Taylor Swift Could Use an Editor

January 26, 2021 7:17 PM

"Sometimes, Swift thinks it’s clever to string together clichés: “Every bait-and-switch was a work of art,” she sings on “Willow.”" "Often, she mixes her metaphors until they’re mush, as when the dull “Happiness” asks, “When did all our lessons start to look like weapons / Pointed at my deepest hurt?” ... Any editor might wonder if these are signs of first-draft work."
posted by folklore724 (105 comments total)

*shrug* So could lots of pop stars.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 7:24 PM on January 26, 2021 [13 favorites]

I wonder how many of us listen to pop for the lyrics.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:29 PM on January 26, 2021 [3 favorites]

I've spend many a pleasant hour contemplating the literal meaning of "Don't say I didn't say I didn't warn you"
posted by DarkForest at 7:33 PM on January 26, 2021 [7 favorites]

"Only time will tell if [Taylor Swift's lyrics] stand the test of time."

-- Samuel Hagar
posted by straight at 7:39 PM on January 26, 2021 [26 favorites]

I did RTFA, but I want to point out that "When did all our lessons start to look like weapons pointed at my deepest hurt" is not a mixed metaphor at all, and it's actually a pretty good way to state a certain thought. Concise, not even really poetic, but has a certain image (the metaphor) that works very effectively.

I could see the line being reworked (the first-draft accusation might be accurate, I have no idea) and ending up as a lyric from Indigo Girls , or at least an image they could work in and not be out of character.
posted by hippybear at 7:44 PM on January 26, 2021 [25 favorites]

I've got to say, I've been enjoying the heck out of the piano book of Folklore that I just got, and I find the indie feel of both it and Evermore to be a real draw. I hope she keeps it up.

As for this in the article:
The greatest gaffe of the album is its brashest swing: “No Body, No Crime...

That's the song my teenage daughter likes best, which gives me great hope for my daughter...
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 7:48 PM on January 26, 2021 [6 favorites]

Almost every song on the album was co-written by Aaron Dessner so I assume that he acted as an editor for the lyrics she contributed and vice-versa.
posted by octothorpe at 7:53 PM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

And no one heard at all
Not even the chair
posted by Dynex at 7:56 PM on January 26, 2021 [12 favorites]

What's wrong with lyrics like Got all my starbucks lovers?
posted by Jacen at 8:02 PM on January 26, 2021 [21 favorites]

Tell me, when did your winning smile
Begin to look like a smirk?
When did all our lessons start to look like weapons
Pointed at my deepest hurt?

That's actually on a par with Bob Dylan's better stuff—assonant non-rhyme especially. It's well above his worst, I mean he wrote The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest that includes the tooth-aching 'it's not a house, it's a home' to rhyme with 'roam'. What a hack.

If Dylan can get the Nobel prize for literature, we can give Swift a pass for pop prosody.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 8:15 PM on January 26, 2021 [27 favorites]

I say this from personal experience: the editor’s eye can become like the hammer owned by the man for whom every problem looks like a nail.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:22 PM on January 26, 2021 [15 favorites]

Please, this has nothing on all the pop lyrics that straight-up don't make sense. I mean, "I Want it That Way" is baffling.
posted by mosst at 8:26 PM on January 26, 2021 [9 favorites]

This world in which we live in.
posted by headspace at 8:28 PM on January 26, 2021 [30 favorites]

Looking for a good rhyme for clickbait...
posted by Celsius1414 at 8:29 PM on January 26, 2021

This world in which we live in.

That has rankled me basically my entire life.
posted by hippybear at 8:29 PM on January 26, 2021 [10 favorites]

No more clichéd than Bono's lyrics, IMO. I can bring myself to enjoy both.
posted by simra at 8:35 PM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

Bono does vacillate between really elegant poetic moments and total clunkers where you wonder how that even got into the first draft, let alone onto the completed album.
posted by hippybear at 8:41 PM on January 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

Sounds like someone didn't listen to folklore
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:49 PM on January 26, 2021 [4 favorites]

And no one heard at all
Not even the chair

"Second, you Neil Diamond fans out there can stop writing irate unsigned letters telling me that I am not worthy to be a dandruff flake on Neil's head, OK? Because you have convinced me: Neil Diamond is God. I no longer see anything but genius in the song where he complains that his chair can't hear him." -- Dave Barry

re: TFA, TayTay's still got a ways to go if she wants to beat Lana del Rey singing that her life is "sweet like cinnamon" as though she's never done the Cinnamon Challenge & doesn't know that stuff is ground-up tree bark
posted by taquito sunrise at 8:50 PM on January 26, 2021 [6 favorites]

