Red and 1989 were good albums with some legit bops, but I mostly did not pay a whole lot of attention to Taylor Swift until she became fucking inescapable the last few years, despite releasing two absolute slop records full of filler in a row.
I’ll admit I liked a couple bops of hers back when “I knew you were trouble” was popular. She wasn’t insufferable back then.
I have seen right through the “good girl that writes music about exes that have hurt her” schick since around 2015, and never understood why she got SO big. It’s basic music for basic people.
And now the world can finally realize what I’ve realized and it’s beautiful 🤭🤗
There’s kind of a weird personal edge with some of the Taylor trashing here. I’m a freak who thinks she hasn’t had a great album since Speak Now but this sub is kind of dancing on her grave and it’s a bit unbecoming. Lot of people sharpening their knives for this moment, it’s like one of her lyrics lol
I’ve seen people on here acting like they were lied to for liking her stuff in the past. Well, either your taste changed or her previous music was good and her new music has taken a creative dip, it’s not really more serious than that.
I agree, it weirds me out. I wish that energy could be put towards men who make bland, basic music that deserves that level of dislike, like Morgan Wallen. I know he's getting some flack, but it will never compare to what Taylor gets simply because she is a woman. That's why I was happy to see lots of Wallen's music on the list and in the honorable mentions.
It's fucking wild to me, as a man, how many songs Morgan Wallen and say, Drake, can do about their shitty breakups and it never becomes half the meme Taylor does.
Linkin Park discussed this dynamic on their 2012 track "Burn It Down". Y’all may want to look into the lyrics of that song to understand what you’re seeing.
People have always had a weird revulsion to her, even when she was making good music. I wonder how this hate will age, because as someone who thinks Life Of A Showgirl is an extremely bad album, it's very disproportional compared to how other stars are treated.
Todd described her in the video as someone who's an outsider because she's always been "generally unlikable" in reference to her not having friends as a child. I guess that's how she's seen nowadays.. People aren't just rejecting her music they are rejecting her as a person, fully, and her fans and anyone who likes her music. People feel betrayed that they liked her old music and talking about how they were "tricked", and are trying to pretend that never happened.
I feel a little alone because I hate Showgirl because I just wish Taylor Swift was making better music, not because of this cultural war that's going on around her.
I think Swiftomania has reached peak saturation and the people who were quietly getting very sick of her dominating the headlines finally have an excuse to be openly critical of her now she's released an unambiguously bad album. Her silence on things other artists have spoken out about, the greedy release strategies for her albums and their countless variants, the near round-the-clock coverage of her upcoming wedding... it's not like there's a shortage of things to criticise her for right now.
With that being said, a lot of that criticism has been weirdly personal and crossed the line from genuine critique into weirdo territory, where people are making sweeping and very unflattering inferences about Swift's character based on very little. I really think the best thing she can do right now is keep her head down and actually build up some anticipation for her next release. She needs a break.
Its not an "unambiguously bad album." If it was, it wouldn't be number 1 for 10 weeks at this point. You could chalk opening week numbers up to Swifties, maybe week two. But not 10 weeks. An "unambiguously bad album" does not generate numbers like that. Plain and simple.
Yeah not to use internet cliche terms but it’s parasocial behavior across the board. Her fans defend her like you’re insulting their friend and the people who dislike her act like she personally bullied them in high school. When she has the proper producer steering her I think she’s a really astute songwriter, I just hope she takes some of the fairer criticism to heart. And maybe call Nathan Chapman while she’s at it lol.
I mentioned that I listen to Taylor Swift to a new co-worker. They told me that they "side eye" anyone who says they like Taylor Swift. And I was just like, okay ? I didn't even go to Eras Tour, I don't spend money on it. That's not a reflection of my character.
"People" are not doing that. Weird people who are the loudest on the internet are. Most people love her. Shes more popular and successful than shes ever been, and the numbers show it. Dont get sucked in to believing some weird narrative loud people on the internet who just want clicks and attention want you to believe. The current numbers and success dont lie.
That's exactly the appeal. It's the same reason why Marvel movies dominated the box office for so long. It's broad and it's bland. It ticks a lot of boxes for a lot of different people.
And, like Marvel movies, most of Taylor's music sits it in that comfy 6/10 or 7/10 category. There are a few outliers for the better (Folklore) and for the worse (TLOAS) but people will keep showing up for the thing with their favourite logo on it as long as the quality is reasonably consistent.
I’ve only ever listened to red and 1989. Any worthy tracks from the later stuff? I’ve had blank space stuck in my head all week and was considering diving into the new stuff.
Folklore and Evermore are fantastic albums. They have her best songwriting and some of her best songs, period. Completely different type of music from Red and 1989 though.
It's crazy that even though Taylor is bigger than Beatles she doesn't have any signature instantly recognizable songs that everyone knows, including those who don't listen to Taylor or pop music or don't even know what pop music is. Songs on the same level as Blinding Lights and Uptown Funk. Maybe Look What You Made Me Do... but for all the wrong reasons lol.
I’d say Shake it off and maybe Love Story or You Belong with Me are her more “iconic songs”. A massive number of people, especially in the English speaking world would know the melody and probably the chorus of at least one of those
You could actually include her newest number 1 in that as well, Ophelia. It was number 1 for 8 weeks, and all over radio, t.v., social media. Only Anti Hero has equaled it on chart longevity.
Is this a joke? You cant be serious. She has at least 10 of those. And I think youre giving Blinding Lights a little too much credit, because "everyone" doesnt know that.
Okay, after all swifties have emptied their downvote guns on my comment I must admit that I've seen one internet poll "100 most recognizable songs ever" (not sure how authentic it is but whatever) and Shake it Off actually made it to the top-100. On the 100th place. And it was highest-voted Taylor's song there.
What flops? Both of those albums are record breaking triumphs that dominated the charts and made her a shit ton of money. The Fate of Ophelia is tied with Anti Hero for her longest running number 1 song and is already her most streamed of all time. TLOAS had only week on eligibility to be the year end number one album of 2025 and managed to do it.
It's very okay to hate these albums or Taylors music in general but you guys really enjoy playing fast and loose with the term 'flop'.
No one should care about how much money an artist is making. If your only defense of a piece of art is "look how popular it is" that isn't actually a defense. Means nothing to anyone who isn't profiting off it directly
Isn’t a flop mostly related to chart success / failure though? There flops that bop and flops that flop and if it’s a commercial success it can’t really be called a flop, even if the music sucks.
I mentioned a lot more than just money on my comment by absolutely go ahead and focus on just that part if it's easier for you. Still doesn't make calling an all out success a 'flop' any less dumb
When a comment is edited it says "edited" on it. They did not edit their comment after you responded. I added a period to my last comment to show what an edited comment looks like
Also something can be a flop artistically without being a flop financially (imo anyway)
In fairness the great thing now is that it’s pretty easy to avoid hearing artists we’re not interested in by just blocking them on Spotify - I’ve done that with a couple of artists this year and it’s made me see how easy it is to just not be exposed to it
Doesn’t matter if it flopped critically. In the grand scheme of things commercial reception always outweighs criticism.
No one cares anymore how the critics felt about the Beatles
It hasn’t even been a decade and the critical reaction to reputation is meaningless and the view of the album has been retconned
Metacritic still has Showgirl and TTPD at mostly favourable anyway so you can’t even actually argue that they did flop critically
What people remember about TTPD in 10 years will be that it spent 17 weeks at number one
What people remember about Showgirl in 10 years will be its chart dominance and the popularity of its lead single
I expect the downvotes because yall seem to struggle with cognitive dissonance here but
No matter how much people hate that reality doesn’t fit with their online bubbles you can’t wish or spam post an artist or an album into being irrelevant or universally panned
I mean you’re going on about how it can’t be a flop if it sold well, and I said it can be a critical flop. I mean TTPD was widely made fun of when it came out for the goofy lyrics, even the swifties comments were mostly “I’ve listened to the album 50 times in a row and I’m starting to like it”. Showgirl is so bad a lot of swifties won’t even defend it. Even as far as reputation, that album was seen as a complete joke too at release, as much as the swifties try to launder its reputation, no pun intended.
As far as the Beatles, obviously they were tremendously commercially successful, but the discourse around them is in a big part influenced in a lot of revolutionary musical and recording breakthroughs they made that were unique for their time. It’s pretty disingenuous to say no one cares how the critics felt about them, when most of the dialogue around them is their contributions to music in general.
Taylor has had a fairly good catalogue historically, and obviously is the most commercially successful artist of her time, but I really don’t think you can attribute her commercial success to the quality of her music at this point. She’s clearly not putting out her best work, but the fans don’t care. She’s too big to fail, regardless of what she does.
The problem is that Anti Hero + the Folklore/Evermore era suggested growth and maybe even a little self-awareness, but all she's done since then has been regressing.
Anti Hero definitely has that "I'm the problem (no actually it's you lol xoxo yolo #iwokeuplikethis #livelovelaugh)" vibe so I wouldn't call it self-awareness
She was able to convince people that she has ever been insecure about herself, and a lot of her haters can relate to that, far more than they can to her constantly talking about how cool she is. (I say this as someone who only really liked and listened to Anti-Hero.)
I’ve been a casual fan: adore 1989 (when I got into her), it’s one my favorite albums of all time, and really like Red, and was a big fan of Midnights.
But I really disliked TTPD and despise Diary of a Showgirl. I’ve never geled with the incessant fan analysis, and the last two albums delved into it, and the last one was close to unlistenable.
People liked Taylor because she sang about what was near to hear, songs by a teenage girl or young woman who was open about what she sang about… and she had a knack for good hooks. But she’s grown old, and she has no connection to the real world anymore, yet tries to sing about it. And it all rings hollow.
I mean, it's not even the first time a hugely popular and filthy rich white female singer is trying to make herself seem relatable over some trashy pop music background, only revealing herself as extremely vapid, self-centered and out of touch with the world/reality while showing signs of severe regression to pubescence. It's 2003 all over again.
And even then, Madonna never made it part of her brand to be socially conscious in the way that Taylor has. She also was never hailed as a generational songwriter, so poorly written and out of touch lyrics didn’t feel as egregious.
Except Taylor is still the most successful artist in the world, and reigning over the charts as we speak. Going on 3 months. Madonna didnt quite accomplish that in 2003......
Makes me think that her reappraisal during the pandemic and the Eras Tour was a case of mass hysteria. Like, looking back at how much she was praised for her battle for her masters, having one of the biggest tours ever right after the pandemic.
All of that praise and admiration for us to later get TTPD and TLoaS. I feel tricked and resentful for falling for her for a good few years.
Im also a big Taylor hater—a big part of the reason why I don’t like Taylor is because I don’t seem to process lyrics when I listen to music, so a bunch of what would be her “magic” is lost on me and it all sounds samey and underwhelming.
Todd’s video put her lyrics front and center, so every clip where her music played I was forced to process them, and my god, I hate it even more. This year has been so vindicating for me as well.
Vindicating because shes even more popular and successful and rich than ever? How does that work? Because a no talent nobody put her on a list to get clicks? 😂 If you say so......
She’d be irrelevant if her investment banker parents didn’t buy her a music deal lmfao. Womp womp about her masters, that was part of it so the bitching billionaire shtick is tired. Enjoy your lobotomy music ig!
I mean you’re the one who drew equivalences to begin with by saying their comment shows how the anti-fans are more embarrassing.
So if you’re already comparing the two, a Reddit comment is much less egregious than sending death threats to writers who don’t share your opinion. Nothing false about it, it’s happened many times.
"[person] isn't gonna fuck you" is a fairly common response to white-knighting someone who doesn't know you and/or wouldn't give you the time of day, "bro".
