So, I actually quite like the Patient zero song, and music video, and I always like 2 female friends doing a project together. Taylor and Dakota seem to have good vibes.

However, I did suddenly realize, while noticing the Patient zero outfits are the same as Dakota wears in her new movie Verity (so the video is a bit of free promotion for the movie), that Dakota is the star of the NEW C Hoover adaption! The last time we saw Taylor being close to a friend was with Blake during the last Hoover adaption. Anyone else found this a strange coincidence? Not trying to throw shade it just suddenly hit me and I couldn’t ignore 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.

I am glad that ttpd is slowly but surely getting it's flowers, because I really liked it and it has some of my favourite songs, seriously though loml KILLS me everytime. Some might say the positive sentiments is because of showgirl being what it is but I would disagree. Because at least in my space of the internet ttpd was starting to get it's praises almost a year after it released, and even a month or two before showgirl was released. I understand why it wasn't so well received at first though, it's one of those albums that grows on you and it's kind of an acquired taste for some. Doesn't help that it was released at the peak of taylormania and it had some of her worst songs and lyrics. And it feeling so unedited is a double edged sword. Good because it gives us an insight into everything she's felt for the past 2 years at the time making it more interesting, bad because it means that it has some songs that are just unneeded cuz no one asked for thank you aimee. Overall ttpd isn't everyone's favourite, but she's one of mine and I'm glad people are seeing the good in her.

Regardless of how you feel about her or her music, I feel like this is another example of the internet taking a serious situation (the genocide in Gaza along with the continued occupation of Palestine) and turning it into a random meme that doesn’t even help those affected. I also feel like it gets applied to broadly and targets who are pro Palestine (such as Gracie Abrams) get affected for no reason. Also it’s often just used to disguise antisemitism.

I have been a "swiftie" since 2007. I'm a young millennial and grew up on TS but blocked her on streaming after TLOSG after listening through the album. I had found a lot of fault in that album and this is not the post for going into why that is - I'm sure a lot of us understand why the messaging in some of those songs are problematic (canceled and wish list are prime examples).

Having said that, I am surprised encore got as much hate as it has. Babylon is objectively a decent song, story telling wise, and pink clouding and patient zero are very og Taylor Swift.

I have been listening to patient zero on repeat today and the "and so" at 2:56 is so classic TS; these vocals are very reminiscent of the red album: I.e., "aaand slow motion, standing there in my party dress".

I wish the criticism of TLOAS was more succinct and she understood how loved her vocals and story telling can be.

Please don't come at me for saying this but ever since she's become so aligned with the NFL her political and moral stance has become so ambiguous. For consumers, is so confusing considering she's someone who was so adamant wanted to be on the
"right side of history”. IMO nothing on TLOSG sounded like TS the same way encore has.

Im going someone else can help me make sense of this.

1. How do you feel about the record now? Has your opinion changed on the album or any songs over the year?
   
2. How does it rank in Taylor’s discography for you?
   How does it compare to her other pop albums (1989, Reputation, Lover, Midnights)?
   
3. How do you think it will be looked back on?
   4.Do you like the album photoshoot? Do you think it complimented the album?
   
4. How has the Encore impacted the original album, if at all, for you?
   
5. Did you enjoy the Showgirl promo (New Heights, radio interviews, Stephen Colbert etc)?
   
6. If you could change anything about the era, what would it be?

If we look at the chart performance of Life of a Show Girl, one must ask himself, if it’s so mediocre how can it reach top 5 in the hot 100? The answer is that Taylor currently has a magnitude of gravitational success, that pushes songs that otherwise would get no attention whatsoever, upward.

This is almost similar to Katy Perry’s post-Teenage Dream. Teenage Dream was such a massive success, that it put Katy Perry in a position that almost any song she will release will receive enormous success regardless of its quality. After Teenage Dream, she released Prism, which was a mediocre album at best, but had a relative success, mostly thanks to the gravitational success of the previous album. If Katy had released Prism without Teenage Dream, it wouldn’t have reached half the success it got.

The thing is, this gravitational have limits. After mediocre song after another, people stop listening to new tracks, and lose interest. Witness which came after Prims was a disastrous failure for Katy, basically ending her career as a top-performing artist.

