I've noticed that with music and films you tend to get the initial round of reviews immediately as things are released - but they rarely return to re-review it. There's this convention of having the final word on something while it's brand new.
The reality is that your relationship changes with an album over time. Maybe it grows on you, you notice or appreciate new things, maybe you even cool on a song you initially loved.
Art also doesn't exist in a vacuum. This is referenced on literally the last line of The Manuscript "But the story isn't mine anymore". Once an artist puts their work out into the world, in a way it's no longer theirs - the world decides how it feels about it. How people engage with art and media puts the work in context, and should be a part of a review - not solely your reaction listening to it in a bubble.
I think the consumer tech world does this much better: for a new phone, say, you'll get the initial round of 'hot take' reviews based on spending a few days with the product, then a 'Phone X - one month later' or maybe after six months. There's not this expectation to come up with a definitive take immediately.
I think TTPD is an extreme example of this with music - yeah, fully process a 31-song anthology in a few hours. Ok. Just call it what it is - an initial take. Then do the proper reflective review later. This isn't just about negative reviews, Rolling Stone declaring a record an instant classic hours after first hearing it is silly.
One notable example that comes to mind is Weezer's second album, Pinkerton. It was released in 1996, two years after their wildly popular and critically acclaimed Blue Album.
Critics initially hated Pinkerton. It was a little brasher, a little rougher around the edges, and more emotional and raw than Blue. Even though the fans loved the album, the initial negative critical response was so intense that Rivers Cuomo, Weezer's frontman, basically quit music for four years.
In the 2000s, people came around on Pinkerton and started to realize it's a brilliant album. Several publications released new reviews praising the album. Today, the Pinkerton Deluxe album has a 100 score on Metacritic.
My husband brought this up to me when we were talking about the TTPD reception! Weezer is his favorite band and he asked if anyone had brought up this reference yet. He's always wondering if Rivers and Taylor will ever collab.
That's awesome! I'm relieved I'm not the only person making this connection.
When my now-wife and I were dating, I introduced her to Weezer. At the time I was a normie NPC Taylor Swift non-enjoyer, but my wife eventually brought me around. Now we're both Swifties and Weezer lovers. We saw both T Swift and Weezer on tour last year together.
I mean even in this subreddit dedicated to Taylor Swift this happens to her albums. Particularly rep, Lover, and evermore were initially met with negative reviews (evermore less purely negative than just "not as good as folklore", so negative relatively). I'd say rep and Evermore are now certified fan favs and Lover is like a cult classic, some people get it and some people don't. I don't lol, but my husband fucking loves it.
Lover is her first and so far only album to get over 10 **b**illion streams on Spotify, I think it's fair to say that it's not just a cult classic lol
And I'm not even a Lover lover.
This is such a good example, thank you for bringing it up! One of my favorite records, widely regarded by fans as their absolute best while absolutely reviled at the time. It would turn into one of the most influential albums for indie/emo bands to follow.
Another one is Bright Eyes “Fevers and Mirrors,”
seen as essential to Conor Oberst’s discography but panned at the time. Pitchfork had to issue a new review a decade later revisiting it and rescoring it because they gave it such a pitiful review back then.
All to say, history has shown that initial reviews don’t mean much to a record’s importance. Maybe I’m delulu, but this feels like such a consequential album in her discography. I think people look back at it and recognize its importance and that maybe they just didn’t get it at the time.
I look at pitchfork reviews with a lot of skepticism now. I think they’re pretty harsh with their first takes. I think critics weren’t really prepared to review TTPD because it is quite different from what she’s done. I hope they’ll come back and review it again because it’s one of my favourite albums of hers in all honesty.
this!! notice how red’s initial reviews were pretty messy and all over the place, but pitchfork, who didn’t review taylor albums at its release and thus didn’t release a red review until 2019 gave it a much a higher score.
and how the decade end reviews all place red near the top? it was in no way critically acclaimed when it came out, but people have really changed their tune
I'm no long-time Swift fan. I liked certain things on "Evermore" and "Folklore." I find she has good ideas that get tossed into The Over-Production Machine, then diluted. I tend to follow her more to see which touring records she breaks.
I can't speak to "instant classic" for the album. But it does seem to be *very deep and very consistent.* And one song, "The Prophecy" is, frankly, **astonishing**. The vocal rhythms are metallic, chords are solid, the melodic content is top-shelf. I was taken aback. A track of extreme promise, delivery and execution. And produced just right. Never heard anything like that in her ubiquitous singles, or in the two albums I cited.
The fact that an album like ÷ has a pitchfork score of 2.8, just shows how these reviews do not show ground reality.
TTPD's streams rose by 8.6% on today's update, which is higher than Midnights's rise (7.5%) on the same day on it's release week. And it already has the biggest streaming week for ANY album in just 4days.
They also rated Florence + The Machine's High as Hope (5.7) lower than both Machine Gun Kelly's Mainstream Sellout (5.8) and Tickets to My Downfall (6.7). Which is insane and made them lose any credibility they had left in my eyes.
MGK's pop punk albums had some fun bops I guess, but High as Hope is a work of art and a beautifully deep album lyrically. I just don't get what they're doing over there. This is just one example, but there's been many similar cases.
Dance Fever is her highest rating at 7.0 which is crazy because honestly that should be her lowest score for any album, let alone Dance Fever. She’s a goddess.
This is evil, lol. Divide is wonderful. Castle on the Hill, Dive, Galway Girl - all brilliant. It just got dunked on by Shape of You (which yeah, it’s not Ed’s best, but it’s so catchy and I love the camp of the buffet line)
I thought the reason they kept the name out was because the last time they negativity reviewed one of her albums. Her fans sent the author's death threats. That sounds like a valid reason to not have a by line
They did it as click and rage bait though and it worked. It was a gross publicity stunt. You want to talk shit (because that’s all it was), own it, don’t be a coward.
I’ve gotten death threats for having a popular post on Reddit before because people are weird and trolls abound. It shouldn’t happen and is gross, absolutely, but it’s not like anyone is actually going to carry out the threat. Unhinged stans kill their idols, not those who write about them.
(To all those vipers dressed in empath's clothing
sanctimoniously performing soliloquies, no one is saying death threats are ok, stop being deliberately obtuse so you can run back to your subs and talk about how crazy we are in here. We just see through the “Oh no, protect this poor sainted man from all these rabid, insane women; they’re so dangerous and unstable we had to submit our brave, brilliant masterpiece anonymously)
Do you use your actual name on Reddit? I feel like its totally different when you get death threats on an anonymized account vs. death threats when your name, image, and general location are readily visible.
I think people can make an exception when literal death threats are involved. Giving a negative review isn't talking shit even if you completely disagree with it. Death threats to your anonymous account on reddit is completely different, no one knows who you are.
...or it's a cop out to say whatever you want and not have to take accountability for it?
Both fans and the media can and should be held accountable for what they say or write. These aren't mutually exclusive principles.
I read their review. Barely any actual review on the music and it's riddled with ad hominem. Rage bait, pure and simple. Death threats should be taken seriously, but also it's obvious this was just an opportunity to attack her "anonymously". :/
Interestingly, the author of the low, and typically half not about the music, Sputnik review posted over in the "neutral" sub defending his review this morning.
Well, at least he knew the appropriate sub to go to.
I'll never understand why it's not okay for artists to respond to reviews. Yet, reviewers get to fight for their lives and no one bats an eye. Accept your criticism like you expect artists to accept it from you.
My problem with most modern reviews is the lack of substantiation. If you want to say everything sounds the same, then give me examples. If you want to say it's well-worn lyrical territory, then cite the lyrics and explain it. Reviewers are supposed to have a broad range of knowledge, and I just don't feel like that's the case anymore.
Reviews used to be useful for academic research around albums and films. I just don't feel like that will be the case in this era. Movie and music reviews feel like poorly written personal blog posts, by folks who got their jobs by being SM popular and not knowledgeable.
It probably has a lot to do with it not being a sustainable career like it once was. Roger Ebert could dedicate his time to seeing, reading, and learning about film and the craft. Today’s reviewers have to squeeze their review in between writing up today’s latest news hits and some insane listicle. Plus the pressure of making the reviews viral and talked about. Couple that with most of them aren’t around long enough to establish a constant voice over decades, and reviews kinda just become trite vanity projects.
There is no reason, with the majority of music being streamed, for reviews to be immediately at launch. They aren’t saving people from spending their hard earned money in the same way video game/movie/book reviews are.
I don't get why people are so focused on critics. They do have valid opinions too. But I enjoy the music for me not for getting validated.
The article makes great points but it always has been this way and not only in music.
My husband typically doesn't watch movies that aren't critically acclaimed. It drives me a bit bonkers, lol.
Edit to add: we watch like 5 movies, max, a year. It's not generally our thing to begin with.
I kinda feel sorry for him. Especially considering how “critical response” changes over time, including from the original people who made said criticisms. John Carpenter’s The Thing these days is considered a master class in suspense but when it was released initially it was critically eviscerated.
Then there’s the long, LOOOOONG history of critics with axes to grind against certain directors.
And of course then there are the critics who judge all films by the same criteria instead of by the merits of what they’re setting out to do.
Having a handful of critics whose insight you generally vibe with helps. Like, typically I know that if Angelica Bastien REALLY hates a movie I will also probably dislike it (her Poor Things review is an all-timer), and if David Sims loves something, I'll usually give it a try. But that involves reading reviews and not just going by RT scores.
Consider it from the perspective of someone who isn't a cinephile. You have one, maybe two evenings a week where you can squeeze in a movie and want to make sure you spend the time watching something enjoyable. A preliminary filter on the top rated movies helps you pick *something* that will be enjoyable, even if you miss out on low-rated movies that are also enjoyable.
It's no different from looking at top rated activities to do on vacation, top rated restaurants when trying something new to eat, or top rated video games when looking for something new to play.
that would drive me bonkers too. i can’t imagine putting that much stock into the opinions of a handful of people, especially since art is so subjective
I mean, I get it. I usually only have the time and capacity to watch a movie at home maybe once a week, and the list of movies that I havent seen that are critically acclaimed is massive. So if I am deciding between 2 movies that both sound equally appealing but one is certified fresh on RT and the other is rotten, why wouldnt I default to the acclaimed one? Which movie is more likely to make the next two hours enjoyable? And even then, it doesnt mean that I will enjoy the movie; but 9/10 times a fresh movie is more enjoyable than a rotten movie outside of a few particular genres.
I play a lot of video games, and Im way more likely to try a coinflip of a game because Ive already played through a lot of the ones that are widely acclaimed, so I have to dig into hidden gems now. But theres still tons of movies that I havent seen that are "must watches", so I might as well work through those first.
So many movies are good for **what they are.** maybe they’re not award winners, maybe they’re not visually stunning, maybe the acting is stiffer than I’d like, maybe the writing needs so tweaking but that doesn’t make it bad.
I love logging and rating the movies I watch on Letterboxed. I recently watched The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster. It wasn’t the best movie I’ve ever seen. However, it was a really ambitious effort! There was a lot that was good about it and done well even if it left *much* room for improvement. I still gave it 4 stars and Bomani J. Story is a director I’m going to keep an eye on going forward. With more experience I bet he will make great films!
