I Listened to Every Taylor Swift Album. Also, Some Excessively Violent Hip Hop.
A while back, I got into an argument about Taylor Swift. I don’t quite remember exactly when, but it was some nebulous point after Kim Kardashian released the footage of Taylor's phone call with Kanye and I stopped caring. The friend, a fan of Swift’s, asked me what I thought, and my response was something along the lines of, “As someone who doesn’t find celebrity drama interesting for the most part, I hate how the narrative in her songs forces me to think about it all the time, and I resent that, and I can’t help but feel a little glad that the tide is turning against her. Also, I hate ‘Shake it Off’ and ‘Bad Blood.’”
(Again, not the exact phrasing, but the needlessly snobby tone is pretty dead on.)
She understood my point about the obsession over her feuds and breakups. But at some point, I revealed that the only Taylor Swift songs I had heard are the singles, and she said it wasn't fair that I was judging her music exclusively on media attention and radio spins.
And you know what? She was right.
Setting aside my thoughts on radio singles versus album content, my unwavering love for the album format, and other non-music related biases I have against some of Swift's actions (the whole Spotify thing, for example, but that's for another time), every artist deserves a fair shot. True, “fair shot” doesn’t mean “go listen to said artist’s entire discography,” but it’s always good to have an open mind, right? Anything that leads the conversation away from “drama” back to the music itself can’t be a bad thing, so in that spirit, I’m going to listen to all of Taylor Swift’s albums in chronological order and write some thoughts after I’m done with each one.
Also, whenever possible, I’ll be contriving reasons to embed violent hip hop music. For the sake of... umm... uhh...
Where I’m At With Taylor Swift Now and How I Think This Will Go (Current Date: 11/24/2017)
I'm anticipating that I'll be mostly indifferent to her early discography. I’m expecting some inoffensive guitars (mostly acoustic but maybe they’ll wheel out an amp here and there), some light drums, some country strings, some banjo, and that all of those elements will come together to form songs that are mostly about boys. The albums will end, I’ll jot down some thoughts, I'll tell Squarespace to do its thing, then I'll probably never think about them ever again.
Forgive me if any of the above sounds condescending. If you take the above paragraph and cut the country strings and the banjos, what you really have is, well... most music. All I’m really saying here is that I don’t think I’m going to feel strongly about anything one way or the other. I’m not going to love anything, but I won’t outright loathe anything either.
It’s when we get to her later career that I’ll have things to hate, but we’ve already covered that a little bit, and we’ll get more in depth when the time is right.
But as of now, all I know for sure are the singles, which for me begin with listening to “Love Story” and “You Belong with Me” over and over again on my morning commute to school. Over and over and over and over again. I realize this it’s not Taylor’s fault that DC radio is garbage, but I grew pretty resentful of the songs, and thus her. But eventually, like all radio singles, they faded away.
Then I realized I could plug my iPod into my car, and not long after that I went to college. Thus I didn’t really check in with her for a while because I was busy listening to the rappity raps. Speaking of which…
Anyways, I not only dropped out with Taylor Swift for a while, but really pop music in general. Occasionally I’d check out what’s charting, and I’d get into some of it. But I simply wasn’t paying attention, and as a result, I can’t say with any confidence that I’ve ever heard any of the singles from Speak Now or Red all the way through. Of course I knew she was a big deal, and I saw an internet joke or two. But that’s about it.
Then I started making an effort to listen to more top forty radio, and I got a healthy dosage of the 1989 singles. “Shake It Off” and “Bad Blood” and all that. (Again, we’ll discuss when the time’s right. But I can’t stress this enough: I hate both of these songs.) And I've also heard "Look What You Made Me Do" which again, we'll get into.
But before I begin, I want to make something clear: I'm not looking to hate her. I'm sure I'll make a flippant comment here and there, and I'm sure there will be moments I sound harsh. But I'm not here to make fun of her or her fans. The goal here is honest exploration. To understand her appeal, and maybe find something to connect with. It's not to belittle. The internet doesn't need my help with that.
Right then. Let’s listen to some of that Taylor Swift.
Taylor Swift (2006) (Current Date: 11/27/2017)
I am fully aware of the fact that this album was not made for me.