Breathe
Breathe in the air
Don't be afraid to care

Leave
Don't leave me
Look around
Choose your own ground

Yeah, nothing new to see here.
posted by flabdablet at 9:01 PM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

WTF critics? I'm not a fan of Taylor Swift boat vets, but popular music lyrics are meant to use cliches & mixed metaphors! If they don't get that elemental principle, then I'm just speechless...
posted by ovvl at 9:15 PM on January 26, 2021 [3 favorites]

Oh my god this is so tedious. I actually do agree with him that Evermore is not as good as Folklore. But ugh:

The greatest gaffe of the album is its brashest swing: “No Body, No Crime,” an anthem that channels a long tradition of country-music women imagining revenge on monstrous men. You can tell that Swift’s version, featuring the indie band Haim, was inspired by true-crime documentaries—a morally dubious genre of entertainment that often confuses concern for victims with voyeurism about violence. Neither Dessner’s studied rock arrangement nor Swift’s cutesy narrative conveys the deep pain and anger that elevate the songs that inspired this one. It’s a writing exercise gone wrong, and from most musicians, it could be played once and then forgotten.

"No Body, No Crime" is a great song. I'm pretty sure she's intentionally mixing the tropes of "Country Revenge" songs with the way people talk about true crime.

It feels a little tiresome to accuse male critics of sexism for criticizing Taylor Swift, given how successful she is. She certainly can take the criticism. But it is noticeable how, over and over again, critics like this guy seem to assume she doesn't know what she's doing. And it's laughable when you consider how carefully she orchestrates her persona and career. Say what you will about Taylor Swift (there's a lot you can say) but she definitely knows what she's doing.
posted by lunasol at 9:45 PM on January 26, 2021 [52 favorites]

This world in which we live in.

I'm aware of the scorn this lyric has garnered over the years, but it baffles me because I always parsed it as "this world in which we're livin'", which aside from the elided 'g' seems relatively defensible. But hey, live and let live in...
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:50 PM on January 26, 2021 [18 favorites]

That said, it's one of my least favorite Bond movies; but that's for another "arguing about pop culture" thread.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:54 PM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

w/r/t McCartney's ever-changing world in which we live in, but also to pop music generally (my italics):

In the case of the song, the rhythm of the piece asks for unstressed syllables at both ends - imagine how it would sound if the line ended on live, with an elongated vowel - and that is what we get. Wronger and cuter it certainly is. When music calls, grammar bends.

posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:56 PM on January 26, 2021 [7 favorites]

Say what you will about Taylor Swift (there's a lot you can say) but she definitely knows what she's doing.

I do not believe she knew what she was doing with Look What You Made Me Do.

But honestly these are very tedious complaints; it's perfectly legitimate for lyrics to be evocative and a little weird on the page, and this kind of criticism does strike me as in part sniffing at Taylor Swift because of her audience.

Like, we have long known that Gorillaz lyrics are complete fucking nonsense but no-one's gunning for Damon Albarn.
posted by Merus at 10:30 PM on January 26, 2021 [19 favorites]

Some people want to fill the world in which we live in – and what's wrong with that? I'd like to know.
posted by Crane Shot at 10:31 PM on January 26, 2021 [8 favorites]

Not a Taylor Swift fan, but "every bait-and-switch was a work of art" seems pretty good to me. If that's the best criticism you can come up with, maybe don't bother?
posted by blue shadows at 10:39 PM on January 26, 2021 [6 favorites]

Misogyny? You're soaking in it .
posted by happyroach at 10:42 PM on January 26, 2021 [24 favorites]

Nine Inch Nails fans have long known that Trent Reznoer's lyrics can be awfully clunky at times and that's putting it mildly. But I will never be able to get through, "We're In This Together" without cringing at the grammar of "watching fate as it flows/down the path we have chose." Oh, why did you do that, Trent? You could have so easily changed it to "down the path that we chose" and it would've been just fine.
posted by NotTheRedBaron at 10:58 PM on January 26, 2021 [3 favorites]

I do not believe she knew what she was doing with Look What You Made Me Do.

