the full quote said something about "[going] away so we can talk about how good you were". so it sounds like she's trying to frame the narrative as people wanting her to step back from the spotlight and quit music altogether rather than take a smaller piece of the pie amongst other artists. pretty annoying to think people want you to go away entirely when they really just want you not to be the largest and loudest player in the game every few months
Fair enough if she wants to suck up all the oxygen in the room when she releases something. You get to that kind of megastar level, of course it's gonna happen. The problem is when you don't let anyone else breathe, when you're so desperate to make it about you that you leverage the parasocial relationship you have with your fans so you're constantly on top.
She was also asked to list her top five favorite Taylor Swift songs and bailed out of giving a full answer, but did say her favorite is the 10-minute version of “All Too Well,” which I kind of think explains everything that has gone wrong in her songwriting for me since.
I'm still so frustrated about how she came out saying the new album was her most successful album ever and thanked the fans for loving it when all of those numbers were inflated by multiple variants being sold like crazy without a single note of music even being released. And it's really annoying when a smaller artist starts making a dent so she has to release some sort of remix or "light a candle cuz it stinks in here" version of a couple songs or whatever just to block others from having their moment that they deserve too. It just all feels icky. a few months ago, i would have been so stoked for this new docuseries coming out. but now, i'm getting so exhausted that i couldn't be less interested in watching her talk about herself for 6+ hours.
only slightly related, and i might be misremembering, but i could've sworn when the album dropped that she put up a story highlight on her IG for reviews for TLOAS, and iirc Rolling Stone might've been the only one that gave it a glowing-enough review that she shared it. if the highlight existed, it's definitely not on her page anymore. the overexposure and self-aggrandizing have really gotten annoying. maybe i'd feel different if the album were better, but it's a bit much when you've cashed in on two decades of fan goodwill to boost sales for what many (save for her most dedicated fans) would probably consider to be one of her weaker (or weakest) albums since her first and call it organic and earned
that rolling stone "review" also dropped minutes after the album came out, it clearly was a sponsored/paid review
And I'm still bitter that Max Martin and Shellback produced the whole album and you'd never be able to actually tell. Their songs were among the best on Red and 1989. Absolute jamssss. But this new album has none of the Max Martin magic you'd expect. None.
This thread is the only reason I still think about this album at all, and that kind of proves what I feel about it. I still don't hate it, but I just don't really care about it.
Yeah I think the main noteworthy takeaway from this new Taylor album is that it isn't very noteworthy like most of her previous ones.
My wife is a big defender of this album, and even she hasn't listened to it for at least a month. I am not going to reminder her of that, but I can tell!!!
my TLOAS 1. The Fate of Ophelia 2. Elizabeth Taylor 3. Opalite 4. Ruin The Friendship 5. Wish List (Settled Down Acoustic Version) 6. Wood 7. Honey 8. The Life of a Showgirl
It's funny: even cutting four songs from an album you don't really like, you still kept two of my bottom three tracks.
personally, i don't even think the cutdown is strong. Dare I ask which two. Don't say Honey or Ruin the Friendship
Oh no, I love those two. I'm the rare "Elizabeth Taylor" hater, which I think I've already expressed in this thread. The other is "Wish List," which I just think is the most bullshit song she's ever written. The acoustic version is a little better than the album version, but I still just roll my eyes through all the lyrical contents of that song.
ok cool, we can still be friends. I don't HATE Elizabeth Taylor, but I think the ELIZABETH TAYLOR parts are pretty cheesy and the verses kinda suck. Honestly I feel like the verses of all 3 first songs are so similar to each other, and only the choruses set them apart. Wish List I like melodically and dont focus as much on the lyrics, I think it's pretty smooth and flowy, but definitely like the acoustic more
only part of Elizabeth Taylor i really like is "you're only as hot as your last hit, baby". indifferent about the rest
Yeah, the Elizabeth Taylor namedrop just feels really forced and awkward to me, especially as the chorus to that song. And I just can't with the "oftentimes, it doesn't feel so glamourous to be me" line. Or the Cartier line, for that matter.
She should've left it at the Elizabeth Taylor reference in Ready for It. Which is probably my wildcard pick in my own top 5 Taylor songs if Stephen Colbert cared enough to ask my opinion!!
And that quote from Colbert is honestly so funny because I remember an old quote from her years back saying something (totally paraphrasing here) about how she can read the room and feels like she'll step back gracefully if/when people are ready for her to. But she was probably envisioning doing that more if she was flopping sales wise and becoming a punchline rather than having unprecedented success but annoying lots of people
Something is going on with Reputation…looks like it’s in Dolby Atmos now and there have been some lyric changes https://www.reddit.com/r/TaylorSwift/s/Qa2gn2HgBP "and if he calls me a bitch then he had it coming" https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8UKCvXT/ "Goddamn never seen that color blue" https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8UK558m/