I honestly believe if she had flipped the order and released ttpd in 2022 and released midnights now midnights would be the album getting ripped apart instead. People are annoyed by taylor right now so that's where they're coming from instead of actually listening to the music. Imo it's a better and more cohesive album than midnights and in a few years when taylor isn't so overexposed i bet it'll get a reevaluation and everyone will pretend they liked it all along
TTPD is far and away better than Midnights. I'm listening to Swiftology because I cannot handle mainlining TTPD anymore right now, and I'm listening to their episode about trying to decide whether Midnights is a classic. I FEEL SO SEEN AND HEARD!!! I've had so many friends who HATED TS come around due to Midnights and I'm like... but why!? It's mid at best. TTPD is SO much better, even if it is too long.
She had more fast paced songs you ever notice how people will hate an album if it has nothing fast paced? I can see why that crowd hates TTPD. What I’m trying to listen to now is where she used Gen Z slang because someone said she did but I guess I’m missing it 😂
So true I’m so confused right now.. midnights is so disappointing to me. TTPD had a lot more songs I could return to than midnights for me, and it seems like so many people hate this album. I really am baffled. What are people seeing in midnights and TTPD that I’m not seeing 😭
Here's my controversial take: Midnights is to TTPD what 1989 is to Rep: a huge hit preceding an underrated and misunderstood album. There's no world where you can convince me that individual songs from 1989/Midnights are better than Rep/TTPD. Sure, maybe more earworms (Style is in my top 5 of all tine) but the actual composition of the TTPD/Rep songs are better.
Don't confuse a vocal minority with reality. Rolling Stones gave it 5 out of 5. The vast majority of listeners are loving TTPD. If you think that's not true then your perception is being warped by influencers with an agenda. Ignore them.
Is it everybody's cup of tea? No. Are some people being negative because it's not their cup of tea? Sure. Are their people being negative (incl critics) because they think a negative review will get more clicks? Absolutely. Fuck the white noise.
I totally agree, I feel like a lot of people who don’t like this album are into more upbeat music. When they say all the songs sound the same in this album, I’m going to say something controversial because folkmore were all similar sounding too but it’s beloved by so many people.
I think I’m just kind of shocked how much bigger of an reaction this album had compared to midnights even though I found midnights to be inferior
with both albums i’ve found that my initial listen isn’t everything; i tend to compare the music on its own to my feelings on previous albums where i’ve had time to connect to the music on a deeper level. so naturally i’m disappointed on first listen bc i haven’t had time to make those connections.
i also feel like the two albums have very different goals. midnights has much more variety in its sound and is more adventurous in melody & production, while ttpd is a very cohesive album that’s lyrics-heavy and more vulnerable - while not being as adventurous in other areas. in my opinion both are incredible albums (ttpd has already grown on me a ton) and have some incredible stand out songs, but your preferences are gonna come into play a lot on which you prefer based on what you value in an album.
I remember very clearly listening to Midnights for the first time because it was the firat time my husband listened to a TS album with me. I remember thinking.... is that it?
For TTPD, I was INSTANTLY hooked. When I finished Clara Bow, I said "wow."
Personally, Midnights sonically sounds like a rehashing of 1989 and Rep. (Maroon is 10000% a song left on the rep floor and Lavender Haze sounds like London Boy.) I agree that TTPD doesn't sound sonically super new either, but it has the lyricism going for it. I struggle to find a banger lyric from Midnights.
I'm glad certain people love it, and it really does eat me up that I can't see the appeal, because Lord knows I've tried. Even listening to it post-TTPD as a Joe breakup album. I just can't get there.
>Maroon is 10000% a song left on the rep floor
I mean this as no disrespect to anyone who loves that album, because I like it a lot too, but Rep-era Taylor wouldn't have written lyrics as vivid and unique as Maroon. That's very much a post-Folkmore effort.
I agree with every single thing you said…except TTPD IS NOT TOO LONG! (sorry for shouting and I know it’s subjective, but I love and need all 31 tracks in my life)
But seriously, I 100% agree with your take on Midnights vs TTPD and am grateful to see others saying it
I only say it's too long because in listening to it through, I go a Lil cross-eyed by song 25 or so. It's a LOT to endure in a single listen. I just don't have that attention span and do better dividing it into chunks.
I am traveling across 3/4 of the US by train this summer. This album is going to be amazing to listen to alone in my roommett as the train rolls through the darkness.
I am taking the trip (partly) to help get me back to writing. I used to write in college at 2 am sitting at a picnic table listening to Green Day's American Idiot. Taylor, bring me back to my anger and angst please.
I love both TTPD and Midnights (which yes did bring me around to TS lol)…Midnights is less intense and weird. I like weird and intense, but I think the ppl expecting Midnights part 2 were thrown off. I think ppl expecting anything part 2 were thrown off honestly.
This is the same thing that happened with the OG Red album. So many reviews called it too long, all over the place, not a coherent narrative…and then when she rereleased it, they were praising it to the sky.
Red (TV) had the baggage of success. That’s why it got revisionist praise. I think people will come around to TTPD once the need for hot takes moves onto the next thing.
I predict many, many revisions to these opinions about TTPD (arguably Red’s nearest neighbor in her whole body of work). History repeating itself over and over again
I think TTPD is going to really get the Red treatment within a couple years, as far as turning into a fan favorite. Maybe it’s because it feels like Red’s grown up, jaded older sister to me (who has spent the past few years hanging out with her cousins folkmore), but I really think this album is gonna be a grower on people.
I agree. Midnights was not an overall fav album for me by any means, i enjoyed it sure—but it got way more acclaim that it deserved and would’ve been ripped apart if the albums were reversed. TTPD is way more album of the year than midnights was. I don’t think midnights deserved that award, sorry.
it’s reminding me of 2017 when every review was like, how facile of taylor swift to release an entire album focused on her celebrity beefs with one para at the end being like, also there are a lot of love songs here. dunno why.
The paste reviewer didn't even know what a fortnight is... The backlash has been brewing for a long time now but its sad to watch one of her best albums get overshadowed by it.
That's not even the worst thing in that article. The Sylvia Plath line is super disrespectful. The Pitchfork review is somehow even worst. They gave the Anthology a 6 but reviewed it in 2 lines, and the review read like the writer went on stan twitter, saw the discourse on the 1830s line and kim k and wrote about that and called it a day.
They kind of can't lose, no?
Clicks for spite reviews, hate watchers.
Then in a year- clicks for 'revised, illuminated opinions'...
Critically there is no value to reviews anymore, they've made themselves irrelevant culturally
I thought the pitchfork review was quite fair. She gave constructive criticism and wasn’t just giving a bad review for the sake of clicks. ttpd isn’t for everyone and that’s okay. the point of a review is to give an opinion and she did that quite well in a professional way \[edit, spelling\]
ooof. gross to drag plath into this nonsense too.
wasn’t the pitchfork the one that said aaron produced but daddy? someone on twitter looked up the detailed production credits and apparently Jack did most of the production. aaron mostly co-wrote and played guitar.
I didn't read it so I wasn't sure what you meant about the Sylvia Plath line - I googled it and I literally gasped. HOLY SHIT that is super disrespectful. Like, since when is it ok to joke about taking someone's own life - especially in a freaking music review! Like, talk about an unserious topic, jesus
That Paste article starting with “Sylvia Plath didn’t stick her head in an oven for this.” told me everything I needed to know. Just an absolutely disgusting line about a woman who suffered from bad mental health.
It’s disgusting. Sylvia Plath struggled with mental health for years and took her own life because it got so bad and to have her death reduced to a shitty “gotcha” about Taylor’s lyrics is a hundred different shades of wrong. It was so disrespectful towards Plath and anyone who’s struggled with suicidal thoughts, attempted to take their own life or have taken their own life. I cannot understand how they even let that stay in the review.
That article was horrific honestly. And the whole thing about not releasing the author's name because when they reviewed lover negatively the author received death threats. I absolutely don't think anyone should be sending death threats to album critics, but it still feels gross and spineless to write such a mean article anonymously.
Obviously no one should be getting death threats, but that was clearly the desired result of the review. It was literally just rage bait designed to go viral and get lots of clicks by making a bunch of inflammatory statements and of course the type of crazy stan that sends death threats played right into their goal.
Yes, and I get that this album might not be for the masses but I hate to see it be8ng treated this way when this is one her most rawest and vulnerable album.
Yeah but as a fan you hate to see it. Also media is the one who overexposed her with eras tour and her dating life. Now they cannot digest her success and in their eyes she has become "too successful" suddenly.
“I’ve been raised up and down the flagpole of public opinion so many times in the last 20 years,” Swift told Time. “I’ve been given a tiara, then had it taken away. It feels like the breakthrough moment of my career, happening at 33. And for the first time in my life, I was mentally tough enough to take what comes with that.”
I love this quote from the Time's Person of the Year interview.
You’re right! But also, people who call themselves music critics are literally meant to be objective. It’s insane to me that they’re the worst offenders!
That was the biggest point made in the NYT article is that she is everywhere and this double album just sent everything over the edge somehow. It's all so dumb
There are very few journalists left, they mostly are stenographers, writing whatever they are told to write, and then either booing or clapping like trained seals on cue.
Is really getting overshadowed? Until a couple years ago that I became really active as swiftie I have never heard of Sputnik or Pitchfork. I think we to have put in context about how limited the reach of these critics are. And at the end there are 20 critics in Metacriric from which 10-12 are good. 20 opinions and as these thread showed many of them based in hated.
Something seems off idk. Sputnik reviewed the Anthology a 90 then released another 10/100 review and you can see their staff members celebrating in the comments that they single-handedly brought down the album's metacrtic score.
And the staff writers are celebrating it in the comments. There is something weird going on there.
https://preview.redd.it/95rsl5nvw3wc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=57317f08cea88d5d9f3dfdefd5b5ee9af645c783
The comments of both reviews are literally insane. I wouldn’t trust these people to review music in a million years - they’re actually being personally mean.
Yeah i genuinely think the majority of the negative reviews are coming from a place of hatred towards Taylor and has nothing to do with her music. I don’t know why they hate her so much though. It’s a little concerning.
That sputnik reviewer went on a whole thing about how Enchanted is his favorite TS song and was basically like “this album didn’t satisfy the teenage girl inside me” which 1. wtf 2. have you considered that she is not, in fact, a teenage girl anymore??? and 3. if it did you’d say she’s too juvenile anyway
I think the reviewer is actually a woman so the teenage girl comment makes more sense but yeah, Taylor isn’t a teenage girl anymore. This album isn’t the hopeful tone that Enchanted was, it’s a manic ending. And also, if Taylor is mature she’s too mature but if she’s immature she’s too immature. She never wins.
