Plot Twist: Taylor Swift's New Album is About Matty Healy

When every ex is an asshole and/or crazy, they’re not the problem — you are.

How guys still don't see the pattern with this witch bitch from hell is beyond me.

So she had been cheating with Matt since 2022, thought it was true love, and he left when the going got tough.

Beyonce might finally get AOTY

Didn't she date him for like a week?

She’s like so tortured and like such a poet you guys!

It's so cryptic the way she sneaks in these subliminal messages about the men in her life... I wonder if she saw clouds in her coffee before she buried Paul 🤔

She couldn't cope with him being a junkie.

How do people not get tired of her? It's the same thing every time.

Her fans love her whiny, jilted middle-class white girl schtick and lyrics. They eat it up because so many of them relate to it themselves. This record will sell out in the millions just like all of her others. Next tour makes a billion, rinse wash repeat. Unless of course she settles in with Kelce, gets pregnant etc. Then we'll get a record full of boring marital ruminations.

I keep calling this album "The Tortured Department Store."

Matty Healy swore revenge if Taylor Swift attacked him on an album, so we have that to look forward to. Her other singer exes - John Mayer, Harry Styles, Calvin Harris - were too polite to come after her.

“Do not come for me. Trust me. You know who I’m talking to. Honestly, you know who you are. I’m as mental as I seem. I have the receipts. Don’t fuck with me. Trust me.”

Matty better watch out because Travis Kelce will snap Matty like a twig.

No man is going to want to own up to being the subject of ‘The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived’, that's for sure.

It leaked. Its boring as fuck and the lyrics are even more cringeworthy than usual. Zero growth as an artist. Probably her worst album ever. She needs to dump Jack Antanoff and his boring synth production.

R4 I think Billie Eilish will get it again. She's releasing an album in May.

My favourite song on the album is "He Likes to suck dick." but I can't figure out what ex she is singing about.

^ All of them 😏

Been there. Done that.

R17, I've got a guess...

:The average celebrity publicist does not have fans. But Paine, the 52-year-old redhead seen trailing Swift at awards shows and rubbing shoulders with Gayle King in the Eras Tour VIP area, has become a Swiftverse cult figure in her own right. Fans post reverently about her PR machinations and share videos of her expertly attending to Swift’s needs: smoothing out Swift’s dress on the red carpet, leading Swift right past a scrum of reporters whose questions have not been approved, subtly offering Swift what appeared to be water at the Video Music Awards—a night when the star was filmed dancing in a manner that suggested inebriation."

Swifties are insane.

[quote] Her other singer exes - John Mayer, Harry Styles, Calvin Harris - were too polite to come after her.

Polite? No, they crisply shut her shit down before she could sic her psychotic fans onto them. I think Mayer actually threatened legal action at some point.

My favorite romantic revenge song is Why'd You Do It by Marianne Faithfull. That's how it's done, Taylor.

[quote] “Do not come for me. Trust me. You know who I’m talking to. Honestly, you know who you are. I’m as mental as I seem. I have the receipts. Don’t fuck with me. Trust me.”

Whose quote is that? Healy’s or Swift’s?

I don’t know anything about Matty Healy and the only other time I’ve heard the name is when Rina Sawayama was going after him.

R24 - Matty said that. Taylor has now attacked him many times on this new album..

Taylor or her private army of songwriters couldn't dream of penning a song as mature as this

But there is at least one song about the breakup with Joe Alwyn. It's called "So Long, London."

One verse about the breakup:

[quote] And I'm pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free.

And the end of the song:

[quote] So long, London, had a good run [quote] A moment of warm sun, But I'm not the one [quote] So long, London, stitches undone [quote] Two graves, one gun [quote] You'll find someone

You stood out like a ruby in a black man's ear.

Isn’t she getting a bit long in the tooth to be peddling this same old schtick?

@r28 Romeo and Juliet...

"It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night

Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear"

😵‍💫🤮🤡.

Rolling Stone gave it a 100. I'm not kidding.

A perfect score.

So ridiculous it must be a parody.

(I listened to about three songs and they sound just like her last three records. Nothing was offensive or anything. Just kinda boring and derivative.)

Rolling Stone is entirely A.I., isn't it? It's just a mechanism to produce ad revenue and sell data.

Why do people care so much about this dyke and her fantasy love life? She’s so ugly.

R32 if Jann Wenner can’t win back the blacks or the feminists, he can at least maintain an iron grip on the Swifties.

