#as proven by folklore and evermore

[allamericanb-tch]

taylor swift wrote all the young dudes, no one believed it was really her, and then she wrote the great war to prove them wrong. 

[sharonccrter]

As an ex swiftie that has reconciled with the fact she’s not a good person and now all her music just leaves a bad taste, it’s very easy to see Taylor measures her value on romantic relationships. She seeks validation out of men. She cannot be alone. And one thing I keep getting proven is that she bases her personality on the man she’s dating. In 2019 I genuinely thought the backlash plus the thing with her masters made her be more genuine and grounded and I was happy she seemed to be making steps to use her platform but all of that was just Joe’s influence on her. It wasn’t real for her but was just a reflection of Joe. Folklore and Evermore being her most mature and complex albums isn’t even funny when you know Joe was in it during the whole creative process. Folklore being an album where I felt this was her most authentic self. All of that has been erased the moment she broke up with him. She went problematic again just like Matty and now she’s playing NFL wife and promoting that disgusting association. She finally found a man arrogant enough to match her own narcissism.

Here's the thing: I think we are all influenced by our partners, and they can either make us worse or better people. However, I just find it weird that Swifties say we shouldn't define her by the men she dates when she's literally defining herself that way. Regardless of the fact that TTPS was, on the whole, more about Matty, it's obvious she knew most people would think it was about Joe, especially because of the WhatsApp group, and she marketed it as such. It's a big part of her brand. Same with All Too Well, the 10-minute version, she cast someone who looks a hell of a lot like Jake on purpose. She clearly defines herself by the men she dates.

I agree. I think Folklore was the way that it was because she was influenced by the music Joe liked. That doesn't mean I'm taking away from her achievement with this album. Folklore and Evermore have some of my favourite music from her. However, I think the tone and the maturity of that album leds me to believe Joe heavily influenced it. TTPS is a major step back in terms of those things. There are about six or seven songs I adore. However, if you look at the TC songs, they are immature; they are so high school (sorry, I couldn't resist). The thing is, during the Folklore, Evermore, and even Lover era (and I might even extend that to Midnights...) she had self-awareness - she was saying neither of them are perfect people. TTPS is a return to her "it's all your fault" era. It's a regression IMO.

[tolerateit]

you made the folklore vs evermore poll to prove a point and you ended up proving my point 😈

a sample size under 1000 is simply. not a good representation of the population so your point is proven on the basis of skewed results which i consider INVALID ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[babydollmarauders]

ok so now what albums do you think fit them? 👀 like what album is entirely jack coded? john coded?

jack is speak now and reputation, and maybe midnights too

john is lover and 1989, i feel!

trevor is evermore and red, because angst

quinn is folklore (as proven by my august and illicit affairs quinn fics)

luke is fearless

and idk if i could pin point debut tbh

[tayloralisonswift]

hello there, sorry this took me a while!

my boy only breaks - your reasoning makes perfect sense, thank you! i gasped the first time i listened to this song and the ken thing came up. i was like, oho, a callback to universally-beloved hits different!! plus there's the fun little connection between the sand castles and sandlot in my boy only breaks and the sand hurting her feelings in hits different (although i think the latter is probably more tongue-in-cheek).

my boy also gets a bonus gay point from me because the first time i listened to it i thought 'i'm quee-' was going to end in a different consonant and almost had a heart attack lol. just one of a few gay jump scares in this album!

thank you for googling and confirming the provenance of the imaginary rings! this is a song i skip every time, so um i think we can leave it there and leave the analysis to those who enjoy this song. good for them!

florida!!! hahaha i relate so much to what you said. for four minutes we saw a world where we were ttpd fans. one hell of a drug indeed.

the performance was just? so? gay?? it's been a month and a day and i still haven't fully processed it. like. girl, were you planning on gazing at florence for the duration of the song and dropping to your knees in front of 92,000 people or was that a spontaneous thing???

so yeah, it turns out i'm a florida!!! convert! i guess it's about two women murdering their cheating husbands and skipping off to live happily ever after in florida now?!

bdilh aggravates me because it's a song that i think i would enjoy if i didn't have any of the context, but unfortunately i do have the context because it's not even a little bit subtle! racist jokes can't be chalked up to chaos and revelry! it's grossly disrespectful to try to characterise them that way and then to criticise anyone who raised an eyebrow at her association with that guy! but anyway, moving on!!

imgonnagetyouback - i am not familiar with olivia rodrigo's work so i only realised that the two songs were similar when people posted about it here! not a good look. fun song though and it seems the consensus is generally that olivia's version was better lol.

peter and the closets like cedar! i just found your peter post. your mind, dude*! the seven/peter/dorothea links are so good. i can't recall your face (except of course i can because i see you on the tiny screen all the time). you're my lost fearless leader. i've still got love for you. you said you were gonna come find me. i'll never know if you're the same soul i met under the bleachers.

(* gender-neutral; please let me know if you'd prefer a different term!)

okay, for two people who don't like this album very much we managed to do some good gay analysis i think. yay for rubbing our queer little hands all over this! imagine what we could have done if we'd liked this more, lol.

oh, lover! we were so blessed. and reputation!! shall we discuss that one next? in my head the gayest albums are lover, reputation, evermore and folklore, but i need to work out the ranking. and shout-out to red because i've been in my swiftgron feelings lately because of that one sapphicscience fic lol.

take care, friend <3

@sapphicscience mention <3 yay!

and i love being called dude!

i agree with everything you’ve said but want to just take a moment and lose my mind because she literally got on her knees for that woman. me too honestly, but also i’m a lesbian. idk man maybe florida is a state of mind. maybe when she says she’s going down to florida she means goi— sORRY SORRY.

we’ve done our time (i think that’s a fresh out the slammer lyric) so yes, let’s go on to reputation!!!! here’s a question for ya: are there any songs on it you feel are about someone other than ms kloss? a contentious question in gaylorism but there is no judgment here !!!

mwah mwah!!!

