I have been as surprised as anyone might be who knows anything about my musical tastes to discover that I like Taylor Swift. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not hard core. I own only two of her records on vinyl, the pandemic era mega-hit Folklore, and the 2024 record store day release of The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology. I had streamed the latter a few times upon its release, streamed Evermore and Midnights maybe a half dozen times a piece, and that’s it. While I may not be full-on Swifty material, I must confess that when she released her new album (a 17-track double record) and simultaneously released to streaming services an additional 14 bonus tracks as The Anthology, I was unexpectedly excited, but I refused to buy it—because I KNEW that eventually the entire thing would be released to vinyl. I wasn’t going to fall for Swift’s characteristic marketing strategy, one that I find a bit offensive, that of releasing several editions of each album, tempting her most hard-core adherents to purchase the same record up to three or four or five times. So, I waited, and lo and behold, black Friday Record Store Day of 2024 brings the full package, a four-record set, 8 sides, 35 tracks, to vinyl, available exclusively (it’s a bitter pill, I know) from Target, the last place in the world from which I would ever consider buying music. Dear Reader, I ordered this thing from Target, against my principle of supporting independent record stores, and I received it in the mailbox three days ago, and I have listened to the entire album all the way through, all 35 songs, twice since then. And I like it.
Why, Michael Jarmer, (you might be asking) do you say all of this with a tinge of shame? Why is Taylor Swift, as you say, your guiltiest music listening pleasure? Do tell! All right, then, twist my arm. There are several reasons why you might think I would not like Taylor Swift, and for the same reasons I might try to convince myself I shouldn’t.
First, she does not fit into my general tastes. When I listen to her, I imagine to be found guilty, and immediately and without parole sentenced to prog-rock jail, or jazz rock jail, punk rock jail, art pop jail, experimental music jail, or power pop jail—any number of prisons for people who trespass against all that is unconventional in contemporary music. I have always been attracted to the weird, the strange, the experimental, or simply the phenomena of exceptionally skilled musicians playing at the peak of their abilities. Taylor may be relatively accomplished as a musician, and certainly surrounds herself with accomplished musicians, but her music belongs to none of these general descriptions of things that have traditionally floated my boat. She is pure pop, what I would have called top 40 music decades ago when such terminology made any sense. Maybe it still does, but I have long since stopped paying attention to charts and to radio.
Second, there may be legitimate criticisms of her music that might cause one to think that her music is “not good.” It’s bubblegum, critics claim, unserious music that appeals mostly to children and adolescents. Her lyrics, some may say, are sophomoric, full of cliché, limited in range of subject matter. Others may point to the fact that the instrumental composition of her music is totally subservient to the vocal melody. There are rarely instances when a listener might perk up in response to a riff, a groove, an inventive turn from a musician playing on the track. In fact, discerning an individual musician’s contribution might be difficult, if not nearly impossible, as the instrumental tracks tend to be a kind of wash or simple accompaniment behind the singing. The drums are usually programed or produced in such a way to sound programed. There are very few solos of any kind. It’s rare when the musical accompaniment does anything other than provide a chord structure and atmosphere for the melody. There’s that. And maybe, as a singer/songwriter, one who is somewhat prolific, she tends to repeat herself. Certain rhythmic and melodic structures in her singing are used again and again. On this last bit, I tend to be most forgiving, as I know from experience how difficult it is after years (for me, decades) of trying to write a NEW melodic line, one unlike I have ever sung before. Nearly impossible. I would guess that most musicians in the pop and rock realm, who are relatively unschooled, have difficulty not repeating themselves. And in some ways, it’s true that everything has already been done. It’s just a question of the artist lending to the tradition some unique aspect of their own voice or personality.
I want to go back to the lyrics for a moment, another reason why you would expect Michael Jarmer not to be a fan of Taylor Swift. Her lyrics mostly have absolutely nothing to do with him. And I do not know why I am writing about myself in the third person. Given that most of her songs are about love relationships, I have almost zero access. Since becoming an adult, I have been in love twice. I have been in the same committed relationship for 38 years, plus five if you consider the courtship. I mean, don’t misunderstand: I get the heartache that relationships can sometimes bring, even in long-lasting, committed ones, but only in imagination, or in nostalgia, do I have anything remotely like Taylor’s experiences in love, whether they be autobiographical or pure invention, nor, given my mostly unsentimental outlook, am I typically interested in these things. In my own lyric writing, I could count the number of love songs I have written on one hand, maybe two.
