Taylor Swift answers to nobody.
Not music industry executives: Her songs returned to TikTok in the course of a licensing dispute between the app and her label.
Not mayors: When she graced their cities during her Eras tour, they declared days in her honor.
Not the international community: A Singapore-exclusive stop in Southeast Asia sparked a row between the city-state and nearby Thailand and the Philippines. The Japanese embassy issued a press release about her Super Bowl travel plans.
And Swift doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon. She announced latest music inside minutes of winning her latest Grammy for album of the yr.
You might take all this as proof of Swift’s business genius, nothing personal. But in her latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, there’s definitely an “above all of it” attitude. These songs are snarly. America’s sweetheart may don’t have anything left to prove. But she actually has scores left to settle.
Swift is hardly a stranger to revenge. This is the songwriter, in any case, who brought us lyrics like “It’s obvious that wanting me dead / Has really brought you two together.”
But TTPD broadens her aggression and scorns the prospect of reconciliation. A small-town girl takes on her community over a controversial love affair and trolls her parents with a joke pregnancy announcement. A depressed performer boasts sardonically about how well she will sell happiness to frenzied fans. A girl seethes at being seen as a problematic starlet by her latest boyfriend’s circle.
There’s a track suspiciously much like an Olivia Rodrigo song (the 2 singers have a rumored feud). The title of one other appears to name-drop Kim Kardashian, an older nemesis.
Critics agree that the album is bloated, with “quality-control issues.” It could “use an editor.” My favorite celebrity blog, Lainey Gossip, noted in exasperation that there are “so many are skips. Too many skips with unnecessarily silly lyrics that weaken the lyrics which are clever and insightful.”
In each lyrics and length, then, TTPD reeks of the “teenage petulance” that Swift herself sings about. The problem along with her hubris here isn’t just aesthetic: an onslaught of stale arrangements with longtime musical collaborators, a plethora of visceral F-words, and one bewildering line. It suggests an artist either unwilling to just accept the wisdom of others, or bereft of it.
“Everything is permissible for me, but not all things are helpful,” Paul writes to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 6:12, AMP). He offers a variation on that theme in his letter to the Galatians: “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But don’t use your freedom to indulge the flesh; relatively, serve each other humbly in love’” (5:13).
Just because something is allowed—whether eating meat sacrificed to idols or putting out a 31-song record—doesn’t mean it’s prudent. True freedom, paradoxically, is created by limitation, dictated not by legalism but by consideration for others. When Paul lists the fruit of the Spirit, he includes self-control alongside love and kindness. Restraint isn’t just a non-public practice but one with ramifications for a complete community.
Again and again, Scripture teaches that we regularly don’t know what’s best for us; we’d like one another to discern what’s helpful and what’s not. “Listen to advice and accept discipline, and at the tip you shall be counted among the many smart,” says one in every of many Proverbs to this effect (19:20).
But where does Taylor Swift get her wisdom? Is it even possible to receive honest feedback at this level of celebrity? What happens when nobody in your inner circle is empowered enough to maintain you from publicly feuding with someone you already devoted an album to seven years ago?
Maybe there’s someone behind the scenes lovingly encouraging her to rethink her victim narrative or to take a pause before processing her personal life publicly. If there may be, she’s not listening.
Or perhaps Swift’s problem is less an absence of advisors and more an abundance of inappropriate ones: her fans. Some of her angst on this album is directed at individuals who try and speak into her decisions without authority, within the absence of real relationship. Take “But Daddy I Love Him”:
I’d relatively burn my whole life down
Than take heed to another second of all this griping and moaning
I’ll let you know something about my good name
It’s mine alone to disgrace
I don’t cater to all these vipers wearing empath’s clothingGod save probably the most judgmental creeps
Who say they need what’s best for me
Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I’ll never see
The fans may demand more music, track her every move, and obsess over her personal life. But even they aren’t really telling Swift no. She’s won their adoration, irrespective of what—TTPD obliterated Spotify streaming records. Last yr, hundreds of individuals watched TikTok livestreams of every Eras concert. It now not matters if Taylor Swift’s albums are “good.”
And yet, there’s still insecurity. As several high-profile negative reviews of TTPD circulated over the weekend, links to raves began appearing on Swift’s X account. Despite the album’s enormous success, her public image got here across as a girl who isn’t excited about feedback.
I flew across the country to attend Eras last yr. I used to be once in the highest 10 percent of all listeners of Midnights. I wore my Taylor Swift T-shirt last Friday to generate conversations with others in regards to the release. But as I texted a friend last weekend, I “just want more” for her.
There’s a type of freedom in songs with cringe lyrics like “You know how one can ball, I do know Aristotle,” and no stress about whether an album’s going to sell.
But freedom without introspection, and without accountability, quickly starts to appear to be foolishness and insignificance.
As even secular critics of TTPD concede, bypassing constraints may come at a value to your work. They also may come at a value to your soul.
Morgan Lee is the worldwide managing editor at Christianity Today.