Except in this case there was no white knighting to be seen so your go to response being "this person isn't a rabid hater therefore fucking dur dur" is questionable as fuck. Take some time away from pornhub and reacquaint yourself with the concept of not everything being sexual bud.
I think Taylor Swift & Morgan Wallen are so prevalent this year on Todd’s list because he had so much faith in their potential. So seeing them fail his expectations hurts even more. Someone like Tate McRae, who he never had any real expectations for, doesn’t get as much heat in comparison.
I do have to disagree with Todd in him saying "Just Keep Watching" was worse than "Sports Car"... although I am biased as between those two Tate McRae songs, I've only heard "Just Keep Watching" as I actually saw the F1 movie (although it might actually be the worst song on that soundtrack)
I do think if Tate McRae climbs in popularity, she may end up in the Worst List next year. In a better year, “Sports Car” would likely be on the countdown proper.
Although I guess Tate McRae is a car girl? Since she's got a song called "Sports Car" and has a song on the F1 soundtrack even though (and I can't believe I'm saying this) the Sexyy Red song off that same soundtrack is better (as OMG by Tiesto and Sexyy Red, Drive by Ed Sheeran, Underdog by Roddy Rich, As Bad As I Used To Be by Chris Stapleton and Lose My Mind by Don Toliver and Doja Cat are my favorites from F1)
I think this proves his 'this year's been pretty weak overall' theory too. No way do you put two artists in half the list (even the bad list) if there's interesting stuff going on.
Oh come on, he's never had faith in Taylor's potential. He's been roasting her for pretty much the entire time he'd been Todd in the Shadows. He put one of her songs on the worst list *14 years ago.* Including some of her songs in the Best List (I think it's happened 4 times so far) doesn't indicate respect or faith in her potential; he's put a Chainsmoker's song as a #1 pick! It just means occasionally she surprises him, but that doesn't mean he's changed his opinion of her in the long run.
On balance, Todd has made disparaging remarks about Taylor *hundreds* of times; she's one of the only artists he's covered with multiple stand-alone song reviews* because he hates of her songs so much (tellingly, he's never made a positive stand-alone song review for Swift). She appears on the Worst List just as often throughout the years. She catches strays even in videos that aren't about her (his comment about her LGBTQ allyship in a Beyonce/Drake song review.) He truly seemed to believe Reputation was a Trainwrecker, putting it in the same categories as Man of the Woods and Witness. He has a softer spot for Katy Perry than he does for Swift!
Seems a lot more likely he noticed that Taylor's name gets clicks, it's easy to play the martyr if Swifties push back, and "serious" music fans will praise you to the skies for taking down the evil white woman. I mean look at the top comment of this thread with hundreds of upvotes, feeling vindicated that their long-held hatred for Swift is being reinforced by Todd! Swift is an easy punching bag in certain corners of the Internet right now, and apparently Todd just couldn't resist.
*We Are Never Getting Back Together, Me!, You Need To Calm Down, Look What You Made Me Do, Fate of Ophelia.
You’re right, it’s very conspicuous how often he has talked about her. It’s almost like she’s been the biggest pop star of this generation or something.
Except there are plenty of other huge pop stars that were equivalent to Taylor (Beyonce, Katy Perry, Justin Timberlake) that he doesn’t really discuss outside of videos dedicated to them. The video on Break My Soul had absolutely nothing to do with Taylor and yet Todd shoehorned her in just to get a zinger off.
And while Taylor is big, she hasn’t been mega-can’t-be-touched until really the Eras Tour, yet Todd has been randomly making fun of her for years before that.
I’m really not sure why it offends so many people here to identify Todd as a hater. Folks here seem to LOVE him tearing her down so you’d think him being an OG hater would be celebrated.
He absolutely does mention Beyoncé, Justin and Katy outside of videos dedicated to them, wtf.
By “a hater” you seem to presume that Todd has been disingenuous about the way he discusses Taylor for years. You don’t understand why some people would find that kind of offensive? Besides sounding a lot like conspiracy theorist thinking, of course.
Show me the last time he mentioned Beyonce in a negative way outside a review about her own music. Show me the last time he made a diss about Katy Perry (even when he’s making an entire Trainwreck review for Witness, he still sometimes compliments her.) Count up how many one off song reviews he had for each artist/band, score them positive/negative, and show me anyone who comes close to how he’s lambasted Swift for years.
It’s be a conspiracy theory if I was just going off “vibes” but I’m giving out specific facts that nobody ever seems interested in disproving.
Point out a single example of him praising Swift, outside of the very specific best list mentions. Like seriously I feel like I’m arguing the sky is blue. I don’t think he’s being disingenuous; I think he genuinely hates her, and is just finally able to unleash it at a time where it’s profitable to hate on her.
I just don't get what picture you're painting, really. You've literally said that Todd has never had faith in Taylor's potential and has always been a hater, even though not only has he praised her music and even put it on his best-of-the-year lists several time, but he actually attended an Eras Tour concert.
I don't understand how the idea of him "finally being able to unleash" his hatred for her" now that she has become a bit of a lightning rod doesn't presuppose that, when he was praising her and even buying her very expensive concert tickets, he was doing these things disingenuously. Because if you assume that he truly enjoyed certain aspects of her work he comes across not as a hater, but as someone who is conflicted about her music; which, btw, is how he comes across to me.
I do definitely agree with you that he seems to have found hating TLOAS, specifically, somewhat liberating but I feel like the explanation that there might be some resentment towards being at least partially emotionally invested in her career is the best way to explain this. Mostly because, once again, I have no idea what your explanation even is.
I obviously don't know you and might be way off, but it really seems to me like you're a Taylor Swift fan and you have a bit of a case of tunnel vision when it comes to Todd's "hatred" for her. And while, yes, he has been quite harsh in his criticism towards her, he has also always given her a lot of grace even when disliking her stuff.
Anyways, I'm not going to make a list of videos in which he mentions or even makes fun of Justin, Katy or Beyoncé outside of videos dedicated to them because 1) that's a lot of work, 2) it won't even contradict your main point, which is that he does it more often with Taylor in the first place, 3) it's too silly.
ETA: also, conspiracy theories do tend to have some grounding in actual facts and they're almost never just "vibes".
Like I said in my original post, I don’t think him putting her on the best list means he thought she had potential; she occasionally surprised him but it didn’t go beyond that. And going to the Eras tour doesn’t prevent him from being a hater; there’s tons of posts in her snark sub of people who got seats just to mock her dancing. There are Swift haters who follow her more obsessively and listen to her music more than hardcore Swifties do. (Also Todd called himself “the world’s most reluctant Swiftie” at the Eras tour. Not exactly a solid endorsement.)
I think he can be a hater and still occasionally acknowledge when she does something good. That’s not disingenuous; it just means he’s a reasonable hater.
My explanation is it’s extremely profitable right now to hate Taylor Swift. Pitchfork has edited article titles on social media to include her because it wasn’t getting enough clicks; hate tweets with less than a dozen followers are getting thousands of reposts. I saw a YouTube channel with less than 300 followers and 5 videos post a long rant about Showgirl that somehow racked up over 15k likes.
Showgirl is not a bad enough album to be THIS offended by it; but his Fate of Ophelia video got reposts across a ton of music and popculture subreddits, and had far more views than a ton of his other videos. Todd isn’t an idiot; just like Swift, he sees what sells. And even better when it’s his genuine feelings he can ramp up a bit.
Yes I am a Swiftie, which is why I’ve noted how he’s talked about Swift over the years. I’ve also been a big fan of Todd ever since Channel Awesome; I’ve been a paid Patreon for years. I’ve seen probably every video of his half a dozen times.
It’s never bothered me enough to stop enjoying his videos up until now. But I HAVE paid attention to it, and I’m petty sick of pointing out specific examples and hard data (number of videos, mentions) only to be dismissed because nobody else feels like “bothering”.
Why is it impossible to consider that maybe I have a point?
This reply of yours helped to me to identify a core semantics problem that has really made it difficult for us to understand each other's perspectives: we have very different ideas on what a "hater" is. To me, such a "reasonable hater" is very much an oxymoron, because I think of a hater as someone who is emotionally, irrationally invested in hating. Sure, a hater CAN give the object of his hatedom praise, but only performatively or, at best, begrudgingly, which is still somewhat bad faith.
You seem to think of a "hater" as someone who primarily dislikes someone's work (in this case, Taylor's) but can still genuinely enjoy certain aspects of it, but it's always a partial or tangential affair. Am I getting warmer, at least? I tend to think of this as, by and large, something we can call an "ambivalent critic" or a "reluctant fan". But I think you're using a framework that's pressupposing a core, negative and mostly unshakeable relationship with the art, here, and that would account for something that's not quite either of the latter two.
Now, I do think there's something you've been doing, rhetorically, in this thread that has been frankly a little aggravating. I don't think you're doing it on purpose, so before I point it out, I just want to clarify a few things. This will feature many of my insights and takes on Taylor's career in general, for context, but preemptive apologies if this is TMI.
1) As you can probably tell, I'm not a Swiftie. I definitely wouldn't call myself a hater either, by any reasonable definition. She was barely on my radar up until Red came out, then there was short period during the 1989 rollout in which I couldn't STAND her, and then from Reputation onwards she settled into being just a pop star I found kind of interesting who eventually made music I genuinely liked. I'd say my overall "relationship" with her is quite positive now, even if I'd rather go through a root canal than listen to Shake it Off or Bad Blood ever again, lol.
2) I honest-to-goodness LIKE The Life of a Showgirl, but I also understand both why some people don't like and why there's an overall backlash to Taylor's career right now.
3) On the other hand, I agree with you and with many swifties that the Taylor backlash DOES get pretty weird, parasocial, and misogynistic. I'd say there's even a level of mass hysteria to it.
4) On the other-other-hand, I think Todd has tackled the album quite reasonably, if harshly. He's a music review youtuber, he's done two videos about TLOAS (aka the biggest album of the year), only one of which that was entirely centered on Taylor. I don't think that's weird or overblown.
I'm sharing all of this because I'd like to let you know that I understand where you're coming from with some of your points and that I really am trying to engage with you in good faith here. And because I've done that, I hope you can hear me when I point out where I think the logic of your argument gets... maybe a little tangled.
First, the more I think about your assessment of Todd's position, the less sense it makes to me. It seems to me like you are actually making two points and while they are not necessarily mutually exclusive, they're more mutually exclusive than they are complimentary to each other. They are:
a) Todd has always been a hater, even if a reasonable one at times.
b) Todd is being harsher about TLOAS than he otherwise would be because criticizing Swift is "good for the business" right now.
Even though both things could be true at the same time, they explain different things. But in your argument, you seem to move between them depending on what you're responding to. It seems to be like you use (a) when you want to establish a pattern of bias, and using (b) when you want to explain why the TLOAS criticism feels excessive. Feels like you treat them as if they're the same thing when they're actually distinct claims.
Anyways, both claims are fine. I don't think people would be "offended", as you put it, if you just made them at face value. I think that's not the entirety of what you're saying, though.
You've said explicitly that you don't think Todd is being disingenuous. But if point (b) is true (ie he's being harsher than he genuinely feels because it's good for business) wouldn't that require at least some level of performance or exaggeration? Some sort of gap between what he actually thinks and what he's expressing? I can't help but feel like the idea that there is at least a level of bad faith to his claims are at least the subtext here, and that ties into why you've chosen to stop supporting him on Patreon, even.
One last thing; and I hope this lands the way I mean it. Throughout this thread, you've asked why it's 'impossible to consider you might have a point' and suggested that people aren't engaging with your evidence. I understand you're frustrated, but I think you can imagine how that comes across to someone who's been genuinely trying to understand your perspective. I've thought carefully about what you've said, and I believe I just happen to disagree with your interpretation of some of it.
