• Part 1: Intro & Debut
• Part 2: Fearless
• Part 3: Speak Now
• Part 4: Red
• Part 5: 1989
• Part 6: Reputation
• Part 7: Lover
• Part 8: Folklore
• Part 9: Evermore

^(CWs)^(: besides TLOAS getting its title drive-by and some negative comments about rep, nothing really. Another album I just love to bits.)

I am running around like a tattooed golden retriever over this one. This was the first TSwift album I ever loved --and also the first one I ever listened to in full -- and I am so excited to talk about it! At the same time, I'm weirdly nervous to talk about it; discussing the albums I hated is so much easier than the ones I loved, and I know Midnights is a bit contentious even among fans. I don't know what to say. It's just really important to me.

But who cares about any of that? It's 2022! We're finally starting to see a world coming back to normal, and music is starting to reflect that feeling, with a lot of the biggest hits being from established players: Adele, Beyonce, Harry Styles, Justin Bieber. Things are often upbeat, and generally this is considered a pretty great year for pop. People are starting to feel hopeful and happy, with a touch of the bittersweet and introspective, and it's not hard to construct a look-back of the year in popular music that reflects this.

Taylor is kind of on top of the world at this point: this is the year she'll receive an honorary doctor in fine arts from NYU, announce the Eras tour, and release the short film All Too Well to the Toronto Film Festival. Being taken seriously as an artist in multiple mediums and as beloved as ever, her next album is surely going to be a cheerful, glitter-penned good time like Lover or Fearless, right? And it surely won't be controversial or even considered a disappointment*... right?*

Ladies, gentlemen, both, and neither, say hello to...

Midnights (2022)

Image source

^((I can't seem to put the image in the body. ☹️ Oh well, pretend it's here))

Overall

This was (is?) my favorite album, and for a long time the only Taylor Swift album I would listen to. I remember asking people, "well, if I liked Midnights, what other albums of hers would I like?" and being told that it was hard to compare, since nothing else sounds like it. Which is true, for the most part; she does a lot of really interesting things both lyrically -- I think this is her first concept album, a collection of songs capturing the thoughts you have in the middle of the night -- and musically. Aside from reputation, which I guess is its closest comparison (a little funny, considering how differently I feel about both experiments), I'm not sure she has anything that could so clearly be seen as a dance album, or that plays so much with synths, autotune, and a bunch of other electronic elements I'm not musically educated enough to know the names of. It's a jangly, sparkly album that also manages to be deeply melancholy and muted, and honestly I'm still not sure how she pulled both of those off without it feeling jarring or incoherent, but it really doesn't. Even when some of it doesn't work for me -- personally I'm a much bigger fan of the muted parts than the jangly ones -- I still have to be impressed that she's still out here trying new things without coming across as desperate or selling out. Apparently this is called "bedroom pop" or "dream pop," which means moody, late-night vibes and low-fi beats, which I'd never heard of before but is honestly fitting. A lot of this album feels like a dream, or like the part of the early, early morning when you need to be asleep but can't, where everything feels just a bit surreal.

I know this album was disappointing on both a critical and commercial level (well, by Taylor Swift standards) but I think it's her most daring since the massive swing-and-a-miss of reputation, or the swing-and-a-general-success of Red before it. Not every song is great, or even good, but the stuff that works is really excellent, and honestly I don't think anything here is really bad; at worst it's either weird but interesting or bland and forgettable, but never offensive to the senses.

And I love it. I love it so, so much. Love love love love love it.

Songs saved:

• "Lavender Haze"
• "Maroon"
• "Anti-Hero"
• "Snow on the Beach"
• "You're On Your Own, Kid"
• "Midnight Rain"
• "Question...?"
• "Vigilante Shit"
• "Bejeweled"
• "Labyrinth"
• "Karma"
• "Sweet Nothing"
• "The Great War"
• "High Infidelity"
• "Would've, Could've, Should've"
• "Hits Different"

Best song: "Anti-Hero" is just an outstanding song, and one of the rare times her leading single was actually the best choice to introduce people to the album. It's a really good illustration of the entire album's concept: how it feels to be up way too late and unable to keep your thoughts under control, and obsessing over the things that are wrong with you. If you're interested in Taylor lore, it's also fascinating on that level, because for a woman so preoccupied with what people think of her (according to a reading of her music, anyway) and struggling to maintain healthy relationships, a song with her coming to the realization that she has haters and failed relationships because people just plain don't like her, and she doesn't know if there's anything that can be done about it, is the kind of matter-of-fact, mundane tragedy that she is so good at capturing and expressing. It's understated, funny and sometimes awkward, but mostly it's just a quiet, resigned sort of sadness. It's a vibe that permeates that album, not dramatic or grand but in my opinion more poignant because of it.

Honorable MenJUST KIDDING BEST SONG #2: "Would've, Could've, Should've" is tied with "Anti-Hero," and depending on my mood might beat it out. They're both 10/10 songs, so trying to figure out which is slightly more perfect is just giving me a headache. I said in my folklore review that "Exile" was in my Top 3 TS songs, and these are the 2 that might go above it. WCS is a beautiful postmortem of a relationship she didn't grasp the power imbalance of while she was in it. Obsessing over past relationships is another great concept for "things you cannot stop thinking about late at night," and this combines a very justified righteous indignation with that same muted musical palette that makes it quietly devastating.

Honorable Mentions:

• "You're On Your Own, Kid" is my other favorite of the album; it's about her evolution from lovestruck teenager to queen of pop, and the things she's lost, changed, and abandoned on her way to get there. It's not quite a song about regrets, and it's not quite a song about the loneliness that comes from clawing your way to the top, but it's a bit of both those things, as well as touching on that sense she's given in other songs of just being unloved -- or difficult to love -- and not understanding why. I've never felt more empathy for Taylor than in these 3 songs, though I'm not sure how much of this is "real" and how much these are story songs with a first-person narration style. Regardless, they're extremely impactful and beautifully written.
• "Midnight Rain" is I think the only song of the big dance-synth experiments that landed for me, but I just love it. Never would've guessed from those first few seconds that it was a Taylor Swift song, which is honestly really impressive for an artist who is always first and foremost a recognizable brand.
• "High Infidelity" makes adultery look so glamorous, goddamn.
• Other songs I just think are great but don't have anything to say about them: "Maroon," "Bejeweled," "The Great War," and "Sweet Nothings."
• I keep struggling to decide if I like "Snow on the Beach" or if I feel nothing for it, but the catchiness of the chorus and the beauty of the imagery keeps pulling me back in.
• "Lavender Haze" is another song I don't feel all that strongly about, but it gets a shoutout for its music video, which is awesome (and stars a trans dude of color as the love interest! That's neat. I love when she quietly does stuff like that; way more effective and sincere than the performative bombast of "You Need to Calm Down," in my opinion).

Worst song: "Glitch" sounds like a song not good enough to make it onto reputation (which I keep forgetting is supposed to be lowercase, oops). That's not a compliment coming from me.

