How do we digest music in the 21st century?
What is more important: listening to the album, or getting to be part of the discourse?
Last week Taylor Swift dropped her hotly anticipated album The Tortured Poets Department featuring 16 brand new songs followed two hours later by the surprise double album The Anthology with a further 15 songs.
Since then, the internet has been inundated with reviews, scores, verdicts and hot takes about the album.
But given it’s only been a week and a half, should we maybe slow down and take a breath?
‘How we critique music is broken’
In her article ‘Taylor Swift Is Proof That How We Critique Music Is Broken’ for Bloomberg, Jessica Karl argues that critics and fans alike need to push back against the fast-paced hot take nature of the internet and take more time to digest such a rich album before we arrive at our opinions.
‘Where’s the “delight” in staying up until dawn to finish listening to an album as if it’s a college paper we’re cramming to complete by the morning?’ Karl writes.
She doubts the ability of a critic to fully digest a two-hour double album of 31 songs in a mere matter of hours, which is when the reviews started spilling out of major music outlets.
It’s an instant classic ! It’s a 6.6 out of 10, unruly and unedited! It’s a five-star pleasure! It’s audacious and transfixing! It’s vulnerable but vicious!
It was even faster on the fan side of internet: the live reactions, first listen rankings, updated Taylor Swift album rankings, trending snippets and lyric sleuthing deep dives appeared on TikTok within minutes.
What is more important: listening to the album, or getting to be part of the discourse?
Then there are people like Channel 7 reporter Matt Doran who chose not to bother to listen to Adele’s 30 before interviewing her. Surely there’s something wrong with criticism if a journalist doesn’t feel the need to engage with the music at all? Is the scoop Adele herself? Does it even matter what the record sounds like?
Slow burns
I can assure you that I have listened to The Tortured Poets Department from start to finish. And, as the internet exploded in a far-off corner, my first instinct was that it would take some time to sink in.
Because, I do fall in love with some songs immediately. Sometimes I hit play on a new song and instantly my heart races and I know yes, this is the one! This song will fix my entire life!
‘Blank Space’ by Taylor Swift, from the second I hit play on that music video. ‘doomsday’ by Lizzy McAlpine, as soon as I heard the devastating lyrics (‘But the funny thing is I would have married you / If you had stuck around / I feel more free than I have in years / Six feet in the ground’) and my heart broke along with hers. When Jonathan Larson finally has his genius breakthrough in tick… tick… BOOM! and the song he’s spent the entire film trying to write ‘Come to Your Senses’ is really, actually, genuinely worth the wait.
But others take time.
‘Turning Tables’ by Adele was released in 2011. I heard it on Adele’s second album 21 and covered by Gwyneth Paltrow on Glee. I didn’t fall in love with it until I sang it myself in 2015. As I memorised the lyrics, I was hit by the vulnerability and rawness of the song.
Upon first listen of Olivia Rodrigo’s much anticipated sophomore album GUTS, I didn’t feel certain that she had lived up to the SOUR hype. Lead single ‘vampire’ didn’t stand out to me. But a couple of months after the album came out, I fell in love with the yearning of ‘making the bed’. I couldn’t tell you what I thought of it on the first listen. Only that sometime afterwards, there was a day where it clicked in my brain and became one of my all-time favourite songs.
In the summer of 2015 and 2016, I became obsessed with a new Broadway musical called Hamilton and its subsequent Tony Awards sweep was unsurprising. But, eight years later, I can’t remember the last time I put the cast recording of Hamilton on. Instead, I’ve listened to the Waitress cast recording, the Sara Bareilles concept album and the cut songs album all in the last month alone. There’s no denying the spectacle of Hamilton, but I can’t quite seem to shake the quiet honesty of Waitress and it’s stayed with me all these years.
Timely and relevant
When I wrote theatre reviews for ArtsHub, I was expected to turn them in within 48 hours of seeing a show. A review was only worth publishing while it was timely and relevant. If it was a short run, the pressure was even greater to get the review out before the show closed.
This is true of everything: theatre, music, literature, etcetera. It must be new and hot off the press! Last year’s crop is old news! Put it out to pasture!
Often, it was fine to write a review that quickly. Deadlines are useful motivation. It was good to write about a show while it was still fresh. But occasionally, I would have appreciated some extra time to consider things more deeply.
While I am in favour of taking the time to soak up music for as long as I can, will publishing ever be?
‘Please don’t be in love with someone else’
So I can’t tell you what I think of The Tortured Poets Department just yet. Ask me in a couple of months.
I can tell you that when I saw Taylor Swift perform at The Eras Tour in Melbourne two months ago, I fell in love with a fourteen-year-old song called ‘Enchanted’. Imagine, if this song had disappeared as soon as Speak Now wasn’t the hottest thing on the block anymore, I wouldn’t have gotten to have such a sparkling night.