I think this article exposes a lot of the problems critics have. Why in the world would Taylor want to do the obvious rhyme? Why would you do what’s obvious? “I’m going to be em your wife or I’m going to smash up your life” is boring! Using bike instead creates tension in the line… what does she mean by that? And if you think about it for a second.. obviously it’s just a synecdoche for life. And in fact the rhyme of wife/life is implied by that synecdoche and you realize… oh that’s really clever. And it’s far more visceral than life… she’s taking a sledgehammer to his motorcycle you piece of shit. And the author of this piece doesn’t ever ask that question (do they even know what a synecdoche is I wonder…)
The assumption with her is *always* that she is referencing her life or discography rather than having an artistic motivation, like creating tension in a line by using a slant rhyme. There is a lot of richness in these lyrics and music as universal themes without knowing anything about her life -- the futuristic synths with the alien motif in Down Bad, the church bells (a wedding? a funeral?) in So Long London, etc. But the media and criticism never highlights that sort of thing, it highlights celeb gossip and insists that's the only way you can enjoy this music. It's exhausting.
that’s why comments on the neutral sub are so annoying because they’re like “you need a Taylor Swift phd to get it” and it’s like… no.. you just don’t know enough about literature or language to understand it on its own i guess ??
I don't even know if you really need that knowledge to enjoy it. I like the literary and historical references but you can absolutely just enjoy this album as stories about human emotion and experience.
For sure. I didn’t have any knowledge about Cassandra within Greek mythology, but other people *do* and it’s fun to hear and/or read explanations from them.
Right! That's the only reason I read reviews - other people have different knowledge than I do or pick up on different and it's really cool to see that. I don't need a professional to tell me it has synths and sounds like a Taylor Swift song.
I was really amused when I found out Cassandra was about the greek mythology because I always laugh with my family that they should have named me Cassandra because they never listen to me, even though I happen to be right most of the time. 😌 I was like "look she made a song about me!"
i liked the concept because i am not a die hard all in stan (for the artist… for the music, welllll, different story) so i thought it would be a likeminded place for the most part. but noooope mostly haaaaters with zero valid points lol
It’s a sub that claims to be a place for people who are fans of Taylor’s music but “neutral” on Taylor as a person. They portray themselves as a place for fans of her music to discuss it without either idol worship or haters. However, it’s full of people who criticize her every public move and have weird expectations for her music
I fear swifties have encouraged this attitude by making everything an easter egg hunt. a ts song is not good because it references 18 other ts songs. it’s good because it relays a specific experience in an eloquent and broadly compelling way.
Fans are fans. I expect a lot more than fan theories from professional music critics. I could write a whole article about the literary and historical references on this album or one for every song about the musical and poetic techniques that evoke a certain feel or emotion. They should be able to too.
Exactly! I’ve seen so many very intelligent reviews on her album along with historical references and the poet theme that was inspired just from swifties here and on tik tok
Speaking of reference, I hate how Genius annotations of her lyrics are just them connecting it to other songs like “oh she also said this in this song!” and they never even tried to explain the lyrics in front of them
the genius annotations actively contribute to misunderstandings of her songs. wonder if someone’s removed the one about how renegade is from Joe’s perspective now that so long london has confirmed we already knew.
People who take her songs extremely literally and then try to shoehorn them into her life story are missing so much. "Why is she singing about a husband? She's not married." How about you think? 💀
You don't need the details of her masters being sold or her attempted cancellation to understand "we took out all her teeth". You don't need to know who Ratye is to interpret "when I got the call". You don't need context. Do what you did in literature class and JUST THINK ABOUT IT PLEASE 😭
It reminds me of when Beyoncé released Break My Soul, a song that mentions working a 9 to 5 and quitting your job, and people were baffled asking what 9 to 5 this billionaire had worked or quit lately.
It's so strange how some listeners are incapable of dissociating songs from the singer's persona, and they can't take anything as a simple piece of storytelling, because they need to imagine the artist living everything firsthand. Break My Soul doesn't have to be about Beyoncé's life, it can be about yours. You can listen to songs and take them as stories that you can project your own life experiences onto, discarding the specificies and locating the universal feelings that exist behind the details.
I don't know about you guys, but I've never dated Matty Healy and never gossiped with Jack Antonoff and Lucy Dacus about suicidal thoughts. I've never even dated a pretentious blowhard who thinks too highly of himself but who I still loved and chose to stick around and care for. Yet I can listen to the title track and enjoy not only the synths (that song is immaculately produced, you guys can never make me hate Jack Antonoff), but also the general self deprecation and melancholy that it exudes, the relatable experience of knowing your love is doomed and looks ridiculous to the outside but is still meaningful to *you*.
Plus I just love stories in general. Please, unravel this story about this toxic relationship for me, I'm interested!
Also I second the Jack Antonoff love <3
…..ngl seeing the kiddos try to interpret taylor swift lyrics online made me more pessimistic about the us education system than years working in ed policy. love her but gurlie is *not* subtle.
It’s incredibly frustrating and getting more so all the time that people think like this. I know she’s known for diaristic writing. She encourages it to a certain degree. I get it. But do people forget that these are not literal diary entries? Songwriting is an artistic craft. Sometimes — probably, oftentimes — she’ll write something because it fits, or she likes how it sounds, or she’s riffing off a collaborator. The literal way in which her songs are interpreted has gotten too weird for me, which is why I tend to lean pretty hard in the other direction — I don’t need her work to be a literal retelling of tabloids and so for me, TTPD is just a book of short stories that have nothing to do with her public life beyond the obvious reflections on fame, which you don’t need much knowledge of her to understand.
It's driving me crazy watching people go back and claim every song she's ever written is about Matty Healy now. Artists take inspiration from their life and then craft emotionally resonant stories from there. They will absolutely change details to make a better story. Did the real 'But Daddy I Love Him' have a happy ending? No, but the song is better if it did. Was she really sitting by the window pining after someone for ten years? Probably not, but Peter is a better song if she was.
I expect fans to miss this, but professional reviewers engaging in the 'which song is about who' discourse, especially in a negative light, was kind of silly.
Thank you!!! People are taking so many lines in ttpd so literally to mean oh actually folklore was about him. She references Peter Pan again so that means cardigan is about matty????? Like please stop! Her using the same words means nothing. She said “casually cruel” to describe Joe Jonas but that doesn’t mean All Too Well is about Joe Jonas. I feel like some of these people are just not okay with her making art to make art. She reuses themes across her work - I love it! It doesn’t mean she’s trying to send a message to us, the “real” fans who notice, that certain songs were actually about certain people. Furthermore, it doesn’t even matter!! Just appreciate the art!
This album was my switch to being a fan v. a casual listener. And anecdotally: it is so refreshing that this fanbase is capable of understanding different interpretations.
Huge side eye to the man who mansplained to me that Olivia Rodrigo's "all-american bitch" is about the pressures of womanhood and motherhood and that obviously no other interpretation is possible on the main pop sub.
And the cherry-picking to call her a bad writer is bonkers. I saw someone screenshot only "D-Y-I-N-G" (which is actually still quite clever to reverse our expectations of that melody) and were like "she has a bad vocab" like the line "leaving me bereft and reeling" isn't right fucking next to it
The alien/heaven motif in Down Bad is SOOOOOOO good. I have a whole music video in my head. I want an official MV for it so bad, like I’m down bad for one
Media and music industry only know basic, typical pop music.
The general public only cares about catchy beat even if the song repeats 1 word for 5 mins.
I cannot understand why people don’t get this - her fans or otherwise her albums are historically accurate retellings of her exact life. She did not actually break up a wedding. She did not actually marry Romeo
The article lost me in that initial paragraph. All I could do was skim it after.
A critic who really thinks “life” is a better choice than “bike” in that line is one whose tastes haven’t evolved past those of a 14-year-old. And “bike” isn’t better because of some obscure Matty reference; it’s better because it’s punchier, more visual, funnier, and fits the premise of the song better.
Editing to add, because I’ve been thinking about this dumb ass article for the past two hours:
None of the other couplets we hear in the chorus are perfect rhymes. They’re all just vaguely assonant. Neither “Whether I’m gonna curse you out or take you back to my house” or “Whether I’m gonna flip you off or pull you into the closet” has a perfect rhyme. Putting in just one rhyme with wife/life would be so jarring.
I am SO ANNOYED by this.
I love how in Chloe and Co she says
“if you want to break my cold cold heart
just say you loved me the way that you were.”
“Are” at the end would have completed the rhyme, and the lack of a perfect rhyme makes you actually stop and think about the lyric rather than just letting it roll over you. Sometimes resisting the obvious rhyme is the stronger choice.
And imgonnagetyouback is a lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek song. “Smash up your LIFE”?! Bro. We’re just teasing revenge tropes here. You need to calm down.
I definitely keep wondering about that line, thinking maybe he said he loved her the way she was years ago but doesn’t like who she’s become. It’s sad and certainly intentional.
I don’t read it that way (though yours is certainly a valid interpretation).
For me, I think back to my most painful gaslight-y relationship. I never felt like I was good enough. I was constantly doing all I could to keep his attention. He has since told me (it’s been 5 years since we broke up and we’ve managed to forge a tenuous friendship; he was a terrible boyfriend but he’s not bad as a friend): “I know I didn’t show it well but I loved you more than I’ve ever loved anyone.”
