Taylor Swift covers the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly. She’s speaking on her own behalf again, yay! And the interview is just a reminder that everything is just… a lot better for everyone when Taylor gets to earnestly explain her motivations, her vision, her music and mindset, all without having to be filtered through a dark-snake public silence. In fact, most of the interview is about how Taylor communicates with the Snake Fam wordlessly, through Easter eggs embedded in Instagrams and fashion choices and more. Yes, she’s doing it all on purpose. Some highlights from Taylor’s EW cover story:
On all of the Instagram clues about her album: “I figured they’d figure it out later, but a lot of their theories were actually correct. Those Easter eggs were just trying to establish that tone, which I foreshadowed ages ago in a Spotify vertical video for ‘Delicate’ by painting my nails those [pastel] colors… I’ve trained them to be that way…I love that they like the cryptic hint-dropping. Because as long as they like it, I’ll keep doing it. It’s fun. It feels mischievous and playful.”
The fans are responsible for her return to twee & sugary: “It’s definitely the fans that made that tonal shift in the way I was feeling. Songwriters need to communicate, and part of communicating correctly is when you put out a message that is understood the way you meant it. reputation was interesting because I’d never before had an album that wasn’t fully understood until it was seen live. When it first came out everyone thought it was just going to be angry; upon listening to the whole thing they realized it’s actually about love and friendship, and finding out what your priorities are.”
On Takedown Culture: “I would look out into the audience and I’d see these amazing, thoughtful, caring, wonderful, empathetic people. So often with our takedown culture, talking s— about a celebrity is basically the same as talking s— about the new iPhone. So when I go and I meet fans, I see that they actually see me as a flesh-and-blood human being. That — as contrived as it may sound — changed [me] completely, assigning humanity to my life.”
There’s emotional content on the new album: “There’s a lot of a lot on this album. I’m trying to convey an emotional spectrum. I definitely don’t wanna have too much of one thing…. You get some joyful songs and you get the bops, as they say.” There’s also, she adds, some “really, really, really, really sad songs,” but “not enough to where you need to worry about me.”
Brave to be vulnerable: “This time around I feel more comfortable being brave enough to be vulnerable, because my fans are brave enough to be vulnerable with me. Once people delve into the album, it’ll become pretty clear that that’s more of the fingerprint of this — that it’s much more of a singer-songwriter, personal journey than the last one.”
Taylor on balance & the curated life: “Our priorities can get messed up existing in a society that puts a currency on curating the way people see your life. Social media has given people a way to express their art. I use it to connect with fans. But on the downside you feel like there are 3 trillion new invisible hoops that you have to jump through, and you feel like you’ll never be able to jump through them all correctly…We’re always learning, and that’s something that I also had to learn — that I’ve got to be brave enough to learn. Learning in public is so humiliating sometimes…. Do I feel more balanced in my life than I ever have before? Um, probably yeah. But is that permanent? No. And I think being okay with that has put me in a bit of a better position.”
So not only did she get away with never having to explain the anger and rage of Reputation – most of it directed at the people who dared to call her out for the Kanye fiasco, and Kanye himself – she’s now recontextualizing the lyrics and messages from years ago. I mean, clearly, Reputation was a lot of different things all jammed together, and that’s why I always said that the album suffered – there wasn’t actually one coherent message, there were love songs and rage songs and revenge songs and more. But years after the fact, Taylor wants to explain Reputation as just about love and friendship, and you had to see her in concert to understand the giant stage snake, peeps. As for this new album… I’m assuming it is more of a coherent message throughout, and I would assume – judging from her choice of the first single – that it’s a musical regression. But we’ll see.
Thank you for such a wonderful experience @EW – I loved getting to talk with @AlexJSuskind (yep I said it, I did an actual interview with a human journalist!! 🎉) Wanted to rep as many things/people I love on the jacket 💗 and more in the interview. https://t.co/C6dtAPFgfF pic.twitter.com/zp0IiEPTn2
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) May 9, 2019
Photos courtesy of Entertainment Weekly.
1) Her makeup looks SO BAD on this cover. What’s with that bronzer???
