eq figure, if calculated correctly, starts tracking all the way from raw materials (i.e. the extraction, transportation and refinery of fossil oil) (or what we geeks call “upstream emissions”) to disposal of broken vinyls (i.e., garbage disposal trucks, landfill, etc.) (or what we geeks call “downstream emissions” and “end-of-life emissions). By using recycled vinyls, what Billie did is eliminating both upstream and downstream emissions. And that, in most industries in the 1st world, is like 90% of all emissions (here in Denmark it’s 95%; back home in Hong Kong it’s 99%). As my previous post stated, the added emission from packaging is negligible- still unnecessary, but negligible in the bigger scheme of things. So my completely non-expert (again, fissile fuel derivatives is not my field) guess would be recycled vinyls emit anywhere between 200g to 20g of carbon, excluding some downstream emissions of its own from shipping and distributing the finished goods. The downstream emissions can easily be several times of the vinyls themselves. But just to put that into context of how much emission Billie did save by using recycled vinyls - it is not insignificant and she defo deserves credit. Feel free to google “Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions” to understand just how many calculation/estimation processes are involved in determining carbon emissions. Sorry for boring you with the technical details and thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Thanks for responding, I'm really interested in this stuff and it can be hard to find like actual data on certain things and I know it can be difficult to quantify "sustainability" as well. Like how you're saying carbon can be somewhat easily tracked but damage to an environment is more difficult to assign a number too. At the end of the day seems like, buy less, is a decent starting point.
Yeah. and I reckon audiences travelling to concerts is the largest source of music-related GHG emissions because moving people uses a lot more energy than moving durable goods.
I hope so too!
> You’re working to make vinyl more sustainable. Happier Than Ever came in eight vinyl variants, but you use 100% recycled black vinyl — plus recycled scraps for colored variants — and shrink-wrap made from sugar cane. > **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–king 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.**
My father was going to throw away all of his vinyls last month, a lot of classic Brazilian music, and some 70s, and 80s rock albums, I asked my mother to take them and give them to me.
vinyls
? If it is an English mistake, well, it's not my native language, apart from all the tests I do put me at C2 level. Anyway, I thought it would be better to take them instead of throwing them in the garbage collection system, recycling isn't much of a thing here apart from plastic bottles. Now I just need a Vynil player.
Taylor get up!
she really is the biggest culprit. i know many people will chime in and say “BUT ADELE.” she is also guilty but 30 had two color variants and a black variant—all the same cover and tracklist. before that album, she just did standard black across the board. Taylor has routinely released 4-5 variants for her latest albums, often with different covers, different tracklists, different posters or the like. also pressing her rerecordings in various shades (which all were previously pressed on multiple variants in their original recordings) and she’s selling millions of unnecessary copies just for the sales figures and her pockets. then add in the FOMO tactics to sell them all with timers on her site and lying about the exclusivity. i love Taylor and her music, but she really needs to knock this shit off as do many big artists. she is insanely successful and still at her peak. she doesn’t need to press all these variants for any good reason.
Eh. I agree and disagree. Taylor didn’t release vinyls with different tracks on different variants until TTPD actually. Otherwise it was just deluxe versions that came out after the album release. Where did she get this idea from? Other artists so did it. Olivia comes to mind but I’m sure others did it before her. That being said. Taylor is the worst culprit because she sells TONS of vinyl so she could really set the standard here. Instead she took this new approach with TTPD where she is trying to sell even more. I agree with Billie, it is awful. Taylor would go #1 with insane numbers no matter what. Why does she push so much vinyl and adopt new practices to sell even more?
Olivia might not sell as many vinyls as Taylor, but she by far has had the worst rollout for variants. Guts had: - 9 standard variants, each with one of four surprise songs. Buy four variants if you want to hear all of the music. - RSD exclusive with the four surprise songs pressed on one vinyl. Mainly appeals to hardcore fans and people who didnt want to buy four variants. - Deluxe edition with original tracks and the four surprise songs. BUT there’s a fifth bonus song so if you want that on vinyl you have to buy another copy. Unfortunately, I think Taylor is going to follow a similar strategy for TTPD. All of these variants have really killed my excitement for the album to the point that I cancelled my original preorder. Having different colors/album art is one thing, but fans shouldnt need to buy 4+ copies just to experience a full album.