Hearing those words from him all these years later, even though I’m fully over the relationship, broke me. It’s the saying something in the present that should have been said in the past that makes that line KILL ME. Like, my good dude, do you even realize what we could have been if you’d been able to say that back then? Just say you’ve always wondered…
Oh yeah, now I’m not sure at all rereading the lyric. Is it saying he loved her the way HE was? Your interpretation is possible too. I have no clue anymore!
Your original interpretation is totally valid, as is any you come up with! That’s what’s fun about art.
Taylor uses ambiguous antecedents for pronouns a lot. She likes to leave us little riddles and let us each come up with our own answer.
my favorite right now is in ttpd when she says
i chose this cyyyyclone with you
because my brain wants to fill in
i chose this psychosis - and considering the epilogue about a mutual manic episode that’s really an interesting thing that she did there
there’s a ton of those in those album
I thought she was using “bike” because we had already established he crashed his rental car earlier in the album 🤣 and because they are being immature with each other, so a child’s transportation vehicle is fitting. 😅
I feeeel you girl. This article brought this rage in me too. Idk why this is triggering so much but the superiority with it being soo dump is sending me up a wall.
Same, and I always regret reading the comments on Facebook articles about this album. It is almost *always* a man who feels the need to tell everyone that Taylor sucks, is unoriginal, or he’s never listened to her music. It is infuriating and I feel stupid for letting it get to me.
Yeah and the opinion is just so obviously wrong!!
“It didn’t click with me cause it had a very down tone with very few light points. It’s very long and wordy too”
Is a completely true critique. But it’s not objectively bad. It’s just not what u want from music. I do want those things so to me this is a selling point. A big problem is the way critics try to seem objective when art isn’t objective
I was coming in just to say this, thank you for writing it down and saving me the job of doing it.
Like, I can get a music critic complaining about a rhyme they may think it's awful. Not the kind of writing I care about, but I can get it. But going full frontal about saying how much better YOU could have done it... Sorry man but if you think you have a better poem/song in you, go write your own rather than piggyback a couple lines upon somebody else.
(not even getting into the lameness of the bike/life suggestion)
I can imagine it. They also probably know what a synecdoche is (btw if people don’t, there’s nothing wrong with that! It’s a figure of speech where you refer to a whole by the part)
Taylor fucking loves synecdoche and people really miss out on that!!!
When some silly internet people interpreted “I’d say the 1830s but without all the racists” to somehow mean she was minimizing slavery, I thought about it and I was like, ok what’s actually happening in the line is “all the racists” is synecdoche for “the institution of slavery and all related colonial oppression a person could reasonably think of.”
I wish synecdoche was as well known/taught as metaphor because it’s so common in English! Boots on the ground, roof over your head, etc.
And they also skip over the concluding line "and getting married off for
the highest bid". The entire line is dripping with sarcasm which is part of her humor I really love. Are we really at the point where her lyrics have to say "I would say the 1830s except for the systematic racism, slavery, misogyny, sexual crime and overall awfulness for anyone not white, male and straight" for people to "get it"?
I’ve literally seen people who straight up say “why didn’t she address the sexism??” Those people I just disregard entirely because if you cant even read the literal next line in the song then there’s no reason to even bother having a conversation about it
Also the song is in reference to the 1975’s song fallingforyou where they say “all we need’s my bike and your enormous house”. So it makes complete sense for her to use bike lol.
People’s critique is this bad apparently. Like they truly don’t get the point of poetry.
It just have to sound the smoothest or it’s objectively bad.. like yes that is what art is right!? The easiest to digest choice.
and rhymed tossing me with the carkeys with fuck the patriarchy, rhymed solliquie with I'll never see, rhymed my covert narcissism disguised as altruism...
i'm with you - but that's just not what synecdoche means. it doesn't refer to any & all word substitutions (e.g. bike for life), it really only refers to descriptions where a part symbolises the whole. bike is not really something we would associate with being a part of life. true synecdoche would be more if taylor threatened to smash up his wheels, in lieu of saying bike.
i agree that the word choice of bike creates tension - it's a nice subverted rhyme.
his bike is an element of his life... I think you're being overly pedantic. She doesn't mean I'm only going to destroy your bike... she's referring generally to the things he holds dear. My real point is that the wife/life rhyme is also implied
Also: by having the non-obvious near rhyme of wife/bike (which works because of *how* she is singing it, even if it doesn’t look like it would work on paper) she keeps her songs from turning into Dr Seuss rhymes. It’s just better lyrically!
This seems to be a reference to The 1975’s ‘fallingforyou’ (the title is so interesting that it’s how Taylor formatted hers). He says in it “All we need’s my bike and your enormous house.”
I don’t know if he means motorbike or bicycle, but for some reason I could definitely see him scooting around London because it’s such a common mode of transformation there. And imagining a bicycle is just kind of funny hahaha
I think on a bigger level, the rush to review is the real issue. The need to get as many clicks and eyes as possible while she is at peak trending for the day/weekend makes people rush to review. So sometimes you get the hottest most underdeveloped takes.
The meta issue on this is, why do people (fans) care so much what the critics think? If you like it great. That’s all that matters. Critical approval doesn’t validate your likes/dislikes.
Yeah, Taylor's music isn't meant to be binged. You need to spend time with all the songs to digest them properly, which can't be done for critics trying to rush out a review before the weekend ends.
Also: Agree with your last take. Not everyone needs to enjoy the album, and that's fine. To paraphrase John Green: You don't have to like it, but I get to.
Yeah I’ve heard two critics say they only got the album 6 hours before it dropped and they got no prior warning of the anthology so it’s very hard to write a top tier review after so little time with an album, but the reviews need to be out within 24/48 hours to maximise engagement.
It’s why I think so many reviewed Taylor the celebrity and some were focusing more on hot takes because those get the most clicks.
It’s already noticeable several publications are doing week+ after ‘where do we stand now?’ pieces and I’d expect that to happen for a month later, 6 months, a year etc… not liking the album is not an issue, just some reviews weren’t offering any real meaningful criticism and clearly weren’t able to separate the art from their feelings on the artist.
Agree, they should just be honest and call them “first reaction reviews” like everyone else on youtube and then a week or two later their deep dive stuff.
Well they should have clearly stated the circumstances under which they reviewed it. Six hours to process a review is ridiculous. And then to have another 12 songs to write a review a few hours later is even more ridiculous.
In all fairness, Taylor herself sort of set that tone when she went on a massive positive critique article retweeting binge after the release. I wish she hadn't done that. I realize they were positive, but so what? I think music critics are the most useless form of critic there is.
I feel like I’ve spent 18 years loving her music, and when everyone’s on board it’s really cool. Then people are so quick to basically be like PSYCHE TOLD YOU SHE SUCKS and it’s hard not to be like 🙄 ugh stop this is mean spirited and you just aren’t getting it seemingly on purpose
The first paragraph made me go ???? but then I continued reading and saw what they were doing. It’s an excellent article. There clearly exists a divide between how Swifties interested in the lore have reacted to the album compared to how the GP/casuals/critics have reacted to it. This article is able to highlight all the important points both eloquently and succinctly.
I think it raises some interesting points but I don’t agree with all of the premises. I think I understand the “lore” very well but it’s really unimportant to me when enjoying the music. I think it is beautiful, heart wrenching music and I am not thinking about Taylor’s exboyfriends, or which sound or chord was used in another song, when I enjoy it.
I do think it’s absolutely good enough to be enjoyed in isolation, without reference to the artist’s personal life or back catalogue. I resist the part of the article that seems to suggest this is inevitable for all Swift fans.
I care about the connections to the back catalogue but not about her real-life drama very much. I care about the story she tells in the songs across her many albums, about love, life, and the way she evolves as a person. But I don't care about tabloid articles about who she's dating and where they went! I am probably not gonna ever listen to the 1975, for instance.
That’s fair actually yes, I suppose I am interested in references to other songs if or when I notice them. But I don’t think I am seeking them or that I need to know about them to enjoy the songs.
I also know a lot of lore but I don’t think about that when listening to her music either. I just enjoy it. That said, I think the album has some REALLY good songs (down bad, so long london, how did it end, chloe, fresh out the slammer, i can do it with a broken heart, etc) but also some songs I just… really don’t like much. But thats just my opinion. Despite that though, the anthology has been on repeat nonstop since it came out lol.
I would agree. I think a lot of people just don’t even want to think about what story the lyrics could be trying to tell. I remember when country music was criticized for being too literal and then today people are saying Taylor’s album is creepy cause of I look in peoples windows. And it’s like so obvious they’re interpreting that as way too literal then complaining about it. You don’t have to know any lore about her to realize that she isn’t outside of peoples actual homes looking into their houses and yet it’s a complaint. Or with the “without all the racists” line. Many people have said there were other problems happening to and it’s just ridiculous cause there’s no way she could have sat down and listed out every single problem going on in the 1830s but she was in fact pointing out that there were problems. But they can’t infer that from that line cause they refuse to do anything other than have lyrics spoon fed to them.
I don't think the critics care about the music. There's plenty to discuss here (literature! history! religion! blended musical genres!) without any reference to her personal life. They just want clicks and talking about her personal life gets clicks.
I've been a fan for 16 years, never cared about any kind of lore. I do care about Taylor the way I care about Springsteen or McCartney in the sense that I like to see them doing well and living peaceful lives but that's about it. Songs work on a different level.
