Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department (April 19, 2024) Album • Page 101

next year is Rep TV and Debut TV

 

Fortnight featuring more Post Malone

 

Should just hold it all off and might as well release Debut TV in 2026

 

no that's the next new album

 

I know you're right, but please, NO!

"Fortnight (featuring post Malone [featuring Morgan Wallen])"

 

Based on the TS capitalist model I would imagine Rep TV would get the holiday sales push. So should be getting that as the tour is wrapping up

 

Starting to think the "Taylor is driving herself to overexposure as performance art to launch Rep TV" might not be the most ridiculous theory in the world.

 

I know I’m not a stan because I have no interest in ever hearing “first draft phone memos” of her songs.

 

The Twitter embed was borked but she's on her 'feeding fans scraps on digital editions to game another week at #1 in a country she isn't even from' bullshit again

 

This is me the more I think about that

I do not believe that clip of her and Jack coming up with the bridge to Getaway Car. Like why is the phone there.

 

And either her or her team seems to be blocking multiple artists who opened for her (Sabrina and Charli)

 

I mean, she is blocking every single artist who is releasing new music, I don't think it's fair to make it into some specific drama against certain people kinda thing

 

Fans will be saying "Is it over now?" And they'll want to go "back To December all the time."
I'll see myself out.

 

I swear I saw another new album version or two earlier today but I can't find anything about them online so maybe it's just a bad dream

 

Tour is officially ending in December

 

Call me when we get the exclusive bonus track edition featuring audio of Taylor's mom saying she wishes Kim Kardashian were dead.

 

Someone said on another forum that it sometimes feels like Taylor sucks the air out of the entire room and honestly that seems to be true especially this year. I first felt that way at the Grammy’s when it felt like things were a little off and after she announced the album there it felt like her peers in the crowd were not that enthused. Then all of her antics to stay #1 not just in the US but the UK too reinforced the “sucking the air out of the room” feeling.

She has had unprecedented success during and post-pandemic, was incredibly overexposed in 2023 and into 2024, and had a smash song that you could not go anywhere publicly without hearing at least once (Cruel Summer). Everyone has been talking about her. Everything she does is reported on by the news or gossip websites. She is on what will end up as the highest grossing tour ever. She has more money than 99.9 percent of people will ever accumulate in their lives. She is the biggest artist since probably Michael Jackson. It just feels tacky after all that that she’s pulling stunts like this. For what? Total domination in the music industry indefinitely? Because she feels it will be embarrassing if her album is not #1? Be side she feels threatened by other artists? I don’t understand.

 

What’s weird to me is that she is having to work this hard to keep the album at the top of the charts. Like, we’ve all talked about how she’s the biggest pop sensation since Michael Jackson, and I mostly believe that. But if that’s true, why can’t her album hold at number 1/maintain better week-to-week numbers in a more organic way? Like, say what you want about Morgan Wallen, but his album last year only dropped from 167,000 units to 166,000 units in its sixth and seventh weeks, and seemed genuinely unbeatable for months and months last year, ending up with 16 non consecutive weeks at the top, 12 of those in a row. And that album was still popping back in for random number 1 weeks this year, just because it kept streaming incredibly well. TTPD, in comparison, dropped from 175,000 to 148,000 between its sixth and seventh weeks. This week, it’s projected to do about 128K. Wallen’s album did 149k in its eighth week.

I guess my question is: why is the most popular and widely beloved artist of our age holding so, so much less well than a divisive country star that no one seems to think is anywhere near as big as Taylor Swift? Why is Taylor having to pull out all the stops to score lower eighth week numbers than an album that held at the top of the charts organically? Why is the album that sold 2.6 million copies its first week likely to fall well short of the chart dominance of an album that only did 501k its first week?

None of this is in defense of Wallen, an artist who I have a lot of problems with. But man, it’s just wild for me to actually compare these numbers and try to suss out the story they tell. Shouldn’t our biggest pop star be able to dominate without trying to get their fans to buy three more copies of her album every week? Especially since a supposedly much less popular artist was able to dominate in exactly the way she is trying to dominate, one year ago?

In the past, I would have just chalked this up to album length. Wallen had a competitive advantage over just about everyone because his album was 36 songs long. But Taylor’s album is 31 songs long and has 50 versions and it is sputtering in comparison. Kind of fascinating, honestly.

TLDR: Is Morgan Wallen bigger than Taylor Swift?