I like it r26 will have to check out more of their music

Pitchfork rate her unusually highly, she tends to be ranked above a 7 even with a mixed review, presumably to ward offthe Swifties.

R16 You haven't even heard the album yet you think it will be the best album of the year?

Yeah R37. It's so sad. Taylor (and Beyonce) could put out just blank noise and the "critics" would rave.

I guess it's the way things are now. But I don't remember peak Madonna, peak Mariah, peak Whitney or even peak Gaga getting this sort untouchable treatment. Pop stars traditionally get skewered by the critics.

Matty is old and used up now. I'm surprised Taylor went there. Was it a pity fuck?

Preach, r23. Although, this one might actually be FUN. Imagine the Swifties and the Swinettes squaring off on-line. Bad blood indeed.

She’s such a petulant womanchild.

They hooked up when he first broke out a decade ago and she wore a 1975 T-shirt. And they were photographed partying together last year. So she got tired of Joe Alwyn’s quiet depressed ass, she had an exciting, flamboyant fellow performer all lined up. But listening to this album Matty dumped her.

She is still writing songs like she is 17.

Wonder what her fans with young children think about the F bombs she is dropping? She writes like a teen saying naughty words.

Where's the song hooks? I hear a lot of whining.

Kim K diss track?

It's the SAME as the last three records. She really needs to expand on her sound and work with other producers. Her catalog is gonna sound like one long extended record. She's big enough to experiment and not suffer any consequences if it doesn't work.

Joe Alwyn likes to stay home feeling depressed? So do I! He should date me.

Well, it's no Kim Petras SLUT POP masterpiece, but I think it should sell a few million units.

R50 A few BeGazillion units you mean.

Healy has the receipts? So she’s not as squeaky clean as her fans believe? Shocking! Maybe she likes her cocktails more than she likes cock. Or threesomes. Or occasionally partakes of some party favors. You know. To get in the mood. Maybe she says what she REALLY thinks about her fans when she’s loaded. In vino, veritas. She’s a … sloppy drunk? A lousy lay? A two-faced backstabbing bitch? Had an abortion? Her fans won’t believe it and the rest of us won’t care.

I don’t understand why the anti-Taylor Swift people get so damned worked up and foam at the mouth? Let it go, move onto something else more productive! All of your complaining and criticism doesn’t affect her or her fans. You need to move along, you are making complete fools of yourselves.

So High School is about Kelce

the Aimee one is about Kim K

I had absolutely no idea that gay men were obsessed with Taylor Swift until I found DL. The sane people I know in the real world straight and gay are not spending their time going on and on and on and on about Taylor Swift. Sure 13 yo girls maybe but not adult men nor any of the adult woman I know..

It may be a wild falsehood but some are claiming that an unhealthy obsession with TS is part of the path toward declaring as trans. I bet that might not be totally true.

I'm not familiar with her work, but are relationships the only subject matter she explores in her songs, or is there more to her?

R56

What are the majority of songs released since the 1960s about no matter the artist ? They have studied this.

#1 relationship's

Other than knowing that I don’t listen to her music. But I do read that it’s her singing about relationships that appeals to her fan base. Which generally is young girls or woman.

"Gowns...beautiful gowns."

I know most songs are about (romantic) love and it's been that way since the first poems, I was just asking if she sings about things other than that.

there was the marxist counterargument to postfeminist gender theory song cycle

a pithy and proven defense of her drum majorette ageless and sexfree girl power and her global barbie capitalism

@r57, "What are the majority of songs released since the 1960s about no matter the artist ? "

That's exactly why this is my favorite song

Matty has a little personality and likes fun which is verboten in these times, I hope he destroys her for doing this bullshit again. She’s just mad that her fans thought she was problematic for going with him. This is all a big manipulation to pretend that she was tricked or something.

30+ songs that all sound the same. I don’t get it.

Calling it "The Tortured Poets Club" or whatever proves just how seriously she takes herself.

"In a “2 a.m. surprise” early Friday morning, the pop star told her Instagram followers that “The Tortured Poets Department” is a “secret double album.”

Swift, 34, explained, “I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you, so here’s the second installment of TTPD: The Anthology. 15 extra songs.”

Twice as much of the same ol crap for the Swifties to enjoy! And she's 34!

Double albums are always bloated. Unlike Taylor.