When you frame it as people refusing to engage or consider your point, it implies that disagreement equals bad faith, which makes it really hard to respond without feeling like I'm being accused of something. I notice this has been your response to several people in this thread who've pushed back, and it feels like it might be connected to your broader point about Todd; that criticism of Swift (or in this case, of your argument) must be motivated by something other than genuine disagreement.
Anyways, I'm sorry for writing a whole-ass dissertation. I hope you can at least understand where I'm coming from.
Sure, anymore. But my point is Todd has historically shown tons of dislike for her. The original post was saying he had faith in her “potential” and that makes no sense with the way he’s been talking about her for YEARS. You can use her somewhat recent megastar status to explain over a decade of criticizing her.
… Until the end of the review. He said specifically he thought it was her finally “owning up” to her awful tendencies. He then showed an interview of her saying it was her imagining herself as the character the media portrays her as (so it’s fictional), and then he got mad and said never mind.
The common thread between the few Swift songs he likes is when he thinks she’s criticizing herself as deeply flawed (Blank Space, The Archer, Anti Hero, even Style to a certain extent.)
The issue is she can't go on a new direction. She's not effortlessly cool, she only comes off as tryhard when she tries to be cool. She's not sexy/sensual, and again, she only comes of as tryhard when she tries to be. She's not as intellectual as she portrays herself to be and when she tries to be we get Fate of Ophelia level lyrics. The only thing she has is relatability. She doesnt even have particularly good vocals, or dancing. In fact, that mediocrity is a part of her relatibility. She can't pivot because there's nothing to pivot to.
Honestly if she can just take some time off and put out something inspired instead of the vapid nothingness the last two albums have been, the hate will go away just fine.
Tortured Poets Department, the album where she explores deep heartache and madness, was vapid nothingness?? You can say that it wasn't your speed, but framing it this way makes your critique look dishonest.
That second part is only half true. I’m 90% sure the reason Fate of Ophelia has the reputation of being “the one good one” has nothing to do with the lyrics and everything to do with it being the one track that actually sounds like a normal pop song.
Knowing her, that "hiatus" is gonna last for half a year before she drops another 30 track album filled with the exact same stuff she has been making since Midnights, it's funny she even teased a hiatus to begin with when in most interviews when she's asked about how much saturated the people are she just goes like "well... what you want me to? I'm everywhere, lol", yes... that's the problem Taylor
I think she needs to make songs that sound more mature. Or probably not, her stuff still sells like hotcakes as is. Personally I just think that her stuff still sounds like teenager music.
I don’t have any beef with the notion of people liking Taylor Swift, I personally like a lot of pop stuff that even my closest peers would call corporate or vapid or whatever, there’s been a ton of instances I had to convince my friends that my enjoyment of something wasn’t just ironic or based on novelty. But it does creep me out that her fanbase constantly see attacks on her as if they’re attacks on themselves and their identity.
Growing up with punk, hardcore, noise rock, and other things that lean into subversion, you learn that when more people are viscerally put off by your music taste, that means the scene is still alive and doing it right, and it still means something. When the broader music world has no real negative reaction to it, that’s when you know everyone’s phoning it in and everyone needs to step it up. When people are indifferent or just bemused by the stuff that was once trying to challenge mainstream ideas, it means that it stopped challenging them.
It feels like that was a healthier perspective to have, because it taught you to be happy with being yourself and to take some form of joy in what sets you apart, and creates a space where marginalized people feel welcome when they’re alienated elsewhere. When the people who supported the Iraq war and opposed gay marriage were also calling you a freak, that was a sort of validation of the rest of society telling you that you were not part of that toxic mob.
But when your entire sense of inner peace and self-worth depends on the broader mainstream and general public withholding all criticism of your music taste, and any such criticism is viewed as a sort of attack on you and everything you value and a disruption to your own sense of contentment, it gives off the feeling that you expected society to sort of “serve” your sensibilities and perspectives. And that expectation also lends to the notion that you’re more well-acquainted with the feeling of mainstream society (and all it entails, toxicity and all) being 1:1 with your own sensibilities.
Fully agree. I’d add that it’s not just attacks on Taylor Swift that fans take personally. It’s any sort of criticism. Heck, recently, Josh Hutcherson said he’s not a fan of Taylor Swift but went to the Eras tour concert in New Orleans with his mom because she’s a fan. A bunch of her fans took it as an attack on her.
As someone who has been a longtime Taylor Swift fan since I was a teenager and she was still doing country music: it's a bit different than that. People have long hated Taylor Swift because her fanbase was teenage girls and she wrote teenage girl music. From the very start it was also a snide attack at you as a person. If you were a teenage girl who liked Taylor Swift then you were overly emotional and overly attached and obsessed about boys and don't understand "good" music yet, and thus it's your problem. I initially hid my liking of Taylor Swift because I was emo and that's not cool, but when I became more open about it, even as I was a bit older as a teenager and she was getting more popular, people still assumed I had no taste in music, that I was hysterical, that I was listening to music for children. The attacks were about Taylor Swift, but they were also directly about me and the implication of what she represented. And even now, it feels like liking Taylor Swift can be a stick that people use to beat me over the head with. My hardcore feminist friends think she's not feminist enough and she's promoting bad feminist ideas (and then the implication is that I'm supporting that - dw this isn't an actual fighting issue, it's fine), my music friends think she's not cool enough or that she's too popular and music is inherently bad when it's popular apparently...
Going against the grain is fine when it's what you expected or intended. Or even when you have enough courage to; most teenage girls desperately want to fit in and not be noticed or have any reason to encourage bullying. It's really good to be able to do that, and as an adult I am fine with that. But when I was younger - and that's what a lot of her audience is, teenage girls and young women - I barely had any confidence to do that. Even my outside emo clothes were subdued because I really, really didn't want to be noticed. Imagine your whole life you've been told that the things that you like - the things that were made for you and your age group - are bad by virtue of being for you. It's not real art, it's just shit for teenage girls. Now imagine that you're in your thirties and you're still being told that because you still enjoy the music and content you liked when you were younger. When men do it it's cool nostalgia, when women do it it's gross and they need to grow up.
The other thing I'd point out, because this definitely affects it for me, is that Taylor Swift started out being extremely relatable. Like, replying to fans, inviting them to her house(s), posting and reblogging stupid things on tumblr. Even now, she's pretty open about being an introverted nerdy cat lady which is pretty relatable for me. If you've been following her enough then you know her kind of like an old friend you met online...because you kinda did. I never got noticed by her, but I followed her on tumblr and I liked what she posted and tangentially interacted in her sphere. I was on Myspace when she was on Myspace, I was going through my emo phase the same time she was posting about P!ATD and MCR too. I was going to university in a big city from living in a very rural area when she was singing about moving to New York from Tennessee. Completely different countries, completely different trajectories, but I still get her. At the heart of it, I'm also an annoyingly pretentious theatre kid nerd who wants to be alone doing my "granny" crafts with my cats and who likes making music, even if I don't publish it or want to be famous from it. And basically every Taylor Swift fan can relate to some amount of that, too. They might be extraverted and prefer dogs, but they can still relate. They could be twenty years younger than me and just discovering Taylor Swift singing about being 15 and going through teenage drama, and they'll relate to it as much as I related to it the first go round. And they'll also be a little bit hurt when people hate Taylor Swift - especially when they are actively rude about her or blaming her fans or not giving valid musical criticism - because they will know that it is also about them to a certain extent. It's about them not liking the "right" music and being too young and female and not being taken seriously and being boy crazy (I ended up being a lesbian so...) and overdramatic and annoying and crying and wanting to bond with other teenage girls over these experiences.
When other singers/bands/groups get criticism, it's usually not implicitly aimed at the people who like it. It's the singer/band/group, it's about their music (especially if they're male-dominated, like the genres you listed), but it's less "and their fans let this happen! they don't understand real music! they're just teenage girls trading friendship bracelets crying over boys! I bet they read Twilight and thought it was good, too! your favourite artist actually hates you and doesn't know you exist go cry about it lol". Like there's some barely valid criticism there (we don't know Taylor Swift, the younger/newer fans especially can be too permissive of bad music) but it's always veiled in misogyny and elitism. The criticism of Taylor Swift extends to Taylor Swift fans, even when people think it shouldn't. Because she's female, her fanbase is majority female, and she has always made music that will resonate with women and girls first and foremost. She has some BAAAAAAAD songs don't get me wrong, but people will use those songs as justification to hate her and her annoying fans, the most vocal of whom are teenage girls. The valid reasons (not good songwriting lately, stale production, she's a billionaire, etc.) get used to say that fans are stupid for supporting her or liking her. And depending on how that's worded, intentionally or not, can very easily become misogynistic (both her and the fans) and blaming the fans for her success/choices/music. I don't like The Life of a Showgirl, but I read MULTIPLE reviews that then went into shitting on fans either openly or implicitly surreptiously you-have-to-be-an-adult-with-media-criticismly. I don't care whether Taylor Swift likes me or knows about me, I know I'm just a cheque to her. But other fans rarely have to put up with as much shit about how they are nothing and worthless and hysterical and annoying and only useful when they improve economies, and then it's uncool to like Taylor Swift again and we should all be ashamed we let/made her do this, how dare we relate to someone who has made their whole career on being relatable to women and teenage girls.
But other fans rarely have to put up with as much shit about how they are nothing and worthless and hysterical and annoying and only useful when they improve economies
Swifties bully anyone who dares cross taylor, that's why I despise them. I was following Scooter Braun's wife on Instagram back in the day (she ran Fuck Cancer), so I got to see how they flooded HER socials with hate, relentlessly, endlessly. She had nothing to do with Taylor and they were rabid and committed to ruining her life.
I have an irl friend who's a swiftie (we don't talk about it) and I can predict like clockwork what celebs she vocally dislikes because it lines up 100% with Taylor's. It's really sad.
Taylor is 35. It's time to stop with the mean high school girl diss tracks. Not everyone is going to like her, and that's part of life. She doesn't have to write a song about all the high profile people who accuse her of being a bad friend, a terrible singer, a lousy ex, being too pretty, etc.
Tbf Todd's bumper music is rarely on the list or honorable mentions. "i Knew You Were Trouble" (Taylor again) and that godforsaken "ABCDEFU" seem to be the only ones who made it
Just a natural result of being the biggest star ever. Every artist gets shit and the bigger you are the bigger a target you are. Add in the cultish devotion she gets from fans and outlets like rolling stone and ofc a lot of hate her.
Right? You put these people in a room with Taylor, Hitler, and a gun with two bullets and they'd shoot her twice. I just fundamentally do not get what their hate is all about. So many artists I just don't care for who make records I think are overrated, but I don't hate them. I don't talk about them, I don't even think about them.
What the hell did this woman do to live rent free in their heads?
So the guy who replied to me apparently put in something so fuckin' horrendous that it was removed by Reddit Admins, so I went and looked at his history. He doesn't talk about anything except how much he hates ol' Swifty.
Are you attacking the fans or the hypocrites bragging about owning her and then bumping some odious people? Cause they're both busy punishing anyone who disobeys
He's justibily vindictive, he stuck his neck out for Midnight when the backlash were calling it boring and overhyped. Hell, he even held his tongue for ttpd when everyone was saying that project was mid and overwrought.
