REVIEW: Taylor Swift's new album is 'light-weight pop, slightly self-indulgent'
Music critic Sean Brokensha reviews Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’. It’s not great, is his unpopular opinion.
Taylor Swift performing on the Eras Tour. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Paolo Villanueva
John Maytham asks music critic Sean Brokensha for a review of Taylor Swift's new album, 'The Tortured Poets Department'.
On Friday (19 April), Taylor Swift dropped her new album, The Tortured Poets Department, with 15 bonus tracks, meaning fans got a secret double album.
The album exceeded 300 million streams on Spotify in less than 24 hours after its release. Swift also broke streaming records on Apple Music and Amazon Music.
The 14-time Grammy award winner now holds the three biggest album debuts in Spotify history, surpassing her record with Midnights and 1989 (Taylor's Version) last year.
RELATED: Taylor Swift hits over 300 million streams in less than 24hrs
Maytham (who has listened to the album twice, believe it or not) says in an industry where music moguls determine an artist's identity and the type of music that's made, Swift took control of her music, voice and who she wants to be as a woman while smashing records 'into smithereens'. It is, he says, 'extraordinary and admirable'.
However, Brokensha has an unpopular (but honest) opinion about the album.
"The nicest thing I can say about it is that there are 31 songs that will be meaningful to people who love Taylor."
- Sean Brokensha
Nice part over... (Swifties, look away); Brokensha explains what's left him 'disappointed' about the album.
"... a little bit disappointed... clearly not enough time between album cycles and other things... so to come out with an album as dense as this with so many personal stories feels like it's lent from her producer Jack Antonoff; he's worked with names she seems to be copying like Adele, Lana Del Ray, Ariana Grande..."
- Sean Brokensha
Brokensha says that Swift seems to be mimicking other artists.
"I can see what she's tried to do... she's clearly tried to make an album explaining who she is in a creative breakthrough but it has been done before. I can see that Taylor is mimicking Canadian pop idol Alanis Morrissette with what she has done with 'Jagged Little Pill', but you don't do it over and over again in a whole album".
- Sean Brokensha
Brokensha, though he can't deny that people love it, thinks it's 'light-weight pop, middle of the road and slightly self-indulgent'.
"If you listen to it and you know nothing about Taylor Swift, you'll think... oh, it's light-weight pop, middle of the road, slightly self-indulgent... in terms of song-writing, you look at the lyrics and it's strings of metaphors that don't mean that much and aren't actually that relevant".
- Sean Brokensha
"I think we've heard more about Taylor Swift's boyfriends now than we've heard about Adele's boyfriends and THAT is breaking a record in my opinion."
- Sean Brokensha
Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the full conversation.