Let us go then, you and I/When the evening is spread out against the sky/Like a tight end playing in the Super Bowl -- The Tortured Poets Department, Taylor Swift, April 19

Fortunately Metacritic preserved the original:

While the feelings here are melodramatic and overexpressed, sometimes to the point of ridiculousness, this also has some of Swift’s best work, and much of the best pop music ever made.

Also I was being quite deliberate in how I framed the imperial phase point. Not everyone’s imperial phase (assuming they have one) starts immediately but it’s rare for it to continue much beyond a decade into their career regardless of when it started.

I’m looking at the top 25 songs in that Rolling Stone article and realized I only know two songs in there (blank space and cruel summer).

For how ubiquitous she is as a celebrity I think Tennant might have a point. For those of us not actively following her she doesn’t seem to have the sort of huge hits that non-swifties from different generations can id easily. At least outside the US that’s my perception.

So per example, let’s say: Bruno Mars, who began releasing music at pretty much the same time in the mid 00s as Taylor, has almost the same number of #1 chart hits (8 vs 11) and I guess it was my first thought because he got compared to MJ a lot. He has Uptown Funk.
Everybody knows Uptown Funk. That one is surely on the same level of massive popularity that Billie Jean had.

For Taylor it’s less clear to me. She does have many hits that even a non-swiftie like me can recognize: “shake it off”, “i knew you were trouble”, “blank space”, “bad blood”, “style”, “never getting back together”…. So the hits are definitely there… but I don’t think any of those were as globally massive as a “Billie Jean” or “Uptown Funk”.

many xps

Red was positioned as Taylor's First Pop Album, in the sense that it deliberately pivoted away from country by enlisting Max Martin and other pop producers. But yeah, she already had big pop crossover hits before that; I sometimes forget that "You Belong with Me" is as old as it is.

xp my kid said recently that he didn’t even know “Shake It Off” was Taylor Swift (I guess it’s just a song that’s always been famous for him).

the martin era feels like a weird anomaly in her discog at this point

Not as many dubstep drops these days, true

"You Belong With Me" could be closer to what Tennant would prefer, in a literary way: a first-person story where the chorus captures the underside and the versus capture the concrete specifics of the situation, with no knowledge of who's singing it needed.

A bit odd to me to say she doesn’t have a “billie jean” since she lives in a post-radio landscape. She is, imho, extremely famous because of that post-radio landscape.

Her massive popularity is fueled by social media and the huge amount of fan support online she gets. In a pre social network era I don’t think she’d be anywhere as huge as she is.

xp *the verses

Not as many dubstep drops these days, true

― jaymc, Friday, April 26, 2024 11:31 AM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

her writing also contorted itself to the martin/shellback form and produced lyrics like “so don’t think it’s in the past / these kinda wounds they last and they last.” antonoff’s production, by contrast, encourages her storytelling (for the most part), and i think it’s interesting that it ultimately took over

taylor's list of #1 hits is pretty misleading, since a few are just the first songs from her albums or taylor's version albums, not standalone hits per se.

for example, i have never heard "cardigan" on the radio before.

i do think taylor's hits from speak now, red, and 1989 are the exact kind of hits that tennant seems to think she doesn't make

I think her rise to popularity in America is much different than in other parts of the world, specifically because of Country radio. From 2007-2010 or so she was as huge in Country as she later became in pop. And for younger people there was a lot of bleed over from that format. In 2008-09 I was working at a liberal arts college and every time I saw a student gathering with music, they were playing Taylor Swift. If you went to the beach, someone would be playing “Teardrops on my Guitar” or “White Horse” or “Tim McGraw” or “Love Story” or “Should’ve Said No” on a boom box.

I think she’s also at the point in her career - and has been for several years - where being a hit singles artist is beyond her. So yeah, Antonoff taking over Martin/Shellback was clearly the right move to what she was trying to accomplish (a body of work vs a collection of hit singles)

And since her fans will stream the shit out of even at the most obscure b-sides she doesn’t even need the charts.

i should amend my post from before and say fearless instead of speak now. the fearless ones were the first megahits

I guess my point re: 1989 was that's when she became seen as a true "pop star," rather than a primarily Country-identified artist (at least in the US) with big crossover hits – but it's probably tangential to Tim F's point anyway (or I straight-up missed his point, even more likely)

She was a superstar long before 1989 came out.

it does seem hard to imagine somebody being like "I like Taylor's big hits but that's it." With few exceptions I think you're either pretty heavily invested or all the way out.

“we are never getting back together” was her first big POP move I thought

Well yeah, that's when I got on board (and then bought Red, loved it)... but it was a transitional phase. I'm splitting hairs I guess!