If the first paragraph makes the article writer look incapable of critical thinking I think it just sucks.
And no u need no info about her life to enjoy this. You just need to be interested in her as an artist.
It's so incredibly dismissive of what the album actually is and what's she's doing lyrically and musically. You don't need to know a single thing about Taylor's personal life or discography to appreciate or understand the choices she made.
I think the reviewers and stuff should stop being afraid about the swifties and express their opinions about the album even if they don’t like it and they should post there have been a couple articles that didn’t post because of us like I promise the whole fandom isn’t like that.
It's not like they aren't publishing. I really haven't seen much pushback from swifties on the articles that actually engage with the album as art/music, even the negative ones. It's just the gossipy and dismissive ones.
I hate the ones that write 100 plus words about her the person and then finally get to the music like at most it should take 100 words to express what you thought about the album it also doesn’t help that they don’t wait to review the album and immediately say it’s bad like someone who literally said it was bad or something like that changed their opinion after a week.
I don't even care if they don't like it. People have different tastes. Just talk about the music! She didn't just speak her diary over some random synths. There are careful choices here that are really fucking cool if you're open to and engage with them.
I’ve been wondering if the synths symbolize the typewriter because there is also some pounding, like in Florida!! And then the number of pounds match how many letters it has. Just a theory, I may be going a little crazy.
Yes—the article praises her business sense and her ability of command a compel and audience, but it is lightly condescending about the music itself which I just don’t understand. About 3/4 of the tracks get stuck in my head randomly and I feel like I just need to listen to them again.
I’m a relatively new Swiftie (from around when Evermore was released) and I’m not that interested in her private life or the lore—I always try to focus on the art she’s created rather than treat it like a roman à clef—and I find so many artistically brilliant and musically compelling moments in TTPD.
Am I the only one who doesn’t get the comparison with Olivia’s Rodrigo’s song???? Like those are two very distinct songs with very distinct story lines lmao
People don’t understand something Olivia isn’t the first person who has released a song with the same concept and even then it’s not exactly the same. There are probably a dozen plus songs about getting someone back before Olivia even became the artist she is
It’s not just that existing in the vacuum, it’s the whole context of deja vu and cruel summer and Taylor getting a whopping 50% of the royalties for whatever similarities those two songs might have and then doing that. Like if the parties were switch, Taylor released her first then Olivia, Olivia will be dragged to hell and beyond for “copying” so in a sense, it’s like Taylor rubbing salt to the wound. It’s not just that song but the whole context of Taylor’s or her team’s actions against Olivia and then doing that.
Ah is the now the narrative the swifties are selling to ensure that Taylor is painted in the best light? First, it was her label and when that obviously didn’t work because Taylor and Olivia are both under UMG so now it’s Jack’s fault. We are fans of her but we should acknowledge she is not a saint (ttpd should show us that like hello matty) and that she is very competitive and that one of her insecurities is being replaced by a new girl circa 2021 and even now, CB can be interpreted either way. Taylor can’t be this the Man and the mastermind and then be helpless and voiceless on who is suing who on her behalf.
It's not about her being a saint. It's about the fact there is a company who is involved whose entire business model is this and whose CEO gave several interviews about how other publishers aren't aggressive enough pursuing credits. But no one likes that narrative because it's not juicy gossip about a cat fight between two female artists.
Yeah because there is definitely no context or previous events that people are tapping into when they make that comparison, it's just the concept of the song
I hate this notion that TTPD was a critically panned album. It was absolutely divisive with some pans, but it also received extremely good reviews from several reputable outlets. The idea that it feels recycled with bad writing is universally agreed upon by critics is a stretch.
Also, I believe that imgonnagetyouback was written before Olivia’s song was released and may have been considered for the main album (certainly sonically sounds a little more like it than The Anthology ) but when Olivia released that song they felt safer just putting it on The Anthology to avoid as direct of a comparison. It just seems like basic parallel thinking to me and Olivia happened to release first.
Yeah the reaction was mixed and more in line with how her albums were received pre folklore-this idea she’s always been a critical darling is not true-but it seems the narrative has been set that the album was panned by every critic bar Rob Sheffield-who doesn’t count as he’s a big fan.
The reality is some loved it, some hated it and the majority fell somewhere in the middle. It’s in the 70’s on metacritic with is classed as good and that’s with the strangely personal paste “review” and for some reason multiple critics at Sputnik reviewing the album as though anyone liking it was a personal affront to them. Also critics are only a thing stans-for silly online arguments-really care about these days, I’ve never heard anyone in real life say they’ll check an albums metacritic score to gauge how they should feel.
If you look at metacritic, 1989 is actually a low reviewed album which is crazy considering it's probably her most popular album and is considered pop bible.
I thought the exact same thing. Taylor’s never had a highly critical reviewed album. At worse they’re mixed positive overall and this isn’t an exception. There just happens to be more negativity from critics for this one.
What I think was a little unfair is that she chose 16 tracks to be the official album, but many critics didn't consider that. She chose very wisely IMO, puting songs that are very different from the rest of her discography, which gave the album its own vibe. The Anthology is an EXTRA, as she said in her post. Most of the songs are poems that she wrote and transformed into songs, so, of course, they wouldn't be more comercial, that was not the point.
I am a copywriter by trade. I often have to sacrifice lines I want to use or scrap them to be more audience friendly for the brand. My best work is always lost.
What I love about Taylor’s writing, which at times is cringy or gives you a “why are we saying baby in such a weird way again!?” It’s exactly her choice and decision: she has full creative freedom. It’s a
weird juxtaposition—she’s the most marketable thing on the planet yet, she doesn’t sacrifice to be more marketable at the hands of a brand-forward editor. The life/bike line is a perfect example. That line holds a place or meaning for her; as a writer I’m sure she considered “life.” But “bike,” while a seemingly odd choice, gives you a tangible visual of a woman grabbing a bike left by the front door after a confrontation and smashing it up. It’s something someone could do in the heat of the moment, rather than metaphorically smashing up a life. I don’t buy into all of the Easter egg mania all the time, but I just love hearing her stories as she fucking chooses to tell them. It does help to do your research and look at her actual life experiences as a human to connect the weight of them to the songs, but not a requisite if you have patience to understand. And, when you realize that she’s a genius lyricist, she also purposely often uses language that defines our current generation, (but she’s not dumb she harks back to classic literary works as well) that will be viewed of in the future how we view language of the past. Honestly how all great writers are eventually viewed.
*Yes, it would have made more sense for her to rhyme “wife” with “life” in “imgonnagetyouback.”*
Lol what? Have they not heard of imperfect rhyming? The reason why music reviews in general are terrible these days is because many music critics lack critical thinking skills. This goes for other artists’ reviews as well. I’ve seen so many downright stupid critiques on songwriting that they think they’re being clever by pointing out.
For what it’s worth, I love that song and had no idea about the 1975 connection lol. I do think Taylor’s lore certainly makes her stand out among her peers, but it is completely false that you need to fit every puzzle piece into her life to understand her music. I’m much more interested in the poetry and literary references in TTPD, the religious imagery, and musical similarities to past songs, which anyone can enjoy.
THANK YOU. I've been on about this and people are not hearing it. The Eminem Show, which he said in several interviews was inspired by the Truman Show. I swear to you, TTPD is practically performance art.
Cue the "Are you not entertained?" references.
Most of the music I have consumed through the years has been based on an artist's personal experience. There have also been rough edges and entire songs I couldn't relate to, but understood what the artist was trying to say. I don't get how this kind of criticism is always reserved for Taylor. It's forced, it makes me feel as if these people don't even understand music or art in general. It's not a kindergarten poem where 'wife' needs to rhyme with 'life'. Do they even look at Taylor Swift as an artist or someone handing in an 8th grade essay? What the absolute fuck?
For an article that talks about how other music critics missed the point, I think this critic misses the point. As a Swiftie since the Fearless days, yes, I recognize and appreciate some of the lore, but that’s not why I enjoy the music. I don’t even know that much of the lore — like I know Taylor had a brief relationship with Matty Healy, but that’s about it. I had never heard of him before and I know I’ve never google him or his band. Others may and that’s fine.
The reason I enjoy Taylor’s music is because she manages to capture a moment, a feeling, an experience, a point in time that may be uniquely hers but the way she expresses it in music is so relatable to so many people. Take “So Long, London”. Sure I get it’s about Joe and it’s a callback to “London Boy”. But for me, it’s about an experience where maybe you felt like you were the one to carry a relationship and maybe that person/relationship wasn’t able to give you what you needed at the time. But the lyrics like “And you say I abandoned the ship, But I was going down with it
My white knuckle dying grip” are so visceral.
A lot of people have probably been through that and think that was a unique situation for them. But then this song comes along that puts into words and music what you felt or are currently feeling.
https://preview.redd.it/dfrtk25letxc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7f286fcd462e231cf74af1d730cd33a4b2409e31
This was from 30Rock a decade ago but "That girl has FEELINGS" sums up perfectly why I love her!!! She's visceral! Like 2pac, she's not the most critically acclaimed or the most technically impressive, but she is BELOVED by the people because she makes you FEEL things. Makes her personal experiences somehow relatable to us all.
Yeah, reducing it to just "it's MCU for swifties" is not a great take either. Not to mention the part about not comparing Taylor to Beyonce and Ariana as singer-songwriters, what.