Dishonorable Mentions: I could go for one of the ones I didn't save, but that's boring so of the ones I did still end up mostly liking:

• "Karma" is trying way too hard in the same way "Better Than Revenge" did back on Speak Now, and it really doesn't land. I give it credit for being the kind of embarrassing, cringe thoughts you might have in the middle of the night, which is the entire point of the album, so it succeeds in its failure. However, I do think I'm giving it way too much credit; I'm not confident that Taylor knows this song is as lame as it is, because she's written equally (or more) awful lyrics when not pursuing this theme. But whether it's trying to fit the concept of the album or not, it does, and that plus its catchiness means gets a pass from me.
• "Vigilante Shit" is even more embarrassing than "Karma," but way more over the top with it. Does that mean it's more intentional? Maybe. Does that mean it's way more fun? Yes, absolutely. Opening with "Draw the cat eye sharp enough to kill a man" creates this image of Taylor sitting up in her room at 3am, practicing bad bitch makeup and fantasizing about actually being one. It's charming and humanizing in a way a lot of her "ooh I'm so cool and tough, I'm the bad guy who always gets the last laugh" posing doesn't.
• I will say, I kept almost liking "Mastermind," but again... it's the same pose, but without the catchiness or the camp. I don't believe Taylor Swift is a mastermind manipulator; I just don't buy it, and unlike the other songs I put here, there's nothing that really added texture to it enough for me to want to hear it regularly.
• The "then everyone clapped" bit in "...Question?" made me cringe until I learned it was based off an actual anecdote. Still a little cringe, but hey, sometimes life is more embarrassing than art.

Definitive song of the album: It always feels like a cop-out to put the biggest single as the definitive song, but most of the time it just is, for better or for worse. So... "Anti-Hero." It's a commentary on her as an artist, a public figure, and arguably a person, and it embodies the concept of the album -- those midnight self-loathing musings -- the best. It's the standout track, the most pop-radio-friendly, and manages to both retain her classic sound and lyricism while fitting in neatly with the more experimental stuff she's playing with around it (I mean, experimental for pop music. This isn't Butthole Surfers or anything).

Best lyric: There are a lot, and most of them are from "Would've, Could've, Should've" or "High Infidelity," but I'm going to stick with just a couple from each, plus some other noteworthy mentions:

• "And now that I know, I wish you'd left me wondering" and "Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first" are both gut-wrenching from the former.
• "You know there's many different ways that you can kill the one you love / The slowest way is never loving them enough" is probably my favorite line from the latter.
• Also fuck it, the entirety of "Anti-Hero." It's very, very good. She doesn't always pull off intentional comedy, but that whole bit about the will reading is great.
• And while I thought "Mastermind" was generally mediocre and kind of embarrassing, "No one wanted to play with me as a little kid" is very revealing re: my entire theory about the Taylor Swift Machine being born of unlikeability and the loneliness it caused. There's a reason an entire school of Swiftie thought centers around speculating about her being neurodivergent, and while I'm not cosigning it because armchair diagnoses are problematic, I will say she speaks to the autistic experience beautifully. And "I'm only cryptic and Machiavellian 'cause I care" is a really fun line that she can't quite pull off.

I know I'm missing some. There are too many great lyrics to list.

Worst lyric: NOT THE SEXY BABY LINE, THAT'S FOR FUCKING SURE. No, seriously, I could write an entire essay on why the sexy baby line is brilliant, but I'll save that for another rant.

Of lines I actually think are bad, most of "Glitch" is nonsense, including "Five seconds later, I'm fastening myself to you with a stitch, oh, yeah." And "that's romance, that's dance" is just... this whole song is vibe-based, and I am not fucking with the vibes. She has a line about "what's in my system" and girl, what is it, root beer? No one thinks you're doing coke. (She might be a real party girl who does hard drugs all the time, but that's not the persona she's developed for herself and she's somewhat trapped by it.)

I also hear a lot of people saying "...Question?" is incomprehensible, which is weird because I think it's a pretty straightforward song, but I'll plop it here to see if other people agree.

You'll love this album if: You enjoy bedroom pop, concept albums, and/or the kinds of thoughts you get when you should've been asleep hours ago set to sad dance music. Or you wanted to hear Taylor Swift play with a synthesizer; apparently no one except me wanted that, considering this album is generally considered a disappointment, but I think this one is brilliant.

On its own, I really loved this album. In the context of her discography, I love it even more.

Recommendations

1. Biggest Hit: "Anti-Hero" -- debuted at #1 and became her longest-leading #1 hit -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1kbLwvqugk
2. Fan Favorite: "Would've, Could've, Should've" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-MfwP_RmHY
3. My Favorite: well, the two listed up there. But after that, "You're On Your Own, Kid" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Gbg6Z70J7E
4. My #2 (not already listed): "Midnight Rain" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Odh9ddPUkEY
5. My #3 (not already listed): "High Infidelity" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qee6dFKlw4

• Part 1: Intro & Debut
• Part 2: Fearless
• Part 3: Speak Now
• Part 4: Red
• Part 5: 1989

You know, I've noticed that I get a lot more positive reception to these posts when I hate an album. That means that the next several are going to be pretty boring for you guys... so I'll try to put as much bile into this one as possible to tide y'all over.

CWs: I hate this album. Just about all of it. I respect it for being bold and experimental, but that's as far as I'm willing to go. I really don't want to hurt the feelings of anyone who liked it because liking it is totally valid, but it gave me a migraine and I get cranky when my head hurts, so I'm probably not as kind to it as I should be.

Please mentally add "to me" in front of every statement, especially the mean ones, because this is all just my opinion and my opinion is silly trash.

Introduction

Welcome to 2017! Music has abandoned all traces of recession-pop cheer, sinking into a dull sludge of mid-tempo and minimalist songs, heavy on trap beats, mumble and emo rap, and slow, droning EDM. Big and era-defining hits include "Rockstar" by Post Malone, "Bad and Boujee" by Migos, and... randomly, Ed Sheeran's "Shape of You," which was neither good nor interesting but was at least a different flavor of awful from the rest of pop radio. (There were also good songs, but my memory of this time is largely negative.)

As for Taylor, she was on top of the world after 1989 catapulted her into new heights of stardom until all of a sudden she wasn't.

The media cared a lot more about every step she made, which made people sick to death of hearing about her, which made it more popular to find things to hate about her, which made her more overexposed (this is sounding familiar, actually). Add to that sudden brutal scrutiny the "Kimye" feud, which she would definitively win a few years later but around this time was causing her social media to get spammed with snake emojis, and by all accounts, she was having a really rough mid-2010s.

So, the music is sluggish, Taylor is getting truly beat to hell by the general public for the first time in her career, and it's not like the rest of the world is looking great, either. How does she channel all this rage into art?

Um... badly. At least, that was the general feeling at the time. And while this album has received a re-examination by fans and plenty of people will say this is one of her greatest albums, I will not be one of them. Let's get into...

Reputation (2017)

Overall

You know, I'll say about Midnights that I appreciated her experimenting with voice modulation and electronic sounds she'd only barely ever touched before, but it turns out she also did that here and way more. I guess I just sort of blocked this album from my mind.

This is bad, borderline unlistenable, but it does get slightly better on a second pass, if only because the shock has worn off. My first reaction was a lot of "oh god no what the fuck no," but listening to it again, it's more of "...huh. That's unpleasant," which is technically an improvement. I listen to all of these while driving, though, so I hope the other people on the road don't think I'm rolling my eyes and grimacing at them.