Yes, I realize that anyone can enjoy this album for any number of reasons, but I somehow have the feeling that those of my “twenty six year old who grew up listening to hip hop, jazz, and soul music” ilk are probably not the people Taylor Swift had in mind when she was recording her debut album when she was sixteen years old.
This is an album by a teenager for teenagers, and there’s something to appreciate in the idea that this kind of music exists. When I was in high school, I never really listened to what older generations said about the experiences I was having at my age. I should’ve, but I didn’t. I was a dumb teenager and that’s what dumb teenagers do.
That said, is there a limit to how universally “teenage” something can be? If you’re a teen, and you’re making music for teens, do you emphasize universal teenage experiences or do you emphasize what has specifically happened to you and hope that others can relate? Are those two things the same? Is there such a thing as being too pliable?
I ask because she seems to have a very specific problem at this stage in her career, and it’s one I’d never thought I’d accuse Taylor Swift of all people of having in a million years. On one hand, Taylor is sometimes incredibly specific about the subjects of her song. In “Teardrops on My Guitar,” she names a boy named Drew. In “Stay Beautiful,” she names another boy named Cory. If you look up information about the songs online, you’ll discover that “Picture to Burn” is about a boy named Jordan and “Should’ve Said No” is apparently about a boy named Sam.
Some of these boys did things to her. Sam apparently cheated on her and Jordan rejected her (or something like that.) Some of these boys are just boys. Drew was apparently a friend of hers who she had a crush on and Cory was apparently just really good looking.
She writes about these boys and how they made her feel. Sam and Jordan pissed her off, Drew made her sad, and Cory made her blush. But that’s about it. What she doesn’t really offer is further insight or details that make anything too personal to specifically her experience.
Put it another way: She had a deep crush on a friend named Drew and wrote a song about it. The only difference between what she has to say on this song and what millions of others have said in millions of songs about crushes is a proper noun. She says all the things she's supposed to say in a song like this, but that's entirely my point. I'm missing details. I'm missing depth. I'm missing a voice.
The same holds true for the songs that aren’t about boys. “A Place in This World,” is apparently about Taylor Swift’s move to Nashville, and the feelings of anxiety and excitement she was feeling living in a new city and trying to make it in the country music scene. I know all this because she apparently said so in an interview at some point. In looking at the lyrics, however, I couldn’t tell you what they were about, as they mostly consist of vague “life is a road” and “I don’t know what’s going to happen but I’m on a ride” musings one only finds insightful or nuanced if their only contact with written language are Barnes and Noble calendars.
“Tied Together With a Smile” is about a friend of Swift’s who had an eating disorder. Again, I only know this to be the case because of this interview. Reading the lyrics, I thought this was another unintentionally condescending song about a girl who needs to discover her "inner-beauty."
The trap of trying to appeal to everyone is that there’s no room for nuance. The kinds of personal touches that offer a glimpse into the mind of the artist. Of course, getting mad at a beau is universal, but what I’m interested in is what do you, the artist, have to bring to the table? What is personal to you that can’t be said by anyone else? What I need is insight, not to be pandered to just because a certain happenstance is ubiquitous.
Let’s take an example from DMX.
Sure, you may not want to hear a song where DMX kills someone and has sex with the dead body, but at least that’s specific. At least I’m capable of listening to that and thinking, “Boy howdy, that DMX fella sure has an awfully funny way of expressing himself!” You don’t have to like what DMX has to say, but at the very least, there’s a part of of you that has to admit that the sentiment comes from a unique mind.
I don't get that from her here, and as a result, her lyrics basically sounds like a teenage country song edition of Mad Libs, only she didn't understand that she was supposed to try to be funny.
I suppose I should end on the music itself. I don’t know. It’s pretty much what I thought it would be. Lots of strings. Lots of guitar. Lots of “verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, outro.” At this stage in her career, she has a nice voice, but doesn’t really do anything special with it. There seems to be a war going on between those in her camp who want her to make a country album and those who want her to make a Matchbox 20/Goo Goo Dolls style alternative rock album, but then again, I haven’t engaged with modern country music enough to be able to tell if that’s the norm or not.
In other words, much like the lyrical content, it’s perfectly fine and nice, but already fading to the back of my mind.