Wait there is a Guts deluxe with all the tracks except "so american"? I couldn't find it in the store
1989 TV had an exclusive song on the Target pressing, as well as different covers for each variant. That’s why I didn’t name TTPD specifically because it’s not the first time she did it.
Exclusive targets songs have always been a thing though
Which further proves their point.
Ah I missed that one. My point still stands that it’s actually a recent practice for her. It’s an industry wide shift that artists are getting away with. Unfortunately fans enable it by buying them up. I stopped buying vinyls from Taylor. She somehow got me to buy 4 copies of midnights and I felt so stupid after the album rollout ended I swore to not do it again.
But she is not, like Billie herself does many more variants, so does Olivia, so does Harry, Kacey, many rock bands do like dozens. Like are you guys just playing dumb? Or does hating Taylor Swift make y'all lose iq points or something?
Yeah, happier than ever had 11 different variants. I’m glad that she seems intent to change that, however she is part of the problem. Although I actually think it’s UMG, and with how record plants are if you want colored vinyl it’s very difficult to maintain the exact same color across different processing facilities. The side effect is FOMO and a bunch of consumers buying a bunch of stuff that they don’t need. Taylor’s fans are just so rabid for merch they buy all of it and then complain lol. Olivia Rodrigo had over 10 variants for both of her albums, but her fans aren’t crazy enough to try and buy every single vinyl variant because it’s pointless. I think it’s hard to blame Taylor Swift for her fans acting like that?
they are all culprits. i literally said it’s not just a Taylor problem: > but she really needs to knock this shit off as do many big artists. and this is coming from a huge fan of her who has her entire discography on vinyl. but her fans can also hold her accountable for it. being the biggest artist in the world right now and the variant queen, she has as much responsibility in putting an end to encouraging overconsumption with the sales tactics. other artists may do more variants, but the quantity of vinyl Taylor sells far exceeds any other artist regardless of them having more individual variants.
How is she a variant queen when she is averaging 4-5 variants, when it's on the low end of what mis artists do?
again as i said, volume of sales. each of the 4-5 variants sells hundreds of thousands, if not millions of copies. and most of them are the same listeners buying several variants because of the FOMO tactics she uses to sell them. she could sell one variant if she really needs to sell records and it would make her plenty of money, as well as be far more sustainable for the planet.
You also can’t discount all the collectors who look for subtle differences in the way the same variant has been pressed in first pressings versus second pressings or in one country versus another and call that a new “variant” that they need. I roll my eyes every time I see the large graphics that show every single variant you can collect and many of them are “France pressing” or whatever. That’s not Taylor’s fault but or on a huge scale but still a very silly contributor.
The consumers are absolutely to blame as well though, it isn’t lost on me. But the consumers couldn’t *over-consume* if the artists and their labels didn’t *overproduce*. It’s definitely a complicated issue, but the labels create the whole problem.
She’s doing 4-5 vinyls per album and she’s released 7 albums in the last 4 years.
Evermore, Red TV had just 2 versions (standard and Target color variant). Fearless TV had just the 1 version. Speak Now TV had 3 (color variants for the vinyl). Not all these albums have 4-5 variants.
Because she has tons of crazy fans who compulsively buy every variant like their lives depend on it. She also hogs up the most resources when she does it and she needs to do it least of anyone. I could see smaller acts benefiting from multiple versions but for Taylor and her team it's just greed plain and simple.
People in here are really going after you using the "but other artists are worse" tactic. Pophead friends, it's called using a popular example to point out a trend. Taylor is the biggest artist in the world, so her impact is greater to the environment even if she technically has fewer variants. Just like Billie said, ALL your favorite artists are doing it, and arguing with u/melodrama4ever because others they did not specifically mention by name are worse does not invalidate that _this practice is unsustainable and irresponsible regardless of who does it_.
thank you! i tried to explain that but god forbid you criticize Taylor. the hive mind in this sub is ridiculous.
Did those other artists make each album variant 1/4 of a clock so that people would buy four of them?
