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I was talking to a friend about this album (we went to the Eras Tour together last summer) and we both agreed it's going to take some time to absorb. The more I listen to it, the more I can differentiate between the songs (I don't know that there are any "bangers" in the traditional sense of the word except for maybe Florida!!!) but as a whole I think I prefer the second half of the album. I think she says interesting things about her fandom, the music industry, our culture at large...there's a degree to which knowledge of her personal life allows a listener to hear references and layers (real or imagined) but also, someone pointed out we need to stop asking for the paternity test of all the songs and I agree with that 100%. You pointed out earlier that Taylor likes to work -- and I think that's true -- but I just hope she's taking care of herself. Her life is not one most people could handle.

I'm not sure that I have a favorite/least favorite aesthetic. She's demonstrating there's many, many ways to show up in the world and one of my favorite parts of being at the concert was seeing everyone dressed up in what *they* most identified with in a safe and joyous way, from dark green velvet capes to the gold fringe dress and cowboy boots.

As for my own aesthetic, I've never been particularly fashionable, but I'm an elected official and I'm highly conscious now that whenever I'm at public meetings (or even when I'm going to be meeting with others in my official capacity) that what I wear will speak for me before I do.

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My latest thought on this album is that “I Hate It Here” might be the key to understanding all of it— “here” being the stratosphere of fame only she occupies.

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I have listened to the all 31 songs a few times now and with each pass through I wake up to it. No. Truly. I wake up with a TTPD song in my head. Songs that when I first heard I couldn’t discern from one another. Entering the album I was open hearted and minded. Then became skeptical. Now can say that I like 90% of it.

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"We need to stop asking for the paternity test of all the songs" 100% this! I feel like trying to figure out which song is about who and trying to decode every little thing, tying it to Swift's life, is actually detrimental to her art! I heard somewhere that her persona is getting bigger than her art and that's something she will have to manage going forward. As a casual listener, I have no intention of listening to 30 plus songs thinking about Matty Healy or Taylor herself. This kind of takes a bit from the experience of listening and enjoying the music for itself (and not like some kind of puzzle to solve)

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I really appreciate the article linked here, against hot takes, esp with this album. TTPD is rich and dense — each song is a text and needs to be studied. A friend of mine new to Taylor asked: does she always use so many words?? Yessssss.

On 4/19, I personally wasn’t saying anything coherent, just in my group text like “there ARE narcotics in her songs” and “I didn’t know how much I wanted furious folklore” and “loml 😭💔 I’m not ok”

I protected myself from Cowboy Carter discourse and loved it purely before ever knowing what the world thought and I still love it that way, joyously and wholly. They are very different albums (TTPD is many things but joyful it is not), but I wish I hadn’t mainlined the TTPD discourse so soon cos it’s really hard to see the art in the midst of so much noise.

But with a few days, it’s been really helpful to think of Swift rn in lineage with confessional poets like Plath and Sexton and in lineage with messy dark, strange unhinged musicians like Tori. Cos this also helps me contextualize all the criticism of Taylor, to understand the lineage, too, of the conversation around her, esp in all these hot-takes released 12 hours after the drop. It’s an old conversation at this point, whether or not women/non-cis-dudes should be able to speak about their experiences, especially whether we should be able to do it in a raw and messy way. It’s so interesting that the response is always like, idk, couldn’t she be a little less?? Almost as if ppl are afraid of the power of the raw and messy. (Slash the power of the performance of the raw and messy — tbh it’s hard for me to see the distinction between the real and performance anymore — with Taylor but also in general 🫠).

On the album itself: I’m obsessed with Fortnight - really really into Taylor’s languid cough-syrupy Lana vibe. My current favorite tracks are Down Bad (it legit makes me want to cry at a gym? Not a goal I had previously) and Guilty as Sin? and The Black Dog. I’m still processing the rest of Disc 2 but it feels Tori-coded in a way that feels so satisfying for my 90s teenage heart.

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Love this idea of a lineage!!

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Second Down Bad and Guitly as Sin being the faves of the first half of the album. Not sure what I think about the second half, since I didnt have a lot of time to listen. But The Albatross is a beautiful song!

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Tori-coded! Absolutely. I was left hoping her next album would be piano melodic.

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I must say I was slightly desapointed with the discussion in this episode... And I say that as someone who loves Culture Study and enjoys both Taylor and Sarah's work. However, I missed a bit more of analysis of Swift's image and also some valid criticism of her celebrity persona. I kind of feel I heard one hour of a swiftie's deffense of everything Taylor does, as if she can do no wrong and everything she does is by design. I honestly think Taylor is not a VISUALS girl. Even the videos she directs are a little bit cheesy (The TTPD video looks so good, but then we have this colourfull "auras" coming out of her and Post Malone's characters and that looks so bad and corny!). And that is all fine, she's is madly talented in so many other areAs of her life (and looks like a supermodel!), so it's ok if she is not excelent in her fashion / visual choices. And nowadays is so difficult to come across thoughtfull criticism of Swift, so I guess I was expecting some deeper dives into her wins and also her mistakes. This album is nice, but I alsoo think is too bloated. Plus the subject matter is getting kind of repetitive... I guess I was expecting her to dare a lit bit more creatively!

