Taylor Swift and the delusional freaks who write about her
If you wanna review her Lover, you gotta get with her friends.
Hello!
You probably signed up for this newsletter assuming I’d be writing about ROCK MUSIC, and yes, I promise I’m gonna do that, but I also promised that I’m gonna unnecessarily run my big fat mouth and get myself in trouble so let’s do a bit of that today, yeah?
I can’t stop thinking about these tweets from Taylor Swift™ in which she quoted and thanked a bunch of writers who said nice things about her new album, [INTERN, LOOK UP WHATEVER HOKEY SHIT SHE TITLED THIS ALBUM AND INSERT IT HERE].
There are a lot of funny things going on here, chief among them being that apparently, even in the fading age of music journalism, Rolling Stone could afford to deploy a team of at least THREE PEOPLE to cover this fuckin album. Not to be all They Used To Be Better Back In The Day guy, but didn’t Rolling Stone once make a name for itself as the bastion of counterculture? I read the Jann Wenner biography this year and found parts of it inspiring, namely that they turned their writers who cover rock stars into rock stars in their own right. And now, 50 years later, they’re out here being lapdogs for the biggest pop star in the world. Weird!
But weirder than Rolling Stone tryna squeeze clicks out of the Taylor stone is the way these writers have reacted to being included on The Swift List (which sounds like a list Taylor keeps of people she plans on having murdered... a list she most definitely does have!!! haha I’m just joking please don’t kill me Taylor). Most of what I’ve seen on Twitter are these writers—grown-ass adults, mind you—responding to the Taylor shoutout with that type of “yaaas queen thank YOU goddess let me know who to sacrifice and i will do this for you sweetie” psychobabble. I have been swarmed by the Swifties on Twitter before and let me tell ya, one thing that’s clear is there is a scary brain-poisoning that comes with rabid Taylor fandom, and these writers have clearly drunk her death cult poison as well. Whenever I picture these people in real life I think of Connor O’Malley’s absolutely batshit Howard Schultz supporter character.
(I just want to note here that even though he was thanked, I am excluding Craig Jenkins at New York Magazine in this because Craig is cool. Read Craig’s writing!)
Shawn Cooke at The Outline covered Taylor’s cozy relationship with the press pretty well around her last album. His article did a good job of identifying the problem—that Taylor and her team have become all too good at understanding the minds of music writers. They recognize that the music press isn’t some powerful elite entity making decisions in smoky boardrooms, it’s just a bunch of underpaid indoor kids who have way too many cats and whose only motivation is the occasional guest list spot and to Instagram flex on their peers. Taylor’s PR team has also realized that among these bedroom bloggers are a bunch of diehard Swifties who are just like Taylor in that they are also perpetually mid-breakup narcissists who shop at Target. So all Taylor has to do is occasionally throw this core circle of lunatics the smallest of bones—maybe invite them to a VIP party where they are roped off and quarantined from the non-freaks but are let out for 30 seconds to sit at the cool kids table and snap a selfie. They are so awestruck just to be out of the house and wearing pants after 7 PM that it’ll buy Taylor favorable press for an entire album cycle. You catch more flies with honey, and this method has proven a lot sweeter than suing her critics.
I dunno. Maybe I shouldn’t be so bothered by these professional Taylor freaks. Everyone gets into music writing for different reasons, right? I personally did not get into it to write admat copy for multimillionaires, but hey, that’s me. Although now that I think of it, I guess I have been quoted on those little stickers that go on the front of album covers. Jeff Rosenstock once put a sticker on one of his records that just said “‘New.’ - Dan Ozzi”. So I guess I’m just as guilty as the mid-40s writer guy who probly went out and got a full backpiece tattoo of Taylor’s thank you tweet.
Of course, no one has to take my advice. I’m just some nobody with a newsletter (thank you for subscribing to REPLY ALT, music’s only newsletter!), but if any of these writers want my two cents, I guess my message is.... WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS YOU ABSOLUTE WEIRDOS? YOU DON’T HAVE TO! TAYLOR IS NOT GONNA BE YOUR FRIEND AND YOU LOOK LIKE A BUNCH OF CLAPPING SEALS! STOP TRYING TO BE COOL! Honestly, if you’ve aspired to be a music writer your whole life and the thing that gets your fingers moving is a new Taylor Swift album, you ain’t cut out for this, dawg. I’m sorry.
Alright that’s enough Taylor Talk for this year. Now let’s all go acid wash our brains clean by listening to some Motorhead or something.
—Dan
Also, I should mention: One time I made an image of Taylor Swift in black metal makeup at my old job and some t-shirt company jacked it and started making a bunch of money off it without asking. It’s actually a popular shirt now! I once saw Pete Davidson wearing it! From SNL! That said, the top image of this email was made by yours truly so don’t make shirts out of it without my permission or your face is gonna be like Taylor Swift’s fourth album………….. 1989! Ah, fuck, I meant “red.” Goddammit. Send.