[cyarsk52-20]

While this might sound like (just) a fandom post for Taylor Swift, it’s not.

It’s a remark about how social media sways public opinion and how the patriarchy is still alive and well in American society today.

If you’re not listening to Taylor, you cannot objectively claim a lack of talent. You cannot objectively claim she’s overrated. And you definitely cannot claim to not like her “genre” (unless you listen solely to like death metal or trap).

Taylor has recorded 10 studio albums in 17 years. She has fluidly moved between country, pop, rock, synth, hip hop, folk, alternative, and indie genres.

She has written or co-written 243 songs, some in collaboration with or even for such names like: Little Big Town, Miley Cyrus, Sugarland, The Civil Wars, and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

In her 200 million records sold, Taylor has won 324 awards, including 12 Grammys, 23 MTV Video Music Awards, 40 American Music Awards, 40 Billboard Music Awards, 12 Country Music Awards, and an Emmy.

She is the most-awarded artist of all times at the AMAs and BMAs, and she ties with Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, and Paul Simon for most Album of the Year Grammys.

Swift was “the most streamed artist of 2023 on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music; the first act to place number one on the year-end Billboard top artists list in three different decades (2009, 2015 and 2023); and the first living artist to simultaneously chart five albums in the top 10 of the Billboard 200.”

Rolling Stone described Taylor as “a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture,” and scholars and critics have compared her to literary figures such as Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, and John Keats, as well as to modern songwriters such as Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney.

Over 20 universities include a Taylor Swift course in their catalog, including Harvard, Mizzou, Berkeley, Stanford, and Brigham Young.

Taylor has acted in five movies, headlined six tours, and can play guitar and piano. She has developed, written, and directed several of her own music videos.

She has influenced the music business by revitalizing vinyl records, championing artists’ rights on streaming services, and changing the way label contracts are written. Her journey to take back her intellectual property by re-recording her first six albums is one of the best business and personal decisions any artist has made regarding rights.

She’s not just a talented performer and savvy businesswoman. She is also very human and fights for things she believes in. Taylor speaks up for the rights of women, LGBTQ, and artists.

She has donated millions to charitable relief and philanthropic efforts, as well as to the arts. She generously gave millions of her revenue in bonuses to her Eras Tour team.

She was sexually assaulted by a DJ in Colorado and reported it. The DJ was terminated and sued Taylor for $3 million in damages, so she counter-sued for a symbolic $1 and spent over two years in a legal battle that ended in a jury deciding in her favor. Since then, Taylor has been even more active in fighting for the rights for women to be heard.

She genuinely enjoys her fans and has fun leaving clues and hints in her music to keep her fans engaged and like they’re part of the story. She always seems sincerely delighted to be doing what she’s doing.

Her 17 years in the industry have proven her talent. It shows that she’s earned every fan she has and dollar she’s made. (And if you think she’s only country-pop, then you need to spend a day with Folklore or Evermore.)

If you have a negative reaction towards her as a person, it’s because our society still goes after successful women in a way that men avoid. The media turns on celebrities - especially women - who dare to do things like countersue a sexual assault case, speak against corrupt politicians, or not laugh at misogyny.

I will never apologize for being enchanted by this one. She is a poet, and she’s possibly the most self-aware artist I’ve ever heard speak. 🫶🏻

(ETA: I did not pay for this post. I did not anticipate the shares. And I wasn’t out to seek attention. Why strangers feel the need to message me rude things because I posted on my personal page is beyond me. This is why we can’t have nice things.)

Author: Megan K Hall

[sheikitoff]

breath of the wild as evermore

if you’re up on your taylor swift lore, you know folklore and evermore are considered “sister albums” - both written and recorded during the pandemic, released five months apart, with a shared “cinematic universe” of sorts, and both characterized by taylor as getting lost in the woods (artistically) and staying there for a while. all of that is true, but if folklore is a lush forest in summer or high fall, evermore is a forest in late winter - the trees are bare, the world is quieter, and all around are signs of death and decay; yet even still, peeking out from the snow are hints of life returning, of nature in all its persistence gearing up to bloom again.

like MM, BOTW is a game about dealing with the apocalypse, but while in MM that apocalypse is imminent, in BOTW it’s a few generations past, still in living memory for some (like the zora) but for the most part the formative shadow under which the people of the world were raised and which society is just starting to emerge from. (this is a real sidebar, but i’ve always thought MM and BOTW were the zelda games most visibly influenced by ff7; in MM, with the moon hanging over the world, akin to meteor in disc 3; in BOTW, i see the final shot of midgar’s ruins overtaken by nature in every corner of hyrule.) but botw isn’t evermore just because it’s a sister to mm/folklore. evermore is an album of aching grief, not just for things lost but for potentials never realized, for “could-have-beens” that never were, for longing after that which was once in your reach but no longer is; “we could just ride around / and the road not taken looks real good now.” i think the champions’ fates are among the most haunting of any zelda characters; they were all brilliant and talented, in their primes, leaders in their communities, brave and true with full lives ahead of them, and they all died horribly, trapped and alone. whether or not mipha’s feelings for link were requited or not, she’ll never know, and link will never have the chance to respond one way or another; “i guess i’ll never know / and you’ll go on with the show”.