Okay, to be fair, I respect that she is trying a lot of new things, and things I've never seen before -- one of the songs is literally a mix of gospel, blues, and dubstep musical influences, and a quick google shows me exactly nothing else like it (I'm sure it exists, but it's not easy to find). She belts a lot more on this album, which I also appreciate, but unfortunately it's usually over a cacophony of noise that makes it hard to enjoy. So yeah, I'm a bit softer on this upon revisiting it after listening to her full discography, because it's yet another experiment that defines an era of her songwriting: some of those eras are bad, but I appreciate that she tried to do something less pretty, less melodic, and more aggressive. It shows that she's more interesting, varied, and willing to take risks than a lot of people give her credit for, and I have to respect that.

Is any of it good? Other Swifties tend to think so, and it got a great critical reception at the time, but... uh, no, this is a godawful album pretty much beginning to end, and the fact that I evolved from deeply hating it to only sort of hating it is really more a sign that I've been beaten down by her wildly inconsistent quality to the point where I can roll with anything, I guess.

^(Including a rock album. Please, Taylor. I'll never stop asking for it. Give me the rock album. I'll be nice to the rock album.)

Songs saved:

• "Don't Blame Me"
• "Delicate"
• "Look What You Made Me Do"
• "Gorgeous"
• "Getaway Car"
• "New Year's Day"

Best song: Honestly, there is one truly great song on this album and it's "Delicate."

Honorable Mention: Okay, that's not fair. Other good songs:

• "Don't Blame Me" has middling verses, but the chorus has a gorgeous gospel-blues vibe that is really enjoyable, and then it explodes into dubstep (okay, it's not technically dubstep, but Google AI calls it "dubstep-style" and I know that's not reliable but if you know a better term, tell me because I don't) and like, what? That's awesome! I don't even know if it works, but it's awesome!
• "New Year's Day" is fine, and I think is on there because the record execs demanded at least one of the songs be listenable, but on a weaker album I think it would just be the kind of pretty, blandly forgettable song that serves as filler between the bangers, where I'd like it but not love it.... is all what I said upon first listen, but after 3-4 listens it's one of my favorites. Just so pretty, so evocative, great metaphor. Lovely little song, though not a blockbuster.
• "Gorgeous" isn't exactly good, either, but I was just happy to get a pretty chorus for once, and it has a tsundere vibe that I couldn't help but find fun in a cringe way.
• "Getaway Car" is a story song with a relationship framed as a heist going wrong that distinctly paints her as a villain. It's generally considered one of her best songwriting pieces, and it's solid, but it left me kind of cold compared to fan reaction. This one hasn't really grown on me, and I think I respect it more than I like it, but I do respect it.

Worst song: God, this is like Sophie's Choice if she hated both kids. I don't know which of these is the worst; they're almost all terrible. "I Did Something Bad" is just about universally beloved and I have no idea why, because it is insufferable and I hate every second of it. "Ra-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-da-da"? Awful. Fucking unlistenable. I don't even know what to say about it because it seems just self-evidently unpleasant, but someone explain what you love about it because I do not get it.

Dishonorable Mentions: "End Game" is really rough to listen to as well. Taylor makes a lot of weird, wordless vocalizations on this album and I get that it's part of the experimental "what if I made every song sound like ass?" thing she's exploring, but it feels like a parody of pop music written by someone who hates pop music. I also remember really liking "...Ready for It?" when it first came out, but after enough time and overplay I think I'm ready to put that piece of shit to bed (and replace it with my new piece of shit, which is the hilarious "Look What You Made Me Do" -- also bad, but in a fun way).

Definitive song of the album: "This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things." It's loud, obnoxious, and she is once again fixating on her public image, personal beef, and, you guessed it, reputation. This is a terrible well for her to return to, let alone dedicate most of an album to, and it's just a hideous misstep that makes her sound completely out of touch with the kind of storytelling people actually like from her. For an artist whose bread and butter is relatability, an entire album about being an ultra-famous star facing her first ever public backlash is a terrible choice; she mostly pulled it off before with 1989, thanks to some really good storytelling details and the ability to wrap fame and the relationship with the public in layers of metaphor, and it's a trick she'll pull off again in Midnights, but she doesn't even really attempt for that here and the album is worse for it. It's painfully up her own ass.

And yet... the bridge is really pretty, and the chorus is catchy despite how irritating it is. There are moments of charm in an otherwise unpleasant song, like there are decent bits of this album.

That laugh before the final chorus is really embarrassing, though. Embarrassing, unpleasant, but with moments of brilliance -- that's Reputation-era Taylor in a nutshell.

Best lyric: "I'm sorry, the old Taylor can't come to the phone right now / Why? Oh, 'cause she's dead" ("Look What You Made Me Do"). Hilarious.

Okay, just kidding, but it's undeniably iconic.

To be fair, from this same song I think "I rose up from the dead / I do it all the time" goes kind of hard, even if it's extremely not true at this point in her career; it will become true, though, since apparently she is unkillable. Also "New Year's Day" is a great metaphor about a relationship, the hard, mundane, or kind of unpleasant parts of being in love compared to cleaning up after a huge party, and it's really effective, best encapsulated in the line "I want your midnights / But I'll be cleanin' up bottles with you on New Year's Day."

Worst lyric: "He can be my jailor / Burton to this Taylor" ("...Ready for It?") is awful, and her delivery makes it worse. And pretty much every line in "Call It What You Want" is weird and kind of janky, but I have to give it to "My baby's fly like a jet stream," especially when you have to hear it every chorus. Unfortunately, if a line I even mildly dislike in featured multiple times in a song, the odds of it becoming my least favorite and/or ruining the song skyrocket with each time I have to hear it.

You'll love this album if: You really miss when will.i.am and the Black-Eyed Peas were making songs like "Scream and Shout" and "Dirty Bit." Clearly someone does, because this was a huge hit and I've heard Swifties say this album has no skips. Lots of people love this album, but I'm not one of them. I do mostly respect it, and I guess I'm glad it exists for taking such a big swing in a bold new (bad) direction.

I'm not glad I've listened to it twice, though.

Taylor's Version thoughts: Doesn't exist yet, and I am dreading its release. I doubt it'll sway my opinion much in either direction, though maybe there'll be some Vault tracks that'll be good.

Recommendations

Biggest Hit: "Look What You Made Me Do" -- hit #1 and broke the record for most weekly streams by a woman artist -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tmd-ClpJxA -- I think this song is pretty bad but I also love it. That prechorus is so fun, and that weird "OH" shout-moan right at the end makes me laugh every single time. I imagine this would kill at karaoke.

Fan Favorite: "Getaway Car," I think? It's hard to get a consensus, but this is what I saw the most positive comments about -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhPLQVlUiNQ -- poor Tom Hiddleston, who I think this song is about after a brief Googling? I'm getting more caught up in the lore, which I don't know if I like.

My Favorite: "New Year's Day" was a sleeper hit for me. I started out kind of unimpressed, but it grew to be my favorite song on the album. It's sweet, romantic, and slightly melancholy: all my favorite things! -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkvTYrFIxNM

My #2: "Delicate" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCXGJQYZ9JA -- just fabulous. What is there to say?

