My non-hot take on the new Taylor Swift album

On Thursday morning I brought my phone into Aidy’s room, started playing the first track of, “Life of a Showgirl,” Taylor Swift’s just-dropped album, and gently woke her up, saying, “Aidy! It’s out!” She turned over, her wild hair stretching in every direction (Aidy always looks, upon waking, like she got into bed at 3 am post-rave - a mess, but a glamorous one) and said, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.” That is how we began the day.

I loved this album immediately because it was catchy and surprising to me - because I had fun digging into lyrics about love and high school and Charlie XCX (as I’ve been told by fans more in the know than myself) and about, ahem, other matters. That is the crux of my positive review, which I recognize is lacking in substance in comparison to the full-fledged dramatic monologues I was instantly served on Instagram telling me - oh! - exactly how I should be feeling about this album. I am aware (quite) that there are a lot of opinions out there - valid ones, worth discussing.

But there are criticisms which feel unfounded, superfluous and like a stretch to me. Criticisms which feel less based on the actual art of critique, and more based on the modern day sport of catapulting oneself via viral hot-take to the status of successful online influencer. I suppose the most serious of these is that Swift should be taking more of a public political stance beyond last year’s endorsement of Kamala Harris, and in addition, is too consumeristic. My feelings (like all our feelings, right?) are biased on this. I’m overwrought by the current political moment, and reveling in any and all non-political distractions. I want Chuck Schumer to take on a stronger political stance, not necessarily Taylor. I’ve heard, too, that her songs sound like songs by other artists, which seems, to me anyway, like a purposeful theme of this album, including that she took care to note musical influences. My favorite parts are my favorites because of that reminiscent pull (the 70s-esque sway that begins “Ruin the Friendship”; Sabrina sounding like Dolly Parton - with accompanying guitar twang! - when she chimes in on “Life of a Showgirl”). I’ve even heard that her songs sound too much like other Taylor Swift songs — which, I mean, isn’t that what liking one particular musical artist is all about? That their music sounds like…their music?

But the rest of the criticisms, I don’t know! I’m sure they are quite founded. Maybe my issue isn’t so much about this particular album, or the content of all this wound-up commentary competing for my attention. I think my issue might just be the extent of it. The urgency with which it is disseminated. That I am so intensely weary of all this advice on how to feel and what to do about it. My online feed, which then colors all our real-life conversations, is so tirelessly insistent: telling me why I’m wrong about the album, why my cortisol is out of whack, how to instantly (magically!) lose weight. I’m as prone to all of it as the next person. My tendency to indulge in an endless scrolling spiral is why I take breaks from social media, deleting it completely from my phone. That I return to it is on me. One day, maybe, I’ll be smart enough to delete it forever.

Popular culture warrants scrutiny, always has, especially when it’s this popular. Yet, our current cultural juncture, in my opinion, leaves so little room - so little breath - for putting the phone down, thinking original thoughts. For letting the conversation rest a beat, for letting one errant thought lie. For listening. And, man, this Taylor album wasn’t out a second before everybody was all over it in ways I don’t think you can rationally be all over something so fast. Maybe she’s trolling us all in, “Actually Romantic.”

I’m not a music critic (please!) and I know it’s hypocritical to add my own voice to the chorus, but I thought there might be a few others out there feeling this way. Not that I don’t want to engage in intelligent conversation or anything. Just, like, “Gimme a sec. I am dancing.”

Ways to feel better: the soccer fields at the middle school

One of the (many, which I hope to explore in coming posts) unpopular opinions I have - at least I suppose that is what you’d call this, in that I think a good number of people feel the opposite way - is that I don’t like working at home. Taken a step further, I’d even say that (during the active hours of a regular weekday, anyway) I don’t really like being at home. Maybe it’s helpful to explain it slightly differently: I don’t thrive there. When there is too much solitude, with only my own mind’s hot takes on how everything is going in my life, and in the country, I forget that there’s a whole universe of living going on out there, beyond my front door. Maybe that’s ok. I stick to a to do list and am productive on both the work and home fronts, making my way through tasks and getting a load of laundry done, too. But sometimes I let a frustrating day cascade into a grumpy, or even sad, mood, when talking it out with someone, or just being in some other soul’s presence, would have helped me get some perspective; remember that everything is fine.

I’m an extrovert in the sense that I get my energy from others. That recharging is being around people, whether it’s simply being among them, in a bustling coffee shop for instance, or interacting with them: meeting a good friend and having a deep conversation, or socializing with a whole bunch of people at once.

It’s not that I don’t need time to myself, or that I’m not grateful for the opportunity to work at home a few times a week, which makes our busy family life possible. And it’s not that I don’t get that this at-home situation works well for others. It’s that (over the past few years especially) it has come to my attention that, in order to feel well and inspired and right, it is not ideal for me to spend my days alone in my house. Despite this - for convenience, when I have a lot of meetings, when I just don’t want to pack up my computer and charger and decide where to go - I find myself alone in my house fairly often.

When I emerge to pick up the kids or head to an after-school activity, I’m like: THERE EVERYBODY IS! And no place delivers this powerful antidote, this dose of positivity, like the soccer fields at our middle school, where Aidy’s team is practicing this fall. The parking edges up to a steep hill that leads to the fields beyond, and when you emerge from your car there’s this wide view of all the kids kicking their balls this way and that as they make their way to designated sections of the grass where their coaches and teammates are waiting. There are parents who stand or sit walk nearby, because a few times around the perimeter is a nice way to get some exercise in - and if you’ve got company, a good chat.

What I think when I arrive there is not only, “phew, we made it on time,” although - yes, that - but, “this world is organized and functioning and busy.” I remind myself, once again, to not work at home all day long. And when Aidy is done, all tired and happy, and she decides to kick her ball up the steep hill to our car, which is not a good idea because it inevitably falls back down to the field a million times over, prompting her to run after it and start all over again, I look out at the sky, working its way towards night, and I let her do it anyway.