Other Thoughts:
My favorite song, if I had to pick one, would be “Our Song.” It seems genuine in a way that a lot of the songs on this album aren’t and the production has a lot more character.
That line where she says she’s going to lie about the dude being gay in “Picture to Burn” sure doesn’t hold up in 2017, does it? There were certain things I was expecting, but casual homophobia wasn’t one of them.
The guy singing in the background of most of her choruses, whom I’m assuming is producer Nathan Chapman, is not needed. Or at least not needed so frequently.
Radios show up a lot in her lyrics.
Eyes specifically shine a lot in her lyrics too.
Fearless (2008) (Current Date: 11/30/2017)
I’m not sure the point I find myself wanting to make in this section is entirely fair. Or at the very least, the logic probably doesn’t hold up under much scrutiny. However, we’re talking about my personal tastes and biases here, and again, this album wasn't made for me.
That said, let us briefly consider Fiona Apple. Specifically “Sleep to Dream,” the first song on her debut album Tidal. (By the way, if you haven’t already done so, go listen to Tidal.)
There’s plenty to be impressed with by this song. However, what impresses me most is her turn of phrase, and how she can be incredibly direct and personal, but also leave enough room for you to relate and to project your own meaning. We’ve all had relationships, romantic or otherwise, that have reached this level of tension. And we’ve all been this angry at someone. Fiona Apple can reach this universal feeling because she has a voice. That thing I was complaining so much about in the section about Taylor's first album.
Fiona Apple wrote that song when she was fourteen years old.
Let us also consider a song from Ibeyi, consisting of twin sisters Naomi and Lisa-Kandé Diaz. This is “Singles” from their self-titled debut.
Now, granted, their older uncle has a writing credit, but the twins were twenty when they released this album, and to me at least, it aches of loneliness. And while the lyrics speak more of physical loneliness, the way the sisters sing it make me think it's just as much about emotional desire as well. Either way, it isn’t hard to find yourself relating.
My point is this: I respond to a certain amount of maturity in my music. And I’m not talking about “maturity” in the sense one invokes that word when they want to scorn someone for being childish. I mean a certain kind of wisdom. A worldview. Something that says “I’ve seen some stuff, and I’ve experienced some things, and I know something you don’t.” And as Fiona Apple or Ibeyi prove, that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be older.
I'm not asking you to love or even like the two above songs. I'm just trying to point out that while I listened to Fearless, I was acutely aware that I was listening to someone who was very very young and doesn't have much to say. In fact, almost suspiciously young. A little bit of research informed me that Taylor Swift was eighteen when Fearless came out. But to me at least, she still sounds like the sixteen year old from her previous album. It's like nothing happened between then and the recording of her second album. Not fame or a vast amount of attention or anything.
Which brings me back to the beginning of this section: Is it fair to essentially criticize Taylor Swift because, in short, she isn’t Fiona Apple? No. But art is subjective, and while she's certainly developed the point of view I thought was missing in the first album, I don’t find that point of view interesting.
Take the song “The Way I Loved You,” which is probably my favorite song on the album. On the surface, it’s a song about how she’s currently with a guy who seems perfect on paper. But he bores her, and she misses the chaos that was her previous relationship. What I found myself thinking about, besides how much of a creepy old man I felt like for having to think about the blossoming sexuality of an eighteen year old girl, is that she’s too young to understand that the reason he bores her so much is because she isn’t attracted to him on any level. (Or she does understand that, and chose to write the song in a needlessly dimensionless way.)
It’s my favorite song on the album because it’s the first that had me think of her as someone with more perspective than the sixteen year old from the first album. (“Fifteen” didn’t do that for me because I felt that a lot of that song is about high school nostalgia. Not “When you’re a teenager, most of your teenaged problems aren’t actually that big a deal.”) She may not know why she feels the way she does, but at least the acknowledgment of "I like chaos" is a side of her you wouldn't be able to find in the first album.
But then my next thought was, “Is that actually interesting? Do I want to listen to someone who may or may not be aware of her own sexuality, or do I want to listen to someone who can write interesting songs about the intersections of sex and emotional connection, or anything at all really, because she has a higher understanding of herself? ”
Me personally, I want the latter. Artists are artists because they react to stimuli differently than the "average" person. So I can listen to a song from Taylor Swift about a fairy tale romance, or a song from Fiona Apple that explores the strength that comes from rage over someone who's misrepresented themselves or how the Diaz sisters count themselves amongst the lonely who want some form of physical and emotional satisfaction or how Conway is going to shoot you.