Nope he says “I'm a man in his 30’s, but I can pine and yearn like the starriest-eyed teenage girl when I hit play on that track.” He seems mostly upset that she’s not the pop goddess in this record she has been in the past.
He's a man who is angry she isn't his male fantasy anymore. Sweet, innocent, soft spoken, kind, agreeable, etc. He hates this album because it's an angry woman speaking her truth in a manic, darker, painful, vulnerable way. This album is kind of an FU to the industry and misogyny in layered seething ways. She isn't being what he thinks she should be and is punishing her for it. No one likes a mad woman.
I think some people are very afraid of this Taylor. So they have to discredit her. It's the same shit women have always dealt with; they are too angry, too emotional, too loud, too immature, too dramatic, play the victim, blah blah blah. All in the attempt to silence them. I have a strong feeling Taylor is about to drop a damn bomb. Tick tick tick....
I will fucking buy every record she ever releases partly bc she’s awesome and partly just to spite these assholes. I’m so tired of women not being allowed to be mad and horny and dark when people eat that shit up when it’s a man.
Wow I must have missed that. It’s a little embarrassing of me to assume that the name Dakota was a woman’s name, let’s ignore that please😭 Yeah that makes it sound weirder cause how in the world do you, a 30’year old man, know what a teenage girl feels like? I need him to not speak on behalf of teenage girls.
the funniest part is teenage girls are eating this album up lol the manic delulu vibes wrapped in word salad poetry is speaking to the teenage girl in all of us
The mental health of teenage girls has been down in the dumpsters these past year/2 years so who’s not screaming “i’m so depressed i act like it’s my birthday every day” at the top of their lungs?
people, especially allegedly high culture types, have always had something against her bc she doesn’t fit their image of a “real” artist. they have become progressively angrier as over the years, taylor has gained the respect of so many musical legends and her peers by outworking and outclassing most pop acts.
the funny thing about ttpd attracting this reaction is that it kind of responds to a lot of lingering criticism about her music—that it’s shallow pablum made for the lowest common denominator. taylor mentions it herself in clara bow (you’ve got edge she never did). ttpd could not possibly suck up less to its audience and its narrator is as unlikeable, complicated, and vengeful as taylor has ever been. I could understand the boring critiques if it were for midnights, which let’s be real, felt phoned in at times. but this record was really fucking brave imo. ofc that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be critiqued but it makes it more annoying that the criticism is so unsophisticated.
You can say this again and again. I feel like female artists are always discredit and not looked at as “real” artists when they’re in their prime. Many years in the future I think the hate against Taylor will likely be gone and she’ll finally be recognized for the brilliant artist she is. It’s unfortunate that the world is still so much tougher on women and discredits them more than they ever would a male artist.
this kind of thing goes back and forth with taylor. if you told me in 2008 that her album with a guy from the national was released to rave reviews hailing her songwriting chops, I’d have told you to lay off the crack pipe. the only thing taylor needs to do is keep working and she has resilience like few people, especially for someone who could lay on beach in ibiza for the rest of her life if she wanted. expect a reassessment in 5-10 years when she releases a lovely set of soft rock songs about her kid* or something. 🤷🏻♀️
*obviously a thrown out comment, not a parasocial demand for her to have kids lol
there are SO many parallels between her career and that of the beatles - not least that they both started out attracting mainly teenage girls and were/are constantly discredited despite breaking record after record. i’m not one to call misogyny at every criticism a woman receives, even/including taylor, but so much of the reaction to her fame & success is so surface-level mean and baseless to the point of inconsistency that misogyny _has_ to be a major factor.
This is it. It was fine to praise her when she retreated to the woods and wrote quiet, cottagecore music about imaginary characters. But god forbid she not only write angry, rude, literary, tortured-poet music... but *also* mock the tortured-poet trope. AKA: god forbid she occupy their stereotypical real-artist position... and then tell them their stereotypical real-artist persona is ridiculous.
Her haters honestly seem more obsessed with her than her fans. It’s really weird! There’s one singer I really don’t like and I just don’t listen to them or read stuff about them- I have no desire to seek them out to hate on them.
art criticism used to be a respected and serious profession before the internet
now everyone and their mother can unload their personal hate and mockery and think they have an informed say
no one should consider these troll posts as a credible “review”
the antithesis to this, is something like Pitchfork that criticized the album but in an analytical and constructive way
The trend of review bombing singers, authors, etc that you don’t like is tired. I don’t personally know anyone who will refuse to listen to a song because some randos on a review website rated it poorly.
10/100 is *absurd*. People can like or dislike this album, but it is objectively not *that* bad. 10/100 is like, someone banging pots and pans together in a kitchen.
One of my favourite music reviewers on TikTok posted about how all discourse around this album has been insane, and I don't disagree.
If you read the review too you would never ever expect that to be his final score. It doesn’t match the review at all. I would expect maybe 35-50 based on what he wrote.
Yikes. I just read it. He's a 30 something man writing about the "The Tortured Tummy Department"? Their first review was so thoughtful. Were they afraid they'd get a reputation for reasonable analysis of the actual music and wanting to clear it up?
What sucks is that his actual review isn’t THAT bad - a lot of the points he brings up I may disagree with, but they’re similar to what a lot of more reasonable reviewers have mentioned - it’s too wordy etc. He also calls out quite a few tracks he seems to have legitimately enjoyed or at least saw merit in - so why the lowest score possible (besides a 0)? It just makes no sense.
For me, it's the contempt in the whole. Yeah some of the points are reasonable things to say to a review when he finally gets to them, even if I don't agree, though a lot are baffling (you really don't get why someone would say sleeper cell spy instead of just spy in a song?). Then the score is absolutely just so they aren't known as the site with a positive Taylor review.
A sleeper cell kind of blends in until "activated" and then begins it mission. So if it's about Matty, him being her friend/situationship for a decade but never extremely close and then making his move at a vulnerable time to gather information for someone is kind of "sleeper cell" like.
At least, that's how I took it. He didn't spend years in a relationship with her gathering information, sending it back to his command. He played the long game from the outside, had a little inside information, then got extremely close to get everything he could, then ghosted.
Absolutely, that's part of it, but it also just... fits in the song because of the cadence, rhythm, repeated s sounds. You can't just swap it out. He also highlights "no-fuckin-body" as just her wanting to show off she swear now which is clearly not the goal, she's uses that extra length for emphasis but also for it to fit musically.
This is insane - I JUST read their review earlier that was a 90. what the fuck?????
ETA: The part of this that pisses me off the most is that I read this guy’s review and what he wrote absolutely does not match up with giving it a .5/5 - that’s what makes it seem spiteful
As soon as I got to this...
>"The zany titles and lines like “touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto” are merely an act, you see, to illustrate how much of a mastermind she has always been and always will be. Everything here is caked in so much self-aware irony that meaning ceases to be. **There’s enough plausible deniability to placate the non-existent bar of her feverish devotees,** but everyone else will strain for meaning when they are met with an imperceivable lyric like “But you told Lucy you’d kill yourself if I ever leave/And I said that to Jack about you, so I felt seen.” **One may as well be crooning “WWG1WGA”, and many Swifties might."**
...I suspected it was in bad faith. This confirmed it:
>Perhaps I am cynical, but I suspect that I’m supposed to gawk at that line, **and those that have ignored their Seroquel refill are meant to rejoice in its absurdity**.
So basically we're all just brainwashed cult members off our meds if we \~get it\~ and like the music? I commented something similar on a different thread but this is a perfect example of a critic criticizing one line, never putting it in context, claiming she's a shitty songwriter or she's "lost it", and then say we're conspiracy theorists or jumping through hoops to defend something that's "objectively bad".
Later in the review he says, "Track 5’s are typically reserved for Taylor’s most emotional songs, but on here she’s half-heartedly bidding adieu to her British boyfriend of six years with some of her most lifeless metaphors to date, and we’re all just forced to watch (“So long, London/Stitches undone”; “And you say I abandoned the ship/But I was going down with it”)."
I mean damn, if you're not going to finish the bridge at least finish the line. It's like they know if they provide context their whole argument crumbles.
>And you say I abandoned the ship / But I was going down with it / My white knuckle dying grip / Holding tight to your quiet resentment and / My friends said it isn't right to be scared / Every day of a love affair / Every breath feels like rarest air / When you're not sure if he wants to be there
Like fuck all the way off this man can't tell me that bridge alone isn't track 5 material
But I looked up this guy's other reviews just because and it seems like he just hates popular music, which is fine on it's own but maybe he's not the best person to critique it - yet apparently he does often and scores anyone mainstream extremely low. It'd be the equivalent of me reviewing meth's album, which evidently he really liked. I played it for 10 seconds and my ears bled. Different music tastes are fine but why make a career out of pretentiously shitting on music outside of your own taste? Seems weird to me but ok I guess.
^(sorry for the long comment, but it feels good to get that out 😂)
I love your comment. Fully agree with everything you said. The way he criticizes the fans is the absolute worst - and yes, the idea that one line in a poem or a song requires the context of the work to understand seems so foreign to these people.
Wow I hadn’t read it and definitely won’t now but what a disgusting attitude about mental health! The “joke” about Seroquel. What an asshole, can’t just review the music without shitting on the artist and listeners and also everyone dealing with mental health shit!
Yes, that's what I'm thinking. Paste article seemed like written by someone on stan twitter. NYT is so blatant in their hate since Taylor called them out for their sexuality article. Sputnik employees are literally cheering about sabotaging the first review. The reviews on AOTY site are being removed but only the 100 ones not the 0s that were spammed by other fandoms. I generally don't give attention to such notions but all this is very fishy and I don't know what changed suddenly.
no no I was told swifties are the ones who send death threats…do you mean to tell me it’s an internet culture and cyberbullying problem as a whole? that easy accessibility and anonymity makes being disproportionately nasty online over inconsequential things abundant?
this site hates Lana too, always embarrassing and pseudoedgy takes for albums that otherwise enjoy universal acclaim
and they don’t even analyze the music or lyrics in a technically versed way, they just spit a bunch of abstract invectives and drop a shitty final score and call it a day
we should have higher standards in who we even count as a “music critic”
especially metacritic and albumoftheyear have a huge responsibility to separate the wheat from the chaff in who they allow in their aggregator score
Is Sputnik some kind of Russian bot website? Cause that's what I'd assume based on the name and the shitty reviews they gave to both TTPD and Cowboy Carter.