This is the same conversation people have about Outkast, where they released a series of platinum selling albums but a lot of pop people didn’t hear about them until “Ms. Jackson” or even “Hey Ya”

For Taylor it’s less clear to me. She does have many hits that even a non-swiftie like me can recognize: “shake it off”, “i knew you were trouble”, “blank space”, “bad blood”, “style”, “never getting back together”…. So the hits are definitely there… but I don’t think any of those were as globally massive as a “Billie Jean” or “Uptown Funk”.

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Friday, April 26, 2024 10:19 AM (fifty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Totally hear what you're saying but comparing anyone to literally the biggest pop star of all time isn't really fair. I'd compare her career and popularity to someone like Billy Joel, perhaps.

Also "Uptown Funk" just happens to sound a lot like "Billie Jean" and we should probably be thankful that Taylor has never tried to make a funk pop record with Mark Ronson

Yeah Taylor is “career artist” in a way that hasn’t really existed since last century.

i feel like "shake it off" is as ubiquitous as any song in the 21st century as far as pop goes. up there with "uptown funk". non-fans might not know who did it, but they know it. maybe i shouldn't be speaking for the entire country though. fuck it, i'll speak for them. they know that damn song. and "all about that bass" as well.

and "seven nation army" obviously...

Yeah I guess “shake it off” is that song in her discography.

Also agree on her being closer to a Billy Joel than a Michael Jackson. She seems to be valued more (and I think she also prioritzes - as a “singer songwriter” than as a “popstar”.

She’s a little bit of that a little bit of the other but speaking in general terms I mean.

Swift could do a good cover of “New London Boy.”

or "Left To My Own Devices"

Aired on November 1st, 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAhAz7JU0dg

Haha – see, that's a great pull ("Over the past month...")

Except it posits a preexisting superfandom that the adults are responding to

I guess my point re: 1989 was that's when she became seen as a true "pop star," rather than a primarily Country-identified artist (at least in the US) with big crossover hits

My point was that Red is when that happened, although I suppose it took the extent of the Red album cycle (er, era) to solidify that image in people's minds. And certainly there was symbolism in her moving from Nashville to New York in the months before 1989 was released (and "Welcome to New York" being the first track on that album).

For sure, I agree on Red – as I said, it may be splitting hairs differentiating Red from 1989 (even though "Shake It Off" is when the true culture shift happened, as that SNL sketch illustrates)

This may be one of those cases where everyone agrees on the facts, we're just looking at it in different ways... or whatever

I bow to no one in my love for 80s PSBs, but cannot think of another band who get such an easy ride from the press. Half of their new album, like pretty much everything they've released for the last 20 years, is absolute cringey codswallop, yet they still get treated like peerless pop gurus. "Why don't they write songs like they did in the 80s?" What an insufferable old buffoon!

That said, I would like to hear TS do a version of I Want A Dog, just listing different breeds of cat.

or maybe I Want an Ex and list those

Yeah as a Taylor fan more or less from the jump — liked the singles on the first album, went all-in on Fearless — I do think 1989 marked a real shift. Its way was certainly paved by Red, but 1989 is the first one where it felt like EVERYONE was talking about/aware of her at once. A situation that has only become more pronounced since.

fearless/1989/folklore are the real flashpoints in her career

For those w/Amazon music, apparently there's a "Track by Track" feature where she discusses the album...track by track.

she’s like Bruce Springsteen

Uptown funk sounds more like “give it to me baby” to me

Taylor does seem like Springsteen yeah, i mean just absolutely massive and an artist known for storytelling and perhaps vibes and iconography moreso than huge hooks. which isn't to say neither have hooks, but for example i wouldn't say Springsteen beats Petty or Mellencamp in that department, much like TS doesn't beat some of her contemporaries. as a late-blooming Springsteen fan i don't think it's an insult even if i'm not a TS fan. (i'm convince-able in terms of her overall work, though this new album is distinctly unconvincing imo.)

tennant does say that "shake it off" is no "billie jean" so i took his point to be more about pop craft from his pop nerd perspective than ubiquity

Yeah “shake it off” is embarrassing compared to “billie jean” but most top 10 songs are tbh.

Half of their new album, like pretty much everything they've released for the last 20 years, is absolute cringey codswallop, yet they still get treated like peerless pop gurus. "

But is it any good?

It’s worth noting that “Shake It Off” is not even particularly good. I think any discussion of Taylor’s “pop craft” that uses that song is a barometer is necessarily going to find her wanting - about the nicest thing I can say of it is that it’s better than Mary Lambert’s “Secrets”.

“Gorgeous” and “Call It What You Want” are probably my favorite of her songs in terms of what I think of as “pop craft”… though neither was even a single, so I’m probably making a category error.

Area musician sells albums, is popular:

https://variety.com/2024/music/news/taylor-swift-first-week-figure-units-tortured-poets-department-1235984882/