Heh, I almost qualified that statement with a “(well except for Look What You Made Me Do.”)
posted by lunasol at 11:04 PM on January 26, 2021 [3 favorites]

In the case of the song, the rhythm of the piece asks for unstressed syllables at both ends - imagine how it would sound if the line ended on live, with an elongated vowel - and that is what we get. Wronger and cuter it certainly is. When music calls, grammar bends.

Nice try by the author, but the first "in" could as easily have been dropped for better grammatical sense, for example making it "the world which we must live in" or something to that effect, keeping the syllables and the "in" ending.

But of course that isn't really the point, the fun of the line, intentional or not, comes from how it plays with the notion of "you used to say live and let live", which is a call for tolerance, then hit 'em with the doubled prepositional phrase and see who gives in and cries make that second in die.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:12 PM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

But if this ever-changing world in which we live in
makes you give in and cry...

...I see what you did there, Sir Paul.
posted by Fuzzypumper at 11:37 PM on January 26, 2021 [3 favorites]

I also always thought it was “the world in which we’re livin’.”

Also, if he’d wanted to, he could have easily sung “wo-orld” instead of “world in.”

Now, if you’ll ‘scuse me while I kiss this guy...
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:43 PM on January 26, 2021 [6 favorites]

I don't really blame him for phoning in one line while all excited about getting to the cannons and then the cod reggae section
posted by thelonius at 11:45 PM on January 26, 2021 [3 favorites]

But chicks dig metaphores !
posted by boilermonster at 11:46 PM on January 26, 2021

It's always easy to make pop lyrics look ridiculous when you reproduce them in cold print. The real point is whether or not they work when you hear them as a constituent part of the surrounding music. Often the delivery and the emotion it carries is more important than the grammar.

That said, there is a problem when writers of any kind hit the sort of acclaim that has just about everyone putting them in the "God-like genius" category. No-one dares edit even a comma when a writer gets to that point and it takes an uncommon degree of self-awareness not to fall for the same infallibility myth yourself. The result is often verbose, undisciplined prose which winds up being published when it's still a draft short of being truly finished.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:07 AM on January 27, 2021 [6 favorites]

Yeah, lots of song lyrics don't bear too much scrutiny. Songs do not need to rely on cognitive appeal too heavily, so very often a lot of them quite sensibly don't.

Of course, Swift is often praised for her lyrics specifically, so I guess you can take that angle if you feel you must. Then again, when evaluating song lyrics, "logical consistency of metaphors" is not my personal top priority. In terms of narrative coherence Swift's lyrics do pretty well in comparison to others (someone brought up the Gorillaz, which I like a lot, but you generally don't look for much of a story there) - she's highly effective when it comes to evoking a specific setting and persona and the broadstroke sweeps of a narrative, and she makes it looks quite elegantly simple, a lot more simple than I rationally know it should be.

But sure, one of the tricks to achieve this is using short-cuts in the form of clichés. There's a wealth of ready-made emotional resonance already associated with them because of the familiarity, so you can save a bit of time in establishing the vibe, and time, for a pop song, is obviously of essence. In order to maximize accessibilty and mainstream appeal, you need a good balance of familiar and new elements, and that balance tends to be perfectly calculated by Swift.

So that's a criticism I can see, that it's all often a bit _too_ calculated, too tidy. In that sense, however, I think the occasional mixed metaphor can be charming even, everything to make it a bit less tidy after all.

It all breaks down, of course, if you think Swift is going for "intellectually profound" /"avant-garde" instead of "elegantly simple"/"broad appeal", but I don't see why I should assume that.
posted by sohalt at 12:37 AM on January 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

octothorpe: "Almost every song on the album was co-written by Aaron Dessner so I assume that he acted as an editor for the lyrics she contributed and vice-versa."

Yeah but he's a dude and we can't criticize dudes.

Fuck the hate for Tay-Tay.
posted by chavenet at 1:11 AM on January 27, 2021 [11 favorites]

But sure, one of the tricks to achieve this is using short-cuts in the form of clichés. There's a wealth of ready-made emotional resonance already associated with them because of the familiarity, so you can save a bit of time in establishing the vibe

Oh, baby, think of all the happy times we had,
It was like Tanagra, when Darmok met Jalad.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:30 AM on January 27, 2021 [28 favorites]

archive.is version of the article for those who hit the paywall like a ton of bricks out of the sky
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 1:44 AM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

Everybody, everybody, everybody, everybody ♪
Everybody, everybody, everybody, everybody ♪
posted by benzenedream at 1:46 AM on January 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

Like fuck, man - the guys confused about water being compared to wine? It's like one of the the oldest metaphors in the Western Cannon.
posted by Jilder at 2:23 AM on January 27, 2021 [4 favorites]

TL:DR - T. Swift spends part of her Quarantine Year making 2 (TWO) entire complete albums, one of which might not contain her best lyrical work. (The critic does have nice things to say about her previous stuff - "Over the years, she’s crafted vivid scenes, coined elegant choruses, and wrung a saga’s worth of excitement from a scarf" as one example.)

