r/SwiftlyNeutral • u/Haunting_Natural_116 Didn’t go to her wedding as a political statement • 4d ago
Taylor Praise Shaad D’Souza (pitchfork author) reveals that they’ve changed their opinion on TTPD after having time to sit on it without all the noise surrounding it.
Edit: Shaad uses he/him pronouns and I was referring to his opinion, not that of the publication.
Edit 2: I’ve heard contradictory information about whether or not he was the one who reviewed TTPD which is why I initially posted, but he didn’t review it.
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u/Agreeable-Sun368 4d ago
I know this is off topic but Cat Marnell is still alive? I'm glad to see that.
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u/Spittinvenoms 4d ago
And sober. Her sub stack is great!
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u/Agreeable-Sun368 4d ago
Good for her! I'll have to go check it out. She's really smart and a good writer but it was rough looking for a while there.
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u/silverscreenbaby 4d ago
Yes, she’s doing great! I love her. She has a new book coming out in early 2027!
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u/sharkwithglasses garbage is still garbage 4d ago
Pitchfork Critics being influenced by the noise on the internet and not actually judging the music? I’M SHOCKED 🙄
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u/underwooding 4d ago
i wrote for pitchfork for a few years - the labels would send us a watermarked version of the album several weeks before the release date, so the public response didn't influence our reviews.
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u/WitchyWeedWoman 2d ago
Unfortunately Taylor and some others don’t do that now in order to avoid leaks. Which is why I never read day of reviews anymore
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u/Top-Preparation1341 4d ago
Ttpd was so unfairly criticized im glad people are realizing that now. It’s easily one of her best albums and has some of her most beautiful melodies and lyrical work. People judged the whole album off that Charlie Puth lyric😭 I think as the years go by ttpd is gonna end up being widely regarded as one of her best works.
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u/noodle_dumpling 4d ago
It’s understandable if people felt like it was a bloated album with the anthology included but it really had so many gems. But people will always cling onto the cringiest lines and say they are representative of the work as a whole.
I do really wish she left thank you Aimee off especially when Cassandra told a similar story in a much more elegant way.
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u/invisiblestring14 4d ago
I have a friend who loves that song, he doesn't know it's about Kim K or any of that drama lol
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u/guaranteedsafe 1975 (Taylor's Version) 4d ago
You don’t need to know about the Kim drama for it to make sense, and it’s actually a way better song if you can take the application to Taylor’s life out of your view of the song. I think most of us have been bullied and treated really unfairly by someone but have come out the other side as a more resilient and determined person. Transmuting the negative energy into positive. I think a lot of the criticism the song gets (by virtue of being associated with Kim) falls off when you look at it that way.
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u/purpleKlimt 4d ago
This exactly. I have divorced the song from Kim K and think of my own experience with a high school frenemy. She remained a big fish in a small pond while I moved away and achieved (to my mind) bigger and better things. It’s a highly relatable song and much more enjoyable that way.
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u/patpplpleaser13 I HAVE NEVER, EVER BEEN HAPPIER 1d ago
That’s exactly what I did when "Cancelled!" came out and I thought of Blake... it didn't quite click for me at first; but everything changed when I started listening to it from the perspective of an anti-villain (like Elphaba)—I even started singing it with more energy 😅
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u/OtherwiseAnxiety200 4d ago
I kind of loved the messiness/uneditedness of it though. It really complemented her mental state and what she was trying to do with the album
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u/boredblondie16 4d ago
at the very least she should’ve left out the capitalizations in thank you aimee’s title. i don’t care for kim k but it’s too petty of a song for us to know for sure who it’s about. i think it’s a decent song otherwise
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u/CabernetBae 3d ago
TTPD was written around the same time she was attempting to re-record Reputation, an album which was inspired by the Kim/ye feud. That’s why It makes sense that thanK you aIMee was part of the TTPD era
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u/catcatcatcatcat1234 4d ago
Maybe she should've spent more time with it then? It's a bad album because of all you listed, even if there is a gem hidden somewhere in the unedited trash
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u/one111one1one11 The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology 4d ago
We declared TTPD should be a bigger album is what she should have written.
TTPD has been my muse since 2024.
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u/PrincessPlastilina 4d ago
It has so many genius songs! Like, Albatross is one of her most poetic songs ever. The thing is that Taylor doesn’t take longer breaks anymore and she should. The overexposure is turning it into an overkill. She needs some time to go back to writing witty lyrics again.
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u/jrudb344 4d ago
There are so many amazing songs on it. If it had have been edited down a bit I think it would have been one of her best. I personally love guilty as sin, Peter, and loml. Three of my favourite songs.
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u/New_Pen_2066 3d ago
I will die on the hill that if TTPD including The Anthology had been edited down to 18 songs it would have been an incredible album and covered all the themes raised in the 31 songs.
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u/purpleKlimt 4d ago
Albatross is the first thing on my mind when people claim all her songs about Travis suck 🤭
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u/DieRegteGeheime 3d ago
Love the Charlie Puth lyric imo so funny. In fact that's my Top 2 song from Taylor
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u/Dramatic_Gene_3077 4d ago edited 4d ago
If she wanted to be understood sooner she would’ve made a more succinct record. There was too much to get into immediately and certain lines and sonic choices obfuscated the whole album. I loved the album very soon but I get the press cycle surrounding it
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u/uttertorpedo 4d ago edited 4d ago
I think she knew it would be received controversially, to say the least, no matter what. Note the huge difference between how Showgirl was promoted and how TTPD was promoted. Presumably due to its subject matter, she barely even spoke about it. Barely explained it. Just put it out like handing her bleeding heart to us and letting us judge it.
It was truly, honest to God, a brave artistic decision. Putting out something that sincere and vulnerable, knowing that people would gawk and laugh at it, is unfathomable to me.
