It’s amazing to me that people have not figured out that Taylor Swift is a production. Her life is a production. Her relationships are a production. Her breakups are a production. It’s all crafted as a reality show for dummy fans. She is in her mid thirties and still singing about boys she doesn’t like. Her image as the eternally immature 18 y/o
I’m a casual Taylor Swift fan (we do exist!) and thought this album was too long. It just keeps on whining at me about how terrible this billionaire’s life is and I’m just not buying it. Make better decisions, Sweety.
Wow, to be so self absorbed and petty at that age. I guess when you’re super rich you don’t need to ever grow up.
I don’t parse the lyrics or even hear them under the repetitive thumping beats in TS’s post-1989 dance pop output, and I find the acoustic albums decidedly mediocre.
She’s just not that good a writer or singer for the words or vocal to stand up against a sparse musical accompaniment. In other words, she’s no Bob Dylan or Neil Young.
Taylor Swift is an interesting artist and a hugely tragic figure. Her art has mostly centered on being an unreliable narrator of the story of her life, an endless stream of self portraits which are simultaneously emotionally accurate and factually dubious. I think she resonates so much with young women precisely because of this emotional accuracy: her fans see themselves in the situations that she describes in her songs.
And this is good art. She's a very talented musician, who has been at the top of industry for twenty years now, dominating several eras of pop music. Not many have had that longevity. (Although I think the quality of her work took a bit hit when she moved from being a nominally-Country artist to being explicitly Pop). She very effectively paints her inner landscape for us, which is the objective of most art. And I find that the lack of self-awareness in her songs adds to their authenticity. This really is how she feels. And as unreliable as her narration is, she reveals much more to us than she realizes.
On one level I find her persona annoying. She celebrates the excitement that the bad boys bring her, but then hurls insults at them when they move on. And disparages as boring the men who seem to have tried to be nice to her. She whines about her supposed misfortunes while taking no accountability for her poor choices. And of course she's mean and almost psychotically vindictive.
But I also have trouble condemning her, as I watch the tragedy of her life unfold. She was a talented and beautiful young woman, who should have been able to have it all, but will likely end up with nothing, apart from mountains of cash to mock her emptiness. She's always been obsessed with the fantasy of love, whether it be the fairy-tale or the bad-boy variety, without ever caring to explore what actual love is.
I think her parents are largely responsible for this, as it seems to me that they stole her childhood from her. So many ask how she can still be acting like a seventeen year old when she's in her mid thirties. It's because she never was a seventeen year old. And she's never had a real life, or real friends. It's all been the superficial adoration of stardom and chasing after celebrity playboys. If her father really wanted what was best for her, he would not have moved the family to Nashville for her when she was still a child and bought her a record company. Instead, he would have kept her in her small town and let her have a normal childhood and adolescence. That would have allowed her to grow up and build relationships. And let her musical talent mature organically rather than hiring industry professionals to teach her how to write.
I really hope that some day she does grow up and settle down quietly with a good man and make babies. But that seems increasingly unlikely. And that's tragic.
I thought this review would be all treacly and fan grlll a la people mag. Pleasantly surprised it’s not. Hope Kelce enjoys the ride because with this chick, it won’t last.
I can't imagine spending any part of my life giving a fuck about Taylor Swift... But I am going to assume she's a Democrat and therefore a complete fucking shithead.
There’s something pathetic about a 34 year old writing and singing these lyrics. It’s like she permanently emotionally stunted as a 17 yr old girl. It’s just sad.
It's not much of a revelation that Taylor Swift is frivolous and immature. What I'd like to understand better is why that is so appealing to millions of mostly young females?
Taylor Swift is a pop-star media fad. There's been pop media fads all the way back to the 1920s, it's just that they're now algorithmically much more in your face. It's all relatively harmless though....at least in comparison to various other more civilisation-destroying groupthink fads that can be nameless (because FreeP readers will be punch-drunk on them anyway). The tragedy of it is that some truly brilliant music has been made in Rock's 60+ year history.....even if only a tiny proportion of the 60 million total back catalogue. " For most people all this is a big thing in their lives in their teens and twenties; from then on interest wanes. Those for whom this phase ran its course at anytime in the 60’s to 90’s tend to think of themselves as having been around for the best of it. If the thee billion plus hits on Spotify’s most streamed songs is the measure, you could argue that it is now bigger than ever. But nobody seriously believes that any of them will go down in history as great ones. So what will? What songs will endure when all rock’s ephemera evaporates into the mist of time?......" https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/imagine-theres-no-muzak
As a country fan, I got on the bus in 2007. Most of the albums I’ve had on release day. I love all kinds of music and I’m also a musician. I’ve gotten plenty of crap for listening to her over the years, but good music is good music. However, ever since Reputation, it’s been about image over music. She’s a master at marketing herself and making everyone think she is your best friend. I’ve always found a few good song on these latter albums, but I can’t help but think they are a marketing exercise where music is the last thought. Lyrically, I’m out of sympathy. 34 is way too old to figure that being an adult is hard and doesn’t always go your way, and no one owes you anything. As always, I can’t figure out why anyone would date her! Why would you want an entire album to dump on you in two years from now? I’ve know many folks personally that have been chewed up and spit out by the entertainment industry. I hope she realizes it’s using her as much as she is using it before it kills her, spiritually, if nothing else.
