I'm not sure it totally matters how we got here, just that we got here. The fact that she (and her label team) are just flooding the zone with plastic and then relying on her die-hard fans to overspend on duplicates because of the toxic obligation they feel to support her, is just super icky to me! And yeah, I know, "that's just capitalism," but I'd prefer if she's going to be constantly flooding the market that she release some stuff that would actually be worthwhile. I think I've said this before, but it's super strange to me that Ms. Capitalism hasn't released the bonus tracks edition of Midnights on vinyl (something a lot of fans really genuinely want) but will drop X versions of a CD single that most fans will only purchase out of a sense of duty to get her to the top of the charts.
Also, if you're going to do this, at least be honest about what you're doing. I'm not particularly bothered by her chasing (and getting) Adele's sales record, even if I don't like the way she did it, but I think it's eyeroll worthy that she then tried to gaslight us into believing that The Life of a Showgirl is actually "the biggest album of her career" with the closing title card of her documentary series. Like, we all saw what you did! Own it! It actually is an accomplishment getting that many people to buy the same album repeatedly, but it is not the accomplishment you're trying to claim it is. This album sold a lot of copies and is still culturally dwarfed by half a dozen (at least) other Taylor Swift albums.
Who among us didn’t stay up past midnight for Taylor’s latest gradual strategic push towards the optimization of potential revenue?
I also think that, for me at least, the “I won’t use my platform for anything BUT this” aspect has become a liability. We’re sliding into fascism here, I don’t want to buy six versions of your CD single so you can have another number 1!
That’s where a lot of my cynicism lies with her. Like, the capitalism queen is always gonna juice her stats. That’s just the game now. I still like her as an artist and will listen to whatever she does. But her silence on everything now makes past statements she made on previous albums, which people had already suspected of treating LGBTQ people as props and statements about Trump were marketing, ring hollow. Instead of a statement, we get a Chainsmokers remix or a Charli diss or whatever “Cancelled!” is. And it’s not like a statement from a billionaire is going to heal the world, but it feels like she’s showing her ass when someone like Olivia consistently denounces Trump and ICE and she’s just dropping remixes.
If you can’t understand what I wrote you can just say that. I’m suggesting there wasn’t a single point where it *changed.*
For myself as a non-fan, what is the narrative that she or the fans communicate that fuels this imagined sense of obligation / duty?
I think part of it is her and part of it is just the state of fandom these days. Stan culture has become such that you have to “prove” your dedication. (I think of the people obsessed with landing in the top 1 percent of their favorite artist’s listeners on Spotify Wrapped.) I think Taylor has taken it further than most artists, though, and there are a lot of factors there. A big one is the re-recordings. She very successfully painted a “me against the industry” narrative that got a lot of fans in a “we have to buy/stream/support these versions as much as possible, and swear off the originals.” It got so out of hand that Apple Music put 1989 Taylor’s Version on its greatest albums of all time list, probably because they didn’t want to deal with the fallout of fans “coming to Taylor’s defense” over listening the superior original version. More generally, her FOMO-driven marketing tactics and he breathless “you got this song/album to number 1, I can’t believe it, thank you so much” posts are primary drivers of this sense of obligation from fans. There was some reporting done in the wake of the last two albums about fans who felt bad because they didn’t have enough money to buy all the variants. I’ll try to find it.
She also used to engage with fans a lot on tumblr directly and her team would pick fans to come to her house for the listening sessions. All those people were vetted by being dedicated fans who vocally support her online and I feel really set the tone for a uniquely different kind of fan base than others
i do not tire of the chorus of Golden, i tired of ordinary when i heard countless songs that sounded like it 12 years ago (idk if that makes sense, sounds like a song that would've come out in the 2010s like imagine dragons, bastille, etc)
Golden is still better than a big chunk of that top 10 so until it isn't it's fine staying Ordinary yea dunno why it's still there
Besides Alex Warren, it’s not a bad list at all. Really surprising to see Ella Langley hit as hard as she has for what feels like a throwback, Bonnie Raitt-esque song.