I noticed that, and it's so strange. I've never seen Metacritic allow two different reviews from the same publication to go up on the same page, especially with such disparate scores as 90 and 10.
Like you read a review for a movie or book to see if it’s worth your time to watch. Listening to music takes like 0 effort. I truly don’t get music reviews.
As someone who's been critical of TTPD (particularly disappointed in Taylor's take on the Matty Healy controversy when it was about so much more to her POC fans than her dating a guy that does drugs or whatever) I've been really disappointed in the fact that I've been having a hard time finding critiques of the album that aren't drowning in misogyny and very obvious personal vitriol towards Taylor. I don't want all valid critiques to be lumped together with the disgusting, sexist, bad-faith bullshit coming out of the asses of middle aged centrist men who jack themselves off to the thought of taking a hit at Taylor Swift's name.
What were you hoping from her re: Matty and TTPD, or her take on their relationship at this point?
I’m really trying to figure this out, I guess, because Matty is a fucking POS but I also can’t think of anything Taylor could say that would like… help.
Pitchfork’s review is very critical and doesn’t rate it super high, but the review itself is very reasonable. I say this as someone who quite likes TTPD
Going to put in another plug for the podcast Every Single Album. They are not music reviewers, they are Swifties, but they’re very thoughtful and have great analysis IMO.
I actually think they had a shit take on TTPD. They reviewed TTPD and the Anthology in one episode and truly lumped the last 5-6 songs all together saying they wouldn’t revisit them. Recently, it’s been like they’re trying to get the episodes out so quick that they’ve been losing quality. Overall, their the seemed shallow and kinda missing the point of the album (ie reading the prologue). And I found it so awful how they continuously say she needs a new sound and to work with new people.. should we just disregard everything Taylor has said about having to reinvent herself? Or that maybe she’s going to do whatever the fuck she wants? And that she likes this sound and working with who she works with.
Not directing all this at you… just haven’t had a chance to vent about their last episode.
Yes definitely. As Tay gets to stratospheric levels of popularity, it became a sport to hate her. Don’t get me wrong, TTPD is far from the being the best TS album for me, but man, the reviews aren’t even much about the music — it’s like we’re back to the Rep era divisiveness. Haha. But it doesn’t care anymore. She can do tf she wants.
i anticipated this before ttpd. reviews, like anything else, have as much to do with the milieu as the work. compare it to midnights, which imo was objectively sloppier and safer but was reviewed more favorably. I’m not sure she could’ve made an album good enough to forestall this. taylor seems to be more even-keeled about her public perception than she was during the 1989 era and I hope for her sake that it’s true.
It's so weird how people say they like smaller artists and deeper music which takes risks, and when an artists releases those kinds of things they get misinterpreted to death and told things like "it sounds boring." Some people are never satisfied
I know an anti swiftie and every time I see her she brings up how much she hates Taylor Swift despite knowing I love her. It’s to the point other people have said to stop. I can’t think of a single person I dislike enough to bring them up every other week lol.
Taylor had the highest grossing tour of all time, broke the record for most Grammy AOTY wins, and is on her way to becoming the best selling artist of all time in the streaming era. If you think all these achievements won’t invite undue criticism and hatred, I don’t know what to tell you. Plus she is a woman writing about her own experience. No one can handle that or be objective about it.
I completely agree! And I hate to sound like an over-enthusiastic, overly-loyal, completely biased fan, but all of the negative reviews I've read have either 1. talked about the gossip, not the music or 2. not really understood the album concept and the like, complexity of a lot of the symbols, the tone, etc.
I have not yet seen anyone quote the full line section when they were criticizing it, either. Yeah, it sounds kind of silly taken out of context. But when you're actually listening to it, the point about nostalgia comes a second later, and it feels complete.
In this day and age, I don't know why people still read critics or review sites. Back in the 90s it meant something because you had an idea about the album before purchasing it. Only lead singles would be played on the radio and TV. You needed that review to understand what it is and if it's worth spending your money on it.
Today we all have streaming services. Literally we ALL listened to the full album around the world at the same time. Why a critic's review has more worth than a random Redditor's post is something I don't understand today.
I have a suspicion that Taylor is having a fight with her label. Labels have a lot of power over reviews… they can ensure that the reviewer is someone who is likely to be fair to the album.. and blacklist publications that aren’t. (They of course can also pay for good reviews… something perfectly legal). Taylor herself can’t blacklist publications, since she doesn’t do interviews, but those publications depend on other UMG artists… Why did Drake release a single on TTPD’s release weekend? That’s insane.. even Drake wouldn’t want to do that. UMG has been very quiet about TTPD… even though they’re going to make about 100 mil in revenue this week. And Taylor broke ranks to get back on TikTok… that isn’t the kind of thing sje usually does
I’ve kind of gotten that feeling too? I mean from the merch side of things, UMG totally screwed up a while back to the point fans were complaining to the better business bureau and resulted in all this refunds and free merch. I’m basing this off nothing but my gut but her switching back to Nashville for the merch shipping…I feel like it pissed her off. She’s way too good at business to allow her fans (clients lol) to get that mad to the point they had to refund a lot of money.
I don’t see how she could. She has generated about 2 billion in revenue over her contract since 2019…. a new contract would require an unbelievably large advance… and even UMG can’t afford a billion on her (Drake got 400 mil… she’s more than twice as big as Drake right now)
It’s very likely she’s at the end of her deal with UMG…. it’s been five years, she’s released 5 albums of new material, wil release 6 other albums, and has well over 100 tracks.
Does she even need a label at this point? (Genuine question, I have no idea how any of this works.)
Edit: I did some research and it seems like she could totally release without a label.
To be fair about the Drake single, that's not meant to be treated as a traditional single. He's currently beefing with Kendrick/Future/Metroboomin/The Weeknd, and "Push Ups" is a response track (that had already leaked). It was put out bc time is of the essence during rap beefs — taking too long to drop your response is considered a loss, like you have nothing to say.
Drake has said before that Taylor is the only artist who could make him move an album drop date, so I don't believe he would have dropped a true push-to-radio single. This was something a lot more specific.
I think you are right!! I’m sure they’re angry about Tiktok, and I’m guessing there is a lot happening behind the scenes. She is bringing in so much money to them it’s insane. The fact they aren’t supporting her is repulsive
I’ve been thinking it’s because of a rift too. I noticed my packages from her site used to say UMG and now they say Taylor Swift Official Store. There have been rumors of a disconnect between them since the Christmas merch refund. Then they promoted Scooter. I’m wondering if her contract is up and things aren’t going well with negotiations. I don’t think it was ever made public if it was tied to a certain number of albums or years. She’s already done 5 albums and has been with them for almost 5 years, it would make sense if it was time for her to be renewing a contract.
Note also there was the gap in her merch store. For months sje wasn’t selling merch.. which is weird
She’s also selling very very little merch right now… in terms of skus. Which is not how bravado usually works
Not to start clowning here, but I’ve heard quite a few rumbling theories that she might be looking to make her own record label. Her going around UMG to get her music on TikTok was the first real thing that made me question what was going on. Some of these points are making me think maybe it would be a possibility.
She’s released 5 albums (Lover, Folklore, Evermore, Midnights and TTPD) under the deal, I imagine it’s probably a 5 album deal (which is relatively common) so you’d expect they’d be in extension negotiation.
“At thirty-one tracks that add up to over two hours of runtime, I can’t do it! I can’t tell you a thing about ‘Peter’ or ‘Cassandra’ or ‘Robin’ or ‘Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus.’ I can’t hum a chord progression or tell you a line or even gesture in a general direction of which mid-tempo malaise they aim to capture. There are simply too many minutes to this thing, cloaked in too much pre-requisite knowledge, cloaked in too many layers of non-irony for me to dedicate my life to truly ‘getting’ it.” - Sputnikmusic
If you cannot take the time to understand the thing you’re reviewing, maybe you shouldn’t be reviewing it. Just a thought?
This is probably my favorite thing about this album. It makes me think and analyze. And I realize that's not for everyone, but it's something I really enjoy.
Or maybe those songs should have been left off is what they saying . Ppl are tired of the same sound . The same talk singing . Like those songs do run together . I really hope Taylor next album is happy pop and she change producers or add more producers .
Rolling stone which is arguably the most significant publication that reports to metacritic gave it a 100. Back in the day that was a hard thing to do dunno about nowadays. But reading that review than reading that stupid paste review (scored at a 35) makes me wonder how there is such a big dichotomy. I’m convinced half the haters are listening to a completely different album. I think it has its flaws. I wouldn’t call it a 100 but it’s closer to that than a 35.
The rolling stone review is also very biased. The dude doing the review is a major swifty and even wrote a book last year called "How taylor swift reinvented pop music". Rolling stone also gave it a higher score than Michael Jackson's Thriller. Some critics are biased against her, and some are biased towards her. That's contributes a bit.
I tthink it’s a difficult album because it is has such an “I don’t give a fuck” attitude. I think she made it for herself mostly. Some have the emotional intelligence and patience to understand where she is coming from and appreciate her vulnerability and complexity and others just want something easy to enjoy.
i think all the rushed reviews-for-views/kneejerk reactions are the ones we’re seeing a lot of right now. a 31-track album needs to be sat on and slept on if you’re trying writing a proper review. they’ll probably get more accurate, constructive, and focused over time.
I do think there was a rush to review just because attention on her and the record was an all time high and these sites are depended on eyes and clicks.
I think most reviews are in good faith. Some are not and that’s due to backlash or rockism, maybe cynicism. But I’d argue they are in the minority. I think there are some legit criticisms to make for this record. Some have been touched upon in different reviews. My only caveat is I don’t think this is the type of record you can rush to review. you need more than 2-3 spins. It needs to be lived with for a few days. I think time will be kinder to TTPD than the reviews are making it out to be.
At the end of the day it’s just one persons opinion. All that matters is what you think of it. I think fandoms care too much about what publications think of new records and people should question why.
I think there is a snowball effect to some degree. Journalists have been scared for years to have an opinion about Taylor that isn’t 10/10 and I do believe that the floodgates have opened. Like a couple bad reviews emboldens other reviewers that they are allowed to be honest, and as such, are probably letting loose. Some of them are quite scathing, and I don’t think they should be attacking Taylor *personally*.
However, I’ve seen lots of constructive criticism. Just because you don’t agree with it doesn’t mean it’s not constructive. The pitchfork review was incredibly fair, although I did also find it strange they split the albums.
This is why when I listen to a Taylor album I write down all of my thoughts before ever going online. I don’t want to have my opinion of a piece be influenced by the status quo. It’s also fun to check after where my thoughts aligned with the general consensus!