He review hit music. If the fans push not great songs to the top of the chart that's just baiting him at that point lol
This is my take on his coverage of the 2024 Grammy and music coverage in general of that year but essentially both him and Lina kinda just accepted that she got a nomination but didn't seem pressed about a possible win. In my head it means they don't have any thoughts about it when they could have because this was also after all the variations of the album dropped and people were criticizing her for having voice notes as tracks in an album, he didn't criticize her for it at all from what I remembered.
giving credits where its due - like anti hero, both midnights and ttpd were deeply honest and revealing, the production is a dud but lyrically ttpd was dense, taylor was really going hard on herself when it came out. while showgirl is shallower, with very little depth (which i get was her intention)
Dw about it 🙏 I’m not a TLOAS fan, but he doesn’t like a lot of songs I like but I think his commentary is so funny I just have to laugh. Like what you like! :)
i dont like it that much too, i think eldest daughter is the worst song she ever put out but its getting exhausting. showgirl was a misstep maybe but y'all need to calm down.
Yeahh I just think she could’ve done better. I’m not a big TS fan but she does have some really good songs. Honestly I was expected TLOAS to have production like on Me! and have horns and stuff but this just really wasn’t good :(( I feel she should’ve taken a break and since she got her masters back, maybe do a Cruel Summer again and release an old song as a single so she can still be relevant while also working on stuff
So many of the people outright cackling about how bad she was owned have infinitely more of an obsession with her than 95% of the Swifties I've talked to, even the ones who ARE actually obsessed. Every time I'm in this sub they're still screeching about the latest hate-bitch infinitely more than the shittiest people.
I know they're gonna try and make me think misogyny doesn't exist but that doesn't explain why there was a bigger hate campaign here for Katy Perry in Summer of 2024 than for Drake, LITERALLY just after Not Like Us, while they still command we say nothing about the double standards. Nothing about the latest people they want to cancel being Doechii, Chappell, Sabrina, etc, suspiciously in the first year in a while that the government is actively trying to hurt queer women instead of reddit being the ones who do. They'll do the whole "bigotry doesn't exist, you fucking bitch$ dance every time.
The misogynist hypocrisy blows my mind bc if anything the outrage should be at how fucking gross and combative a lot of her songs were, not bc the B I T C H was using a private jet. That clearly doesn't matter to them if they are trying to give Kanye or Morgan or half of the men in Nashville a pass. I don't blame Todd for roasting this place, the people here are so forcefully manipulative.
this sub is very male-dominated and also has a lot of people who aren't even pop music fans at all, you're right about the hate boners for doechii and katy perry. pop music has never been so avoidable, it really does feel like some are seeking women that are acceptable to hate sometimes
I know you probably do not want to hear this but Taylor and her fans do scream misogyny at everything directed at her. Yes, some of it 100% is, but there is a lot that isn't. On that interview about how she didn't like gaylors and them interpreting her sexuality she said it was misogyny and claimed this didn't happen to men, when it is quite literally the exact opposite. The week just before that Shawn Mendes had gave an interview where talked about how the speculation on his sexuality made his relationship with Camilla decline and made him depressed. Kit Connor was forced out of the closet because of that speculation. Larry shippers made the two friends not be close anymore. This happens 100x worse to men than it does to women and she was out there claiming the exact opposite and that it was misogyny. Everything that personally affects her is misogyny, regardless of it is or not. Her feminism is exclusively for that.
"I know you don't want to hear this" before explaining that it's just rational objectivity to say if not 100% of the backlash misogynistic then it's literally zero and she deserves it. I can tell this is no more than agenda to weaponize when you act like the very existence of Gaylors is not a bad thing but also decry all the times that men have been treated like they're gay. You will use the people who violently force people out of the closet whether or not they have to shove her in it, which IS disgusting. But it only is a disgusting thing to you when you can't manipulate it to screech BITCH at the fans that are being way more normal about it. Anyone okay with Swifties trying to tell me that men are so oppressed by their evil hateful feminazi fanbases has literally immediately exposed themselves as a selfish person with a personal agenda. And it doesn't help that you try to tell the Clearly Irrational Feminists in a soft way so they don't eat your heads off like a praying mantis that it just so happens that you're correct.
I don't even know where to begin with to reply to this because genuinely every sentence you make up something new, put words in my mouth and get mad at what you just made up. I didnt say anything you just said I did. I said that Taylor said that people speculating on her sexuality are being misogynystic and people don't do that to men when they do it 10x as worse to men. I used that as an example of her weaponizing misogyny and her "feminism" that only extends to herself whenever anything happens to her. Is she correct sometimes? Yes. Is she wrong other times? Yes, like in the example I gave.
I didnt say that its only bad when they do it to men, i didnt manipulate anything to screech bitch, i didnt say men are opressed by evil feminazi fanbases. I did nothing of that. This is genuinely unhinged behaviour and it is literally proving my point.
Honestly it's more the mass gaslighting and hypocritical pick-and-choose moralizing from The Rational And Objective here that annoys me more than Todd ever could
As much as the Taylor hate might get extreme without proper control... do you guys realize Todd isn't afraid of going full anti Swift? Do you guys remember he was the one that was trying to convince everyone that Reputation was a flop despite doing commercially okay (and commercially, critically is another thing, don't start arguing with me), and also do you guys also realize that Showgirl was even worse and deserved those criticisms? And that Todd hasn't even been the most toxic out of all the Taylor haters?
I going against the flow here. I actually like Taylor’s album,
as well as Tate’s so close to what which Todd also seems to have a slight disdain for (sports car is one of the weaker songs on it tbf).
Agree on Morgan Wallen though. His voice is obnoxious
I have no great love or hate for Taylor, and I certainly don't begrudge Swifties for having an artist they truly love like that (I'm a BTS Army for instance).
But Todd is absolutely right about TLoaS. It's awful.
So no I'm not here revelling in the chance to diss Taylor. All artists have work that's bad. That doesn't negate the good work they've created. But by God those lyrics from Todd's video show how bad this particular album is.
At some point it’s time for her and her fandom to look inward on why they draw so much disdain instead of playing victim and misogyny cards over and over again.
So many people were glad that the bitch was owned that it only reveals how they hate her more than they hate the things she does. I've seen no less than 50 post about Swift for every one post about Kanye, and they still love his music. Not like this is the first time everyone let him do something awful and scream at Taylor instead.
They'll publicly mourn how Ian Watkins was "martyred" before manipulating us into believing it's a sign of personal evil that Taylor Swift has a private jet. They don't actually care about the jet or her association with Matt Healy. They're just weapons to cudgel arrogant bitches into shutting up while they bump Kanye no matter how much he heils Hitler and abuses every woman with him (they probably blame the women for it).
It's a cute little Good Man act they're putting on, but it's really telling that I'm actually horrified by Actually Romantic and its inherent cruelty and dudes in my comments will cackle about how shattered her ego must be. Anything to cancel her with the cancel culture they say causes oppression against poor men like Ian Watkins.
I don’t particularly like Taylor Swift and never have but the recent vid isn’t doing much to disabuse me of the idea that Todd was mainly mad on behalf of Charli XCX and that this is really just some fanbase feuding thing, the “good” pop singer vs the “bad” one. He’s taking a harder line on this than he did on Kendrick vs Drake.
Not to defend the songs. I admit he points out some really bad flaws - that “mahogany grain” line is some sophomoric shit - but his righteous anger doesn’t seem of the “this is bad songcraft” variety and more the “how dare she?” type.
The Morgan Wallen and Chris Brown songs are fundamentally worse, imho.
Why care so much then? Like who gives a damn about any of it? I get that he’s saying all these songs are basically equally bad, but why put Taylor’s mediocre diss track over the utterly offensive Chris Brown’s “Residuals”? He’s so animated about Taylor Swift after this album, and particularly that song, when it’s just celebrity gossip and he apparently isn’t even taking sides on it. That sounds like… me, actually. I don’t care about either Swift or Charli. So many of these other songs just seem several orders worse.
I love Todd even more after today, have been a female swift hater for many years. 2025 was so vindicating for me.
Red and 1989 were good albums with some legit bops, but I mostly did not pay a whole lot of attention to Taylor Swift until she became fucking inescapable the last few years, despite releasing two absolute slop records full of filler in a row.
I’ll admit I liked a couple bops of hers back when “I knew you were trouble” was popular. She wasn’t insufferable back then.
I have seen right through the “good girl that writes music about exes that have hurt her” schick since around 2015, and never understood why she got SO big. It’s basic music for basic people.
And now the world can finally realize what I’ve realized and it’s beautiful 🤭🤗
I mean you answered your question about why she's so big right there: basic music for basic people.
There’s kind of a weird personal edge with some of the Taylor trashing here. I’m a freak who thinks she hasn’t had a great album since Speak Now but this sub is kind of dancing on her grave and it’s a bit unbecoming. Lot of people sharpening their knives for this moment, it’s like one of her lyrics lol
Seriously, I don't even like Taylor but people are getting fucking weird about it
I’ve seen people on here acting like they were lied to for liking her stuff in the past. Well, either your taste changed or her previous music was good and her new music has taken a creative dip, it’s not really more serious than that.
I agree, it weirds me out. I wish that energy could be put towards men who make bland, basic music that deserves that level of dislike, like Morgan Wallen. I know he's getting some flack, but it will never compare to what Taylor gets simply because she is a woman. That's why I was happy to see lots of Wallen's music on the list and in the honorable mentions.
It's fucking wild to me, as a man, how many songs Morgan Wallen and say, Drake, can do about their shitty breakups and it never becomes half the meme Taylor does.
I would argue that Drake definitely had his comeuppance, just for different shit
Completely separate discussion.
Linkin Park discussed this dynamic on their 2012 track "Burn It Down". Y’all may want to look into the lyrics of that song to understand what you’re seeing.
People have always had a weird revulsion to her, even when she was making good music. I wonder how this hate will age, because as someone who thinks Life Of A Showgirl is an extremely bad album, it's very disproportional compared to how other stars are treated.
Todd described her in the video as someone who's an outsider because she's always been "generally unlikable" in reference to her not having friends as a child. I guess that's how she's seen nowadays.. People aren't just rejecting her music they are rejecting her as a person, fully, and her fans and anyone who likes her music. People feel betrayed that they liked her old music and talking about how they were "tricked", and are trying to pretend that never happened.
I feel a little alone because I hate Showgirl because I just wish Taylor Swift was making better music, not because of this cultural war that's going on around her.
I think Swiftomania has reached peak saturation and the people who were quietly getting very sick of her dominating the headlines finally have an excuse to be openly critical of her now she's released an unambiguously bad album. Her silence on things other artists have spoken out about, the greedy release strategies for her albums and their countless variants, the near round-the-clock coverage of her upcoming wedding... it's not like there's a shortage of things to criticise her for right now.
With that being said, a lot of that criticism has been weirdly personal and crossed the line from genuine critique into weirdo territory, where people are making sweeping and very unflattering inferences about Swift's character based on very little. I really think the best thing she can do right now is keep her head down and actually build up some anticipation for her next release. She needs a break.
Its not an "unambiguously bad album." If it was, it wouldn't be number 1 for 10 weeks at this point. You could chalk opening week numbers up to Swifties, maybe week two. But not 10 weeks. An "unambiguously bad album" does not generate numbers like that. Plain and simple.
Yeah not to use internet cliche terms but it’s parasocial behavior across the board. Her fans defend her like you’re insulting their friend and the people who dislike her act like she personally bullied them in high school. When she has the proper producer steering her I think she’s a really astute songwriter, I just hope she takes some of the fairer criticism to heart. And maybe call Nathan Chapman while she’s at it lol.
I mentioned that I listen to Taylor Swift to a new co-worker. They told me that they "side eye" anyone who says they like Taylor Swift. And I was just like, okay ? I didn't even go to Eras Tour, I don't spend money on it. That's not a reflection of my character.
"People" are not doing that. Weird people who are the loudest on the internet are. Most people love her. Shes more popular and successful than shes ever been, and the numbers show it. Dont get sucked in to believing some weird narrative loud people on the internet who just want clicks and attention want you to believe. The current numbers and success dont lie.