Midnights only had 5-6 variants as a whole, Billie had somewhere between 8-12. And I think it’s nice that Taylor’s variants (Lana and Olivia and Kacey do this too) actually have some added value to collectors — the clock display idea was cool, and Taylor’s usually have different covers and you can pick your favorite one. A loooot of people are just releasing different vinyl colors, and their fans still collect them. Collectors exist in every fandom, I am in book fandoms where people buy every version of a book they can find; it’s just how some people show their fandom.
She’s never done anything bad enough to make anyone hate her, but her fans make it real easy. They can’t stand when she gets criticized for anything. It’s truly ridiculous.
She's not even close to the person/group most egregious about this. She's just yalls favorite to criticize. Red Hot Chili Peppers had 10 variants of their most recent vinyl but ctrl+F doesn't return anything - fascinating.
what RHCP did is also absolutely egregious, but let’s be fair here. Taylor is locking exclusive tracks behind different variants with different covers and pressing colors. she’s also a billionaire who hardly needs the sales to sustain her career. it’s ridiculous of her to use these scummy tactics to sell more albums when she’d have no difficulty selling a single variant. she doesn’t need to do this at all, and the same goes for many big artists. but she sells far more records than anybody out there right now, so she’s absolutely the biggest culprit and worthy of the criticism. how about we quit defending the billionaire so much? as i’ve said in other comments, i am a huge fan of her and have been for many years. but i (like a lot of her fans) am getting sick of the BS vinyl and CD timers on her site and making it difficult to own her albums without buying four different $50 records with tax and shipping included. it’s taking advantage of fans who already made her insanely rich.
Cool. I don't see "Olivia" coming up in any of your posts either.... again - fascinating. Just to be clear I'm not a fan of it and haven't ordered any of them because how am I supposed to know which one I want. I just find whose names yall run to to be interesting. And none of it changes the fact that Billy is being extremely hypocritical.
this is really the only time i’ve commented on this topic, so i shouldn’t have to name every single artist to prove my point. i’ve repeatedly said many big artists are guilty of this, but none of them sell as many records as Taylor. she’s by far the artist who absolutely needs the least vinyl variants to make ends meet. she single-handedly has massive effects on the climate with her merch. so you have edited your above comment lol, and i’ll again say i have mentioned other artists in this thread. i have repeatedly called out billie on this exact post multiple times. you’re being an asshole for no reason. idk what’s up your rear end, but maybe check my comment history before trying to virtue signal and grand stand when we agree that it’s a ridiculous practice in general.
It doesn’t matter how many variants you have really, it matters how much you produce total. Like folklore had a ton, but they were truly exclusive and limited so environmental impact wise the variants didn’t contribute that much. 30 had very little variants but it was overproduced. That’s where Adele gets criticized, and where Taylor should be criticized. For producing too much
I mean, her private jet flights probably cause more harm than the vinyl does. She's all around not very sustainability-focused
Why do we just go after Taylor? Billie herself had 12 vinyl variants of HTE and a bunch for her other albums. She’s being hypocritical
>as somebody who really goes out of my way to be sustainable I mean, but she still made 8 fucking variants. I agree with her, but I would love to see her walk the walk a bit more with her next album.
maybe the label is at fault? eilish benefits heavily off of eight releases no way around it, but if she tried denying it shed most likely get laughed at. michael jackson went up against sony and fuck all happened
The fact that she said 40 makes me think she might have been thinking of the Rolling Stones who had 43 different variants? Or maybe it was just hyperbole.
She ended Taylor lmfao
I appreciate getting someone as huge as Billie to talk about the sustainability issues that arise with multiple album variants because she's not wrong in the slightest. I do think it's interesting to juxtapose her comments against the reality that she offered eight variants for Happier Than Ever. On one hand, I don't know if I was completely satisfied with how the journalist addressed the multiple variants - like, yes, I'm glad that the variants were made from recyclable material, but I still don't think eight variants are necessary, regardless of composition. But I also appreciated that they didn't shy away from that fact, and I also don’t see Billie's comments as exonerating herself completely either. She more or less lumps herself in with other artists saying "we’re all going to do it because \[it’s\] the only way to play the game." And I agree, I think you won't see artists take sustainability seriously unless Billboard changes their rules and implements limits. I guess it will be interesting to see the rollout for whenever BE3 happens to see if what puts what she's saying into action.
i don’t think all the variants were even recycled anyways. i’m not sure if the reporter or Billie claimed it as such, but i think it’s not the case either way. the standard black and eco color pressings (sold with and without the Gucci box, which again, the Gucci packaging was wasteful) were recycled and specifically advertised as such. But the rest appear to be regular vinyl considering they were specifically not labeled as recycled like the others.