My #3: "Don't Blame Me" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRJKB291Z1g -- Gospel. Dubstep. Hell yeah.

An interlude about music videos because I need something positive in this post

Hey, this is when Taylor started directing her own music videos! And you know what? She's actually really good at it. Her eye for mood and detail are maybe as well-suited to directing as songwriting, and in my opinion her videos become more striking (and certainly a lot more diverse, which is a bonus. Way more people of color compared to earlier in her career, is all I'm saying).

Film analyst and Swiftie Patrick Willems talks about it in a really interesting video and I'm bringing it up a) because I love him and b) he's the reason I even paid enough attention to notice the change.

Anyway, there's a notable shift in her videos around Reputation and Lover, and it's really neat.

There. Now we've been sufficiently neutral, I hope. I still love Taylor and think she's a great artist; I just sometimes hate things she's made. But I hate with love, I promise!

• Part 1: Intro & Debut
• Part 2: Fearless
• Part 3: Speak Now
• Part 4: Red

CWs: I'm not very nice to "Shake It Off." And as always, TLOAS gets some drive-bys.

Hi, guys! It's me, the weirdo who listened to nothing but Taylor Swift on shuffle for like 4 straight months and then tries to make a coherent series of posts about it. This one is a little late compared to the rate I'd been putting them out, and that's because I... wasn't sure if I was going to keep doing them?

For some reason, my post on Red is the one that got me a bunch of* hate. Not from the comments on the post, you guys are lovely; I don't know what happened, but my DMs have been less than pleasant. And while I like to think I'm a "block and move on" type, I guess I'm a little more like Taylor than I'd like to admit, and am more of the "block and then think obsessively about this for the rest of my adult life" type.

And that was my most positive review! I loved that album!

Anyway, I whined about how I am incompetent and apparently too dumb to appreciate Taylor Swift's flawless genius to my boyfriend for a few days before deciding whatever, I'm writing these to exorcise my own Swiftie demons, and these demons will not be silenced until I've done every album. So let's go!

^(*Okay, "a bunch" to) ^(me;) ^(I am very sensitive. It was like 4 mean messages. Also technically I don't know if that post triggered it or if it was a coincidence, since I've been talking about TS nonstop for the past few weeks in various comments sections. So take all this with some salt, because I am salty.)

Background

In 2014, "recession pop" largely gave way to feel-good music -- not necessarily less vapid, but instead of talking about bottles and models, we were talking about feeling like a room without a roof and how you're gonna hear us roar. Music trended toward female artists with big, bombastic personalities and heavy EDM sounds; this was when we sort of abandoned choruses in favor of drops, something that would continue pretty much until the end of the decade.

Taylor had fully pivoted from sweet, naive country ingenue to pop princess, facing down an obnoxious level of public scrutiny for both her music and the events that inspired it. Later, she would channel the ugliest parts of this into what is (arguably) her ugliest album, but first, we have...

1989 (2014)

Overall: I went in knowing this one as "the one the critics love." Prior to her folkmore turn, this was the album that was considered by the people I had in my orbit (this mostly means Toddintheshadows) as her masterpiece, an impeccable tour de force of pop songwriting that gracefully stuck the landing from the slightly shaky launch of her pop stardom. And... they are correct. I think a lot of her albums are going to stand the test of time, but if I had to pick only one that makes it out of the dustbin of history to be a classic decades from now, it'd be this one.

Musically she stays both at the outskirts of the feel-good trend while still fitting neatly on the radio alongside songs like "Happy" and "Fancy," but leaning into a bit of a more retro vibe. The videos are all Old Hollywood glamor, and the music is all 80s synth and electropop.

She's starting to think a lot about her relationship with the public. Sometimes it's self-pitying, sometimes it's sarcastic; at its worst it's trying to pull off an "lol I'm so unbothered" attitude that falls completely flat, and at its best it reframes her life through a filter of glamor, the way her fans might see it from the outside. She turns her own romanticized persona into a concept album of sorts, half introspective about her own toxic traits and failings and half resigned to this era of her life just kind of being a hot mess and choosing to lean into the "hot" part. Also I know it's controversial, but I love Jack Antonoff's production in general, his work with Taylor is great more often than not, and this album might be his best.

Above all, I'm most impressed by how mature and thoughtful it is -- not her most introspective, it has too much glitz and glamor thrown onto it, but the way she takes tabloid fodder and turns it into art, and even something enviable and sexy, is stunning.

Songs saved:

• "Blank Space"
• "Style"
• "Out of the Woods"
• "All You Had to Do Was Stay"
• "I Wish You Would"
• "Bad Blood"
• "Wildest Dreams"
• "How You Get the Girl"
• "This Love"
• "Clean"
• "I Know Places [Taylor's Version]"
• "Slut! [Taylor's Version/From the Vault]"
• "Say Don't Go [Taylor's Version/From the Vault]"
• "Now That We Don't Talk [Taylor's Version/From the Vault]"
• "Suburban Legends [Taylor's Version/From the Vault]"
• "Is It Over Now? [Taylor's Version/From the Vault]"

Best song: I mean, obviously it's "Style." That's not even my favorite of hers, and I think I respect it more than I actually enjoy it, but it's immaculate, it's perfect, it's just a beautifully composed song. Lyrically it's super interesting, a portrait of a relationship that's toxic for both parties, but has so much allure in the drama, sexiness, and even misery that she can't or won't walk away. We've seen in previous songs of hers that Taylor's persona is one that romanticizes high-octane relationships and runs away from comfortable, stable ones, and this is all of those issues boiled into a single song, looked at honestly and objectively... and just kind of accepted as what she wants right now. It's not good for her, it's not making her happy, but it's hot, it's exciting, and it fits the person she wants to be. That's kind of sad, in a "if this was happening to a real person you'd be really concerned for and exasperated with them" way, but this is a pop star cultivating a very particular image and persona, and it works really well for her.

That being said, "Out of the Woods" and "How You Get the Girl" are the two I will listen to the most off this album, and it's not even especially close. I will flail and undulate wildly to the chorus of "Out of the Woods" until my bones disintegrate.

Honorable Mentions: "Blank Space" and "Wildest Dreams," two of the other singles off the album that both do similar things to "Style" but come at it from slightly different angles, are also fun (though of them, "Blank Space" definitely has the least re-listen value for me). "Wildest Dreams" is just gorgeous and dreamy in a way that she'll lean into more in later albums and I will eat up every time.

Worst song: "Shake It Off" is everything awful about TS in one obnoxious package: the music is catchy enough to stick in your head and be insufferable, the lyrics attempt to project a confidence and nonchalance that she cannot pull off (and are completely belied by the concept of the song; if you don't care about your haters, you wouldn't be writing an entire song about how you don't care), there's a horrific "rap" breakdown with some of her absolute worst lyrics -- to this point, anyway -- that I remember being so horrified by at the time and now just kind of feels cute, considering how many baffling choices she will make with her music going forward. It reeks with immaturity and insincerity, is impossible to relate to, and just makes her look thin-skinned, image-obsessed, and out of touch with her listeners.

