#finally someone brave enough to criticise her and Jack

[zot3-flopped]

Excerpts

The Tortured Poets Department delivers some of her most cringe-inducing lines yet. The title track alone boasts the worst on the record, even if it’s a stab at sarcasm. “You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate / We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist,” precedes the clunky “I scratch your head, you fall asleep like a tattooed Golden Retriever.” 

Elsewhere, on ‘Down Bad’ she’s unceremoniously “crying at the gym”, and ‘Florida!!!’, an otherwise cathartic, Southern gothic-imbued collaboration with Florence Welch is marred by the line: “My friends all smell like weed or little babies”.

I Can Do It With A Broken Heart’ highlights her unrelenting work ethic that doesn’t falter amid personal tragedy. But, it seems poised for internet virality than anything more substantial, given its restrained verses that plod along before catapulting into a euphoric, Carly Rae Jepsen-indebted pop chorus. Lyrics like “I’m so depressed I act like it’s my birthday everyday” are almost too glaringly obviously written to be lip-synced into an iPhone 13 front camera.

Musically, it’s an album mostly devoid of any noticeable stylistic shift or evolution. It descends into a monochromatic palette, existing in the same Jack Antonoff-branded synth pop as ‘Midnights’, yet struggling to capture any of its brightness.

Most bizarre, though, is ‘But Daddy I Love Him’, which seemingly exists as her response to the backlash against her brief relationship with The 1975 frontman Matty Healy. Their fleeting romance, which seems to be the muse for much of the record, triggered an explosive reaction from her fanbase who were distraught at Swift’s public association to the singer, given his slew of controversial comments (a few of which centred around her soon-to-be collaborator Ice Spice).

Swift seems to be in tireless pursuit for superstardom, yet the negative public opinion it can come with irks her, and it’s a tired theme now plaguing her discography and leaving little room for the poignant lyrical observations she excels at. It’s why the pitfalls that mire her 11th studio album are all the more disappointing — she’s proven time and time again she can do better. To a Melbourne audience of her Eras Tour, Swift said that ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ came from a “need” to write. It’s just that maybe we didn’t need to hear it.

[zot3-flopped]

#finally someone brave enough to criticise her and Jack

I'm so happy with the NME review. I just finished Rob Sheffield's review of her new album and I was so disappointed. It felt like he didn't write it or maybe he did but was like forced to add things that were not part of his opinion. I don't know. Maybe I'm just really disappointed with his take. There's very little poetry in this album and he knows it. So I'm just disappointed. Hehe...

He didn't put a score but was so irritatingly effusive that Metacritic might count it as a 5*. Hope not though.