^ She needs to settle down, marry a nice football player and start popping out babies, then she can write about the torture of 2AM feedings

R67 Not always. There's a lot of great double albums

R69, I think all the great double albums are bloated in some way. I love the White Album but even I think it has some songs that should not be on there. And it's probably the greatest double album ever. Some say London Calling is but I think that one is even more bloated.

R68, she really needs to grow the fuck up and stop with the whole "Easter egg" thing in regards to people she's dated. She acts like she's still 14. I'm sure a swiftie will come on here and say "but everyone sings about ex lovers"! No, not everyone plays these little games on each and every album into their 30s.

[quote] I had absolutely no idea that gay men were obsessed with Taylor Swift until I found DL.

Karen we know, you tell us every week.

R71

Thank you for caring so much.

R70 Double Nickels on the Dime, Zen Arcade, Daydream Nation, Leaves turn inside You

R72

I think it’s great so many gay men can become so invested in their fem side and join with 13 yo girls in obsessing about Taylor Swift.

It’s beyond sweet

R74, yeah, all bloated.

The reviewer at Rolling Stone who gave her a 100 is a stan who was invited to her tour and took multiple pictures with her. In any other scenario this would be an extreme conflict of interest.

Rolling Stone is now just a PR puff rag.

You tried to buy some pills

From a friend of friends of mine

They just ghosted you

Now you know what it feels like

R76 Yeah...you never heard any of those albums.

R79, actually, I have. I was big into Husker Du in college and I really tried to listen to Sonic Youth. And I do think they are all bloated. I'm not saying they are bad my any means, I just don't think they are quite the classics they are made out to be. It's ok to have different opinions.

R80 Okay, how are Double Nickels or Leaves bloated? And which songs from Daydream Nation or Zen Arcade would you take off to make them less bloated?

R81, I heard all those years ago but I just remember feeling the same way I do with all other double albums. They are mostly great but their are songs I can take or leave. Maybe I will listen again to see if my opinion has changed.

I'm relieved to know we as gays have moved beyond our breakups, lost loves, "the one who got away", being cheated on, being attracted to someone, losing that attraction, and finding someone new.

Whew!

[quote] Matty has a little personality and likes fun which is verboten in these times, I hope he destroys her for doing this bullshit again. She’s just mad that her fans thought she was problematic for going with him. This is all a big manipulation to pretend that she was tricked or something.

Still chasing “bad boys” who chat her up, like she’s half her age.

Good lord the Today Show is devoting several segments to it. They gave all the audience outside copies. I think Hoda came on camera when she saw a note inside the album FROM STEVIE NICKS!

She’s critic-proof. The industry actively fears her. She can destroy anyone who says anything bad about her (Jo Koy) or doesn’t put her on a romantic pedestal (Alwyn, Healy, Gyllenhaal). Critics fear her. They will all continue to inflate praise on her “diary - ah!” songwriting ability.

I agree that she needs to grow up and stop using her fame as method to be a mean girl to exes and girls who refuse to play by her squad rules (ie. “Worship Taylor!”).

Taylor is still feelin 22 at age 35. Grow up, ye sorority alcoholic bitch.

R86 I'm long over my music snob days, so I have no problem saying that she writes a catchy song. That's what the fuck pop music is. It's not about being Lennon or changing the landscape. It's about taping your foot while waiting in line at the bank. If I had a little girl, I would want her to listen to Swift.

"Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs And what's wrong with that?"

Wings

FUCK, "tapping"

That’s just it R86. The emperor has no clothes. It’ll be interesting when the tide begins to turn on her as it inevitably will at some point.

Critics?

That gal has politicians sacred of her and her influence. One side maga hating on her and the Dems being asked at press conferences if they are actively recruiting her. The response was something like we love Taylor then something about the Hatch Act and can’t say more.

Taylor Swift has real power

“At some point” ——-decades from now I hope you have patience

Talk about a bunch of misdirected derision.

I agree with every criticism of Swift, but that's exactly why I give her all the credit in the world. I see her in the same way I see the Kardashians.

Can I really begrudge Swift and the Kardashians their billions of fans and dollars? Nope.

It's their fans I deride.

R87 you’re right but I just can’t listen to any of her music and I love pop. There’s not even the tiniest hint of an edge there I think is the problem for me. Plus she has a pointy face!

Why would R87 tape his foot while waiting in line at the bank? That’s odd.

I wouldn't ever put Taylor and the Kardashians in the same sentence. One is a talented but boring performer. The Kardashians are just....the Kardashians.