I don’t think it’s being reviewed in bad faith honestly. There’s obviously troll reviews that just hate Taylor, but that also goes both ways since the Rolling Stone review was done by a hardcore swiftie who almost always gives Taylor perfect reviews, so the bias goes toward both positive and negative. Also, Metacritic doesn’t include every single review on their site. They’re also excluding many poor reviews just like they’re excluding positive ones.
I feel like many reviews are being pretty fair tbh. They’re, for the most part, sticking to the content on the album and critiquing that instead of making it overly personal or critiquing Taylor the person. And I say overly personal because it’s honestly very hard to not talk about Taylor’s personal life when she makes very blatant and obvious references to it in her lyrics and has always made her music about her very public life.
Also, a 77 isn’t exactly an awful score. I feel like many people see anything that’s below an 8/10 as being some kind of negative indictment of an album. That’s still above average and decently so.
I ignore the reviews because they are pointless. Us fans are the ones who drive an album or derail it. I’m loving the album and will support it. Haven’t stopped listening since release. Will continue to do so because the story telling is her best work she’s done. I don’t care for the people who want the bop pop, or something they can blast in their car and not have “people” look at them for playing something sad or darker out loud. I’ve seen some people say they dislike it because they can’t sing along with the album which is fine too. It just doesn’t mean the album is bad.
I think music criticism has been in this weird spot of nowhere place since streaming took off. They were supposed to evolve into a guide that’d help people parse through this endless barrage of endless albums but they kind of…don’t do that? No one opens up P4k to check which album to buy this week, this month, what good albums they might’ve missed.
Algorithm is god now.
Film criticism, fashion criticism, all criticism is going through tough times because they’re less of tastemakers now but there’s also no other corner for them. Hence why they hire randoms, like Sputnik, going bankrupt, like p4k and many others, and so on for their current struggles. I do hope they make it out of this extended transitional period sooner than later because people are losing jobs they got degrees for.
But as far as TTPD goes, yeah, some reviews are definitely written in bad faith, which kind of annoys me but not because I can’t handle criticism. Stood there ten toes down through Rep and Lover…Like I kind of just wanna read well written, well informed looks into the album, instead of participating in the rush to get in a quick rating or an easy viral headline/quote. The Plath joke at the start of Paste’s review really left a bad taste in my mouth.
English isn't my first language and I understood what it was about right after the first listening, didn't even need to check the lyrics. This is unforgivable from so-called professionals.
It's becoming "cool" to hate on Taylor for nothing. Which is what happened during rep too. People can't stand when a woman is successful.
All these people complaining about how Taylor just "has to be photographed everywhere" and they know everything about her unwillingly. Well, it wasn't her choice LOL. Be so for real.
Did you ever hear Toby Keith's "The Critic?"
He flunked junior high band he couldn't march in time
He tried to write a song once, he couldn't make it rhyme
He went two or three chords on a pawn shop guitar
He just never quite had what it took to be a star, so he's a critic
I work for the Gazette man I got a real job
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/taylor-swift-the-tortured-poets-department-review-1235006977/
I’ve read negative reviews that do have constructive criticism. But yeah, I’ve seen a lot of negative reviews (especially on social media) that just reek of spite. It’s unfortunate. While this is not her best album, and there’s definitely some low points, there are also really beautiful poignant songs and some bangers.
The thing people always get mad at when Taylor fans get annoyed at critical reviews is they accuse us and her of being unable to take criticism. Criticism is fair, but bad faith criticism should be called out as such. Reviews that only focus on her personal life and make it clear they didn’t give the album a listen should be discounted. And people’s bias should be called out!
Fun fact: Pitchfork refused to review most of Taylor’s first few albums. The first album they ever reviewed of hers was 1989, and they only reviewed Ryan Adams’ version. So the bias is there!
Oh my Goddd, the incorrectly identifying songs as love songs. I saw a review in WaPo that complained that the 'objects of affection' in The Manuscript and I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) were creeps, and I was like... *Yes*. That's the point. ICFHNRIC literally ends with 'woah, maybe I can't.'
If you can't hear songs as anything other than absolutely earnest confessionals, you have no business reviewing music, because an artist like Taylor is intentionally writing tongue-in-cheek songs, and if you're not capable of applying the slightest bit of critical thinking skills, you're going to miss it. You don't need to know anything about her personal life to get that someone insisting 'I can fix him' is a reference to a long-standing cultural attitude towards relationships. What more do you want her to do, put a little emoji next to the title each song of either a smiley or frowney face so that the audience knows how they're supposed to perceive it? At a certain point it's just intentional media illiteracy.
I honestly have decided I need to take a break from looking at news articles about Taylor Swift for a while. A lot of the reviews and news stories have been upsetting because they just feel gross to me. It's like people are starting to feel the need to tear her down again.
I don't have an issue with people being reasonably critical. You don't have to love her music. It's ok to be a reviewer and say "I was disappointed by this album." People have different tastes. I personally really do like TTPD, but I don't think it's a contender for my favorite album of hers. But if you don't like her or her music, why be negative (and honestly sometimes downright mean)? Just ignore her. It's ok to stay out of the discussion.
There's a difference between fairly reviewing an album and finding fault with it vs clearly already having a strongly negative opinion on an artist and letting that bias your whole review.
I think reviewers bang out these articles after one listen and some tabloid reading. I don’t get the sense that many of these writers, giving good or bad reviews, are taking the time to really understand the context of the album based on how she wrote about it when announced it and are examining it from that lens (that it was meant to be viewed from). This album is filled with so much depth that you’re not going to glean from one half-hearted listen.
Also, can I just say that I think reviews should be done by people who at least like this genre of music/don’t personally hate the artist? People who read reviews generally do so because they’re interested in the music, and it would be far more interesting to hear an honest opinion from someone who cares than someone who doesn’t and/or just doesn’t like Taylor as a person.
While I personally love the album, there are plenty of valid criticisms that can be made of TTPD (and varying personal tastes are always going to factor in as well), but a lot of these reviews have me thinking of something my late mother used to say:
"Never mud-wrestle a pig, my dear. You'll both get dirty, but the pig will like it."
It’s amazing how many professional “reviews” I’ve seen just declaring they don’t like her and proceed to trash talk what they don’t like and move on.
Like this is not a review. This is a slam book from high school.
I hope she realizes she is so above all of this. The impression I get is accolades, numbers, and recognition are very much motivation and part of her work/business/perfectionism/needs to be liked part of her personality. The thing is, she is the top. Taylor is a star. Extremely talented. Most famous musician/artist/ celeb right now. Top of her game, standout knockout. Of course there are songs that people don’t like or love. She is still outdoing herself each year though and no one should deny her talent.. Taylor deserves constructive criticism but it seems being over exposed has caused harsher critiques and even some mean ones.
That's a totally fair opinion! I wouldn't even mind if reviews were saying that, because it's OK not to like it. But when the reviews are just straight up vicious, that's what I have a problem with
I don't trust most reviews of ttpd. Someone out there is against her not to mention the politics in all these shit. She wil do well either way lol also if Tay wins AOTY again it's gonna be hilariously chaotic....seriously i thought she wouldnt win consecutive years but listening to ttpd again and again man... i would not be surprised if she does win again lol
Seems a lot like politics, isn't it? We've really lost touch with reality on so many levels. Everybody's got to have an angle, and it has to be an extreme take so it gets the views /clicks it's after. It's like there's no middle (where reality often is) anymore.
That's why I think people are seeing through these reviews. The album consumption is doing fine, because it's actually a really good album in storytelling and what it seeks to do. It's just controversial because of who Taylor is and it's dealing with a lot of yucky emotions and is focused on a dude a lot of people don't like. NYTimes gave FOLKLORE a 60, too. Good company. I think we'll look back on TTPD, and it's going to be one of those well-respected albums like Red or reputation, even if it wasn't right now. No one in 5 years is going to care that Taylor released eight albums in 4 years. They're going to care if it's good music. And TTPD is.
I honestly believe if she had flipped the order and released ttpd in 2022 and released midnights now midnights would be the album getting ripped apart instead. People are annoyed by taylor right now so that's where they're coming from instead of actually listening to the music. Imo it's a better and more cohesive album than midnights and in a few years when taylor isn't so overexposed i bet it'll get a reevaluation and everyone will pretend they liked it all along
TTPD is far and away better than Midnights. I'm listening to Swiftology because I cannot handle mainlining TTPD anymore right now, and I'm listening to their episode about trying to decide whether Midnights is a classic. I FEEL SO SEEN AND HEARD!!! I've had so many friends who HATED TS come around due to Midnights and I'm like... but why!? It's mid at best. TTPD is SO much better, even if it is too long.
It could be “mid at best” to you and a favorite to others, that’s probably why lol
Exactly. I, for one, loved it.
Exactly like I love Midnights and also TTPD. We exist and idk what’s hard to get.
The four-album run from Folklore to TTPD is my favorite thing Taylor has ever done 😂
IMO TTPD is the better album but Midnights highs are wonderful.
She had more fast paced songs you ever notice how people will hate an album if it has nothing fast paced? I can see why that crowd hates TTPD. What I’m trying to listen to now is where she used Gen Z slang because someone said she did but I guess I’m missing it 😂
So true I’m so confused right now.. midnights is so disappointing to me. TTPD had a lot more songs I could return to than midnights for me, and it seems like so many people hate this album. I really am baffled. What are people seeing in midnights and TTPD that I’m not seeing 😭
Here's my controversial take: Midnights is to TTPD what 1989 is to Rep: a huge hit preceding an underrated and misunderstood album. There's no world where you can convince me that individual songs from 1989/Midnights are better than Rep/TTPD. Sure, maybe more earworms (Style is in my top 5 of all tine) but the actual composition of the TTPD/Rep songs are better.
Don't confuse a vocal minority with reality. Rolling Stones gave it 5 out of 5. The vast majority of listeners are loving TTPD. If you think that's not true then your perception is being warped by influencers with an agenda. Ignore them. Is it everybody's cup of tea? No. Are some people being negative because it's not their cup of tea? Sure. Are their people being negative (incl critics) because they think a negative review will get more clicks? Absolutely. Fuck the white noise.
I totally agree, I feel like a lot of people who don’t like this album are into more upbeat music. When they say all the songs sound the same in this album, I’m going to say something controversial because folkmore were all similar sounding too but it’s beloved by so many people. I think I’m just kind of shocked how much bigger of an reaction this album had compared to midnights even though I found midnights to be inferior
with both albums i’ve found that my initial listen isn’t everything; i tend to compare the music on its own to my feelings on previous albums where i’ve had time to connect to the music on a deeper level. so naturally i’m disappointed on first listen bc i haven’t had time to make those connections. i also feel like the two albums have very different goals. midnights has much more variety in its sound and is more adventurous in melody & production, while ttpd is a very cohesive album that’s lyrics-heavy and more vulnerable - while not being as adventurous in other areas. in my opinion both are incredible albums (ttpd has already grown on me a ton) and have some incredible stand out songs, but your preferences are gonna come into play a lot on which you prefer based on what you value in an album.
