“[Taylor Swift] is allowed to quadruple her sales [via variants] and it’s no problem,” Cole says. “But when it’s regular people, Billboard doesn’t care if you follow the rules. They’re saying, ‘You don’t belong here.’ The charts are an advertisement that is up for sale, but you’re not allowed to buy it.” A Billboard rep did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Cole’s claims, but in March 2025, Billboard rolled out new chart rules to help combat these strategies used by Swift and Scott.
Despite harboring this belief about the charts, Coles also sees them as the definitive indicator of “who’s winning” in culture at the given moment. And, for once, through Everybody’s Album, he wanted to see if a more relatively unknown, indie artist could even achieve that trophy. But even so, an Everybody’s Album win would raise questions about ownership. Would the winners be the 100,000 participants Cole and Potero assembled? The actual indie musicians who traded sound files and Ableton sessions across disparate time zones? The everyday person dreaming for a chance at artistic success in a society being choked by corporate monopolies? Or, would it be Cole and Potero, who manifested this mass act of collective creation via sheer willpower and marketing savvy?
When it became clear to Cole that Billboard would not budge, he decided that all they could do was to continue to call the organization out and quietly accept that they still did something miraculous: convene 100,000 people to make a record.
One person who’s pleased with the experience is Will Morrison, a 25-year-old 7th grade science teacher from Bathurst, New Brunswick, Canada, and who releases music as Green Eyes, Witch Hands.
Morrison and his brother Nicholas sent their folktronica project to Cole, who responded enthusiastically (their music genuinely rips). Cole looped them into the project, having them add production layers and contribute to songs throughout. They created, “Jenny” which closes the record, before the recording of “everybody.”