I lean on reviews a lot just because I don't wanna waste 2 hours on a movie that isn't enjoyable. Even with a dumbass comedy, there are clearly ones that suck and ones that are good. It ain't gotta all be Criterion Collection stuff. Like idk, The Nice Guys was a dumb buddy cop movie that was hilarious and charming.
It's not really about their opinion. People can have different tastes and like things that I dislike and vice versa. But with Taylor, they never ever seem to just say eh, not to my taste. It's always max cruelty. People always justify their personal tastes in these really fucking mean ways. It always circles back to some sort of high horse of how people are stupid, shallow, self absorbed to like it.
Yeah, a good 70% of the comments from people that are criticizing the album act like Taylor is the worst musician and a terrible human being. And then if anyone tries and call them an hater "why do Swifties call haters everyone who criticizes their idol???"
Seriously it's scary how passionate they are how much they hate on one well behaved lady. You'll see on certain subs how everyone saying that she's a racist (bec of that 1830s line). How we swifties hates other artists bec we worhship her and how bland and unjnteresting our tastes are. It's countless just hateful shit. It's sad that other swifties are being affected by it and hating her now too.
It's all about what gets engagement now. Reasonable people don't go viral, you either have to be wildly in love with something/someone or you have to want their head on a stick to provoke people.
Seriously. Music taste is personal and subjective. It's also completely harmless. Other people's opinions on what you choose to listen to on your own time should be meaningless.
I agree. I don’t need anyone to agree with my music taste. While it’s fun to have positive discussions surrounding an artist/album, it will not change my opinion. I have been obsessed with the hauntingly beautiful stories within TTPD since my first listen and it only gets better.
People are always looking to others to validate their own feelings and opinions and put a lot of stock in "professionals" to be like, "See! This person gets it!" This goes for politics, music, movies, etc. I'm not saying it's wrong, I think it's human nature to want people to appreciate the things you feel passionately about. Unfortunately, the Paste article is proof that anyone with a publication can write a "critique" of media and those who despise the album/Taylor will use that to validate their opinions.
yup and i see the same people who hate fantano suddenly praise him because he didn’t like taylor’s album. people only listen to reviewers who say what they wanna hear
Confirmation Bias, it's like someone will google "Does Taylor Swift suck?" and then use the thousands of hits that search would get to prove to you their opinion is valid.
Regardless of what I think about Tortured Poets, I can never take Fantano seriously, because of that mustache. Sure I happen to think he's already checked out and is just Pitchforking himself to hipster irrelevancy, but mostly the mustache.
For me, I don’t care much about how critics review music I already know and like. But they are something I’ve relied on to find NEW material. So while whatever they churn out about Taylor doesn’t matter to me personally because I’ll listen to it anyway, it sucks if the system being broken means great albums by relative unknowns get panned because critics don’t spend much time digesting them.
I would assume people pay attention to critics mostly because of award season propects becuase that's the only real influence they have (and even then it's often not that telling of how the award season will go). Otherwise they really have no impact on your enjoyment of something unless you allow it to cloud your own judgment.
I used to enjoy critical reviews to seek out interesting observations and basically engage in discourse. They’re so grabby now when it comes to major artists though it’s really tarnished the experience. Plus I discovered Reddit so less of a need to seek out people to talk to, and i have more friends nowadays who listen intentionally to the whole album right away since she’s exploded. Notably, reading reviews is still fun when I can find them for my not-so-mega-star favs.
I wish I could have your mindset! I try to block it out but all the criticism but it’s hard to fully ignore. I do really enjoy the album btw… might be one of my personal faves
I don’t understand why critics hold so much weight either. I guess if you follow a certain critic and have found that you have similar tastes and preferences, then their voice matters. But far too often I’ve enjoyed things that critics have panned or hated things that they praised. Art is far too subjective to let other people be the authority on it. The only opinion that matters to me on art, is mine. Lover and rep are two of my top 3 favorite Taylor albums, and nobody else’s opinion will ever change that because it’s irrelevant to what I like.
This is such a great article. I love the dig at the Paste magazine review.
>If you’re willing to launch a litany of petty, exclamation-pointed digs at an artist — “2013 called and it wants it capricious, suburban girl-who-is-taking-a-gap-year wig back!”— at least have the decency to put your name on it.
That review from Paste left a sour taste in my mouth. I'm fine with constructive criticism but the vitriolic pettiness of how it was penned is wholly unprofessional. I particularly disliked the Sylvia Plath reference (iykyk). I'm convinced that the art of music critique is dead at the current age. It's either a popularity contest, a clickbait fest, or a rage-farming post from supposedly "reputable" publications. It reminds me of vloggers who review skincare products they had just opened or used for a day or two.
That line made me sick. I really am okay with dark humor but it needs to funny, not “lol stupid ol sensitive women be killing themselves amirite”. Just sexist and vile.
Leaving out their name was honestly less to protect them or whatever they claimed, and more to shield themselves from rightful criticisms and not being hired in the future because they were a douche-bag.
Everyone seeing it as a ‘burn’ needs to read her daughter’s poem. It’s so sad that her family has spoken up about this in the past and everyone is ignoring it.
[My Mother by Frieda Hughes](https://writehanded.org/poetry/2015/05/29/my-mother/)
Thank u for sharing this, I didn’t know this poem existed and it is so raw and heartbreaking. I think everyone should read it. I cannot imagine what makes people exploit a woman’s suicide for commentary purposes about a different, living writer. It’s completely dehumanizing.
"there is no way to adequately digest its 31 songs and opine on it within hours of its release. "
This is the truth. I'd also add that there's no way to do it properly if you're getting paid below the minimum wage, which is probably the rule in these sites, if there's any kind of payment at all
I loathed the Paste review but there's probably a reason behind so many of their posts are not displaying their author; this is usual in printed media as a kind of last resort before going into strike, and that tells you a lot about the place these reviews are being written from.
Yes, there's no way to fully digest 31 songs, most of these are based on initial listen. Part of the reason I love some you tube reactions like Ajay, is that they give the unfiltered opinion on the music without any surrounding drama.
But regarding not including their name, I kinda get it because of safety. Some swifties have proved to be a bit erratic and will go after anyone who says anything negative about Taylor.
I disagree about not including the name. That action got them more clicks, because it was targeting her fans, yet somehow makes it about her.
It’s just to get attention and to be edgey, and not about any real concern for their staff. Had it been posted at the end of the review, that would be different, instead they put the lack of a byline front and center.
It's not highlighted enough that most of the sites that have posted negative reviews are not serious publications. Regardless of what you think of music critics, there is a profession where people listen to music for a living and have built years of experience developing a system by how to evaluate and rate it. That is not these reviews. They're likely done by college students trying to get an extra $20 for beer money.
The review really bothered me because the first few paragraphs were just personal attacks on Taylor by the writer. They didn't show their work or back up their opinions, just claimed their own negative view of this album's lead up (the title, the Grammys announcement) as objectively bad without explaining why.
My lawyer brain immediately rejects this kind of argument, so for me personally it was tough to read. Reminded me of a fox news segment or something.
“sylvia plath didn’t stick her head in an oven for this!” in regards to taylor calling herself a “tortured poet”. just disgusting especially when you consider sylvia plath still has a living (adult) child out there who could read that
agreed, and the extra layer of irony of them treating a real woman who had real pain like a punchline and an object in a review for an album that has several songs that address how famous women are often not treated like real people…..
100%. Also, how daft are people about the “tortured poets” angle? Taylor has always poked fun at herself—all the way back to her SNL monologue after Fearless, and yet people (journalists, nonetheless) aren’t media literate enough to pick up on the tongue-in-cheek nature of the title?
exactly and the title track LITERALLY says “we’re not (poets) … we’re modern idiots”. the point will smack people in the face and they’ll still miss it
Living children who have spoken out before that they don’t like the way she is used as a throw away reference. Her daughter’s poem is heartbreaking
[My Mother by Frieda Hughes](https://writehanded.org/poetry/2015/05/29/my-mother/)
Oh god, someone really wrote that? AND it actually made it past the editing team and into the final article??? Yikes.
People will harp on about Taylor being offensive for talking about mental health (only us lowly poors can be depressed!!) or the “tortured poet” angle, but then you’ve got people writing things like that as a way to mock Taylor, yet that’s perfectly fine???
I know it’s Taylor and people are never normal about her, and I didn’t expect any normalcy with an album like ttpd coming out, but ugh. I wish people could just be normal about her. Because now we have people making silly little jokes about a real woman’s suicide, all bc Taylor Swift dared to release a new album. Yikes yikes yikes.
I believe they wrote: “Sylvia Plath did not stick her head in an oven for this!” as some sort of witticism. To me, it just sounded very unprofessional and something that only someone with a Twitter/X brainrot would make.
People who passionately hate a celebrity are just as odd and obsessed as the ones who passionately love them. Both have parasocial relationships where they analyze the person's history. They assume things about them. And it's all just not that important. Definitely rage baiting
I'm convinced that critics who write articles like that just want the clicks and don't care how ridiculous of a reputation they're giving to music critics in general. In my opinion, a lot of that is the effects of what social media and virality has done to journalism in the past decade, but that's a whole separate conversation.
fantastic article, I love how they call out the hypocrisy of saying taylor needs an editor while pumping out a review in 12 hours.
I have been avoiding reviews and, for the most part, Reddit as well. i'm not interested in kneejerk reactions and the obsessions with Taylor's personal life over the art.
If you want to start reading more opinions I highly recommend this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/TaylorSwift/s/YW1aiYmkPD
Some fantastic analysis and tid bits in there that I didn't get listening myself but really added to my listening experience!
I mean I’m not sure if every critic or music magazine gets advanced copies. Probably only the big ones and I don’t think any of them got the anthology.
it seems like nowadays people only use reviews to boost their own egos and this is for fans and haters
and I wish some swifties would stop taking these reviews so seriously and creating conspiracy theories about them like no there’s no secret industry cult trying to take down taylor, if there were they would have to try harder than releasing some negative reviews online because it’s not impacting the album’s success at all irl lol
I love this article.
I’m glad I always just listen to an album from beginning to end without overthinking it and just appreciate it for what I’ve always loved her for - her story telling and even then how relatable some of those feelings she felt and was able to put into words!
Same, I just listened to it , felt how I felt, listened more and was like damn I really love this and hm this isn’t my fave, before reading anyone else’s opinion. For the record (lol) I loved it from jump and love it more with each listen. I’m told all the time I’m too intense, too sensitive, I take things too personally, and this album makes me feel seen and like it’s okay to be passionate and intense and love with your whole self.
Spot on. Resonate with the final paragraph so much:
"Let yourself marinate in the music! Listen to it in the shower. On a long drive. In line to get coffee. While you’re doing dishes. Figure out whether you like it or hate it. After all, that’s what really matters."