This review is way harsh, Tai. Though musically she may benefit from collaborations with new producers, lyrically speaking, she's still the same Taylor we've always known. Also, assuming she spent the "best years of her 20s" with Joe is a stretch considering she met him when she was 28-29, so that's not even really her 20s. This is not her strongest album but the girl needed to get things off her chest, and for the most part, it resonates.
TS is the pop equivalent of when TV shows used to cast full grown adults as teenagers. If a 34 year old man were singing teen level lyrics we’d cry “creep”. In TS’s case it’s pathetic. Parading away in a requisite onesie, the pop tart equivalent of the bikini requirement of women’s beach volleyball, does not “girl power” make. In 20 years or so, she’ll be victim of the plastic surgery botchery that plagues pop stars past in their Hollywood Boulevard death grip on youth. Any parent signing off on this “role model” needs their head checked and if you’re a dad, you need to register with the authorities.
I couldn't sing a TS song, but I'm blown away by her reach. My 70 yo next door neighbor loves her, and my other neighbor's 2 and 4 yo daughters dance and sing every lyric! What is going on here? Amazing.
I disagree so hard with the Tortured Haters Department. I am a Rep diehard and I think TTPD is a return to form. The fact that it's SO much more controversial to the comparatively boring Midnights shows that it's going to age so well, even if not beloved right now.
Also, The Alchemy is a happy song. Not just High School.
It’s amazing to me that people have not figured out that Taylor Swift is a production. Her life is a production. Her relationships are a production. Her breakups are a production. It’s all crafted as a reality show for dummy fans. She is in her mid thirties and still singing about boys she doesn’t like. Her image as the eternally immature 18 y/o
IS the product.
I’m a casual Taylor Swift fan (we do exist!) and thought this album was too long. It just keeps on whining at me about how terrible this billionaire’s life is and I’m just not buying it. Make better decisions, Sweety.
Wow, to be so self absorbed and petty at that age. I guess when you’re super rich you don’t need to ever grow up.
I don’t parse the lyrics or even hear them under the repetitive thumping beats in TS’s post-1989 dance pop output, and I find the acoustic albums decidedly mediocre.
She’s just not that good a writer or singer for the words or vocal to stand up against a sparse musical accompaniment. In other words, she’s no Bob Dylan or Neil Young.
Taylor Swift is an interesting artist and a hugely tragic figure. Her art has mostly centered on being an unreliable narrator of the story of her life, an endless stream of self portraits which are simultaneously emotionally accurate and factually dubious. I think she resonates so much with young women precisely because of this emotional accuracy: her fans see themselves in the situations that she describes in her songs.
And this is good art. She's a very talented musician, who has been at the top of industry for twenty years now, dominating several eras of pop music. Not many have had that longevity. (Although I think the quality of her work took a bit hit when she moved from being a nominally-Country artist to being explicitly Pop). She very effectively paints her inner landscape for us, which is the objective of most art. And I find that the lack of self-awareness in her songs adds to their authenticity. This really is how she feels. And as unreliable as her narration is, she reveals much more to us than she realizes.
On one level I find her persona annoying. She celebrates the excitement that the bad boys bring her, but then hurls insults at them when they move on. And disparages as boring the men who seem to have tried to be nice to her. She whines about her supposed misfortunes while taking no accountability for her poor choices. And of course she's mean and almost psychotically vindictive.
But I also have trouble condemning her, as I watch the tragedy of her life unfold. She was a talented and beautiful young woman, who should have been able to have it all, but will likely end up with nothing, apart from mountains of cash to mock her emptiness. She's always been obsessed with the fantasy of love, whether it be the fairy-tale or the bad-boy variety, without ever caring to explore what actual love is.
