tipofthescepter

[tipofthescepter]

ik i said it before but the way taylor has slowly been deviating from typical song/album structure and conventions (since with INTHAF) is something im obsessed with rn on ttpd because i think this idea of paving her own path and throwing out all the rules is also symbolic of how she has also been approaching her career as a whole since > the lover album too. two new albums in 4 months? do it. announce album in acceptance speech? why not. 3 hour concert with 431 costume changes? it's doable if you want it to be. 10 minute song holding peoples attention, topping bb100? yup. telling people off? dropping late night editions to albums? no lead singles? no big radio friendly hits? throwing out the idea of 'eras' and burning that house down? songs about possibly unpalatable topics? throwing herself off the pedestal by her own admissions? largely unedited 31 song album? YOLO, baby.

[tipofthescepter]

Yes! We want authenticity but only if you are a pure person. We want our art to be pure, the bad people are clearly bad. The good people purely good. We don't want to admit humans are complex and messy, we don't want to admit there generally aren't perfect answers or outcomes to things. We want to be able to say something is bad or good without nuance, we don't want to dig deeper. How boring the arts will become if writers, musicians, painters, etc., listen to this demand. When someone openly embraces the idea of being a human who is not perfect, who has messed up we get uncomfortable but when they don't we get mad at them for pretending they are perfect, ignoring that then the only solution is to only allow perfect people (and we can't even agree on what makes a person perfect or what views they should hold!) are allowed to create, but there are no perfect people

i actually think a lot of the response to this album stems from the increasing attitude that art has to be morally pure to be good

#I could go on into just how much this has permeated our culture

[tipofthescepter]

[tipofthescepter]

Without a doubt the worst part of Taylor being at this level of popularity/fame again is all the people who want to be different and edgy and are claiming she's just an objectively evil man-hating eco-terrorist attention whore all while proudly proclaiming they also know nothing about her bc they don't like her

[tipofthescepter]

This is no joke one of the best reviews I have ever read (and by someone who clearly gets the point behind what taylor was doing with this project! The very last line!!!)

do you have any recs for which album reviews to read? I've already read rolling stone but the paste one was so awful and mean-spirited that I don't really want to seek them out anymore :(

this is the only one i have truly loved

[tipofthescepter]

If I see one more person throw that "I don't need a therapist" quote around, I will punch a fucking wall

[tipofthescepter]

The way “and my friends all smell like weed or little babies” describes so well how when you’re in a totally different place in your life than all your friends (and this in and of itself is hard for you) and as a result you feel like no one can relate to what you’re going thru (and it makes dreaming of running away from everyone and everything and starting from scratch so appealing)

[tipofthescepter]

It’s driving me crazy how people like can’t seem to comprehend that Taylor was experiencing a mental health crisis!!!! She lays it right out in the poem!! It was mania!!

the entire album is about this. like people keep talking about a joe album or a matty album and the answer is (c) neither of the above. it’s an album about mental health, what drives someone to the brink, what happens when you get there. that doesn’t mean the muses and the gossip are uninteresting. but they’re sort of sitting in the backseat of this story.

[tipofthescepter]

The analogy of Matty as a “forget him” pill in the Fortnight video and “I took the miracle move on drug, the effects were temporary” is the heart of it I feel. If you had to have an extremely painful surgery and could choose to go medicated or not, what would you pick? She had to end things with Joe but she couldn’t bring herself to do it for years because she knew the pain of actually losing him would be too much to bear, and along comes this person peddling that he can take away all the pain. He sells her a story about how he is the great love of her life, that he’s never forgotten her all this time, that it was supposed to be them all along. He can give her everything she can’t bear to let go of. And who wouldn’t want to believe that, when the alternative is … the love that you thought was forever just ends and there’s nothing and no one? So she does it, she takes the pill, she has the surgery, only to find he was selling not just snake oil but poison that leaves her far worse off than she was in the beginning. She feels all the pain of the surgery and the side effects of the drug in one fell swoop.

[tipofthescepter]

I keep coming across people that imply since she's got so much money it's disingenuous to call herself tortured and to talk about being miserable and I just want to know like do they think she can just call up depression on the phone or something like

lmao as if there’s nothing that girl would love to do more than pay her bad brain away

[tipofthescepter]

i love this album because for the first time in maybe her entire career she's not apologising for a single thing. the album is angry and raw and she's like "here's this chapter of my life, the sad, the bad, the terrible and it's all raw and fucking angry for you all to see and i don't need absolution for a single thing" like she's not asking forgiveness for a single thing from anyone and that's what makes the album so fucking heartbreaking

[tipofthescepter]

i have an essay in my head and i can’t decide if it’s worth irritating people to type it out

[tipofthescepter]

Also the personal meaning can be part of the artistic note/choice! It may hold it back as a work you, a specific listener, is wanting, but reviewers are allowed subjective opinions and if they get the artistic note, they may not view it as holding back but rather as making the piece of work even better

yeah i mean it can be a creative decision she made intentionally and still be one people don’t like and think is artistically weak. i like the album overall but that’s my critique—the lack of editing is clearly personally meaningful, but holds it back as a work. and that’s her preogative, i mean she’s certainly too big to fail, but i do objectively think the critical reception should reflect that more than it is. (i know you likely won’t agree and that’s fine ofc, but 🤷‍♀️)

no, it isn’t that i don’t agree. it’s just that i respect what she was trying to go for enough to not really care - the personal meaning means more to me than the artistic note here.

[tipofthescepter]

not to give a man credit but shout out to killatrav for pursuing his celeb crush who turned out to be an unhinged mess at the time and sticking around anyway to be her hype man

[tipofthescepter]

I just…people still really don’t get it. We don’t get to direct the lives of public figures. We don’t get to tell them who to be, who to date, what causes to be vocal about. Because public figures are still just people. Real people. And internet keyboard warriors not only don’t see it they don’t give a fuck that bullying these real actual human beings does nothing to further whatever agenda they have but does wound the real person behind the persona. All they care about is the illusion of moral purity and that just. Isn’t real. No one is morally pure. Do your best but it’s not black and white. You’re fucking up too, just like whoever you’re attacking.

[tipofthescepter]

having so many thoughts about the nature of storytelling right now. about how the story of a girl driven to insanity is more compelling and less palatable than a story of someone scorned and heartbroken. about how public perception of art bleeds into the life of the artist. about living for the record instead of recording about the life. about what makes a good album and how that intersects and conflicts with what makes a happy human. about the toll that takes on a woman who, at the end of the day, just wants to be heard and understood, but feels terrified to let anyone down with the truth. IDK YOU GUYS

[tipofthescepter]

Taylor said yes I had a devastating break up yes I had a fling based in delusion yes I also am a little ticked off at the way unobtainable morality is placed atop my shoulders sure i showered with a man so selfish I was out of the water so long I shivered and also by the way for good measure fuck you kim

and the crowd applauded!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!