evermore is also an album about figuring out who you are (or are going to be) after a loss: “and in the disbelief / i can’t face reinvention/ i haven’t met the new me yet.” in botw, this theme is prevalent on both an individual and a societal level; link spends the game both learning who he was before and who he is now, through finding old memories and through making new ones, and likewise hyrule is rebuilding itself, trying to figure out what it’s going to become, but that future kingdom hasn’t quite taken shape yet (nor have it’s tears- sorry for the pun, i’ll stop now). “there is happiness / past the blood and bruise / past the curses and cries / beyond the terror in the nightfall.” yet people are relentless in their persistence, their determination to keep going, to create life out of a wasteland of death; and through the tarreytown quests the game makes you a party to this, makes you and link engage with the way humanity refuses to be stamped out. “oh, i can’t / stop you putting roots in my dreamland / my house of stone, your ivy grows / and now i’m covered in you.”

here’s the part where i say, full disclosure: i played BOTW in the weeks before and months after my grandmother’s death, and for me that game is inextricably tied to my grief. on evermore, taylor has a song grieving her grandmother (see “marjorie”, pack tissues). i don’t believe that’s why i think evermore is BOTW, and i think i’ve proven that here, but it’s be naive of me to think there’s no connection going on in my subconscious because of that.

another difference between MM/folklore and BOTW/evermore is in the pacing; even though both albums are roughly the same length, folklore feels very tightly paced, extremely sonically coherent, with one clear central vision. evermore is a bit more meandering, more experimental, more willing to sit in silence and sadness and watch the frozen landscape for a while. it still plays with different characters and fictional storylines (and like in MM, link/the player spends a lot of BOTW in the role of observer), but they’re not as interwoven as those on folklore; likewise, in BOTW the characters are spread far and wide across hyrule instead of largely gathered in clocktown, their lives are far less intertwined, and while the NPCs do all have scheduled trajectories of sorts they’re far less strict or significant than those of MM. (also of note; while in folklore, the “teenage love triangle” of songs - cardigan, august, and betty, each from the point of view of a different character from the same love triangle - has resolution, a degree of closure, and some real catharsis on “betty”, the evermore equivalent, ‘tis the damn season and dorothea, have no resolution or closure or catharsis of any kind. unfulfilled, just like the champions’ lives and potential.)

all of these themes and ideas are also summed up within one BOTW character: zelda. unfulfilled potential is the name of the game with her, as she’s constantly told she’s a failure for her inability to unlock her powers, while also being shut off from all her research, her potential as a scholar and any potential discoveries her passion could have led her to, and any lives that knowledge might have saved. (in age of calamity, we learn that zelda’s research into technology could and would have been able to save at least some lives, but the canon of that game is questionable, and regardless BOTW zelda doesn’t know any of that because it never happened; she’s just left with the possibility that maybe she could have uncovered something, but no certainty.) zelda’s grief goes without saying, as we see her breaking down in flashbacks, and her longing - for her powers, to be a scholar, to not be a princess, to be free of the burden of prophecy - is everywhere. (not to mention, the game opens with link hearing zelda’s voice but unable to reach her; whether you interpret their relationship as romantic or not, the whole game is framed with a longing for something you can’t reach). and the persistence of hyrule in surviving and rebuilding despite the calamity is reflected in zelda’s persistence in holding ganon at bay for a whole century; and, in the “true ending” scene you get for unlocking all the memories, we see her already making plans for hyrule, for where to go next and how to move forward.

there’s a lot more i could say, but i’ll end with the final track of evermore, fittingly named “evermore”, which i think sums up the themes of this game so well: “and i couldn’t be sure / but i had a feeling so peculiar / this pain wouldn’t be for / evermore.”

addendum: ah, crap, i meant to write something about the champion’s abilities as representation for still feeling the presence of loved ones after they’ve passed, and “if i didn’t know better / i’d think you were still around / i know better / but i still feel you all around”… ah well, it’s long enough as it is

[shadyb00ts]

A Long & Brutally Honest Review of The Tortured Poets Department

So, if you follow this account for some reason, you'd know that four years ago, I wrote about how the albums folklore and evermore made me a Swiftie again. Those two albums were a big part of my 2020 and represent the evolution of Taylor Swift that made me care about her work again. Before that point I suppose I had been more of a casual fan of Taylor, and I never really got into Pop Taylor that much save for 1989. But when she released her pandemic duology, it really hooked me, considering she was playing to her greatest strength--storytelling. I kind of consider them her best work by far. Fair warning, I'm going to bring up folklore and evermore a lot in this review, so to simplify, I'm just going to refer to the two projects as folkmore.

2020 was definitely a high point for me in terms of general Swiftie-isms. 2021 also continued that with the re-releases of Fearless and Red, albums I deeply loved as a teenager. And then in 2022, she released Midnights, her first brand new autobiographical pop record since Lover in 2019, and uhh... I never did a full-fledged review of Midnights, but needless to say I didn't like it all that much. I thought it was a downgrade from the masterpieces of the folkmore duo, and only a few songs stood out to me. A lot of the project I thought was bland and generic for Taylor. I didn't really consider myself a Swiftie anymore after the Midnights era.