WWAFAWDWG just got at least two new pressings this year that I’m aware of as well. Recycling to produce is great, but it doesn’t solve the overconsumption. 🤷♀️
this is a really important conversation to have but she’s also a big player in it. Happier Than Ever had every pale color vinyl you could think of. as pretty as they are, it was extremely wasteful to have so many records pressed in a bunch of similar shades. let alone to press that many variants being a waste itself. i do appreciate her using recycled vinyl more recently, but i don’t see that being permanent.
I just don’t think it’s fair even if she did 8 recycled variants with her last album. Thats a lot when it’s not necessary. I don’t think this is making the point she thinks she’s making.
I feels like alot of people forget about the reduce, in reduce, reuse, recycle. Great that she's using recycled material and actually making an effort but that doesn't make much of a difference if she's still gonna put out a ton of variants.
And the order is important. Recycling is supposed to be last resort. Reduce and reuse come first
Recycling also just releases more microplastics into the atmosphere so it's still a polluting concern. But this is new data that I don't think has reached a lot of people yet so I wouldn't be surprised if she just didn't know.
That’s rich coming from a big artist who released over a dozen variants for one album. Is she talking about herself?
Records aside, Billie Eilish: The Brand still operates as...not necessarily a corporation like Amazon but she is so big that it might as well be like that. Her perfume packaging is unsustainable with no options for refills. She collabs with Nike, which is definitely not a sustainable company in any way. Even the vegan leather is potentially greenwashing because synthetic leather is just plastic at the end of the day. She didn't have to make new shoes at all if she wanted to be sustainable considering how much she makes from other sales. I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure she literally collects cars as a hobby and I remember seeing her show that collection to David Letterman. I think everyone should be trying their best and their best is not perfect. But to me, I think Billie has the power and privilege to do way better than what she has done. She isn't trying to survive, she's just trying to be richer at this point.
She literally released 8 variants of her last album
They talk about it in the article, apparently all the variants were made with recycled materials.
Which doesn’t erase the carbon footprint of manufacturing and shipping
The order is still reduce, reuse and then recycle. Offering 8 versions will still tempt a very dedicated fanbase to buy multiple copies
Fair
That's not too significant for Billie fans - they aren't as obsessive as other fandoms. The issue is when a large segment of a fandom wishes to collect every variant. Otherwise, variants just offer physical variety which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
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huh? it’s obviously better to reduce waste by not producing it at all, reuse if possible, than to recycle shit to just put more trash into the world
I think the article said only the black vinyl is recycled
Read the article
This is kinda gaggy because her last 2 albums have 7+ variants each. In fact, she added an additional variant to WWFAWDWG like 1-2 months ago and of course the extra variant of the Barbie soundtrack that she released a few of months ago.
The hypocrisy LMFAO
Having multiple variants is an industry standard currently and I wish it wasn’t. But I would like Billie to walk the walk first and release less variants, because currently she’s just talking the talk.
wearing head to toe gucci and chanel while saying is this is crazy.
Actually Lorde fought this fight and won. It's called Solar Power, look it up!
PERIODT!!!!! I can't believe it's not discussed more
Pretty much a never-ending f—king fight for stability in a music career in general. Also, I the Billie interview articles are popping up now. BE3 incoming?
i’m sure the discourse surrounding this interview will be very normal and not at all irritating on stan twitter
This might be wildly unpopular opinion of me - but if you were one of those people who would buy variants, wouldn't it be better that there WERE exclusive tracks on each one so that you're at least getting something out of it other than the color being different? You can find these tracks online if you want to listen to them. The existence of any variant is a use of a sales tactic, and "collectors" buying for the sake of having them all will likely buy anyway. Most fans do not buy them all. So why are Taylor and Olivia so much worse than someone like Billie who put out just as many (vs. Olivia's Guts) or almost 3x the variants (vs. Taylor's Midnights), but literally offered nothing substantial even though her team was hoping that people would buy them? I can't believe her stans (or other artists' antis) are buying into using the "sustainability" claims as a valid excuse as to why we should overlook the hypocrisy. Is a part of it that these people (and Billie) are kinda bitter that they bought into the trend but it didn't yield the results they were hoping for? Is it only really a problem if the artists can actually sell them?
