Earlier this month, Billie Eilish released her third studio album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, to widespread critical acclaim. As the album went neck-and-neck against Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department for the No. 1 spot on this week’s Billboard 200, rumors of a feud between the two artists reached a fever pitch. Now, after a heated marketing push from both artists, TTPD has taken the No.1 Billboard spot for the fifth week in a row.
News of the chart results comes days after the Swifties took the artists’ supposed feud to new heights, accusing Eilish of shading the Eras Tour. Last week, Eilish appeared on the music app Stationhead to answer fan questions about her latest album. Asked if she planned to put every Hit Me Hard and Soft track on an eventual performance set list, Eilish told listeners she couldn’t do that, explaining that her show would be “a million years long,” and she’d have to cut other songs in her discography. The Taylor Swift fan account Swiffer Updates shared a snippet of Eilish’s Stationhead session on X, which cut to Eilish calling the prospect of a three-hour show “literally psychotic.”
“Nobody wants that,” Eilish said. “You guys don’t want that … I don’t even want that as a fan. My favorite artist in the world — I’m not trying to hear them for three hours. You know what I mean? Far too long.”
Swifties quickly mobilized, interpreting Eilish’s statement as a dig at Swift, whose Eras Tour clocks in at three-and-a-half hours long. On X, some Swifties called Eilish insecure, accusing her of not being able to perform for that long and not being “a girl’s girl.” Others pointed out that Eilish didn’t name Swift in her comments and had praised the Eras Tour in an interview with the Los Angeles Times last fall, in which she said she found it “really hard” to play stadiums and called Swift and Beyoncé, whose Renaissance tour was also three hours long, “untouchable superstars.” She added: “The fact that they can put on a show that long, and it’s filled with so many incredible moments, is really amazing.”
It’s not the first time Eilish’s comments have been interpreted as shade. In March, Eilish spoke with Billboard about sustainability and called out “some of the biggest artists in the world” making multiple-vinyl packaging to boost their own sales. “It’s so wasteful,” Eilish said, which many took as a jab against Swift, who famously makes multiple special editions and re-releases of her albums (not to mention her rampant private-jet usage). For her part, Eilish made a statement on her Instagram Stories clarifying that she wasn’t singling out any artist and was instead calling out “industry-wide systemic issues,” adding that many artists, herself included, release variants of albums.
Speaking of variants, flames of the rumored feud intensified surrounding the release of Hit Me Hard and Soft, with Swift releasing three limited digital editions of TTPD before Eilish’s album drop. Leading up to the Billboard tracking week, Eilish subsequently released a new digital edition of Hit Me Hard and Soft. From there, the game of cash grabs continued: Swift dropped a new “Fortnight” remix on Tuesday; Eilish followed up with a “L’Amour De Ma Vie” remix and an additional album expansion. On Thursday evening — the last sales window for the upcoming week — Swift released three additional limited digital TTPD versions on her website, featuring a new live track from her Eras Tour in Paris. According to the New York Times, Swift’s album clocked in at 378,000 U.S. album sales last week, giving her the slight edge over Eilish, who took the No. 2 spot with 339,000 sales.
With over 20 iterations of TTPD out at the time of writing, I would personally be relieved to never see the words “special edition” again. Give me one clean drop only.
This post has been updated.