2) I can confirm as someone Swiftie-leaning that her fans are generally NOT amused by the “Easter Eggs” at this point. She hasn’t confirmed what anything from her video means yet and fans are getting restless and annoyed that it’s just an obvious way of getting more views on her music video. She used to put messages in her liner notes and that stuff was cute, but this is excessive. Not to mention the fact that TELLING everyone there are Easter Eggs sorta makes it lose its magic.
3) The fact that she is regularly recontextualizing her lyrics is exhausting. As an artist who prides herself on “diary-entry” writing, shouldn’t she just freaking stick to what she said and mean it?
I’m also quite Swift leaning, at least when it comes to get music, and I wish she wouldn’t talk about reputation now. because she still refuses to speak directly about the incidents and what made her so angry and why, except vague things about people being mean to her and lying about her. 🙄
and when she posted that people hadn’t found all the Easter eggs and to keep watching, it seemed like such a shameless plug to get people to increase the amount of views.
Her construction of narratives and intentions that we know are false seems sociopathic. I think about how weird it was when she would say certain songs are about people but they were recorded before they met.
Has she really done that, Basi? LOL, I hadn’t heard that before, but that’s wild. I basically think she writes certain songs, or at least comes up with concepts beforehand, and then finds guys who will knowingly or unknowingly play out those ideas on camera with her, therefore creating “easter eggs” in her songs about who they’re about. I think as often as possible she picks the narrative first and THEN shows it off in public.
yeah, I can think of NUMEROUS times that she’s shifted her narrative and is blatantly not telling the truth, and I just want a reporter to call her on it.
The whole “I trained my fans” comment reminded me of Ramsey Snow’s “Training” of Theon on GoT. So yeah, she comes off a bit sociopathic to me.
@case, that’s one of the reasons the kaylor and diana Agron theories make sense. And when she started noticing the fans question the songs, she makes her beards do certain thing or wear things she described in her songs.
I think she tried on the Snake boots and found out that they’re actually too big for her. A grown up snake has to actually take responsibility for what she does. Pastel Pink ” Who me?” Barbie can innocently suck on her lollipop and spout deep sounding platitudes that sell millions.
She’s comfortable in this role and obviously has found a niche that works for her. It’s smart business to not change it. Watch this album be more successful.
Ouch! Harsh, but not wrong.
Nail on the head
I could never articulate my hate on her, now you did it for me, thank you very much. She seems like a very manipulative person.
So her fans are the ones to blame for the sugary overload? Sigh. “Look what they made me do”
Ha! Love it.
My kids are obsessed with “me”
The one year old basically starts tap dancing with his little feet the moment it starts
I’m obsessed with it too! I don’t particularly like Taylor (actually, I dislike her) but that song is a hit. I don’t care if it’s a musical regression, it’s fun to just listen to an uncomplicated song and dance around and enjoy life.
I agree her songs are catchy pop tunes and I actually like a few including Me. What irks me is when she tries to pretend to be deep and let us know how complex her music is. That and the fact she is still dressing and behaving like a 7th grader.
She’s exhausting 🙄
yea, still waiting for her to grow up.
She is such a phoney. Phoney baloney.
Does anyone else find the top pic weird? Like what is she doing with her hand? I zoomed in to see and now it cannot be unseen. It looks like she’s holding a snake … ok, it looks like a penis.
Anyone?
I see what you mean but I think it’s just the fabric of her dress bunched up in her hands.
Both top picks look like she’s holding a peen.
I just really don’t like her.
Tay, sweetie, they are fans, not dogs. Not a great way to phrase that at all. And I’m sure all the fun of watching people try to figure out these clues is made even more fun when sitting on a pile of money that all her trainees spend on merch related to the clues alone. I like Taylor but this is so transparent, and not in a good way.
Trained them? This gives a lot of insight into how she views herself and her world.
I am always amazed at the ire TS inspires here. I think the little “clue” game she plays with her fans is cute – I don’t follow it, no way I can get that deep into fandom, but it does seem clever and fun.
Me too. They complain and complain about how “she’s so exhausting” and should “just go away” yet keep coming back for more. lol
She has mean girls in training.