Well, I didn't think she'd somehow manage to make an album worse than that one, but here we are.

The thing about me is that, ever since folkmore, I always set myself up for disappointment when it comes to Taylor. When she announces a new project, I always hope that she does something that would really surprise me. Something new and unexpected, something that showcases her growth and evolution as an artist. As a pop music enthusiast since I was a child, I've grown used to pop stars reinventing their image, having unique and distinct eras to keep things fresh and keep everyone guessing.

I wish Taylor did this, and I think according to her fans, she does. In my opinion, Taylor likes to put herself in a box, and this album is the perfect encapsulation of that. Like Midnights, this album is a collection of songs that sound like they've already existed for years from her other albums. Barely any of the tracks made me feel anything really, and any one of them could belong in her other pop albums like Reputation and Lover.

As usual, she teamed up with her decade-long sole producer Jack Antonoff, and honestly, Jack Antonoff has made some great things in the past. Take Lorde's Melodrama for example, one of my all time favorite albums. He did some very interesting, out-of-the-ordinary production on that album. He's shown that he's capable of making really great stuff. This time around though, he created some of the most boring, snooze-fest synthpop I've heard in a while, with very little variety between songs.

Now I love synthpop as much as anyone; some of my favorite artists are MUNA, Allie X and Lights. Their brand of synthpop, however, has more of a grandiosity to it, a presence. Taylor herself has also proven that she can do synthpop of that vein, as 1989 had some great examples of it. This time however, she does nothing to elevate these milquetoast beats. A particularly scathing review I saw coined it as "dog water synth". There's so many recycled production elements, melodies and chord progressions. Taylor, not only am I begging you to work with anyone other than Jack Antonoff, I'm also begging you to stop having soooo many songs on your albums in C major. I get it, that's your key of choice and it's been that way since the beginning, but my god. Probably half this album is in C major. Please find another key.

So the production left a lot to be desired, but what about the lyrics? Taylor's strong suit has always been songwriting, right? And this album is supposed to contain self-proclaimed "tortured poetry", so it'll probably be her most beautifully written works yet. Right?

Well... no.

Something I've noticed about Swifties is that the majority of them only care about lyrics. If you pore through their live reactions of this album, the one thing they're listening for is lyrics. They don't particularly place any value in vocals or production, really anything outside of what Taylor wrote. They even make a meme out of pulling out a dictionary anytime Taylor drops a new project, cause Taylor's metaphors and word choices are so complex.

Do you remember that meme of someone talking about the show Rick & Morty? Some fan of that show made this long post about how a person has to have a very high IQ to understand Rick & Morty. The show where the most popular joke is an entire episode where Rick turns into a pickle and shouts "I'm Pickle Rick!!!!" for the entire runtime. Well, that same phenomenon is happening again with Swifties and this album.

I've seen more than a few of her diehard stans claiming that anyone who critiques or dislikes this album just doesn't understand "basic reading comprehension" or the concept of metaphors. That this album is just too smart for their tiny little brains to grasp. Mind you, this is an album with gems such as "You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate / We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist / I scratch your head, you fall asleep / Like a tattooed golden retriever" and "Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto" and let's not forget her romanticizing the 1830s "but without all the racists".

I resent the notion that this woman is exempt from criticism. Everything she writes is not gold. It boggles my mind that the same person who once wrote things like "Your Midas touch on the Chevy door / November flush and your flannel cure" or "Leaving like a father, running like water" or "I made you my temple, my mural, my sky / Now I'm begging for footnotes in the story of your life". She's proven time and time again that she's a very capable, very creative songwriter. And honestly, some of that is still present in this album, albeit very few and far between. It's bogged down by the above examples, which I think are some of her worst writing to date. And I thought "Hey kids, spelling is fun!" was bad.

One of the reasons the folkmore albums captivated me was that Taylor really flexed her storytelling muscles and wrote songs from other people's perspectives, even creating fictional characters. The song "this is me trying" from folklore is one of my favorite examples of this, a beautiful song about characters who are struggling with suicidal thoughts and alcoholism. Another standout in terms of writing is "epiphany", where she draws parallels between soldiers dying on beaches in World War II and the modern-day soldiers that were hospital workers during the height of the pandemic.

This was the type of shit that she never wrote about, because up until that point, her work had been 90% diaristic confessions. And yeah, that was the initial appeal with Taylor, that she was a small town girl whose songs felt like diary entries and you could really relate to her feelings. I remember listening to songs like White Horse and You're Not Sorry as a teenager and crying over a cheating ex that I never even had. Taylor was always really good at making music that perfectly sounded like whatever feeling she was trying to convey, and it's what made them so relatable.

Whenever she writes autobiographical songs nowadays, however, as a billionaire superstar writing about very specific scenarios and high profile relationships in her life, I find it hard to relate to anything, really. In this album for example, plenty of the songs are about her summer fling with Matty Healy, someone who I couldn't care less about. I was looking for songs about Joe Alwyn, because it was the longest relationship she had ever been in and he was a huge part of her life. And sure enough, songs like So Long London and loml did make me feel things, because I felt that her heartbreak was genuine over this relationship ending. So Long London is easily the best written song, because it's sincerely coming from a place of pain that many can relate to after a years-long love story ends. That to me encompasses the "tortured poetry" she was talking about more than any of the other songs were able to convey.

