ISSUE XIX: DEATH OF THE TORTURED POET
applying french literary theory to taylor swift [not clickbait]
on april 19th, taylor swift will release her eleventh studio album, the tortured poets department. what does this mean? we’re not sure. why is it a department, of all things? who are the tortured poets? why is she now committed to this weird border in her album covers? will we ever get the re-recorded versions of reputation and taylor swift? can you really call something a new “era” when very little has changed aesthetically? and that’s not even addressing the strangeness of these album covers or announcement!
the biggest shock of all has been this tracklist, which was so ridiculous that when it first leaked, we thought there was no way it could possibly be real:
loml?? but daddy, i love him?! i can fix him (no really, i can)??!!! all together, it invokes a very 2014 tumblr aesthetic, which maybe should be expected from a millennial woman who writes poetry like this and was semi-recently linked to matty healy, a man who inspired halsey’s own iconic tumblr-famous lyrics: you were red / and you liked me because i was blue / but you touched me and suddenly i was a lilac sky / and you decided purple just wasn’t for you.
she’s been suspiciously quiet about this album — there have been no singles, no easter eggs, no televised appearances or magazine interviews. instead, a fortnight before the album’s release (fortnight also being the title of her upcoming collab with post malone), she released a series of apple music playlists of her past music representing the five stages of grief, successfully latching on to a popular fan theory that each ttpd album cover represented a different stage (despite the fact that she only released four?).
some of her most romantic songs (lover, sweet nothing, snow on the beach) have now been firmly shelved into the ‘denial’ stage of heartbreak, added to the list of songs about—in her words—“getting so caught up in the idea of something that you have a hard time seeing the red flags…” peace and cornelia street now represent bargaining pleas, rather than depictions of true, all-consuming love — too bad for everyone who walked down the aisle to one of those!
predictably, the release of these playlists has resulted in further discourse about her ex, joe alwyn, who has received constant harassment from swifties since they broke off their 6-year relationship. over the past week, swifties have determined that he 1) must have been cheating on her with his co-star and 2) she broke up with him via email (?), among other theories. and if her most loving songs about joe are now supposed to represent denial, this must mean she never truly meant them, right?…which brings us to the main act of this newsletter. y’all mind if we get into some french literary theory for a second?
the death of the author is a literary theory that argues that the meaning of a text isn’t determined by the author’s intentions or lived experiences, but instead by the individual reader’s interpretation. according to ronald barthes, readers must separate literary works from their creators; in his view, since we can never determine exactly what the writer intended, the author therefore exists only to produce (but not to explain) the work. while barthes’s theory was formulated for the world of literary criticism in the 1960’s, it’s not hard to apply this to the landscape of pop music today. how different would the experience of listening to ariana grande’s eternal sunshine be if we didn’t know about her relationship with mac miller, or her recent divorce, or her new, possibly home-wrecking, romance with spongebob? would lemonade have been as big of a cultural moment if we didn’t know about the heartbreak beyoncé was personally experiencing?
taylor swift has built an entire career off of being an autobiographical songwriter. it’s intentionally easy to trace her lyrical imagery to specific events, like her feud with kanye and kim, the fight to own her masters, or her snowmobile accident with harry styles. she tells us exactly which of her songs are fictional (death by a thousand cuts was inspired by netflix’s someone great; she created a fictional love triangle on her 3 songs betty/cardigan/august), in turn implying all of the others are “real.” if nothing else, she maintains firm control of her narrative, with an army of swifties to back her up.
there are many songs where context is critical. mitski’s your best american girl is about the experience of being a woman of color, and no individual reader’s interpretation will change that — but that exists within the text of the song, not just in the identity of its author. and in this day and age, we also have access to thousands of genius lyric videos, where artists directly explain to you exactly what they meant, like when princess nokia told us all about her small breasts, and her little frame, and her sweet little girl voice.
but when a song is simply about a feeling, does it need to be ascribed back to the writer’s life? if the musician’s life changes and they re-contextualize their songs, does that change the song itself?
the pop star is undeniably different from the author. for one, the career of the pop star depends on their image. to make it as a pop musician, you must establish a level of parasocial relationship with the public. taylor swift knows better than anyone the joy of inferring an artist’s life through their latest release, and her willingness to cater to her rabid audience has allowed her to become spotify’s most streamed artist of all time. the successful pop star understands that their fans WANT confession, and drama, and performance. but that doesn’t mean the pop star’s word is god, or that you need to ascribe the same feelings to yourself. ultimately, it doesn’t matter what the pop star thinks of their song — it only matters what you do.
is taylor swift really telling us that some of her most romantic lyrics (see: i’ve loved you three summers now, honey, but i want ‘em all) are nothing more than her musings in a state of denial, over three years before her relationship even ended? and more importantly, if she is, does it even matter?
IN’S & OUT’S
IN:
monkey movies (monkey man, godzilla x kong, etc)
audiobooks
being from alpharetta
OUT:
movies about children’s games. it’s ENOUGH MOVIES
that jojo siwa song (it’s IN in the sense that it’s stuck in our heads all day)
taxes... might be willing to forego representation alongside taxation
FAMILY CORNER
see you later!
popstars as performance art next pls. invoke susan sontag.
also you can't stop me from watching jumanji.