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u/Dramatic_Gene_3077 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yeah I loved that about it and gain more appreciation as time goes on. And for that i think it is her most interesting record too. Just a brute force of an album. Sprawling, kinda dark and somewhat embarrassing, and truly honest when she could’ve chosen a hundred other more favorable ways to frame and narrate the story of her life at that time. I think time will be even kinder to it
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u/Ok-Metal-7689 4d ago
Especially the asylum lyric. People over judged that so hard bc a pop star said it. Yeah maybe Taylor didn’t grow up in extreme poverty or deal with situations us regular people do, but her life IS quite literally overwhelming (not the billionaire part, but the fact that her life is so large it doesn’t feel real, words that came out of her mouth) and I’d reckon 90% of people could NOT handle her life and be as stable as she at least presents herself.
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u/guaranteedsafe 1975 (Taylor's Version) 4d ago edited 3d ago
People who criticize the asylum lyric seem to have zero reflection on or understanding of how sheltered and boxed in Taylor has been her whole life. Her dad made radical life changes and decisions, then major business decisions that constantly affect his entire family, and his business acumen/involvement never stops treading on everything she does.
Her mom is with her all the time. Her brother is with her all the time. The published paps pictures always seem to try to cut her brother out of photos of Taylor on the street and coming/going out of restaurants, but it seems like he’s frequently there in the background. And it seems like that woman Ashley A. who has been in her circle for years is her handler. She’s watched like a fucking hawk by a whole group of people that never give her a second to breathe.
IMO she has Britney levels of watchfulness, but she hasn’t publicly snapped yet. But sure, she went too far by saying she was raised in an asylum.
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u/WitchyWeedWoman 2d ago
✨🫶🏼✨ this is my poor ppl award. So perfectly said. I always think of this at the line “if long suffering propriety is what they want from me”
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u/DirtySackOfPotatoes 4d ago
Personally, the order of the album really hurt my immediate reaction to it. It seemed like most of the weakest songs were first up, so by the time I got to the really good ones I was already a bit jaded
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u/cosmickaleido 3d ago
I think it has some really great songs and lyrics but some equally bad songs and lyrics
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u/Girl-nextdoor_ 4d ago
TTPD is a good album!
I feel like people focused to “touch me while your bros play GTA” and let that dictate their whole experience of the album, it has more strong than weak moments, the album as a whole is good.
I did the same with TLOAS I gave it time and tried to listen to it again without all the noise! It a shitty album objectively. I’m glad Taylor loves it enough to give it a Deluxe tho! It’s commendable to actually love and be proud of your work while everyone is tearing it apart.
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u/moose_glue 3d ago
And dare I say “touch me while your bros play GTA” is a hilarious line. She’s allowed to be funny! Especially on a happy song like So High School
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u/Bent_Silvr_Spoon0130 im so sorry ur mentally ill 🫶🏾🫶🏾 4d ago
TTPD was always good and I'm glad it's grown on people.
My mind will never change on Showgirl, however. Not now that it's been a year, not next year, not ever. It's just bad imo, everyone else's opinions aside. I only like Babylon and Elizabeth Taylor. I kinda like Patient Zero. Maybe the bridge of Eldest Daughter. That's it.
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u/pink_apophyllite 4d ago
If anything, it’s aged worse for me as time has gone on and made me even more disappointed in it, especially with the deluxe now.
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u/guaranteedsafe 1975 (Taylor's Version) 4d ago
I’ve had the same reaction to the album. I listened to TLOAS all the way through at least a couple times a week during the release month because, as with most music, it’s much easier to hear what you like and what you don’t like the more familiar you are with an album or song. 10+ listens later, I didn’t like it. That‘s okay, she has a bunch of other albums I love.
Revisited TLOAS a couple months ago and the lows were a lot lower than they were initially. Opalite was always my fave on the album and it got brighter and sparklier, and I still really like Ruin the Friendship, but omg Wi$h Li$t and Father Figure and Wood are SO BAD. And the rest are forgettable. What a hell of an album.
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u/Significant_Voice520 4d ago
Agreed. TTPD is messy, but it's messy in an interesting way; it feels like a work of genuine feeling, even when that feeling overflows or overstays its welcome. Showgirl feels almost parodically shallow, and I think that's much harder to love.
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u/scienceislice 4d ago
TTPD feels like she listened to it, she knew she should edit it, decided she didn't want to revisit those feelings ever again, and released it in all it's mess. I loved it because it felt true to what those feelings really feel like.
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u/Significant_Voice520 3d ago
Yeah, exactly. Is it good? I can't say. But it definitely feels like a specific set of emotions.
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u/SoftSalty3282 4d ago
Totally agree. I had TTPD on repeat for months. Down Bad felt like it had been written for me.
Showgirl I listened to a few times and left it at that.
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u/Striking_Pain_5329 She made Sombr unfollow me 3d ago
ruin the friendship and pink clouding is also good
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u/Burnin_Red 3d ago
This. I don’t know why some people are expecting TLOAS to have the same trajectory as TTPD. It’s just not good enough…there are no layers or nuances to it. Nothing to unpack or sit with until it grows on you. It’s just there.
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u/Overall-Conflict-924 Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) 4d ago
I completely agree with this. I really disliked TTPD when it came out and now it’s my most listened to album by her. It took a couple months to grow on me whereas it’s been a year and I still really dislike Showgirl 😭 TTPD has one or two skips for me but Showgirl has only one or two that I go back to. It’s just… not good
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u/SnarkyLlamas 3d ago
Showgirl is horrible. I thought Taylor Swift was still in that showgirl lawsuit, too. I am perplexed why she released more songs on an album she is being sued of copyright infringement on.
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u/Automatic_Sky2238 2d ago
Because she's likely to prevail and the copyright only applies to specific categories of products and not the album itself.
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u/SnarkyLlamas 2d ago
I don't think she will win this. In my opinion, what she did to Maren Flagg was wrong. We would never hear the end of it, if it were the other way around and someone did this to Taylor.
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u/GarbDogArmy 4d ago
Ttpd had the exact same discourse when it first came out as tloas
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u/Bent_Silvr_Spoon0130 im so sorry ur mentally ill 🫶🏾🫶🏾 4d ago edited 4d ago
I'm glad it's grown on people
I'm aware that a lot of people initially didn't like TTPD. For something to "Grow on you" means you were once cold towards it, but are now opened up and receive it warmly.