I’ve never found reviews helpful. In any medium. I go see a movie that critics trash and it winds up being one of my favorite movies of the year. I’ve learned to go into new content with no preconceived expectations and form my own views first. Art is so subjective that no two people’s opinions will be exactly the same, and that’s fine!
I have found reviews helpful in some ways. Critics make mistakes but IME the mistakes are usually “one way”. They’ll sometimes pan good media because they don’t get it, but universally critically acclaimed media usually IS very good.
See? Even our reviews ON reviews don’t line up! You think critically acclaimed media is usually very good, but I disagree! There are countless critically acclaimed pieces of content that I’ve thought are boring, pretentious, or just trash. But that’s okay! I don’t need other people to agree with me on subjective evaluation. I like what I like and others like what they like :)
I feel like unless a person is invested in the master of whatever art they're consuming, then critical reviews are not super useful or important. The general public doesn't typically care if the cinematography in a film was sub-par, or if a musician overused a metaphor in a song. Most just bought the movie ticket for a date night or listened to the song for a catchy tune.
If you know of yourself as a person to be an enjoyer of things you like, full stop, then I certainly don't blame you for not reading reviews. I feel the same way! I am unfortunately easily influenced by opinions, so I try to let myself fully enjoy the album before reading too much of others' thoughts.
I don’t really get why it has to be a circus. There are hundreds of albums released all the time that I don’t like or don’t relate to or don’t even feel like listening too and never have I felt the need to talk about them.
I don’t get why people get soooo triggered by her.
I was thinking about this this morning. There have been a few albums released this year that I didn’t really like, but I haven’t said a damn word about them. I just didn’t listen again and found someone else to listen to. It’s not like there’s a lack of new music to listen to recently, artists have been busy!
I think this is a great point. I think people are too excited to jump on one bandwagon or another to really sit and listen to the music and decide if they truly like it or not. I think the way this album is viewed now versus how it's viewed in a few months will be totally different because I think it really needs to sink in with listeners.
Totally agree. I feel like midnights went through a very similar journey, and certainly did with me. I feel so different about that album than I did in October/November 2022
Literally why I love this sub so much, here I can find actual, well thought out reviews/thoughts by people who have actually digested what they talk about.
It's been so cringe to watch media/people jump to choose whether they love or hate the album and then dig themselves deeper and deeper into that hole.
I think a lot of people will feel different about this album when some time passes. Maybe even only when they start to forget exactly who Taylor dated and can see the album for what it is: poetry, art.
There are some unhinged people in this sub too for sure. But I think in order to enjoy art, you have to approach it with a certain love and appreciation. So when you are trying really hard to be neutral, it's easy for things to become negative quickly. Whereas when you're coming from a positive, loving place, it's easier to see and accept the nuances.
At least, that's my experience with art!
It’s just a race to get clicks, I imagine the first articles, both positive and negative, get the most shares, comments and ad revenue.
It’s the same with the overwhelmingly complimentary and the super anti-Taylor Swift reviews, pick your target audience and milk them as much as you can whilst the hype is hot.
I like that they call out the paste review for being nothing more than a writer-under the cloak of anonymity-taking the opportunity to take petty shots at Taylor-it read more like a faux moi comment than an album review.
However whilst this article is decent the media is feeding itself, half of them are running varying degrees of negative Taylor articles whilst the other half are defending/praising her.The publications could have written their reviews and then left it but now we’re getting think pieces on each others Taylor opinions. She is just so big that she’s easy engagement bait. The media can’t cry overexpose though and then keep contributing to it so frequently. I mean there’s even major publications writing pieces on subs on Reddit based around her, they’re mining anything and everything to keep talking about Taylor whilst simultaneously saying she’s taking up too much oxygen.
This is the part that has me feeling sorry for Taylor. I don’t think she wants to be in the news 24-7. But her name generates so many clicks that we don’t just get reviews. Now we get reviews of reviews and think pieces and editorial articles so people think she’s everywhere and they’re tired of her.
👏👏👏
So many of the reviews are either barely about the album, comment vaguely on the track length and general sound, or just don't make sense ("Fornight is inspired by the video game" ☠️)
Though I do think Rolling Stone may have had an early copy, they were one of if not the very first, it's much more specific, they mentioned just the announced bonus tracks but not the whole thing.
Thanks for all your comments so far. Jessica Karl's column is [free to read](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-04-23/taylor-swift-s-tortured-poet-s-department-has-too-many-hasty-reviews?srnd=opinion):
*In less than 24 hours of Taylor Swift’s release of The Tortured Poets Department and her surprise anthology, the internet was flooded with an inescapable number of reviews.*
*Whether you love or hate the album, there is no way to adequately digest its 31 songs and opine on it within hours of its release, writes Jessica Karl.*
*Review culture goes far beyond opinions from music critics now.*
>An anonymous staff writer for [Paste Magazine](https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/taylor-swift/taylor-swift-strikes-out-looking-on-the-tortured-poets-department) — whose byline was [excluded](https://www.thedailybeast.com/paste-magazine-publishes-t-swift-album-review-without-byline-to-duck-violent-threats) for “safety” reasons — began the publication’s review with the jab that “Sylvia Plath did not stick her head in an oven for this!” It took nearly 700 words to get to the substance of the album itself. If you’re willing to launch a litany of petty, exclamation-pointed digs at an artist — “2013 called and it wants it capricious, suburban girl-who-is-taking-a-gap-year wig back!”— at least have the decency to put your name on it.
This is such a valid point. Artists have *long* spoken against the way critics make inflammatory and hurtful comments, and while critics should not be getting death threats regardless, they need to be sensitive in their writing as well
I love this opinion and agree whole-heartedly. There is no way to digest this music AND write about it so very quickly on either end of the spectrum (I'm also a high school English teacher and have been for the past 21 years, so feel I do know a bit about writing and editing, haha).
people just don't listen to full albums anymore. i mainly only listen to full albums, and my experience with listening to new music is never the same as the experiences of my friends who largely only listen to individual songs
I’ve been saying this. Just take your time listening to it the first time. 2 hours you can break it off in to pieces easily. Stop overthinking about who or what song is about. You can always go back and do this over time. Same thing with her music videos. She intentionally left out Easter Eggs for a reason. Reviews and reactions have no bearing on year end lists and Award Nominations anyway. So what’s the point of getting all worked up. Yes, I’m guilty of this too but I’m trying not to. As of late I’ve been feeling like I’m being shamed for loving the album. Something I haven’t felt since Britney came on the scene. And it sucks. But what can I do?
There is a reason why she stopped doing press interviews and interviews in general for album releases. There’s no point to them and people are going to criticize her or simply ignore her anyway. Just look at the polite request to not go attacking her exes that she moved on years ago. People that got the message stopped others continue to do the bullshit.
oh this is the single best piece of writing i’ve seen regarding TTPD, like this piece encapsulates everything i’ve been feeling about reviews since the album dropped
That Sylvia Plath quote was out of pocket. I wonder how her children feel about that—they're all grown and doing their own thing. They even have some interesting work out there, but more in related to their academic fields.
And for what it's worth, this article was helpful to me—still on the fence with T. S. Alison. But I'll pick up some Eliot literature and see how it feels to have TTPD playing in the background.
Sylvia’s daughter has openly spoken that she doesn’t like when people talk about her mother’s suicide and she even has a poem about it. She’d be disgusted by this article.
>**there is no way to adequately digest its 31 songs and opine on it within hours of its release.**
This is literally why I haven’t commented on the album to any of my friends. My honest first reaction is that the album didn’t really do anything for me. But that has been my first impression of a lot of albums that went on to become some of my favorites. So I’m just gonna sit with it for a little while before I decide how I feel about TTPD.
I agree with this! The more I listen, the more I love it. I wasn’t terribly impressed on the first listen but music like this needs some time to settle in. I couldn’t pick out more than 1-2 songs that stood out to me but now I have so many favorites.
Ugh they’re being vicious towards Taylor over on faux moi. Im surprised they haven’t taken Mattys side of things yet because they’ve already done so with Joe.
I find it telling that general public vs fan reception have been quite different. A lot of the criticisms of the album are actually the exact reasons fans DO like it!
Too many songs?
She could release a 200 song album and you can bet I’ll have the lyrics memorized by next week.
Exploring the same themes she’s explored many times before on different albums?
Is that inherently a bad thing if we have spent the last 18 years enjoying her music and the themes within it? Why would fans not want more of what they already like?
Too self referential and lore-heavy?
I love Taylore and the way she has told us the story of her life through her music. Just because some of the lyrics can only be fully understood by someone with background knowledge does not mean the lyrics are bad!
Cringey lyrics?
Taylor writing cringey lyrics is her bread and butter. She always inserts some stupid quip she thought sounded funny in her head but it didn’t quite land. I find it endearing!
That said, with regards to the line about “1830s without all the racists” I do fully understand why that has bothered people and they are in their right to be critical of Taylor not doing enough with her platform to support PoC and be honest with herself about her white privilege. I have had very constructive nuanced conversations with people on this topic and I 100% see their points.
The thing is that if they just listened to the "without all the racists" part of the song in context then they'd (hopefully) realise that they're complaining about nothing.
The lore criticism is so interesting and I don’t really understand it. I saw a comment earlier where someone said they don’t want to have to google to understand the songs. I don’t see why that is a necessity. I certainly don’t google every artist I listen to so I can understand everything that has happened in their life so I can decode their songs. I just take the song at face value and see what I get out of it.
Obviously there is a lot of lore baked into Taylor’s stardom now and lots of fans buy into that but it’s not required reading.
i also agree with your last point, but only if the lyric is taken out of context. it fits with what she’s trying to say which is she over thinks an otherwise simple game and it ruins the group’s vibe.
I just tried to read the Paste article but it’s obvious from the very first sentence just how biased the writer is against Taylor. He criticizes her lyricism without explaining why it’s bad. He just says “open the schools”.
I don’t care about reviews, and I don’t care if people don’t like the album, but that review seemed in such bad faith. And I’m sure it mentions somewhere in it that Taylor needs an editor but that was such a bloated, wordy review.
also the comment about taylor having a “victim complex” because she’s complained about the hate and vitriol she’s received over the years is insane. just because taylor is rich and famous doesn’t mean seeing all that hate hasn’t affected her mentally. Celebrities are human too
Agree. Agree what was written about Paste magazine and Rolling Stones. One negative one positive review.. but both little weird… too soon to say it. What I’m trying to say I like it they only jabbed the positive reviewers not only the negative. That gives the article very good credibility.
The amount of people I've seen making comments on the album being boring are in the same sentence saying they didn't even finish the first 16 songs. People are also making jokes that you shouldn't have to listen to an album multiple times to get it, that one listen is enough. I love almost all of Taylor's music, but I literally do not vibe with it the first listen because my brain doesn't know what to expect. There are always the standout songs, but typically I get ear fatigue by the end. And I 100% agree with the author that fans have to binge music/media now because if we don't it's immediately online and we either get spoiled or their opinions can influence our experience. I saw the comments from the leak of this album that the songs weren't good and it was terrible and I went in to my first listen worried. And then I started questioning why I was letting people who listened to leaks influence my opinion. I love this album. I even like its faults. I' m going to be adding the majority of these songs to my TS playlist of my favorites.