You acting as if you weren't one of the weird ones 🥴
I would feel so lame if my personality was hating Taylor Swift lmaoo
It's because she's inescapable, a billionaire, and does shit like releasing a billion version of albums to abuse charts.
I get angrier at the people who are dumb enough to buy all those versions than Taylor for releasing them
I mean, basically every album and label does that now. Same with the huge track lists, people gaming the system
That's exactly the appeal. It's the same reason why Marvel movies dominated the box office for so long. It's broad and it's bland. It ticks a lot of boxes for a lot of different people.
And, like Marvel movies, most of Taylor's music sits it in that comfy 6/10 or 7/10 category. There are a few outliers for the better (Folklore) and for the worse (TLOAS) but people will keep showing up for the thing with their favourite logo on it as long as the quality is reasonably consistent.
The only lasting impact "i knew you were trouble" made for me was the goat version I still think on it
Omg ur so deep
Folkmore briefly made me kind of a fan? Then everything she’s done since then has made me realize that oh, that was all a lie lmao
How was it a lie? It's her album, her art. Her work with Jack, Aaron and Joe.
I like to say 1989 was good but then I hear Bad Blood and Blank Space and remember that it's only because Style is a perfectly crafted pop song.
I’ve only ever listened to red and 1989. Any worthy tracks from the later stuff? I’ve had blank space stuck in my head all week and was considering diving into the new stuff.
Folklore and Evermore are fantastic albums. They have her best songwriting and some of her best songs, period. Completely different type of music from Red and 1989 though.
Midnights is actually my favorite and I think it’s got some bops. I can’t say I like a single thing she’s released since sadly
It's crazy that even though Taylor is bigger than Beatles she doesn't have any signature instantly recognizable songs that everyone knows, including those who don't listen to Taylor or pop music or don't even know what pop music is. Songs on the same level as Blinding Lights and Uptown Funk. Maybe Look What You Made Me Do... but for all the wrong reasons lol.
I’d say Shake it off was really popular. I could avoid all other Swift songs but that one was inescapable for years.
and it really doesn't help that Shake it Off is also one of her absolute worst songs.
I’d say Shake it off and maybe Love Story or You Belong with Me are her more “iconic songs”. A massive number of people, especially in the English speaking world would know the melody and probably the chorus of at least one of those
Love Story, You Belong With Me, I Knew You Were Trouble, 22, Shake It Off, Blank Space, Style, Cruel Summer, Anti Hero
You could actually include her newest number 1 in that as well, Ophelia. It was number 1 for 8 weeks, and all over radio, t.v., social media. Only Anti Hero has equaled it on chart longevity.
good point.
I’d left it out since it seems to trigger so many people here but it’s absolutely a smash hit that is connecting with people all over the world
Is this a joke? You cant be serious. She has at least 10 of those. And I think youre giving Blinding Lights a little too much credit, because "everyone" doesnt know that.
Shake It Off.
Okay, after all swifties have emptied their downvote guns on my comment I must admit that I've seen one internet poll "100 most recognizable songs ever" (not sure how authentic it is but whatever) and Shake it Off actually made it to the top-100. On the 100th place. And it was highest-voted Taylor's song there.
What flops? Both of those albums are record breaking triumphs that dominated the charts and made her a shit ton of money. The Fate of Ophelia is tied with Anti Hero for her longest running number 1 song and is already her most streamed of all time. TLOAS had only week on eligibility to be the year end number one album of 2025 and managed to do it.
It's very okay to hate these albums or Taylors music in general but you guys really enjoy playing fast and loose with the term 'flop'.
No one should care about how much money an artist is making. If your only defense of a piece of art is "look how popular it is" that isn't actually a defense. Means nothing to anyone who isn't profiting off it directly
Isn’t a flop mostly related to chart success / failure though? There flops that bop and flops that flop and if it’s a commercial success it can’t really be called a flop, even if the music sucks.
They said the albums were slop not flops
That is not what the post originally said. They changed it.
No they didn't. Reddit marks comments as "edited" when changes are made and that comment hasn't been edited
Then my mistake is a continuation of the previous poster haha, my bad
I mentioned a lot more than just money on my comment by absolutely go ahead and focus on just that part if it's easier for you. Still doesn't make calling an all out success a 'flop' any less dumb
They called the albums "slop" not "flops."
Like I replied to the other commentator they edited the comment after I responded.
When a comment is edited it says "edited" on it. They did not edit their comment after you responded. I added a period to my last comment to show what an edited comment looks like
... they said 'slop', not 'flop'. big difference.
Also something can be a flop artistically without being a flop financially (imo anyway)
In fairness the great thing now is that it’s pretty easy to avoid hearing artists we’re not interested in by just blocking them on Spotify - I’ve done that with a couple of artists this year and it’s made me see how easy it is to just not be exposed to it
It says slop now, was flop when I wrote my comment.
You can argue that they both flopped critically, as for commercially she’s just too big to fail at this point.
Doesn’t matter if it flopped critically. In the grand scheme of things commercial reception always outweighs criticism.
No one cares anymore how the critics felt about the Beatles
It hasn’t even been a decade and the critical reaction to reputation is meaningless and the view of the album has been retconned
Metacritic still has Showgirl and TTPD at mostly favourable anyway so you can’t even actually argue that they did flop critically
What people remember about TTPD in 10 years will be that it spent 17 weeks at number one
What people remember about Showgirl in 10 years will be its chart dominance and the popularity of its lead single
I expect the downvotes because yall seem to struggle with cognitive dissonance here but
No matter how much people hate that reality doesn’t fit with their online bubbles you can’t wish or spam post an artist or an album into being irrelevant or universally panned
I mean you’re going on about how it can’t be a flop if it sold well, and I said it can be a critical flop. I mean TTPD was widely made fun of when it came out for the goofy lyrics, even the swifties comments were mostly “I’ve listened to the album 50 times in a row and I’m starting to like it”. Showgirl is so bad a lot of swifties won’t even defend it. Even as far as reputation, that album was seen as a complete joke too at release, as much as the swifties try to launder its reputation, no pun intended.
As far as the Beatles, obviously they were tremendously commercially successful, but the discourse around them is in a big part influenced in a lot of revolutionary musical and recording breakthroughs they made that were unique for their time. It’s pretty disingenuous to say no one cares how the critics felt about them, when most of the dialogue around them is their contributions to music in general.
Taylor has had a fairly good catalogue historically, and obviously is the most commercially successful artist of her time, but I really don’t think you can attribute her commercial success to the quality of her music at this point. She’s clearly not putting out her best work, but the fans don’t care. She’s too big to fail, regardless of what she does.
TTPD and Showgirl both have “mostly favorable” reviews on metacritic. Their is no objective, critical or commercial by which they flopped.
Ok I guess we’re gonna live in fairy tale world where those albums got released and everyone said “ok this is pretty good?”
They were both widely made fun of upon release by people that aren’t complete swifties.
Him loving Anti Hero was his corruption arc, now he's back to classic Todd.
(I also really like Anti Hero but damn is it a real contrast to now)
The problem is that Anti Hero + the Folklore/Evermore era suggested growth and maybe even a little self-awareness, but all she's done since then has been regressing.
Anti Hero definitely has that "I'm the problem (no actually it's you lol xoxo yolo #iwokeuplikethis #livelovelaugh)" vibe so I wouldn't call it self-awareness
She was able to convince people that she has ever been insecure about herself, and a lot of her haters can relate to that, far more than they can to her constantly talking about how cool she is. (I say this as someone who only really liked and listened to Anti-Hero.)
What do you mean by “convince?” I don’t think she’s trying to trick people, you can still feel insecure even if you’re a global pop star.
I’ve been a casual fan: adore 1989 (when I got into her), it’s one my favorite albums of all time, and really like Red, and was a big fan of Midnights.
But I really disliked TTPD and despise Diary of a Showgirl. I’ve never geled with the incessant fan analysis, and the last two albums delved into it, and the last one was close to unlistenable.
People liked Taylor because she sang about what was near to hear, songs by a teenage girl or young woman who was open about what she sang about… and she had a knack for good hooks. But she’s grown old, and she has no connection to the real world anymore, yet tries to sing about it. And it all rings hollow.
That last paragraph made me realise...
I mean, it's not even the first time a hugely popular and filthy rich white female singer is trying to make herself seem relatable over some trashy pop music background, only revealing herself as extremely vapid, self-centered and out of touch with the world/reality while showing signs of severe regression to pubescence. It's 2003 all over again.
( https://markprindle.com/madonnaa.htm#american )
To a certain extent, yeah, though the difference is that unlike Taylor Madonna has actually has actually made statements.
And even then, Madonna never made it part of her brand to be socially conscious in the way that Taylor has. She also was never hailed as a generational songwriter, so poorly written and out of touch lyrics didn’t feel as egregious.
Except Taylor is still the most successful artist in the world, and reigning over the charts as we speak. Going on 3 months. Madonna didnt quite accomplish that in 2003......
And I think I'm finally starting to get it
Makes me think that her reappraisal during the pandemic and the Eras Tour was a case of mass hysteria. Like, looking back at how much she was praised for her battle for her masters, having one of the biggest tours ever right after the pandemic.
All of that praise and admiration for us to later get TTPD and TLoaS. I feel tricked and resentful for falling for her for a good few years.
you feel tricked and resentful for falling for group think
when the internet decided to like her you joined and now that they’ve changed their mind you’ve followed
Exactly. Sheep
https://preview.redd.it/vclqi1b4gm8g1.png?width=837&format=png&auto=webp&s=4963821a08f063403442b40abc4d9e71761ae0d9
truly it's been SO satisfying
Any recommendations for analysis videos of her album? I feel like I can never find the ones that properly examine it (or I didn't look hard enough)
I think Spectrum Pulse’s review is the most thorough analysis I’ve seen so far. He’s coming from an interesting angle as a fan of TTPD and Midnights.
Ty! Will Def check that out. Honestly the thing I wanted was a light fan/non swiftie pov (as a non swiftie) so this is perfect. c:
i know it's tiktok but popcrit is great.
Sadly I don't use tiktok, but thank you c: I'll see if they have a yt channel.
Used to have some bops but hasn’t had a good album since covid IMO.
World’s greatest songwriter shtick is ridiculous.
Im also a big Taylor hater—a big part of the reason why I don’t like Taylor is because I don’t seem to process lyrics when I listen to music, so a bunch of what would be her “magic” is lost on me and it all sounds samey and underwhelming.
Todd’s video put her lyrics front and center, so every clip where her music played I was forced to process them, and my god, I hate it even more. This year has been so vindicating for me as well.
[deleted]
Ask any sports fan how they feel about their rivalling team
with how much being a woman is equated with liking taylor swift in online discourse i will always always always be a proud female swift-hater
My people ✊🏽
Vindicating because shes even more popular and successful and rich than ever? How does that work? Because a no talent nobody put her on a list to get clicks? 😂 If you say so......
She’d be irrelevant if her investment banker parents didn’t buy her a music deal lmfao. Womp womp about her masters, that was part of it so the bitching billionaire shtick is tired. Enjoy your lobotomy music ig!
Just when you think swifties are the most embarrassing group of people to exist you come across an anti-swiftie in the wild and everything changes 😂
As long as you happy little sis...
I mean that post surely isn’t more embarrassing than sending death threats to reviewers…
Wouldn't have nothing if ya didn't have false equivalences huh?
I mean you’re the one who drew equivalences to begin with by saying their comment shows how the anti-fans are more embarrassing.