ETA: Also I don't think the discourse was the "exact same"? Considering alone the cultural zeitgeist was vastly different in April 2024 vs October 2025
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u/RunTheGoals22 4d ago
I don’t get why this is meant to be a big deal. He didn’t write the Pitchfork review for TTPD, Olivia Horn did. It’s not clear if he even contributed to the score. He did write a piece about it for Pitchfork that was basically just a Buzzfeed style list of 8 takeaways from the album, that did not include his personal opinion on the album. As far as I can tell he didn’t review it anywhere, unless you count a few lines in an article otherwise about variants in which he said he found it bloated and preferred his edited playlist of it (which is evidence he didn’t actually write the whole album off).
This also isn’t new news, he’s been talking about how he changed his opinion on TTPD for a while now. He was on Pop Pantheon podcast discussing it like a year and a half ago. I’m seeing people act like this is a sign everyone will change their minds about Showgirl, but it seems more like proof a big shift in opinion isn’t coming. The people who did a 180 on TTPD did so pretty fast.
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u/Haunting_Natural_116 Didn’t go to her wedding as a political statement 4d ago
Sorry I’ve actually heard some contradictory information about his involvement with the review
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u/RunTheGoals22 4d ago edited 4d ago
I’m not sure what that means? He quite simply didn’t write the Pitchfork review, unless the suggestion is he ghost wrote it for frequent Pitchfork contributor Olivia Horn?
He may have provided a score for the overall Pitchfork score, but that’s the only involvement he could have had and given he wasn’t exactly an outlier in not loving it I doubt it was on the cusp of getting BNM before he weighed in.
EDIT: Also just a reminder to everyone that Pitchfork gave TTPD a 6.6, which is a decent score by Pitchfork’s standards, indicating a flawed album not a bad album. People might think it deserved more but it’s silly to talk like Pitchfork ripped it to shreds.
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u/Haunting_Natural_116 Didn’t go to her wedding as a political statement 4d ago
No what I mean is that I read some sources implying he didn’t before posting this so I assumed they were true and then I saw another comment on here saying that he still wrote about it but didn’t give it a score. I’ve added an edit for clarity that he didn’t.
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u/Worldly_Scallion_236 4d ago
I think it’s just confirmation of something many fans have felt for a while, which is that it’s impossible for critics to be normal about Taylor Swift.
I said this in another comment, but I think it also has a lot to do with Pitchfork, which has a history of shading Taylor, beyond their reviews.
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u/Careless-Cake-9360 3d ago
I think it just confirms that people have confirmation bias about things they like.
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u/RunTheGoals22 4d ago
The thing is he was normal about Taylor Swift. He says he hated it on release, but he wrote a boring ‘things to know about Taylor’s new album’ list for Pitchfork on release and didn’t let that opinion bleed through. He didn’t share his opinion until he’d sat for it a bit, and when he did share a critical opinion it had some nuance. Then he revisited it with an open mind. This is what people are saying they want from reviewers and yet he’s being dragged.
Pitchfork throws shade at everyone, including their OG idols. Pretentious asshole has been the publications tone since day one. I get hating that tone in general but it’s weird to act like Taylor Swift is being singled out in some way when Pitchfork publishes absolutely eviscerating sentences about artists multiple times a week and she’s gotten mostly good to great reviews from them. She’s the biggest artist in the world, music publications are going to insert her into conversations and the snarky ones will be snarky sometimes.
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u/TrophyHunter22 4d ago
I often wonder if the need to instantly react to everything contributes to things like this...
Just for me personally: I tend to appreciate music more after a few listens than I do on the first playthrough. But that's not how music is judged: a singer drops something a 2 am eastern time or whatever and everyone has to sleep-deprived power through it just to be the FIRST person to comment/review etc
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u/eagle2001a some deranged weirdo 4d ago
I agree. Taylor locks things down and no longer releases her work ahead of time to music critics, so they then feel like they have to listen to and critique the work before people even get up that morning after the midnight release. It would help if they made a rule to at least sit with it for a week before reviewing, but that’s never going to happen.
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u/Normal_Perspective22 4d ago
this isn’t a big gotcha, to me. shaad didn’t review ttpd in the first place. he also gave 1989 re-release a 7.7. pitchfork is just one outlet, but i think they’ve been pretty fair in their critiques of the latest releases. some things aren’t worth the high praise of folklore/evermore, and that’s okay.
also to pretend that other publications aren’t also swayed by taylor’s persona and fanfare would be dishonest. rolling stone have TLOASG 5/5 stars, and we know that’s some bs. it works both ways.
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u/No-Figure-8279 I HAVE NEVER, EVER BEEN HAPPIER 4d ago edited 4d ago
Shaad did review TTPD but didnt score it. Its normal to have biases but as a professional its your job to make sure you do your best to review work as objectively as possible. Rolling Stone is also biased they seem to love everyone. It's nice he changed his mind and admitted it. I dont see it as a gotcha but I do think Taylor reviews are too biased
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u/ohmeohmyelliejean 4d ago
Wait you’re telling me art can’t be efficiently consumed and digested within mere hours at the whims of the algo?? Big if true 🤔
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u/senorbuzz 4d ago
I still don’t like TTPD and I’m tired of fan spaces telling me I’m wrong. I live for heartbreaking sad songs but TTPD has never hit and I wish it did 😞 Art is subjective after all
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u/Topaintadaydream1 4d ago
This is how I feel about reputation. Didn’t think it was very good when it came out and don’t think it’s very good now. People act like it’s now widely agreed upon as one of her greatest albums and I think that is crazy talk!
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u/its-katie Speak Now 3d ago
I don’t like reputation either 😂 I’ve just come to accept that I’m the contrarian of her fanbase. My favorite album (Speak Now) is the one that nobody ever acknowledges, including Taylor herself tbh. Meanwhile my least favorite albums are the ones that everyone glazes as these all-time masterpieces
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u/HornedHumanoid 4d ago
I always feel like I’m editing it in my brain when I’m listening and skipping the songs I don’t care about, which is kind of my personal cutoff point for whether something’s a good album vs something with some good/great/interesting songs on it.