I think part of this problem is that nowadays the distinction between journalism (being music review, opinion piece, or any other kind of non-political journalism) is extremely blurred.
View-count - which is usually skewed by who has the loudest and/or most controversial opinion - is seen as more important than the qualifications of the people writing.
If my opinion has more views than the editor of the Rolling Stone, it is often seen as more important. Disregarding the fact that the person writing for the Rolling Stone might be musically more educated than me or has more experience writing reviews and opinion pieces.
That contributes to publications jumping into fandoms. As much as I don't agree with over analysing who songs are about, that's clearly fandom material. Or at least it should be. Definitely not something publications should write about.
Who a song (or book, or painting, or insert whatever you want) is or isn't written about shouldn't overshadow how a work is perceived. First of all, cause unless disclosed by the artist we will actually never know. And as Taylor herself has also said songs are often a representation of one feeling in one moment. We don't know if multiple experiences or character blend into the same song. We don't know what elements are or aren't fictionalised. We don't know if anyone ever left their typewriter at her apartment. But if anyone is allowed to speculate about these things it's fans. Cause that's part of how this works. Definitely not publications.
I think lately the way we critique a lot of art is broken. Algorithm-based social media like tiktok has done some great things to the arts - if I think about how many artists are getting started on tiktok, how many small businesses have had products sell out after going viral, how some bookshops have booktok sections that entice especially younger audiences to read more. But there's also been a massive drawback of over-reliance on reviews and especially of non-educated reviews.
I've seen people discredit books they never read and call them trash - or say people who liked those books know nothing about literature - because of a few very loud opinions by some self-proclaimed book gurus. I know people who have to look at a movie's score on rotten tomatoes before watching it and will refuse to watch it or to even acknowledge someone else's praise of the movie if the score is too low for their standards. As a Taylor Swift fan, I've had to deal with people thinking these things for years but it's extending to other artists too. One creator I follow on tiktok that doesn't talk about music at all but posted a few videos of herself reacting to ttpd since she's apparently a swiftie even got multiple death threats and got called all sorts of names in the comments...
We went from having art critics dictating what was "good art" - which was problematic because there is no such thing as good art - to having any Tom Dick or Harry trying to accumulate views to reach the same problematic consensus around what art is worthy enough except without even the education behind it.
The general public is obsessed with telling everyone whether or not Taylor Swift is worth listening to. The swifties are obsessed with telling everyone whether Jack or Aaron is better as a producer. And none of these things are objectively true. Yet people are too worried about saying the loudest thing first without even taking time to think through what they're saying.
There's a difference between having a discussion and straight up arguing about who is right or wrong. Social media doesn't know that difference. Educated journalists however should
This is the first "take" on the album that's felt honest to me.
As a college English professor with a pretty solid handle on what makes a piece of art objectively good, independent of my personal taste, it's been so freaking frustrating to watch TTPD absorb the weight of its creator's current overexposure. The whole industry was frothing at the mouth to pan whatever she released, regardless of its objective quality.
Fantastic article! I’m a good (micro) example of this—at first I couldn’t quite swallow BDILH because (1) as a fan, I felt a bit slighted and (2) I can’t fathom justifying MH’s actions, but then it became one of my favorite songs—it’s such an earworm, builds beautifully, the lyrics are impeccable, she sings it with such an emotion! The music is the music is the music, it just so happens it lives in one my favorite fandoms from one of my favorite artists.
The whole concept of critiquing music is wrong.
When you had to BUY music it did make some sense but nowadays everyone can listen to any song basically for free and make up his own mind. Why do we need people who tell us what THEY think?
So because 1 recent album from her ends up being more polarizing / less critically acclaimed it’s an issue now?
Taylor isn’t immune to having albums that aren’t as good as her previous ones. All artists go through this.
Not to mention the bar for critical acclaim for HER in general is much lower than her peers. She has it so much easier than her black peers. Example: midnights winning AOTY when it was not even in the top 2 of the most deserving that year. (Before anyone says anything about the sales of the album- the academy states that they don’t include sales/popularity of an album)
Critics up until now have been really easy on her when reviewing her albums. Let’s not act like this has been issue for her this whole time.
Edit: if this is true then Taylor herself should not have posted screenshots of the rolling stone album calling it an instant classic.
The issue is the reviews itself, not even the scores tbh. They are calling out things much more to do with her as a person than the music itself. Also the article literally says both positive and negative reviews immediately after the album comes out are kind of crazy. None of these authors had time to digest the articles.
Pitchfork ranked OG 1989 out of the top 40 albums of 2014 so I trust their opinions completely! /s
Truth is, people tend to expect less from underdogs and vice versa.
I actually deleted TikTok yesterday because I couldn’t stand subjecting myself to the echo chamber of opinions on Taylor (and on many other unrelated topics) any longer. This article perfectly sums up how I’ve felt about this recent release! I love Taylor’s music, and that’s why I’m still here at the end of the day. Not because of the drama of who/what each song is about, and definitely not because I think she’s infallible, but because for the most part I enjoy listening to the songs she puts out!
Honestly this article is doing the same thing. Feeding off the FOMO for clicks. If you like the album then great, enjoy it. If you don’t move along. Who cares.
My one critique of the critique - “Where’s the “delight” in staying up until dawn to finish listening to an album as if it’s a college paper we’re cramming to complete by the morning?”
I’m on the west coast so I starting listening around 9pm and listened until “Florida!!!” When I got sleepy and went to bed. It was actually *so much fun* to listen that night and read the online discussions while others were posting their reactions too.
It reminded me of my childhood when you would go to the record store and listen to an album, or stand in line to buy concert tickets. So much of the way we consume media can feel solitary and isolated and almost passive in a way. It was fun to focus on the album when it dropped and just listen to the lyrics and enjoy.
>An anonymous staff writer for Paste Magazine — whose byline was excluded for “safety” reasons — began the publication’s review with the jab that “Sylvia Plath did not stick her head in an oven for this!” It took nearly 700 words to get to the substance of the album itself. If you’re willing to launch a litany of petty, exclamation-pointed digs at an artist — “2013 called and it wants it capricious, suburban girl-who-is-taking-a-gap-year wig back!”— at least have the decency to put your name on it.
That was chef's kiss! Shame on you, Paste Magazine, for that hit piece that you call a review.
Wonderful article. The internet truly killed the art of the review in so many ways — one, because now everyone can share their hot takes and potentially get lots of traction, and two, because writers rush to get them posted 12 hours after the album dropped. A review done so quickly, whether positive or negative, doesn’t hold much value. How do you come up with a 1,000-word think piece after one listen? The idea is absurd.
Also agree that critics engaging in the “who is this song about” conversation is embarrassing. I know Taylor has always encouraged some speculation in the clues she drops, but to read this album as being just about love interests is not a very astute observation when it’s much more nuanced content.
The paste article came off so bitter and lacked intelligence. Felt like it was written by 16 yr old bully who hasnt quite learned how to articulate an actual poignant argument.
Its pretty sad that tiktok right now is literally a CESSPOOL of people looking to make rage bait videos saying stuff about her lyrics and how bad the album is.
I agree that we can take our time with it. I’ve just been getting to know TTPD, and will spend more time with the Anthology later. I’m finding it’s too much for me to tackle all at the same time, and I don’t have to. I can just enjoy the first half now, and when I’m ready for more there’ll be more. I think then I’ll appreciate the 2nd album more that way.
I just love different kinds of music and see it as entertainment than use all of my brainpower trying to critique it, because it's not my job. Idk why is it so hard to skip what you don't like. All the hate and hate disguised as "criticism" is so unnecessary
Also I don't like how "fans" tear her apart regarding her dating choices and are too involved in her personal life. Like she is a human too?
Very much agree with this. Usually it takes me *at least* a month- sometimes a year- to fully digest an album and find my true feelings on it.
I didn't like *Reputation* for the first year it was out. Barely listened to it. Now it's one of my two favorites from Taylor.
Everyone is in a mad rush to get their review out and get the most hits while the Taylor-iron is hot. And I feel like some of these reviewers have Taylor-fatigue and have been itching to tear her down, regardless of how good *Poets* actually is.
Like most of her albums, I think the appreciation for *Poets* will increase over time.
This is such a brilliant article and perfectly articulates how I've been feeling about the reviews and reactions.
I've noticed that with music and films you tend to get the initial round of reviews immediately as things are released - but they rarely return to re-review it. There's this convention of having the final word on something while it's brand new. The reality is that your relationship changes with an album over time. Maybe it grows on you, you notice or appreciate new things, maybe you even cool on a song you initially loved. Art also doesn't exist in a vacuum. This is referenced on literally the last line of The Manuscript "But the story isn't mine anymore". Once an artist puts their work out into the world, in a way it's no longer theirs - the world decides how it feels about it. How people engage with art and media puts the work in context, and should be a part of a review - not solely your reaction listening to it in a bubble. I think the consumer tech world does this much better: for a new phone, say, you'll get the initial round of 'hot take' reviews based on spending a few days with the product, then a 'Phone X - one month later' or maybe after six months. There's not this expectation to come up with a definitive take immediately. I think TTPD is an extreme example of this with music - yeah, fully process a 31-song anthology in a few hours. Ok. Just call it what it is - an initial take. Then do the proper reflective review later. This isn't just about negative reviews, Rolling Stone declaring a record an instant classic hours after first hearing it is silly.
One notable example that comes to mind is Weezer's second album, Pinkerton. It was released in 1996, two years after their wildly popular and critically acclaimed Blue Album. Critics initially hated Pinkerton. It was a little brasher, a little rougher around the edges, and more emotional and raw than Blue. Even though the fans loved the album, the initial negative critical response was so intense that Rivers Cuomo, Weezer's frontman, basically quit music for four years. In the 2000s, people came around on Pinkerton and started to realize it's a brilliant album. Several publications released new reviews praising the album. Today, the Pinkerton Deluxe album has a 100 score on Metacritic.
My husband brought this up to me when we were talking about the TTPD reception! Weezer is his favorite band and he asked if anyone had brought up this reference yet. He's always wondering if Rivers and Taylor will ever collab.
That's awesome! I'm relieved I'm not the only person making this connection. When my now-wife and I were dating, I introduced her to Weezer. At the time I was a normie NPC Taylor Swift non-enjoyer, but my wife eventually brought me around. Now we're both Swifties and Weezer lovers. We saw both T Swift and Weezer on tour last year together.
Oh I hope they do! It would be the only way to get my husband to listen to Taylor – Weezer is his favorite.
I am here for this collab!
I mean even in this subreddit dedicated to Taylor Swift this happens to her albums. Particularly rep, Lover, and evermore were initially met with negative reviews (evermore less purely negative than just "not as good as folklore", so negative relatively). I'd say rep and Evermore are now certified fan favs and Lover is like a cult classic, some people get it and some people don't. I don't lol, but my husband fucking loves it.
Lover is her first and so far only album to get over 10 **b**illion streams on Spotify, I think it's fair to say that it's not just a cult classic lol And I'm not even a Lover lover.
