Taylor Swift: Red

This week, dearest readers, I’m listening to Taylor Swift’s 2013 release Red.

I’m considerably bummed out about this.

I’m also considerably bummed out that I like the intro of the first song. Where the hell is my mug...

Oh fucking damn it, this opener is actually catchy. DAMN IT DAMN IT DAMN IT. My only solace is that “catchy” does not equate “good.” There’s maybe like seven layers of audio here. Nothing too complex. Definitely has sing-along quality to it. I can see why young girls like this shit so much.

I think the real disappointment is that so many people like these LYRICS. Literally any literate high schooler could write the text for Swift’s song. Why is Taylor Swift paid so much money for being vocal and cute and blonde?

Wow, this song is actually a million fucking years long. How many times can Swift sing, “I never saw you coming / I’ll never be the same / This is a state of grace.” Please shut up. “Love is a ruthless game unless you play it good and right.”

ALRIGHT, LADY. I don’t know who in the shit taught Taylor Swift what love was and how it is to be handled, but they did an absolutely terrible job.

My lava lamp is doing crazy things right now. It’s in the weird stage of heating up when it takes kind of gross shapes and just hangs around, waiting to get hotter. There’s a really large chunk with this weird stringy tail thing. It makes me uncomfortable to look at, so I guess I could get back to the music.

It’s just kind of really silly to make an album completely filled with love songs. It strikes me as vapid to only think of another person to the point that your feelings for them are the only thing you can write about. Do you entertain any other thoughts? Or do you only exist for the person that makes your stomach all flippy-floppy? Get reeeeal.

Oh goody--“Red.” Wow, how creative to compare feelings to colors, even more original to compare the feeling of love to red!

Ohhh, the opening of “I Knew You Were Trouble” strikes rage into my heart. That repetitive, uncoordinated guitar pluck over and over again. FURY. THIS SONG WAS SO POPULAR WHY? WHY?! Oh my God, “the drop.” I’m actually going to vomit. Who produced this? Who decided to boldly add mild dubstep to mild country with a lot of pop soft rock tossed in? Someone stop the madness. Jesus Christ. Have I ever listened to a song so completely uninteresting? I don’t think I have.

Oh goddammit, I just realized Spotify is going to recommend so much shit to me based on my listening to Red. Oh, I’m so sad.

“It feels like a perfect night / To dress up like hipsters / And make fun of our exes / Ah ah ah ah.” Allllrighty, if you wanted to just stop right there, that’d be great. Oh, you’re going to keep going? Oh. Okay.

It actually makes me really sad to think about all the synths wasted on this album. What a colossal waste of truly transformative technology.

It’s definitely just my opinion, but I would tell Taylor Swift to her face that she has not made a single noteworthy song in her entire career. The only reason her smash-hit “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” was popular was because people recognized that the intro was stolen from the melody of “Pinch Me” by Barenaked Ladies, and that’s a song many of Swift’s listeners have known their whole life. Subconsciously, they connected to Swift’s song immediately and were like, “Yeah, I dig it.”

Dear Lord. By the end of this album, I’ll know more about Swift’s romantic relationships than my own. She writes about literally nothing else. This album is so shallow I can’t even comprehend it.

OH MY GOD THEY INCLUDED A RECORDING OF SWIFT LAUGHING AT THE END OF “STAY STAY STAY” I AM INFURIATED.

But now that I have reached “The Last Time,” let us discuss the versatility of Swift’s music. Ahhh and the repetitive, four-chord guitar riff. And the barely noticeable bass. And the entirely unsatisfying, non-noteworthy percussion. I have no musical talents and I’m sure that I could recreate this entire album in a span of a month if I really worked at it.

It actually blows my mind that Taylor Swift and Daft Punk were both nominated for Best Album in 2013, and when the announcer started to pronounce the “R” in Random Access Memories, Swift was so fucking expectant to win. She heard that "R" sound and was like “Oh, it’s in the bag! It’s in the hole!”

Here's a rather poor quality of her reaction, which never fails to amuse me/piss me off an extensive amount:

...Did she ever even hear RAM? She must not have, to think she even had a chance of beating Daft Punk for best album. Or she’s entirely delusional. It actually makes me mad that she thinks so highly of her music to place it on the same level as RAM.

Oh frick, I just realized I’ve been tuning out a majority of this album. Which I guess is what most people have to do in order to listen it all the way through. Why in the name of Satan is this album 16 tracks long?! How many times can Taylor Swift express her feelings of regret for lost love, her excitement to be youthful and privileged and living a life of perfect ease?

Haha, the song just changed, and for a moment I was like, “Oh, this punky guitar, that’s interesting,” and then I was like, “Oh, this a commercial for The Black Lips.”

“We could get married / Have 10 kids and teach them how to dream.” For the love of all that is sacred, Taylor Swift, please do not put your genes back into this world 10 times. Please do not do that. No one is asking you to, no one wants you to. Even if it kills your music career I don’t care, do not reproduce.

“I think it’s strange that you think I’m funny ‘cause he never did.” Yes, please form all judgments about yourself based on what a previous boyfriend said. That is the best way for young girls to develop a sense of self. I am so super pumped that Taylor Swift sang these lyrics to the millions of teenage girls that bought her album.

There is not a single song on this album that has to deal with Swift as an individual human being. Not a single track explores how she views herself, or how she sees the world, or what she thinks about anything (not like I care about her opinion anyway, but still). This entire album is about obsessing over boys and making a relationship your entire life, your whole existence. That’s so maddening that I want to smash Taylor Swift’s tear-stained guitar and then her face.