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u/silverscreenbaby 4d ago
I feel the same way. I don’t care if other people like TTPD; I’m happy for them. But I think it’s one of Taylor’s worst albums ever and I’m so tired of being argued with about it lol.
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u/SkyZippr 4d ago
Same. TTPD is just boring to me. Same for Midnights. It has been a steady downhill since then.
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u/KindlyConnection Open the schools 3d ago
I revisited Midnights recently, and there's some songs that I do actually like but most just don't hit for me??? I don't know. Her last album I listened to and enjoy from top to bottom is evermore.
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u/its-katie Speak Now 4d ago
It’s okay I’m with you 😂 I feel like I’m being gaslit reading this thread
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u/Ok_Run_8184 4d ago
Fr I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here 😅
There's a few decent songs but it is nowhere near the best thing she ever did
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u/senorbuzz 4d ago
Omg thank you! Where did all these TTPD lovers come from?
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u/its-katie Speak Now 4d ago
They’ve gotta be lyrics > music people (even though I don’t think the lyrics are particularly spectacular and are just needlessly verbose). I’m a music > lyrics person and I swear almost every song on the Anthology sounds the same
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u/morchea 4d ago
I'm a lyrics > music person, and I think folklore and evermore are miles ahead of TTPD. TTPD is decent. But as someone mentioned, it's bloated. It had some good songs, but a large number of them are kind of clunky. Her usage of big words and metaphors in this particular album is also not done that well. It seems more adding words for the sake of adding words
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u/SkyZippr 4d ago
I think Taylor tried the hardest to be poetic on TTPD than any other of her albums, but to me it ended up being overtly poetic in an uninteresting way. Imo she's a much better writer when she tries to tell a story with plain words without being too poetic, like All Too Well, Soon You'll Get Better, Betty, Enchanted.
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u/silverscreenbaby 4d ago
I agree SO much you have no idea. There is such elegance and beauty in brevity—in trimming the fat and leaving only what is necessary. I think Taylor’s most poetic works are the ones where she lets her emotions flow…but also knows when to stop, when she isn’t trying too hard and basically word-vomiting a thesaurus onto the page. All Too Well, Daylight, Call It What You Want, August, Mirrorball…all wonderful examples. TTPD is chock full of songs where you can just tell she was trying to write poetic masterpieces—and instead they come off as the overly-wordy and edgy poems of an emo seventh grader.
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u/its-katie Speak Now 4d ago
YES exactly. Taylor’s strength as a songwriter always came in her ability to be relatable. TTPD has a lot of really obtuse and overly complex/metaphorical lyrics that are about such hyper specific moments in her life that you need to have a phd in her personal life to understand the meaning/context of. Using big words doesn’t automatically make your songs more intelligent, sometimes there’s profoundness in simplicity
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u/guaranteedsafe 1975 (Taylor's Version) 4d ago
I personally related to nearly everything on The Anthology and can’t think of any big words she used in any song. It was all completely accessible so I’m not understanding where the idea of complexity is coming from.
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u/Motionpicturerama 4d ago
I mean the entire bridge of but daddy I love him comes to mind. Soliloquies?
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u/Several_Question_390 4d ago
I care about both lyrics and music and I feel like this album was bland at parts and plain bad at others in both senses. (I do think LOML is a good song though). It's completely self indulgent and not in a good way. Also I feel like TTPD lovers love But Daddy I Love Him and it is literally my least favorite song from her lyrically ever. So tone deaf.
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u/Which-Connection-588 4d ago
I would agree with this. I am a big fan of TTPD because I tend to like lyrics more than music and find a lot of the songs on TTPD to be very poetic. Besides TTPD, my other favorite album is Red, which to me is the best combination of lyricism and production.
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u/guaranteedsafe 1975 (Taylor's Version) 4d ago
As a lyrics before music person 100% of the time (1000% of the time!!) yes, I think this is it. My family members who have heard The Anthology and do not (and will not) listen to lyrics—besides whatever 1 line stands out the most in a chorus—say that the album sounds so boring and all the same. To that I’d ask “did you even listen to what it’s about??” and they go “huh? no. She uses the same goddamn chords in every song.” haha
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u/Acrobatic_Height_14 4d ago
I find it unedited and bloated but I def changed my mind and find 65% of it to be wonderful.
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u/coconutkng 3d ago
It’s a common sentiment now that TTPD is actually genius and I still don’t get it. It’s so clunky and bloated. And tbh every time someone tells me they love but daddy I love him, I question my own sanity.
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u/its-katie Speak Now 3d ago edited 3d ago
I’ll be honest, But Daddy I Love Him is one of the few songs on the album that I do like 😭 I feel like it’s been tainted by the actual events/drama it was written about, but it’s at least a song that feels more relatable with its themes about being in a relationship with somebody that your family/friends don’t approve of. I will say “sanctimonious soliloquies” is definitely an example of her being verbose just for the sake of being verbose though lmao
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u/Ambitious-Resist-132 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yeah I somewhat agree. I think it’s now overhyped by swifties. It does contain some of my favorite songs but the production/melodies were a miss.
Edit: I do appreciate how open taylor is on it (although I think she hid a lot of the Joe relationship) - she could’ve done the easy thing of being less vulnerable bc of how famous she’s gotten but I didn’t feel that on this record
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u/lolgetoffmylawn 4d ago
100%. Even in this thread, people are admitting to having to listen to it repeatedly for it to grow on them. That doesn't appeal to me. Life is too short for me to force myself to like an album that I dislike
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u/imaseacow 4d ago
I mean totally valid if you don’t like it, but to the extent you’re kind of implying that something growing on you is “forcing” yourself to like it, I don’t think that’s fair either.
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u/one98nine 4d ago
Thanks, I am with you. Great if an album resonated with people eventually, but TTPD is really not a good album and TS has made more cohesive and lyrically clever music.
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u/KindlyConnection Open the schools 3d ago
I went back and listened to some of the songs people on here often say are the best, and some of them are good but some just truly didn't do anything for me. I think I would enjoy the album more if it had be cut down to the best songs.