Dishonorable Mention: "Bad Blood" sucks and I love it. It's trash, but it's my trash. The Kendrick Lamar remix does nothing for me, though, and I don't even think he wanted to be on it -- at least, he sure doesn't sound like he does. She'll make better use of her collaborators in later albums, but that remix did not work for me at all.

Definitive song of the album: "Style" for the best of Taylor; "Shake It Off" for the worst.

Best lyric: You know, as I've mentioned before, it's hard to pull a single line out of context and demonstrate why it's beautiful or effective, so instead I'm going to defend one that gets a lot of undeserved hate: "Bandaids don't fix bullet holes" is fine. It's cheesy and cliche, but like... it works. Sometimes people try to paper over a massive hurt they caused with a simple apology instead of amends or accountability, and this lyric is about how that isn't going to work, and paints the other person as oblivious to the depth of their betrayal at best, insincere or even duplicitous at worst. Complete with the rest of the bridge ("You say sorry just for show / You live like that, you live with ghosts"), it's an effective condemnation of this kind of person. It hits extra hard in the context of TS's entire discography, where she herself has attempted to slap bandaids onto other people's bullet holes ("Back to December" springing immediately to mind) and/or letting her pride actively ruin relationships ("The Archer" from 2019's Lover). It's the best part of a not-very-good song, and I think it's way over-hated.

Worst lyric: I want to just say all of "Shake It Off," but to narrow it down: "This. Sick. BEAT," "My ex-man," and "the fella over there with the hella good hair." You could make the argument that they're intentionally lame and she's just having a fun, goofy time with it, but I'm too cranky to get into it and it just rings false to me.

You'll love this album if: I don't know; I've never encountered anyone who didn't like it. Funnily enough, nothing on here quite makes it into my Top 5, but an album almost exclusively full of A's is still quite an impressive feat.

Taylor's Version thoughts (2021): Not better. That being said "I Know Places" won me over in this version, so I guess technically that counts as an improvement, but everything else is either exactly the same or worse. A thoroughly unnecessary listen except for the Vault tracks, which are really fun songs with a lot of personality.

Recommendations

1. Biggest Hit: "Blank Space" -- peaked at #1, knocking "Shake It Off" from the top spot and making her the first woman to -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-ORhEE9VVg
2. Fan Favorite: "New Romantics" -- youtube.com/watch?v=yLFYiN-JOJU&themeRefresh=1
3. My Favorite: "How You Get the Girl" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN4EH0LQtFY -- Decided to go with a live performance, which obviously doesn't sound as good, but... god, I wanna go to one of her concerts. I'll even go to her tour for the latest shitty album if I have to; maybe the tickets will be cheaper because TLOAS sucks. This is showmanship; look at the lights! The dancers! I've heard fans say that her concerts make you feel like she's singing to you even in a crowd of thousands, and I believe it. This video makes me want to be her and also exacerbates my crush on her a bit. She's just so pretty.
4. My #2: ARE WE OUT OF THE WOODS YET ARE WE OUT OF THE WOODS YET ARE WE OUT OF THE WOODS YET ARE WE OUT OF THE -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLf9q36UsBk
5. My #3: Making me choose between "Wildest Dreams" and "Style" is cruel, so I will not -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdneKLhsWOQ -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CmadmM5cOk

Part 1, where I discuss her debut album and why I'm doing this foolishness

Part 2, Fearless

Part 3, Speak Now

CWs: None, really, though I'm bad at talking about music, very bad at talking about things I like without qualifying it with criticisms, and just the worst about using way too many parenthetical asides and italics.

Oh yeah, we're getting into the great stuff. I'm not always the most positive person, even on things I like, so we gotta enjoy this while it lasts. I'm too excited to start talking about this weird, awesome album, so let's get straight into it.

2012! We are deep in the electropop era, with smartphones and internet virality pushing music toward the loud, bright, and often silly. This is the year of "Gangnam Style" and "Starships" -- the world might be ending, the way we engage with media is changing, and we are here to have fun, first, foremost, and only. There are some weird moments, with indie rock artists like Gotye and fun. having unexpected massive hits, but they are in the minority. Country music starts shifting from blonde women with big feelings toward bros with pickup trucks and an obvious, unrequited admiration of pop, and getting a whole lot dumber and more obnoxious.

And Taylor Swift? She sells out.

At least, that's how I remember it at the time. I was on the very fringes of the Taylor phenomenon, but I was pretty deep in the pop music scene, and I remember the extremely mixed reception of her new musical direction. It's had a well-deserved critical reappraisal since, but I remember people being shocked at this sound, and some fans seemed betrayed. We would soon get used to Taylor Swift taking interesting genre shifts throughout her music, but this was the moment her music largely dropped the "country" from her country-pop, and the impact was pretty intense.

And what *was* this monumental, world-shattering album? Well, obviously it was...

Red (2012)

Overall: As I mentioned, this is sometimes called Taylor's "pop star sellout" album, and when I played the first song, I really didn't get that at all.

And then the second song played, and I totally got it.

It's kind of fascinating, because it doesn't blend country and pop into one seamless transition or journey, but it isn't a hard right turn into pop, either. I'd say about half the songs could have easily fit on one of her earlier albums, while the rest sound like virtually nothing she'd recorded before, including experimenting with voice modulation/distortion and pounding beats. And for some reason (that I think is hilarious) it does a "country, pop, country, pop, country, pop" back and forth between the two. Kind of causes a whiplash, but I'm not sure there was any way to work them into a cohesive track list (that being said, I think it would've been extremely funny to only release country-ish songs as singles, front-load those in the first half, and then randomly halfway through the album it does a hard switch with "I Knew You Were Trouble" and gives everyone an M. Night Shyamalan twist. Warn no one and watch the chaos). It's a very muddled and disjointed album, but the songs all range from "eh" to "outstanding," most of them falling in the "pretty good" category for me.

I keep rambling because I'm trying to wrap my head around this album; it captures her as an artist more completely than any other, at least so far, and so both her strengths and weaknesses are on full display throughout, but the overall impact is just damn good music. I was mostly negative on Debut and Fearless, and while I liked Speak Now, I also hated a bunch of it, but this was the first of her albums where I went "Oh, I get it now. She's great."

Songs saved:

• "Red"
• "I Knew You Were Trouble"
• "All Too Well"
• "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"
• "Stay Stay Stay"
• "The Lucky One"
• "State of Grace [Taylor's Version]"
• "All Too Well [Taylor's Version]"
• "I Almost Do [Taylor's Version]"
• "Stay Stay Stay [Taylor's Version]" (YES I LIKED IT ENOUGH TO SAVE BOTH)
• "The Last Time [Taylor's Version]"
• "Holy Ground [Taylor's Version]"
• "Everything Has Changed [Taylor's Version]"
• "Begin Again [Taylor's Version]"
• "The Moment I Knew [Taylor's Version]"
• "Babe [Taylor's Version/From the Vault]"
• "Message in a Bottle [Taylor's Version/From the Vault]"
• "Forever Winter [Taylor's Version/From the Vault]"
• "Run [Taylor's Version/From the Vault]"
• "All Too Well (10 Minute Version) [Taylor's Version/From the Vault]"

Best song:

First off: "All Too Well" is a masterpiece, widely considered her best song ever, and that is true. Objectively I agree, and that would be a much less embarrassing song to choose...