She’s a middle aged alcoholic. An overgrown adolescent who clearly doesn’t know how to privately resolve the dissolution of adult relationships. She is the leader of the “broadcast it” generation.

Not what I would a pre-teen girl to be exposed to at all.

It’s terrible. She’s a 35 year old woman singing about the same shit as when she was a kid. It’s shittier versions of her previous songs. And now she’s trying to sing like Lana Del Ray, which is just embarrassing.

That lyric from "Shake it Off" indicates that even Taylor views herself as a perpetual child...

[quote] I stay out too late, Got nothing in my brain, That's what people say, mm-mm, That's what people say, mm-mm

Only a teenager would whine about not being able to "stay out too late".

R95, she's an alcoholic?

R91

53% of Americans claim to be swift fans during a 2023 survey. 75% of these fans are white, and they lean heavily Democratic voters and suburbanites. A group that no doubt deserves your deriding. Give them hell.

The young girls and women fans of today will be bringing their daughters, and young gay and trans sons, to Taylor Swift concerts years from now.

[quote] There’s not even the tiniest hint of an edge there I think is the problem for me.

She's as edgy as a butter knife.

She’s drunk as a skunk at every single public event she attends. She’s Taylor. She allowed to be a drunk, disruptive mess in the audience. It’s cute.

Yes she sings about being an alcoholic in this album. Lyrics about how she should have been sent to rehab etc.

I see the conservative frau mommies have found us.

I'm kinda shocked she's a drinker. She seems way too much of a control freak. I assumed she'd go the Madonna route and start drinking and drugging when she lost her place at the top.

She is a blow hard skank with a pro vax asshole boyfriend. Fuck her and those like her.

The perils of fame. Sigh - Taylor in 2012.

Rehab before fertility next year ?

In reality only the MAGAest of the MAGA hate Taylor Swift. “Regular” Republicans still love her. Even Trump didn’t talk that much shit about her, he only joked that he likes her music 75% less.

I watched Miss Americana last week. It wa sa hagiography. More particularly it existed was to patch up her reputation as someone who did nothing for the 2016 election because she was the only one of her peers said did not engage in the political conversation. As she perceived it then, given the more mixed reaction to Reputation and the stadiums that did not sell out, her career as a pop star would wane as she approached 30. She needed to make like a diva, so for the first time she vocally chased the pink dollar, and that meant vocally decrying white supremacy.

Everyone talks about her eccentric finance bro dad arguing with her about speaking out about the midterms, but he also pointed out she might not sell albums or fill as many venues. And he was sort of right - but more likely because Lover was an artistic failure. Her tour for Lover scheduled for 2020 was going to be the big European festivals rather than the partially filled stadiums of the Reputation tour (I was given free tickets on the day of the concert when every volunteer at a charity I work with were given double passes. I sat next to people who bought theirs the day before for a 20 a piece).

Then that all changed when she got back on top by consolidating the success of Folklore (really quite good) with Midnight (meh; enough Antonoff already).

R87 If she writes such catchy songs, shouldn't she have a ton of hits? But she has, what, one big hit?

And what if you had a little boy?

R95 What century are you from, where 35 is considered middle age?

Now just endorse Joe Biden to your bazillion fans, TayTay!

35 is early middle age. Especially for women as fertility starts to rapidly decline.

[Quote]Why would [R87] tape his foot while waiting in line at the bank? That’s odd.

Maybe he has his eye on a new pair of shoes.

[quote] I'm kinda shocked she's a drinker. She seems way too much of a control freak.

It is her way of being a bad girl, by chasing fuck boys like John Mayer and Matty Healy, and occasionally using the f word in lyrics, or coy references to sex and fantasies out some guy’s body. Drinking Old Fashioneds is part of that; but performative naughtiness in a vintage, WASPy, classy, demi-Southern Belle way.

I don't think she's an alcoholic. She's just pretending to have problems with the drink so that if her music bombs, she can blame it all on Matty and Joe and Tom and Harry and Jake etc for breaking her heart and forcing her to pick up the bottle.

Does she use the same producers all the time?

It was a different era of course but Joni Mitchell was always experimenting and each of her albums from 1968 to say 1979 have a very unique sound.

That photo @ r40 is a HOTMESS 🚩flag. Taylore: “Hose him down and bring him to my tent. Use the POWER-WASHER on the naughty bits”. 🍆🍒

R111 No, it isn't. It's not even close to early middle age. You are talking nonsense

[quote]Beyonce might finally get AOTY

It's between Beyonce and Ariana Grande right now. They won't give it to Taylor again. Ariana's new album Eternal Sunshine washes Tortured Poets. Rolling Stone gave Eternal Sunshine a perfect score of 100/100. Billie is a Grammy darling, so she may take it again, even though all of her songs sound the same.