Taylor Swift doesn't have to be Fiona Apple. But I have the option to choose between Taylor Swift and Fiona Apple, and I choose Fiona Apple because I want to listen to something a little deeper.
I do have positive thoughts about Fearless, and one of those thoughts is that it sounds like a deliberate work of her deliberate vision, and in hindsight, much of her first album sounds like the producer said, “You’re very talented, Taylor! Now I’ll make this sound nice and sing over your choruses.” But there are thirteen songs on Fearless. Ten of them are directly about or somehow involve men or boys, and none of those songs explore them in a particularly meaningful way. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. But there’s a lack of growth I’m finding disappointing.
She can make what she wants. I just wish she had more to say.
Other Thoughts:
Other positives: There’s still a lot of “verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, outro.” But she’s experiments much more with structure on Fearless.
She’s also not playing up an accent I don’t think she ever had and she’s using her voice a lot more affectively.
That said, the production’s still boring.
Quick note about “Fifteen”: Seniors in high school being attracted to the freshmen girls is creepy and weird. Taylor Swift’s high school was creepy and weird. Granted, she says she’s only wishing one of them would notice her. But it’s still really off-putting to me.
I’m not entirely sure I think Taylor Swift understood The Scarlet Letter, or why it exists.
The chorus in “Hey Stephen” sounds like a verse. No real need to point that out. I’m just feeling petty.
Speak Now (2010) (Current Date: 12/2/2017)
As I write this, I find myself in a bit of a strange place. Yesterday, I saw a morning showing of Call Me By Your Name, and I walked out not only convinced that it’ll probably end up being my favorite movie of the year, but totally obsessed with its soundtrack, consisting of some gorgeous classical music, some lush ‘80s European new wave pop, and some Sufjan Stevens at his absolute best. I found myself sort of enraptured. Then in the middle of the night, some senators voted to fuck my entire generation’s future. (I'm referring to the tax bill.) I woke up. I ate some breakfast and played some games. Then a few hours ago, I listened to Julien Baker’s second album Turn Out the Lights, a heart-wrenching album not just about breakups, but also mental illness, drugs, and self-harm. (I have some gripes about the music itself, but as a writer, Julien Baker is devastating.) Then I listened to Speak Now.
All of this is to say that I didn’t exactly enter this album with as open a mind as I did the previous two. I wasn’t already set against it, mind you. But I found it quicker to access the part of my mind that wants to be small, and maybe that’s the same part of my mind that reminded me that this is the album she put out after the famous Kanye West debacle at the VMAs.
I remember this period well because this was the first time I ever really thought anything negative about her or her fans. Of course, Kanye was wrong to do what he did, and no amount of intoxication or undiagnosed narcissistic personality disorder will ever excuse his behavior. (I say this as a huge Kanye fan, by the way.) She had my sympathy. However, in my mind, all that really happened was that one mega-wealthy super celebrity embarrassed another mega-wealthy super celebrity at a celebration for mega-wealthy super celebrities, and the outrage at Kanye lasted longer than it should have.
And there was something deeply off-putting to me about the way people were going out of their way to defend her, partially because I felt at the time that she was fanning the drama in a way I found false (though I don’t remember why I thought that) and partially because I thought, and still think, that there was an unexamined racial component to the way some people were defending her. (This is America, after all. There’s a racial component, spoken or not, to just about everything we do.)
I found myself thinking about this period a lot during my time with Speak Now because as I kept writing in my notes, a theme was emerging: The difference between being genuinely youthful and failing to evolve. The difference between not knowing how the world works and not wanting to find out.
Or to put it a simpler way: I think Taylor goes out of her way to earn your sympathy by portraying herself as a victim or some sort of innocent to be pitied.
“Dear John” is supposedly about her breakup with John Mayer. “Better Than Revenge” is rumored to be about Camilla Belle, whom Joe Jonas apparently left Taylor for. Meanwhile, “Last Kiss” is directly about that breakup, and “Mean” is apparently about music blogger Bob Lefsetz and “Innocent” is about Kanye and “The Story of Us” is about some other ex-boyfriend and so on and so forth.
