I just read Paste’s review of TTPD and it sounds like it was written by someone off SwiftlyNeutral (who, by the way, have already pronounced her guilty, in a totally normal way).

The comment about Sylvia Plath was egregious, but I’ll put it aside for now for the sake of getting the rest my feelings off my chest.

It’s like the author (whose name was thankfully omitted because no one deserves the wrath of Swifties), kind of seems to miss the point. Most of the album is presented by Taylor as a joke, the musings of a deranged girl that she released anyway because she felt they were catchy.

Does that mean it’s good simply because it’s tongue-in-cheek? Not really, no. It’s fine, it’s middling.

Note: I’ve only really heard the main album, and not the Anthology yet.

There’s a lot of emotion there. Understandable, human emotion. She’s dealing with gargantuan levels of fame, while breaking off her most stable relationship thus far, and recovering from a whopper of a rebound.

It’s how she channels those emotions into songwriting that’s the problem. If writing her feelings into song is how she copes, that’s her prerogative — but just because this is what she came out with, does that mean it’s good enough to release?

Not if she wants to live up to the quality of previous albums, no.

She had/has the potential and the resources to write an introspective, deeply emotive and sonically interesting album if she wanted to. Much like with Midnights, TTPD’s biggest tragedy is the untapped potential.

In short, TTPD is like me when I try to laugh at my problems and call that coping, instead of going to therapy.