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I get it — and I will say we did a lot more of Taylor Swift *as image* in a previous ep, and were trying to focus on the album itself (and the imagery and discourse around it). I was very ready to dislike this album and am frankly surprised by how much I like it, so my perspective at least reflects that. And I thought we talked for a long time about the "too long-ness" of it all, but maybe it didn't seem that way to you. Either way, thank you for listening!

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Oh, I listen to ALL of your episodes! You're the one who got me hooked on ACOTAR, by the way ; )

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I totally agree that the Internet is sorely lacking in thoughtful criticism of T. Swift. I posted my honest thoughts on TTPD in my Insta stories and boy did some Swifties come at me! Sheesh. (Is the album too long? For me, yes, absolutely.)

Even so, I enjoyed this podcast episode mainly because of the listener questions. The listeners were clearly not all enamored of TTPD or of her style and I loved hearing that perspective show up in their questions. That balanced out some of the rah-rah-Taylor-is-awesome stuff.

That's such an interesting observation about TS not being a visuals person. I never thought of it that way, but I agree. She's a lyricist first and foremost, a musician second, and then everything else is kind of in service to promoting these songs that she's created.

At first when the album was released last week, I was like, "A double album of mostly breakup songs? Hasn't T. Swift done this before (and better)? Yawn." I felt that if she was going to return to heartbroken songwriting, she had to clear a HIGH bar and not all of TTPD accomplishes that.

But over the past week, I've come to realize there's value in the mid-30s perspective on breaking up. Really it sucks no matter what age you are, and Taylor is doing her part to normalize that. Could she have done it with a less bloated track list? Almost certainly. It's also interesting to think about how a record label shapes and edits an artist's expression/output, and Sarah made a great point during this episode that Taylor calls the shots now, not her new label.

I'm still absorbing the second half of the anthology, but I'm struck by how brave TTPD is. If I were the world's most famous pop star, I wouldn't want my new boyfriend, his family, and football teammates all knowing that this racist British rockstar scumbag had me wanting to die. I just can't imagine having everyone know that about me. That feels too personal. I don't love all of the music and I'm not the world's biggest Swiftie, but it's absolutely wild to me that she's okay with everyone knowing how low Joe and Matty brought her last year. I'd love to hear other's thoughts on that.

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You're right about how raw she is in this album. I agree with you that it takes some courage to show yourself like that for the whole world to see!

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I really love this album. I like that she's shedding her good girl persona -- the whole thing feels like an exploration of Taylor TM and Taylor (the person), the ways she's defaulted to the former and is now exploring the consequences for the latter. I've been listening to it over and over since it came out, and with every listen I pick up more and more. Part of what I love about her work is how much she's building a universe across all of her music with shared/evolving references, how layered it all is, how much of her work is in conversation with itself.

Which is not to say there aren't songs I like less than others (there's at least one skip on every album for me), but I'm finding it fascinating and heartfelt and thought-provoking.

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Especially loved the outtake, thank you for including! I so agree with the idea that she writes jokes in her lyrics or writes tongue in cheek in moments and people take it up in bad faith. I once read a newsletter where someone made a quip about Karma, saying it was out of touch because she uses private jets and is therefore not so innocent, and I laughed out loud at how much it felt like they missed the point of that song... and maybe all of her songs? We can absolutely be critical of the actions exhibited by public figures, I think we should be, but to read Karma as Taylor Swift thinking she literally never does anything wrong is confusing to me, lol. Her music captures an emotion felt at a given moment in time, and emotions aren't objectively level-headed responses to whatever provocation triggered them. To limit creative expression to an always deeply considered and measured summation of what the artist is going through in a particular moment is pretty frustrating to me, and quite antithetical to the entirety of her success. So far, I really love this album--there's just so much to dig into! I haven't stopped being curious about it or catching subtle moments in the writing, it feels reminiscent of evermore to me in that way. I similarly felt overwhelmed by that album at the jump and then slowly it morphed into one of her most played albums for me.

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Yes to all of this!! I listened to a pod saying she "crossed a line" singing her own name in "Clara Bow" and I wanted to scream YOU'RE MISSING THE POINT

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The outtake was my favourite part. I appreciate the acknowledgement of her humour and intention. As well, the comment about, “So High School” being written for Travis (rather than just about him).

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What I need is an episode like this about Lana Del Rey!! 😂

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