You know when you throw a last minute dinner party and decide, a bit stressed, to cook 10 complicated dishes instead of just like one or two simple ones and a nice pudding? And you sort of get your timings wrong and you end up with far too many slightly undercooked plates of overseasoned vegetables? And all your guests are like, wow you didn’t have to do all this but nooo don’t worry it’s absolutely delicious we will eat it ALL promise! because they can see that one wrong word might push you over the edge?
Now imagine that scenario but instead of you, a frazzled home cook, it’s billionaire Taylor Swift and her producer/writing partner Jack Antonoff, and instead of small plates on mismatched crockery it’s a gargantuan two and half hours of songs largely about Matty Healy from the 1975, and instead of your pals round a table, it’s the suits at Taylor’s label nervous to advise them to strip it back just a wee bit.
That’s sort of how we’ve got here, isn’t it? “Who’s afraid of little old me?” Taylor asks on Track 10 of 31 - and the answer, of course, is that she has become so big, so impossibly, colossally successful that everyone is a little bit afraid of her. Celebrities get asked what their favourite Taylor Swift era is like it’s their presidential election endorsement, actual politicians are desperate for her to sprinkle some of her Swiftonomic magic over their cities, other artists tremble before her country-sized fan base. Who’s actually going to try to tell that person to rein it in a smidge?
To be clear: I say all that as someone who is going to the Eras Tour not once but twice this summer - a full seven hours of live action Taylor in a two day period! I am a fan of her music, I actually love all her work with Jack Antonoff, and I can’t help but be impressed by the vice grip she has of her own narrative and public image. As you guys know, I’ve written about that here many times! So many that I actually wasn’t planning on writing anything at all about TTPD for fear of boring you all… but such is her pull! By god, does she reel you in!
It doesn’t help that this week Tavi Gevinson, former teen blogger and erstwhile friend of Ms Swift herself, released a 76-page satire of young fame, celebrity feminism and parasocial relationships through the lens of herself and Taylor. It’s a perfect companion piece to this album and was very present in my mind as I listened (I recommend you read it). Every time Taylor calls herself out for some Bad Billionaire behaviour, for example, she’s pipping us all to the post just as Tavi’s Taylor does, invalidating any criticism because she already said it about herself. And when she protests But Daddy I Love Him and it’s clear that the daddy is us and it’s our “bitching and moaning” she’d rather die than hear anymore of, I thought of Tavi’s line: “Don’t you get it? FAME IS OTHER PEOPLE.”
But enough of the academics. What about the music itself? Well, it’s possibly my own doing, but I feel a bit lukewarm about it, really. For those unaware, Taylor released The Tortured Poets Department: Anthology - a ‘secret double album’ - a few hours after the original TTPD. I listened to the whole Anthology in one go, uninterrupted, which felt a bit like being aurally snow-blinded. Much of it is good, but it’s sort of hard to hear the good because there’s simply so much of the rest of it (or in other words: Are we out of the woods yet? You honestly can’t tell for the trees!!!).
I’ve since gone back and listened in two parts, and the 16-track TTPD is actually a very pleasant album. It’s got some classic Taylor clangers - the title track gives London Boy a run for its money, lyrically speaking (derogatory) - but it also has some truly great moments of all Taylor flavours: So Long London, The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived, I Can Do It With A Broken Heart. I enjoy the moments where she hints at the sheer size of her ego - I would’ve died for your sins, as if she’s Jesus; Everything is not about me/but what if it is?, a line worthy of Hannah Horvath. And I love getting a glimpse of the Taylor of yore, sitting in her bedroom casting bitter spells on all the people who’ve wronged her. It just would’ve been nicer if all the songs didn’t sound *quite* so much like each other (is this the moment I finally turn on Jack Antonoff…? Could be!). I believe she mostly worked with Aaron Dessner on the ‘Anthology’ songs, which are a little bit less texturally noisy and slightly more lyrically sophisticated, for the most part. But I’m sorry to say that these also all sound the same to me! At least today!
It’s pretty widely acknowledged that a huge part of Taylor’s brand/genius is that her songs are perennially relatable even as the air she breathes becomes ever more rarified. And yes, I can confirm that anyone who spent even a fraction of their teenage years lusting over a 17 year old boy acting like the first person to really get Ulysses will *definitely* relate to this album. Of course, the thrill of recognition sours somewhat when you remember the boy in these songs is in his mid-thirties - and so is the woman singing them… cue the moment in the Miss Americana doc where Taylor relays that theory that celebrities are frozen in time at the age they became famous (see: invalidating criticism because she’s already levelled it at herself. The discourse is a a flat circle! She’s a mastermind, remember!).
Being honest, I’m sure I’ll grow to love this album because that is by and large what always happens with Taylor Swift’s music; some lyric or key change sinks its teeth in and then suddenly I see the whole album in a whole new light (apart from Lover, a body of work not even Cruel Summer could fully redeem). And when that happens I will almost certainly not be mad about it! But for now, I do wish there was a bit less of the tortured poetry and a bit more of the good stuff.
Anyway that’s the Emotional Speculation response to the latest Taylor Swift album. Sorry it’s not gossip but I’ll be back with more of that soon! Until then, obviously, please let me know your own thoughts!
As ever, thanks for reading. You can “buy me a flat white” here if you want to (although as this wasn’t actually gossip, I will understand if you do not!).
xoxo