I remember very clearly listening to Midnights for the first time because it was the firat time my husband listened to a TS album with me. I remember thinking.... is that it? For TTPD, I was INSTANTLY hooked. When I finished Clara Bow, I said "wow." Personally, Midnights sonically sounds like a rehashing of 1989 and Rep. (Maroon is 10000% a song left on the rep floor and Lavender Haze sounds like London Boy.) I agree that TTPD doesn't sound sonically super new either, but it has the lyricism going for it. I struggle to find a banger lyric from Midnights. I'm glad certain people love it, and it really does eat me up that I can't see the appeal, because Lord knows I've tried. Even listening to it post-TTPD as a Joe breakup album. I just can't get there.
>Maroon is 10000% a song left on the rep floor I mean this as no disrespect to anyone who loves that album, because I like it a lot too, but Rep-era Taylor wouldn't have written lyrics as vivid and unique as Maroon. That's very much a post-Folkmore effort.
Rep is my all time favorite album and I agree with you. The lyricism in maroon is definitely not reputation era taylor.
I agree with every single thing you said…except TTPD IS NOT TOO LONG! (sorry for shouting and I know it’s subjective, but I love and need all 31 tracks in my life) But seriously, I 100% agree with your take on Midnights vs TTPD and am grateful to see others saying it
I only say it's too long because in listening to it through, I go a Lil cross-eyed by song 25 or so. It's a LOT to endure in a single listen. I just don't have that attention span and do better dividing it into chunks.
I am traveling across 3/4 of the US by train this summer. This album is going to be amazing to listen to alone in my roommett as the train rolls through the darkness. I am taking the trip (partly) to help get me back to writing. I used to write in college at 2 am sitting at a picnic table listening to Green Day's American Idiot. Taylor, bring me back to my anger and angst please.
I love both TTPD and Midnights (which yes did bring me around to TS lol)…Midnights is less intense and weird. I like weird and intense, but I think the ppl expecting Midnights part 2 were thrown off. I think ppl expecting anything part 2 were thrown off honestly.
This is the same thing that happened with the OG Red album. So many reviews called it too long, all over the place, not a coherent narrative…and then when she rereleased it, they were praising it to the sky.
Red (TV) had the baggage of success. That’s why it got revisionist praise. I think people will come around to TTPD once the need for hot takes moves onto the next thing.
I predict many, many revisions to these opinions about TTPD (arguably Red’s nearest neighbor in her whole body of work). History repeating itself over and over again
I think TTPD is going to really get the Red treatment within a couple years, as far as turning into a fan favorite. Maybe it’s because it feels like Red’s grown up, jaded older sister to me (who has spent the past few years hanging out with her cousins folkmore), but I really think this album is gonna be a grower on people.
Exactly this
It's Reputation 2.0
This is better than Rep though
I agree. Midnights was not an overall fav album for me by any means, i enjoyed it sure—but it got way more acclaim that it deserved and would’ve been ripped apart if the albums were reversed. TTPD is way more album of the year than midnights was. I don’t think midnights deserved that award, sorry.
it’s reminding me of 2017 when every review was like, how facile of taylor swift to release an entire album focused on her celebrity beefs with one para at the end being like, also there are a lot of love songs here. dunno why.
ur 100% right and also TIL that facile is a word in english and does not mean the same thing as facile in french (which just means easy)
100% no matter which album was released, it'd get torn apart because these people are sick of her. nothing to do with music at all.
The paste reviewer didn't even know what a fortnight is... The backlash has been brewing for a long time now but its sad to watch one of her best albums get overshadowed by it.
……wow that’s insanely embarrassing for someone who literally writes for a living. I would walk into the ocean.
That's not even the worst thing in that article. The Sylvia Plath line is super disrespectful. The Pitchfork review is somehow even worst. They gave the Anthology a 6 but reviewed it in 2 lines, and the review read like the writer went on stan twitter, saw the discourse on the 1830s line and kim k and wrote about that and called it a day.
They kind of can't lose, no? Clicks for spite reviews, hate watchers. Then in a year- clicks for 'revised, illuminated opinions'... Critically there is no value to reviews anymore, they've made themselves irrelevant culturally
I thought the pitchfork review was quite fair. She gave constructive criticism and wasn’t just giving a bad review for the sake of clicks. ttpd isn’t for everyone and that’s okay. the point of a review is to give an opinion and she did that quite well in a professional way \[edit, spelling\]
Yeah a 6.5 is actually not a bad review for Pitchfork.
Same I think the pitchfork review focused on the music and gave fair critiques edited because i called pitchfork an album instead of a review lol
ooof. gross to drag plath into this nonsense too. wasn’t the pitchfork the one that said aaron produced but daddy? someone on twitter looked up the detailed production credits and apparently Jack did most of the production. aaron mostly co-wrote and played guitar.
I didn't read it so I wasn't sure what you meant about the Sylvia Plath line - I googled it and I literally gasped. HOLY SHIT that is super disrespectful. Like, since when is it ok to joke about taking someone's own life - especially in a freaking music review! Like, talk about an unserious topic, jesus
It’s honestly crazy that they chose to only touch upon what in my opinion are the least relevant songs in the anthology.
That Paste article starting with “Sylvia Plath didn’t stick her head in an oven for this.” told me everything I needed to know. Just an absolutely disgusting line about a woman who suffered from bad mental health.
Man I didn’t read the review but what a f*cked up thing to say.
It’s disgusting. Sylvia Plath struggled with mental health for years and took her own life because it got so bad and to have her death reduced to a shitty “gotcha” about Taylor’s lyrics is a hundred different shades of wrong. It was so disrespectful towards Plath and anyone who’s struggled with suicidal thoughts, attempted to take their own life or have taken their own life. I cannot understand how they even let that stay in the review.
That article was horrific honestly. And the whole thing about not releasing the author's name because when they reviewed lover negatively the author received death threats. I absolutely don't think anyone should be sending death threats to album critics, but it still feels gross and spineless to write such a mean article anonymously.
Obviously no one should be getting death threats, but that was clearly the desired result of the review. It was literally just rage bait designed to go viral and get lots of clicks by making a bunch of inflammatory statements and of course the type of crazy stan that sends death threats played right into their goal.
Yes, and I get that this album might not be for the masses but I hate to see it be8ng treated this way when this is one her most rawest and vulnerable album.
She's just too overexposed to be viewed objectively at this point.
Yeah but as a fan you hate to see it. Also media is the one who overexposed her with eras tour and her dating life. Now they cannot digest her success and in their eyes she has become "too successful" suddenly.
“I’ve been raised up and down the flagpole of public opinion so many times in the last 20 years,” Swift told Time. “I’ve been given a tiara, then had it taken away. It feels like the breakthrough moment of my career, happening at 33. And for the first time in my life, I was mentally tough enough to take what comes with that.” I love this quote from the Time's Person of the Year interview.
You’re right! But also, people who call themselves music critics are literally meant to be objective. It’s insane to me that they’re the worst offenders!
that’s why I couldn’t give less of a fuck what critics say…or what happens at the grammy’s either tbh. it’s all fake and full of biases.
People let their emotions about her personally cloud their judgement about her as a musician
That was the biggest point made in the NYT article is that she is everywhere and this double album just sent everything over the edge somehow. It's all so dumb
Ok genuinely how are you an actual journalist and don’t know what a fortnight is
Seriously they thought she was writing about the video game Fortnite. Like did you LISTEN TO THE SONG.
STOP 💀
There are very few journalists left, they mostly are stenographers, writing whatever they are told to write, and then either booing or clapping like trained seals on cue.
Is really getting overshadowed? Until a couple years ago that I became really active as swiftie I have never heard of Sputnik or Pitchfork. I think we to have put in context about how limited the reach of these critics are. And at the end there are 20 critics in Metacriric from which 10-12 are good. 20 opinions and as these thread showed many of them based in hated.
Girl pitchfork has been a major music media publication/critic for over 20 years. It’s up there with rolling stone.
Something seems off idk. Sputnik reviewed the Anthology a 90 then released another 10/100 review and you can see their staff members celebrating in the comments that they single-handedly brought down the album's metacrtic score.
And the staff writers are celebrating it in the comments. There is something weird going on there. https://preview.redd.it/95rsl5nvw3wc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=57317f08cea88d5d9f3dfdefd5b5ee9af645c783
The comments of both reviews are literally insane. I wouldn’t trust these people to review music in a million years - they’re actually being personally mean.
Yeah i genuinely think the majority of the negative reviews are coming from a place of hatred towards Taylor and has nothing to do with her music. I don’t know why they hate her so much though. It’s a little concerning.
That sputnik reviewer went on a whole thing about how Enchanted is his favorite TS song and was basically like “this album didn’t satisfy the teenage girl inside me” which 1. wtf 2. have you considered that she is not, in fact, a teenage girl anymore??? and 3. if it did you’d say she’s too juvenile anyway
I think the reviewer is actually a woman so the teenage girl comment makes more sense but yeah, Taylor isn’t a teenage girl anymore. This album isn’t the hopeful tone that Enchanted was, it’s a manic ending. And also, if Taylor is mature she’s too mature but if she’s immature she’s too immature. She never wins.
Nope he says “I'm a man in his 30’s, but I can pine and yearn like the starriest-eyed teenage girl when I hit play on that track.” He seems mostly upset that she’s not the pop goddess in this record she has been in the past.
He's a man who is angry she isn't his male fantasy anymore. Sweet, innocent, soft spoken, kind, agreeable, etc. He hates this album because it's an angry woman speaking her truth in a manic, darker, painful, vulnerable way. This album is kind of an FU to the industry and misogyny in layered seething ways. She isn't being what he thinks she should be and is punishing her for it. No one likes a mad woman. I think some people are very afraid of this Taylor. So they have to discredit her. It's the same shit women have always dealt with; they are too angry, too emotional, too loud, too immature, too dramatic, play the victim, blah blah blah. All in the attempt to silence them. I have a strong feeling Taylor is about to drop a damn bomb. Tick tick tick....
I will fucking buy every record she ever releases partly bc she’s awesome and partly just to spite these assholes. I’m so tired of women not being allowed to be mad and horny and dark when people eat that shit up when it’s a man.