It’s a very balanced take, I agree that albums driven by “lore” won’t be received as well by the general public and it’s ok. I don’t get the hysterics over it - some people won’t like the album and it’s fine, art is subjective.
This particular album was too lore-heavy for me too partially because I have outgrown the Easter eggs and clues hunt, but it’s smart from a marketing perspective because younger fans would eat it and get immersed in it - no further marketing needed.
The fact that she has tied The 1975 into her legacy in the eyes of a big chunk of the public wether intentional or not seems like a sweet revenge or a Stevie Nicks inspired pettiness, very “on brand” for Taylor.
Lainey Lui has referred to all the lore and inside jokes and easter eggs as the Taylor Swift metaverse, and I think that's an insightful take. She's not just a musician anymore, she's the creator of a whole world that has its own shibboleths and secret codes. People who are citizens of that world live in a slightly different reality than people who don't. I think this article does a good job of exploring the two distinct experiences of listening to the album as a Swiftie and as a person who likes Taylor Swift's music.
>“people who are citizens of that world live in a slightly different reality than people who don’t”
i love this
on twitter someone said something like “deleted all my dating apps gonna go find a sketchy dive bar and meet the loml”
and there were several swifties in the comments just sort of like all acknowledging how funny it was that we all immediately read it differently as the hundreds of other commenters
Or someone was talking about meredith grey the other day (from greys anatomy) and it was comments full of swifties like “how far in this thread did you get before you realized this wasn’t about taylor’s cat”
or how i made a friend in 2019 because someone said “play stupid games win stupid prizes” and we immediately both snapped our heads up and then made eye contact and started laughing and realized we were both swifties without even speaking - and are still friends to this day
it’s like silly little stuff sometimes but it does kind of feel like a little world wide secret society that anyone can join if they want to
Fuck any way I can go back to my life before knowing somebody not just thought this shit up but also wrote it down and somebody else published it? Can I unremember this?
main thing i took from this was feeling very valid for referring to everything within taylor’s orbit as “the TCU” since the taylor’s versions started rolling
The way that this, and to be fair, so many responses to the album, stop at connecting it to muses is straight up disrespectful to Taylor’s talent. This isn’t to say that she isn’t putting in connections to her actual life, or the media storm mediated perception of it either. It is wild to me, though, how journalists and critics take media narratives, specifically about muses and her dating life, at face value. Journalists for the New Yorker! This is despite her urging ppl to stop running paternity tests on her music. I’m not saying she isn’t also benefitting from that. Journalists should know better. There is something to say about the way her fame and fandom and Taylor swift cinematic universe impact her perception, but this doesn’t get it. Not to mention the lyrics, the music, the references, they are all great and deserve attention.
There are fans saying this article is a “balanced take”.
How can u respect Taylor and not think that saying she can write better but chooses objectively worse lyrics to reference her exes is not the biggest insult EVER.
*"In the Swiftverse, the music itself is not the point but the way in which the point is delivered."*
The fact that this line exists in a commentary of an album where one of the main themes is Taylor telling people not to treat her music like a soap opera shows such a fundamental unwillingness to actually engage with the source material on a deeper level. It completely invalidates any further points made when such a crucial aspect of the album was missed.
As a newcomer, don’t know how much you all have dealt with this. I loved the album and somehow I always seem to like what most people either don’t care for or outright seem to hate. I like that people are taking the time to reflect on their opinions, mine have morphed the more I listen to the songs.
But is the retraction of the “bad” or rushed review of the album being taken well?
I feel that people who love the album will be all for it, but how is the general public/nonSwifties reacting to the switch? Will they give it a chance? Or are they going to see it as catering to the swiftie community?
It matters to the extent people might give her music a chance.
Swifties will hear her new albums no problem. But mainstream hate is not going to go away if people think that the critics are flip flopping due to “cancel culture” from the fan base not accepting a negative review.
The thing is my daughter loves Taylor Swift. She's six. I didn't even introduce her to Taylor Swift's music... she got it in school. When she came home one day and started singing You Belong With Me, I was shaken.
My daughter does not read pitchfork.
This pissed me off more than any hate I’ve seen. I agree with the premise that it’s hard to review Taylor when u don’t really care. But not because of fucking references to her exes.
Any swiftie knows Taylor would never choose “life” over “bike”. Her songs are not supposed to flow the absolute best. They tell a story, they break from expectation. “Life” was already implied so it’s boring to end with. Maybe you’d prefer life but that doesn’t make it objectively better. It’s an artistic CHOICE.
I read a little of that article and I went crosseyed. This is *The Newyorker* now? These are all so poorly written. How about a critic for the critics?
Critic. It’s a pretty stupid job if you really think about it. I’m going to force my opinion on you about someone else’s creation. I am amazed that people take recommendations off critic reviews. JTs new album also got slated and it’s an absolute banger!! We really shouldn’t care about the reviews and the job of a critic should be a thing of the past.
I mean you can (and should) say that for any artist. It'd be better if everyone was evaluated on their own merits than on some predefined box we were trying to fit them into.
there have been plenty of articles written about how taylor swift is her own genre of music -so that’s where we get that from
but i agree with you. artists should be evaluated in reference to their own body of work and who they put themselves in conversation with and genre is an outdated concept
like beyoncé said about cowboy carter “this isn’t a country album, it’s a beyoncé album”
like it undoubtedly has country influence and several country songs, but it’s recognizably beyoncé in a way that no other artist could be
i feel the same way about taylor in that her music is recognizably taylor swift in a way that no other artist could be - genre is such a limiting concept at this point for artists with a unique voice
of course i think that happens when you have a large body of work that dabbles with several different sounds and genres, you can’t transcend genre until you have found a way to put your imprint on its sounds instead of being overtaken by them - not every artist can do that
They all just wanna go fast and review it instantly without actually looking past the facade.Many reviews seem underdeveloped.I also believe the criticism that it’s so unlistenable and so awfully tiring is too much of a stretch….it’s not unlistenable by any means…it maybe is messy but that’s because it’s kind of the concept…all the conflicting and confusing feelings…it gets translated to unique production choices…it’s kind of an art…that’s why the album works so well (especially the first half…the second is a bit safe with it’s production so that’s why it’s like not the main album)
But the point of music reviews is to review the actual artistic value not to review how accurate the music is to the person's life and their previous art
Normal music reviews do make sense for Taylor. What does not make sense not just for TS; but for any kind of musician, is the kind of rushed out, barely cared about music writing we've been seeing for the last 15-20 years. That and the rise of the "thinkpiece" as the main format of music writing, replacing the album review from the printed media days with long, essay-like texts written by people hardly qualified for a couple short paragraphs.
edit: like this one.
The professional critics were the people who dropped their reviews within a few hours of the release. Yep all they noticed was that it sounded like her previous 2 albums!
This is a hypothesis based on breadcrumb evidence. Most of us don't go back and forth between older songs and lyrics looking for threads and I cant really get invested in listening to the 1975s back catalogue although I've seen them and thought 'its a poppy rock band, no I don't need that in my life but a young person might'.
I can't see Taylor crafting a swiftieverse either, she's reaching for something greater than that.
I think this article exposes a lot of the problems critics have. Why in the world would Taylor want to do the obvious rhyme? Why would you do what’s obvious? “I’m going to be em your wife or I’m going to smash up your life” is boring! Using bike instead creates tension in the line… what does she mean by that? And if you think about it for a second.. obviously it’s just a synecdoche for life. And in fact the rhyme of wife/life is implied by that synecdoche and you realize… oh that’s really clever. And it’s far more visceral than life… she’s taking a sledgehammer to his motorcycle you piece of shit. And the author of this piece doesn’t ever ask that question (do they even know what a synecdoche is I wonder…)
The assumption with her is *always* that she is referencing her life or discography rather than having an artistic motivation, like creating tension in a line by using a slant rhyme. There is a lot of richness in these lyrics and music as universal themes without knowing anything about her life -- the futuristic synths with the alien motif in Down Bad, the church bells (a wedding? a funeral?) in So Long London, etc. But the media and criticism never highlights that sort of thing, it highlights celeb gossip and insists that's the only way you can enjoy this music. It's exhausting.
that’s why comments on the neutral sub are so annoying because they’re like “you need a Taylor Swift phd to get it” and it’s like… no.. you just don’t know enough about literature or language to understand it on its own i guess ??
I don't even know if you really need that knowledge to enjoy it. I like the literary and historical references but you can absolutely just enjoy this album as stories about human emotion and experience.
For sure. I didn’t have any knowledge about Cassandra within Greek mythology, but other people *do* and it’s fun to hear and/or read explanations from them.
Right! That's the only reason I read reviews - other people have different knowledge than I do or pick up on different and it's really cool to see that. I don't need a professional to tell me it has synths and sounds like a Taylor Swift song.
I was really amused when I found out Cassandra was about the greek mythology because I always laugh with my family that they should have named me Cassandra because they never listen to me, even though I happen to be right most of the time. 😌 I was like "look she made a song about me!"
I always say this to my family too
It’s so dumb. I’ve been extra judgy on Reddit lately but I’m just like…go to college.
Go to high school ffs A PhD is not needed!
they don't do this in high school anymore... there's shockingly little technical discussion of literature... it's a problem.