But like I said, most of this album is about Matty Healy. I have absolutely no idea what this man did that made her dedicate an entire album to him, a person that really does not matter in the grand scheme of things. He's a gross weirdo, so I mentally checked out during a lot of the songs centered around him, because no Taylor, I can't relate to the feeling of being a pop star that just got out of a seven year relationship and had a brief fling with a nasty lead singer of a band that's no longer relevant. That is a very specific thing that you went through that I have no strong feelings about, nor do I care about that much. I liked The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived though, I guess. I wouldn't go out of my way to listen to it, but it was decent and I liked the outro portion.

Another song I liked at first was Florida, the collaboration with Florence Welch. I think I liked it initially because A) Florence, B) it was finally something that sounded unique and different, and C) Florence's verse has a callback to the song "no body, no crime" from evermore which I thought was cute. But honestly, after a few more listens, the song is... Yeah, it's bad. The chorus is very grating to my ears, and not even Florence could save it. She sounds great of course, because it's her, but the song itself is just not giving what it's supposed to.

And then the other chunk of the album is about her current boyfriend, football player Travis Kelce. Because who couldn't relate to the feeling of being an international pop star dating an NFL football player? It's a very universal experience, like who hasn't, y'know?

Yeah, as you can tell, I didn't care for these songs either. I'm so tired of hearing about that man and their relationship. Everything I've heard about them being together has been completely against my will.

On top of the 16 songs on the standard album, she surprise dropped another one called "The Anthology", and that title piqued my curiosity because an anthology is a collection of different stories, so I thought she was bringing back the folkmore vibes. Turns out it was as if somebody sucked the life out of those two albums. This may sound harsh, but the Anthology portion of this album sounds like if you bought folklore and evermore on clearance. Just like the bulk of the first 16, I felt nothing. Out of 31 songs in total, I only liked 2 or 3.

This may sound a little mean, but I think I've made it pretty clear that I just... don't care about her life anymore. I don't find her experience as a global superstar selling out stadiums and flying around on her private jets to be interesting. It's certainly not relatable in any way, either. The reason I hold the folkmore albums in such high esteem is because yeah, while there are some autobiographical songs in there, the majority of them are fictional works. I've kinda been spoiled by those songs, because now I know what Taylor is capable of. I want her to go back to writing songs from other perspectives and really challenge herself, step out of that mediocre pop box she's put herself in ever since Midnights. I say all this because she's proven she can do it, so she doesn't need to backslide. She doesn't need to downgrade.

The best analogy I can think of is this. If you play Pokemon, then you know that whenever a Pokemon is evolving, you can press the B button to stop it from happening. I think the folkmore albums were her evolution process, and then someone pressed B and put a stop to it, and that's how we got Midnights and now this. Maybe she pressed the button herself, and she just likes to stay in her little comfort zone because she knows that her billions of fans will like whatever she does at this point. That's why I believe Taylor and Jack barely put in any effort with this project, because they don't have to. Swifties will like whatever they put out. They don't have to try new things or challenge themselves. It's an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" situation.

If you're a Swiftie reading this, and you didn't really love this album, I just wanna say that it's okay to critique it. I have plenty of artists that I stan, but I'm not going to love everything they do or whatever they put out. I can be a huge fan of someone and still use my critical thinking skills, still have my own opinions. Don't be passive or follow whatever the popular consensus is.

On the flip side, if you love this album, then please don't try to make it seem like it's this complex poetic masterpiece that only smart people get. Don't act as if Taylor is exempt from criticism, and anyone that dares to critique anything she does is just stupid or "doesn't get it". That's a very reductive and small-minded view of music criticism, and media literacy in general. No artist or their work is above critique. Period.

Anyway, that's pretty much all of my thoughts. Thanks for reading this all the way, and I appreciate you for caring enough about my opinion! And remember Swifties, use critical thinking skills and please don't dox me!

[always-rolling-my-eyes]

Day 9 of The Tortured Poets Department countdown which means we are headed back to the woods for Evermore

Just when we thought Taylor couldn’t shock us anymore, she releases yet another surprise album, all within the same year. Folklore’s sister album continues the whimsical and ethereal storytelling of folklore but while still having its own unique feel and identity; it’s the winter to folklore’s summer. It also continued the amazing collaborative work of Taylor with Aaron Dessner, making it clear he was here to stay. This album also led to some of the most anticipated fan moments during The Eras Tour, screaming the bridge of Champagne Problems and shining the lights for Marjorie. Although it is referred to as the ‘forgotten album’ by some, it has proven to be yet another piece of Taylor’s discography which has cemented her as the legendary artist and songwriter she is and will always be known as, forever and evermore.