I think her parents are largely responsible for this, as it seems to me that they stole her childhood from her. So many ask how she can still be acting like a seventeen year old when she's in her mid thirties. It's because she never was a seventeen year old. And she's never had a real life, or real friends. It's all been the superficial adoration of stardom and chasing after celebrity playboys. If her father really wanted what was best for her, he would not have moved the family to Nashville for her when she was still a child and bought her a record company. Instead, he would have kept her in her small town and let her have a normal childhood and adolescence. That would have allowed her to grow up and build relationships. And let her musical talent mature organically rather than hiring industry professionals to teach her how to write.
I really hope that some day she does grow up and settle down quietly with a good man and make babies. But that seems increasingly unlikely. And that's tragic.
Taylor Swift is proof that most of America's youth could not possibly pass the Turing Test.
Anyway, she stands with those who want to rid the world of Jews, so screw her (and not in a way that would have her writing a song about it).
I thought this review would be all treacly and fan grlll a la people mag. Pleasantly surprised it’s not. Hope Kelce enjoys the ride because with this chick, it won’t last.
I can't imagine spending any part of my life giving a fuck about Taylor Swift... But I am going to assume she's a Democrat and therefore a complete fucking shithead.
There’s something pathetic about a 34 year old writing and singing these lyrics. It’s like she permanently emotionally stunted as a 17 yr old girl. It’s just sad.
It's not much of a revelation that Taylor Swift is frivolous and immature. What I'd like to understand better is why that is so appealing to millions of mostly young females?
Taylor Swift is a pop-star media fad. There's been pop media fads all the way back to the 1920s, it's just that they're now algorithmically much more in your face. It's all relatively harmless though....at least in comparison to various other more civilisation-destroying groupthink fads that can be nameless (because FreeP readers will be punch-drunk on them anyway). The tragedy of it is that some truly brilliant music has been made in Rock's 60+ year history.....even if only a tiny proportion of the 60 million total back catalogue. " For most people all this is a big thing in their lives in their teens and twenties; from then on interest wanes. Those for whom this phase ran its course at anytime in the 60’s to 90’s tend to think of themselves as having been around for the best of it. If the thee billion plus hits on Spotify’s most streamed songs is the measure, you could argue that it is now bigger than ever. But nobody seriously believes that any of them will go down in history as great ones. So what will? What songs will endure when all rock’s ephemera evaporates into the mist of time?......" https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/imagine-theres-no-muzak
As a country fan, I got on the bus in 2007. Most of the albums I’ve had on release day. I love all kinds of music and I’m also a musician. I’ve gotten plenty of crap for listening to her over the years, but good music is good music. However, ever since Reputation, it’s been about image over music. She’s a master at marketing herself and making everyone think she is your best friend. I’ve always found a few good song on these latter albums, but I can’t help but think they are a marketing exercise where music is the last thought. Lyrically, I’m out of sympathy. 34 is way too old to figure that being an adult is hard and doesn’t always go your way, and no one owes you anything. As always, I can’t figure out why anyone would date her! Why would you want an entire album to dump on you in two years from now? I’ve know many folks personally that have been chewed up and spit out by the entertainment industry. I hope she realizes it’s using her as much as she is using it before it kills her, spiritually, if nothing else.
This review is way harsh, Tai. Though musically she may benefit from collaborations with new producers, lyrically speaking, she's still the same Taylor we've always known. Also, assuming she spent the "best years of her 20s" with Joe is a stretch considering she met him when she was 28-29, so that's not even really her 20s. This is not her strongest album but the girl needed to get things off her chest, and for the most part, it resonates.
TS is the pop equivalent of when TV shows used to cast full grown adults as teenagers. If a 34 year old man were singing teen level lyrics we’d cry “creep”. In TS’s case it’s pathetic. Parading away in a requisite onesie, the pop tart equivalent of the bikini requirement of women’s beach volleyball, does not “girl power” make. In 20 years or so, she’ll be victim of the plastic surgery botchery that plagues pop stars past in their Hollywood Boulevard death grip on youth. Any parent signing off on this “role model” needs their head checked and if you’re a dad, you need to register with the authorities.
I couldn't sing a TS song, but I'm blown away by her reach. My 70 yo next door neighbor loves her, and my other neighbor's 2 and 4 yo daughters dance and sing every lyric! What is going on here? Amazing.
I'm hoping her time is passing. Her early music was fun and melodic pop. I think her genius has been more about marketing than music.
I disagree so hard with the Tortured Haters Department. I am a Rep diehard and I think TTPD is a return to form. The fact that it's SO much more controversial to the comparatively boring Midnights shows that it's going to age so well, even if not beloved right now.
Also, The Alchemy is a happy song. Not just High School.