Ariana's album has also been out-streaming Beyonce's 3-to-1 globally, even though Cowboy Carter just came out and has 27 tracks versus Eternal Sunshine's 13 tracks. Even with half the amount of songs, Ariana's album is out-streaming her's.

Taylor's popularity seemed to explode with this recent Eras tour and the couple of albums that preceded it. It's like the pandemic built up her fanbase, from a popular national one into a global mega-thing. I don't recall people - particularly younger white women, who make up a large chunk of her base - being so gaga over her 4 or 5 years ago.

I knew moms and daughters that got tickets for her concerts at least 5-7 years ago. A couple of concerts. It was a really big deal for them getting tickets.

But I always saw it as girls and woman now it’s girls woman and gay men with the Swifty obsession.

In 2019 she already had over 200 million records sold

You Kweens have horrible taste R118

R119, it was mainly young girls who were into her. And now, those young girls are women and are still obsessed with her. That was a smart move by Taylor to target 5 year olds early on in her career. But it's also weird that those same girls seem to be emotionally stunted themselves. I think 1989 also made her popular with moms. But I really don't get her appeal to gay men. She's so boring.

Judging by all her heartbreak, she must be exhausting to date.

R122

Only Trump gets more threads on DL than Swift does. Obsessed is an accurate term.

R117, yes it is! You old fart!

The New York Times has some balls. Hallelujah !

Could she just go away into her hole again please?

Well anyway he was right

Is there anyone left on Earth that Taylor Swift hasn't recorded at least one song about?

Karma is a BITCH!

My contract was longer than Matt's!

‘The Altlantic’, you’re in danger, girl!

I am getting second hand embarrassment from some of her lyrics. Never let your ex let you know you care that much, she is not over Matt especially. Kelce's smug ass is going to face it later on too.

Josh Charles and Ethan Hawke have a cameo in the Fortnight video, I think that may be the best song for me on the album it features Post Malone

It just hit me, Ethan and Josh were in Dead Poets Society

Dead Poets > Tortured Poets?

R108 I'm not turning this into a "Me vs You" thing that DL so loves to do.

BUT

if you think she's only had one hit song, you need to go back into hibernation. I mean...you don't make a billion dollars touring on one hit song.

Also, since you tried it with the "little boy" comment, I will address that. I wouldn't give a FUCK if my son listened to Swift. However, in a world where young women are hypersexualized, I would prefer my daughter listen to her than other female artists.

Taylor's music sucks but I would rather have my kid--regardless of gender--listen to her than Cardi B, Nikki Minaj, Ariana, etc. Not that that's really saying much.

[quote]However, in a world where young women are hypersexualized, I would prefer my daughter listen to her than other female artists.

And this is part of the key to understanding her popularity, despite her bland, self-centered lyrics. There is not an iota of sexuality attached to Swift or any of her tunes, hence the approval of so many Gex Xer parents, who attend her concerts with their kids and know all of the lyrics.

R125 To you, you uneducated moron. 35 isn't close to 45, you idiot.

She clearly suffers from arrested development and at 35 she is now considered early middle age and no longer Early Adult.

I think Matty Healy was the first man who ever fucked her properly and that’s why she is obsessed with him.

R141

Fascinating, any other insight you have into her and her love life? Is there a place you go to learn all about Taylor ? Send me a PM if so.

TIA

Was Matty her only 100% hetero lover?

So many middle aged thirty something gays with their menopausal posts about Taylor!

Did Joe Alwyn sign an NDA after they broke up?

Poor guy.

35 is pretty close to middle-aged. You bitches think everyone lives to 95? Average life expectancy for white women in the US is 80.

Her father is a Trump supporter. She some footage of her arguing with him about coming out against him and him being angry as it would jeopardize her fan base.

Has her friend Lens commented on the new album?

Millennials are so triggered when reminded they’re aging too!

How much do you hate this whiny bitch?

Remember Britney before she lost it? Remember when pop stars could actually dance and move?

She's like the theatre jazz hands nerdy version. Emoting and sashaying but not really dancing.

I can't wait what the next major mega pop star will be. Will they be tough and do martial arts with protest art?

Can we go back to something more edgy? Also note, Alanis didn't have like 30 variations of this song.