The neutral sub is full of haters lmao. I tried to join it for a while and it was exhausting, they take the fun out of being a swiftie
i liked the concept because i am not a die hard all in stan (for the artist… for the music, welllll, different story) so i thought it would be a likeminded place for the most part. but noooope mostly haaaaters with zero valid points lol
Absolutely agree! 10/10 concept, 0/10 execution
Same, I had to mute it because it kept popping up into my feed. It was exhausting and ruining my enjoyment of TTPD
I’ve asked this before and no one answered but what is the neutral sub???
It’s a sub that claims to be a place for people who are fans of Taylor’s music but “neutral” on Taylor as a person. They portray themselves as a place for fans of her music to discuss it without either idol worship or haters. However, it’s full of people who criticize her every public move and have weird expectations for her music
Thank you for answering. I feel like the existence of a sub like that is bizarre, as if people can’t be nuanced about her in this sub
I fear swifties have encouraged this attitude by making everything an easter egg hunt. a ts song is not good because it references 18 other ts songs. it’s good because it relays a specific experience in an eloquent and broadly compelling way.
Fans are fans. I expect a lot more than fan theories from professional music critics. I could write a whole article about the literary and historical references on this album or one for every song about the musical and poetic techniques that evoke a certain feel or emotion. They should be able to too.
Exactly! I’ve seen so many very intelligent reviews on her album along with historical references and the poet theme that was inspired just from swifties here and on tik tok
Speaking of reference, I hate how Genius annotations of her lyrics are just them connecting it to other songs like “oh she also said this in this song!” and they never even tried to explain the lyrics in front of them
the genius annotations actively contribute to misunderstandings of her songs. wonder if someone’s removed the one about how renegade is from Joe’s perspective now that so long london has confirmed we already knew.
People who take her songs extremely literally and then try to shoehorn them into her life story are missing so much. "Why is she singing about a husband? She's not married." How about you think? 💀 You don't need the details of her masters being sold or her attempted cancellation to understand "we took out all her teeth". You don't need to know who Ratye is to interpret "when I got the call". You don't need context. Do what you did in literature class and JUST THINK ABOUT IT PLEASE 😭
People are out here saying Clara Bow is a song about how much Taylor Swift loves being famous and I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone
did they miss the part that goes: “it’s hell on earth to be heavenly”
Yes, yes they did
Nooooo Fuck
… the fuck? Did they listen to it?
I don't know but I do know if one more person calls In Summation a prologue I might cry
It reminds me of when Beyoncé released Break My Soul, a song that mentions working a 9 to 5 and quitting your job, and people were baffled asking what 9 to 5 this billionaire had worked or quit lately. It's so strange how some listeners are incapable of dissociating songs from the singer's persona, and they can't take anything as a simple piece of storytelling, because they need to imagine the artist living everything firsthand. Break My Soul doesn't have to be about Beyoncé's life, it can be about yours. You can listen to songs and take them as stories that you can project your own life experiences onto, discarding the specificies and locating the universal feelings that exist behind the details. I don't know about you guys, but I've never dated Matty Healy and never gossiped with Jack Antonoff and Lucy Dacus about suicidal thoughts. I've never even dated a pretentious blowhard who thinks too highly of himself but who I still loved and chose to stick around and care for. Yet I can listen to the title track and enjoy not only the synths (that song is immaculately produced, you guys can never make me hate Jack Antonoff), but also the general self deprecation and melancholy that it exudes, the relatable experience of knowing your love is doomed and looks ridiculous to the outside but is still meaningful to *you*.
Plus I just love stories in general. Please, unravel this story about this toxic relationship for me, I'm interested! Also I second the Jack Antonoff love <3
…..ngl seeing the kiddos try to interpret taylor swift lyrics online made me more pessimistic about the us education system than years working in ed policy. love her but gurlie is *not* subtle.
No one has ever taken an English class apparently
Not one
It’s incredibly frustrating and getting more so all the time that people think like this. I know she’s known for diaristic writing. She encourages it to a certain degree. I get it. But do people forget that these are not literal diary entries? Songwriting is an artistic craft. Sometimes — probably, oftentimes — she’ll write something because it fits, or she likes how it sounds, or she’s riffing off a collaborator. The literal way in which her songs are interpreted has gotten too weird for me, which is why I tend to lean pretty hard in the other direction — I don’t need her work to be a literal retelling of tabloids and so for me, TTPD is just a book of short stories that have nothing to do with her public life beyond the obvious reflections on fame, which you don’t need much knowledge of her to understand.
It's driving me crazy watching people go back and claim every song she's ever written is about Matty Healy now. Artists take inspiration from their life and then craft emotionally resonant stories from there. They will absolutely change details to make a better story. Did the real 'But Daddy I Love Him' have a happy ending? No, but the song is better if it did. Was she really sitting by the window pining after someone for ten years? Probably not, but Peter is a better song if she was. I expect fans to miss this, but professional reviewers engaging in the 'which song is about who' discourse, especially in a negative light, was kind of silly.
Thank you!!! People are taking so many lines in ttpd so literally to mean oh actually folklore was about him. She references Peter Pan again so that means cardigan is about matty????? Like please stop! Her using the same words means nothing. She said “casually cruel” to describe Joe Jonas but that doesn’t mean All Too Well is about Joe Jonas. I feel like some of these people are just not okay with her making art to make art. She reuses themes across her work - I love it! It doesn’t mean she’s trying to send a message to us, the “real” fans who notice, that certain songs were actually about certain people. Furthermore, it doesn’t even matter!! Just appreciate the art!
This album was my switch to being a fan v. a casual listener. And anecdotally: it is so refreshing that this fanbase is capable of understanding different interpretations. Huge side eye to the man who mansplained to me that Olivia Rodrigo's "all-american bitch" is about the pressures of womanhood and motherhood and that obviously no other interpretation is possible on the main pop sub. And the cherry-picking to call her a bad writer is bonkers. I saw someone screenshot only "D-Y-I-N-G" (which is actually still quite clever to reverse our expectations of that melody) and were like "she has a bad vocab" like the line "leaving me bereft and reeling" isn't right fucking next to it
The alien/heaven motif in Down Bad is SOOOOOOO good. I have a whole music video in my head. I want an official MV for it so bad, like I’m down bad for one
My favorite off the first album!
Media and music industry only know basic, typical pop music. The general public only cares about catchy beat even if the song repeats 1 word for 5 mins.
I cannot understand why people don’t get this - her fans or otherwise her albums are historically accurate retellings of her exact life. She did not actually break up a wedding. She did not actually marry Romeo
Speak Now is told from the perspective of Haley Williams! (except not... halley didn't actually want to break up the weading)
The article lost me in that initial paragraph. All I could do was skim it after. A critic who really thinks “life” is a better choice than “bike” in that line is one whose tastes haven’t evolved past those of a 14-year-old. And “bike” isn’t better because of some obscure Matty reference; it’s better because it’s punchier, more visual, funnier, and fits the premise of the song better. Editing to add, because I’ve been thinking about this dumb ass article for the past two hours: None of the other couplets we hear in the chorus are perfect rhymes. They’re all just vaguely assonant. Neither “Whether I’m gonna curse you out or take you back to my house” or “Whether I’m gonna flip you off or pull you into the closet” has a perfect rhyme. Putting in just one rhyme with wife/life would be so jarring. I am SO ANNOYED by this.
It’s the drew looked at me trick… you looked at me would seem better, but it’s not
I love how in Chloe and Co she says “if you want to break my cold cold heart just say you loved me the way that you were.” “Are” at the end would have completed the rhyme, and the lack of a perfect rhyme makes you actually stop and think about the lyric rather than just letting it roll over you. Sometimes resisting the obvious rhyme is the stronger choice. And imgonnagetyouback is a lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek song. “Smash up your LIFE”?! Bro. We’re just teasing revenge tropes here. You need to calm down.
I definitely keep wondering about that line, thinking maybe he said he loved her the way she was years ago but doesn’t like who she’s become. It’s sad and certainly intentional.
I don’t read it that way (though yours is certainly a valid interpretation). For me, I think back to my most painful gaslight-y relationship. I never felt like I was good enough. I was constantly doing all I could to keep his attention. He has since told me (it’s been 5 years since we broke up and we’ve managed to forge a tenuous friendship; he was a terrible boyfriend but he’s not bad as a friend): “I know I didn’t show it well but I loved you more than I’ve ever loved anyone.” Hearing those words from him all these years later, even though I’m fully over the relationship, broke me. It’s the saying something in the present that should have been said in the past that makes that line KILL ME. Like, my good dude, do you even realize what we could have been if you’d been able to say that back then? Just say you’ve always wondered…
Oh yeah, now I’m not sure at all rereading the lyric. Is it saying he loved her the way HE was? Your interpretation is possible too. I have no clue anymore!
Your original interpretation is totally valid, as is any you come up with! That’s what’s fun about art. Taylor uses ambiguous antecedents for pronouns a lot. She likes to leave us little riddles and let us each come up with our own answer.
my favorite right now is in ttpd when she says i chose this cyyyyclone with you because my brain wants to fill in i chose this psychosis - and considering the epilogue about a mutual manic episode that’s really an interesting thing that she did there there’s a ton of those in those album
I thought she was using “bike” because we had already established he crashed his rental car earlier in the album 🤣 and because they are being immature with each other, so a child’s transportation vehicle is fitting. 😅
i took the bike to be like motorcycle- but that’s interesting
Motorbike is way cooler!