So if you’re already comparing the two, a Reddit comment is much less egregious than sending death threats to writers who don’t share your opinion. Nothing false about it, it’s happened many times.
why are y'all so condescending lol
Tay-Tay isn't gonna fuck you, honey.
Too much porn bro. You sound brain rotted.
"[person] isn't gonna fuck you" is a fairly common response to white-knighting someone who doesn't know you and/or wouldn't give you the time of day, "bro".
Except in this case there was no white knighting to be seen so your go to response being "this person isn't a rabid hater therefore fucking dur dur" is questionable as fuck. Take some time away from pornhub and reacquaint yourself with the concept of not everything being sexual bud.
Your assumption that I watch any kind of porn is rather entertaining and also telling. Maybe you're the brain-rotted one.
I think Taylor Swift & Morgan Wallen are so prevalent this year on Todd’s list because he had so much faith in their potential. So seeing them fail his expectations hurts even more. Someone like Tate McRae, who he never had any real expectations for, doesn’t get as much heat in comparison.
See also: Jelly Roll in last year's list
You’d have to be hardcore Evangelical to have ever had faith in Jelly Roll’s potential. I can’t even type his name out without feeling degenerate.
I do have to disagree with Todd in him saying "Just Keep Watching" was worse than "Sports Car"... although I am biased as between those two Tate McRae songs, I've only heard "Just Keep Watching" as I actually saw the F1 movie (although it might actually be the worst song on that soundtrack)
I do think if Tate McRae climbs in popularity, she may end up in the Worst List next year. In a better year, “Sports Car” would likely be on the countdown proper.
Although I guess Tate McRae is a car girl? Since she's got a song called "Sports Car" and has a song on the F1 soundtrack even though (and I can't believe I'm saying this) the Sexyy Red song off that same soundtrack is better (as OMG by Tiesto and Sexyy Red, Drive by Ed Sheeran, Underdog by Roddy Rich, As Bad As I Used To Be by Chris Stapleton and Lose My Mind by Don Toliver and Doja Cat are my favorites from F1)
At least sports car is an actual song
I think this proves his 'this year's been pretty weak overall' theory too. No way do you put two artists in half the list (even the bad list) if there's interesting stuff going on.
It's giving tyra banks on America's next top model screaming at that contestant that she believed in her
Oh come on, he's never had faith in Taylor's potential. He's been roasting her for pretty much the entire time he'd been Todd in the Shadows. He put one of her songs on the worst list *14 years ago.* Including some of her songs in the Best List (I think it's happened 4 times so far) doesn't indicate respect or faith in her potential; he's put a Chainsmoker's song as a #1 pick! It just means occasionally she surprises him, but that doesn't mean he's changed his opinion of her in the long run.
On balance, Todd has made disparaging remarks about Taylor *hundreds* of times; she's one of the only artists he's covered with multiple stand-alone song reviews* because he hates of her songs so much (tellingly, he's never made a positive stand-alone song review for Swift). She appears on the Worst List just as often throughout the years. She catches strays even in videos that aren't about her (his comment about her LGBTQ allyship in a Beyonce/Drake song review.) He truly seemed to believe Reputation was a Trainwrecker, putting it in the same categories as Man of the Woods and Witness. He has a softer spot for Katy Perry than he does for Swift!
Seems a lot more likely he noticed that Taylor's name gets clicks, it's easy to play the martyr if Swifties push back, and "serious" music fans will praise you to the skies for taking down the evil white woman. I mean look at the top comment of this thread with hundreds of upvotes, feeling vindicated that their long-held hatred for Swift is being reinforced by Todd! Swift is an easy punching bag in certain corners of the Internet right now, and apparently Todd just couldn't resist.
*We Are Never Getting Back Together, Me!, You Need To Calm Down, Look What You Made Me Do, Fate of Ophelia.
You’re right, it’s very conspicuous how often he has talked about her. It’s almost like she’s been the biggest pop star of this generation or something.
Except there are plenty of other huge pop stars that were equivalent to Taylor (Beyonce, Katy Perry, Justin Timberlake) that he doesn’t really discuss outside of videos dedicated to them. The video on Break My Soul had absolutely nothing to do with Taylor and yet Todd shoehorned her in just to get a zinger off.
And while Taylor is big, she hasn’t been mega-can’t-be-touched until really the Eras Tour, yet Todd has been randomly making fun of her for years before that.
I’m really not sure why it offends so many people here to identify Todd as a hater. Folks here seem to LOVE him tearing her down so you’d think him being an OG hater would be celebrated.
He absolutely does mention Beyoncé, Justin and Katy outside of videos dedicated to them, wtf.
By “a hater” you seem to presume that Todd has been disingenuous about the way he discusses Taylor for years. You don’t understand why some people would find that kind of offensive? Besides sounding a lot like conspiracy theorist thinking, of course.
Show me the last time he mentioned Beyonce in a negative way outside a review about her own music. Show me the last time he made a diss about Katy Perry (even when he’s making an entire Trainwreck review for Witness, he still sometimes compliments her.) Count up how many one off song reviews he had for each artist/band, score them positive/negative, and show me anyone who comes close to how he’s lambasted Swift for years.
It’s be a conspiracy theory if I was just going off “vibes” but I’m giving out specific facts that nobody ever seems interested in disproving.
Point out a single example of him praising Swift, outside of the very specific best list mentions. Like seriously I feel like I’m arguing the sky is blue. I don’t think he’s being disingenuous; I think he genuinely hates her, and is just finally able to unleash it at a time where it’s profitable to hate on her.
I just don't get what picture you're painting, really. You've literally said that Todd has never had faith in Taylor's potential and has always been a hater, even though not only has he praised her music and even put it on his best-of-the-year lists several time, but he actually attended an Eras Tour concert.
I don't understand how the idea of him "finally being able to unleash" his hatred for her" now that she has become a bit of a lightning rod doesn't presuppose that, when he was praising her and even buying her very expensive concert tickets, he was doing these things disingenuously. Because if you assume that he truly enjoyed certain aspects of her work he comes across not as a hater, but as someone who is conflicted about her music; which, btw, is how he comes across to me.
I do definitely agree with you that he seems to have found hating TLOAS, specifically, somewhat liberating but I feel like the explanation that there might be some resentment towards being at least partially emotionally invested in her career is the best way to explain this. Mostly because, once again, I have no idea what your explanation even is.
I obviously don't know you and might be way off, but it really seems to me like you're a Taylor Swift fan and you have a bit of a case of tunnel vision when it comes to Todd's "hatred" for her. And while, yes, he has been quite harsh in his criticism towards her, he has also always given her a lot of grace even when disliking her stuff.
Anyways, I'm not going to make a list of videos in which he mentions or even makes fun of Justin, Katy or Beyoncé outside of videos dedicated to them because 1) that's a lot of work, 2) it won't even contradict your main point, which is that he does it more often with Taylor in the first place, 3) it's too silly.
ETA: also, conspiracy theories do tend to have some grounding in actual facts and they're almost never just "vibes".
Like I said in my original post, I don’t think him putting her on the best list means he thought she had potential; she occasionally surprised him but it didn’t go beyond that. And going to the Eras tour doesn’t prevent him from being a hater; there’s tons of posts in her snark sub of people who got seats just to mock her dancing. There are Swift haters who follow her more obsessively and listen to her music more than hardcore Swifties do. (Also Todd called himself “the world’s most reluctant Swiftie” at the Eras tour. Not exactly a solid endorsement.)
I think he can be a hater and still occasionally acknowledge when she does something good. That’s not disingenuous; it just means he’s a reasonable hater.
My explanation is it’s extremely profitable right now to hate Taylor Swift. Pitchfork has edited article titles on social media to include her because it wasn’t getting enough clicks; hate tweets with less than a dozen followers are getting thousands of reposts. I saw a YouTube channel with less than 300 followers and 5 videos post a long rant about Showgirl that somehow racked up over 15k likes.
Showgirl is not a bad enough album to be THIS offended by it; but his Fate of Ophelia video got reposts across a ton of music and popculture subreddits, and had far more views than a ton of his other videos. Todd isn’t an idiot; just like Swift, he sees what sells. And even better when it’s his genuine feelings he can ramp up a bit.
Yes I am a Swiftie, which is why I’ve noted how he’s talked about Swift over the years. I’ve also been a big fan of Todd ever since Channel Awesome; I’ve been a paid Patreon for years. I’ve seen probably every video of his half a dozen times. It’s never bothered me enough to stop enjoying his videos up until now. But I HAVE paid attention to it, and I’m petty sick of pointing out specific examples and hard data (number of videos, mentions) only to be dismissed because nobody else feels like “bothering”.
Why is it impossible to consider that maybe I have a point?
This reply of yours helped to me to identify a core semantics problem that has really made it difficult for us to understand each other's perspectives: we have very different ideas on what a "hater" is. To me, such a "reasonable hater" is very much an oxymoron, because I think of a hater as someone who is emotionally, irrationally invested in hating. Sure, a hater CAN give the object of his hatedom praise, but only performatively or, at best, begrudgingly, which is still somewhat bad faith.
You seem to think of a "hater" as someone who primarily dislikes someone's work (in this case, Taylor's) but can still genuinely enjoy certain aspects of it, but it's always a partial or tangential affair. Am I getting warmer, at least? I tend to think of this as, by and large, something we can call an "ambivalent critic" or a "reluctant fan". But I think you're using a framework that's pressupposing a core, negative and mostly unshakeable relationship with the art, here, and that would account for something that's not quite either of the latter two.
Now, I do think there's something you've been doing, rhetorically, in this thread that has been frankly a little aggravating. I don't think you're doing it on purpose, so before I point it out, I just want to clarify a few things. This will feature many of my insights and takes on Taylor's career in general, for context, but preemptive apologies if this is TMI.
1) As you can probably tell, I'm not a Swiftie. I definitely wouldn't call myself a hater either, by any reasonable definition. She was barely on my radar up until Red came out, then there was short period during the 1989 rollout in which I couldn't STAND her, and then from Reputation onwards she settled into being just a pop star I found kind of interesting who eventually made music I genuinely liked. I'd say my overall "relationship" with her is quite positive now, even if I'd rather go through a root canal than listen to Shake it Off or Bad Blood ever again, lol.
2) I honest-to-goodness LIKE The Life of a Showgirl, but I also understand both why some people don't like and why there's an overall backlash to Taylor's career right now.
3) On the other hand, I agree with you and with many swifties that the Taylor backlash DOES get pretty weird, parasocial, and misogynistic. I'd say there's even a level of mass hysteria to it.
4) On the other-other-hand, I think Todd has tackled the album quite reasonably, if harshly. He's a music review youtuber, he's done two videos about TLOAS (aka the biggest album of the year), only one of which that was entirely centered on Taylor. I don't think that's weird or overblown.
I'm sharing all of this because I'd like to let you know that I understand where you're coming from with some of your points and that I really am trying to engage with you in good faith here. And because I've done that, I hope you can hear me when I point out where I think the logic of your argument gets... maybe a little tangled.
First, the more I think about your assessment of Todd's position, the less sense it makes to me. It seems to me like you are actually making two points and while they are not necessarily mutually exclusive, they're more mutually exclusive than they are complimentary to each other. They are:
a) Todd has always been a hater, even if a reasonable one at times.
b) Todd is being harsher about TLOAS than he otherwise would be because criticizing Swift is "good for the business" right now.
Even though both things could be true at the same time, they explain different things. But in your argument, you seem to move between them depending on what you're responding to. It seems to be like you use (a) when you want to establish a pattern of bias, and using (b) when you want to explain why the TLOAS criticism feels excessive. Feels like you treat them as if they're the same thing when they're actually distinct claims.
Anyways, both claims are fine. I don't think people would be "offended", as you put it, if you just made them at face value. I think that's not the entirety of what you're saying, though.
