how about the samsung engineers

Agent orange will end illegal immigration by reducing the US into such a festering shithole nobody even wants to bother seeking asylum there

While he's at it he will end global warming with a nuclear winter and end diseases by gutting the CDC so nobodies tracking new cases

Damn she's worth 2 billion... 2nd richest musician behind Jay Z... and her eras tour was the highest grossing of all time

I'm starting to think that perhaps popularity doesn't always correlate with quality

Further research is needed

Album Rating: 2.5

This discussion really took a turn…



But I think someone made a good point: she’s not any of those things, because there is no coherent message, an ideology of any sort, other than serving pleasant enough pop to make money (and implicitly support the system in which she’s thriving). This is it, it’s girlbossing and white picket fence and Ophelia and Travis’s dick and money doesn’t give happiness and summer in Italy. It’s just pop.



I don’t watch tv but I noticed at the gym today the commercials which are broadcasted: an antipsychotic drug (WTF), AG1 vitamins, and an antidepressant. In this order. On another screen there were reruns of a sitcom (without subtitles, how are people even watching it?).



And I think this album is the equivalent of these: feel good slop supposed to numb you as the world gets worse. But that’s also just what pop is…

Album Rating: 3.5

I gave up on this thread a long time ago but I just wanted to say I agree that there's no coherent messaging or ideology. That's part of the problem and what I addressed in my review; she doesn't write about human problems and relationships anymore. "it’s girlbossing and white picket fence and Ophelia and Travis’s dick and money doesn’t give happiness and summer in Italy. It’s just pop" is spot on and exactly why nobody can relate to her music anymore, no matter how catchy/fun it sounds. The latter aspect still deserves consideration from a critical standpoint though, because the idea that catchiness doesn't matter on a pop record is ludicrous. That's why this is a 3.5 for me.

They go hand in hand, yeah.
Idk, I heard some of this in a friend's car and it didn't sound like a disaster. Just run of the mill stuff.

The cover of father figure is so bad it hurts

I mean she showed some capacity for songwriting and lyricism on folklore/evermore but a lot of the criticisms of this frame it like some historic fall from grace as though she was once on par with Joanna Newsom/Phoebe Bridgers/Grouper/Chelsea wolfe which is whack

i don't think people are saying catchiness doesn't matter, it's just not the only thing that matters

also, there's plenty of pop that goes beyond meaningless, biteless, feel-good slop. it's such a reductive, regressive and condescending view of pop

Album Rating: 3.0

@letsgofishing



No offense, but I find your analysis nuts. I hate how over the decades feminism has, itself, been rebranded as anti-traditional marriage/relationships/femininity. Originally, feminism was about freedom of choice, for women to choose what kind of life they want. That should've meant that "trad wife" was as valid a choice as "single girl boss;" but somehow feminism has become associated with thinking that if you desire the former you're a traitor and in favor of the patriarchy, and it's a moral imperative to pursue the latter. So when Swift achieves the latter she's a feminist icon, and now that she's longing for a trad family she's MAGA? It's complete nonsense, and more profoundly anti-feminist than you're trying to claim she is.



The simplest explanation is that Swift has always written about female fantasies/daydreams (when she's NOT writing fictional narratives, or from ironic personas). The only thing that's changed is the nature of those fantasies/daydreams, from those of a teenager to those of a 35-year-old woman. Part of the fantasies of the latter is comfortable domesticity, which shouldn't be "branded" as belonging to any political party. Once you allow one party to start "branding" basic/common human needs/desires, the other side is going to (continue to) lose.

Album Rating: 3.0

Also, to address some of your actual lyric analysis:



The entirety of Wi$h Li$t to me reads ironically, as in not a song written from Swift's perspective. Why put the dollar signs in the title, but then have the "I want" chorus mention the actual wish list? It seems the point is that the speaker is being hypocritical (intentionally, from Swift's perspective). It's not the first time she's done this, either; much of Reputation was her playing around with personas and obvious ironies/hypocrisy. I mean, do you seriously see that Swift's "ambition" has been "neutered by obedience?"



Ophelia is destroyed by obedience to the wrong people, and it happened in an age when women had few options for independence so they had to rely on their fathers and then husbands. That's a very different thing than willingly giving one's allegiance out of love once one has already done the "independent woman" thing for decades. Using Ophelia as a reference in a song about someone "saved" by devotion to the right people makes perfect sense, and is a clever use of what in literature is known as a corrective allusion. Also, let's be clear, Ophelia betrays Hamlet herself at the behest of her father. There's a popular theory (by J. Dover Wilson; Branagh's film makes use of it) that Hamlet learns of Polonius and Claudius's "plot" with Ophelia and the whole "get the to a nunnery" scene is Hamlet "putting on a show" for them (essentially turning Polonius's "by indirection find directions out" against him). Hamlet loved Ophelia, but he, himself, was hurt by her being willing to "betray" him for her father/his step-father.

is it corrective allusion if u just miss the point entirely, and the point u make completely goes against the original point by accident

also, is it allusion if the song is literally called 'ophelia'

Pop that goes the extra mile is just bonus points.

But there is dumb and catchy, and then there’s this vapid pile of dung

‘Tis true.

A lot of feminism gets negative connotation and for good reason to be honest. It has really morphed into something else. It’s used to be about independence, now it’s about hating men, declaring independence/I don’t need no name, then proceeding to only date guys with money. It’s very hypocritical and gross.

Not all feminists are this way, that’s for sure. But a lot are. Again, it’s morphed into something else over the years.

I haven’t listened to the entire album, but my wife was playing it in the car and I heard about half of it. Actually Romantic was a decent little ditty, everything else just sounded the same to me.

Album Rating: 1.5 | Sound Off

that's not feminism that's capitalism marketing girlboss merch

Taylor swift doesnt have any depth beyond mainstream pop and being a product rather than art

Album Rating: 1.0

Also dating an 18 year old in your mid-20’s is grooming. 18 is a teenager for fucks sake. She’s a freak

Album Rating: 1.0 | Sound Off

Hayley Williams solos

Album Rating: 1.0

At least Valz has the correct rating on this garbage

Album Rating: 4.0

"She’s a piece of shit, who needs hanging"



Mods, can we delete calls to violence like this?