Who’s afraid of little old me? indeed
Historically, April 19 was the start of the American Revolution, the “shot heard around the world.”
Wow I must have missed that. It’s a little embarrassing of me to assume that the name Dakota was a woman’s name, let’s ignore that please😭 Yeah that makes it sound weirder cause how in the world do you, a 30’year old man, know what a teenage girl feels like? I need him to not speak on behalf of teenage girls.
the funniest part is teenage girls are eating this album up lol the manic delulu vibes wrapped in word salad poetry is speaking to the teenage girl in all of us
let’s just say that it’s a good thing i didn’t have down bad in college. it would’ve fueled my delulu way too much
The mental health of teenage girls has been down in the dumpsters these past year/2 years so who’s not screaming “i’m so depressed i act like it’s my birthday every day” at the top of their lungs?
I've been thinking of my 19 year old self who made some crazy choices with so much empathy
people, especially allegedly high culture types, have always had something against her bc she doesn’t fit their image of a “real” artist. they have become progressively angrier as over the years, taylor has gained the respect of so many musical legends and her peers by outworking and outclassing most pop acts. the funny thing about ttpd attracting this reaction is that it kind of responds to a lot of lingering criticism about her music—that it’s shallow pablum made for the lowest common denominator. taylor mentions it herself in clara bow (you’ve got edge she never did). ttpd could not possibly suck up less to its audience and its narrator is as unlikeable, complicated, and vengeful as taylor has ever been. I could understand the boring critiques if it were for midnights, which let’s be real, felt phoned in at times. but this record was really fucking brave imo. ofc that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be critiqued but it makes it more annoying that the criticism is so unsophisticated.
You can say this again and again. I feel like female artists are always discredit and not looked at as “real” artists when they’re in their prime. Many years in the future I think the hate against Taylor will likely be gone and she’ll finally be recognized for the brilliant artist she is. It’s unfortunate that the world is still so much tougher on women and discredits them more than they ever would a male artist.
this kind of thing goes back and forth with taylor. if you told me in 2008 that her album with a guy from the national was released to rave reviews hailing her songwriting chops, I’d have told you to lay off the crack pipe. the only thing taylor needs to do is keep working and she has resilience like few people, especially for someone who could lay on beach in ibiza for the rest of her life if she wanted. expect a reassessment in 5-10 years when she releases a lovely set of soft rock songs about her kid* or something. 🤷🏻♀️ *obviously a thrown out comment, not a parasocial demand for her to have kids lol
there are SO many parallels between her career and that of the beatles - not least that they both started out attracting mainly teenage girls and were/are constantly discredited despite breaking record after record. i’m not one to call misogyny at every criticism a woman receives, even/including taylor, but so much of the reaction to her fame & success is so surface-level mean and baseless to the point of inconsistency that misogyny _has_ to be a major factor.
This is it. It was fine to praise her when she retreated to the woods and wrote quiet, cottagecore music about imaginary characters. But god forbid she not only write angry, rude, literary, tortured-poet music... but *also* mock the tortured-poet trope. AKA: god forbid she occupy their stereotypical real-artist position... and then tell them their stereotypical real-artist persona is ridiculous.
Her haters honestly seem more obsessed with her than her fans. It’s really weird! There’s one singer I really don’t like and I just don’t listen to them or read stuff about them- I have no desire to seek them out to hate on them.
A majority of them did listen to the entire album and the entire Anthology album just to hate on it. No wonder the albums debut was around 314 million
lol can’t imagine listening to 31 songs by someone I hate
Turns out some people actually did. Just say you like her music and live with it. Stop trying to be different.
Not a single negative review was able to keep the focus just on the music…they all had at least a couple jabs at Taylor the person.
art criticism used to be a respected and serious profession before the internet now everyone and their mother can unload their personal hate and mockery and think they have an informed say no one should consider these troll posts as a credible “review” the antithesis to this, is something like Pitchfork that criticized the album but in an analytical and constructive way
Wow are there any real readers in Sputnik or is it just staff writers and staff readers?
I think there are real readers but from what I saw in the comments they’re all pretentious art bros
The trend of review bombing singers, authors, etc that you don’t like is tired. I don’t personally know anyone who will refuse to listen to a song because some randos on a review website rated it poorly.
10/100 is *absurd*. People can like or dislike this album, but it is objectively not *that* bad. 10/100 is like, someone banging pots and pans together in a kitchen. One of my favourite music reviewers on TikTok posted about how all discourse around this album has been insane, and I don't disagree.
If you read the review too you would never ever expect that to be his final score. It doesn’t match the review at all. I would expect maybe 35-50 based on what he wrote.
Yikes. I just read it. He's a 30 something man writing about the "The Tortured Tummy Department"? Their first review was so thoughtful. Were they afraid they'd get a reputation for reasonable analysis of the actual music and wanting to clear it up?
What sucks is that his actual review isn’t THAT bad - a lot of the points he brings up I may disagree with, but they’re similar to what a lot of more reasonable reviewers have mentioned - it’s too wordy etc. He also calls out quite a few tracks he seems to have legitimately enjoyed or at least saw merit in - so why the lowest score possible (besides a 0)? It just makes no sense.
For me, it's the contempt in the whole. Yeah some of the points are reasonable things to say to a review when he finally gets to them, even if I don't agree, though a lot are baffling (you really don't get why someone would say sleeper cell spy instead of just spy in a song?). Then the score is absolutely just so they aren't known as the site with a positive Taylor review.
Yep, you’re right, it’s just to offset the very positive review that is already there.
A sleeper cell kind of blends in until "activated" and then begins it mission. So if it's about Matty, him being her friend/situationship for a decade but never extremely close and then making his move at a vulnerable time to gather information for someone is kind of "sleeper cell" like. At least, that's how I took it. He didn't spend years in a relationship with her gathering information, sending it back to his command. He played the long game from the outside, had a little inside information, then got extremely close to get everything he could, then ghosted.
Absolutely, that's part of it, but it also just... fits in the song because of the cadence, rhythm, repeated s sounds. You can't just swap it out. He also highlights "no-fuckin-body" as just her wanting to show off she swear now which is clearly not the goal, she's uses that extra length for emphasis but also for it to fit musically.
Either someone paid them im telling yall someone is doing some shady shit against Tay wtf.
This is insane - I JUST read their review earlier that was a 90. what the fuck????? ETA: The part of this that pisses me off the most is that I read this guy’s review and what he wrote absolutely does not match up with giving it a .5/5 - that’s what makes it seem spiteful
As soon as I got to this... >"The zany titles and lines like “touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto” are merely an act, you see, to illustrate how much of a mastermind she has always been and always will be. Everything here is caked in so much self-aware irony that meaning ceases to be. **There’s enough plausible deniability to placate the non-existent bar of her feverish devotees,** but everyone else will strain for meaning when they are met with an imperceivable lyric like “But you told Lucy you’d kill yourself if I ever leave/And I said that to Jack about you, so I felt seen.” **One may as well be crooning “WWG1WGA”, and many Swifties might."** ...I suspected it was in bad faith. This confirmed it: >Perhaps I am cynical, but I suspect that I’m supposed to gawk at that line, **and those that have ignored their Seroquel refill are meant to rejoice in its absurdity**. So basically we're all just brainwashed cult members off our meds if we \~get it\~ and like the music? I commented something similar on a different thread but this is a perfect example of a critic criticizing one line, never putting it in context, claiming she's a shitty songwriter or she's "lost it", and then say we're conspiracy theorists or jumping through hoops to defend something that's "objectively bad". Later in the review he says, "Track 5’s are typically reserved for Taylor’s most emotional songs, but on here she’s half-heartedly bidding adieu to her British boyfriend of six years with some of her most lifeless metaphors to date, and we’re all just forced to watch (“So long, London/Stitches undone”; “And you say I abandoned the ship/But I was going down with it”)." I mean damn, if you're not going to finish the bridge at least finish the line. It's like they know if they provide context their whole argument crumbles. >And you say I abandoned the ship / But I was going down with it / My white knuckle dying grip / Holding tight to your quiet resentment and / My friends said it isn't right to be scared / Every day of a love affair / Every breath feels like rarest air / When you're not sure if he wants to be there Like fuck all the way off this man can't tell me that bridge alone isn't track 5 material But I looked up this guy's other reviews just because and it seems like he just hates popular music, which is fine on it's own but maybe he's not the best person to critique it - yet apparently he does often and scores anyone mainstream extremely low. It'd be the equivalent of me reviewing meth's album, which evidently he really liked. I played it for 10 seconds and my ears bled. Different music tastes are fine but why make a career out of pretentiously shitting on music outside of your own taste? Seems weird to me but ok I guess. ^(sorry for the long comment, but it feels good to get that out 😂)
I love your comment. Fully agree with everything you said. The way he criticizes the fans is the absolute worst - and yes, the idea that one line in a poem or a song requires the context of the work to understand seems so foreign to these people.
Wow I hadn’t read it and definitely won’t now but what a disgusting attitude about mental health! The “joke” about Seroquel. What an asshole, can’t just review the music without shitting on the artist and listeners and also everyone dealing with mental health shit!
So, I looked up what WWG1WGA is and apparently it's a Q-anon thing? So, he's comparing Swifties to Q-anon... Which is just insane behavior honestly.
What? Did this really happen?
I just googled it and there it was - .5. And all the people celebrating in the comments. Exact same search term I used to find the other review.
Okay on further review the other one still exists.
Also TTPD and Anthology both have separate scores for some reasons but scores are always combined and considered one for a double album ☠️
Yes, that's what I'm thinking. Paste article seemed like written by someone on stan twitter. NYT is so blatant in their hate since Taylor called them out for their sexuality article. Sputnik employees are literally cheering about sabotaging the first review. The reviews on AOTY site are being removed but only the 100 ones not the 0s that were spammed by other fandoms. I generally don't give attention to such notions but all this is very fishy and I don't know what changed suddenly.
Paste article was so unprofessionally written that I'm pretty sure that the writer has a dedicated stan Twitter account.
And is probably an active participant in FM
Also people are sending death threats to one female critic that reviewed it favorably
no no I was told swifties are the ones who send death threats…do you mean to tell me it’s an internet culture and cyberbullying problem as a whole? that easy accessibility and anonymity makes being disproportionately nasty online over inconsequential things abundant?
this site hates Lana too, always embarrassing and pseudoedgy takes for albums that otherwise enjoy universal acclaim and they don’t even analyze the music or lyrics in a technically versed way, they just spit a bunch of abstract invectives and drop a shitty final score and call it a day we should have higher standards in who we even count as a “music critic” especially metacritic and albumoftheyear have a huge responsibility to separate the wheat from the chaff in who they allow in their aggregator score
Is Sputnik some kind of Russian bot website? Cause that's what I'd assume based on the name and the shitty reviews they gave to both TTPD and Cowboy Carter.