You've said explicitly that you don't think Todd is being disingenuous. But if point (b) is true (ie he's being harsher than he genuinely feels because it's good for business) wouldn't that require at least some level of performance or exaggeration? Some sort of gap between what he actually thinks and what he's expressing? I can't help but feel like the idea that there is at least a level of bad faith to his claims are at least the subtext here, and that ties into why you've chosen to stop supporting him on Patreon, even.
One last thing; and I hope this lands the way I mean it. Throughout this thread, you've asked why it's 'impossible to consider you might have a point' and suggested that people aren't engaging with your evidence. I understand you're frustrated, but I think you can imagine how that comes across to someone who's been genuinely trying to understand your perspective. I've thought carefully about what you've said, and I believe I just happen to disagree with your interpretation of some of it.
When you frame it as people refusing to engage or consider your point, it implies that disagreement equals bad faith, which makes it really hard to respond without feeling like I'm being accused of something. I notice this has been your response to several people in this thread who've pushed back, and it feels like it might be connected to your broader point about Todd; that criticism of Swift (or in this case, of your argument) must be motivated by something other than genuine disagreement.
Anyways, I'm sorry for writing a whole-ass dissertation. I hope you can at least understand where I'm coming from.
I'm sorry but you're wrong. Taylor is bigger than all of them. It's not even close anymore.
Sure, anymore. But my point is Todd has historically shown tons of dislike for her. The original post was saying he had faith in her “potential” and that makes no sense with the way he’s been talking about her for YEARS. You can use her somewhat recent megastar status to explain over a decade of criticizing her.
Todd did a very positive stand alone review of Blank Space. He criticised the beat, but he did enjoy the song.
… Until the end of the review. He said specifically he thought it was her finally “owning up” to her awful tendencies. He then showed an interview of her saying it was her imagining herself as the character the media portrays her as (so it’s fictional), and then he got mad and said never mind.
The common thread between the few Swift songs he likes is when he thinks she’s criticizing herself as deeply flawed (Blank Space, The Archer, Anti Hero, even Style to a certain extent.)
Taylor clearly needs that hiatus. Her pen's going dry and Max Martin's falling asleep in the studio.
Hiatus and a new direction, you can only be so "relatable" when you're on the verge of cracking 2 billion.
The issue is she can't go on a new direction. She's not effortlessly cool, she only comes off as tryhard when she tries to be cool. She's not sexy/sensual, and again, she only comes of as tryhard when she tries to be. She's not as intellectual as she portrays herself to be and when she tries to be we get Fate of Ophelia level lyrics. The only thing she has is relatability. She doesnt even have particularly good vocals, or dancing. In fact, that mediocrity is a part of her relatibility. She can't pivot because there's nothing to pivot to.
She is absolutely not "on the verge of 2 billion" where TF do y'all get your information from?
Honestly if she can just take some time off and put out something inspired instead of the vapid nothingness the last two albums have been, the hate will go away just fine.
>vapid nothingness the last two albums have been
Tortured Poets Department, the album where she explores deep heartache and madness, was vapid nothingness?? You can say that it wasn't your speed, but framing it this way makes your critique look dishonest.
You ate seven bars of chocolate and we declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist 😭😭💔💔
That second part is only half true. I’m 90% sure the reason Fate of Ophelia has the reputation of being “the one good one” has nothing to do with the lyrics and everything to do with it being the one track that actually sounds like a normal pop song.
Knowing her, that "hiatus" is gonna last for half a year before she drops another 30 track album filled with the exact same stuff she has been making since Midnights, it's funny she even teased a hiatus to begin with when in most interviews when she's asked about how much saturated the people are she just goes like "well... what you want me to? I'm everywhere, lol", yes... that's the problem Taylor
she needs to goooooooo awaaaaaaaay lol
I think she needs to make songs that sound more mature. Or probably not, her stuff still sells like hotcakes as is. Personally I just think that her stuff still sounds like teenager music.
Max catching strays cause he can't rein in a megalomaniac 😭
Im sure when her albums stop dominating the charts and streaming she will take your advice
She’s not gonna fuck you
is it fun sounding like an incel that can’t possibly imagine a scenario where people do things for anything other than transactional reasons?
I don’t have any beef with the notion of people liking Taylor Swift, I personally like a lot of pop stuff that even my closest peers would call corporate or vapid or whatever, there’s been a ton of instances I had to convince my friends that my enjoyment of something wasn’t just ironic or based on novelty. But it does creep me out that her fanbase constantly see attacks on her as if they’re attacks on themselves and their identity.
Growing up with punk, hardcore, noise rock, and other things that lean into subversion, you learn that when more people are viscerally put off by your music taste, that means the scene is still alive and doing it right, and it still means something. When the broader music world has no real negative reaction to it, that’s when you know everyone’s phoning it in and everyone needs to step it up. When people are indifferent or just bemused by the stuff that was once trying to challenge mainstream ideas, it means that it stopped challenging them.
It feels like that was a healthier perspective to have, because it taught you to be happy with being yourself and to take some form of joy in what sets you apart, and creates a space where marginalized people feel welcome when they’re alienated elsewhere. When the people who supported the Iraq war and opposed gay marriage were also calling you a freak, that was a sort of validation of the rest of society telling you that you were not part of that toxic mob.
But when your entire sense of inner peace and self-worth depends on the broader mainstream and general public withholding all criticism of your music taste, and any such criticism is viewed as a sort of attack on you and everything you value and a disruption to your own sense of contentment, it gives off the feeling that you expected society to sort of “serve” your sensibilities and perspectives. And that expectation also lends to the notion that you’re more well-acquainted with the feeling of mainstream society (and all it entails, toxicity and all) being 1:1 with your own sensibilities.
Fully agree. I’d add that it’s not just attacks on Taylor Swift that fans take personally. It’s any sort of criticism. Heck, recently, Josh Hutcherson said he’s not a fan of Taylor Swift but went to the Eras tour concert in New Orleans with his mom because she’s a fan. A bunch of her fans took it as an attack on her.
That's insane. Just saying you're not a fan gets you attacked?
bars 🎤
As someone who has been a longtime Taylor Swift fan since I was a teenager and she was still doing country music: it's a bit different than that. People have long hated Taylor Swift because her fanbase was teenage girls and she wrote teenage girl music. From the very start it was also a snide attack at you as a person. If you were a teenage girl who liked Taylor Swift then you were overly emotional and overly attached and obsessed about boys and don't understand "good" music yet, and thus it's your problem. I initially hid my liking of Taylor Swift because I was emo and that's not cool, but when I became more open about it, even as I was a bit older as a teenager and she was getting more popular, people still assumed I had no taste in music, that I was hysterical, that I was listening to music for children. The attacks were about Taylor Swift, but they were also directly about me and the implication of what she represented. And even now, it feels like liking Taylor Swift can be a stick that people use to beat me over the head with. My hardcore feminist friends think she's not feminist enough and she's promoting bad feminist ideas (and then the implication is that I'm supporting that - dw this isn't an actual fighting issue, it's fine), my music friends think she's not cool enough or that she's too popular and music is inherently bad when it's popular apparently...
Going against the grain is fine when it's what you expected or intended. Or even when you have enough courage to; most teenage girls desperately want to fit in and not be noticed or have any reason to encourage bullying. It's really good to be able to do that, and as an adult I am fine with that. But when I was younger - and that's what a lot of her audience is, teenage girls and young women - I barely had any confidence to do that. Even my outside emo clothes were subdued because I really, really didn't want to be noticed. Imagine your whole life you've been told that the things that you like - the things that were made for you and your age group - are bad by virtue of being for you. It's not real art, it's just shit for teenage girls. Now imagine that you're in your thirties and you're still being told that because you still enjoy the music and content you liked when you were younger. When men do it it's cool nostalgia, when women do it it's gross and they need to grow up.
The other thing I'd point out, because this definitely affects it for me, is that Taylor Swift started out being extremely relatable. Like, replying to fans, inviting them to her house(s), posting and reblogging stupid things on tumblr. Even now, she's pretty open about being an introverted nerdy cat lady which is pretty relatable for me. If you've been following her enough then you know her kind of like an old friend you met online...because you kinda did. I never got noticed by her, but I followed her on tumblr and I liked what she posted and tangentially interacted in her sphere. I was on Myspace when she was on Myspace, I was going through my emo phase the same time she was posting about P!ATD and MCR too. I was going to university in a big city from living in a very rural area when she was singing about moving to New York from Tennessee. Completely different countries, completely different trajectories, but I still get her. At the heart of it, I'm also an annoyingly pretentious theatre kid nerd who wants to be alone doing my "granny" crafts with my cats and who likes making music, even if I don't publish it or want to be famous from it. And basically every Taylor Swift fan can relate to some amount of that, too. They might be extraverted and prefer dogs, but they can still relate. They could be twenty years younger than me and just discovering Taylor Swift singing about being 15 and going through teenage drama, and they'll relate to it as much as I related to it the first go round. And they'll also be a little bit hurt when people hate Taylor Swift - especially when they are actively rude about her or blaming her fans or not giving valid musical criticism - because they will know that it is also about them to a certain extent. It's about them not liking the "right" music and being too young and female and not being taken seriously and being boy crazy (I ended up being a lesbian so...) and overdramatic and annoying and crying and wanting to bond with other teenage girls over these experiences.
When other singers/bands/groups get criticism, it's usually not implicitly aimed at the people who like it. It's the singer/band/group, it's about their music (especially if they're male-dominated, like the genres you listed), but it's less "and their fans let this happen! they don't understand real music! they're just teenage girls trading friendship bracelets crying over boys! I bet they read Twilight and thought it was good, too! your favourite artist actually hates you and doesn't know you exist go cry about it lol". Like there's some barely valid criticism there (we don't know Taylor Swift, the younger/newer fans especially can be too permissive of bad music) but it's always veiled in misogyny and elitism. The criticism of Taylor Swift extends to Taylor Swift fans, even when people think it shouldn't. Because she's female, her fanbase is majority female, and she has always made music that will resonate with women and girls first and foremost. She has some BAAAAAAAD songs don't get me wrong, but people will use those songs as justification to hate her and her annoying fans, the most vocal of whom are teenage girls. The valid reasons (not good songwriting lately, stale production, she's a billionaire, etc.) get used to say that fans are stupid for supporting her or liking her. And depending on how that's worded, intentionally or not, can very easily become misogynistic (both her and the fans) and blaming the fans for her success/choices/music. I don't like The Life of a Showgirl, but I read MULTIPLE reviews that then went into shitting on fans either openly or implicitly surreptiously you-have-to-be-an-adult-with-media-criticismly. I don't care whether Taylor Swift likes me or knows about me, I know I'm just a cheque to her. But other fans rarely have to put up with as much shit about how they are nothing and worthless and hysterical and annoying and only useful when they improve economies, and then it's uncool to like Taylor Swift again and we should all be ashamed we let/made her do this, how dare we relate to someone who has made their whole career on being relatable to women and teenage girls.
Swifties bully anyone who dares cross taylor, that's why I despise them. I was following Scooter Braun's wife on Instagram back in the day (she ran Fuck Cancer), so I got to see how they flooded HER socials with hate, relentlessly, endlessly. She had nothing to do with Taylor and they were rabid and committed to ruining her life.
I have an irl friend who's a swiftie (we don't talk about it) and I can predict like clockwork what celebs she vocally dislikes because it lines up 100% with Taylor's. It's really sad.
I already know who it was this year and half of last 💀🍏
people have been telling me no one will know or care who she is in 5 years since 2006.