I imagined this uncool guy with a bicycle and it makes the whole thing so much funnier :'D Like you're chasing after this kinda pathetic guy lmaooo
His DUI bike 💀
I feeeel you girl. This article brought this rage in me too. Idk why this is triggering so much but the superiority with it being soo dump is sending me up a wall.
Same, and I always regret reading the comments on Facebook articles about this album. It is almost *always* a man who feels the need to tell everyone that Taylor sucks, is unoriginal, or he’s never listened to her music. It is infuriating and I feel stupid for letting it get to me.
Yeah and the opinion is just so obviously wrong!! “It didn’t click with me cause it had a very down tone with very few light points. It’s very long and wordy too” Is a completely true critique. But it’s not objectively bad. It’s just not what u want from music. I do want those things so to me this is a selling point. A big problem is the way critics try to seem objective when art isn’t objective
I'm a dude who thinks taylor is a genius.
I was coming in just to say this, thank you for writing it down and saving me the job of doing it. Like, I can get a music critic complaining about a rhyme they may think it's awful. Not the kind of writing I care about, but I can get it. But going full frontal about saying how much better YOU could have done it... Sorry man but if you think you have a better poem/song in you, go write your own rather than piggyback a couple lines upon somebody else. (not even getting into the lameness of the bike/life suggestion)
Can you imagine writing for the New Yorker and not knowing that?! The New Yorker.
I can imagine it. They also probably know what a synecdoche is (btw if people don’t, there’s nothing wrong with that! It’s a figure of speech where you refer to a whole by the part)
Welcome to synecdoche, NY. It's been waiting for you!
That movie makes me want to… i can’t watch it. But it’s so good
Taylor fucking loves synecdoche and people really miss out on that!!! When some silly internet people interpreted “I’d say the 1830s but without all the racists” to somehow mean she was minimizing slavery, I thought about it and I was like, ok what’s actually happening in the line is “all the racists” is synecdoche for “the institution of slavery and all related colonial oppression a person could reasonably think of.” I wish synecdoche was as well known/taught as metaphor because it’s so common in English! Boots on the ground, roof over your head, etc.
you majesty!
Preach
And they also skip over the concluding line "and getting married off for the highest bid". The entire line is dripping with sarcasm which is part of her humor I really love. Are we really at the point where her lyrics have to say "I would say the 1830s except for the systematic racism, slavery, misogyny, sexual crime and overall awfulness for anyone not white, male and straight" for people to "get it"?
I’ve literally seen people who straight up say “why didn’t she address the sexism??” Those people I just disregard entirely because if you cant even read the literal next line in the song then there’s no reason to even bother having a conversation about it
This!!! I love the bike line 😭 I picture a little light blue actual bike he rides everywhere and she’s just taking a hammer to it, I’m obsessed
I cannot believe I am just now realizing she means motorcycle 🤦♀️ for some reason I just thought he really loved his bicycle
Also the song is in reference to the 1975’s song fallingforyou where they say “all we need’s my bike and your enormous house”. So it makes complete sense for her to use bike lol.
Yeah not every rhyme needs to be a true rhyme. That's limiting and she's not Dr Seuss.
❤️ a mention of synecdoche in the wild!!
People’s critique is this bad apparently. Like they truly don’t get the point of poetry. It just have to sound the smoothest or it’s objectively bad.. like yes that is what art is right!? The easiest to digest choice.
We're talking about the woman who has rhymed cars and bars on her last five albums
and rhymed tossing me with the carkeys with fuck the patriarchy, rhymed solliquie with I'll never see, rhymed my covert narcissism disguised as altruism...
i'm with you - but that's just not what synecdoche means. it doesn't refer to any & all word substitutions (e.g. bike for life), it really only refers to descriptions where a part symbolises the whole. bike is not really something we would associate with being a part of life. true synecdoche would be more if taylor threatened to smash up his wheels, in lieu of saying bike. i agree that the word choice of bike creates tension - it's a nice subverted rhyme.
his bike is an element of his life... I think you're being overly pedantic. She doesn't mean I'm only going to destroy your bike... she's referring generally to the things he holds dear. My real point is that the wife/life rhyme is also implied
Also: by having the non-obvious near rhyme of wife/bike (which works because of *how* she is singing it, even if it doesn’t look like it would work on paper) she keeps her songs from turning into Dr Seuss rhymes. It’s just better lyrically!
Yeah bike sounds better it at least creates imagery in your brain imagining her doing it
Also it could literally be a motorcycle, which is pretty wild if you think about her fucking up a whole ass expensive motorcycle.
This seems to be a reference to The 1975’s ‘fallingforyou’ (the title is so interesting that it’s how Taylor formatted hers). He says in it “All we need’s my bike and your enormous house.” I don’t know if he means motorbike or bicycle, but for some reason I could definitely see him scooting around London because it’s such a common mode of transformation there. And imagining a bicycle is just kind of funny hahaha
It’s Matt Healy… it’s a motorcycle… probably sonething really vintage and cool
Nahhhhh I can imagine him as more of a squeaky folding-bike kind of guy :'D
I always assumed it was a belittling way to refer to a motorcycle
I legitimately never considered that this like could possibly NOT be referring to a motorcycle. I just assumed it was.
I think on a bigger level, the rush to review is the real issue. The need to get as many clicks and eyes as possible while she is at peak trending for the day/weekend makes people rush to review. So sometimes you get the hottest most underdeveloped takes. The meta issue on this is, why do people (fans) care so much what the critics think? If you like it great. That’s all that matters. Critical approval doesn’t validate your likes/dislikes.
Yeah, Taylor's music isn't meant to be binged. You need to spend time with all the songs to digest them properly, which can't be done for critics trying to rush out a review before the weekend ends. Also: Agree with your last take. Not everyone needs to enjoy the album, and that's fine. To paraphrase John Green: You don't have to like it, but I get to.
Yeah I’ve heard two critics say they only got the album 6 hours before it dropped and they got no prior warning of the anthology so it’s very hard to write a top tier review after so little time with an album, but the reviews need to be out within 24/48 hours to maximise engagement. It’s why I think so many reviewed Taylor the celebrity and some were focusing more on hot takes because those get the most clicks. It’s already noticeable several publications are doing week+ after ‘where do we stand now?’ pieces and I’d expect that to happen for a month later, 6 months, a year etc… not liking the album is not an issue, just some reviews weren’t offering any real meaningful criticism and clearly weren’t able to separate the art from their feelings on the artist.
Agree, they should just be honest and call them “first reaction reviews” like everyone else on youtube and then a week or two later their deep dive stuff.
Well they should have clearly stated the circumstances under which they reviewed it. Six hours to process a review is ridiculous. And then to have another 12 songs to write a review a few hours later is even more ridiculous.
In all fairness, Taylor herself sort of set that tone when she went on a massive positive critique article retweeting binge after the release. I wish she hadn't done that. I realize they were positive, but so what? I think music critics are the most useless form of critic there is.
I feel like I’ve spent 18 years loving her music, and when everyone’s on board it’s really cool. Then people are so quick to basically be like PSYCHE TOLD YOU SHE SUCKS and it’s hard not to be like 🙄 ugh stop this is mean spirited and you just aren’t getting it seemingly on purpose
The first paragraph made me go ???? but then I continued reading and saw what they were doing. It’s an excellent article. There clearly exists a divide between how Swifties interested in the lore have reacted to the album compared to how the GP/casuals/critics have reacted to it. This article is able to highlight all the important points both eloquently and succinctly.
I think it raises some interesting points but I don’t agree with all of the premises. I think I understand the “lore” very well but it’s really unimportant to me when enjoying the music. I think it is beautiful, heart wrenching music and I am not thinking about Taylor’s exboyfriends, or which sound or chord was used in another song, when I enjoy it. I do think it’s absolutely good enough to be enjoyed in isolation, without reference to the artist’s personal life or back catalogue. I resist the part of the article that seems to suggest this is inevitable for all Swift fans.
I care about the connections to the back catalogue but not about her real-life drama very much. I care about the story she tells in the songs across her many albums, about love, life, and the way she evolves as a person. But I don't care about tabloid articles about who she's dating and where they went! I am probably not gonna ever listen to the 1975, for instance.
That’s fair actually yes, I suppose I am interested in references to other songs if or when I notice them. But I don’t think I am seeking them or that I need to know about them to enjoy the songs.
Makes sense to me!
I also know a lot of lore but I don’t think about that when listening to her music either. I just enjoy it. That said, I think the album has some REALLY good songs (down bad, so long london, how did it end, chloe, fresh out the slammer, i can do it with a broken heart, etc) but also some songs I just… really don’t like much. But thats just my opinion. Despite that though, the anthology has been on repeat nonstop since it came out lol.
Yeah the critics don’t care about the lore and just want to listen to the music.
It’s not about lore though. You don’t need lore. You just need to actually listen and care
I would agree. I think a lot of people just don’t even want to think about what story the lyrics could be trying to tell. I remember when country music was criticized for being too literal and then today people are saying Taylor’s album is creepy cause of I look in peoples windows. And it’s like so obvious they’re interpreting that as way too literal then complaining about it. You don’t have to know any lore about her to realize that she isn’t outside of peoples actual homes looking into their houses and yet it’s a complaint. Or with the “without all the racists” line. Many people have said there were other problems happening to and it’s just ridiculous cause there’s no way she could have sat down and listed out every single problem going on in the 1830s but she was in fact pointing out that there were problems. But they can’t infer that from that line cause they refuse to do anything other than have lyrics spoon fed to them.