 

it's oversaturation. she's created a market niche only she can fulfill (releasing an album every 5-6 months with multiple bonus tracks and variants), but isn't innovating in a way that's gonna draw in any new listeners, so everyone except her most devoted listeners is gonna tune out. this is why she entices people to buy multiple copies. by selling people chunks of a larger whole (and staggering them), she guarantees chart success that she probably wouldn't get otherwise (especially when some people complain about the quality of the music compared to her older material, which doesn't immediately translate to radio success the way that it would on streaming). this is even considering the fact that her name recognition alone would still likely give her a number 1 album, albeit with fewer sales than she would like.

Wallen, by comparison, makes very middle of the road, sonically accessible music that gets a lot of radio push and streaming presence - stagnating releases and letting his listeners come in organically (even if there's a small push from his team to drive people to his music, which is how the industry works for any artist, even Taylor). he's not oversaturated in the way Taylor is, and despite his controversies (for the record, i despise the man and his music), he's not turning away people in his target listener base because he's not constantly demanding listenership, which might translate to bringing new listeners in as well.

again, if you have to work this hard to secure a number one album on the charts, you probably don't deserve it. take time off. stay out of people's lives. work on improving your music in a way that might bring in new listeners. generate hype organically. it just might pay off.

 

I’ll just never be at a point where I don’t want to hear from an artist I enjoy if they want to continue to put out the tunes. Couldn’t care less about the charts or who is blocking who or whatever. With all the flaws in a capitalist and exploitative society, Taylor’s release practices are never going to be something that registers for me.

that said, the wallen/swift comparison is super interesting from a “why one and not the other” comparison. I would agree that her sound, which I still love, hasn’t morphed past a certain stage these past few releases, which is why it might not have the staying power for some.

 

I can't recall a time where my feeling about an artist I liked was "I wish you would go away for a little while." And I didn't think I'd ever feel that way about Taylor, either. She made my favorite album of the 2010s. I eagerly anticipated her albums when she was on an every-two-years calendar. I got antsy for new music from her when she took three years between 1989 and Reputation. I was so excited when folklore arrived out of the blue just a year after Lover, and then just as excited when evermore followed just a few months after that.

Right now, though, I am feeling a little tapped out on Taylor, and I think some time and a clean break from her imperial phase would do everyone good. It's not even about disliking the music. I really like TTPD. I put on the vinyl last Friday evening and thoroughly enjoyed listening to those songs. But I have not felt as pulled back to it as I have to previous Taylor albums, and I think that's because I'm finally feeling the exhaustion of how inescapable she's been. It really is saturation: on the charts, on social media, on TV, at awards shows, in magazines, in the discourse in general, etc. I need a little breather.

I also just think that, if she wants to keep having "eras," she needs to end this one. She can pretend all she wants that every album is its own unique era, but if we're being honest, everything since 2020 kind of slots into the same "mega era." The lines between her albums used to be so distinct. Now, it's all just this soup of similar-sounding stuff. A few years off to get some perspective on this titanic five-year run, and then coming back with a team of collaborators she's never worked with before, would do wonders. Otherwise, I worry she'll slip further and further into this rut where the songs are good but they aren't doing anything new or challenging her at all. And I love Jack, but my god, he needs to not be in the picture for awhile.

 

I *personally* don't want her to go away but I do agree she needs to take a break for the sake of her own career. I feel the same way about Phoebe Bridgers taking this year off.

The speech she made at the Grammys makes it seem like she has no plans to stop churning out music though.

 

I think the main difference between Wallen and Swift is he writes singles that get massive radio play and somehow she's mostly just stopped doing that. "Anti-Hero" and "Cruel Summer" are outliers and have been since reputation.

I wonder the percentage of a "Last Night" or a "Whiskey Glasses" streams vs his actual full album streams to get those numbers.

 

If Taylor keeps releasing albums every few months, touring like crazy, I think that’s great for her fans, and no one but her peers would mind that.

She’s over saturating everything though with the multiple variants, random bonus tracks, etc every week, and no one’s asking for all those. I just wish she’d cool it on all of that stuff. If she wants to put out 4 different versions of the album out of the gates, sure. But leave it at that so we can all just chill and actually spend time with and enjoy the album she’s put out.

The constant merch drops, new bonus tracks, etc etc etc is just too much.

 

It’s crazy how fragmented everything is now. I hear nonstop about Taylor and the only exposure I’ve had to Morgan Wallen is a song that plays on my work radio station that I 100% wouldn’t have heard had I not worked there, but the numbers he pulls are insane. I don’t get it