My top 3 from this album:

‘Tis the Damn Season

Long Story Short

Dorothea

Honorable Mention: Ivy

Most Underrated Song: Closure

[aftaylorglow]

get your shit together

these past few weeks, i've been seeing tweets about how joe loved taylor when she was at her lowest, but he couldn't love her when she's at her highest. then a few days ago, i was listening to renegade and thought about that.

i tapped on your window on your darkest night the shape of you was jagged and weak

i think one of the things that folklore and evermore taught us is that taylor can write from any perspective. but it's easy to assume that because she's singing, she's talking from her perspective.

the song has been out for two years so i'm sure i'm not the first one to come to this conclusion, but renegade makes so much sense if you see it as taylor talking about herself from the perspective of a partner.

i'm saying it's joe purely because of when this was written/released and the whole he loved her at her lowest thing. we also know that in call it what you want, she also used "darkest night" as a lyric.

there was nowhere for me to stay but i stayed anyway

one of the biggest mysteries of my swiftie life is the summer of 2016. breaking up with calvin, meeting tom and joe at the same time, dating tom, breaking up with tom, getting together with joe, possibly cheating on one of these men with one of these men...the timeline is unclear to me and i fear we won't ever really know, especially with joe now out of her life.

anyway, i interpreted the above line as her meeting him at a point in her life where she didn't have space for him. maybe when she was still with someone, maybe when she's freshly out of a relationship and didn't want to be in another one yet. but he stayed anyway.

and if i would have known how many pieces you had crumbled into i might have let them lay

taylor tends to be hard on herself. oftentimes, she knows she's that bitch but she has moments where she's so insecure, especially about how her celebrity affects her relationships. i mean we've gotten a ton of anxiety-induced songs these past six years. you're losing me is the latest example with the line, "i wouldn't marry me either, a pathological people pleaser."

sometimes i think she thinks she's not worth everything her partner has to go through just to be with her. i see the verse above as the perfect thesis statement for this observation. it's like, "if i'd only known just how deeply you're messed up, i wouldn't have bothered."

and this hurts because we don't know if her partner actually thought of these things. it's what she thinks her partner must feel toward her, which says so much more about how she views herself.

are you really gonna talk about timing in times like these? and let all your damage damage me? and carry your baggage up my street?

this supports my previous statement about how this is how taylor views herself. she's damaged. she has a ton of baggage. and these are what she's bringing to the relationship. is it worth it? she probably thinks not. it's why she probably said the timing isn't right for them right now. and why he's asking, in incredulity, if now's the time to talk about timing. after all, he's already stayed. he's proven he can tough it out.

you wouldn't be the first renegade to need somebody

this reads as something very dismissive of the other person's feelings. but remember, in this interpretation, it's taylor talking to herself in the perspective of her partner. so she's basically telling herself to stop being so self-centered. hold up her end of the relationship and try.

is it insensitive for me to say "get your shit together so i can love you" is it really your anxiety that stops you from giving me everything or do you just not want to?

i feel like this verse shows her fear of being found out. she has made up all these excuses about why she couldn't give everything to this relationship and she's scared that the time will come when her partner will call her out and discover that maybe, after all they've been through, she's just not willing to try.

which is a very interesting thing to think about! from previous albums, we've gotten songs and explanations from taylor about how early in their relationship, she was the one who wanted to give up. to save him from herself. but he didn't want to leave. he wanted them to work. when taylor was explaining peace, it was clear that eventually she wanted to make the relationship work by making herself and her life seem as normal as possible and not be this elephant in the room. and then, in you're losing me, she begs him to "do something babe, say something." eventually, he gave up on them, too.

you fire off missiles 'cause you hate yourself but do you know you're demolishing me? and then you squeeze my hand as i'm about to leave

once again, this has taylor's self-loathing written all over it. "you fire off missiles 'cause you hate yourself" is similar to "my words shoot to kill when i'm mad, i have a lot of regrets about that" she's aware of her self-loathing and how she turns it outward and hurts her partner. the use of the word "demolishing" implies intent, too.

the last line also supports what i said earlier about her thinking she's self-centered. because isn't it selfish to deliberately hurt the person who held you through your darkest moments and then stop them from leaving when you've been pushing them away this entire time?

anyway, it's 6:41 am and i just wanted to let all this out because listening to it a few days ago and thinking of the song as her talking about herself from the perspective of someone who wanted to love her made me sad.

[ileftherbackhome]

the one thing i really, really don't understand about kaylors is that karlie pretty definitively stabbed taylor in the back and did it publicly.

like, we know taylor, she's written songs over weaker betrayals. being in an instagram photo with the man who literally stole taylor's music from her not long after he did it is like

if that's not ending a friendship that is 100% ending any romantic relationship. because how do you trust someone after they pull a dick move like that? like i get that he's her manager but like

she could have said no to the photo.

That's what's so embarrassing about being a gaylor, anon.

We have people in this community who are right about kaylor being real in 2014 but who have fallen into a conspiracy theory black-hole where they have basically wasted six years of their lives on this "joe is a beard theory." It's like, dude, yeah, folklore and evermore are very very sapphic, I agree.

But it's not a fucking happy ending? Like, it's like they hear "long story short" and "invisible string" and they believe that somehow, it all worked out in the end? IDEK, but it's time to go, hoax, the great war, and my tears ricochet explicitly point to their romantic relationship ending and like being OVER OVER. She wrote maroon about the bitch, like, it's over. She put her in the same category as jake/john with the RED era. Like, I think it's time to let it fucking go. Don't even get me started on the absolute insanity of karlie's baby being taylor's or whatever. It's pure insanity.

I think the issue is that with Karlie, Taylor was unhealthy and therefore, very fucking public about her relationships. It didn't start in 1989, but it peaked then. And so, kaylors especially are stuck in 1989 where they wish taylor was as available to them as she once was. They hate how private she is with her relationship with Joe. They often claim that having pap photos of the two together means that their relationship is "fake," but taylor has never said she wanted to HIDE her relationship, she has only ever said she doesn't want to discuss it with the public. That's very different. She sings about Joe all the time in her music, she brings him occasionally with her to events because she's not ashamed or wants them to HIDE. She just doesn't want her relationship to be the topic of conversation in media interviews.