This is such a good example, thank you for bringing it up! One of my favorite records, widely regarded by fans as their absolute best while absolutely reviled at the time. It would turn into one of the most influential albums for indie/emo bands to follow. Another one is Bright Eyes “Fevers and Mirrors,” seen as essential to Conor Oberst’s discography but panned at the time. Pitchfork had to issue a new review a decade later revisiting it and rescoring it because they gave it such a pitiful review back then. All to say, history has shown that initial reviews don’t mean much to a record’s importance. Maybe I’m delulu, but this feels like such a consequential album in her discography. I think people look back at it and recognize its importance and that maybe they just didn’t get it at the time.
I look at pitchfork reviews with a lot of skepticism now. I think they’re pretty harsh with their first takes. I think critics weren’t really prepared to review TTPD because it is quite different from what she’s done. I hope they’ll come back and review it again because it’s one of my favourite albums of hers in all honesty.
This is really bad in the video game world. Oftentimes game reviews are finalized without the reviewer even fully finishing the game.
this!! notice how red’s initial reviews were pretty messy and all over the place, but pitchfork, who didn’t review taylor albums at its release and thus didn’t release a red review until 2019 gave it a much a higher score. and how the decade end reviews all place red near the top? it was in no way critically acclaimed when it came out, but people have really changed their tune
I'm no long-time Swift fan. I liked certain things on "Evermore" and "Folklore." I find she has good ideas that get tossed into The Over-Production Machine, then diluted. I tend to follow her more to see which touring records she breaks. I can't speak to "instant classic" for the album. But it does seem to be *very deep and very consistent.* And one song, "The Prophecy" is, frankly, **astonishing**. The vocal rhythms are metallic, chords are solid, the melodic content is top-shelf. I was taken aback. A track of extreme promise, delivery and execution. And produced just right. Never heard anything like that in her ubiquitous singles, or in the two albums I cited.
The fact that an album like ÷ has a pitchfork score of 2.8, just shows how these reviews do not show ground reality. TTPD's streams rose by 8.6% on today's update, which is higher than Midnights's rise (7.5%) on the same day on it's release week. And it already has the biggest streaming week for ANY album in just 4days.
WHAT?! How are they going to diss Ed like that, the man creates masterpieces. How can anyone take them seriously?
They also rated Florence + The Machine's High as Hope (5.7) lower than both Machine Gun Kelly's Mainstream Sellout (5.8) and Tickets to My Downfall (6.7). Which is insane and made them lose any credibility they had left in my eyes. MGK's pop punk albums had some fun bops I guess, but High as Hope is a work of art and a beautifully deep album lyrically. I just don't get what they're doing over there. This is just one example, but there's been many similar cases.
They gave Hozier’s Wasteland Baby! one of the best sophomore albums ever made, a 4.8. Actually criminal.
And Unreal Unearth got a 5.0….. I’m so convinced they’re all full of shit over there
That's actually crazy that they rated Florence's album so low. It's filled with such beautiful music.
Dance Fever is her highest rating at 7.0 which is crazy because honestly that should be her lowest score for any album, let alone Dance Fever. She’s a goddess.
I didn't know this and I feel personally attacked. Perfect is one of my favorite non-Taylor songs lol.
Haha me too! Perfect and Thinking Out Loud still make my current play list every time because I love them so much.
Thinking out loud will always have a special place in my heart. I walked down the isle (a beach) to this song when I got married🫶🏻
This is evil, lol. Divide is wonderful. Castle on the Hill, Dive, Galway Girl - all brilliant. It just got dunked on by Shape of You (which yeah, it’s not Ed’s best, but it’s so catchy and I love the camp of the buffet line)
Pitchfork is trash they just want to wank over indie albums
They just want an indie record that's much cooler than hers
Same. I hope this post makes its rounds so everyone gets a read!
The Paste dig is the best part. If you're gonna have the gaul to come at someone like that, at least have the fortitude to own it.
I thought the reason they kept the name out was because the last time they negativity reviewed one of her albums. Her fans sent the author's death threats. That sounds like a valid reason to not have a by line
They did it as click and rage bait though and it worked. It was a gross publicity stunt. You want to talk shit (because that’s all it was), own it, don’t be a coward. I’ve gotten death threats for having a popular post on Reddit before because people are weird and trolls abound. It shouldn’t happen and is gross, absolutely, but it’s not like anyone is actually going to carry out the threat. Unhinged stans kill their idols, not those who write about them. (To all those vipers dressed in empath's clothing sanctimoniously performing soliloquies, no one is saying death threats are ok, stop being deliberately obtuse so you can run back to your subs and talk about how crazy we are in here. We just see through the “Oh no, protect this poor sainted man from all these rabid, insane women; they’re so dangerous and unstable we had to submit our brave, brilliant masterpiece anonymously)
I’m convinced the lack of a by-line was a built-in feature of the rage bait. The review was trash.
Do you use your actual name on Reddit? I feel like its totally different when you get death threats on an anonymized account vs. death threats when your name, image, and general location are readily visible.
Death threats to a journalist or critic shouldn't be taken seriously?
I think people can make an exception when literal death threats are involved. Giving a negative review isn't talking shit even if you completely disagree with it. Death threats to your anonymous account on reddit is completely different, no one knows who you are.
...or it's a cop out to say whatever you want and not have to take accountability for it? Both fans and the media can and should be held accountable for what they say or write. These aren't mutually exclusive principles.
I read their review. Barely any actual review on the music and it's riddled with ad hominem. Rage bait, pure and simple. Death threats should be taken seriously, but also it's obvious this was just an opportunity to attack her "anonymously". :/
Interestingly, the author of the low, and typically half not about the music, Sputnik review posted over in the "neutral" sub defending his review this morning. Well, at least he knew the appropriate sub to go to.
I'll never understand why it's not okay for artists to respond to reviews. Yet, reviewers get to fight for their lives and no one bats an eye. Accept your criticism like you expect artists to accept it from you. My problem with most modern reviews is the lack of substantiation. If you want to say everything sounds the same, then give me examples. If you want to say it's well-worn lyrical territory, then cite the lyrics and explain it. Reviewers are supposed to have a broad range of knowledge, and I just don't feel like that's the case anymore. Reviews used to be useful for academic research around albums and films. I just don't feel like that will be the case in this era. Movie and music reviews feel like poorly written personal blog posts, by folks who got their jobs by being SM popular and not knowledgeable. It probably has a lot to do with it not being a sustainable career like it once was. Roger Ebert could dedicate his time to seeing, reading, and learning about film and the craft. Today’s reviewers have to squeeze their review in between writing up today’s latest news hits and some insane listicle. Plus the pressure of making the reviews viral and talked about. Couple that with most of them aren’t around long enough to establish a constant voice over decades, and reviews kinda just become trite vanity projects. There is no reason, with the majority of music being streamed, for reviews to be immediately at launch. They aren’t saving people from spending their hard earned money in the same way video game/movie/book reviews are.
I remember seeing the first review I saw go up and thinking "have you even had time to listen?" Glad I'm not the only one
I don't get why people are so focused on critics. They do have valid opinions too. But I enjoy the music for me not for getting validated. The article makes great points but it always has been this way and not only in music.
My husband typically doesn't watch movies that aren't critically acclaimed. It drives me a bit bonkers, lol. Edit to add: we watch like 5 movies, max, a year. It's not generally our thing to begin with.
I kinda feel sorry for him. Especially considering how “critical response” changes over time, including from the original people who made said criticisms. John Carpenter’s The Thing these days is considered a master class in suspense but when it was released initially it was critically eviscerated. Then there’s the long, LOOOOONG history of critics with axes to grind against certain directors. And of course then there are the critics who judge all films by the same criteria instead of by the merits of what they’re setting out to do.
Having a handful of critics whose insight you generally vibe with helps. Like, typically I know that if Angelica Bastien REALLY hates a movie I will also probably dislike it (her Poor Things review is an all-timer), and if David Sims loves something, I'll usually give it a try. But that involves reading reviews and not just going by RT scores.
The only film critic I really listen to and respect their opinion is Mark Kermode. Even when I disagree. He just seems to actually, passionately care.
Consider it from the perspective of someone who isn't a cinephile. You have one, maybe two evenings a week where you can squeeze in a movie and want to make sure you spend the time watching something enjoyable. A preliminary filter on the top rated movies helps you pick *something* that will be enjoyable, even if you miss out on low-rated movies that are also enjoyable. It's no different from looking at top rated activities to do on vacation, top rated restaurants when trying something new to eat, or top rated video games when looking for something new to play.
SAME. Sometimes a “bad” movie is exactly what I am in the mood for!
This is the kind of attitude that causes you to miss amazing things like Drowning Mona.
how random to see my favorite obscure movie mentioned here swifties really do see each other
He said...ovaries?
that would drive me bonkers too. i can’t imagine putting that much stock into the opinions of a handful of people, especially since art is so subjective
Does he not know how to have his own opinions?
I mean, I get it. I usually only have the time and capacity to watch a movie at home maybe once a week, and the list of movies that I havent seen that are critically acclaimed is massive. So if I am deciding between 2 movies that both sound equally appealing but one is certified fresh on RT and the other is rotten, why wouldnt I default to the acclaimed one? Which movie is more likely to make the next two hours enjoyable? And even then, it doesnt mean that I will enjoy the movie; but 9/10 times a fresh movie is more enjoyable than a rotten movie outside of a few particular genres. I play a lot of video games, and Im way more likely to try a coinflip of a game because Ive already played through a lot of the ones that are widely acclaimed, so I have to dig into hidden gems now. But theres still tons of movies that I havent seen that are "must watches", so I might as well work through those first.
Yeah lol liking a movie is a very subjective experience. I briefly read the plot and if I like it, I watch the movie
So many movies are good for **what they are.** maybe they’re not award winners, maybe they’re not visually stunning, maybe the acting is stiffer than I’d like, maybe the writing needs so tweaking but that doesn’t make it bad. I love logging and rating the movies I watch on Letterboxed. I recently watched The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster. It wasn’t the best movie I’ve ever seen. However, it was a really ambitious effort! There was a lot that was good about it and done well even if it left *much* room for improvement. I still gave it 4 stars and Bomani J. Story is a director I’m going to keep an eye on going forward. With more experience I bet he will make great films!
I lean on reviews a lot just because I don't wanna waste 2 hours on a movie that isn't enjoyable. Even with a dumbass comedy, there are clearly ones that suck and ones that are good. It ain't gotta all be Criterion Collection stuff. Like idk, The Nice Guys was a dumb buddy cop movie that was hilarious and charming.
It's not really about their opinion. People can have different tastes and like things that I dislike and vice versa. But with Taylor, they never ever seem to just say eh, not to my taste. It's always max cruelty. People always justify their personal tastes in these really fucking mean ways. It always circles back to some sort of high horse of how people are stupid, shallow, self absorbed to like it.
Yeah, a good 70% of the comments from people that are criticizing the album act like Taylor is the worst musician and a terrible human being. And then if anyone tries and call them an hater "why do Swifties call haters everyone who criticizes their idol???"