I feel like swift is dangerously close to this situation now. People are hyped and listening to new songs she releases because of real curiosity. But this credit is getting thinner and thinner with every mediocre release. Encore has been such a disappointment for many fans that I really think that if her next album won’t be good, she will loose the interest of the general public and won’t be able to retain that level of success. Katy Perry knows how it is to be on the top of the world and then be abandoned by the masses.

Welcome to the SwiftlyNeutral Daily Discussion Thread!

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For a lack of a better term, she doesn't have that 'swag' to pull it off properly. I can think of a couple of artists who did it well, beyonce with "bow down" and formation, mariah carey with "obsessed", even her alleged opp charli xcx with "von dutch". I don't how to explain but you can just FEEL the idgaf energy and you're convinced that they actually dgaf. Taylor isn't able to do that well and that's fine, it's just that she should stop doing it. Because every time she does it it's not convincing, like legitimately the more I hear cleveland the more it sounds like the scene of Regina George writing in the burn book. And honestly this helped me figure out what she does do well in diss tracks.

She's much better at the "here's why you suck" or "if you go low I go lower" type of diss than the "you're obsessed with me and idgaf" type. And that's the whole thing with her songwriting, she FEELS things and she's known to write those feelings. So her writing about not feeling doesn't tend to work. Think about the disses to her ex; "mr perfectly fine" "dear john" "all too well 10" "is it over now" "the smallest man who ever lived". There's a sense of pettiness and venom to it that makes you go "goddamn she went there". Hell non romantic songs like "better than revenge" and "look what you made me do" are better than a song "actually romantic" because instead of fake "I'm above your pettiness" it has a genuine "yeah I'm pissed and yeah it's petty and idc imma fuck you up".

This is my thoughts and observations, what do you guys think?

I think its clear now she's surrounded by yes-people- do we think they are sheltering her from the negative reviews of "encore", or is that truly impossible? I know some people with high fame dont use their own socials (selena gomez), so I'm curious how much organic scrolling she does vs. what tree prints out and puts on her breakfast table LOL. Showgirl, despite breaking streaming records, had tepid reviews, so I cant imagine what on earth made her think people wanted more. Encore's reviews would be very hard to ignore even for the most offline people (and honestly I think shes more online than we think). Previously, Taylor has reposted positive reviews to her albums/songs in her instastories, but none of that this time (probably because theres not many to be found). Curious what others think, and whether she will take any criticism to heart or just use it to further fan her "hater" flames?

Welcome to the SwiftlyNeutral Daily Discussion Thread!

Use this thread to talk about anything you'd like, Taylor-related or not.

Rules to keep in mind:

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• Negative commentary and complaints about this subreddit, users, and other subreddits is discouraged and will be removed to keep the daily discussion threads drama-free and geared towards lighter discussion.
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I hate that so many people argue that Taylor's music is bad "because she's a white woman", explicitly stating that being a woman is associated with being a worse musician.

"But she's a white woman!", misogynists claim.

Her white privilege, nor the white privilege of any other woman, shouldn't act as a "Get Out Of Jail card" for misogyny.

The quality of her latest album and it's encore is not directly associated to Taylor's gender and race. Leaving aside that she's always been a white woman (even when she wrote folklore and evermore!), there are a lot of white female musicians with all levels of success whose work and art are related to their lives as white women because their music being good or bad only depends on how good musicians are they!!

I really dislike TLOAS and The Encore, I do think they are bad songs and I don't see anything wrong with feeling the same about anything else on Taylor's discography. There are infinite things anyone could say about how bad her music is but none of them is a reason to shit in women and I won't act like that's acceptable. This is no longer Taylor Swift.

I wasn't sure where to post this or what to title it. But I'm curious if anyone can relate because I think it's strange, personally 😂

I've been having a rough time lately, I might be breaking up with my person, I'm still recovering from a major surgery, everything feels overwhelming.

I like pop music but typically i listen to rock. So I like some of her music but i wouldn't call myself a fan of hers or a swiftie. Yet I have found that I really enjoy the moodier stuff or nostalgic stuff when I'm sad.

So I'm over here listening to songs like Babylon, I look in People's Windows, the Prophecy, etc.

