The problem with Taylor Swift isn't just her awful music, or her greenhouse gas consumption, or her full on cult of fans that I could easily apply the BITE model to. Her songwriting is always at its worst because of the "Easter Eggs" and "Taylore"
You CANNOT listen to Taylor Swifts music if you are not a Taylor Swift fan. If you are not part of the Swiftie Cult, nothing she says makes sense because everything is a fucking reference to something, apparently
I've seen people trying to justify her worse lyrics by saying they're "some of Travis's phrases" or "the Kelce brothers' birthdays", etc., etc., and, like, normal people don't know that? If the lyrics make no sense and can't paint a bigger picture without having to know some deep worldbuilding behind them, I'm sorry not sorry but those are badly written lyrics!!!!
NONE of Taylor's songs are accessible or listenable to people who don't know "Taylore," with a very few exceptions. I don't know what any of this shit means, and quite honestly? I really don't care, please don't explain to me ad nauseam. I used to work with a Swiftie and the armpit of my day was being forced to listen to daily Taylor Swift updates against my will
And like, you can β and should β reference your personal life in your lyrics, but you need to do it in a way that makes it accessible to people who don't know everything about you. Andrew McMahon, Relient K, Stand Atlantic, and Honey Revenge all seem to do it just fine. It's literally the difference of a competent lyricist trying to tell a story poetically vs a spoiled rich girl who thinks she's hot shit
I know this is hard to hear, but your fav is so mid. Not even bad β if all her music were BAD bad, I could enjoy it. I go out of my way to listen to "bad" music. I love and make breakcore. I actively listen to Trout Mask Replica, but every single Taylor Swift Song sounds like a well-produced Top 40 instrumental beat that sounds like every other Top 40 beat with TikTok brainrot slop lyrics thrown over the top of them. If they weren't in English, I'd mistake them for the Italian Brainrot TikTok trend at this point
I'm UNREASONABLY upset about this, actually, because I'm so tired of the world's most mediocre musician being hoisted onto a pedestal and touted as a musical genius when she can plunk out 4 chords, hold a pencil, and kind of carry a tune without the help of live pitch correction. I literally would not care if I didn't have to see her everywhere, but I do!!! She's everywhere!!! I live in the Metro Nashville area!!! There are fucking billboards all over the place!! She's all over the internet!!! There is LITERALLY no escape. I am in Hell, and it's not one of my own making
TL;DR Taylor Swift is a spoiled, whiny nepo baby with the barest grasp of music theory and composition who thinks her Gabby Hanna-level poetry makes her Speshal and Yunique and I'm fucking tired of it