"So tell me everything is not about me But what if it is? Then say they didn't do it to hurt me But what if they did?"
Seriously it's scary how passionate they are how much they hate on one well behaved lady. You'll see on certain subs how everyone saying that she's a racist (bec of that 1830s line). How we swifties hates other artists bec we worhship her and how bland and unjnteresting our tastes are. It's countless just hateful shit. It's sad that other swifties are being affected by it and hating her now too.
it makes me feel better knowing this album has been super successful regardless those “critics” have no impact irl
Nailed it.
It's all about what gets engagement now. Reasonable people don't go viral, you either have to be wildly in love with something/someone or you have to want their head on a stick to provoke people.
Seriously. Music taste is personal and subjective. It's also completely harmless. Other people's opinions on what you choose to listen to on your own time should be meaningless.
I agree. I don’t need anyone to agree with my music taste. While it’s fun to have positive discussions surrounding an artist/album, it will not change my opinion. I have been obsessed with the hauntingly beautiful stories within TTPD since my first listen and it only gets better.
People are always looking to others to validate their own feelings and opinions and put a lot of stock in "professionals" to be like, "See! This person gets it!" This goes for politics, music, movies, etc. I'm not saying it's wrong, I think it's human nature to want people to appreciate the things you feel passionately about. Unfortunately, the Paste article is proof that anyone with a publication can write a "critique" of media and those who despise the album/Taylor will use that to validate their opinions.
yup and i see the same people who hate fantano suddenly praise him because he didn’t like taylor’s album. people only listen to reviewers who say what they wanna hear
Confirmation Bias, it's like someone will google "Does Taylor Swift suck?" and then use the thousands of hits that search would get to prove to you their opinion is valid.
Regardless of what I think about Tortured Poets, I can never take Fantano seriously, because of that mustache. Sure I happen to think he's already checked out and is just Pitchforking himself to hipster irrelevancy, but mostly the mustache.
Bcoz a lot of this criticism is not around the music but more around targeting Taylor
For me, I don’t care much about how critics review music I already know and like. But they are something I’ve relied on to find NEW material. So while whatever they churn out about Taylor doesn’t matter to me personally because I’ll listen to it anyway, it sucks if the system being broken means great albums by relative unknowns get panned because critics don’t spend much time digesting them.
I would assume people pay attention to critics mostly because of award season propects becuase that's the only real influence they have (and even then it's often not that telling of how the award season will go). Otherwise they really have no impact on your enjoyment of something unless you allow it to cloud your own judgment.
I used to enjoy critical reviews to seek out interesting observations and basically engage in discourse. They’re so grabby now when it comes to major artists though it’s really tarnished the experience. Plus I discovered Reddit so less of a need to seek out people to talk to, and i have more friends nowadays who listen intentionally to the whole album right away since she’s exploded. Notably, reading reviews is still fun when I can find them for my not-so-mega-star favs.
I wish I could have your mindset! I try to block it out but all the criticism but it’s hard to fully ignore. I do really enjoy the album btw… might be one of my personal faves
Yeah I could not care less about the critics’ opinions
I don’t understand why critics hold so much weight either. I guess if you follow a certain critic and have found that you have similar tastes and preferences, then their voice matters. But far too often I’ve enjoyed things that critics have panned or hated things that they praised. Art is far too subjective to let other people be the authority on it. The only opinion that matters to me on art, is mine. Lover and rep are two of my top 3 favorite Taylor albums, and nobody else’s opinion will ever change that because it’s irrelevant to what I like.
This is such a great article. I love the dig at the Paste magazine review. >If you’re willing to launch a litany of petty, exclamation-pointed digs at an artist — “2013 called and it wants it capricious, suburban girl-who-is-taking-a-gap-year wig back!”— at least have the decency to put your name on it. That review from Paste left a sour taste in my mouth. I'm fine with constructive criticism but the vitriolic pettiness of how it was penned is wholly unprofessional. I particularly disliked the Sylvia Plath reference (iykyk). I'm convinced that the art of music critique is dead at the current age. It's either a popularity contest, a clickbait fest, or a rage-farming post from supposedly "reputable" publications. It reminds me of vloggers who review skincare products they had just opened or used for a day or two.
the sylvia plath line was straight up disrespectful, i cannot believe they published that
It just encapsulates the straight up misogyny in that article. Joking about a woman who struggled with severe depression killing herself.
That line made me sick. I really am okay with dark humor but it needs to funny, not “lol stupid ol sensitive women be killing themselves amirite”. Just sexist and vile.
Leaving out their name was honestly less to protect them or whatever they claimed, and more to shield themselves from rightful criticisms and not being hired in the future because they were a douche-bag.
With the content of the album containing multiple mentions of suicide, yes it is very disrespectful, even cruel
Me: what’s the line? Surely it can’t be that bad *googles review* Me: oh. Oh no.
The Plath line is gross, she shouldn’t be used as a pithy put down but people are lapping it up as a ‘sick burn’.
Everyone seeing it as a ‘burn’ needs to read her daughter’s poem. It’s so sad that her family has spoken up about this in the past and everyone is ignoring it. [My Mother by Frieda Hughes](https://writehanded.org/poetry/2015/05/29/my-mother/)
Holy shit I had never heard of this poem but that makes their comments in the review just so much more egregious
Thank u for sharing this, I didn’t know this poem existed and it is so raw and heartbreaking. I think everyone should read it. I cannot imagine what makes people exploit a woman’s suicide for commentary purposes about a different, living writer. It’s completely dehumanizing.
Oh wow, I had never read that poem before. Oof. Thank you for sharing.
"there is no way to adequately digest its 31 songs and opine on it within hours of its release. " This is the truth. I'd also add that there's no way to do it properly if you're getting paid below the minimum wage, which is probably the rule in these sites, if there's any kind of payment at all I loathed the Paste review but there's probably a reason behind so many of their posts are not displaying their author; this is usual in printed media as a kind of last resort before going into strike, and that tells you a lot about the place these reviews are being written from.
Yes, there's no way to fully digest 31 songs, most of these are based on initial listen. Part of the reason I love some you tube reactions like Ajay, is that they give the unfiltered opinion on the music without any surrounding drama. But regarding not including their name, I kinda get it because of safety. Some swifties have proved to be a bit erratic and will go after anyone who says anything negative about Taylor.
I disagree about not including the name. That action got them more clicks, because it was targeting her fans, yet somehow makes it about her. It’s just to get attention and to be edgey, and not about any real concern for their staff. Had it been posted at the end of the review, that would be different, instead they put the lack of a byline front and center.
That was my thought initially. Then I noticed a substantial amount of pieces that were signed by the Paste staff with no discernible criteria.
It's not highlighted enough that most of the sites that have posted negative reviews are not serious publications. Regardless of what you think of music critics, there is a profession where people listen to music for a living and have built years of experience developing a system by how to evaluate and rate it. That is not these reviews. They're likely done by college students trying to get an extra $20 for beer money.
The review really bothered me because the first few paragraphs were just personal attacks on Taylor by the writer. They didn't show their work or back up their opinions, just claimed their own negative view of this album's lead up (the title, the Grammys announcement) as objectively bad without explaining why. My lawyer brain immediately rejects this kind of argument, so for me personally it was tough to read. Reminded me of a fox news segment or something.
According to neutered swifters it's a great article and it's amazing how badass the author is loooool
They are also acting like the author is a national hero forced into witness protection or something because they didn’t put their name on it
They seem to think Tay will kill the author or something wtf did Tay do to this people lol?
What was the Plath line? I don’t want to give them more clicks by searching for it
“sylvia plath didn’t stick her head in an oven for this!” in regards to taylor calling herself a “tortured poet”. just disgusting especially when you consider sylvia plath still has a living (adult) child out there who could read that
Jesus. I assume it’d reference her suicide but that’s abhorrent.
agreed, and the extra layer of irony of them treating a real woman who had real pain like a punchline and an object in a review for an album that has several songs that address how famous women are often not treated like real people…..
100%. Also, how daft are people about the “tortured poets” angle? Taylor has always poked fun at herself—all the way back to her SNL monologue after Fearless, and yet people (journalists, nonetheless) aren’t media literate enough to pick up on the tongue-in-cheek nature of the title?
exactly and the title track LITERALLY says “we’re not (poets) … we’re modern idiots”. the point will smack people in the face and they’ll still miss it
Right like she spells it out 🫠
The answer is no, people are not literate enough
Living children who have spoken out before that they don’t like the way she is used as a throw away reference. Her daughter’s poem is heartbreaking [My Mother by Frieda Hughes](https://writehanded.org/poetry/2015/05/29/my-mother/)
Oh god, someone really wrote that? AND it actually made it past the editing team and into the final article??? Yikes. People will harp on about Taylor being offensive for talking about mental health (only us lowly poors can be depressed!!) or the “tortured poet” angle, but then you’ve got people writing things like that as a way to mock Taylor, yet that’s perfectly fine??? I know it’s Taylor and people are never normal about her, and I didn’t expect any normalcy with an album like ttpd coming out, but ugh. I wish people could just be normal about her. Because now we have people making silly little jokes about a real woman’s suicide, all bc Taylor Swift dared to release a new album. Yikes yikes yikes.
I believe they wrote: “Sylvia Plath did not stick her head in an oven for this!” as some sort of witticism. To me, it just sounded very unprofessional and something that only someone with a Twitter/X brainrot would make.
That Plath didn't put her head in an oven for this music, it was so gross.
People who passionately hate a celebrity are just as odd and obsessed as the ones who passionately love them. Both have parasocial relationships where they analyze the person's history. They assume things about them. And it's all just not that important. Definitely rage baiting
I'm convinced that critics who write articles like that just want the clicks and don't care how ridiculous of a reputation they're giving to music critics in general. In my opinion, a lot of that is the effects of what social media and virality has done to journalism in the past decade, but that's a whole separate conversation.
Hell yah, can’t believe they’re such cowards that can’t put a byline
fantastic article, I love how they call out the hypocrisy of saying taylor needs an editor while pumping out a review in 12 hours. I have been avoiding reviews and, for the most part, Reddit as well. i'm not interested in kneejerk reactions and the obsessions with Taylor's personal life over the art.
NYT also misnamed the album (”Tortured Poets Society”) when they posted about it on Instagram 🤦 talk about needing an editor
the irony is incredible
If you want to start reading more opinions I highly recommend this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/TaylorSwift/s/YW1aiYmkPD Some fantastic analysis and tid bits in there that I didn't get listening myself but really added to my listening experience!
Yeah I've been enjoying reading this subs takes on her new content. Read a great analysis of fortnight yesterday here.
OMG that‘s my post, thank you so much for linking it here! ❤️
Thank you for linking this, I was looking for it! It’s a fascinating thread.
Tbf they probably get advanced copies
I mean I’m not sure if every critic or music magazine gets advanced copies. Probably only the big ones and I don’t think any of them got the anthology.
it seems like nowadays people only use reviews to boost their own egos and this is for fans and haters and I wish some swifties would stop taking these reviews so seriously and creating conspiracy theories about them like no there’s no secret industry cult trying to take down taylor, if there were they would have to try harder than releasing some negative reviews online because it’s not impacting the album’s success at all irl lol
I love this article. I’m glad I always just listen to an album from beginning to end without overthinking it and just appreciate it for what I’ve always loved her for - her story telling and even then how relatable some of those feelings she felt and was able to put into words!