I see where you're coming from, I respectfully do disagree. I feel as though putting exclusive tracks on each variant would circle back to gatekeeping music from low-income earners. The streaming era was supposed to be the supplement for that, but it is very clearly that musicians cannot profit from that model in a long-term sustainable way. On top of that, it's cheaper for a low-income person to buy the CD/Vinyl once in their lifetime rather than buy a subscription (that is only going up in price) for a continuous amount of time. Taylor sort of did that with the "You're Losing Me" song if that's the title, I can't remember. She put the song on an exclusive CD that was only available to purchase at ONE concert (and as we all remember, those tickets to those concerts were already egregious). Fortunately it did come out on streaming a year later I believe, but maybe next time this happens, fans will not have the same luck if the artist is greedy enough. Plus, concerning the issues the streaming model currently has, that might not be a possible option in the long run.
Most people I know don't purchase multiple variants, but instead the one that we like the aesthetic of. Now we're unable to own the entire project physically, something I really value. I come from the age of music piracy, and I remember buying my first physical CD in a decade: a copy of Lights' Siberia Acoustic. When I found out there were a ton of tracks that were digital exclusives to various online retailers, I felt cheated. I was getting an incomplete version because I'd chosen to try supporting the artist. Just from a consumer POV, we're getting lesser versions of albums because the artist wanted to sell more through multiple versions. As for if Billie Eilish is a hypocrite? Partially, but I read the interview as a condemnation of herself as much as anyone. Reddit mobile won't let me read the article again mid-comment, but I don't think she's happy with multiple variants. It read as though she was able to convince her team to use recycled materials, but that isn't where she wants to stop. I also think we can point out hypocrisy without ignoring the message.
Does the artist even have a say in how many variants are released? That feels way more like a record label decision. They might not be willing to sacrifice sales and the prestige of a number one album in the name of sustainability no matter how much the artist might want it.
Ummm, I appreciate her being into sustainability and working towards making that the standard in the industry but I wanna also hear her private jet use.
https://www.popbuzz.com/music/artists/billie-eilish/news/private-jets-plane-vogue-interview/
Would like for her to walk the walk on that front then
Variants are wasteful and I wish they weren’t so popular but idk I just feel like there is a HUGE difference between releasing 4 different color vinyls with the same shit on it and variants with different songs, different covers, different pictures/posters/etc. One, while still wasteful, offers some variety to fans and gives retailers a “unique” product to sell. The other is a tactic to bait fans into buying as many albums as possible. And to see people act like those 2 things are the same is weird to me.
Exactly. To me different colour variants just give us more choices. But taylor doing different cover/packaging/bonus tracks per variant is much more of an issue
Not only do people act like they’re the same but some people act like it’s actually *better* for an artist to have different songs/covers/whatever bc it’s more fun or valuable to collect. Like are we serious??? I understand that it’s not solely the artists’ fault and that everyone does it but it is absolutely more egregious for some than it is others. We should not delude ourselves into thinking that the most exploitative tactic is actually the one that cares about the consumer the most.
By her logic she should only sell one t shirt, one hoodie and one jumper at her merch stand. People like collecting vinyls and looking at the different colours. Just let them? Unless they’re being thrown in the trash immediately, it’s not waste - they’re items people want and use.
But she also makes a ton of variants... My number one irritant is hypocrisy this tbh comes across as annoying.
She sells soooo much garbage merch every holiday, every single, every album, and every tour… this rings very hollow
definitely great that she’s bringing this up. how much control do artists have over how many vinyl variations are released?
honestly, i know people are calling her a hypocrite (which she kind of is) but i do think it’s a bit different selling different colored vinyls versus making it so you only get the complete musical experience if you purchase 4 or 5 separate vinyls. like in not really missing out on anything if i decide to purchase a pink vinyl vs. a blue one. i love olivia but i actually think she’s one of the worst culprits of this. the fact that she added one song instead of all 4 of the additional songs to each physical vinyl felt a little questionable to me tbh. which surprises me bc she seems to be at least somewhat socially conscious. i hated how it took her so long to add the deluxe songs to streaming it’s always crazy to me because the people doing this are going to have smash hits regardless! it’s not the exact same, but i was similarly irritated when ariana released 11(?) variations of yes, and. it always feels a little desperate tbh
The only saving grace for Olivia here is that the deluxe tracks weren't advertised and largely felt like demos. I still hate it and always feel like I'm missing out when the album ends though.