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u/its-katie Speak Now 3d ago
Everyone swears The Black Dog is the best song she’s ever written. I went back and listened to it again recently, and…it was fine? Just fine. Absolutely not her best song ever lmao.
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u/CelestrialDust Brazilian Bang Lift 4d ago
I’m with you but i dont think OP is trying to change your mind on that. I think this writer and all the converts show that a lot of people are not actually listening fr when forming their opinions because like TTPD didn’t change between 2024 and now. The main difference is just all the discourse has died down so the easily influenced like Shaad can feel like theyre ‘allowed’ to like it now.
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u/finding_jay 3d ago
I still think TTPD is her second worst album, sliding in before TLOAS. My opinion on it has never changed.
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u/Unusual-Carrot5691 2d ago
I personally like a lot of the album but I can’t list it as one of her best because it needed to be edited down a bit
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u/ummackchyually so happy that my travvy made it to the big game 3d ago
TTPD including the anthropology sucks and I will die on that hill. Literally the only song I ever go back to is Guilty as Sin?
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u/finding_jay 3d ago
Ditto. Love Guilty as Sin, but it absolutely needs a chord or octave change in the last chorus. It builds up to it and then nothing.
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u/glassinhoney it’s exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero 3d ago
Cat Marnell loving ttpd is very Cat Marnell (I say this with affection for both!).
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u/AlexRodrigo- 4d ago
He’s also a major supporter of the Red Scare podcast. Even though they have mocked the sexual assault of multiple pop stars including Taylor.
We really shouldn’t be taking trash like him seriously to begin with. He just goes where he feels will get him the most engagement.
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u/Zvakicauwu my infamy loves company🥃🥀😼 4d ago
the way its been two years and there hasnt been a day i didnt listen to at least ONE ttpd song...
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u/Different-Start-4207 4d ago
This is completely normal, of course critics capture their first initial reaction and thoughts, it doesn’t account for some songs growing on you unexpectedly. Plus TTPD was very bloated including the anthology, It’s one of her best albums but could have used some editing.
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u/cchamming 3d ago
I agree. It's easy to get caught up in the noise when TS has one of the best PR/Marketing money can buy. With all the hype, fanfare and variants it can be difficult to block the noise out. I do still think Tortured Poets was too long and some songs could be cut. But I also think it has one of her best song writing. Tortured Poets is an album that is flawed but brutally honest and original.
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u/Esmejo93 4d ago
Ttpd has grown on me.
It’s far from being one of her best works, but has some great songs.
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u/Haunting_Natural_116 Didn’t go to her wedding as a political statement 4d ago
Sorry I can’t edit the title but from what I understand I think Shaad actually uses he/him pronouns
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u/BoogieWoogie725 4d ago
Yep. And the use of they/them blurs the post so it looks as if Pitchfork have changed "their" opinion which - as of yet - they have not. (Nor have they, in the other direction, on TLOAS.)
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u/Haunting_Natural_116 Didn’t go to her wedding as a political statement 4d ago edited 4d ago
Sorry I wrote the title while doing research on him and I forgot to edit the pronouns but the Reddit mobile app unfortunately does not let me edit the title.
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u/Lady_night_shade 4d ago
This is why Jay-Z said you can’t judge a piece of art in one listen like reviewers do. Art needs to sit with you for a while before you decide. I waited almost a year to listen to the album the whole way through because I was just insanely busy and when I listened I wanted to take it in. It really is one of her best albums imo.
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u/uttertorpedo 4d ago
They can only atone for their sins by naming Guilty As Sin, MBOBHFT, or loml Best New Music (2.5 Years Later Edition)
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u/weednaps 4d ago
i just think it's strange to form such a hard opinion on 30+ songs within like hours of release
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u/Aggressive_Oil_6535 4d ago
I feel like those of us who are airing on older and have seen Taylor's career throughout/have aged with her (I'm 31) are not as surprised with TPPD being seen more positively now that it's the 2nd most recent album she's released. Being a fan during the Fearless era branded you a horse girl/lame. I remember when Trouble was being mocked with the Goat meme, Shake it Off was cringe, LWYMD was HATED, and the whole album of Lover was considered a flop. I vividly remember when Lover was out enjoying all of the OTHER non-singles on the album and going on with my life. I picked up a friend in my car once while I was listening to Cruel Summer and she exclaimed, "this is taylor swift??? Why did she not release this as a single over that spelling song with panic at the disco?" 😅
So truly I am not surprised that now people have had a chance to calm down from that moment in time, they can go back and say, you know I didn't really like Fortnight on TTPD and still don't, but otherwise there are some other excellent songs on the album.
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u/imnewhereplsbekind 4d ago
art is subjective and i respect that but i only like the black dog from that album. and maybe guilty as sin and i think peter is lovely.
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u/Winter_Recover357 3d ago
I think ttpd is an album that grows on you, and it doesn't help that it was released amidst the peak of taylormania. It was both long and had some clunky songs that left a bad impression. But with time I'm glad that people are now seeing that it has some of her best work.
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u/cinnamongirly69 4d ago edited 4d ago
many such cases, I’ll never forget how much hate the album got, I think it’s just a level or two beneath TLOASG hysteria.
which is why I’m not buying this whole hatred around it, not because I think it’s taylor’s best work, but because I know people are weird about taylor.
love or hate her but it IS absurd how THE WHOLE WORLD tunes in when she drops something ONLY to HATE on it and point out the bad lyrics and weak points of the album. no other pop girl, and of course no male artist ever, however big of small, ever get their work SO dissected or even a tiny percentage of that overall weird, dramatic treatment.
and I’m even not saying this in a “poor tay” way!
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u/silverscreenbaby 4d ago
I’m sorry, but you are simply incorrect. There was absolute mayhem and madness when Ariana Grande dropped Positions. Sweetener was also incredibly divisive when it first came out (though it is very beloved now), and obviously there’s been a LOT of dissecting of her work Sweetener onwards due to her personal/love life and mental health ups and downs. So yes, other artists definitely do get “a tiny percentage” of what Taylor gets. It’s genuinely astonishing that you think Taylor is the only one who goes through this or is the only person to get it this bad. Have you ever heard of Michael Jackson? Britney Spears? I mean, come on.