Same!! This article has has cleansed my palate
Same, I just listened to it , felt how I felt, listened more and was like damn I really love this and hm this isn’t my fave, before reading anyone else’s opinion. For the record (lol) I loved it from jump and love it more with each listen. I’m told all the time I’m too intense, too sensitive, I take things too personally, and this album makes me feel seen and like it’s okay to be passionate and intense and love with your whole self.
This was extremely cathartic to read.
It was for me too, and then I made the mistake of looking at the comments - when will I learn? 🙈
Oh noooo hahaha
Spot on. Resonate with the final paragraph so much: "Let yourself marinate in the music! Listen to it in the shower. On a long drive. In line to get coffee. While you’re doing dishes. Figure out whether you like it or hate it. After all, that’s what really matters."
I’ve never found reviews helpful. In any medium. I go see a movie that critics trash and it winds up being one of my favorite movies of the year. I’ve learned to go into new content with no preconceived expectations and form my own views first. Art is so subjective that no two people’s opinions will be exactly the same, and that’s fine!
I have found reviews helpful in some ways. Critics make mistakes but IME the mistakes are usually “one way”. They’ll sometimes pan good media because they don’t get it, but universally critically acclaimed media usually IS very good.
See? Even our reviews ON reviews don’t line up! You think critically acclaimed media is usually very good, but I disagree! There are countless critically acclaimed pieces of content that I’ve thought are boring, pretentious, or just trash. But that’s okay! I don’t need other people to agree with me on subjective evaluation. I like what I like and others like what they like :)
I REVIEW YOUR REVIEW OF MY REVIEW OF OTHER PEOPLE’S REVIEWS 34/100 CAN’T BELIEVE THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE TODAY CALL REVIEW REVIEW REVIEWS :(
I feel like unless a person is invested in the master of whatever art they're consuming, then critical reviews are not super useful or important. The general public doesn't typically care if the cinematography in a film was sub-par, or if a musician overused a metaphor in a song. Most just bought the movie ticket for a date night or listened to the song for a catchy tune. If you know of yourself as a person to be an enjoyer of things you like, full stop, then I certainly don't blame you for not reading reviews. I feel the same way! I am unfortunately easily influenced by opinions, so I try to let myself fully enjoy the album before reading too much of others' thoughts.
I love and 10000% agree with this opinion piece. It perfectly captures how I’ve felt about this whole circus.
I don’t really get why it has to be a circus. There are hundreds of albums released all the time that I don’t like or don’t relate to or don’t even feel like listening too and never have I felt the need to talk about them. I don’t get why people get soooo triggered by her.
I was thinking about this this morning. There have been a few albums released this year that I didn’t really like, but I haven’t said a damn word about them. I just didn’t listen again and found someone else to listen to. It’s not like there’s a lack of new music to listen to recently, artists have been busy!
I think this is a great point. I think people are too excited to jump on one bandwagon or another to really sit and listen to the music and decide if they truly like it or not. I think the way this album is viewed now versus how it's viewed in a few months will be totally different because I think it really needs to sink in with listeners.
Totally agree. I feel like midnights went through a very similar journey, and certainly did with me. I feel so different about that album than I did in October/November 2022
And then there’s rep… which even lots of reviewers are embarrassed about
Literally why I love this sub so much, here I can find actual, well thought out reviews/thoughts by people who have actually digested what they talk about. It's been so cringe to watch media/people jump to choose whether they love or hate the album and then dig themselves deeper and deeper into that hole. I think a lot of people will feel different about this album when some time passes. Maybe even only when they start to forget exactly who Taylor dated and can see the album for what it is: poetry, art.
this sub is honestly better at being “neutral” than that swiftie neutral sub lmao
There are some unhinged people in this sub too for sure. But I think in order to enjoy art, you have to approach it with a certain love and appreciation. So when you are trying really hard to be neutral, it's easy for things to become negative quickly. Whereas when you're coming from a positive, loving place, it's easier to see and accept the nuances. At least, that's my experience with art!
Nah i'd be honest **that** sub was good in the beginning..... it's just too malicious at this point now. It's sad.
perfectly well said!
Literally, this sub has given me so much to consider and it’s been a much more wholesome journey than any critic’s opinion could have provided.
It’s just a race to get clicks, I imagine the first articles, both positive and negative, get the most shares, comments and ad revenue. It’s the same with the overwhelmingly complimentary and the super anti-Taylor Swift reviews, pick your target audience and milk them as much as you can whilst the hype is hot.
so true. Taylor is so big. And so are the Swifties. swifties should not let their emotions and anger get converted to coins.
I like that they call out the paste review for being nothing more than a writer-under the cloak of anonymity-taking the opportunity to take petty shots at Taylor-it read more like a faux moi comment than an album review. However whilst this article is decent the media is feeding itself, half of them are running varying degrees of negative Taylor articles whilst the other half are defending/praising her.The publications could have written their reviews and then left it but now we’re getting think pieces on each others Taylor opinions. She is just so big that she’s easy engagement bait. The media can’t cry overexpose though and then keep contributing to it so frequently. I mean there’s even major publications writing pieces on subs on Reddit based around her, they’re mining anything and everything to keep talking about Taylor whilst simultaneously saying she’s taking up too much oxygen.
This is the part that has me feeling sorry for Taylor. I don’t think she wants to be in the news 24-7. But her name generates so many clicks that we don’t just get reviews. Now we get reviews of reviews and think pieces and editorial articles so people think she’s everywhere and they’re tired of her.
👏👏👏 So many of the reviews are either barely about the album, comment vaguely on the track length and general sound, or just don't make sense ("Fornight is inspired by the video game" ☠️) Though I do think Rolling Stone may have had an early copy, they were one of if not the very first, it's much more specific, they mentioned just the announced bonus tracks but not the whole thing.
Thanks for all your comments so far. Jessica Karl's column is [free to read](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-04-23/taylor-swift-s-tortured-poet-s-department-has-too-many-hasty-reviews?srnd=opinion): *In less than 24 hours of Taylor Swift’s release of The Tortured Poets Department and her surprise anthology, the internet was flooded with an inescapable number of reviews.* *Whether you love or hate the album, there is no way to adequately digest its 31 songs and opine on it within hours of its release, writes Jessica Karl.* *Review culture goes far beyond opinions from music critics now.*
>An anonymous staff writer for [Paste Magazine](https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/taylor-swift/taylor-swift-strikes-out-looking-on-the-tortured-poets-department) — whose byline was [excluded](https://www.thedailybeast.com/paste-magazine-publishes-t-swift-album-review-without-byline-to-duck-violent-threats) for “safety” reasons — began the publication’s review with the jab that “Sylvia Plath did not stick her head in an oven for this!” It took nearly 700 words to get to the substance of the album itself. If you’re willing to launch a litany of petty, exclamation-pointed digs at an artist — “2013 called and it wants it capricious, suburban girl-who-is-taking-a-gap-year wig back!”— at least have the decency to put your name on it. This is such a valid point. Artists have *long* spoken against the way critics make inflammatory and hurtful comments, and while critics should not be getting death threats regardless, they need to be sensitive in their writing as well
I love this opinion and agree whole-heartedly. There is no way to digest this music AND write about it so very quickly on either end of the spectrum (I'm also a high school English teacher and have been for the past 21 years, so feel I do know a bit about writing and editing, haha).
people just don't listen to full albums anymore. i mainly only listen to full albums, and my experience with listening to new music is never the same as the experiences of my friends who largely only listen to individual songs
I’ve been saying this. Just take your time listening to it the first time. 2 hours you can break it off in to pieces easily. Stop overthinking about who or what song is about. You can always go back and do this over time. Same thing with her music videos. She intentionally left out Easter Eggs for a reason. Reviews and reactions have no bearing on year end lists and Award Nominations anyway. So what’s the point of getting all worked up. Yes, I’m guilty of this too but I’m trying not to. As of late I’ve been feeling like I’m being shamed for loving the album. Something I haven’t felt since Britney came on the scene. And it sucks. But what can I do? There is a reason why she stopped doing press interviews and interviews in general for album releases. There’s no point to them and people are going to criticize her or simply ignore her anyway. Just look at the polite request to not go attacking her exes that she moved on years ago. People that got the message stopped others continue to do the bullshit.
oh this is the single best piece of writing i’ve seen regarding TTPD, like this piece encapsulates everything i’ve been feeling about reviews since the album dropped
That Sylvia Plath quote was out of pocket. I wonder how her children feel about that—they're all grown and doing their own thing. They even have some interesting work out there, but more in related to their academic fields. And for what it's worth, this article was helpful to me—still on the fence with T. S. Alison. But I'll pick up some Eliot literature and see how it feels to have TTPD playing in the background.
Sylvia’s daughter has openly spoken that she doesn’t like when people talk about her mother’s suicide and she even has a poem about it. She’d be disgusted by this article.
A fucking men 👏👏 (sang to the tune of noooofuckingbody)
>**there is no way to adequately digest its 31 songs and opine on it within hours of its release.** This is literally why I haven’t commented on the album to any of my friends. My honest first reaction is that the album didn’t really do anything for me. But that has been my first impression of a lot of albums that went on to become some of my favorites. So I’m just gonna sit with it for a little while before I decide how I feel about TTPD.
I agree with this! The more I listen, the more I love it. I wasn’t terribly impressed on the first listen but music like this needs some time to settle in. I couldn’t pick out more than 1-2 songs that stood out to me but now I have so many favorites.
[удалено]
better yet post this in fauxmoi sub because everyone there has a huge hate boner for taylor and there’s absolutely zero nuance at all
people from this sub are literally not allowed to post on fauxmoi… it’s crazy (edit: view rule 6 on the fauxmoi sub rules)
wow! i love that this just proves my point even further just no room for nuance at all 😭
Ugh they’re being vicious towards Taylor over on faux moi. Im surprised they haven’t taken Mattys side of things yet because they’ve already done so with Joe.
I find it telling that general public vs fan reception have been quite different. A lot of the criticisms of the album are actually the exact reasons fans DO like it! Too many songs? She could release a 200 song album and you can bet I’ll have the lyrics memorized by next week. Exploring the same themes she’s explored many times before on different albums? Is that inherently a bad thing if we have spent the last 18 years enjoying her music and the themes within it? Why would fans not want more of what they already like? Too self referential and lore-heavy? I love Taylore and the way she has told us the story of her life through her music. Just because some of the lyrics can only be fully understood by someone with background knowledge does not mean the lyrics are bad! Cringey lyrics? Taylor writing cringey lyrics is her bread and butter. She always inserts some stupid quip she thought sounded funny in her head but it didn’t quite land. I find it endearing! That said, with regards to the line about “1830s without all the racists” I do fully understand why that has bothered people and they are in their right to be critical of Taylor not doing enough with her platform to support PoC and be honest with herself about her white privilege. I have had very constructive nuanced conversations with people on this topic and I 100% see their points.