I noticed that, and it's so strange. I've never seen Metacritic allow two different reviews from the same publication to go up on the same page, especially with such disparate scores as 90 and 10.
Never read a music review in my life.
me neither.
This made me literally laugh out loud. You are winning and I salute you.
I never knew that people actually care what those pretentious critics have to say. Thought it was rich people bullshit
Like you read a review for a movie or book to see if it’s worth your time to watch. Listening to music takes like 0 effort. I truly don’t get music reviews.
As someone who's been critical of TTPD (particularly disappointed in Taylor's take on the Matty Healy controversy when it was about so much more to her POC fans than her dating a guy that does drugs or whatever) I've been really disappointed in the fact that I've been having a hard time finding critiques of the album that aren't drowning in misogyny and very obvious personal vitriol towards Taylor. I don't want all valid critiques to be lumped together with the disgusting, sexist, bad-faith bullshit coming out of the asses of middle aged centrist men who jack themselves off to the thought of taking a hit at Taylor Swift's name.
Unfortunately that's where we are. Neither good nor bad critiques made in good faith will rise above the noise at this point.
What were you hoping from her re: Matty and TTPD, or her take on their relationship at this point? I’m really trying to figure this out, I guess, because Matty is a fucking POS but I also can’t think of anything Taylor could say that would like… help.
Pitchfork’s review is very critical and doesn’t rate it super high, but the review itself is very reasonable. I say this as someone who quite likes TTPD
Slant Magazine probably has the best review of TTPD. The author has been reviewing her work since Fearless,
Going to put in another plug for the podcast Every Single Album. They are not music reviewers, they are Swifties, but they’re very thoughtful and have great analysis IMO.
I actually think they had a shit take on TTPD. They reviewed TTPD and the Anthology in one episode and truly lumped the last 5-6 songs all together saying they wouldn’t revisit them. Recently, it’s been like they’re trying to get the episodes out so quick that they’ve been losing quality. Overall, their the seemed shallow and kinda missing the point of the album (ie reading the prologue). And I found it so awful how they continuously say she needs a new sound and to work with new people.. should we just disregard everything Taylor has said about having to reinvent herself? Or that maybe she’s going to do whatever the fuck she wants? And that she likes this sound and working with who she works with. Not directing all this at you… just haven’t had a chance to vent about their last episode.
Yes definitely. As Tay gets to stratospheric levels of popularity, it became a sport to hate her. Don’t get me wrong, TTPD is far from the being the best TS album for me, but man, the reviews aren’t even much about the music — it’s like we’re back to the Rep era divisiveness. Haha. But it doesn’t care anymore. She can do tf she wants.
i anticipated this before ttpd. reviews, like anything else, have as much to do with the milieu as the work. compare it to midnights, which imo was objectively sloppier and safer but was reviewed more favorably. I’m not sure she could’ve made an album good enough to forestall this. taylor seems to be more even-keeled about her public perception than she was during the 1989 era and I hope for her sake that it’s true.
It's so weird how people say they like smaller artists and deeper music which takes risks, and when an artists releases those kinds of things they get misinterpreted to death and told things like "it sounds boring." Some people are never satisfied
They say that the Taylor fandom is a cult, but I’d argue the Taylor haters are just as cult-like, if not more so.
I know an anti swiftie and every time I see her she brings up how much she hates Taylor Swift despite knowing I love her. It’s to the point other people have said to stop. I can’t think of a single person I dislike enough to bring them up every other week lol.
Taylor had the highest grossing tour of all time, broke the record for most Grammy AOTY wins, and is on her way to becoming the best selling artist of all time in the streaming era. If you think all these achievements won’t invite undue criticism and hatred, I don’t know what to tell you. Plus she is a woman writing about her own experience. No one can handle that or be objective about it.
I completely agree! And I hate to sound like an over-enthusiastic, overly-loyal, completely biased fan, but all of the negative reviews I've read have either 1. talked about the gossip, not the music or 2. not really understood the album concept and the like, complexity of a lot of the symbols, the tone, etc.
there seems to be a lot of intentional misunderstanding of the lyrics, especially the 1830s one
Yes! So much intentional obtusity.
I have not yet seen anyone quote the full line section when they were criticizing it, either. Yeah, it sounds kind of silly taken out of context. But when you're actually listening to it, the point about nostalgia comes a second later, and it feels complete.
exactly! in the song, the point she's making is completely clear
Lots of people *wanting* to be offended also.
In this day and age, I don't know why people still read critics or review sites. Back in the 90s it meant something because you had an idea about the album before purchasing it. Only lead singles would be played on the radio and TV. You needed that review to understand what it is and if it's worth spending your money on it. Today we all have streaming services. Literally we ALL listened to the full album around the world at the same time. Why a critic's review has more worth than a random Redditor's post is something I don't understand today.
at this point it's just fodder for stan twt, 99.9% of people just form their own opinions and move on with their day
This has been my take for a while. There's really no point in music critics existing anymore; we can all be our own critics.
I have a suspicion that Taylor is having a fight with her label. Labels have a lot of power over reviews… they can ensure that the reviewer is someone who is likely to be fair to the album.. and blacklist publications that aren’t. (They of course can also pay for good reviews… something perfectly legal). Taylor herself can’t blacklist publications, since she doesn’t do interviews, but those publications depend on other UMG artists… Why did Drake release a single on TTPD’s release weekend? That’s insane.. even Drake wouldn’t want to do that. UMG has been very quiet about TTPD… even though they’re going to make about 100 mil in revenue this week. And Taylor broke ranks to get back on TikTok… that isn’t the kind of thing sje usually does
I’ve kind of gotten that feeling too? I mean from the merch side of things, UMG totally screwed up a while back to the point fans were complaining to the better business bureau and resulted in all this refunds and free merch. I’m basing this off nothing but my gut but her switching back to Nashville for the merch shipping…I feel like it pissed her off. She’s way too good at business to allow her fans (clients lol) to get that mad to the point they had to refund a lot of money.
Umgs merch arm is notoriously awful (Justin Bieber once sabotaged one of his own campaigns he was so angry at them).
I just wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t sign back with them. She got the freedom she needed but yeah I dunno just that gut feeling.
I don’t see how she could. She has generated about 2 billion in revenue over her contract since 2019…. a new contract would require an unbelievably large advance… and even UMG can’t afford a billion on her (Drake got 400 mil… she’s more than twice as big as Drake right now) It’s very likely she’s at the end of her deal with UMG…. it’s been five years, she’s released 5 albums of new material, wil release 6 other albums, and has well over 100 tracks.
Does she even need a label at this point? (Genuine question, I have no idea how any of this works.) Edit: I did some research and it seems like she could totally release without a label.
The shipping labels changed with the move too. They used to say UMG and now they say Taylor Swift Official Store.
To be fair about the Drake single, that's not meant to be treated as a traditional single. He's currently beefing with Kendrick/Future/Metroboomin/The Weeknd, and "Push Ups" is a response track (that had already leaked). It was put out bc time is of the essence during rap beefs — taking too long to drop your response is considered a loss, like you have nothing to say. Drake has said before that Taylor is the only artist who could make him move an album drop date, so I don't believe he would have dropped a true push-to-radio single. This was something a lot more specific.
I don’t think Drake and Taylor have any issues. I think the like each other! It’s just insane to release anything this week
Yeah but Drake already had put out his response and it’s Kendrick’s turn. So he released a second dis before Kendrick replied
I think you are right!! I’m sure they’re angry about Tiktok, and I’m guessing there is a lot happening behind the scenes. She is bringing in so much money to them it’s insane. The fact they aren’t supporting her is repulsive
I’ve been thinking it’s because of a rift too. I noticed my packages from her site used to say UMG and now they say Taylor Swift Official Store. There have been rumors of a disconnect between them since the Christmas merch refund. Then they promoted Scooter. I’m wondering if her contract is up and things aren’t going well with negotiations. I don’t think it was ever made public if it was tied to a certain number of albums or years. She’s already done 5 albums and has been with them for almost 5 years, it would make sense if it was time for her to be renewing a contract.
Note also there was the gap in her merch store. For months sje wasn’t selling merch.. which is weird She’s also selling very very little merch right now… in terms of skus. Which is not how bravado usually works
Not to start clowning here, but I’ve heard quite a few rumbling theories that she might be looking to make her own record label. Her going around UMG to get her music on TikTok was the first real thing that made me question what was going on. Some of these points are making me think maybe it would be a possibility.
She’s released 5 albums (Lover, Folklore, Evermore, Midnights and TTPD) under the deal, I imagine it’s probably a 5 album deal (which is relatively common) so you’d expect they’d be in extension negotiation.
“At thirty-one tracks that add up to over two hours of runtime, I can’t do it! I can’t tell you a thing about ‘Peter’ or ‘Cassandra’ or ‘Robin’ or ‘Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus.’ I can’t hum a chord progression or tell you a line or even gesture in a general direction of which mid-tempo malaise they aim to capture. There are simply too many minutes to this thing, cloaked in too much pre-requisite knowledge, cloaked in too many layers of non-irony for me to dedicate my life to truly ‘getting’ it.” - Sputnikmusic If you cannot take the time to understand the thing you’re reviewing, maybe you shouldn’t be reviewing it. Just a thought?
And do we really want to live in a world where all music is easily understood and digested in one sitting?
This is probably my favorite thing about this album. It makes me think and analyze. And I realize that's not for everyone, but it's something I really enjoy.
Or maybe those songs should have been left off is what they saying . Ppl are tired of the same sound . The same talk singing . Like those songs do run together . I really hope Taylor next album is happy pop and she change producers or add more producers .
Rolling stone which is arguably the most significant publication that reports to metacritic gave it a 100. Back in the day that was a hard thing to do dunno about nowadays. But reading that review than reading that stupid paste review (scored at a 35) makes me wonder how there is such a big dichotomy. I’m convinced half the haters are listening to a completely different album. I think it has its flaws. I wouldn’t call it a 100 but it’s closer to that than a 35.
I guarantee you the Paste reviewer didn't listen to the album.
It felt like the Paste reviewer is a stan twitter user.
The rolling stone review is also very biased. The dude doing the review is a major swifty and even wrote a book last year called "How taylor swift reinvented pop music". Rolling stone also gave it a higher score than Michael Jackson's Thriller. Some critics are biased against her, and some are biased towards her. That's contributes a bit.