But listen, "Stay Stay Stay" came in and hit me like a whiffle bat covered in glitter. It's just so cute, so charming, and so unbelievably catchy; I actually had trouble moving past it to the rest of the album, and went back and listened to it like 4 times in a row before I could keep going. This is considered one of her worst songs, and I feel like I'm taking crazy pills, because it's so fun and happy?

I don't know what to tell you; I was too busy being delighted by the goofy love song to be as impressed by her magnum opus as I should've been, and it won't be until Taylor's Version that "All Too Well" will actually click for me (10-minute version ftw, though all 3 are great). I love it.

(Also I like to think that the narrator of this song is dating the narrator from "One Week," what with both talking about thinking she's funny when she's mad. It's cute. Listen to them back to back; the it works surprisingly well painting a cohesive picture of a couple who... probably need to work on their communication skills to be more wholesome, but you want to root for anyway.)

That being said, there are so many great songs on this album. Ask me about any in the comments and I will have strong gushy opinions.

Honorable Mention: "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together." What a great song.

Worst song: "22," I guess? I like the chorus quite a bit, and I find even the more questionable lyrics endearing, but there are some really odd performance and music choices that make me unable to fully enjoy listening to it. (Why does she say "hi-psterrrrrrrs" like that? She sounds like a mom trying to fit in with her teenage kids.)

But really, the worst of this album is either kind of forgettable if it's one of the country songs, or weird in a way that doesn't fully come together if it's a pop one. I don't consider any of these truly bad. Even the ones I didn't save weren't ones I disliked; I just don't think I'd want to hear them all that often unless I was doing a dedicated marathon like this.

Dishonorable Mention: "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together." What an obnoxious song.

Definitive song of the album: Surprise surprise, it's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together." Is it great? No... but also yes? Musically, it's, uh, kind of annoying, and a chorus consisting of shout-singing the same couple lines over and over again could be a completely understandable turnoff for a lot of people. But the lyrics are genuinely fantastic -- this song paints such a good picture of a specific kind of asshole, a relatable kind of toxicity, and I didn't need to look it up to know that this was at least in part based off a real relationship. At her best, Taylor's songwriting is incredible at picking the exact details to convey a larger mood, concept, experience, or person, and using cultural touchstones to piece together a crystal-clear snapshot in a few words, and this might be one of my favorite examples.

I said in the last post that there are some songs where I could hand a bunch of different people the lyrics and ask them to describe the person being sung about and get the same result to an uncanny degree, and I think this is one of the best for that. (He wears a beanie and black skinny jeans even in winter. He may or may not have facial tattoos or piercings, but he talks about getting them all the time and is very judgmental of other people's. He's really annoying.) She also has a lot more personality and performance in her voice -- which, again, some people are going to find incredibly annoying, but also makes her sound like she's fully moved past the starry-eyed, kind of mean-girl teenager into a real disaster of an early 20-something. It is the transition song from country princess to pop star, for better and for worse.

Best lyric: It's always hard to pull a single lyric out, because her lyrics are at their best when simple, direct, and really only meaningful or impressive in context; I love the line "We are never ever getting back together," but while I think that's a great line for conveying that "I am finally DONE with this toxic relationship and celebrating this mature decision in an immature way" that serves as a fun, jubilant triumph of a chorus, it's not, like, poetry on its own.

I was scrolling through her lyrics and found "And they tell you that you’re lucky, but you’re so confused / 'cause you don’t feel pretty, you just feel used" ("The Lucky One") and found that really pretty.

And honorable mention for "22" throwing in "You look like bad news / I gotta have you." That's a fun slant rhyme.

Worst lyric: Nothing truly egregious, but "what a sad, beautiful, tragic love affair" is kind of clunky. Feels like she could've taken a few seconds to find a first word that wasn't just a synonym of the third.

Schroedinger's lyric: I really love the line "And I forget about you long enough to forget why I needed to," but what with the controversy around it and the Matt Nathanson line that's almost identical, I'm conflicted. If it's a coincidence, this is a best lyric because it's great; if she stole it, it's a worst lyric for obvious reasons. It makes me disappointed, though, because she's a huge artist and better than this. Matt seems to be cool about it, though, and he's pretty funny. Hate how much bile he received from fans. As with all of Taylor's beefs, I just want her to collab with them, both because the music would be great and because I'm parasocial enough that I want Taylor to be unimpeachable so the fans will only give them positive attention.

You'll love this album if: ...I have no idea. I know I loved it, mostly in the pop-sellout half, but I don't know who this one was for, except Taylor herself. Fans of her early country stuff will enjoy half of it, and fans of her later pop stuff will enjoy half, but those halves are not in conversation with each other at all, so I'm not sure how much crossover appeal either has -- though obviously it worked for a lot of people, who followed her from one to the other despite some fan backlash, so I might not know what I'm talking about. She hasn't really settled into the pop star thing yet, so this is a lot more clumsy than (some of) her later purely-pop albums, but it does have that endearing honesty that was often the best part of her earliest stuff, just given a sleek Max Martin polish.

If you like your album listening experience messy, half-formed, and all over the place, this is a great choice (and I do mean those adjectives positively). It's my favorite album so far, narrowly beating out Speak Now by being more consistently enjoyable.

(How is it both messy and sleek? I don't know. I'm bad at this. You shouldn't be reading these posts, I'm an idiot.)

If you're at all interested in what the TS thing is all "about" in a single album, this might be the best choice for its sheer variety.

Taylor's Version thoughts (2021): The first time I wouldn't say it's a straight-up improvement, with about a 50/50 ratio of "as good or better" to "notably worse" compared to the original, but worth a listen for the longer version of "All Too Well" and the outstanding Vault tracks. As always with me, some songs that didn't make it the first time were rescued from the original, but a lot of the pop stuff sounded significantly more bland in the newer version, and the original shone brighter.

(Why are most of my saves the TVs, then? Well, honestly, probably just because I need a couple listens to get into the song, and so the TVs struck harder because they weren't just rerecordings, they were a reintroduction to the song. Is that a dumb way of selecting and/or ranking music? Yes. Obviously. I still did it, though.)