I’m sure that’s working out well for them
Taylor is 35. It's time to stop with the mean high school girl diss tracks. Not everyone is going to like her, and that's part of life. She doesn't have to write a song about all the high profile people who accuse her of being a bad friend, a terrible singer, a lousy ex, being too pretty, etc.
36
I was about to say, she is one year younger than me and I'm 37. However she did just have her birthday last week so I guess they can be forgiven.
That's some accurate memery.
That second panel is exactly how a swiftie feels if you say you don't care for their idol.
Nah, I'm a swiftie for life and even we understand the massive flaws of LoaS.
except Opalite, the only one where the rose-colored-glasses makes the 'thesaurus-writing' charming for once.
There’s different categories of Swifties, you’re one of the more reasonable ones but that doesn’t mean that the crazy ones don’t exist
nah, we're all crazy. edit: calling me 'one of the reasonable ones' is borderline offensive.
You can love TFoO and realize it's kinda garbage.
If you think this is bad, wait till kpop fans hear that Kpop Demon Hunters appears on the worst list 10 times.
Tbf Todd's bumper music is rarely on the list or honorable mentions. "i Knew You Were Trouble" (Taylor again) and that godforsaken "ABCDEFU" seem to be the only ones who made it
Just a natural result of being the biggest star ever. Every artist gets shit and the bigger you are the bigger a target you are. Add in the cultish devotion she gets from fans and outlets like rolling stone and ofc a lot of hate her.
I love how normal some people here are about Taylor. Not weird at all.
Right? You put these people in a room with Taylor, Hitler, and a gun with two bullets and they'd shoot her twice. I just fundamentally do not get what their hate is all about. So many artists I just don't care for who make records I think are overrated, but I don't hate them. I don't talk about them, I don't even think about them.
What the hell did this woman do to live rent free in their heads?
[ Removed by Reddit ]
So the guy who replied to me apparently put in something so fuckin' horrendous that it was removed by Reddit Admins, so I went and looked at his history. He doesn't talk about anything except how much he hates ol' Swifty.
Seriously, what is going on with these people?
Are you attacking the fans or the hypocrites bragging about owning her and then bumping some odious people? Cause they're both busy punishing anyone who disobeys
I’m not attacking anyone. Be well.
Deliver us
FROOOM EEEEVIIIIIIILL
That's how i feel as someone who enjoys The Fate of Ophelia even tho i can't defend its lyrics
He's justibily vindictive, he stuck his neck out for Midnight when the backlash were calling it boring and overhyped. Hell, he even held his tongue for ttpd when everyone was saying that project was mid and overwrought.
He review hit music. If the fans push not great songs to the top of the chart that's just baiting him at that point lol
>he even held his tongue for ttpd when everyone was saying that project was mid and overwrought.
when did that happen?
This is my take on his coverage of the 2024 Grammy and music coverage in general of that year but essentially both him and Lina kinda just accepted that she got a nomination but didn't seem pressed about a possible win. In my head it means they don't have any thoughts about it when they could have because this was also after all the variations of the album dropped and people were criticizing her for having voice notes as tracks in an album, he didn't criticize her for it at all from what I remembered.
giving credits where its due - like anti hero, both midnights and ttpd were deeply honest and revealing, the production is a dud but lyrically ttpd was dense, taylor was really going hard on herself when it came out. while showgirl is shallower, with very little depth (which i get was her intention)
Dw about it 🙏 I’m not a TLOAS fan, but he doesn’t like a lot of songs I like but I think his commentary is so funny I just have to laugh. Like what you like! :)
i dont like it that much too, i think eldest daughter is the worst song she ever put out but its getting exhausting. showgirl was a misstep maybe but y'all need to calm down.
Yeahh I just think she could’ve done better. I’m not a big TS fan but she does have some really good songs. Honestly I was expected TLOAS to have production like on Me! and have horns and stuff but this just really wasn’t good :(( I feel she should’ve taken a break and since she got her masters back, maybe do a Cruel Summer again and release an old song as a single so she can still be relevant while also working on stuff
So many of the people outright cackling about how bad she was owned have infinitely more of an obsession with her than 95% of the Swifties I've talked to, even the ones who ARE actually obsessed. Every time I'm in this sub they're still screeching about the latest hate-bitch infinitely more than the shittiest people.
I know they're gonna try and make me think misogyny doesn't exist but that doesn't explain why there was a bigger hate campaign here for Katy Perry in Summer of 2024 than for Drake, LITERALLY just after Not Like Us, while they still command we say nothing about the double standards. Nothing about the latest people they want to cancel being Doechii, Chappell, Sabrina, etc, suspiciously in the first year in a while that the government is actively trying to hurt queer women instead of reddit being the ones who do. They'll do the whole "bigotry doesn't exist, you fucking bitch$ dance every time.
The misogynist hypocrisy blows my mind bc if anything the outrage should be at how fucking gross and combative a lot of her songs were, not bc the B I T C H was using a private jet. That clearly doesn't matter to them if they are trying to give Kanye or Morgan or half of the men in Nashville a pass. I don't blame Todd for roasting this place, the people here are so forcefully manipulative.
this sub is very male-dominated and also has a lot of people who aren't even pop music fans at all, you're right about the hate boners for doechii and katy perry. pop music has never been so avoidable, it really does feel like some are seeking women that are acceptable to hate sometimes
I know you probably do not want to hear this but Taylor and her fans do scream misogyny at everything directed at her. Yes, some of it 100% is, but there is a lot that isn't. On that interview about how she didn't like gaylors and them interpreting her sexuality she said it was misogyny and claimed this didn't happen to men, when it is quite literally the exact opposite. The week just before that Shawn Mendes had gave an interview where talked about how the speculation on his sexuality made his relationship with Camilla decline and made him depressed. Kit Connor was forced out of the closet because of that speculation. Larry shippers made the two friends not be close anymore. This happens 100x worse to men than it does to women and she was out there claiming the exact opposite and that it was misogyny. Everything that personally affects her is misogyny, regardless of it is or not. Her feminism is exclusively for that.
"I know you don't want to hear this" before explaining that it's just rational objectivity to say if not 100% of the backlash misogynistic then it's literally zero and she deserves it. I can tell this is no more than agenda to weaponize when you act like the very existence of Gaylors is not a bad thing but also decry all the times that men have been treated like they're gay. You will use the people who violently force people out of the closet whether or not they have to shove her in it, which IS disgusting. But it only is a disgusting thing to you when you can't manipulate it to screech BITCH at the fans that are being way more normal about it. Anyone okay with Swifties trying to tell me that men are so oppressed by their evil hateful feminazi fanbases has literally immediately exposed themselves as a selfish person with a personal agenda. And it doesn't help that you try to tell the Clearly Irrational Feminists in a soft way so they don't eat your heads off like a praying mantis that it just so happens that you're correct.
I don't even know where to begin with to reply to this because genuinely every sentence you make up something new, put words in my mouth and get mad at what you just made up. I didnt say anything you just said I did. I said that Taylor said that people speculating on her sexuality are being misogynystic and people don't do that to men when they do it 10x as worse to men. I used that as an example of her weaponizing misogyny and her "feminism" that only extends to herself whenever anything happens to her. Is she correct sometimes? Yes. Is she wrong other times? Yes, like in the example I gave.
I didnt say that its only bad when they do it to men, i didnt manipulate anything to screech bitch, i didnt say men are opressed by evil feminazi fanbases. I did nothing of that. This is genuinely unhinged behaviour and it is literally proving my point.
Honestly it's more the mass gaslighting and hypocritical pick-and-choose moralizing from The Rational And Objective here that annoys me more than Todd ever could
As much as the Taylor hate might get extreme without proper control... do you guys realize Todd isn't afraid of going full anti Swift? Do you guys remember he was the one that was trying to convince everyone that Reputation was a flop despite doing commercially okay (and commercially, critically is another thing, don't start arguing with me), and also do you guys also realize that Showgirl was even worse and deserved those criticisms? And that Todd hasn't even been the most toxic out of all the Taylor haters?
Lots of Taylor, Drake, and Morgan on the list. But I love the return of Chris Brown to Todd's reviews.
Edit: a word
TLOASG never went away.
People just didn't care enough about it to be vocal.
It still sucks, we just have more in our lives to care about.
Sincerely, a Taylor Swift fan
I going against the flow here. I actually like Taylor’s album, as well as Tate’s so close to what which Todd also seems to have a slight disdain for (sports car is one of the weaker songs on it tbf).
Agree on Morgan Wallen though. His voice is obnoxious
agreed. i liked both of those albums. far from the worst hits this year imo
I also liked Taylor’s album. It’s a fun pop record. I’m not a fan of Tate, but I wouldn’t say Sports Car was anywhere near one of the worst this year.
I have no great love or hate for Taylor, and I certainly don't begrudge Swifties for having an artist they truly love like that (I'm a BTS Army for instance).
But Todd is absolutely right about TLoaS. It's awful.
So no I'm not here revelling in the chance to diss Taylor. All artists have work that's bad. That doesn't negate the good work they've created. But by God those lyrics from Todd's video show how bad this particular album is.
Unfortunately she just refuses to make the good version of her schtick, but hey at least we get thirty more dogshit songs about the haterz
i liked tloas for the most part but todd putting eldest daughter at #8 felt far too generous. i never want her to use slang again
She’s as exciting as mayonnaise on white bread and that’s an insult to the mayonnaise!
At some point it’s time for her and her fandom to look inward on why they draw so much disdain instead of playing victim and misogyny cards over and over again.
I felt so validated by her placements on the list and Morgan Wallen’s as well
This is worse than 2017 mistly because it was actually deserved 😭😭😭
So many people were glad that the bitch was owned that it only reveals how they hate her more than they hate the things she does. I've seen no less than 50 post about Swift for every one post about Kanye, and they still love his music. Not like this is the first time everyone let him do something awful and scream at Taylor instead.
They'll publicly mourn how Ian Watkins was "martyred" before manipulating us into believing it's a sign of personal evil that Taylor Swift has a private jet. They don't actually care about the jet or her association with Matt Healy. They're just weapons to cudgel arrogant bitches into shutting up while they bump Kanye no matter how much he heils Hitler and abuses every woman with him (they probably blame the women for it).
It's a cute little Good Man act they're putting on, but it's really telling that I'm actually horrified by Actually Romantic and its inherent cruelty and dudes in my comments will cackle about how shattered her ego must be. Anything to cancel her with the cancel culture they say causes oppression against poor men like Ian Watkins.
The music is just ass it is not that deep.
Oh they're not happy a bitch called them out
I don’t particularly like Taylor Swift and never have but the recent vid isn’t doing much to disabuse me of the idea that Todd was mainly mad on behalf of Charli XCX and that this is really just some fanbase feuding thing, the “good” pop singer vs the “bad” one. He’s taking a harder line on this than he did on Kendrick vs Drake.
Not to defend the songs. I admit he points out some really bad flaws - that “mahogany grain” line is some sophomoric shit - but his righteous anger doesn’t seem of the “this is bad songcraft” variety and more the “how dare she?” type.
The Morgan Wallen and Chris Brown songs are fundamentally worse, imho.
He doesn't seem to like Charli, or Brat, all that mcuh
Hmmm… well that does throw off my interpretation.
Why care so much then? Like who gives a damn about any of it? I get that he’s saying all these songs are basically equally bad, but why put Taylor’s mediocre diss track over the utterly offensive Chris Brown’s “Residuals”? He’s so animated about Taylor Swift after this album, and particularly that song, when it’s just celebrity gossip and he apparently isn’t even taking sides on it. That sounds like… me, actually. I don’t care about either Swift or Charli. So many of these other songs just seem several orders worse.
He didn't expect any better of Chris Brown
He put a song from Brat on the Best List last year though, and he favorably compared her to Chappell Roan as having cultural impact and "artistry."