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

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/

This is ludicrous in 2024:

Streaming aside, “Poets Department” sold 1.914 million copies in its first week. That is the third-biggest sales figure for any album since SoundScan began collecting accurate sales data for the industry back in 1991.

Which gets to something I've been thinking about this album in particular, even more than prior Swift albums: It has felt like a cultural event in a way that few albums in my lifetime have. The day it came out, I heard back-to-back songs from it on our local Top 40 station. I went to a housewarming party at a friend's house the next night — this was all people in their 30s-60s — and the host had it on. It felt like a quarter or more of my Facebook friends were posting about it, including lots of people who don't usually post about music. The media of course was full of it. The University of Tennessee picked that week to announce a new media course in Taylor Swift studies. It's remarkable — the closest thing I've experienced to my dad's report of the ubiquity of Sgt. Pepper's when it came out. Regardless of the quality of the album, she's at a zenith here that only the very smallest number of extremely famous people have ever touched.

And all this for an album about fucking Matty Healy ...

Yeah, even my son wanted to hear the new album, but in secret, because his friends all hate Taylor Swift

Tortured Album-Equivalent Units

It's remarkable — the closest thing I've experienced to my dad's report of the ubiquity of Sgt. Pepper's when it came out.

These are both kind of specialized cases and audiences, but a couple things that come to mind are the first few Eminem albums were inescapable on release (getting blasted at parties, coming out of every car etc.), and--for Rock audiences anyway--Radiohead from '98-'03

Yeah, but exactly like you say, those had boundaries. They weren’t holding midnight Eminem silent discos at brewpubs or Radiohead yoga classes, which both happened here in the last week (and probably everywhere).

OK, children, let me tell you about inescapability:

- 1984, when every other kid in my middle school was wearing a Bruce Springsteen Born In The USA T-shirt
- 1987, when Pink Floyd's reunion tour squatted in cities for a year (3 shows in Montreal, 2 in Cleveland, 3 in Toronto, 4 in Chicago, 3 in New York, 3 in New Jersey, 5 in Los Angeles, 4 in Oakland, and on and on)
- 1991, when Metallica's Black Album and Guns N' Roses' Use Your Illusion records were released a month apart (Metallica in August, Guns N' Roses in September) and record stores were mobbed at midnight

They weren’t holding midnight Eminem silent discos at brewpubs or Radiohead yoga classes,

Neither of those things existed at the times in question, but now I feel robbed that they didn't.

Kid Namaste

I think an unusual feature of Swift fandom is its age range elasticity - even relative to examples like Bruce Springsteen.

Before the most recent album's release, a 48 year old admin assistant at work was flooding our slack board with breathless hype and anticipation, and then yesterday when I visited my sister, my five year old niece was wearing a Taylor t-shirt.

Neither of these things seems remarkable, which itself is notable.

It means that people's lives are more likely to intersect with awareness of the fandom, rather than it being something that happens around them but which they can ignore. This runs contrary to the general trend towards cultural stratification we otherwise see in the present moment across basically all forms of popular culture.

Yeah I participated in Bruce-in-the-USA mania, I saw the tour, the whole thing. He was monumental. Ditto MJ and Prince, though none of them were solitary on the landscape. They were giants among giants. And still somewhat generationally constrained, because everyone over 60 was still from the pre-rocknroll era. Bruce spanned two generations, but not four.

Which is not to say that Taylor Swift is more famous than Bruce (or Jesus), but she is singular in some ways.

Arguably TS's ubiquity is part-premised on a slowdown or diminution in generational bracketing.

The generation gaps ain't what they used to be

Also I don't think Springsteen and Prince were equivalent to Thriller mania, nothing has been imo

Thriller’s first single was a duet with PM
Torturted Poets first single is a duet with PM

But what is her Billie Jean?

Charlie Puth

What is her “Bobby Jean”?

(I guess it’s “Dorothea”…)

"seven"

confused why radiohead came up here lol

It’s a little late for me to be properly cogent on this, but Taylor’s ubiquity is synergistic with the id of the state of the music industry, a Tetsuro of Spotify and late capitalism and Live Nation and everything else; Radiohead and Bruce and MJ and Prince could never (and arguably in most cases would never, MJ excluded I’m sure he would’ve)

Changes of heart!

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/26/entertainment/taylor-swift-album-quick-to-judge/index.html

It’s a multi-course meal that stipulates the person sit, with undivided attention, and focus on what is before them. Absorb the smells and the different ingredients designed to stimulate the palate.