But at no point is anything ever her fault.
My problem, you see, is not that she’s writing songs about specific people. I am, after all, an ardent fan of hip hop, a genre where not only competition and writing about specific people is a direct aspect of the genre’s origin, but also a genre where Prodigy from Mobb Deep has absolutely no problem shooting you in front of his daughter. (Rest in peace, Prodigy.)
My problem is a lack of self-awareness. So much energy is put into tearing down everyone around her, but there's no exploration of the self, and as a result it feels like an album born entirely out of maliciousness and spite with a grating "it's all your fault" tone.
And I know I’m not making a particularly new point. “She’s immature” is a criticism I’m sure Swift fans are tired of hearing at this point. But here, on her third album, it’s almost oppressive. And yes, “Back to December” is apparently about her regret in breaking up with Taylor Lautner, but admitting you made a mistake once isn’t the same thing as admitting you’re a flawed person.
In other words, the memorable parts of Speak Now feel like some sort of weird victory lap for her own supposed victimhood, and now that she's been bullied, she's now seizing the opportunity to be the bully herself. Or at the very least, it sounds like she's exploiting the fact that public sympathy is on her side. "Kanye West was mean to me, so while we're at it, fuck this random blogger."
And honestly, I wouldn't have had a problem with that if there was at least some acknowledgment that all of this is coming from a place of vulnerability or insecurity. But that moment isn't there, so I'm left thinking about how I don’t want to hear another song from her about how some guy was a dick to her. I want to hear about how it makes her feel that she’s attracted to dicks.
I’ve reached a point in my life where I’ve felt like I’ve outgrown much of what this album has to say, and the thing is I think Taylor has too. It’s clear from the very beginning of Speak Now that she’s becoming a better songwriter and singer. But then a song like “Mean” comes on, and we’re back to the poor little ol’ Taylor schtick, and thus whenever she tries to sound vulnerable, I don’t believe her and I don’t want to. Look at this cover for the single for "Mean" and tell me that on some level she doesn’t know she’s reveling in being pop country’s unfunny Charlie Brown.
Taylor should write about whatever she wants to write about. I am merely some asshole who’s paid for some internet space. But I connect with people because they’re flawed like I am, and I want her to take the spotlight she shines on the world around her and point it at herself.
Other Thoughts:
Apologies if this section's a little repetitive. There's something about the tone of this album where I didn't exactly leave it in the mood to write about it.
Favorite track: Let’s go “Mine.”
Production’s still vanilla, although there’s a lot more rock on this one and I think it kind of works for her.
The more I think about it, the more I think “Innocent” is really unintentionally passive aggressive. In a bad way.
Red (2012) (Current Date: 12/4/2017)
I think I've been talking about lyrics a little too much.
Though lyrics are much easier to discuss than the more direct musical elements, I'm running out of half-assed ways of rephrasing how little I enjoy Taylor's writing up to this point in her career. But more importantly, I think the music itself has played a larger roll in why I haven't been enjoying Taylor's music than I've been letting on, so let's talk about that for a bit.
As I've said before, I'm not as knowledgeable about country as I am about other types of music. I own a copy of At Folsom Prison and A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, as well as a few songs by Hank Williams and Waylon Jennings and some other songs that straddle the line between country and other genres. (Is Patsy Cline's "She's Got You" country?) But when it comes to the genre as a whole, I can’t really claim to know what I’m talking about, and though I always try to keep an open mind, I’m not going to call myself a fan.
That being said, my problem with the music itself on Taylor's albums isn’t the country arrangements or the banjos or the fiddles. My problem is how vanilla it is when all those elements come together. Maybe I like my country a little grimier than Taylor does, but everything she’s made thus far is just a little too nice and safe.
And I think it’s Nathan Chapman’s fault.
Nathan Chapman, for those of you who don’t pay attention to this kind of thing or wouldn't be bothered to listen to all of Taylor Swift’s albums for an article one or two people will read, is the producer behind most of Taylor’s career. He produced or co-produced every song on her first three albums.