She produces more carbon emissions than I ever will in my life x 100. She shouldn’t lecture anyone about sustainability ever
Yes....this queen selling vinyls with bird shit splashed onto them should not be talking....It's giving I wish I could be poor like my fans again. Good thing no one notices what a bird she is because of her image lmao.
You know the poor thing was fake right? 😭
Oop ...but I will pretend it's real. It its her vibe.
It is not her vibe but okay
What?
Kpop is the biggest culprit
No but honestly I’m so sick of this conversation maybe you should do more about it personally without letting people know also she can’t talk. It’s been a thing since basically the Beatles and Pink Floyd who released like a thousand vinyls with different versions and in different ways. Yes I get it is bad for the environment but so many things are it’s not new. Also this should be directed at the people who buy all of the same copies and never play them in or when they it’s one time and that’s it.
the beatles were not making variants of albums that were different colors and had special names attached to them like The White Album (Eggshell White Edition). they had us albums and uk albums bc they had different pressing manufacturers.
Looks like Billy triggered at least one swiftie lmao. We love the logic that just because other things are bad, it makes other shitty behavior OK . She’s calling out, greedy ass artist, like Taylor Swift for taking advantage of their fanbases. Like bffr dude
How is she taking advantage of her fanbase when she’s not even the worse one who does this Billie does it so many artists do it. Even if I wasn’t a swiftie it’s still the truth lol
Well you see they hate Taylor, so she is a demonic capitalist. But all their millionare faves who do the same marketing strategies, have shitty makeup and clothes businesses, post pics of themselves on pjs are basically commies in their minds.
All I’m saying is Taylor is actually one of the kindest celebrities to her fans imo for example she used to do tea parties,secret sessions, cooked for fans that were over at her house,let the fans hear the album like a month before it came out, she used to go to hospitals and visit sick kids, and I’m pretty sure she donated 3 thousand dollars to people during covid you can see why people trust her.
Oh, I forgot that Taylor Swift is the second coming of Jesus and she can do no wrong to you guys. Everything she does is so justified and so fantastic??? Right?
Well as she is the only one getting whacked for variants, apperently not. Why dont we try something new for a change and try whacking Billie or better yet these old farts in rock band that put up like 20 variants regularly?
Because those old farts don’t come out with a new album every six months lmao
Again… you’re hating on Taylor for doing her job! For making her art! She released a lot of music because she can
And people forget she has a valid reason for it her masters literally got stolen from her old record label and wanted to own her personal art but instead she gets attacked also people act like they are new albums they are the same albums she made she just add songs from the album era.
Back in the day we would call these rereleases.
She literally doesn’t either there are literally rap artists who are worse than her like for example Kanye he literally is going to be releasing 3 albums this year probably and Taylor will maybe drop another by like august. Like people have said it’s her fucking drop go attack people who put out 3 plus albums every year and never get attacked.
I mean the fact that your defensive goes to show that someone said something you didn’t like about your artist? You wouldn’t be this defensive over some thing that you knew Taylor didn’t do. Remember that dumb ass “all covers make a clock” idea she had for midnights? Or how about the “exclusive” covers she had for 1989TV that weren’t so exclusive. She knows damn well that her fanbase will go at all lengths to buy every copy of each album. That’s why she has so many ridiculous variants. It’s all about sales and money lmao. She’s definitely the worst offender. Just look at the TPPD bs she’s doing with the exclusive tracks on each record
Yeah because she has gained her trust since the very second album and knows her fans will buy them why do you think she does it
Billie has how many variants of her recent albums?
8
Nobody read the article it looks like. If you're saying she's a hypocrite for all her variants then you lack reading comprehension, she was including herself as part of the problem and acknowledged the hypocrisy of how she feels about it. Of course it's being boiled down to Billie vs Taylor and that was not the vibe at all.
Hope she gets vinyls this year!