Music critic spends part of his Quarantine Year overanalyzing one of said albums to the point of incoherence.

So . . . who had the more productive year?

(In the abstract, it's maybe sort of progress (????) that T. Swift is now subject to the same sort of too-serious-by-half navel-gazing bloviating analysis that, say, the entirely forgettable 80's albums of Bob Dylan were subject to back in the day. A songwriter that generates this level of bloated verbiage from critics seems well on her way to a Pulitzer before she's 60.)
posted by soundguy99 at 3:21 AM on January 27, 2021 [7 favorites]

How dare Swift have potentially shaky lyrics without an ample reserve of old-white-guy credibility to back it up.
posted by acb at 4:02 AM on January 27, 2021 [4 favorites]

To be fair, I think the linked article is doing a fairly good job of measuring Swift mostly against herself - it is a fairly nuanced argument, and I can kinda see why someone might prefer the lyrics on Folklore to the lyrics on Evermore, or why one might apply different standards for textual coherence or innovation to her folk ballads than to her dance numbers and so on. It's all in all, criticism at a high level, no kneejerk dismissal, and in the larger scheme of things, might even serve to highlight her overall claim to significance than undermine it.
posted by sohalt at 4:07 AM on January 27, 2021 [4 favorites]

Lyrics are not poetry
Lyrics are not poetry
Lyrics are not poetry

Thank you for coming to my TED talk
posted by ominous_paws at 4:22 AM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

I actually like that Evermore feels a bit looser and messier than Folklore. She took some chances that didn't always work but I really like she was willing to try some things. Is it her best work? Maybe not. But it's among her most interesting. And I like interesting.
posted by edencosmic at 4:27 AM on January 27, 2021 [4 favorites]

It's always easy to make pop lyrics look ridiculous when you reproduce them in cold print.

Steve Allen used to mine that shtick by reciting the lyrics to, say, "Be-Bop-A-Lula" as if they were supposed to be a sonnet or something. I had refrained from originally commenting on this piece because We're Trying To Be Less Snarky and all that, but the piece itself is incredibly uncharitable.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:30 AM on January 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

Ever notice how when they write a review about a female artist, a significant amount of energy is spent telling you about the men who worked on their album, using words like 'mastermind' and 'architect' and 'co-writer', and when the artist in question is male, if they happen to briefly mention other men they're described with words like 'collaborator'?
I think it was Björk who said something about how if at any point a man entered the room, even to drop off coffee, he would invariably be referred to as co-creator of whatever album she was working on, which is why she liked to work alone.
posted by signal at 4:45 AM on January 27, 2021 [31 favorites]

Please don't suck too hard on your lollipop, love might get you down.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 5:08 AM on January 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

Pretty much the only songwriter whose lyrics stand up as poetry is Leonard Cohen.
posted by slkinsey at 5:21 AM on January 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

Steve Allen used to mine that shtick by reciting the lyrics to, say, "Be-Bop-A-Lula" as if they were supposed to be a sonnet or something.

Peter Sellers did something very similar with this Shakespearian take on A Hard Day's Night.
posted by Paul Slade at 5:25 AM on January 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

Aren't most of her songs written with at least one other person? Surely there's intention behind every word, whether you like them or not.
posted by tommasz at 5:32 AM on January 27, 2021

I'm pretty indifferent to Taylor Swift, not least because my musical tastes sort of froze into place in the mid-90s, but if we're talking about lyrics, I just wanted to stick my head in and mention two of my favorite lyrical bits ever. One from Tom Waits' "Make It Rain":

"I'm close to Heaven
Crushed at the gate
They sharpen their knives
On my mistakes"

And the other from Elvis Costello's "Little Atoms":

"But I cannot promise you
I've said goodbye to childish things
There's still some pretty insults left
And such sport in threatening"
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 5:33 AM on January 27, 2021

