The Pop Girlies are fighting: Taylor Swift, Charli XCX (And Eilish too)
By Saiba HaqueThe pop girlies are fighting, but who really wins here?
Two weeks ago Charli XCX was set reign in the no.1 spot on the UK billboard charts with her brand new album Brat. However, two days before the Chart changes, Taylor swift’s PR, Taylor Nation announced on twitter that she will be dropping more exclusive variants of The Tortured Poets Department for the UK audience only, which in-turn blocked Charli from gaining her spot at no.1 before the charts closed that week.
Many have speculated that this was a tactical move on Swift’s team in order for her to continue her reign on the number one spot in the charts.
In the second week of June, there was a brief moment when it looked like Brat would debut at No 1 on the charts. Then, on Thursday, Swift stepped in: at 6.57pm, Taylor Nation, Swift’s public-facing PR arm, which interacts with fans and provides news and updates, announced the release of six deluxe reissues of her latest album, The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD), each with different additional live versions and voice memos, available only in the UK until 11:59pm that evening – the end of the tracking week for the album charts.
But artists release music all the time, and there are so many artists, what if it was a coincidence? Well sure, that’s valid, often artists release albums on the same dates (eg: Arctic Monkeys The Car and Midnights by Taylor Swift both released on the 21st October), and sometimes depending on the caliber of certain artists, others change their album release dates or swerve in order to avoid their music being drowned out by the more conventionally popular choice.
But this was not the first time that Swift had reportedly blocked an artist from coming onto number one in the charts with her vinyl variants (for which she has released 38 exclusive vinyl variants for The Tortured Poets Department alone). Variants of albums including deluxe albums are counted into the billboard charts data, as different variants can have new songs that can grow in popularity. With billboard, sales of CDs, vinyl and cassettes, will be incorporated into the physical sales data Luminate already collects directly from other stores.
Weeks before XCX got blocked a similar scenario persisted in May, when Billie Eilish released her third studio album, which has garnered a lot of favoritism and popularity. Around the same time Swift revealed that she will be dropping vinyl variants of TTPD with bonus tracks.
Many are seemingly frustrated over this whole ordeal towards Swift as it highlights her lack of solidarity for her competing peers, all over an album that is (lets face it) far from her best works.
However, the frustration should certainly go towards the Billboard charts as well, as it may finally be time for their rules to be reformed when it comes to accounting for the amount of vinyl variants an artist can release to compete in the charts, which artists can often use to gamify the charts to their advantage.
Nevertheless it appears that as of this moment, Swift’s moves on keeping her spot on number one in the UK Charts may have backfired, with Sabrina Carpenter’s Please Please Please, and Espresso leading the UK charts and all Taylor Swift track being under number 10.
Regardless of this ordeal, many are looking forward to what can be phenomenally called, the Brat Summer. Charli may not be the No.1 in the charts, but perhaps she is “your No. 1”.
What is your favourite album this year?