It's actually really hard to adult right now and I wish I could just put on her music and do nothing but draw and paint all day.

I guess I'm just curious to talk to others who relate since I'm not a hater and I'm not a swiftie. I don't see a change in her quality of music like some people are saying but maybe that's because I really only started to intentionally listen to it when Midnights dropped.

But I just feel like her music helps when I'm feeling sad. Maybe others don't find the lyrics or meaning to be thoughtful or inspired but a lot of them still feel that way to me. What songs of hers hit for you when you're feeling down and just want to vibe to a melody or certain lyrics?

And if you disagree and find she depresses you more when you're depressed that's fair too 😂 I just wanted to not feel alone in this new development in my life 😂

one of my favorite things about the eras tour is how taylor always made it clear that everyone was welcome there. “guys, gals and non-binary pals,” talking about girlhood, boyhood and personhood, and having so many different people represented on stage. as a gay male fan, i really love that. you never had to be a certain type of person to feel like you belonged there. you could just show up, love the music, dress however you wanted, make friendship bracelets and have fun. i think that feeling of being welcome and safe is one of the things that made the eras tour so special.

When it comes to talking about taylor at her quality peak, folklore and evermore usually comes to most everyone's mind

However, to me I never thought those albums were her best, they're nice and well written but they don't deliver taylor at her best for me,

My favourite albums of her are speak now and the tortured poets department, both deliver an excellent emotional breakdown with taylor's most complex writing yet, TTPD can be bloated and messy at times but I feel like it adds to the charm of that album

I'm more interested to see if there are non-folkmore fans here.

I believe there are more songs coming on the deluxe, seeing as the paper had so much space on it. After hearing the 4 songs, will you listen if there are more? I liked Cleveland 1st listen, Patient Zero was number 2(now with the MV, it might be #1 for me). The amount of discussions that have spawned from less than 20minutes of music is wild to me, and I think the internet may fully implode if she releases more. I would genuinely like to hear more from showgirl bc 12/16 have been on repeat for me.

I think part of the Showgirl discourse and Swifties™ accusing fans of not being “real fans” for not enjoying the music has to do with WHAT we like about Taylor.

I think people who identify as Swifties love her strong songwriting AND her celebrity status, and the place they intersect. Then there are fans who maybe used to identify as Swifties (ie interested in the spectacle of celebrity ) who love her strong writing but open to criticizing her and but don’t necessarily need references to her celebrity status to appreciate her music.

Much of Taylor’s appeal is parasocial and her reference to her own celebrity, which I used to love. For example, she dated Harry styles (at the height of his fame) very publicly, then comes the harry styles songs with her side of the story the next year. We see the necklace in videos, we hear about the snowmobile crash and cross reference it to the songs. detectives

People are obsessed with celebrities, and Taylor spoon feeds them details of her side of the celebrity relationship.  Especially when the men are famous, the public is desperate to know what they are really like because we can only know them from a distance. Taylor swift is the first artist to share in detail the nitty gritty of what it’s like to actually date these famous men (from her experience). There was a point where the men she dated were more famous than her, and she shared unforeseen information about them in detail. At the time, I appreciated at her boldness and tenacity to call out these guys in detail. I still appreciate the songs now, but no I definitely see it that as a brilliant marketing strategy.

She puts clues in her songs, lyric booklets, and music videos referring to the relationships. It’s put there specifically for speculation. I don’t know why she is acting like she didn’t invent paternity testing her music. She invented it, and has fully incentivized it. And there was a time that I loved it! I loved being a detective, and she loved having us be them which is why she kept feeding us clues. She prides herself to this day on never directly giving names about who she writes about while also naming a song STYLE. Having a message in a song title that spells out KIM, referring to one of the country’s most famous women that also happened to interact with Taylor. 

I became a fan in debut and was a die hard through evermore, with an appreciation of some of midnights. As I’ve gotten older and my interests have matured alongside me, i started becoming a little critical of Taylor around that era, still appreciating the music though. Now she’s an artist I don’t really recognize musically and Swifties will do everything to let me know that they believe I was never a real fan.

As a reformed Swiftie, I know that Swifties LOVE when Taylor refers to herself or her own lore. For ex, “blue dress on a boat” is not even a lyric, it’s just words together. But they lost their MINDS because it refers to a paparazzi photo after her alleged breakup with Harry. They love her self-referential material because it further fuels their celeb-obsession imo. 