Recommendations

1. Biggest Hit: "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" -- first #1 for her on the pop charts and set the record for fastest-selling digital single -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA4iX5D9Z64 -- like I said, I get why people find this song annoying, but I love it. Definitely remember hating it when it came out, though, so it might be a bit of a grower.
2. Fan Favorite: "All Too Well" is a... hard one to choose, in terms of which version to recommend. Because it's 2012, and this song is quite well-loved when it comes out, but doesn't really explode until a decade later, when she releases a 10-minute version that debuts at #1 and skyrockets in both popularity and critical acclaim from there. But... you know, it's 2012. That song doesn't exist yet. So here's the original, which is still quite good and was probably the fan favorite at the time as well, but I'm gonna have to find an excuse to drop the longer version and/or the short film (which is the 10-minute version plus some genuinely good acting scenelets) in another post, because that one has my whole heart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8Jxo15Vfic
3. My Favorite: Apparently the song I like the most is considered dumb and bad by other Swifties. They are wrong. This song is great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y3jSlTgw8g -- Literally from the first notes I'm smiling; I don't know what else to say. If you hate this song, you hate joy, I guess.
4. My #2: Well, it's "All Too Well," and my 3rd is her biggest hit, and all the other ones I am the most in love with are Vault tracks (I'm going to have to make an interlude just to gush about those, because damn), so let's go with... "The Moment I Knew" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd4wdgFGGZQ -- It's heartbreaking. It simultaneously describes such a little, inconsequential moment and such a huge one; her ability to describe the tragedy of the mundane is arguably her greatest skill as a songwriter, and distilling everything wrong with this relationship into a single missed party, something that could seem both so minor and so serious, is genius. Poor girl; I want to give her a hug.
5. My #3: There are a lot of good options for this one, but let's choose "The Last Time," because it's very pretty. Not sure who Gary Lightbody is, but he's a slightly awkward stage presence with a lovely voice, like a beautiful songbird unexpectedly turned into a human and put on stage next to Taylor Swift: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuijXg8wm28 -- Also wow, her outfit is so perfect. And the makeup. And she looks like a beautiful tree sapling. Damn. Is it weird that 2013 Taylor is apparently my gender goals?

^(Part 1: Introduction & Debut)

^(Part 2: Fearless) ^((where I tried not using this title format for a hot second and then realized) ^(I'd probably get more engagement if I added the clickbait title) ^(it's easier to track these albums if they all have the same title))

CWs: strong feelings about the song "Speak Now" that lead to an arguably uncharitable reading. TLOAS gets some drive-by insults because I couldn't help myself. Also an ongoing content warning that I am too autistic not to take lyrics as literally as possible, so I might misread them or interpret them in a way you don't; I welcome other interpretations, but please don't throw tomatoes at me, I'm doing my best.

Man, what was going on in 2010? Apparently a bunch of bad stuff: earthquake in Haiti, a big ol' oil spill, the creation of Instagram... ugh, finding historical context for these albums is boring, and I'm mostly just sitting here listening to mgk's "Vampire Diaries" on loop because joke's on all of you, I have cringe taste. Though, speaking of pop-punk...

Okay, fine, there's only one song on this album that even has a tiny flavor of punk, but this is the album that made a generation of Swifties hope they'd someday get an emo album from our girl. That hope still lives eternal in my heart. This is a bad segue. I should not write these when I'm so tired.

Anyway! In 2010, pop music was largely EDM, electropop, and weirdly, country. You can maybe thank Taylor for country's explosion of crossover hits, though alternatively it might have just been a handy convergence of trends that allowed her and artists like Lady A and Carrie Underwood to become massively popular in both country and pop; honestly, it's probably Carrie who dragged Taylor into the limelight, not the other way around, but due to recent Carrie-Underwood-related events I'm choosing to rewrite history and it was all Taylor, all the time.

It's time to Taylor Swift to cement her status as a country-pop icon. And she will do so with...

Speak Now (2010)

Overall:

This is an extremely uneven album, more so than the others -- but I honestly consider that a compliment. It's certainly her most interesting album so far, and was the first time in this journey that I really sat up and thought, "whoa, I didn't expect that from her."

The songs that are good here are great, while the bad ones are some of her most embarrassing and/or repellent up until this point. Very few of these left me feeling neutral or bored, which is an achievement for someone who has a shockingly low attention span; even the ones I didn't hate, but didn't like enough to save, were fun for a single listen. It's also that album I've saved the most from so far.

It really feels like a big step forward in her music career, where she hones her classic formula but also takes some really fascinating steps in weird, unpredictable directions. Those experiments don't always work, but they often did here.

I think her willingness to experiment with genre and style is one of her most interesting aspects as an artist, and she starts doing that in earnest here. I was surprised to hear it happening so early in her musical career, because I'd always assumed she made bog-standard country pop for a few albums, made the pivot to standard-but-good pop, did a bit of a faceplant there in the late 2010s, and THEN started experimenting with folkmore. I was suuuuuuuper wrong about that!

^((I stg this isn't AI, but I feel like these paragraphs sound) ^(so) ^(AI. Tell me I'm being paranoid, please.))

Songs saved:

• "Back to December"
• "Mean"
• "Never Grow Up"
• "Haunted"
• "Mine [Taylor's Version]"
• "The Story of Us [Taylor's Version]"
• "Better Than Revenge [Taylor's Version]"
• "Haunted [Taylor's Version]" (yes, I wanted both versions. They're both so good! I couldn't pick a favorite)
• "Long Live [Taylor's Version]"
• "Superman [Taylor's Version]"
• "Electric Touch [Taylor's Version/From the Vault],"
• "Castles Crumbling [Taylor's Version/From the Vault]"
• "Foolish One [Taylor's Version/From the Vault]"

Best song:

"Back to December," though "Haunted" is a close second. I like how "Haunted" one sounds better, but the storytelling in "Back to December" brought it over the edge. This is such a painfully beautiful song about panicking and leaving a serious relationship because it's getting too serious, and realizing what a mistake you've made when it's (potentially) too late to fix it. She's not much of an emotive singer yet, but the lyrics and her performance do a great job carrying the regret and quiet hope of a second chance that she knows she doesn't deserve, along with the resignation that the choice to be forgiven is completely out of her control.

The guy isn't much of a character, and it wouldn't have hurt to include some more details about why she loved him and wants him back (unless this is about a real person; I never really know which ones are autobiographical and which ones are fiction), but as a study of a bad decision and how it impacts the narrator months or years later, it's a really beautiful, effective song. I'm someone who gets the urge to bolt when things get serious, and this is what I put on when my feet get chilly to remind me what I'd be giving up.

Plus, I'm a sucker for a ballad, and she does them so well.

Honorable Mentions:

"Haunted" is incredibly bizarre and feels Evanescence-like with its strings and wailing electric guitar, a kind of mid-aughts goth emo that doesn't totally work with her voice but can make you imagine what a different artistic and career path for her could've looked like. It doesn't feel like pop or country, and it's great to see her explore different instruments and genres (something she'll do increasingly from here on out). Hearing this come on the first time almost made me drive off the road, I was so shocked by what I was hearing.

"Mean" is just delightful. Taylor's skill at evocative description is at full power here, and considering how badly she'll fail at being devastatingly cruel in later albums, I was really impressed at how well she pulled off petty here; that "and pathetic" makes me want to cover my face out of embarrassment for the subject of the song every time. As I indicated earlier, I don't really pay attention to what songs are directed at a real person or not, but if this is about someone real, I hope they felt this sweet-sounding burn.

"Never Grow Up" is a heartstrings-tugging song about how the world gets so much less easy to navigate as you get older, made ironically more poignant by how young Taylor still is; at 19, she's starting to feel those hurts and disappointments life brings, but she's doing it without the life experience to know that these huge, terrible, complicated emotions are survivable. (This is why TV's is one of the few non-improvements on this album; coming from a decade's more experience actually kind of weakens the rawness, rather than amplifying it.)

