SHE’S named her latest album The Tortured Poets Department but Taylor Swift has created this insufferable Tortured Parents Society – and I’m one who refuses to add a single digit to the one billion times her latest album was streamed on Spotify in just a week.
The reason? Folk like me are getting sick and tired of all this well-trodden ‘writing-about-your-ex’ trope. Her songs sound exactly the same and she isn’t a role model for the young girls who follow every step of her bejewelled knee-high boots.
Hannah Verdier has had enough of Taylor Swift’s breakup songs.
Credit: Olivia West – The Sun
The A-Lister is known for using her love life as inspiration for her music.
Credit: Getty
Recent barbed comments about the US megastar are, without a single doubt, music to my Tay-tortured ears and I have never been more hopeful that the tide is turning.
When Pet Shop Boys front man Neil Tennant, a bloke with 40 years of bangers in his back pocket, had the gall to describe her music as “disappointing”, it felt like an awakening.
Finally, real truths have been spoken by a man with true talent but, of course, and predictably, the Swifties piled on.
The backlash on social media includes comments such as: “another ‘who’ speaking on the GOAT” , along with a reminder of Blank Space, Shake It off, Love Story…
Greatest Of All Time? – more like Generic Old Album Time.
Meanwhile, Denise Welch of Loose Women fame took a veiled swipe at Taylor, remarking: “I wasn’t aware she had an album out at all,” as she laughed through gritted teeth. “I wish her all the best.”
Which mum wouldn’t come out fighting for her boy? It is, and I’m talking to the uneducated non-Swifites here, Denise’s son Matty Healy who T-Swizzle disses for his stature on The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.
Taylor cashing in on her ex’s flaws is, as her own song goes and her latest album shrieks, Nothing New.
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Once the hype surrounding her latest album subsides, so will the sales.
More parents should be like me.
Ms Swift is banned in my house – she’s like a broken record you just can’t shake off and I’d much sooner my daughters, aged 15 and 12, listened to the likes of Lizzo and Doja Cat, strong women with feisty, empowering songs.
Her songs are not female empowerment – they’re whining. Whinging about boys, whining about the press, whining about Kim Kardashian.
If Taylor’s madly in love one minute and bitching about her ex partners the next, what kind of an example is she setting to impressionable young girls? And don’t get me started on those toxic friendships where once close pals become frenemies whenever she feels like it.
I’m so glad my girls have better taste in music – I don’t want them to be sucked into this utter nonsense.
And when listeners tune in for the feuds – rather than actual quality tunes – there will inevitably come a time when the disses run dry and interest fades.
And when that time comes, where will this young powerhouse drag her material from then?
There’s a limited supply of names you can shame when you’re only 34.
And don’t give me, ‘spare a thought for the poor billionaire with two private jets and eight pads’, garbage.
It’s time she put her feet up, bathed in the glory of her success – but please could someone give her a one-way ticket out of here first?
It’s the Tay Tay Paylist
$4.1 Billion -Taylor Swift is personally expected to make from the global Eras Tour
£500 – Each Swifty is expected to spend on one of Taylor’s UK gigs (tickets, merchandise and more)
$1,327 – Each Swifty spent attending one of Taylor’s US gigs
0.09% – expected boost to UK GDP from the Eras Tour
1.1 Million – TS concert tickets estimated to have been sold in the UK
$320 Million – Estimated boost to LA’s GDP from just six TS tour dates there
£2 Million – ‘Grant’ Singapore reportedly gave Taylor for every date she played
On the sleeve notes of TTPD she says: “All’s fair in love and poetry” but it’s seriously dire when you’re suffocated by her latest dirge everywhere you turn.
I dare to suggest Taylor’s music is bland. To quote Doja Cat: “B*ch, I said what I said”. (is it me or does the whole album sound so samey, it’s like one song?)
Yet, her latest offering racked up three hundred million streams in one day and shot to number one on the Billboard charts.
Taylor is bigger than U2. It’s impossible to get your head around that she is a woman who is at the top of her game.
But every move she makes is calculated and that isn’t the key to longevity, not even in the music industry. I’m convinced It could well be her downfall.
Denise Welch takes a savage swipe at Taylor Swift after singer branded Loose Women star’s son Matty Healy ‘small’
Taylor Swift and her previous partner Joe Alwyn, who is thought to be the inspiration for her latest album.
Credit: Getty
Swifties have also claimed that songs on the album also make subtle references her Taylor’s alleged romance with Matty Healy.
Credit: Getty
And don’t get me started on the parasocial panic that erupts from her fans when someone dares to criticise their Blondie.
Oh, to go back to the era when you could be an obsessive music fan without causing mass hysteria when you said you didn’t like someone’s song.
Many will argue that I’m one of those “Sarahs and Hannahs clutching their pearls” that T-Swizzle refers to in But Daddy I Love Him. And I know her music’s not made for the likes of me: a 50-something mum with a penchant for Prince.
But am I really alone in wishing that she’d just do something more exciting?
There are plenty of young, female singers out there who don’t need to namecheck their ex’s favourite pub to get a hit: I’m talking about SZA, Doja Cat, Lizzo and Ariana Grande for starters.
Those are examples of women with real guts, soulful voices and talent that leave Taylor’s sappy songs in the shade.
I’d rather let my kids listen to Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s WAP than thanK you aIMee, the song where Taylor takes a break from man bashing to turn her attention back to her long-running feud with Kim Kardashian. Criticising a Kardashian? How very original.
Travis Kelce must be quaking in his American football boots, knowing their romance will most likely be the fodder for his girlfriend’s next revenge album once they come to their own tight end.
Or maybe not – because that could all change if Taylor’s army of adoring fans who keep her on that shaky multi-million dollar pedestal gave their heads a long overdue shake.
Taylor has since started dating NFL star Travis Kelce.
Credit: Getty
Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys was previously criticised for similar comments about Swift.
Credit: Getty – Contributor