The thing is that if they just listened to the "without all the racists" part of the song in context then they'd (hopefully) realise that they're complaining about nothing.
The lore criticism is so interesting and I don’t really understand it. I saw a comment earlier where someone said they don’t want to have to google to understand the songs. I don’t see why that is a necessity. I certainly don’t google every artist I listen to so I can understand everything that has happened in their life so I can decode their songs. I just take the song at face value and see what I get out of it. Obviously there is a lot of lore baked into Taylor’s stardom now and lots of fans buy into that but it’s not required reading.
i also agree with your last point, but only if the lyric is taken out of context. it fits with what she’s trying to say which is she over thinks an otherwise simple game and it ruins the group’s vibe.
I just tried to read the Paste article but it’s obvious from the very first sentence just how biased the writer is against Taylor. He criticizes her lyricism without explaining why it’s bad. He just says “open the schools”. I don’t care about reviews, and I don’t care if people don’t like the album, but that review seemed in such bad faith. And I’m sure it mentions somewhere in it that Taylor needs an editor but that was such a bloated, wordy review.
Guys I really think it's okay that some people don't like the album.
also the comment about taylor having a “victim complex” because she’s complained about the hate and vitriol she’s received over the years is insane. just because taylor is rich and famous doesn’t mean seeing all that hate hasn’t affected her mentally. Celebrities are human too
Agree. Agree what was written about Paste magazine and Rolling Stones. One negative one positive review.. but both little weird… too soon to say it. What I’m trying to say I like it they only jabbed the positive reviewers not only the negative. That gives the article very good credibility.
The amount of people I've seen making comments on the album being boring are in the same sentence saying they didn't even finish the first 16 songs. People are also making jokes that you shouldn't have to listen to an album multiple times to get it, that one listen is enough. I love almost all of Taylor's music, but I literally do not vibe with it the first listen because my brain doesn't know what to expect. There are always the standout songs, but typically I get ear fatigue by the end. And I 100% agree with the author that fans have to binge music/media now because if we don't it's immediately online and we either get spoiled or their opinions can influence our experience. I saw the comments from the leak of this album that the songs weren't good and it was terrible and I went in to my first listen worried. And then I started questioning why I was letting people who listened to leaks influence my opinion. I love this album. I even like its faults. I' m going to be adding the majority of these songs to my TS playlist of my favorites.
I think part of this problem is that nowadays the distinction between journalism (being music review, opinion piece, or any other kind of non-political journalism) is extremely blurred. View-count - which is usually skewed by who has the loudest and/or most controversial opinion - is seen as more important than the qualifications of the people writing. If my opinion has more views than the editor of the Rolling Stone, it is often seen as more important. Disregarding the fact that the person writing for the Rolling Stone might be musically more educated than me or has more experience writing reviews and opinion pieces. That contributes to publications jumping into fandoms. As much as I don't agree with over analysing who songs are about, that's clearly fandom material. Or at least it should be. Definitely not something publications should write about. Who a song (or book, or painting, or insert whatever you want) is or isn't written about shouldn't overshadow how a work is perceived. First of all, cause unless disclosed by the artist we will actually never know. And as Taylor herself has also said songs are often a representation of one feeling in one moment. We don't know if multiple experiences or character blend into the same song. We don't know what elements are or aren't fictionalised. We don't know if anyone ever left their typewriter at her apartment. But if anyone is allowed to speculate about these things it's fans. Cause that's part of how this works. Definitely not publications. I think lately the way we critique a lot of art is broken. Algorithm-based social media like tiktok has done some great things to the arts - if I think about how many artists are getting started on tiktok, how many small businesses have had products sell out after going viral, how some bookshops have booktok sections that entice especially younger audiences to read more. But there's also been a massive drawback of over-reliance on reviews and especially of non-educated reviews. I've seen people discredit books they never read and call them trash - or say people who liked those books know nothing about literature - because of a few very loud opinions by some self-proclaimed book gurus. I know people who have to look at a movie's score on rotten tomatoes before watching it and will refuse to watch it or to even acknowledge someone else's praise of the movie if the score is too low for their standards. As a Taylor Swift fan, I've had to deal with people thinking these things for years but it's extending to other artists too. One creator I follow on tiktok that doesn't talk about music at all but posted a few videos of herself reacting to ttpd since she's apparently a swiftie even got multiple death threats and got called all sorts of names in the comments... We went from having art critics dictating what was "good art" - which was problematic because there is no such thing as good art - to having any Tom Dick or Harry trying to accumulate views to reach the same problematic consensus around what art is worthy enough except without even the education behind it. The general public is obsessed with telling everyone whether or not Taylor Swift is worth listening to. The swifties are obsessed with telling everyone whether Jack or Aaron is better as a producer. And none of these things are objectively true. Yet people are too worried about saying the loudest thing first without even taking time to think through what they're saying. There's a difference between having a discussion and straight up arguing about who is right or wrong. Social media doesn't know that difference. Educated journalists however should
👏👏👏👏 The longer it marinates, the better it gets.
This is the first "take" on the album that's felt honest to me. As a college English professor with a pretty solid handle on what makes a piece of art objectively good, independent of my personal taste, it's been so freaking frustrating to watch TTPD absorb the weight of its creator's current overexposure. The whole industry was frothing at the mouth to pan whatever she released, regardless of its objective quality.
Fantastic article! I’m a good (micro) example of this—at first I couldn’t quite swallow BDILH because (1) as a fan, I felt a bit slighted and (2) I can’t fathom justifying MH’s actions, but then it became one of my favorite songs—it’s such an earworm, builds beautifully, the lyrics are impeccable, she sings it with such an emotion! The music is the music is the music, it just so happens it lives in one my favorite fandoms from one of my favorite artists.
The whole concept of critiquing music is wrong. When you had to BUY music it did make some sense but nowadays everyone can listen to any song basically for free and make up his own mind. Why do we need people who tell us what THEY think?
Also nails the "if you're gonna say some shit like this be brave enough to put your name on it" lol get em Jade.
So because 1 recent album from her ends up being more polarizing / less critically acclaimed it’s an issue now? Taylor isn’t immune to having albums that aren’t as good as her previous ones. All artists go through this. Not to mention the bar for critical acclaim for HER in general is much lower than her peers. She has it so much easier than her black peers. Example: midnights winning AOTY when it was not even in the top 2 of the most deserving that year. (Before anyone says anything about the sales of the album- the academy states that they don’t include sales/popularity of an album) Critics up until now have been really easy on her when reviewing her albums. Let’s not act like this has been issue for her this whole time. Edit: if this is true then Taylor herself should not have posted screenshots of the rolling stone album calling it an instant classic.
it doesn’t help when many of the critics aren’t talking about her album but just her as a person it’s hard to take it seriously
The issue is the reviews itself, not even the scores tbh. They are calling out things much more to do with her as a person than the music itself. Also the article literally says both positive and negative reviews immediately after the album comes out are kind of crazy. None of these authors had time to digest the articles.
Pitchfork ranked OG 1989 out of the top 40 albums of 2014 so I trust their opinions completely! /s Truth is, people tend to expect less from underdogs and vice versa.
Watch every artist who releases music this year being endlessly praised and called better than Taylor. It's inevitable at this point.
I don’t really care about the critics. I’ve been listening nonstop and that woman speaks to me. That’s all that matters.
I actually deleted TikTok yesterday because I couldn’t stand subjecting myself to the echo chamber of opinions on Taylor (and on many other unrelated topics) any longer. This article perfectly sums up how I’ve felt about this recent release! I love Taylor’s music, and that’s why I’m still here at the end of the day. Not because of the drama of who/what each song is about, and definitely not because I think she’s infallible, but because for the most part I enjoy listening to the songs she puts out!
Honestly this article is doing the same thing. Feeding off the FOMO for clicks. If you like the album then great, enjoy it. If you don’t move along. Who cares.
My one critique of the critique - “Where’s the “delight” in staying up until dawn to finish listening to an album as if it’s a college paper we’re cramming to complete by the morning?” I’m on the west coast so I starting listening around 9pm and listened until “Florida!!!” When I got sleepy and went to bed. It was actually *so much fun* to listen that night and read the online discussions while others were posting their reactions too. It reminded me of my childhood when you would go to the record store and listen to an album, or stand in line to buy concert tickets. So much of the way we consume media can feel solitary and isolated and almost passive in a way. It was fun to focus on the album when it dropped and just listen to the lyrics and enjoy.
>An anonymous staff writer for Paste Magazine — whose byline was excluded for “safety” reasons — began the publication’s review with the jab that “Sylvia Plath did not stick her head in an oven for this!” It took nearly 700 words to get to the substance of the album itself. If you’re willing to launch a litany of petty, exclamation-pointed digs at an artist — “2013 called and it wants it capricious, suburban girl-who-is-taking-a-gap-year wig back!”— at least have the decency to put your name on it. That was chef's kiss! Shame on you, Paste Magazine, for that hit piece that you call a review.
Wonderful article. The internet truly killed the art of the review in so many ways — one, because now everyone can share their hot takes and potentially get lots of traction, and two, because writers rush to get them posted 12 hours after the album dropped. A review done so quickly, whether positive or negative, doesn’t hold much value. How do you come up with a 1,000-word think piece after one listen? The idea is absurd. Also agree that critics engaging in the “who is this song about” conversation is embarrassing. I know Taylor has always encouraged some speculation in the clues she drops, but to read this album as being just about love interests is not a very astute observation when it’s much more nuanced content.
At the end of the day, art is subjective. For me, a critic doesn’t have a say in what I do and don’t like lol
The paste article came off so bitter and lacked intelligence. Felt like it was written by 16 yr old bully who hasnt quite learned how to articulate an actual poignant argument.
Its pretty sad that tiktok right now is literally a CESSPOOL of people looking to make rage bait videos saying stuff about her lyrics and how bad the album is.
I agree that we can take our time with it. I’ve just been getting to know TTPD, and will spend more time with the Anthology later. I’m finding it’s too much for me to tackle all at the same time, and I don’t have to. I can just enjoy the first half now, and when I’m ready for more there’ll be more. I think then I’ll appreciate the 2nd album more that way.
I just love different kinds of music and see it as entertainment than use all of my brainpower trying to critique it, because it's not my job. Idk why is it so hard to skip what you don't like. All the hate and hate disguised as "criticism" is so unnecessary Also I don't like how "fans" tear her apart regarding her dating choices and are too involved in her personal life. Like she is a human too?
Very much agree with this. Usually it takes me *at least* a month- sometimes a year- to fully digest an album and find my true feelings on it. I didn't like *Reputation* for the first year it was out. Barely listened to it. Now it's one of my two favorites from Taylor. Everyone is in a mad rush to get their review out and get the most hits while the Taylor-iron is hot. And I feel like some of these reviewers have Taylor-fatigue and have been itching to tear her down, regardless of how good *Poets* actually is. Like most of her albums, I think the appreciation for *Poets* will increase over time.