The only thing I have to say about Taylor Swift and the use of cliche in song lyrics is that "I love the player; you love the game!" is an amazing diss.
posted by Ipsifendus at 5:37 AM on January 27, 2021 [5 favorites]

Lyrics are not poetry

Not all lyrics are good poetry, but certainly some are; a poet friend of mine once specifically cited I am an American aquarium drinker / I assassin down the avenue as such...
posted by axiom at 5:56 AM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

This is like the third Taylor Swift misogynistic hate piece posted to Mefi. I don't even care about her music but it's obvious people really REALLY want to discredit her and her success because she is a sister doing it for herself. It's ridiculously obvious.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:17 AM on January 27, 2021 [14 favorites]

There is strong Did Not Read the Article energy here. Maybe Kornhaber's positive review of Folklore should have been linked to provide some context for this review.
posted by betweenthebars at 6:19 AM on January 27, 2021

I mean, I will admit that I have a nearly irrational dislike of Taylor Swift, but this article is ridiculous enough that it actually makes me want to defend her. Most of my favorite songs have aggressively dumb lyrics. That has never stopped me from dancing to them. And I say that as someone who listens to plenty of artists who write pretty good lyrics too.

But while, we're here; The pop lyric that comes to mind most often these is roughly twenty-five years old and comes from Imperial Teen, whose first album "Seasick," is still one of my favorites and is almost impossible to track down these days. "We're living in the cloister where our subtext is our plot."
posted by thivaia at 6:20 AM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

Swift’s writing is excellent—the stuff of which obsessive listening is built. Same critic, different record. Engaging seriously with an artist's work is what critics do. Unconditional love is for stan Twitter.

Personally, I think some of the examples in the article are nitpicky and overly literal, but I agree with the bigger point about Swift's strengths as a songwriter.
posted by betweenthebars at 6:34 AM on January 27, 2021 [5 favorites]

Lol do Tool next
posted by saladin at 6:53 AM on January 27, 2021 [5 favorites]

Wow! Great! More misogyny! Thanks, Metafilter!
posted by all about eevee at 6:53 AM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

2021 has finally arrived now that we're beanplating pop lyrics again.
posted by OHenryPacey at 7:22 AM on January 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

Nothing against Tay, but my personal high bar for lyrics is set at this Weakerthans verse:

You are a radio, you are an open door
I am a faulty string of blue christmas lights
You swim through frequencies, you let that stranger in
As I’m blinking off and on and off again
posted by nonasuch at 7:26 AM on January 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

I think it was Björk who said something about how if at any point a man entered the room, even to drop off coffee, he would invariably be referred to as co-creator of whatever album she was working on, which is why she liked to work alone.

Well Bjork did have that guy in the background saying nonsense like 'I said ouch this really hurts!' Flavor Flav brought more to the table than that guy.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:53 AM on January 27, 2021

posted by folklore724

Eponysterical!

P.S. Taylor Swift is great and they oughta throw this hollow criticism on the pile with the others and make a bonfire. We could toast smores.
posted by AgentRocket at 7:56 AM on January 27, 2021

well we've reached peak Meta for January, good work all
posted by elkevelvet at 8:07 AM on January 27, 2021

Listening to Bringing Down The Horse by The Wallflowers (rumored to have been written by Bob Dylan?) my brother and I decided that the workhorse of songwritery pop lyrics is taking a cliché or idiom and giving it a little twist to make it enigmatic or a self-contradiction. I can't remember many of our examples but the genesis may have been the line

The only difference / That I see / Is you are exactly the same / As you used to be
posted by little onion at 8:10 AM on January 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

^ I don't sing along loudly to many songs while vacuuming, but I absolutely do, every time, to this one
posted by elkevelvet at 8:12 AM on January 27, 2021

Pretty much the only songwriter whose lyrics stand up as poetry is Leonard Cohen.

I love his music, but when I bought a piano book and started playing it, and reading the lyrics closely, I realized they haven't aged well. Chelsea Hotel makes me ill to read. And I know he's being ironic... Still so hard for me to play it once I see the lyrics.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 8:18 AM on January 27, 2021

Taylor Swift is a goddamned great songwriter and these criticisms are dumb and just another part of the large "hate on TS for some reason" pantheon that I figured we were over by now but here we are.

A GREAT discussion of how good she is can be found on this episode of Switched On Pop.
posted by Lutoslawski at 8:43 AM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

Pretty much the only songwriter whose lyrics stand up as poetry is Leonard Cohen.

