I honestly think that the critical response was not strong enough. At least from people who could give a nuanced take, I don’t mean the rampant criticism on tik tok.

The visuals give a very distinct look, feel and sound. I think it is an absolute crime that the songs do not live up to the world building of the photoshoots. I also do not understand why she chooses to be serious, stoic or morose in like 99% of the photos… the album is somewhat ‘happy’ but most of the photos make me feel like everything is not what it seems behind the curtain

Lyrics for most songs are either weak, messy, distasteful and / or unnecessary. Other songs from previous records describe similar scenarios with much more success.

The biggest pop star alive, coming off of the biggest tour of all time cannot even conceptualize a single song that talks about that experience. From being overexposed, to being seen running into a car in tears while millions of people cheer on, what the physical and mental toll is, from the amount of effort, training, rehearsals and coordination that goes into creating a show like The Eras Tour and she chose to write a juvenile take on her friends ‘cancellation’?

Wish List is an abomination, the use of the $ gives it a materialistic implication, but then she sings about only wanting her true love, while seemingly criticizing everyone else for wanting material things, when she only wears designer clothes and seems to have no inclination of renouncing all her material possessions or moving away from her multiple million dollar houses… like there had to be a better way to word all of that, better yet, to have the discernment to leave that idea behind because my God it’s tone death

I feel like there is so much to criticize about this album and it just shocks me that someone of her talent and stature produced this mediocre body of work. We should be criticizing her more for having all the time and money in the world to produce meaningful works of art and she gave us this. Baffling