And I guess here’s a good transition into unpacking what appeals to me about her music. I access the emotional content of her songs in the same way I would watching a romantic comedy or a romantic drama in a film or in a novel—in my imagination. And so the first thing I will say about what makes Taylor Swift good (and I know that I have some company), is her ability to tap into the emotions of the listener. If one is open to the experience, some combination of lyric and melody often triggers an emotional response, touches that human sensibility, that empathetic string. Honestly, I often catch myself welling up. Suddenly, I’m a 60-year-old man catching the feels about an adolescent crush. She’s really good at this.
With few exceptions, like in the case where she uses the unforgivable phrase, “cut through like a knife,” her lyrics are not bad. They are often good, clever, sometimes funny. “You’re no Dylan Thomas. I’m no Patti Smith” is an objectively funny line. “You look like Taylor Swift/In this light/We’re loving it./You’ve got edge she never did/The future’s bright” are objectively funny lines. And you’ve got to hand it to her, she can rhyme like nobody’s business, in sometimes inventive and rhythmically smart ways. Her imagery is specific and visual. Her vocabulary is expansive. Her lyrics are often narrative, story-driven. There’s insight to be found, wisdom, but she’s right, (and I like this tendency of hers to self-deprecate), she’s no Patti Smith. Her lyrics are not literary in the sense that one does not have to do very much interpretive work to understand them—which is likely a trait that makes them monumentally accessible, even universal.
This may at first seem like a criticism, but it’s not: The records I have deeply heard of hers are uncompromisingly “easy” to listen to. At least in the last four albums, the production is slick, clean, and super palatable, the quality of her singing voice is soothing and intimate, the lyrics are always comprehensible, her melodies are pleasant and memorable, her vocal collaborations with other artists are complimentary. It is rare listening at length to get anything like ear-fatigue. Every once in a while, she’ll introduce some bombast, like the chorus in “Florida,” but rather than jarring, it’s a refreshing burst of rock and roll energy. And, as I would agree with some of the criticism that the instrumental aspect of her songwriting is not that singular, there’s plenty of ear-candy on her records that heightens interest. Even if those ideas were suggested by some Jack Antonoff producer-guy, I trust that she gave the final approval, and more likely than not suggested those things herself.
I am anticipating pushback from my readers and some of my anti-Swift friends and associates: You may ask, is it possible that Michael Jarmer’s favorable and laudatory position on Taylor Swift is the result of the nearly unrelenting and almost exclusively positive media attention showered upon her 365 days a year? You might say, Michael Jarmer has drunk the Kool-Aid. He has lost his critical faculties and has been won over by her celebrity and nearly 24/7 coverage in every possible cultural medium. He’s also found irresistible the image of her as something like a miracle; she has taken on almost mythical qualities as she has proceeded to shatter every musical industry record on the books. She is undeniably a cultural powerhouse of historical proportions. And she is just as undeniably a good human being. She seems, often, saint-like. She seems, more than most famous people on the planet, deserving of recognition and praise. Michael Jarmer is just smitten, you might say, so enamored by her bravery and goodness and generosity and power, and he was so convinced during the political season that she would save the country from itself, delusional really, that he has concluded that her music is as vital as her personhood. You may say, he’s just kind of obsessed with her. I mean, look, he’s mentioned her in almost 8 blog entries over the last several months!
Okay, let me respond, will you?
You may be right.
But I don’t care.
But you’re likely wrong. I think you’re wrong, or at least, not entirely correct. The pleasure I get from listening to her music still stands. The qualities above that make her musicianship admirable to me still stand. Even though all of those other things you cite are admittedly true and no doubt work to reinforce her significance in my imagination, the music stands for me in the way that the entire catalog from Coldplay after the second album could not, even if they were as impressive in all of the ways that Swift is impressive, even if Chris Martin was as beautiful.
Name another pop artist who has released an album with 35 songs on it that was this coherent, this cohesive. I can’t do it. I can hear some of you chiming in with 69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields. All I know, personally, is that I listened to that album once and then shelved it. You may say, and you’d be right, there’s no accounting for taste. I’m glad I wrote this essay, though, helping me dial back that twinge of shame all the way down to no shame at all.
michael jarmer 