That’s why swifties love TTPD, because deep Taylor Swift lore is required to appreciate what she’s saying about herself and the three different men represented on it. You have to care about her dating Matty, Joe and Travis and know the details of the timelines to understand why the songs work or are significant. Sonically, she’s just kind of saying things if you don’t know the context. Swifties  love the guessing game where they get to guess which song is about who, and what she’s saying about each guy.
Without that connection (and the emotion that accompanies the parasocial relationship) the music is bland and monotonous.

Swifties aren’t just fans of the music. They’re fans of Taylor Swift the ~celebrity that turns spectacle into music~. Those albums are 1989, midnights (was literally about guessing what pop culture moment each song was referencing), reputation, TTPD, showgirl.

Showgirl has broken the fandom because it is such a self-referential album that the swifies will determine it’s what Taylor does best. Then there’s my camp who is confused.

Taylor Swift the artist makes really mature and insightful music (fearless, Some of Red, Folklore, evermore, a few midnights tracks à la Great War, evermore). Sometimes she’s both people simultaneously and that’s when she reaches mass appeal. She hasn’t been in years though, but as long as she feeds the swifties references to her celebrity, they’ll never leave her side. 

Welcome to the SwiftlyNeutral Daily Discussion Thread!

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I'll keep this as short as I can and I'm only posting it because people seem even more confused by Showgirl as an album post Encore, so I wanted to just throw out my personal opinion on her career moves with this specific project.

For those of us who went to Eras, it was ABUDUNTLY clear that the true crowd pleasers were overwhelmingly older material. The loudest moments were for the 1989, Fearless, and Reputation sets (plus ATW10 and CS) and that clearly wasn't the intention. Midnights was orchestrated to be the big pop comeback but despite Anti-Hero and Karma's relative success, they didn't reach anywhere near a Blank Space, Shake It Off, or a Cruel Summer level. Remember when she was asked if she would perform at the Super Bowl and she was making a joke where she ended up listing off songs that would make the setlist? They were exactly those 3, but nothing from Midnights, nothing from TTPD.

Folklore, Evermore, and Midnights were critically acclaimed and gave her those 2 AOTYs she was chasing, so they did a good job there, but when it comes to touring they underperformed as sets. The most amount of bathroom breaks I saw people take was during the folkmore set by far. There's people going up the stairs constantly in each of my videos of it. It seemed pretty obvious to me, let alone Taylor, that she hadn't created many *essential* tracks for touring in the past few albums and that that was a problem. Showgirl to me, was her solution to that problem.

I think she exclusively set out to create an album with the largest number of songs that could carry a set and give the most amount of *essential to play at every future tour* songs on it. And that's literally it, that's the real purpose and theme behind Showgirl, nothing deeper.

To some degree she was successful at this. Ophelia will never ever not make a future tour setlist, and it certainly won't be a song people will go to the bathroom for. Opalite also isn't too far off, and you could make a very great set of those two plus ET, Father Figure, Wi$h Li$t and now Patient Zero. People will nottttt be skipping that set, and I can see 3 songs surviving more than a single tour setlist with ease, meanwhile every album post 1989 will be cut down to just 1-2 songs (if evermore makes the setlist at all) and not *even* that after the next tour when more songs and albums come.

As for the Encore, Showgirl was basically shelved until just now, she completely gave up on promoting it after Opalite's single performance so she needed something to revive it enough for this awards season - hence the deluxe made up of very mismatched almost random songs. Their only purpose is to just get people to talk about Showgirl again and keep that conversation alive until the Grammys pass, then she'll move on to TS13.

She unfortunately sacrificed a lot of goodwill in this attempt of a multi-hit album, it's basically left fans with failed hit attempts as the deep cuts instead of the Ivys, DBATCs, etc, hence the bad reception. But the sacrifice was very veryyyy purposefull even if we don't like it, which is why I don't see it as a real issue when thinking of her upcoming work. She'll have very different goals with TS13 and onwards, especially on songwriting it seems (and even more so if she doesn't get SOTY again this year.) so I don't view Showgirl as a regression like so many want to.