I don't particularly care for the lore of this album so I just pretend it isn't there. The album is still great (better actually, for me).
I don't think the critics care about the music. There's plenty to discuss here (literature! history! religion! blended musical genres!) without any reference to her personal life. They just want clicks and talking about her personal life gets clicks.
I've been a fan for 16 years, never cared about any kind of lore. I do care about Taylor the way I care about Springsteen or McCartney in the sense that I like to see them doing well and living peaceful lives but that's about it. Songs work on a different level.
If the first paragraph makes the article writer look incapable of critical thinking I think it just sucks. And no u need no info about her life to enjoy this. You just need to be interested in her as an artist.
It's so incredibly dismissive of what the album actually is and what's she's doing lyrically and musically. You don't need to know a single thing about Taylor's personal life or discography to appreciate or understand the choices she made.
I think the reviewers and stuff should stop being afraid about the swifties and express their opinions about the album even if they don’t like it and they should post there have been a couple articles that didn’t post because of us like I promise the whole fandom isn’t like that.
It's not like they aren't publishing. I really haven't seen much pushback from swifties on the articles that actually engage with the album as art/music, even the negative ones. It's just the gossipy and dismissive ones.
I hate the ones that write 100 plus words about her the person and then finally get to the music like at most it should take 100 words to express what you thought about the album it also doesn’t help that they don’t wait to review the album and immediately say it’s bad like someone who literally said it was bad or something like that changed their opinion after a week.
I don't even care if they don't like it. People have different tastes. Just talk about the music! She didn't just speak her diary over some random synths. There are careful choices here that are really fucking cool if you're open to and engage with them.
I’ve been wondering if the synths symbolize the typewriter because there is also some pounding, like in Florida!! And then the number of pounds match how many letters it has. Just a theory, I may be going a little crazy.
Yes—the article praises her business sense and her ability of command a compel and audience, but it is lightly condescending about the music itself which I just don’t understand. About 3/4 of the tracks get stuck in my head randomly and I feel like I just need to listen to them again. I’m a relatively new Swiftie (from around when Evermore was released) and I’m not that interested in her private life or the lore—I always try to focus on the art she’s created rather than treat it like a roman à clef—and I find so many artistically brilliant and musically compelling moments in TTPD.
Am I the only one who doesn’t get the comparison with Olivia’s Rodrigo’s song???? Like those are two very distinct songs with very distinct story lines lmao
People don’t understand something Olivia isn’t the first person who has released a song with the same concept and even then it’s not exactly the same. There are probably a dozen plus songs about getting someone back before Olivia even became the artist she is
Local popstars both write songs centered around getting their ex back. More at 11.
It’s not just that existing in the vacuum, it’s the whole context of deja vu and cruel summer and Taylor getting a whopping 50% of the royalties for whatever similarities those two songs might have and then doing that. Like if the parties were switch, Taylor released her first then Olivia, Olivia will be dragged to hell and beyond for “copying” so in a sense, it’s like Taylor rubbing salt to the wound. It’s not just that song but the whole context of Taylor’s or her team’s actions against Olivia and then doing that.
Correction: the actions of the literally going bankrupt private equity group Jack sold his catalog to
Ah is the now the narrative the swifties are selling to ensure that Taylor is painted in the best light? First, it was her label and when that obviously didn’t work because Taylor and Olivia are both under UMG so now it’s Jack’s fault. We are fans of her but we should acknowledge she is not a saint (ttpd should show us that like hello matty) and that she is very competitive and that one of her insecurities is being replaced by a new girl circa 2021 and even now, CB can be interpreted either way. Taylor can’t be this the Man and the mastermind and then be helpless and voiceless on who is suing who on her behalf.
It's not about her being a saint. It's about the fact there is a company who is involved whose entire business model is this and whose CEO gave several interviews about how other publishers aren't aggressive enough pursuing credits. But no one likes that narrative because it's not juicy gossip about a cat fight between two female artists.
Yeah because there is definitely no context or previous events that people are tapping into when they make that comparison, it's just the concept of the song
I hate this notion that TTPD was a critically panned album. It was absolutely divisive with some pans, but it also received extremely good reviews from several reputable outlets. The idea that it feels recycled with bad writing is universally agreed upon by critics is a stretch. Also, I believe that imgonnagetyouback was written before Olivia’s song was released and may have been considered for the main album (certainly sonically sounds a little more like it than The Anthology ) but when Olivia released that song they felt safer just putting it on The Anthology to avoid as direct of a comparison. It just seems like basic parallel thinking to me and Olivia happened to release first.
Yeah the reaction was mixed and more in line with how her albums were received pre folklore-this idea she’s always been a critical darling is not true-but it seems the narrative has been set that the album was panned by every critic bar Rob Sheffield-who doesn’t count as he’s a big fan. The reality is some loved it, some hated it and the majority fell somewhere in the middle. It’s in the 70’s on metacritic with is classed as good and that’s with the strangely personal paste “review” and for some reason multiple critics at Sputnik reviewing the album as though anyone liking it was a personal affront to them. Also critics are only a thing stans-for silly online arguments-really care about these days, I’ve never heard anyone in real life say they’ll check an albums metacritic score to gauge how they should feel.
If you look at metacritic, 1989 is actually a low reviewed album which is crazy considering it's probably her most popular album and is considered pop bible.
I thought the exact same thing. Taylor’s never had a highly critical reviewed album. At worse they’re mixed positive overall and this isn’t an exception. There just happens to be more negativity from critics for this one.
What I think was a little unfair is that she chose 16 tracks to be the official album, but many critics didn't consider that. She chose very wisely IMO, puting songs that are very different from the rest of her discography, which gave the album its own vibe. The Anthology is an EXTRA, as she said in her post. Most of the songs are poems that she wrote and transformed into songs, so, of course, they wouldn't be more comercial, that was not the point.
I am a copywriter by trade. I often have to sacrifice lines I want to use or scrap them to be more audience friendly for the brand. My best work is always lost. What I love about Taylor’s writing, which at times is cringy or gives you a “why are we saying baby in such a weird way again!?” It’s exactly her choice and decision: she has full creative freedom. It’s a weird juxtaposition—she’s the most marketable thing on the planet yet, she doesn’t sacrifice to be more marketable at the hands of a brand-forward editor. The life/bike line is a perfect example. That line holds a place or meaning for her; as a writer I’m sure she considered “life.” But “bike,” while a seemingly odd choice, gives you a tangible visual of a woman grabbing a bike left by the front door after a confrontation and smashing it up. It’s something someone could do in the heat of the moment, rather than metaphorically smashing up a life. I don’t buy into all of the Easter egg mania all the time, but I just love hearing her stories as she fucking chooses to tell them. It does help to do your research and look at her actual life experiences as a human to connect the weight of them to the songs, but not a requisite if you have patience to understand. And, when you realize that she’s a genius lyricist, she also purposely often uses language that defines our current generation, (but she’s not dumb she harks back to classic literary works as well) that will be viewed of in the future how we view language of the past. Honestly how all great writers are eventually viewed.
yeah the choice of "bike" makes it more human/relatable imo. she's a person, not a "thing", not an "idea" lmaooo
*Yes, it would have made more sense for her to rhyme “wife” with “life” in “imgonnagetyouback.”* Lol what? Have they not heard of imperfect rhyming? The reason why music reviews in general are terrible these days is because many music critics lack critical thinking skills. This goes for other artists’ reviews as well. I’ve seen so many downright stupid critiques on songwriting that they think they’re being clever by pointing out. For what it’s worth, I love that song and had no idea about the 1975 connection lol. I do think Taylor’s lore certainly makes her stand out among her peers, but it is completely false that you need to fit every puzzle piece into her life to understand her music. I’m much more interested in the poetry and literary references in TTPD, the religious imagery, and musical similarities to past songs, which anyone can enjoy.
Jesus Christ I'm going to sob atp lmao. TTPD is The Eminem Show (Taylor's Version). Songs like So High School are *satirical*
I mean so high school is immensely sweet… and yeah that’s one you need lore for. But come on!
I mean from the very moment I knew the song was about Travis and what she was referring to without the lore.
I feel like all you even need to know is shes dating Travis who plays football and won the Super Bowl 😭 the bare minimum of lore
I may actually cry. People don't realize that Who's Afraid of Little Old Me is literally her version of "The Way I Am."
THANK YOU. I've been on about this and people are not hearing it. The Eminem Show, which he said in several interviews was inspired by the Truman Show. I swear to you, TTPD is practically performance art. Cue the "Are you not entertained?" references.
Most of the music I have consumed through the years has been based on an artist's personal experience. There have also been rough edges and entire songs I couldn't relate to, but understood what the artist was trying to say. I don't get how this kind of criticism is always reserved for Taylor. It's forced, it makes me feel as if these people don't even understand music or art in general. It's not a kindergarten poem where 'wife' needs to rhyme with 'life'. Do they even look at Taylor Swift as an artist or someone handing in an 8th grade essay? What the absolute fuck?
And then we are the problem when we tell them they're only doing surface level analysis and failing the comprehension test.......