It is unfeasible to appreciate the stories of heartbreak, romance, frustration and conquest that Swift cleverly narrates through two hours of unrelenting poetry. But that is where Swift shines. It is in the intricate, layered storytelling. And it is implausible to fully grasp the serpentine journey she leads listeners on with a quick cursory listen.

Sounds like a hostage statement:

“Those who swiftly write the album off in search of instant satisfaction will not. Those who give it the chance will likely come to love it – as have I.”

i feel like a lot of music fandom is basically Stockholm syndrome - it’s just that this writer has no skill so their defense of that vibe is particularly threadbare

“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.

― rendered nugatory (morrisp), Friday, April 26, 2024 10:24 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Thanks for this post. Got me to go back and listen to Reputation for the first time in a while, and yeah, those two songs are ridiculously great.

Also this bridge!:

You make me so happy it turns back to sad
There's nothin' I hate more than what I can't have
You are so gorgeous, it makes me so mad
You make me so happy it turns back to sad
There's nothin' I hate more than what I can't have
Guess I'll just stumble on home to my cats... alone

I appreciate that she's pushed herself into new territories lyrically -- and I'm not saying the above are even good lyrics -- but most of TTPD is so overwritten compared to this.

@_@

xp Glad to have found a fellow traveler! (The Reputation-loving road can sometimes feel like lonely one...)

“Those who swiftly write the album off in search of instant satisfaction will not. Those who give it the chance will likely come to love it – as have I.”

That's what I always say about Miami Vice (2006).

Taylor Swift is going to finally write the Jose Yero breakup anthem we've been waiting for.

Those who give it the chance will likely come to love it – as have I.

Yeah Kristi Noem, jeez.

Taylor has the top 14 slots of the Hot 100

Taylor taking it over here: ITT: Tell The Beatles to Fuck Off

Well, yeah...

https://helios-i.mashable.com/imagery/articles/01WB7bBmscKnyMcMnE8LLtj/hero-image.fill.size_1248x702.v1611609541.jpg

Taylor has the top 14 slots of the Hot 100

Interesting to compare the chart positions with the tracklist order; "I Can Do it With a Broken Heart" is really punching above its weight.

1. Fortnight (1)
2. Down Bad (4)
3. I Can Do It With a Broken Heart (13)
4. The Tortured Poets Department (2)
5. So Long, London (5)
6. My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys (3)
7. But Daddy I Love Him (6)
8. Florida!!! (8)
9. Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? (10)
10. Guilty as Sin? (9)
11. Fresh Out the Slammer (7)
12. loml (12)
13. The Alchemy (15)
14. The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived (14)

NOT IN TOP 14
I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) (11)
Clara Bow (16)

I mean, iHeartRadio had a whole campaign to play nothing but the album on a bunch of stations the weekend it was released, so it's not Wolfman Jack carefully curating the tracks...

I assumed "Fortnight" was the only one getting any significant radio airplay and the rest were streams. Since "Fortnight" just happens to be the first track, I would expect chart positions that roughly matched the album sequence, because people are largely playing it in order but some of them don't finish it. So I was struck by one song that AFAIK is not a single being a notable exception to that.

SiriusXM is also running a 24/7 "Taylor's Versions" channel that leaned hard into this one once they were allowed to.

I stopped in Target last week for a few minutes; "Out of the Woods" was playing, I was bopping along... then it segued into a somber ballad that sounded like Taylor, but I wasn't entirely sure. I Shazam'd it – turned out to be "The Manuscript" (track 31 of the album!). Guess they programmed a DJ set...

Ross Douthat’s take on the album reinforces my view that the biggest problem with TS’s ubiquity is how people who can’t write well about music feel both empowered and obliged to make an exception in her case.

so she IS like the Beatles after all

I remember when George Will wrote a column about Springsteen.

Taylor has inspired a lot of pieces by non-music writers over the years. In the early days it was often stuff like "She's a bad example for my daughters because all she ever sings about is boys."

Yeah, and there was some fussing about slut-shaming in "Fifteen" (which I continue to think is a serious misreading of the song, and I feel like the subsequent catalog bears that out). More recently of course it's conservatives who worry about the example she's setting by not being normative enough, no husband or kids, no songs about God, etc. In all cases I think her chosen avatar — the pretty blonde who likes pretty dresses — fries some people's circuits so that they can't perceive or understand her as an individual artist.