we all need editors, even Taylor Swift
look what you made me do....
Welcome back to The Angle 👋 This weekend really does have something for everyone from the Bitcoin halving to Taylor Swift’s latest release, 4/20 and the London Marathon.
It’s remarkable we are a year into this newsletter and the topic of Taylor Swift is only now just featuring prominently.
I am a Swiftie and, if you know me in real life, Taylor Swift comes up rather frequently.
At the moment, I am most often found complaining about how I haven’t been able to nab tickets to any of the UK Eras tour dates despite being a fan from the very beginning.
After hearing Taylor Swift played on Radio Disney, I bought her debut album while on holiday in a mammoth Virgin megastore in the heart of Orlando. I then subjected my family to the album on repeat in our rental car for the entirety of the two-week trip. I’ve remained a fan ever since.
Yet I didn’t plan for this week’s newsletter to be about Taylor. I’d set some time aside to come up with ideas on what to write about and soon that time was boycotted by her new album (The Tortured Poets Department, or TTPD for short).
The album is really long. Way too long.
I started TTPD at 11:30am and didn’t finish it till 4:30pm — occasionally having to break to actually do work or take meetings.
Taylor Swift could have really used an editor. The 31-song track list could be about 15 to 20 songs shorter.
By the middle of the second album, I was reminded of a viral tweet — one which I can no longer find — that said some of the best edits come from editors who have zero social media presence and have tweeted twice.
It’s so true. Sometimes the best way to counteract a chronically online journalist’s over-reporting or self-indulgent writing is with an editor who couldn’t care less about the discourse of “journalist Twitter.”
Taylor Swift needed this style of editor on TTPD.
Everyone on Taylor Swift’s team appears to be so high on the supply of her superstardom that they forgot to think critically. And what we receive, in return, is an overindulgent piece of work that runs too long.
There’s glimmers of greatness in the album but the songwriting is clunky, especially on the choruses.
As Swift has dominated the limelight for the past two years, I’ve found myself defending her to non-Swifties with the rebuttal that she is an excellent song writer and not to judge her based on her single release choices. But this isn’t her best work.
Some lines are so cringe that they dilute the points where Swift really packs a punch. It’s out of character.
Here are some of the most cringe inducing lines:
You smokеd, then ate seven bars of chocolate
We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist
- The Tortured Poets Department, Track 2
Quick, quick, tell me something awful
Like you are a poet trapped inside the body of a finance guy
- I Hate It Here, Track 23
Scrеamin', "But, Daddy, I love him
I'm havin' his baby"
No, I'm not, but you should see your faces
-But Daddy I Love Him, Track 6
(This chorus literally makes zero sense unless you are chronically online).
And the second album in its entirety doesn’t need to exist.
Maybe I will change my mind after a few listens. It’s so long that I haven’t given the second half as much of a chance as the first. My sister — another Swiftie indoctrinated by our Orlando trip — vehemently disagrees with my take, she enjoys the second album more than the first.
What I don’t like about the second album is that it reminds me of me.
My most toxic writing trait is writing too much. (You might have noticed from previous newsletters…)
Simultaneously I get too passionate about the story that I am reporting on, while also panicking that no one will get back to me by my deadline. The end result is that I have an abundance of information, enough for three stories rather than one, and struggle to cut it down.
Thankfully, many editors have saved my ass and forced me to kill my darlings.
Unfortunately, no one seemed to save Taylor’s ass on this album. Or maybe they tried and the feedback wasn’t taken on board…
The second album is too much writing. By the mid-point, it all starts to sound the same.
The two albums, combined, could have been exceptional with a critical editor.
For example, cutting down the 31-song track list to 15 and using some of the ideas from killed tracks to improve lyrics on the remaining songs such as “Now I'm down bad, cryin' at the gym.”
My most overindulgent writing has been published in the past because there is some type of pressure, either hitting an inflexible deadline or an unrealistic metric goal.
This album didn’t need to be rushed out. We really didn’t need any more Taylor Swift content.
We’ve had an abundance of content, starting with Midnights in October 2022 to the re-releases of Speak Now and 1989 as well as the daily TikTok streams from fans of the Eras tour, NFL appearances and the overpriced Eras tour movie release. The new 31-song track list will help fill out the surprise set for the next leg of the tour, but that shouldn’t be the reason for releasing it.
NME refers to the release as “a rare misstep.” It’s humbling to see this mistake from Swift who is at the peak of her powers.
It’s a reminder of the power of great editors. The ones who gracefully tear your work apart without ever changing the meaning, only ever making it stronger.
It’s also a reminder of the benefits of getting uncomfortable in the writing process. There’s always something to learn from working with new editors — even if only to remind you of how good your previous editor was.
One of the big criticisms of Taylor Swift’s recent work is the over-reliance on producer Jack Antonoff, who she has worked with since the 1989 era, and The National’s Aaron Dessner. It’s too complicated to get into the criticisms of her relationship with Antonoff in this newsletter, but this release will likely only fuel that fire.
An overindulgence runs throughout TTPD that comes from being comfortable. A similar over-indulgence was present in Cowboy Carter, an album I really wanted to like being both a huge fan of country music and Beyonce.
On the flip side, I was skeptical about Vampire Weekend’s latest release based on the slow trickle of singles from the album. But it’s perfect in both size and content.
Still, there’s some gems in TTPD where Swift packs a punch and addictive bridges, an area where Swift continues to excel.
If you are listening for the first time this weekend, here are some of the tracks I will be playing on repeat:
Guilty As Sin?
Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?
Florida!!!
I Can Do It With a Broken Heart
But Daddy I Love Him (Ignore the chorus, stay for the Shania Twain vibes)
The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived
So Long, London
Clara Bow
Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus
The Bolter
-Kari
Image source: Giphy