Now, I did remember that this is the first album where she dipped her toes into full-blown pop music, and thus I guessed that Chapman wouldn’t be behind the boards on every song. So I decided to play a bit of a game and see if I could guess which songs Chapman produced based on a rugged methodology of my own invention.
There are sixteen songs on Red. Chapman produced or co-produced eight of them, and I correctly guessed seven. (“State of Grace” was the one I got wrong.)
What was my methodology? Simple. I asked myself, “Does this song sound boring?” and if the answer was yes, I assumed it was Chapman. Was that an alarmingly piffling way of phrasing that? Yes. But consider the fact that it worked.
Now here’s another thing to consider: Is it okay to like “nice” music because it’s easy and fun? Of course it is! Hell, I like a lot of this kind of music myself.
But I also like Death Grips!
And M.O.P.!
And Prodigy! Specifically, that song where Prodigy says he’s going throw a TV at you! (Rest in peace, Prodigy.)
I like pop music just as much as everyone else, but I also value risk. I value strangeness and artists taking chances. I value the exploration of darker themes and extreme emotions. Chapman clearly does not, and I’m beginning to wonder how much of my dislike of Taylor’s music so far is ultimately his fault.
Because here’s the thing: Granted, when you have Max Martin working on your pop songs, yes, things will indeed get pretty damn poppy. But I didn’t really understand why someone would have the impulse to turn Taylor Swift into a pop star until I heard this album. I may not personally care for “22” or “I Knew You Were Trouble” or “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” but I can’t deny that they're effective pop songs. They still maintain a little bit of Taylor's country roots, but they build incredibly well towards their poppy drops, and unlike most of this album, I'm going to remember them.
I’m sure there’s someone out there who was deeply sad at Taylor’s turn towards pop music, but that person sure as shit isn't me.
And now I find myself weirdly looking forward to 1989. Though I already have some pretty strong opinions both for and against certain songs on that album, I’m extra curious to hear what Taylor can do when she isn’t being tethered to cautious country music anymore
Other Thoughts:
Favorite Track: “The Lucky One.” The story in the song’s not about her, but it’s clearly about her insecurities about fame, and it’s the first time I’ve ever bought her being vulnerable.
Max Martin is good at making pop music.
I remember listening to “22” when I was twenty two. I rolled my eyes at it then. Now, at twenty six, I kind of hate it because I think she sounds like she’s fifteen and it makes me feel like I’m eighty.
Lyrically, I noticed that a lot of the songs here are looking back on a relationship that already happened, as opposed to one that’s current or could happen or just ended. I didn’t find any of it particularly interesting, but it was cool to hear her get more introspective for once.
Also, I want to listen to an album she makes when she’s forty.
The breakup songs also sound less specifically about certain people and more about breakups in general.
“Ganjo” is a fun word.
1989 (2014) (Current Date: 12/08/2017)
I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder about this album. It was a chip born out of pettiness and factors that have nothing to do with Taylor Swift’s talent, but there was a chip, and it wasn’t so much on my shoulder as much as piercing it deep into my bones.
You see, in the year 2014, I regularly drove an automobile. This automobile did not have an auxiliary output or a tape deck, so I couldn’t listen to my iPod in the car like I do now. (Yes, I still own an iPod.) So I had to listen to the radio, and while I've already complained about the quality of DC radio in this article, it’s a sentiment worth repeating: DC radio, on the whole, is a fucking catastrophe. The major stations try their best, but whenever there’s a mega popular song, there seems to be some tacit agreement that everyone is going to play that song as many times as possible, regardless of which station is playing it when. I know this because DC radio seemed particularly fond of “Bad Blood” and “Shake It Off”, which were, at that point in her career, her two worst songs.
(They also liked “Blank Space” quite a bit, but we’ll get to that.)
The other reason I got a little salty at this album, despite having never listened to it until now, is because it won the Album of the Year Grammy over Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly. I know, I know. If we shouldn’t care about the Oscars then we definitely shouldn’t care about the Grammys. But here’s the thing: To Pimp a Butterfly is… pretty damn good. Like, transcendently good. Like when it comes time for me to write my top ten albums of the decade list in 2020, it will almost assuredly be on there… good.