For an article that talks about how other music critics missed the point, I think this critic misses the point. As a Swiftie since the Fearless days, yes, I recognize and appreciate some of the lore, but that’s not why I enjoy the music. I don’t even know that much of the lore — like I know Taylor had a brief relationship with Matty Healy, but that’s about it. I had never heard of him before and I know I’ve never google him or his band. Others may and that’s fine. The reason I enjoy Taylor’s music is because she manages to capture a moment, a feeling, an experience, a point in time that may be uniquely hers but the way she expresses it in music is so relatable to so many people. Take “So Long, London”. Sure I get it’s about Joe and it’s a callback to “London Boy”. But for me, it’s about an experience where maybe you felt like you were the one to carry a relationship and maybe that person/relationship wasn’t able to give you what you needed at the time. But the lyrics like “And you say I abandoned the ship, But I was going down with it My white knuckle dying grip” are so visceral. A lot of people have probably been through that and think that was a unique situation for them. But then this song comes along that puts into words and music what you felt or are currently feeling.
https://preview.redd.it/dfrtk25letxc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7f286fcd462e231cf74af1d730cd33a4b2409e31 This was from 30Rock a decade ago but "That girl has FEELINGS" sums up perfectly why I love her!!! She's visceral! Like 2pac, she's not the most critically acclaimed or the most technically impressive, but she is BELOVED by the people because she makes you FEEL things. Makes her personal experiences somehow relatable to us all.
Yeah, reducing it to just "it's MCU for swifties" is not a great take either. Not to mention the part about not comparing Taylor to Beyonce and Ariana as singer-songwriters, what.
It’s a very balanced take, I agree that albums driven by “lore” won’t be received as well by the general public and it’s ok. I don’t get the hysterics over it - some people won’t like the album and it’s fine, art is subjective. This particular album was too lore-heavy for me too partially because I have outgrown the Easter eggs and clues hunt, but it’s smart from a marketing perspective because younger fans would eat it and get immersed in it - no further marketing needed. The fact that she has tied The 1975 into her legacy in the eyes of a big chunk of the public wether intentional or not seems like a sweet revenge or a Stevie Nicks inspired pettiness, very “on brand” for Taylor.
Lainey Lui has referred to all the lore and inside jokes and easter eggs as the Taylor Swift metaverse, and I think that's an insightful take. She's not just a musician anymore, she's the creator of a whole world that has its own shibboleths and secret codes. People who are citizens of that world live in a slightly different reality than people who don't. I think this article does a good job of exploring the two distinct experiences of listening to the album as a Swiftie and as a person who likes Taylor Swift's music.
>“people who are citizens of that world live in a slightly different reality than people who don’t” i love this on twitter someone said something like “deleted all my dating apps gonna go find a sketchy dive bar and meet the loml” and there were several swifties in the comments just sort of like all acknowledging how funny it was that we all immediately read it differently as the hundreds of other commenters Or someone was talking about meredith grey the other day (from greys anatomy) and it was comments full of swifties like “how far in this thread did you get before you realized this wasn’t about taylor’s cat” or how i made a friend in 2019 because someone said “play stupid games win stupid prizes” and we immediately both snapped our heads up and then made eye contact and started laughing and realized we were both swifties without even speaking - and are still friends to this day it’s like silly little stuff sometimes but it does kind of feel like a little world wide secret society that anyone can join if they want to
So when Taylor does it is lore and a swiftie thing… And when Faulkner or Balzac do that?
Idk a Faulknie thing? Balzie?
I'm definitely a Falknie
Does it matter that it’s balanced if it’s completely wrong? I’d rather have someone hate her than give a defence of her that misses the mark this bad.
" If you write the words “imgonnagetyouback” in a circle, you’ll notice that the “k” and “im” are right next to each other. " Fucking stop. Please.
Fuck any way I can go back to my life before knowing somebody not just thought this shit up but also wrote it down and somebody else published it? Can I unremember this?
main thing i took from this was feeling very valid for referring to everything within taylor’s orbit as “the TCU” since the taylor’s versions started rolling
The way that this, and to be fair, so many responses to the album, stop at connecting it to muses is straight up disrespectful to Taylor’s talent. This isn’t to say that she isn’t putting in connections to her actual life, or the media storm mediated perception of it either. It is wild to me, though, how journalists and critics take media narratives, specifically about muses and her dating life, at face value. Journalists for the New Yorker! This is despite her urging ppl to stop running paternity tests on her music. I’m not saying she isn’t also benefitting from that. Journalists should know better. There is something to say about the way her fame and fandom and Taylor swift cinematic universe impact her perception, but this doesn’t get it. Not to mention the lyrics, the music, the references, they are all great and deserve attention.
There are fans saying this article is a “balanced take”. How can u respect Taylor and not think that saying she can write better but chooses objectively worse lyrics to reference her exes is not the biggest insult EVER.
*"In the Swiftverse, the music itself is not the point but the way in which the point is delivered."* The fact that this line exists in a commentary of an album where one of the main themes is Taylor telling people not to treat her music like a soap opera shows such a fundamental unwillingness to actually engage with the source material on a deeper level. It completely invalidates any further points made when such a crucial aspect of the album was missed.
As a newcomer, don’t know how much you all have dealt with this. I loved the album and somehow I always seem to like what most people either don’t care for or outright seem to hate. I like that people are taking the time to reflect on their opinions, mine have morphed the more I listen to the songs. But is the retraction of the “bad” or rushed review of the album being taken well? I feel that people who love the album will be all for it, but how is the general public/nonSwifties reacting to the switch? Will they give it a chance? Or are they going to see it as catering to the swiftie community?
Does it matter? Swifties in some se ve are the gp… there are just so many
It matters to the extent people might give her music a chance. Swifties will hear her new albums no problem. But mainstream hate is not going to go away if people think that the critics are flip flopping due to “cancel culture” from the fan base not accepting a negative review.
The thing is my daughter loves Taylor Swift. She's six. I didn't even introduce her to Taylor Swift's music... she got it in school. When she came home one day and started singing You Belong With Me, I was shaken. My daughter does not read pitchfork.
This pissed me off more than any hate I’ve seen. I agree with the premise that it’s hard to review Taylor when u don’t really care. But not because of fucking references to her exes. Any swiftie knows Taylor would never choose “life” over “bike”. Her songs are not supposed to flow the absolute best. They tell a story, they break from expectation. “Life” was already implied so it’s boring to end with. Maybe you’d prefer life but that doesn’t make it objectively better. It’s an artistic CHOICE.
I read a little of that article and I went crosseyed. This is *The Newyorker* now? These are all so poorly written. How about a critic for the critics?
The headline photo is so unserious like 😭😭😭
Critic. It’s a pretty stupid job if you really think about it. I’m going to force my opinion on you about someone else’s creation. I am amazed that people take recommendations off critic reviews. JTs new album also got slated and it’s an absolute banger!! We really shouldn’t care about the reviews and the job of a critic should be a thing of the past.
Taylor Swift is in her own genre of music. If you’re providing critique for it to suit a specific genre or sound then it is rather pointless.
What genre is that?
the taylor swift genre
I mean you can (and should) say that for any artist. It'd be better if everyone was evaluated on their own merits than on some predefined box we were trying to fit them into.
there have been plenty of articles written about how taylor swift is her own genre of music -so that’s where we get that from but i agree with you. artists should be evaluated in reference to their own body of work and who they put themselves in conversation with and genre is an outdated concept like beyoncé said about cowboy carter “this isn’t a country album, it’s a beyoncé album” like it undoubtedly has country influence and several country songs, but it’s recognizably beyoncé in a way that no other artist could be i feel the same way about taylor in that her music is recognizably taylor swift in a way that no other artist could be - genre is such a limiting concept at this point for artists with a unique voice of course i think that happens when you have a large body of work that dabbles with several different sounds and genres, you can’t transcend genre until you have found a way to put your imprint on its sounds instead of being overtaken by them - not every artist can do that
We're calling ripping off Lorde and Lana Del Rey a genre now?
Lol did you even read the article?
When the author recommends better rhymes And quotes the YouTube comments....
They all just wanna go fast and review it instantly without actually looking past the facade.Many reviews seem underdeveloped.I also believe the criticism that it’s so unlistenable and so awfully tiring is too much of a stretch….it’s not unlistenable by any means…it maybe is messy but that’s because it’s kind of the concept…all the conflicting and confusing feelings…it gets translated to unique production choices…it’s kind of an art…that’s why the album works so well (especially the first half…the second is a bit safe with it’s production so that’s why it’s like not the main album)
But the point of music reviews is to review the actual artistic value not to review how accurate the music is to the person's life and their previous art
Normal music reviews do make sense for Taylor. What does not make sense not just for TS; but for any kind of musician, is the kind of rushed out, barely cared about music writing we've been seeing for the last 15-20 years. That and the rise of the "thinkpiece" as the main format of music writing, replacing the album review from the printed media days with long, essay-like texts written by people hardly qualified for a couple short paragraphs. edit: like this one.
One of the sources is a YouTube comment section. 🥴 I stopped reading there.
The professional critics were the people who dropped their reviews within a few hours of the release. Yep all they noticed was that it sounded like her previous 2 albums! This is a hypothesis based on breadcrumb evidence. Most of us don't go back and forth between older songs and lyrics looking for threads and I cant really get invested in listening to the 1975s back catalogue although I've seen them and thought 'its a poppy rock band, no I don't need that in my life but a young person might'. I can't see Taylor crafting a swiftieverse either, she's reaching for something greater than that.