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thesinglesjukebox · 5 months

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TAYLOR SWIFT - "CRUEL SUMMER"

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TSJ Today reports...

[7.29]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: I need to get a couple things out of the way: 1) Why wasn't this released as a single during the actual Lover era four years ago?; 2) My enjoyment for this song, as I suspect it may have for many of you as well, has decreased since it turned from an secretly adored album cut to a Billboard #1 in 2023; 3) Why did a song called "Cruel Summer" go #1 during the second half of October? Who was in charge of this timing?; 4) The gaming of the charts to get this to go #1 is expected for all major artists, but still pretty craven: these remixes and live versions are... not it; 5) Love it or hate it, this is Jack Antonoff at his most Jack Antonoff, vocoders and all; 6) We were deprived of a real music video for this and I'm still annoyed; 7) Taylor's voice sounds shrill, especially when she's reaching the high notes in the chorus; 8) Tickets for the Eras tour were way too expensive and comically absurd to acquire; 9) My extreme audiophile boyfriend continues to tell me that Taylor releasing four different versions of every vinyl record is choking up the global market and causing all records to be more expensive; 10) Everyone is exhausted by the Travis Kelce media cycle already, and I'm salty that this song was written about Joe Alwyn. Now, enjoy. [10]

Alex Clifton: "Cruel Summer" is a shot of dopamine straight to the heart. It turns everything neon and demands to be screamed loudly in a car with the windows down. I want to inject it into my veins. It makes me thrilled to be alive in a way few other songs do these days. [10]

Alfred Soto: Listening to Lover before masks went on all over the world, I noted superficial resemblances to Bowie in his so-called Berlin era. "Cruel Summer" is Swift's "Joe the Lion," Bowie's 1977 desperate, almost frantic account of Berliners crawling home from bars who can't quiet the din in their heads. I liked it in 2019, I love it now. Her most easeful collaboration in years, her best single since "Blank Space," the electronic clippety-clops and vocoderized enthusiasm building to a chorus of sustained euphoria. For all the blather about her songwriting prowess, let's hear it for the instinct that left oooh-ahh-ahh as a placeholder. [10]

Will Rivitz: By far the most vibrant, well-written, and captivating single off Lover. [4]

David Moore: The unfortunate reality of dealing with Taylor Swift in 2023 is that she has dominated the few remaining metrics for gauging commercial pop success for almost the entirety of her career, in a sort of never-ending imperial phase, so it gets harder to enjoy her with each passing year even if you're so inclined. I've been writing about it a lot lately: Taylor Swift's consolidation of dying formats in old-media youth culture, like the Bain Capital of teenpop; Taylor Swift's absurdly stable career trajectory and how the only analogue I can think of with 15 years of unfettered and untroubled dominance within their milieu is "Weird Al" Yankovic; my increasing antipathy toward Taylor Swift's success, stemming from my evergreen bitterness about what happened to Ashlee Simpson; the cosmic weirdness of how Taylor Swift's gambit for world domination depended on the slow-burn success of "Teardrops on My Guitar," a song literally no one on earth has cared about since 2007; Taylor Swift's limited melodic palette and how her emphasis on rhythm and personality are of a piece with rap's melodic turn in the 2010's. And all that is just the stuff no one was already writing about! There's a full-time reporter for Taylor Swift! She broke box office records with a tour movie so dorky that the background dancers aren't allowed to dance, and the costumes look like an intern snagged them from TJ Maxx 15 minutes before the show, and when Taylor Swift doesn't have a guitar or a piano shoved in front of her she mimes every! single! lyric! with her hands (on enough occasions that I lost count, she sings the word "time" and points to her wrist)! So of course an OK summer song she didn't even bother finishing the chorus for got trotted out four years later for "impact" and it actually worked. Everything Taylor Swift does works. Taylor Swift can do whatever the fuck she wants. We can't get rid of her. No one is even trying to. We've been living in Taylor Swift's 2008 for 15 years, and we might have to walk another thousand miles to find one river of peace. [6]

Tara Hillegeist: Relistening to Lover-era Swift is the sort of experience that makes one yearn for the days when the UN actually tried to enforce the Geneva Convention anywhere outside of the Steam storefront. [4]

Katherine St Asaph: The problem with "Cruel Summer" is the problem with all of Taylor's infinite songs about supposedly dangerous lovers: I have never heard anything less dangerous in my life. [5]

Leah Isobel: Look: I am a Taylor Swift hater. It is my divine calling. The way she vocalizes "devils roll the daice" is like a needle digging into my brain. The fact that if you search "Cruel Summer" you get this and not the endlessly superior Bananarama song is a crime against pop music in general and me, specifically. She sounds like fucking Hannah Montana when she yells that last line on the bridge. All of her music comes across to me like a teenager discovering, to her disbelief, that other people exist with their own individual desires -- that being alive in the world means contending with those desires, learning how to coexist -- and throwing a tantrum about it. It's not that I don't relate, but that I listen to her music and I feel forcibly emotionally regressed, like I am eating candy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner; like I am driving a Fisher-Price car to work at an Easy-Bake Oven. And yet. Listening to "Cruel Summer," trying to nail down a score, I am forced to admit that this random Pennsylvanian lady knows how to write songs. Kill me now. [6]