Alanis. The same Alanis who moaned and whined in song over that bland lump of phlegm, Uncle Joey? Ok, sis.

R153, Alanis wasn’t 35 years old when she bitched vocally about Uncle Jesse to the world!

Meant to say Uncle Joey!

Her bitching sounds good though. Give me spiteful over victimized.

I would feel spiteful too, if I had let Uncle Joey blow into my guts.

Did she ever do a song about Hiddleston? “Fame Hungry Suck Up”?

31 songs? Oy, vey.

Yeah, the Atlantis song was better before it was revealed to be about the one guy on Full House whose name no one can remember.

Tay Tay is a Lez Lez. This is as manufactured as Daisy Jones and the Six.

Maybe he was hot when she dated him?

There is rumor tay ray used ChatGPT to generate the lyrics for this poorly reviewed album.

R141 45 is early middle age, not 35. Why are you creating a completely new definition of what middle age is?

R146 35 is pretty close to middle-aged? Than being a three year old toddler is close to being a teenager. Idiot.

R143 No. The guy before him and the guy she is dating now

[QUOTE] She's critic proof

Nope. Paste Magazine (which counts for Metacritic) gave her 36/100. NME gave her 3/10 and called it a 'misstep'. London Evening Standard gave it just 2*. As mentioned upthread, NYT and Atlantic weren't impressed either. Can anyone copy & paste the NYT and Atlantic reviews?

The lyrics to So High School (about Travis Kelce) are puerile:

Are you gonna marry, kiss, or kill me

It's just a game, but really

I'm bettin' on all three for us two

Get my car door, isn't that sweet?

Then pull me to the backseat

No one's ever had me, not like you

Truth, dare, spin bottles

You know how to ball, I know

Aristotle

Brand new, full throttle

Touch me while your bros play Grand

Theft Auto

It's true, swear, scouts honor

You knew what you wanted, and,

boy, you got her

Brand new, full throttle

You already know, babe

It's about Travis's preference for anal, which was "brand new" for Taylor. 🤡

What's strange about Swift is her career arc:

- She started out almost like a Britney, but with a sexless, country sheen. Very, very successful, but a bit niche. Had three or four singles people outside country knew, but great album sales.

- She then had a huge crossover album with 1989. Huge album. Five or six hit singles. Her imperial phase thus begun. Even non pop fans like that album.

- Her next album, Reputation, was going to be a hit no matter what. And it was. But not even close to as big as 1989. Which is normal for the follow up album to a huge, culture changing album.

- Then she release Lover and it was almost a flop, at least by her standards. Still would be great for most artists, but not for Taylor. In this way, she followed the same arc as a Gaga. Huge pop album. Really big follow up. Then a tepid third album.

- But then - seemingly out of the blue - she launched into another imperial phase with Folklore and Evermore and the "Taylor Versions" rerecordings. And she is still in. And that just doesn't happen in pop music.

It's so bizarre.

R147

Bullshit.

Dad argued against her taking a public political stand. And that he thought that would upset a significant part of her fan bases, it’s total bullshit he was arguing because he supported trump.

I don’t know shit about Taylor but I know that.

[QUOTE] She then had a huge crossover album with 1989. Huge album. Five or six hit singles. Her imperial phase thus begun. Even non pop fans like that album.

The fact that it was about Harry Styles helped its popularity enormously. She crossed over to the UK and Europe with that album because of the 1d connection.

[QUOTE] - But then - seemingly out of the blue - she launched into another imperial phase with Folklore and Evermore and the "Taylor Versions" rerecordings. And she is still in. And that just doesn't happen in pop music.

Not quite out of the blue. Joe Alwyn, who has a degree in English Literature, started helping her with the lyrics then and toned down the cheese and melodrama.

Taylor Swift isn’t nice. Unless you count being nice in the way that Julia Roberts is nice.

R174

Someone that knows both Julie and Taylor personally. How fucking cool is that. I assume you are not just a fan girl reading teen magazines for your insight.

lol @ early middle aged thirty five year olds on this thread!

You old, bitch! We don’t want to sleep with you.

I was taught that 36 is middle aged but maybe the life expectancy is at an older age now

40-60 is middle aged culturally, in USA. If not numerically. 35 is not young for a childless woman who might want children. The very rich can have children at any age, nowadays.

I may be mistaken but I think Madonna, Sharon Stone and Diane Keaton, in their 50s, purchased children.

R179 Good for them!