Bob Dylan did win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:47 AM on January 27, 2021

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black .... masses again

more importantly, Who put the ram in the ramalamadingdong?
posted by freecellwizard at 9:02 AM on January 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black .... masses again

I will buy you a new life- all shiny and new!

Actually, the worst is "Marconi plays the mamba". That's a lyric that nobody cared about.


Pretty much the only songwriter whose lyrics stand up as poetry is Leonard Cohen.
To even write such a thing means you need to listen to a lot more music. Rap, for example as a popular genre, without even getting into pop artists who put actual poems to music. I could build a list.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:18 AM on January 27, 2021 [8 favorites]

Mixed feelings on Evermore - some is very good, but there were a few distractedly clunky lyrics. I don't think a lyric needs to make sense but it shouldn't pull you out of the music. That said, "no body no crime" is absolutely not a swing and a miss, it's fun and in the vein of classic Swift storytelling, I'd say.

I paid attention to how the writer describes Swift's contributions to the album versus the men she works with. He is generally more positive on Swift's work than theirs, if you look at the context, but he does paint them more as serious musicians and her as songstress / capitalist. Here are all the [Name]'s [Noun]:

Swift’s lyrics, Swift's agenda, Swift’s best writing, Swift's love for conspiratorial romances, Swift's voice, Swift’s quality-control calculations, Swift’s music, Swift’s catalog, Swift’s phrasings, Swift's version, Swift's cutesy narrative

Dessner’s piano riff, Dessner’s approach, Dessner's arrangements, Dessner’s sonic wallpaper, Dessner’s studied rock arrangement

Antonoff’s rock energy
posted by Emily's Fist at 9:59 AM on January 27, 2021 [4 favorites]

Aaron Dessner, the composer and multi-instrumentalist from the band The National, headed up most of the arrangements again. Folklore’s other architect, the pop producer and Bleachers frontman Jack Antonoff, gets only one production credit, to the album’s detriment.

Translation: the album has 2 architects. Taylor Swift is not one of them. Maybe she's the Interior Decorator?
posted by signal at 10:03 AM on January 27, 2021 [9 favorites]

It's baffling to me that it's been almost (or more than?) twenty years since we've all had more good music readily available than we can ever listen to in our lifetimes, and there are still critics who think it's worth their time to write a whole article about why something is bad instead of recommending something good.

Stop trying to make Taylor Swift better. Help me find something that's already better.
posted by straight at 10:05 AM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

I do not believe she knew what she was doing with Look What You Made Me Do.

Heh, I almost qualified that statement with a “(well except for Look What You Made Me Do.”)

Is there something about LWYMMD that I missed, or is it just the trying-too-hard-to-be-hard thing?
'Cause silliness aside that song is still a jam. I'm willing to accept that I'm alone in this, though.
It's a weird feeling to go from having an irrational dislike to excited fan in the span of one album but that's how good 1989 was. Blank Space was my gateway song.

It's worth noting that in terms of pop song that speak to me at a core level, Max Martin clearly has my number. Infer from that what you will, I accept your judgement.
posted by ApathyGirl at 10:06 AM on January 27, 2021

Great catch, Signal. I found the "Antonoff gets only one production credit to the album's detriment" comment so odd. He is credited on Gold Rush, which is a good song but not the album's best, and it sounds pretty classically Swift to me. One of the album's downsides is that the guy from Bleachers isn't credited for more of it? Huh?

Is there something about LWYMMD that I missed, or is it just the trying-too-hard-to-be-hard thing?

I think the main yikes factor is that "Look what you made me do" is a classic phrase of abuse -- i.e. something an abusive parent or spouse would yell at a victim. I can't think of any other context I've heard it in, before the Swift song, which I agree is very catchy.
posted by Emily's Fist at 10:09 AM on January 27, 2021

Taylor Swift is a marketing executive. She writes better songs than most. She's prettier than most. Her aesthetic is very, very finely honed. The music is just one part of a package. A product. I think the music is lame but she has mastered her niche.

Also: The world in which we're living... FTFY
posted by klanawa at 11:49 AM on January 27, 2021

klanawa: "Taylor Swift is a marketing executive. She writes better songs than most. She's prettier than most. Her aesthetic is very, very finely honed. The music is just one part of a package. A product. I think the music is lame but she has mastered her niche."

