There's some speculation on social media that Jack Antonoff might be throwing shade at Billie Eilish.
In an interview on Today, the Bleachers frontman and go-to producer of Taylor Swift spoke about his band's new self-titled album. He was asked about his songwriting process, and he commented how what often compels him to write music is the things that impact him emotionally, rather than, say, a great sandwich.
"It’s hard to write unless you’re really compelled," he said. "And sometimes what compels you is way more serious things. I never feel like... You don’t hear a lot of great songs about like, one’s lunch order. So the things you don’t really understand and cause you pain are usually things worth writing about."
While the comment might seem innocuous, because it is more common to hear songs about heartbreak than it is food, it has been suggested that Antonoff might have been throwing subtle shade at Eilish. The lead single on her most recent album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, is titled "Lunch." The song, of course, isn't actually about lunch (it's about her attraction to women), but Antonoff's remark has sparked a conversation online.
Some fans were upset about Antonoff's comments, while others suggested it was a stretch to suggest that he was taking aim at Eilish with what he said.
But why would some fans assume that Antonoff, who has worked extensively with Taylor Swift, is shading Eilish? Back in March, Eilish called out artists for releasing multiple editions of their albums on vinyl, something that Swift has been guilty of, especially with her most recent full-length, The Tortured Poets Department.
"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," said Eilish in an interview with Billboard. "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 fucking 40 different vinyl packages that have a different unique thing just to get you to keep buying more."
There's a total of 19 physical variants of The Tortured Poets Department, six of which are vinyl. The rerecorded version of her album 1989, which was released in October last year, had 14 physical variants including five vinyl editions.
Eilish later addressed backlash from Swift's fans in a post on her Instagram Stories, in which she stressed that she was singling anyone in particular out, and said the excessive amount of vinyl editions was an "industry-wide" problem. "When it comes to variants, so many artists release them - including ME! which I clearly state in the article," she wrote, per Cosmopolitan. "The climate crisis is now and it’s about all of us being part of the problem and trying to do better sheesh"
To add to that, some Swift fans believed that Eilish shaded Swift's Eras tour during an interview on Stationhead Radio. "Doing a three hour show.. That's literally psychotic. Nobody wants that," she said. "Even my favourite artists I'm not trying to hear them for three hours. That's far too long. That's literally psychotic."
