Does Swift Deserve All The Critics And Hate She’s Getting This Days

Mostly, when I write music criticism, I write about things I like. I write about things I like not because I am apprehensive about the reaction when I dislike something, but because I approve of what happens with language when I feel strongly. Praise makes for good prose. Recently, though, I thought I might test the waters and write about somet

hing I disliked a good deal. My hypothesis was simple: Maybe, occasionally, a violent distaste can make for interesting prose, too.

ve had about various musical phenomena since last summer) was the usual hortatory stuff: shout-outs about a Los Lobos show I saw last summer; about the new Young Fresh Fellows album (great! buy it!); about the breakup of the band called the Books; a brief attempt to connect Owen Ashworth (of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone) to Raymond Carver and so on.I will admit that in attempting to describe the bludgeoning I feel when I experience a Taylor Swift song, I did engage in some rhetorical flourishes that feel rhetorically showoffy: “These songs actually do sound to me like what the undead would sing if they were capable of singing,” or:

“Taylor Swift makes music about as interesting as Olestra-based products, or Swiffers in multiple colors, or tiered Jell-O dessert products, or milk from China that has lead in it, or home cosmetic surgery or rectal bleaching.”