Also gotta shout out the vault track "Castles Crumbling" for having Hayley Williams on it and "Electric Touch" for having Fall Out Boy, because that means we still might get that emo album from her someday. Do it, Taylor. You know you want to. And honestly, your current career is a great time for something new, right? Something like...emo rock?

Worst song: "Speak Now." Fuck this song. The only saving grace I can give is that it's not technically about her convincing some guy to leave his bride at the altar; she shows up uninvited to the wedding, thinks awful things about the bride and her family, and "speaks now"... but doesn't actually show the result. She fantasizes about what the groom will do, but leaves it ambiguous as to whether he actually does leave his bride to run away with the narrator or if she's being delusional, and if you want you can imagine that the narrator is forcibly ejected from the building and the wedding goes on without a hitch.

However, I don't think regardless of how it's supposed to end in Taylor's or the listener's head, you're supposed to think the narrator is a bad person; I'm pretty sure you're supposed to find this daring and romantic, and it falls so flat on those grounds for me in the same way these kinds of songs always do. I've heard this called satirical, and I don't think that's really supported in the text, but it is very exaggerated in its melodrama, and I can see where someone could find it more funny than annoying if they're feeling charitable. Unfortunately, I am not feeling charitable; my hackles were up at the first mention of the inferior other woman, and they didn't go down the rest of the song.

Dishonorable Mention: "Better Than Revenge" is a stunningly flaccid song that ends up being too unintentionally hilarious to truly hate. It's a rehash of "Misery Business," complete with slut-shaming misogyny, a romantic interest who literally does not exist as a person with agency or reasons to love him, and a seeming obliviousness to how pathetic the narrator sounds.

I like it more, though, because it one-ups "Misery Business" in a couple ways that make it funnier than annoying, and you can choose your favorite: is it the failure to actually end up with the guy at the end? The audacious hypocrisy of singing about a woman who steals another man 6 songs after singing about literally stealing a guy at the altar? Or the fact that she does not seem to actually get revenge in the song about how good she is at getting revenge? It's the last one, right?

I will say that I liked Taylor's Version; it removed the most egregious misogynistic parts, and it coming from the world's biggest pop star makes it feel like just writing the song and putting this woman on anonymous blast is the revenge itself, as opposed to just an "oooh I'm gonna get ya" impotent, Yosemite-Sam-esque rage. I think it's supposed to mean that both times -- the song itself is the revenge -- but I don't think she was quite a big enough star when Speak Now came out to make this one land for me. It does make me wonder if Paramore has released a version of "Misery Business" without "you're just a whore" yet.

Definitive song of the album: "Mine." It's certainly not perfect -- and that "oh oh-oh oh" in the beginning is incredibly grating in the wrong mood -- but it's sweet, cute, and incredibly catchy. Plus it explores a little bit of the push-pull Taylor's music lyrics explore in these early albums between the grand romance she wants and the fear of commitment that makes it so difficult. It's an under-explored dichotomy in music, let alone pop, and it's part of what makes this album so fascinating.

Best lyric: It's hard to choose great lyrics when she writes so simply, and a lot of the power of certain lines is in the context of the entire song, but:

• "You gave me roses and I left them there to die" ("Back to December") is pretty and evocative, suggesting that not only did she end a good relationship for a bad reason, but that she picked a truly awful moment to do it, in response to romance, vulnerability and/or commitment from her partner.
• "Braced myself for the goodbye / 'cause that's all I've ever known" ("Mine") also deserves a shoutout for being quite powerful.
• I have a theory that you could pick a couple Taylor Swift songs (specifically "Mean" and "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"), drop the lyrics in front of a group of random people, ask them to describe the person being sung about in as much detail as possible -- appearance, habits, voice, literally anything -- and get shockingly similar results. She's just really good at capturing that imagery. Anyway, the picture is best painted by hearing all of "Mean," but "Drunk and grumbling on about how I can't sing" is probably my favorite single line.

Worst lyric: Man, so many catty, petty options, but I'll go with "She floats down the aisle like a pageant queen / but I know you wish it was me" ("Speak Now"). Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I do not have the patience for this

You'll love this album if: You're interested in a slightly more mature Taylor Swift, one who is poking her toes out of the teenybopper country-pop she's been comfortably ensconced in for the past few years -- but also still want at least half an album of those kinds of songs. It feels like she was gently leading her listeners into the next era with baby steps; I can't quite call it a transitional album between the twee and the pop (that's next), but the shift is beginning, and maybe it's because I sort of know where she's headed, but I think it'll make her jump to pop a lot less jarring. Listening to this, it really does feel like she set up a crossroads where she could go in several different directions that would all make musical sense including emo rock, which still isn't off the table, Taylor! Do it for me, Taylor!

Honestly, I can't say I'd recommend this full album with no caveats to someone who's not already a Swiftie, but I struggle to recommend most of her albums as a whole, because she's such an inconsistent artist and I am an extremely picky listener. That being said, there is a lot to love here, and it's easily my favorite album so far.

Taylor's Version thoughts (2023): Generally another improvement, with some lyric changes and more vocal training to benefit from. Not all the songs are better in the rerecorded version -- I think "Mean" in particular sounds better with the younger, more naive, and not as pretty vocals -- but I replaced some songs I didn't like as much in the OG with the TVs and added a bunch. Plus there are songs from the vault featuring Hayley Williams and Fall Out Boy that are just a good time. Definitely worth checking in for the vault tracks, if nothing else.

Recommendations

There's no way to embed a video in a text post? Rude. And to do it during Pride Month? Ruder. Reddit hates me specifically and wants me to suffer.

1. Biggest Hit: "Mine" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPBwXKgDTdE -- Man, this is a boring music video. A lot of hers are in this era. I cannot wait until she gets more artistic freedom, and especially when she'll start directing her own; they get so much more visually interesting.
2. Fan Favorite: "Enchanted" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs_1nw6OXgE -- I never remember this song, even though I've heard it like 5 times. I don't know what it is; it's not bad, it's honestly even good when I'm listening to it, but it just... slides off my brain the second it ends.
3. My Favorite: "Back to December" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUwxKWT6m7U -- if you track my favorites going forward, you're gonna see a lot of sad ballads. I love them so much once she starts exploring deeper topics with them.
4. My #2: "Haunted" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmm8qDtnHEo -- What an insane song. I love it.
5. My #3: "Mean" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYa1eI1hpDE -- Shoutout to the one guy in the band whose only job is clapping. You are nailing the energy this song needs.

Random edit that I don't know where to put: Saw some comments asking about "Dear John," a song I've heard mentioned by fans but didn't really leave any impression on me (possibly because it came immediately after "Speak Now," and I was bad at mentally changing tracks). Decided to sit down and listen to it with fresh ears and some fan-provided context. Lyrically, it's beautiful, and absolutely devastating, wow. I think I respect it more than I like it, which might sound weird? I'm super impressed by it, but I don't think it'll enter my regular rotation, because as good as it is, it's a little dreary and lullaby-sounding in that way a lot of classic country songs are. Which isn't a criticism at all, more a comment on my taste. Anyway, it deserved some attention, and I'm glad folks drew my attention to it; might not be one of my favorites, but if I was pointing at songs that prove her talent as a songwriter, especially in her early career, it definitely would be on my list.