Oliver Maier: The sunset on the horizon beyond Reputation and a late bloomer from the only Taylor Swift record that doesn't totally scan like a coherent chapter in her narrative (though I'm hardly a scholar). One wonders what her career would have looked like had the pandemic, and Folklore, not intervened. More like this would have been nice. [7]

Ian Mathers: I don't think I ever noticed just how gonzo background Taylor sounds going "he looks up grinning like a devil!" at the end of the bridge. I'm not going to wade into trying to figure out whether it's amazing they accidentally left that in (she sounds like a goof) or it's some sort of 3D chess move to make sure yet another market segment finds her endearing or it's a key that when combined with other lore tells you the middle name of her 3rd last boyfriend (or some secret fourth thing). Even if it is calculated, it makes me laugh like a drain. I can't not hear it now. Tik Tok is good for something after all. [6]

Kayla Beardslee: This is obviously a [10]. It's been a [10] since it came out four years ago. Its fate as the hit of Lover was written in stone before the album was even released, thanks to the Secret Session whispers. This is Taylor Swift parting the impossibly wide pastel-colored ocean before her to somehow make room for her presence, dominating thanks to the sense of reckless abandon in her voice that dwarfs even the reverberating Antonoff synths. Her desperation is delivered with a wink, slideshow images heightening the drama for the sake of performance ("cut the headlights, summer's a knife"). Yet this is also Taylor Swift, whose only constant has been always being able to put it into words, collapsing into "ooohs" at the end of the chorus and admitting defeat. Her career is performance: a stab to the heart on stage will still leave a mark in her mind, sincerity betrayed in moments like the loss of composure on "If I bleed, you'll be the last to know" or her scream of "I don't want to keep secrets just to keep you!" The delicious thrill of going too fast is inseparable from her fear of the crash, sure that it'll happen just around the next bend in the road, so hold on tight right now and feel this moment to the utmost before it disappears -- but when the song ends and we're drawn back into the real world, all that's left is a soft, nostalgic smile among the pastel-pink clouds. It's the tale of a summer of girlish hedonism: sure, you got a little too drunk and fell a little too hard, but it was ultimately harmless. They were your own mistakes to make, and you had the freedom to make them. The summer may have been cruel to you, but it was only casually cruel in the name of being honest. "Here's how 'Cruel Summer' can still be a single!", went the gleeful cries of stans in fall 2019 who were still holding out hope. Nothing on earth could come along to diminish the force of this brightest-shining, joyfully hollering star of "I'm drunk in the back of the car," not even -- shit. And now it's 2023, and we're looking back at that summer through rose-colored glasses and trying to bring it back to life. No, it's not the same, but we just want to know that we were holding on for something worth it after all, and that idealism and excitement still have a place in the moments in between. Have you or a loved one lost the summer that you were promised? If so, you may be entitled to compensation. At least that compensation comes in the form of a few perfect bars of pop music that gives you an excuse to scream at the top of your lungs. [10]

Joshua Lu: "Cruel Summer" is probably the most median Taylor Swift™ song in existence, and your enjoyment of this song probably depends on how much Taylor Swift™ you've been able to withstand this year. It's largely made up by lines that sound nice and cohere poorly -- especially that chorus, which features many words that rhyme together and not much else, or the bridge, with familiar images of crying in cars and her scream-singing that's become a literal legal cornerstone of her artistry. The song's catchiness and overall dramatic charm still shine through, like many of her best songs, but in revisiting this Lover highlight, it's evident how much that era lacked a proper point of view. [6]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: The fun of "Cruel Summer" has waned with every year since it came out -- even at the time, I liked "The Archer" better in terms of moody synth-pop bangers off of Lover, but every moment here that once felt anthemic has become tedious. It's a song that's become a pop hit because enough fans convinced themselves it's shaped like a pop hit -- of course it's sharp and hooky, shorn of the overly-writerly trappings of her more recent work, but every time someone accuses "Cruel Summer" of pop perfection its flaws become all the more apparent. Those verses are rough -- all that doggerel about bad boys and shiny toys -- but the bridge, and in particular its climax (you know, the big line where he looks so gritty like a devil or whatever) is where my disbelief fails. For all of the skill with which its crafted, I can't tell what sort of feeling "Cruel Summer" wants me to take away from it -- for all of the illicit thrill the lyrics glance at, Jack Antonoff surrounds Taylor with so much high-wattage synth work that none of her lines really land. It's all too much -- a grand spectacle of a pop hit that feels more inert the more closely I look at it. [4]

Thomas Inskeep: I'm by & large not a fan of Swift in pop mode (I miss her as a country artist, and think her best albums are -- cliché alert -- evermore and folklore), and I'm happy to largely blame production choices: Max Martin was a bad pairing for her, period, and Jack Antonoff doesn't generally do it for me behind the boards either. To my ears, maximalism doesn't become her. But this works, and part of it's definitely the production, particularly the Daft Punkish touches Antonoff and Swift provide. St. Vincent's songwriting contributions help too. That second verse opening line -- "Hang your head low in the glow of the vending machine" -- is so dead-on, and a perfect exemplification of Swift's lyrical prowess. Somehow, "Cruel Summer" is nearly magical, the kind of thing that more mainstream pop should sound like. [8]