Funny how it's often successful female artists who are accused of insincerity, calculation or 'being a product', rather than successful male artists.
Funny how that just happens.
posted by signal at 11:52 AM on January 27, 2021 [13 favorites]

I like TS but I’m waiting for her to veer back into pop again. Like I get it, explore, throw some hits, throw some misses, genre-dabble but please give me another 1989 at some point I beg you.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 12:02 PM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

slkinsey: "Pretty much the only songwriter whose lyrics stand up as poetry is Leonard Cohen.
"

I was in my room and I was just like staring at the wall thinking about everything
But then again I was thinking about nothing
And then my mom came in and I didn't even know she was there she called my name
And I didn't even hear it, and then she started screaming: MIKE! MIKE!
And I go: What, what's the matter?
And she goes: What's the matter with you?
I go: There's nothing wrong mom
And she goes: Don't tell me that, you're on drugs!
And I go: No mom I'm not on drugs I'm okay, I was just thinking you know,
Why don't you get me a Pepsi
And she goes: No you're on drugs!
I go: Mom I'm okay, I'm just thinking
She goes: No you're not thinking, you're on drugs! Normal people don't act that way!
I go: Mom just give me a Pepsi, please
All I want is a Pepsi, and she wouldn't give it to me
All I wanted was a Pepsi, just one Pepsi, and she wouldn't give it to me
Just a Pepsi
posted by signal at 12:06 PM on January 27, 2021 [8 favorites]

Funny how it's often successful female artists who are accused of insincerity, calculation or 'being a product', rather than successful male artists.

Liberace, The Monkees, Barry Manilow, Donny Osmond, The Bay City Rollers, Milli Vanilli, N'Sync, Justin Bieber and One Direction are all waving at you right now
posted by flabdablet at 12:08 PM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

Most of those are decades out of date...any more modern examples of accusations of insincere male artists?
posted by tiny frying pan at 12:18 PM on January 27, 2021

Bono does vacillate between really elegant poetic moments and total clunkers where you wonder how that even got into the first draft, let alone onto the completed album.

He has been seeking a good editing partner for years, but he... still hasn't found what he's looking for.
posted by nickmark at 12:18 PM on January 27, 2021 [4 favorites]

Swift is frequently dismissed as in some way inauthentic, along with with everybody else in pop music. I'm not sure on what basis anyone can conclude that pop is more artificial than rock, but that's absolutely something people think. Me, I think the concept of "authenticity" as applied to art is semantically empty, entirely devoid of meaning.
posted by Ipsifendus at 12:29 PM on January 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

The difference is that when her album is reviewed as a successful piece of quality material, it's on the strengths of her collaborators (Aaron Dessner, Jack Antonoff, Shellback) and when it's less successful (or just different) reviewers point to the absence of collaborators as though she had absolutely nothing to do with her own artistic achievement and success.
They'd say I hustled, put in the work
They wouldn't shake their heads and question how much of this I deserve
What I was wearing, if I was rude
Could all be separated from my good ideas and power moves?
It's almost like she has been experiencing this her entire career. Or maybe people think her collaborator for this song, Joel Little, deserves the credit for prescience?
posted by ApathyGirl at 1:40 PM on January 27, 2021 [4 favorites]

Plus, The Man is a banger.
posted by signal at 2:32 PM on January 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

Liberace, The Monkees, Barry Manilow, Donny Osmond, The Bay City Rollers, Milli Vanilli, N'Sync, Justin Bieber and One Direction are all waving at you right now

What strikes me about this list is how all the main "sin" of these artists is that they appeal to teenage girls, whose taste is considered to be inferior. I think they get called 'manufactured' for a lot of the same reasons that Taylor Swift does, in that regard.

I mean, consider that N'Sync era Justin Timberlake isn't taken seriously, and part of his whole reform into a "serious artist" was like... tearing a woman's clothing off on stage.
posted by Emily's Fist at 2:55 PM on January 27, 2021 [7 favorites]

He has been seeking a good editing partner for years, but he... still hasn't found what he's looking for.

Where the stets have no name....
posted by chavenet at 3:06 PM on January 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

I guess for me this isn't so much a debate about "authenticity" but I never really felt like Taylor Swift was ever that comfortable being a pop star. I think she probably likes a lot of her more pop-oriented stuff (and much of it is great!) but it never quite felt like her. And I also wonder how much she was pressured -- whether overtly or otherwise -- to write songs about her life because everyone knew it would sell.