It's so wild, because like, girl we have photos of real couples going on pap walks. Like paid pap walks. Is everyone in hollywood in a beard contract? I don't understand the logic that goes into 2023 kaylor theories because they're so fucking delusional. You really have to focus on like one lyric or one part of a performance or one sentence in an interview to really pretend like any of these theories hold any water. Like "i think he knows i want you" is apparently evidence that joe is a beard but she literally spends the WHOLE song talking about how horny a man is making her??????????

Don't even get me fucking started on grammygate. Like, THEY are the ones who started with the assumption that "joe doesn't deserve to win a grammy for folklore" but there is no EVIDENCE for that, especially not for taylor swift just handing that shit over to anyone. Are you guys serious? I think that's what gets them still, is this insane conspiracy that grammygate is a real, proven theory because obviously joe can't have worked on folklore with taylor. Without grammygate, midnights would have been so poorly received by kaylors.

They hear taylor sing "i find myself running home to your sweet nothings" and think she's talking about her mother. Like, it's gross at this point how delusional they are.

IDK, I'm here because I want Taylor's queerness to be respected by the swiftie fandom and conspiracy kaylors are very off-putting to normal people who see the gay shit but think in order to accept the gay shit, they HAVE to accept grammygate/joe is a beard to validate taylor's bisexuality. Like, the eras tour is so fucking gay of her I cannot believe it.

But when you have people on here who are literally looking at nails and thinking taylor fucking fisted a bitch at her after-grammys party (because in that photo, ALL the nails look short. Did she insert ALL her fingers into a vagina??? or are u completely ignoring the muna photos where the tips are very visible still as well as the fact that camera angles matter), hetlors are going to refuse to accept taylor's queerness because it's wrapped up with delusion.

Like, karma being a rainbow flag???? august into illicit affairs into my tears ricochet? lavender folklore dress? the bisexual lighting of lover era and enchanted???????????

Taylor literally liking a post that says shes a bunch of rainbow emojis and it shows in 2019??????????????

I want normal swifties to understand it's not an all-or-nothing scenario. You CAN see the gayness without thinking she's fucking a married mother still, you know??????

this has been a rant lmfao but yeah, I want swifties to stop invalidating taylor's bisexuality on all sides of the aisle.

[wegotcrowns]

The End of Toe?

I have so many thoughts whirling around in my head ever since I heard the news of Taylor and Joe reportedly splitting up. I woke up this morning thinking this news was just all a nightmare, but I was soberly proven wrong as the minutes I spent awake started to increase. Why does it feel like I am going through this breakup? Are these just rumors or did they actually split? What about the poignant lyrics that Taylor has so beautifully crafted over the course of the last six years about Joe? 

Swifites have not had an easy history with the media. And as a previous journalist myself, I’m finding the struggle to be extra challenging. So far, every news outlet that I have read will confirm the report by “a source close to the pair.” This could literally be anyone, including her publicist Tree Paine. But what’s baffling to me the most is the fact that Tree (who is known to be vocal when it comes to alleged rumors about TS) has yet to confirm or deny these reports. 

Personally, I refuse to 100% believe this is true until Taylor, Joe, or Tree come out with a statement. But that’s not what this blog post is about. 

This morning, I found it very hard to listen to any TS song about Joe. If this is painful for me, I cannot even imagine what TS is feeling. Taylor and Joe’s relationship is so symbolic of love, magic, life after death, peace, and happiness. He was at the heart of reputation, the inspiration behind Lover, a helping hand with folklore and evermore, and the glue to Midnights. He is literally woven into HALF of Taylor’s discography. Taking Joe out of the equation is like ripping the rug out from underneath, leaving your feet to land on a cold surface. The lyrics are still there but how are we supposed to listen to them the same? We found hope in these lyrics. We found love. We found a new beginning. 

Even with Taylor and Joe having an extremely private relationship, she was able to paint their love so vividly: 

The entire world didn’t know a thing about her relationship but Swifties knew. We knew that TS would never be able to walk Cornelia Street again if they were to ever split (so I guess, RIP Cornelia Street?) We knew that life would have no meaning for TS if Joe were to ever walk out on her. We knew that their love was so powerful, it was able to drown out the noise from outside. We knew that Taylor began to embrace previous heartbreaks because it led her to the true love of her life. 

Aside from the lyrics, it’s so hard to imagine a love like this ending. I am also fully aware that I have zero context into this alleged breakup and have no idea what could have led to it, but what I do know is that it’s not a good day for love. I will not go as far to say that this now makes it hard to believe in love, but never in a million years would I have fathomed this love coming to an end. And I am struggling with it. 

My heart is with Taylor and Joe. If they truly did split, I hope they both heal from this and find happiness... whatever that means for them :( 

[9w1ft]

the bearding does not necessarily what annoys me. It just how cares she can be about gaylors. What “weirds” rumors has the media create about toe? Marriage, pregnancy, some break-up rumors from trashy magazines.

you know what the swifties see as weird rumors? That she is gay, toe is a beard, she is in love with karlie kloss.