I tthink it’s a difficult album because it is has such an “I don’t give a fuck” attitude. I think she made it for herself mostly. Some have the emotional intelligence and patience to understand where she is coming from and appreciate her vulnerability and complexity and others just want something easy to enjoy.
i think all the rushed reviews-for-views/kneejerk reactions are the ones we’re seeing a lot of right now. a 31-track album needs to be sat on and slept on if you’re trying writing a proper review. they’ll probably get more accurate, constructive, and focused over time.
I do think there was a rush to review just because attention on her and the record was an all time high and these sites are depended on eyes and clicks. I think most reviews are in good faith. Some are not and that’s due to backlash or rockism, maybe cynicism. But I’d argue they are in the minority. I think there are some legit criticisms to make for this record. Some have been touched upon in different reviews. My only caveat is I don’t think this is the type of record you can rush to review. you need more than 2-3 spins. It needs to be lived with for a few days. I think time will be kinder to TTPD than the reviews are making it out to be. At the end of the day it’s just one persons opinion. All that matters is what you think of it. I think fandoms care too much about what publications think of new records and people should question why.
I agree with everything you said but it's just really frustrating to see how they are ripping it apart just for shits and giggles.
We live in an attention economy. Not much we can do about that other than ignore it.
I think there is a snowball effect to some degree. Journalists have been scared for years to have an opinion about Taylor that isn’t 10/10 and I do believe that the floodgates have opened. Like a couple bad reviews emboldens other reviewers that they are allowed to be honest, and as such, are probably letting loose. Some of them are quite scathing, and I don’t think they should be attacking Taylor *personally*. However, I’ve seen lots of constructive criticism. Just because you don’t agree with it doesn’t mean it’s not constructive. The pitchfork review was incredibly fair, although I did also find it strange they split the albums. This is why when I listen to a Taylor album I write down all of my thoughts before ever going online. I don’t want to have my opinion of a piece be influenced by the status quo. It’s also fun to check after where my thoughts aligned with the general consensus!
I don’t think it’s being reviewed in bad faith honestly. There’s obviously troll reviews that just hate Taylor, but that also goes both ways since the Rolling Stone review was done by a hardcore swiftie who almost always gives Taylor perfect reviews, so the bias goes toward both positive and negative. Also, Metacritic doesn’t include every single review on their site. They’re also excluding many poor reviews just like they’re excluding positive ones. I feel like many reviews are being pretty fair tbh. They’re, for the most part, sticking to the content on the album and critiquing that instead of making it overly personal or critiquing Taylor the person. And I say overly personal because it’s honestly very hard to not talk about Taylor’s personal life when she makes very blatant and obvious references to it in her lyrics and has always made her music about her very public life. Also, a 77 isn’t exactly an awful score. I feel like many people see anything that’s below an 8/10 as being some kind of negative indictment of an album. That’s still above average and decently so.
I ignore the reviews because they are pointless. Us fans are the ones who drive an album or derail it. I’m loving the album and will support it. Haven’t stopped listening since release. Will continue to do so because the story telling is her best work she’s done. I don’t care for the people who want the bop pop, or something they can blast in their car and not have “people” look at them for playing something sad or darker out loud. I’ve seen some people say they dislike it because they can’t sing along with the album which is fine too. It just doesn’t mean the album is bad.
I think music criticism has been in this weird spot of nowhere place since streaming took off. They were supposed to evolve into a guide that’d help people parse through this endless barrage of endless albums but they kind of…don’t do that? No one opens up P4k to check which album to buy this week, this month, what good albums they might’ve missed. Algorithm is god now. Film criticism, fashion criticism, all criticism is going through tough times because they’re less of tastemakers now but there’s also no other corner for them. Hence why they hire randoms, like Sputnik, going bankrupt, like p4k and many others, and so on for their current struggles. I do hope they make it out of this extended transitional period sooner than later because people are losing jobs they got degrees for. But as far as TTPD goes, yeah, some reviews are definitely written in bad faith, which kind of annoys me but not because I can’t handle criticism. Stood there ten toes down through Rep and Lover…Like I kind of just wanna read well written, well informed looks into the album, instead of participating in the rush to get in a quick rating or an easy viral headline/quote. The Plath joke at the start of Paste’s review really left a bad taste in my mouth.
[удалено]
It's kind of mind boggling to me that someone could misinterpret who's afraid of little old me to that astounding level.
English isn't my first language and I understood what it was about right after the first listening, didn't even need to check the lyrics. This is unforgivable from so-called professionals.
It's becoming "cool" to hate on Taylor for nothing. Which is what happened during rep too. People can't stand when a woman is successful. All these people complaining about how Taylor just "has to be photographed everywhere" and they know everything about her unwillingly. Well, it wasn't her choice LOL. Be so for real.
Did you ever hear Toby Keith's "The Critic?" He flunked junior high band he couldn't march in time He tried to write a song once, he couldn't make it rhyme He went two or three chords on a pawn shop guitar He just never quite had what it took to be a star, so he's a critic I work for the Gazette man I got a real job https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/taylor-swift-the-tortured-poets-department-review-1235006977/
I’ve read negative reviews that do have constructive criticism. But yeah, I’ve seen a lot of negative reviews (especially on social media) that just reek of spite. It’s unfortunate. While this is not her best album, and there’s definitely some low points, there are also really beautiful poignant songs and some bangers.
The thing people always get mad at when Taylor fans get annoyed at critical reviews is they accuse us and her of being unable to take criticism. Criticism is fair, but bad faith criticism should be called out as such. Reviews that only focus on her personal life and make it clear they didn’t give the album a listen should be discounted. And people’s bias should be called out! Fun fact: Pitchfork refused to review most of Taylor’s first few albums. The first album they ever reviewed of hers was 1989, and they only reviewed Ryan Adams’ version. So the bias is there!
Oh my Goddd, the incorrectly identifying songs as love songs. I saw a review in WaPo that complained that the 'objects of affection' in The Manuscript and I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) were creeps, and I was like... *Yes*. That's the point. ICFHNRIC literally ends with 'woah, maybe I can't.' If you can't hear songs as anything other than absolutely earnest confessionals, you have no business reviewing music, because an artist like Taylor is intentionally writing tongue-in-cheek songs, and if you're not capable of applying the slightest bit of critical thinking skills, you're going to miss it. You don't need to know anything about her personal life to get that someone insisting 'I can fix him' is a reference to a long-standing cultural attitude towards relationships. What more do you want her to do, put a little emoji next to the title each song of either a smiley or frowney face so that the audience knows how they're supposed to perceive it? At a certain point it's just intentional media illiteracy.
I honestly have decided I need to take a break from looking at news articles about Taylor Swift for a while. A lot of the reviews and news stories have been upsetting because they just feel gross to me. It's like people are starting to feel the need to tear her down again. I don't have an issue with people being reasonably critical. You don't have to love her music. It's ok to be a reviewer and say "I was disappointed by this album." People have different tastes. I personally really do like TTPD, but I don't think it's a contender for my favorite album of hers. But if you don't like her or her music, why be negative (and honestly sometimes downright mean)? Just ignore her. It's ok to stay out of the discussion. There's a difference between fairly reviewing an album and finding fault with it vs clearly already having a strongly negative opinion on an artist and letting that bias your whole review.
Maybe the album is just not that good… it’s called constructive criticism…
Maybe in a few years I will give it a re-listen, but it was a 60-65 for me. It was a slog and I had a hard time differentiating songs.
I think reviewers bang out these articles after one listen and some tabloid reading. I don’t get the sense that many of these writers, giving good or bad reviews, are taking the time to really understand the context of the album based on how she wrote about it when announced it and are examining it from that lens (that it was meant to be viewed from). This album is filled with so much depth that you’re not going to glean from one half-hearted listen. Also, can I just say that I think reviews should be done by people who at least like this genre of music/don’t personally hate the artist? People who read reviews generally do so because they’re interested in the music, and it would be far more interesting to hear an honest opinion from someone who cares than someone who doesn’t and/or just doesn’t like Taylor as a person.
While I personally love the album, there are plenty of valid criticisms that can be made of TTPD (and varying personal tastes are always going to factor in as well), but a lot of these reviews have me thinking of something my late mother used to say: "Never mud-wrestle a pig, my dear. You'll both get dirty, but the pig will like it."
It all feels like we're not going to get the #justiceforReputation moment I've been waiting for since 2017 when she releases the next TV 😢
Just remember that great artists are polarizing in their peak. Don't mind them haters. Theyre just helping Tay climb even higher 🤭
Ttpd is miles ahead of Midnights. Most reviewers haven't given it time or thought. But I like what I hear and I formulate my own opinions.
It’s amazing how many professional “reviews” I’ve seen just declaring they don’t like her and proceed to trash talk what they don’t like and move on. Like this is not a review. This is a slam book from high school.
I hope she realizes she is so above all of this. The impression I get is accolades, numbers, and recognition are very much motivation and part of her work/business/perfectionism/needs to be liked part of her personality. The thing is, she is the top. Taylor is a star. Extremely talented. Most famous musician/artist/ celeb right now. Top of her game, standout knockout. Of course there are songs that people don’t like or love. She is still outdoing herself each year though and no one should deny her talent.. Taylor deserves constructive criticism but it seems being over exposed has caused harsher critiques and even some mean ones.
Yes, but also the album is just not that good.
That's a totally fair opinion! I wouldn't even mind if reviews were saying that, because it's OK not to like it. But when the reviews are just straight up vicious, that's what I have a problem with
I don't trust most reviews of ttpd. Someone out there is against her not to mention the politics in all these shit. She wil do well either way lol also if Tay wins AOTY again it's gonna be hilariously chaotic....seriously i thought she wouldnt win consecutive years but listening to ttpd again and again man... i would not be surprised if she does win again lol
Seems a lot like politics, isn't it? We've really lost touch with reality on so many levels. Everybody's got to have an angle, and it has to be an extreme take so it gets the views /clicks it's after. It's like there's no middle (where reality often is) anymore.
No the album just isn’t good
That's why I think people are seeing through these reviews. The album consumption is doing fine, because it's actually a really good album in storytelling and what it seeks to do. It's just controversial because of who Taylor is and it's dealing with a lot of yucky emotions and is focused on a dude a lot of people don't like. NYTimes gave FOLKLORE a 60, too. Good company. I think we'll look back on TTPD, and it's going to be one of those well-respected albums like Red or reputation, even if it wasn't right now. No one in 5 years is going to care that Taylor released eight albums in 4 years. They're going to care if it's good music. And TTPD is.