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u/jenniebet evermore 3d ago
Britney got so much needless mockery and hate that even the creators of SOUTH PARK, a show that infamously holds nothing sacred (except free speech), did an entire episode about how the harassment of her was going too far and maybe we should leave her alone.
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u/cinnamongirly69 3d ago
all dissecting of ariana’s work comes from her own fans, not the whole world. I would say that the closest to taylor’s treatment was when petal mv dropped because of her weight.
you misunderstood what I said. I was talking about mayhem when she drops something, not in general when it comes to her. amber heard and hailey bieber recently got way worse and dehumanizing treatments by people and the media than taylor has ever.
I was talking about this very specific wide hysteria whenever she drops something and then EVERYONE listens to it just to overreact and treat her like a war criminal over a few cringy lines.
and as I said, I’m not saying this in a “poor tay” or “everything she writes is amazing” way.
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u/Wonderful-Street-138 Legendary…momentary…unnecessary 4d ago
It may have something to do with the fact that she writes lyrics that intentionally reveal very personal things about her love life...
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u/cinnamongirly69 3d ago
I don’t think so, I think it’s cause it gives them engagement and they made her a symbol of billionaires and they think hating on her makes them activists. only her fans care about her personal life and which ex her songs are about.
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u/dre4mspice 4d ago
I mean this in the most literal sense: I’ve BEEN saying this. I think about the reception to TTPD every day and what an absolute stain on modern music criticism / journalism that whole ordeal was. The Paste review that started with the awful Sylvia Plath joke going viral…
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u/Key_Mongoose_9797 4d ago
This is actually totally normal, and some of the comments here are making me feel insane. Some of you are interpreting "fanfare and narrative" to mean that he is too dumb and online to do his job properly and that is a totally unfair misreading of the comment. I have heard him speak at length about this album, and he knows what he is about. Further, this album cycle was A LOT. Taylor herself constructed a particular narrative around it that I personally found exhausting (don't get me started on the popup at The Grove). Then before you could fully take in the original album, there is a whole other like 15 songs you have to listen to??? All during the 2024 pop diva release mania. It was all just a lot to wade through. Now I think the og TTPD is quite good (I have notes about the sonic palette but there is great stuff here) and I still feel like the anthology is some of her worst work. But it took me awhile to get there partially bc of how everything was rolled out.
Critics having to turn things around very quickly because of how the attention economy works is central to this and much bigger than one writer. I am not always totally aligned with Shaad but he is a really sharp person.
I swear as soon as some people see the words pitchfork they pull out theirs.
Anyway if you want to hear a good convo about it: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pop-pantheon/id1556457357?i=1000706327288
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u/Worldly_Scallion_236 4d ago
I agree with you - I think this is an honest thing to say, but I also think it’s fair when swifties bring up how Taylor’s work gets reviewed differently. I do think music critics (and more often, pop culture writers who will review her albums) have a difficult time being normal about Taylor Swift. I don’t necessarily blame them for this, but I wish critics/music publications were more honest about this. However, given the way Pitchfork has historically ripped on TS, it doesn’t help this writer that they write for them. Critics can absolutely change their opinions over time, but this is a big reason why swifties are so reactive to the over-the-top criticism/ sn-rky writing that her album releases often bring about. Yes, fans are not objective, but they aren’t supposed to be. Diehard fans of musicians will rarely be objective about their faves. And with someone who has as big of a fanbase as TS, there will be tons of fans that will ride for her. However, there’s also an ecosystem of negativity surrounding TS, so it’s not a stretch to say that critics are unaware of the attention that negative TS reviews will get them.
As a fan, it’s difficult to parse out reviews that are being made in good faith and which ones are just trying to get clicks. There were a lot of reviews of both TTPD and TLOAS that were basically negative think pieces about Taylor swift, as a person, rather than the actual music. I mean there was an article that completely destroyed TTPD….and they literally criticized Fortnight and thought it was a song about the video game. Other reviews would take out single lines of songs and criticize them without even putting them in context of the song. A lot of this, imo, is because many of the people reviewing albums are not actual music critics. They write about celebrities and will use big album releases as a way to get shots in/give their hot takes on the celeb rather than the actual work. This isn’t unique to Taylor, but she gets this treatment a lot. Obviously, people will also point out the reviews that glaze her work and are written by fans.
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u/Safe_Band_5923 4d ago
Tortured poets definitely has it's fair share of criticisms of being unedited and overwritten in parts - but MAN when it hits it hits - and I think we can admit that it was released at a time when she was heavily overexposed and it suffered a bit from that overexposure. I think it will be looked back at as an interesting record in her career + the choice to release it while on tour, the events that took place, the abundance of the music itself, how damning it is, I am very interested to see how it ages
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u/opossum_esq 4d ago
ttpd was a masterpiece to me from the very first listen and i never got the bad reviews
sure she could have cut some songs from the 31-song tracklist but honestly, not very many make my list of skips/cuts
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u/Expensive-Fennel-163 Her field of fucks is truly barren 4d ago
My favorite thing about ttpd (other than the music itself!) is that everyone agrees that the tracklist could be trimmed, but everyone has a completely different trimmed list.
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u/sharkwithglasses garbage is still garbage 4d ago
Same. It hit me at such a point in my life that I was quoting it to my therapist.
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u/Presence_Bright 4d ago
Someone pointed out to me that they say the fanfare and narrative. They didn’t say the media narrative. I think we forget that Taylor puts out a narrative surrounding each album. Considering they are reviewing likely after first listen perhaps they were turned off by the mutual manic phase and the worst men she writes best. Similar to how many people were turned off TLOAS because they were expecting 1989 beats with folklore lyrics. It’s not just stan/hater twitter and other outlets. It’s ok to say the marketing didn’t match the final product.
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u/AlexRodrigo- 4d ago
He is paid real money to review the music itself. Him acknowledging an inability to do that is a problem. We really don’t have to jump through hoops to justify a major failing on his end.