So you know swities willl be spiteful to gaylors not the “media.” Why are you putting a target into a small community made up of mostly young gay fans?? That is what I found unnecessary

you are not alone in feeling this way, and i understand.

for me, i have come to a point in my journey here where i have recognized that taylor does not change the way she acts regarding these issues, no matter how much people point out to her how it might hurt people or what she could do better.

she didn’t change after lover (rolling stone article)

she didn’t change after folklore (betty)

she didn’t change after evermore (it’s time to go)

from our perspective, each of the above incidents (and the many others in between) are part of the same narrative. but i believe that from her perspective, each incident is the outcome of specific and pressing circumstances at the time, the result of a decision she made for the sake of her and the ones she has dedicated her life to.

there is an unfortunate gap that happens here between her perspective and ours. i am not saying any of her choices are necessarily “good”. but tough decisions are usually not black and white. and i personally can’t expect her to ‘choose us’ over her loved ones, whether or not that’s “right”. in my opinion, taylor expressed some version of this to us in the archer: ‘who could ever leave me, but who could stay’

and just as she takes every step she can to protect herself and her very unique circumstances, we must also individually do what we need to do to protect ourselves. because, if it’s true that she does not change, the only thing we really have control over is ourselves.

we have options. we can take breaks or leave the fandom. we can lower our threat level or shrink our target… ie blog anonymously, and choose our platform or how we word things. to protect our hearts, we can be more aware of not letting our expectations get the better of us, and accept that while some things will be proven right, other things will not. another thing we can do is to find another way to look at this experience entirely. i have chosen to focus on the parts of this experience that i love, and do my best not to sit too long in a dark headspace because that is important to me… everyone is different and everyone has to find their own balance.

i am sorry if this is not written in a clear way, as i am very sleepy. but thank you for letting me share my thoughts ♥️

[tolerateit]

when she announces something at 8am est (like she did folklore & evermore)… then the 8 theory nonbelievers will see

at this point it's embarrassing if you don't believe in the 8 theory like we've been proven right time and again it's just reality now

[taylortruther]

Ask anyone who has the chance to chart the entire top 10 and see if they’ll say no!!! They wouldn’t!! And the thing is no one except Taylor has that opportunity and she would be a fool not to make history.

right and many musicians have said they actually hate chasing the charts because they feel it's creatively stifling, which is totally fair, but it's also fair that taylor wants to prove herself with it... especially because she's proven herself out of those terms with folklore and evermore

[bananaofswifts]

Taylor Swift – ‘Red (Taylor’s Version)’ review: The most beautifully reconstructed pop record of 2021

The latest arrival in Swift's ongoing series of re-recordings is nothing short of stunning

5.0 rating

By Mark Sutherland

The original ‘Red’ marked the moment that Taylor Swift moved from country music’s brightest star to bona fide pop icon. Swift’s nascent songwriting genius combined with Max Martin’s proven pop production polish to create something so irresistible the whole world swooned.

But that renders replicating its magic nine years on no small task. Since 2012, Swift has reinvented herself multiple times, most recently with the sublime lockdown indie-folk of ‘Folklore’ and ‘Evermore’. To travel back to the musical mindset of ‘22’ and ‘We Are Never Getting Back Together’ should be nigh-on impossible. After all, ‘Red’ was a masterpiece, so why risk tearing it all up?

But then Swift is only actually interested in tearing up old deals via her righteous mission to reclaim control of her master recordings, sold first to Scooter Braun, then moved on to private equity firm Shamrock Capital. And the most refreshing thing about her re-recordings programme is, that while faceless businessmen have treated these songs as mere numbers on a spreadsheet, Swift handles them with love and respect, however much she has grown since.

So the album’s emotional core remains – as ‘22’ notes – “happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time”, a glorious gamut of feelings and styles that remains as irresistible now as it did when it first shimmied into our lives.

And, while the occasional guitar seems a little edgier and Max Martin himself doesn’t appear to have directly worked on these versions (trusted lieutenant and original co-producer Shellback does the honours, alongside others, on those songs “for MXM Productions”), ‘Red’’s astoundingly deep original tracklist is flawlessly recreated. It may be hard to imagine Swift coming up with something as frothy as ‘Stay Stay Stay’ in 2021, but to hear her sing it with the same guileless delight as in 2012 is a joy. And ‘We Are Never Getting Back Together’’s superlative delivery of the line, “Hide away and find your piece of mind/With some indie record that’s much cooler than mine”, shows Swift either knows she’s now made two alternative albums greatly superior to whatever her errant beau was listening to at the time, or she’s really been working on her sarcasm skills during lockdown.

And then there Swift’s reinterpretations of tracks that didn’t make the final ‘Red’ cut. We get her own, wonderful takes on ‘Babe’ and ‘Better Man’, songs that became huge country hits for Sugarland and Little Big Town respectively. And she collaborates with Phoebe Bridgers on brilliantly bittersweet alt-ballad ‘Nothing New’; with Chris Stapleton on classic country cuss ‘I Bet You Think About Me’; and with fellow now-superstar Ed Sheeran on the heartfelt ‘Run’, a downhome companion to the main album’s ‘Everything Has Changed’.

The album’s greatest moment, however, comes from Swift alone. ‘All Too Well’ has long been acknowledged as perhaps her greatest ever song, but the extended version here is truly astounding. Already home to the stunning couplet “You call me up again just to break me like a promise/So casually cruel in the name of being honest”, this rendition is peppered with similarly staggering lines throughout 10 minutes of quiet devastation that show the true worth of Swift as both songwriter and artists’ rights crusader.

That’s why, in the battle of rouge against the industry machine, Red wins every time. And that’s why the most beautifully constructed pop record of 2012 is now the most beautifully reconstructed pop record of 2021.