R168, let that be a lesson to anyone that thinks she's a great lyricist; she's not. I'm sure she can be occasionally. But artists like Liz Phair, Joni, Dylan, etc. weren't just great "on occasion", which is why they are recognized as very good/great songwriters.

R170, I agree. I cannot think of a single pop artist who peaked 15 years or so after their debut. Maybe Tina Turner? But her success was nothing like Taylor's.

This review is excellent.

From the article at R183.

[quote] Who’s torturing who here?

[quote] One of Taylor's lyrics: My friends used to play a game where we would pick a decade we wished we could live in … I’d say the 1830s, but without all the racists.”

[quote] That said, is this the album that finally grants us societal permission to say that Swift is not a great lyricist? She can be, sometimes, but greatness isn’t a part-time job, and the thinning thinness of her words can make big emotions feel hollow.

[quote] Attempting to further signal her maturity, Swift deploys profanity with awkward relentlessness across too many of these songs, sounding like a child test-driving her illicit new vocabulary in hopes of convincing the greater populace that she is, in fact, 34 years old.

[quote] She hasn’t been an anonymous human being since she was 17, and in terms of her art, many of her horizons seem to have stopped right there. It helps to explain why at least three songs on this double album take place on playgrounds; and why another one is set at a high school party

Does she sing about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?

For the delusional millennials in denial that 35 is the onset of middle age.

She's not safe for kids anymore with all the f bombs in this album.

[quote] Ended with the slam of a door/ Then he'll call her a whore/ Wish he wouldn't be sore/ But as she was leaving/ It felt like breathing

[quote]He was a cad, wanted her bad/ Taming a bear, making him care

What the fuck am I listening to?!

If I had a daughter I wouldn’t want her playing this mediocre trash.

I read here (or elsewhere? can't recall) that Joe Alwyn was an English lit major at uni, and had a big hand in taming her worst lyrical excesses on her Folklore and Evermore albums, the ones that came out during the pandemic and garnered her so much praise ("2nd coming of Joni Mitchell"). He co-wrote several songs with her and probably influenced her on the rest.

Now that he's gone, its back to maudlin teeny-bopper emo 101.

Judging by the big drop-off, the general public doesn't like the album. She's lucky she has a huge fanbase buying multiple copies and mass-streaming the album.

I don't like cities

But I like New York

Other places make me feel like a dork

I heard the first single from TTPD today on the car radio.

Swift really has that Kalamity Karens market cemented, doesn't she?

There can be no other explanation cranking out the same song over and over again. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

r170 great summation. Peaked at 1989, ebbed with Reputation, and ebbed some more with Lover. I'll add that Eras Tour seemed to trigger a reappraisal of Lover and sent Cruel Summer to #1, four years after its album's release. It does make some sense that Joe's potential involvement in her recent albums are why they were lyrically rich and superior to most vacuous pop.

Her Kim Kardashian song indicates she’s in serious need of therapy. It invokes both North and Saint and states in the chorus that her mom Andrea wants Kim dead.

[quote]Enough. These are highly embarrassing combinations of words made to serve an even more embarrassing narrative: the childish idea that the most famous singer alive should be pitied for living alone atop her mountaintop of money, feeling sad and aggrieved. We should all try our hardest to forget the manipulative underdog posture that Swift refuses to forfeit with each passing album, especially when the genuine tragedy-like feeling to be gleaned from all of these songs — and from nearly every Swift song that came before, too — is that Swift has traded her adulthood for superstardom.

The Destin Florida mayor is loving the mention in her song 'Florida' and had a sand sculpture made of her album logo. The mayor is cute and twinkish. He has a post about it on his Facebook

She is down to 77 on Metacritic which is her lowest score since Reputation. Only one 5* review.

I relistened (and listened for the first time in some cases) to all her post-Speak Now albums prior to the release of TTPD. FWIW. Reputation was much better than expected. As a pop album I would rank it about 1988, Lover and Midnights. Max Martin was tougher on her, tamping down on her worst instincts as a writer. He’s also a better producer than Jack Antonoff.

Pitchfork gave Taylor Swift her first sub 7 review for The Tortured Poets Department. 6.6 for the main album, 6 for the second Anthology disc.

No one will buy those records anymore they have become far to popular.

Perhaps someone should slap Taylor and tell her to snap out of her arrested development?