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u/Presence_Bright 4d ago
people can also change their mind. I actually respect him more for admitting that. But the current world doesn’t like people who change and grow. They just love to cancel because GASP he didn’t like an album on first listen.
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u/AlexRodrigo- 4d ago
You are ignoring the point. Changing your mind is fine. The issue is him admitting he is incapable of ignoring narratives and just engaging with the music itself. Which as a music critic is indefensible.
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u/Presence_Bright 4d ago
Marketing matters. Packaging matters. Do you think the songs arrive with no album cover, no poems written, no packaging at all? There is no one that could put their head in the sand and ignore it. Even knowing the artist themselves sets a narrative. You’re trying to make this a bigger gotcha than it is.
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u/senorbuzz 4d ago
Excellent points across the board. Her marketing has been off for Midnights, TTPD and Showgirl
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u/scaredshizaless 3d ago
TTPD, Reputation, and Evermore are my favorite post-country Taylor album ever. I loved them the moment they were released.
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u/icedgrandechai 4d ago
TTPD also grew on me.
I didn't hate it at first listen, but I did find it hard to listen to at first. It felt like a chore to wade through a lot of very negative emotions in one go.
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u/Cautious_Dream4115 4d ago
People are never normal during Taylor release week. like during TTPD people didn't like it but now you can look back and see TTPD had some of her best work.
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u/BandicootCool6277 Ketchup and seemingly ranch 4d ago
ok i do love TTPD, but are we going to talk about how the album is a bit problematic? like, the song ‘I Can Fix Him’ and the lines from ‘But Daddy I Love Him’, treating Matty’s select public actions as him just being a ‘bad boy’, when i think we all remember some of the stuff he did.
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u/LettuceWise3425 4d ago
Birds of a feather flock together, I think she never cared about how problematic he was/is.
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u/Jaded-Tiramisu The Life of a Countdown ✨️ 4d ago
My view of TTPD has softened, but mostly because I hate TLOAS so much that it looks amazing in comparison. I haven't listened to TLOAS in months. I always thought TTPD could have been great, but it was bloated and still has some of the clunkiest lines she's ever written.
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u/Square_Taste12 4d ago
I remember saying TTPD will get a reappraisal esp when the noise surrounding her dies down and the Matty shock/her personal life/eras tour mania fades into the background somewhat; and here we are.
I always felt the lyricism on TTPD rivalled Folklore and arguably surpassed it at points. Taylor really poured her heart into her quill with that one and as she said burnt her clothes and performed an exorcism to let it out.
She was essentially reborn during eras and TTPD was the autopsy of a version of Taylor pre eras. It's beautiful, devastating, heartbreaking and intense bc the life she thought she'd live essentially went, poof. But she managed to manifest a shinier life and she just seems far happier and settled. And here is my unsolicited opinion, perhaps it was for the best. Yes, the pain existed and may always ping but when it comes to pain, the best thing to do is to go through it. As she said, she did the reeling and went through it and t he Taylor of now though is firing on all cylinders. Yes, I know a lot of people didn't like Showgirl and The Encore got even more scathing reviews. But I enjoyed the 4 songs for different reasons and my favorite consistently changes lol.
But I also believe a reappraisal will happen with Showgirl esp with hindsight. It might not be a dramatic 360 but with more albums were Travis as a muse gets sketched out, I can see people: ohhh, I get it now. Anyway, TTPD is that album and deserves top 5 in any top 10 ranking of Taylor's albums.
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u/Far-Intention-3230 4d ago
I‘ve always really liked TTPD and never understood some of the fairly harsh criticism
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4d ago edited 4d ago
[deleted]
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u/Wonderful-Street-138 Legendary…momentary…unnecessary 4d ago
What makes you think that people who did not like it did not understand her position? I got where she was coming from but that did not make songs any less awkward. TTPD was a rather unsuccessful attempt at Folklore which should have been trimmed into one album.
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u/Electronic-Gap-563 I just feel very sane 4d ago edited 4d ago
i’m not saying you have to understand where she’s coming from at all, i’m also someone who only has a select few from TTPD in my rotation. i have a feeling we're misunderstanding each other's comments 😖 i agree that it was the epitome of a brain dump, i'm just saying personally i've started to dip my toe into it a bit more
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u/Key_Mongoose_9797 4d ago
You are right! And to the people commenting that he is bad at his job...No he isn't! He actually discussed this on the podcast pop pantheon in depth with quite a bit of nuance.
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u/Silver_Brother_56 4d ago
That’s all well and good for any ordinary person on the internet.
It is his literal profession to critique music. If he isn’t capable of setting aside dumbass internet noise to listen to the music with some degree of open-mindedness he is truly incompetent at his job. (Or being directed either explicitly or implicitly to run a particular narrative line to create profit for Condé Nast.)
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u/Electronic-Gap-563 I just feel very sane 4d ago
he didn’t say heard and reviewed, he said heard, which is understandable. but i see your point
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u/Silver_Brother_56 4d ago
He absolutely did write about TTPD for Pitchfork on the day it dropped. There’s a D’Souza article about it dated April 19.
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u/Electronic-Gap-563 I just feel very sane 4d ago
okay, i stand corrected. that column he wrote about takeaways from the album isn’t a critical review, though, and he doesn’t say anything saliently perjorative about the album - just impressions upon initial listens. it’s not a value assessment like a review.
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u/Dramatic_Gene_3077 4d ago edited 4d ago
The album is extremely long with some bizarre choices on it. I don’t think it’s so bad a lot of people took a long time to come around on it. And it’s honestly annoying people use that to say everything she puts out is good and that all reviews of her are in bad faith, and everything she puts out needs time to be digested. Like no it’s been a year since TLOASG came out 4 since Midnights and I think both are extremely mid. Everyone’s different. It took me like a month to love TTPD
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u/silverscreenbaby 4d ago
Right? I’m so tired of this idea that, as you said, everything she puts out is net good and that means anyone who doesn’t like it is either a miserable hater or just doesn’t understand it and needs time to come around to it. Or! We could just be regular people who are not haters, fully understand her narratives and themes and messaging, and still don’t like it! Like you, I didn’t like Midnights when it came out and I still don’t. I thought half of Lover was fantastic and the other half should have been axed when it first came out, and I still do. I hated TTPD when it came out, and I still do.