But when I embarked on this Taylor Swift journey, I found myself looking forward to this album. Sure, part of it was that this is her first full pop album, and I don’t need to listen to another bland country album from anyone ever again. But it was mainly because there’s a detail that I haven’t shared yet: I really like “Wildest Dreams” and I really really like “Style.” I doubt I’m the first person to point this out, but “Wildest Dreams” is every song Lana Del Rey tries to make, but actually succeeds because Taylor can get out of her own way. (Sidenote: I like Lana Del Rey sort of in spite of herself. That’s for another day.) Meanwhile, “Style” is just an all around great pop song, and if I were in charge of which single became the mega-hit, I'd go "Style" in a heartbeat.
So I thought to myself, “I wonder if the album cuts can reach the level of those two songs. Also, will I still hate ‘Bad Blood’ and ‘Shake It Off’ at the same level that I did back when those songs drowned the airwaves?”
Let me answer that second question first so I don’t have to talk about them anymore: Yes. “Bad Blood” is still an anthem for pre-teens to squeal in the backseat of the car while whichever parent sitting behind the steering wheel daydreams about committing suicide at the next soccer game, and it still has the most astoundingly unlistenable chorus in recent memory. (“Dooooooo-ooooooooo-oooooone.”) “Shake It Off,” meanwhile, is still desperately cloying and reeks of insecurity, and listening to it again reminds me of why I want the term “hater” purged from the english language. Or if I can’t have that, I’ll settle for dealing with "haters" in a more interesting manner than "shaking them off." For example, murder.
But other than those two songs, there’s really nothing on this album I outright hated, and while “Style” is above and beyond my favorite song on 1989, everything else is of a certain quality, save for a repetitive chorus here or a shallow premise there or even my ceremonial one billionth listening of “Blank Space.” 1989, when all is said and done, is a pretty solid album.
(Quick sidebar about “Blank Space.” I never hated this song, but the one trick it has going, it’s self-awareness in regards to Taylor Swift’s public persona, got old after the first million times I heard it. I hear it now and I don’t really mind it anymore.)
“All You Had To Do Was Stay” is catchy and effective. “I Wish You Would” not only delivers on the synth pop, but also a new angle on the Taylor Swift post-breakup song. (Basically, "We were horrible for each other, but I wish you would come back.") While “Shake It Off” fails at laughing at the gossipy nature of her public life, “I Know Places” does a good job of injecting it with a little paranoia. Hell, even Nathan Chapman doesn’t entirely shit the bed on his one contribution, "This Love." (Though it’s one of my least favorite on the album.)
Overall, yeah, I’m okay with this album. I don’t love it, and if “artist or act that doesn’t usually put out synth pop unexpectedly puts out a decent synth pop album” is going to continue being a thing, then it’s been done substantially better:
(E•MO•TION is a fucking great album, guys.)
But then again, part of the point of this article is to discover why Taylor Swift became a massive pop act, and this is the first album where I understood why that could be the case. I still hate the songs I hate, and To Pimp a Butterfly is still better than anything Taylor Swift has ever been involved in making. But I get it. Consider the chip gone.
Other Thoughts:
While we’re at it, fuck “This sick beat.”
The one part of “Wildest Dreams” I don’t like is “Handsome as hell.” There’s a certain class to all the other lyrics, and when she says, “Handsome as hell” it shatters the illusion for me.
I’m probably going to get rid of all the Taylor Swift music in my iTunes library when I’m done with this article. But “Style” and “Wildest Dreams” can stay.
reputation (2017) (Current Date: 12/09/2017)
Reputation (which from now on is how I’m going to spell it because at this point in my life, it’s harder for me to not hit shift) is Taylor Swift’s worst album.
You see, there’s something I haven’t given Taylor enough credit for thus far in this article, and that’s a certain quality her writing and her songs have in that they sound best coming from specifically her. I may have found the writing on her first album a little too ill-defined, but she certainly formed her own artistic voice, even if that voice wasn't always being backed by music I cared for. Unlike a lot of generic pop or country, her songs slowly started to sound more like an extension of her as a person.
And you didn’t always have to like that person. Take, for example, Swift's Speak Now era, when she was seemingly at her most thin-skinned. The era when she read a criticism of her as an artist, felt a certain way, and made “Mean.” Sure, we all have the right to roll our eyes, but at least it came from a real place. And because of those little touches and details, her songs have a feeling that they’re Taylor Swift songs, and not something made in the assembly line at the record label.