I mean, look, The National isn't some tiny little band no one has heard of, but she wanted to work with Aaron Dessner and she found a good chance to do so last year. Good for her! These two albums feel like something that has been inside her for a while. They're "commercial" in that they're Taylor Swift, but they were also unexpected.

She could probably never make another album and still basically be richer than most of us. I think she should be allowed to go to some messier places and try some things out. Maybe some of the songs on Evermore would've been better with an "editor" but I like how oddly uncalculated all it seemed. She just wanted to make some music. Yes, she had the privilege and opportunity to do so, but I like the idea that not everything she puts out needs to be some overthought masterpiece. This is the Taylor Swift I've been waiting for for a while -- not because I hate her pop stuff but because it feels like she's in control and it's what she wants to be doing.
posted by edencosmic at 3:20 PM on January 27, 2021 [4 favorites]

Lyrics are not Poetry

They're the same but different.
They have similar but not identical intentions.
There's some overlap, and sometimes intentional blurring.

One could say that poetry is designed to be read on a page... or recited?
One could say that lyrics are meant to be sung... or read with liner notes?

There are aspects of poetry that are more exaggerated in lyrics,
Repetition, internal rhyme, nonsense alliteration...

There are devices in lyrics that ahem serious poets prefer not to indulge in,
referring to cliches, mixing metaphors, shouting out to peeps...

but in the end
lyrics are not poetry
if we choose so
in our hearts.
posted by ovvl at 3:33 PM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

I like TS but I’m waiting for her to veer back into pop again.

This is the Taylor Swift I've been waiting for for a while -- not because I hate her pop stuff but because it feels like she's in control and it's what she wants to be doing.

One interesting point raised by this Pitchfork review of evermore, originated by something Swift herself pointed out in Miss Americana - when you're at her level of stardom, at any given point the next couple years of your life are pretty thoroughly mapped out already.

(Not in any kind of bullshit "manufactured popstar" way, just by the simple logistics that organizing and performing a financially viable tour takes 2-3 years, which in turn means you've got to actually intentionally schedule time to write and record your next album. (Which of course, is hardly unique to T. Swift or even 21st-century pop stars - like, The Who and Led Zeppelin had the same issues.))

So in some ways when the pandemic hit she's just as much at sea as the rest of us, and it's interesting to consider folklore and evermore in light of that.
posted by soundguy99 at 3:44 PM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

I’m not in Taylor Swift’s target demo. I second whatever Grohl’s opinion is.
posted by badbobbycase at 4:21 PM on January 27, 2021

Pretty much the only songwriter whose lyrics stand up as poetry is Leonard Cohen
"Stand up as poetry" seems like an absurd concept for anyone actually interested in poetry (and patently untrue even by whatever fusty criteria one might try to invent to exclude all lyrics but Leonard Cohen's).

That said, while I still don't entirely understand why people keep feeling compelled to find some deeper core in Taylor Swift's music beyond any other contemporary pop, it does seem like she is at least partly responsible for cultivating the idea that it exists.
posted by aspersioncast at 4:42 PM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

badbobbycase: "I’m not in Taylor Swift’s target demo."

I'm curious as to what you think the "demo" of highest selling female artist of the century (so far) is?
posted by signal at 5:06 PM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

Haters gonna hate, even in The Atlantic.
posted by nickggully at 5:50 PM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

I'm not in Tay's target demo either, but I love her stuff nonetheless.

What's wrong with lyrics like Got all my starbucks lovers?

Thank God I'm not the only one who heard it that way, and still hears it that way.
posted by lhauser at 5:58 PM on January 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

I cannot forget from where it is that I come from
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 6:39 PM on January 27, 2021

Lyrics are poetry.
Poetry is lyrics.
I have never heard a Taylor Swift song.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:03 PM on January 27, 2021

lhauser: I'm not in Tay's target demo either, but I love her stuff nonetheless.

Maybe her target demo is the friends she made along the way?
posted by chavenet at 2:12 AM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

she is at least partly responsible for cultivating the idea that it exists

Uniquely so! Because certainly no other musician has ever claimed that their music had anything to say.
posted by Ipsifendus at 10:36 AM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

Heh, yeah, I'm incapable of hearing it any other way, lhauser. I know people apparently can hear the intended words, but, shrug.

(I even sing it starbucks lovers)
posted by Jacen at 9:58 AM on January 29, 2021