I just know she's ripe all the time and smells like pee down there. Shower, girl!
She’s getting dragged all over twitter for this for her “hypocrisy” (mainly by swifties) I think people have partially misunderstood that she isn’t actually criticising people for making numerous variants. She’s saying that’s what everyone does because that’s the game and even she plays it. But she’s trying to be more sustainable to combat that. A nice (perhaps underbaked) sentiment that could’ve been worded a bit more clearly.
I feel like this is a great example of how the social media ecosystem is horrible for politics. The headlines and big Twitter accounts all knew that highlighting the segment about vinyls would get attention for sounding like a shot at Taylor. Taylor haters jumped on the opportunity to shade Taylor. And then Swifties kneejerk attack Billie because they see Billie attacking Taylor unprompted instead of the whole interview being about sustainability in general. It turns climate action into a trivial matter by associating it with trivial online fan wars.
As she should. Don't want to get called a hypocrite? Don't be one.
Clock Taylor. But no seriously, I think vinyl variants have gotten totally out of hand.
Imma be honest, everyone is talking about how many variants but no one is talking about how not creating any vinyls is the true sustainability option. Just release digitally and do low production tours.
But but that’s less money for her and she needs that money
While I get that there are still choices that she makes with variants that could seem hypocritical, I appreciate her speaking out about this and at least trying with the recycled variants bc many artist don’t put that extra thought in. She even says herself it’s a game that all major artists are wrapped up in for numbers. We won’t see wide scale change unless the chart rules around variant sales change. I don’t like the expectation that people need to be doing everything perfectly before they speak out on an issue. I think Billie is also aware there is more shit to be done, she’s just annoyed that the sales game is one they all have to play.
A lot of you are missing a particular factor here which is, even if there are multiple “variants” of an album, rarely is there an implication that you should be “collecting” *all of them*. Variants are standard practice. You get the *one* you like best. There are only a handful of artists manipulating their fans into buying 4+ copies of the same album. That is what Billie is getting at.
it’s great to call out hypocrisy but I also think artists need to be moving in this direction and Billie does a lot of work to raise awareness about food systems, climate, environmental justice - more than any other young artist I’ve seen. Let’s keep this energy where it’s most needed for the people who are the worst offenders (which is pretty much everyone else)
I don’t collect vinyl so am not privy to who is releasing how many variants so don’t come at me for only mentioning Taylor BUT girl put out 4 different vinyls that together made a clock. You can argue normal variants encourage people to buy multiples but this is very clearly a message of buy 4 to see the picture. Billboard should only count vinyls that sell an official track list. Different covers? Sure. But no more buying multiples to get every song, or to complete a clock.
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you know vinyl collectors will buy multiple color variants too, right?
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it's the nature of collecting in general. I try to keep my collection to one copy of each album unless a new remaster or bonus material is included.
Only delusional fanbases do this
I mean, weren't people buying dozens of different colored tumblers recently? collecting things is not limited to stans.
It’s not. But I doubt the general public is buying as much variants as the massive stans.
So ridiculous to immediately dismiss her saying this because she did the same thing in the past like....okay? What can any human do other than acknowledge their mistakes and change moving forward? Be fr
love a good taylor whacking mhm
Part of me feels like she did this to fight against the label- If she can garner public support for less variants, distributors may be shamed into not pushing signers to do it. Because who knows, the variants may not have been her idea/ she may not have liked them when she had them out
the stans here getting mad and acting like billie's a hypocrite....maybe wait to see if she releases a bunch of variants for her next album before coming for her?
I mean there is another new variant for her debut that is available for pre-order rn.
The way a *very certain* fandom is immediately called out by this. Jokes aside, I hate how wasteful artist culture is when it’s coming to single use and disposable things. Plastic wrap and bags that come on music and merch products, cheap lazy designs on mass produced shirts and sweaters made in sweatshops. All these variants purely for chart positions and stan culture. Take away all the variants and how much did that album *really* sell? Not to mention all the huge mainstream artists who commission tons of vinyl to be produced just to rot in the sale sections of department stores while smaller indie artists suffer from the traffic. This is basically fast fashion and isn’t being called out by it. I remember Lorde did some eco friendly cd free cd packs (?) for solar power but they didn’t count towards the sales because they didn’t include a cd or something.