Brad Shoup: Once again I'm hearing Mutt Lange where it doesn't matter (those robotic yeahs that end the track on a self-deprecating joke) but not where it does; on a chorus that could have dug in harder, and maybe have managed a not-goofy rhyme for the title. Somehow both frantic and grandiose: is there anything she can't do? [6]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Reputation was Taylor Swift's villain era, but only in the sense that any White Girl Whose Cringe Is Swag should be considered illegal. Hearing her coo "You like the bad ones too" before Future barrels through his "End Game" verse? Sublime levels of dorkery. The stilted EDM chorus in "Dancing With Our Hands Tied"? You can practically envision her stiff, awkward swaying. The strained heaving of "Take it off, off, off" on "Dress"? Well, not all of us can sound sexy when horny. She reached unprecedented levels of personable, and with this came new changes in her approach to songwriting. Most obvious was her newfound love for alcohol (She's drinking beer on rooftops! She's spilling wine in bathtubs!) but more subtle, and lost beneath all the "Taylor Swift is rapping!" discussion, was how her toplines became more flexible. Every verse on "Getaway Car" is a chance to put on voices in miniature, to stumble through lines for syllabic emphasis, and to consider rhyme schemes for their texture. That song is the blueprint for Lover's "Cruel Summer." Everything's just a little bit better -- the vocoder is tastefully incorporated, the chorus is more anthemic -- but it's all a bit too cotton candy. She's not drinking old fashioneds, she's just drunk. The shouting is more summer camp than summer romp. The vibe is undeniably "ME!" It was painful in 2019 and it's painful now. She hasn't been this uncool since. [6]

Jonathan Bradley: The lavender synth haze of Taylor Swift's Midnights first found life in the swelling pastels of Lover, so the return of "Cruel Summer" four years on fits her current sound just fine. Swift and Jack Antonoff allow the swollen chords to drift over soft and sleepy textures that envelop like a warm bed or a warm night, punctuating the verse lines with a warped and treated backing vocal murmuring come-ons in dream language. But Swift's own words are glittering sharp, hers is a summer that cuts headlights like a knife, slices to the bone, invites devils to roll dice and kills with desire. Swift sings of a tryst so forbidden that its pleasure can only be expressed in terms of panic and crisis. This is a relationship that needs to remain discrete, and the tension and thrill balanced between her marvelled "the shape of your body is new," and cry of "I don't want to keep secrets just to keep you" shifts this into the queerer end of the her catalogue. Swift's fans have memed her faculty with a bridge into dull received wisdom -- "We have arrived at the very first bridge of the evening," Swift says during her "Cruel Summer" performance in the Eras Tour film, knowing what's expected from her -- but this one spatters synth shards that pull the narrative into a sudden climax. Swift tipsy and sobbing, her careful plans and subterfuge undone, being driven home from the pub, her night miserable and magical all at once. [10]

Aaron Bergstrom: The fact that "Cruel Summer" had to wait its turn behind singles that the Jukebox (charitably) scored at [3.53] and [3.65] is the kind of decision that makes me wish you could send FOIA requests to record labels. (There were meetings! There was market research! This is someone's job!) I know Jack Antonoff's Whole Deal™isn't for everyone, but this is the Swift/Antonoff playbook run to perfection, an update on the best parts of 1989 centered on a bulletproof bridge that lets Swift debut her punk-rock snarl on a line that I mistakenly heard as "he looks so pretty like a devil" for an embarrassingly long time. (She is not at all convincing, but that's what makes it so endearing.) A [10] when it was released, and the summers have only gotten crueler since. [10]

Nortey Dowuona: It's only a cruel summer if you watch the world spin on your terms and your whims, when you're the most powerful musician in the world and massive corporations and governments need to attain your approval, when you're criticized for being so much that your most dedicated fans will silence anyone who says so, when you can stop one of the most powerful sports franchises to pay you ever more attention, when you can re-record the entire public legacy of your songs and erase the memories made with the music you made now stolen from your grasp, when anyone will pick up your call and accept your terms. It's a crueler one when you are utterly powerless in the face of all the public scrutiny. [6]

Taylor Alatorre: Is it too much of a stretch to view the belated popularity of "Cruel Summer" as symbolic of the possibilities that were either foreclosed or deferred by a confluence of events in early 2020, including but not limited to the removal of Bernie Sanders as a relevant figure in U.S. politics? Probably, yeah, but this is the kind of song that makes you want to stretch that far. It livens the spirit, it quickens your step, it justifies an album that didn't need to be justified in the first place. "You say that we'll just screw it up in these trying times; we're not trying." How one feels about that slacker-chic line, with its simultaneous wallowing and reveling in youthful apathy, is perhaps as much a barometer of 2024 sentiment as "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" [9]

Lauren Gilbert: This is how Cruel Summer can still be a single. [10]

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