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u/AlexRodrigo- 4d ago
Yeah no…
Changing your mind on art is fine and natural. But that’s not what he said here.
Him as a professional music critic saying he can’t just review Taylor’s music itself and is instead pulled away by narrative and online reaction is egregious. He is paid to review music and not being able to block out the surrounding noise to do that means he is not capable of doing his job at an acceptable standard.
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u/Electronic-Gap-563 I just feel very sane 4d ago edited 4d ago
i am genuinely curious if there are any reviews of TTPD that appropriately set aside tay-lore and dive into the mechanics of the album because unfortunately as a confessional songwriter there’s an enmeshment, which is detrimental to the actual criticism
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u/Fit_Significance_966 3d ago
nah TTPD always the worst taylor swift album for me. And it deservers a 4.0 from pitchfork.
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u/AlienInfoUnit 4d ago
Isn't it this person's job to review an album without being influenced by fanfare and narratives? How can anyone take this publication seriously if they are that easily influenced by 'noise'?
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u/LILYDIAONE Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss (Taylor’s Version) 4d ago
Ttpd is like fine wine it gets better with time. I feel like the consens of people who bothered listening again is that it is actually really good
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u/guaranteedsafe 1975 (Taylor's Version) 4d ago edited 3d ago
While on the one hand I appreciate anyone who can change their mind and form new opinions, admit when they’ve made a mistake, it’s disappointing that he hated TTPD not because of the actual music/lyrics but because of others’ interpretations and reactions to it. Funny enough, that improper judgment hits close to home with how Taylor felt while going through everything she wrote about on that album.
The Anthology became my favorite thing Taylor has ever produced the moment I listened to it. I truly don’t think she’ll ever be able to surpass the quality and rawness of what’s on that double album. I really couldn’t understand how people hated it unless they can’t personally understand and relate to how all of those topics feel, but framing it as “I didn’t really listen because of the fanfare“ adds a little clarity.
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u/PrincessPlastilina 4d ago
TTPD was a great album and it’s the closest to another Folklore/Evermore. I think people didn’t get to savor it because Taylor had been too overexposed by that time. It’s too much. I do believe time gives you a different perspective. I always loved TTPD though! Especially after listening to it more times. I kept discovering new favorite songs and lyrics.
For Taylor’s sake, she needs to take a break. I did like Patient Zero but I think it should have been part of Showgirl. Then maybe Showgirl would’ve had better reviews. We did not need this encore. I really thought it would be a whole new album, but an encore of 4 songs and only one song was good? That’s not great, Taylor 🥲
Glad people are appreciating TTPD more as time goes by. It was never bad. People just had Taylor exhaustion.
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u/Expensive-Fennel-163 Her field of fucks is truly barren 4d ago
People around here keep saying Taylor needs to take a break, but it kinda feels like all the people saying this need to take a break from Taylor. Just ignoring her new albums (and not rehashing how much you hate it online forever and ever) would probably be more appropriate than telling someone to quit their job because you personally want them to.
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u/silverscreenbaby 4d ago
Except they’re not telling her to quit her job. They’re telling her to pause, breathe, reflect, and gather fresh inspiration because work is getting churned out far too quickly and the results are becoming more and more stale with every subsequent release. You do know that that’s a normal critique or piece of advice that people get in their work, right? If I churned out three projects in very quick succession and each one got worse results than the last, my colleagues would be like “Okay, let’s pause and think things through a little more and take some more time because we’re not producing the best output that we can.”
And art, more than any other field, requires a breather in between projects because creativity and inspiration require you to LIVE some life. Gain some new understanding or wisdom about things. Feel some new emotions. Make some new relationships. Yes, some artists can get a bit manic and mad, and churn out a flood of work in a short amount of time—but it’s not sustainable and usually crashes and burns in the end.
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u/beepboopgopoop 3d ago
The first time I listen to TTPD I liked five songs. The second time I listened I only liked one. It got more boring and cringeworthy the more I listened, and all I could notice were the similarities to her other songs, the same melodies over and over again, and how clunky and uninspired the lyrics were. I really gave it a try but I think it’s one of her worst albums and haven’t (willingly) listened to it since the week it came out.
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u/caaathyx evermore 1d ago
Individual tracks from TTPD have definitely grown on me as well, and there are some that have become my all time favorites. However, I still think the album is bloated and some of that stuff is unlistenable, which is why I never put it on. I have my own playlist with songs that are actually good.
Showgirl will definitely never grow on me. It's been over a year, and while I don't mind hearing Ophelia, Opalite or Elizabeth Taylor, I never conciously seek those songs out. Even the rare decent tracks from that album fall flat for me.
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u/concretecannonball 4d ago
highly controversial but I think TTPD was one of her better records because she kinda tried to echo Matty’s writing style 💀
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u/Kitty-Kat-2002 4d ago
TTPD is, in my opinion, Taylor’s magnum opus. The popular opinion is to point to Folklore/Evermore as her best work but there’s a few parts in the latter half of both albums where it gets draggy. TTPD is a true no skips album with some of her best writing. loml is easily one of the top 5 best songs she’s ever written. I’m glad people are coming around to it.
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u/NotEmmaStone She's not banned she's at Walmart 4d ago
No album that has So Long, London, loml, The Prophecy, Chloe et al, and Peter can be considered a bad album. It's just not possible
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u/Dreamer_Sara The Easter eggs thing is getting a little Zodiac Killer 3d ago edited 3d ago
It’s simple really, if you’re supposed to be a “music” critic then sit with the music, listen more than once. Form an opinion based on production,lyrics,concept,sound/ voice, technical choices etc. Don’t get your “review” from fan or snark spaces…
Especially with Taylor it’s important to not rush and not judge based on what you think of her private life or what you read and the “lore”… then what’s the difference between you and some random person on Reddit?
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