In fact, the more I think about that truthfulness in her writing, the more I get why she has the mega fandom she has. And it’s when she violates that honesty that she falters most. “Shake It Off” is a song about self-confidence and her own image that’s practically sweating and “Bad Blood” screams, “The desolation of this friendship or relationship or whatever is almost assuredly my fault.” I may not like the music, but she has a kind of integrity that I can respect. (If "I genuinely believe all the stuff that happens to me is other people's fault, and I'm going to lean as hard as possible into that" counts as "integrity." I don't know. That might not be the right word, but hopefully, you know what I mean.)
But while I was too busy developing this strange esteem, I realize now that something fundamental had failed to cross my mind: What is all this integrity ultimately bolstering? You may believe that everyone is out to get you and nothing's your fault, but in the end, that's who you are. That's the voice you're putting out there. Bitterness isn't anything other than bitterness, and on Reputation, it's like she's using it as a literal weapon against us.
As I said in the introduction, I don’t care about the drama that surrounds her or the guys she dates or whatever and whatever and whatever. And I want to maintain that level of apathy not because I think I’m above anything, but because my mind is my mind, and I’d rather think about the things I want to think about. Writing. Art. Chicken parmesan. Pictures of baby Red Pandas on Google Images. Violent hip hop music.
But then she makes songs like “Look What You Made Me Do,” which directly address all the inane nonsense that happens in her life, and I have to think about the leaking of her phone call with Kanye and Kim and her breakups and her feuds and her so ons and her so forths. And whether I want it to or not, my mind drifts towards arguments and opinions I don’t want to have about her as a person or the things she's done or have happened to her because there was a time and a place where I was thinking about literally anything else. And I realize that on some level, that’s the point, and it makes me even more resentful.
And it's not just that song. It’s the whole album. It’s song after song of “My reputation, my reputation, you're a hot dude, my reputation.” But the thing is that if you revolve your career around your own drama, on some level, that fact that the media talks about it all the time is your fault. A wise man once said, “If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. You run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.”
In case the message wasn’t clear, your actions and the way you respond to hardships ultimately define who you are. So when she says “I swear I don’t love the drama, it loves me” in the song “End Game,” my first immediate thought is, “Taylor, you gotta be fucking kidding me with this bullshit."
But when it’s all said and done, the most disappointing part of this album isn’t the lack of introspection or the failure to evolve or whichever devil in her circle got into her head and told her to rap. The most disappointing part is that I thought she, and by extension all of us, outgrew this. We all laughed at the Kanye/Kim thing for a week or two, but then we moved on. And we might’ve moved on forever if Taylor resisted the impulse to rub our faces in it.
But she couldn’t, and in the end, there’s something deeply regressive at the heart of Reputation. There's a soul that doesn’t want to confront itself or address its flaws, so instead it digs up old resentments from the past, ties them up in an EDM/trap-y package, and tries to sell itself as something new or interesting. (Hell, the production literally sounds like it’s from the past.) This guy sucks. That guy sucks. The memory of you hurts me. We've heard it all before, over and over again, and I hated every second of it. And not in a way where I wanted to go enthusiastically make fun of it. I hated it in a way that when I was done, I just felt shitty.
Yet here I am at my desk, and at this point in time, I don’t know if I ever want to hear anything from her again. I do think she’s incredibly talented, and I understand why her fans are as passionate as they are. But I can’t listen to this anymore. In the end, I found Reputation so pointlessly sour that it's hard for me to even care about the music anymore.
So I’m moving on to some other pop. Last night I listened to the new EP from Rina Sawayama, and you know what? I kind of loved it, a lot of which has to do with the fact that it didn't depress the fuck out of me.
And now that this project is over, it feels like a toxic cloud has lifted from the back of my mind because Taylor doesn’t have to lurk there anymore. Maybe she’ll make something I want to hear in the future. But now, metaphorically at least, I’m leaving her behind. And I’m glad. Because it’s not me. It’s her.
Other Thoughts:
I suppose Taylor being more openly sexual on this album is interesting, and the fact that it's interwoven into an album about her own narrative as a celebrity has implications that can be amusing. But I don't care. I'm done.
