This made me literally gasp out loud. “WTNY” is fiiiine, but it’s not better than a single song on Red. Not a single one. That’s how “fiiiine” it is.
I used to not like “Welcome to New York” really at all, but it’s grown on me. The chorus is great. “Bad Blood” is really the only song that I can’t abide.
i end up liking almost every Taylor song i initially dislike so i just don't trust my initial opinions anymore tbh.
The only three Taylor songs that have never grown on me are "Bad Blood," "End Game," and "King of My Heart."
“She likes to give a play-by-play, stacking minute summaries of a moment on top of each other like she’s story-boarding the perfect montage out of an indelible memory.” What a fantastic description from the Fearless review.
My issue with "Bad Blood" has always been that I think it kind of contradicts the message of that album. So much of 1989 to me is her warring with the tabloids, the overexposure of fame, and the amount of attention heaped on her and her relationships. And then "Bad Blood" is her lobbing a grenade at a fellow artist. It just never sat right with me, especially since she had three superior b-sides that she left off the album. I put "You Are In Love" in that spot on iTunes and I like it way more.
It's so annoying because I really don't think that Bad Blood is even about Katy - she has a habit of picking someone convenient to attach songs to when she doesn't want to say who it's really about. (See: IKYWT being attributed to Harry Styles despite being written nearly a full year before they ever met.) The "Bad Blood/Should Have Said No" mash-up further confirms this for me- I think she just didn't want to go through another "Taylor wrote a mean break up song" narrative. Not to mention the fact that "I Wish You Would" fades into "Bad Blood" with a perfect match up - "Wish you were right here, right now, it's all good, I wish you would.... cuz baby now we got bad blood, even though it used to be mad love." is too much for my tinhat theory loving ass to ignore.
That's a good point. Who knows, really. I think I probably would like it more if it hadn't become so tied up in the whole Katy story.
I really love the reputation review at times but it also shouldn’t be the lowest scoring album for me. Curious how it would’ve been scored if the same retroactivism was applied like the first five.
I was thinking yesterday about how each Taylor Swift album has a few songs i only listened to once or twice and then never again. (For example: Hey Stephen, Never Grow Up, Starlight, How You Get the Girl). I realized that Reputation is the only album of hers i listen to from front to back, yet i wouldn't call it my favorite. Anyway, just a random thought for the day while we're waiting for Lover.
tbh i would've written the 1989 review differently but i have a lot of ideas and feelings tied up with "out of the woods," "i wish you would," "all you had to do was stay," and "clean," all of which make up the true heart of the album imo