Her PR people must have gotten to that gossip account deux moi because deux moi has been posting nonstop that this album was Taylor “closing the door” on one chapter of her life and ending that era, moving onto a very happy time, likely getting married and having kids with the football player blah blah blah. I’m guessing that’s how TS will try to spin it now that reviews have been less than ideal, people saying she’s stunted, etc.

Somewhere in the nation Miley Cyrus is feeling vindicated.

Miley Cyrus is even more irritating than Taylor. She sounds like a teenage boy and her singing voice is way too gravelly.

“The 1975?”

[QUOTE] deux moi has been posting nonstop that this album was Taylor “closing the door” on one chapter of her life and ending that era,

This is so disingenuous because she never closes a chapter. She had a song about Harry Styles on Midnights, ten years after they dated.

Taylor has swiftly peaked at age 35. I predict she get knocked up, married to the caveman, and her next album is all about being sober for nine months, dealing with post-partum depression, and how she’s dedicated to being a cool mom (with wine!). It will flop.

Yes I sense the mom era is next. Which will be the lamest era of all.

r198 where do you rank Folklore and Evermore?

Sue me, but I loved LOVER. It's my favorite, thought I do think Evermore and Folklore were great. I never thought to make the Joe Alwyn connection there.

Listen to real music. Not 50 Shades of Tay music

[quote]Yes I sense the mom era is next. Which will be the lamest era of all.

Are you kidding? It will be her biggest era yet, success and popularity-wise. Her rabid white female middle class fanbase (who is aging up right alongside her) will be all over it. Many of them will be settling down as well at the same time.

Critically it will probably be lame, but who cares when she'll be making another billion?

Actually they had their kids younger. She's going to be close to 40 if she ever has kids at all.

Maybe she'll be Mommy Dearest and her kids will write a tell all in which she'll be interesting.

She'll be 35 at the end of this year. If the thing with Kelce is what I think it is, they'll be hitched by this time next year and she'll be up the duff immediately afterwards. Baby by age 36.

He was more attractive without that beard.

Pop Albums Ranked for musicality (not including the country ones)

1. 1989

2. Reputation

3. Lover

4. Folklore

5. Evermore

6. Midnights

7. Tortured

Ranked for lyrics

1. Folklore

2. Evermore

3. 1989

4. Lover

5. Reputation

6..Midnights

7. Tortured

[QUOTE] She'll be 35 at the end of this year. If the thing with Kelce is what I think it is, they'll be hitched by this time next year and she'll be up the duff immediately afterwards. Baby by age 36.

Yes, she must be hyper conscious that time is running out to have biological children. Wonder if she froze her embryos back in her 20s?

Is she the spokesperson of the generation? Kurt Cobain for today's kids?

My students have been playing her for years so I know more of her songs than I want to admit too. I like her older stuff like 'Red' and 'Shake It Off' and "Back to December' I am not into her new "edgy" Lana Del Rey period.

I think this concert tour is her peak. Parents felt good taking their kids to her concert. But the downside of her more adult swearing and sexual lyrics is that it's not as safe for young kids.

I like her early and mid 2010 stuff. I don't like her Lana Del Rey ripoff record. She's too flat emotionless for it

She sounds as if she has a cold when she sings in the lower Lana register.

Taylor has had quite a bit of surgery. Eyelift/bleph in 2013, boob job in 2014, fat transfer to her butt from her waist and thighs before the ERAs tour.

Taylor’s cosmetic surgery is exquisite; she had a younger version of her mother’s face prior to the 1989 album.

Her eyes were practically invisible before the surgery.

She did ply a lot of eyeliner on. Maybe that was why.

Nevermind. I'm not sure if it was surgery or better makeup.

Looks like she had her teeth done too.

Eyes, teeth, nose, tits. Stunning work, all the “Miss Piggy” features are gone.

Her mother, father, and brother are all plain to homely so she needed all the help she could get.

So is she hoping to get back with Matty after the caveman's contract runs out?

He did an interview a few years back with his balls hanging out of his shorts

Taylor Swift looks like napoleon dynamite in wig

R230 she does

[Quote]He did an interview a few years back with his balls hanging out of his shorts

Matty, or Travis?

Travis looks like Shrek and you can smell Matty through your phone. Her hottest men were 19-year-old Harry Styles and 30-year-old Gyllenhaal. She got them in their best eras before they deteriorated.

Joe Alwyn and Calvin Harris were also very hot boyfriends, r233. Clavin was tall, had a fantstic makeover, and his dick his HUGE and uncut, yum!!

r232 Travis

R234 he had a lucky escape from the grade A clinger.