Flaphead 🎧Sep 30, 2025·1 reply
ray of lightI was a big fan of Speak Now - 1989
Same. her best phase
Speak Now... an album!
I remember biking to pick that up at Target on release day, my buddies giving me s*** and my 16 year old ass being like well, f*** it, the music's good, and absolutely cranking Back To December and Enchanted on my iPod
Never Grow Up f***s me up to this day too. Insane song to have written at 19, hearing her sing it again on the re release and reflecting on my younger self along with her
I'll always vouch for that album
bmass 🇵🇭Sep 30, 2025·1 replyFlapheadI remember biking to pick that up at Target on release day, my buddies giving me s*** and my 16 year old ass being like well, f*** it, the music's good, and absolutely cranking Back To December and Enchanted on my iPod
Never Grow Up f***s me up to this day too. Insane song to have written at 19, hearing her sing it again on the re release and reflecting on my younger self along with her
I'll always vouch for that album@Camille more people are waking up
Speak now is a classic
- Flaphead 🎧Sep 30, 2025
The other thing getting me excited is they're saying Father Figure is either a George Michael sample or cover and either way f\*\*\* yeah
- Flaphead 🎧Sep 30, 2025bmass
@Camille more people are waking up
Speak now is a classic
OPSep 30, 2025·1 replyFlapheadI'm kinda on the fence between your POV and optimism tbh. For reference, I was a big fan of Speak Now - 1989, mixed on the first two and Rep, still hate Lover lmao, and got back into her in earnest with Folklore (her best) and onward. I really have enjoyed her entire 2020s catalog in all honesty, even with TTPD being weaker especially in the second half
That said, this has felt like a very strange rollout and the closer we get to release, the more I'm suspecting the initial leaks threw the plans off and this was meant to be a week or two prior announcement with much more mystery around its contents. Far be it from me to judge a pop album off its rollout alone, but it's f***ing Taylor Swift and the week of the release shouldn't feel like "oh yeah, she's dropping Friday" lmao.
My optimism comes from Max Martin, the tacit acknowledgement of less being more this time around with the whole "no deluxe this time" thing (I don't believe her but still) and the overarching feeling of "there's no reason for this to exist if it isn't a statement". I loved I Can Do It With A Broken Heart and wanted more of that sound, so I'm hoping that's what we're getting.
My concern is... what the f*** are we getting with no Jack Antonoff, what feels like half-assed promo in spite of a maximalist (and imo kind of ass) art design and theme, and barely a year past the last record? Why is she doing a movie/premiere in IMAX and forcing Target to open at midnight? The relative promotional silence was interesting for something called The Tortured Poets Department when we all expected Reputation TV, but this time it feels much more hollow and jarringly unintentional.
Doesn't help that imo the main cover is the s***tiest of all of the variants, I get that she's going for the Ophelia thing but the bathwater looks dirty lmao
to ur last point the whole reasoning can be just chalked up as album promo no? Why else would she do it
Im p sure many of her fans just see TTPD as more of a b side release that she just wanted to put out and not much else. Especially given the fact that she was still in the middle of her tour during its release and shows the lack of promo for it by just releasing 2 MVs which 1 was just a tour mashup lol. This time around she's going all in for marketing and promo with this which is something she hasn't quite done in a min. Hell we are getting 2 late night show appearances and prolly down the line SNL as well. So I don't see any of this as a "'weird rollout"
Sep 30, 2025ray of lightI was a big fan of Speak Now - 1989
Same. her best phase
Speak Now... an album!
Yeah between Fearless and Reputation every album had an aura, a clear message, unique art direction and reason to exist. Her messy breakups, moving to New York, the Kimye thing etc.
Since Lover, it sometimes felt like she released an album to keep the fans fed. Even though I enjoy all of her albums up to now.
- OPSep 30, 2025·1 reply
John Mauvedamn this is out this week
3 more days to be in fact
Sep 30, 2025·1 replyEchiTwigs3 more days to be in fact
I have a good feeling about this one
TTPD was unfortunately mid
- OPSep 30, 2025mov
I have a good feeling about this one
TTPD was unfortunately mid
Same
I enjoy some songs from it but ya its time she goes back to that full pop sound again 
Sep 30, 2025·3 replies
halleys cometyeah her fans completely think otherwise lmao
Her fans don’t like music
They like her.
Sep 30, 2025·1 replyThis is gonna be the hit ain’t it
Sep 30, 2025Jim HalpertHer fans don’t like music
They like her.
this is very very true
- Flaphead 🎧Sep 30, 2025EchiTwigs
to ur last point the whole reasoning can be just chalked up as album promo no? Why else would she do it
Im p sure many of her fans just see TTPD as more of a b side release that she just wanted to put out and not much else. Especially given the fact that she was still in the middle of her tour during its release and shows the lack of promo for it by just releasing 2 MVs which 1 was just a tour mashup lol. This time around she's going all in for marketing and promo with this which is something she hasn't quite done in a min. Hell we are getting 2 late night show appearances and prolly down the line SNL as well. So I don't see any of this as a "'weird rollout"
I mean fair point lmao. I guess the run she’s doing currently even with the late night and whatnot feels like a retread of TTPD’s promo, which to your point did feel like b sides/getting the Matty thing and her frustration with her fan reaction out of her system. And it worked with that, but this feels incongruent somehow? Idk, definitely subjective and at the end of the day the music will speak.
I’m realizing I’m also conflating “Max Martin production” with “1989 tier pop” which might not even be the case. We’ll see
- Sep 30, 2025·1 replyJim Halpert
Her fans don’t like music
They like her.
believe what you want lol. cant change anyone’s mind on a kanye forum
- Flaphead 🎧Sep 30, 2025·3 repliesJim Halpert
Her fans don’t like music
They like her.
This is definitely true for some segments of her fan base, but that’s more due to how ridiculously large it is at this point than the quality of the music imo
I have a long running theory that Taylor has had the impact on a generation of women, pop fans, and pop music that Kanye did on the same generation of men, rap fans, and rap music. In the same way we now have cauliflower hair white kids from the suburbs who grew up on Kanye and nothing else of hip-hop culture or the influences he brought into his work who proclaim themselves “rap fans”, there’s an equivalent Stanley cup Disney adult Taylor fan conflating success in pop metrics and stan culture with actual quality in art. But that’s a whole other discussion.
- Sep 30, 2025·1 replyFlaphead
This is definitely true for some segments of her fan base, but that’s more due to how ridiculously large it is at this point than the quality of the music imo
I have a long running theory that Taylor has had the impact on a generation of women, pop fans, and pop music that Kanye did on the same generation of men, rap fans, and rap music. In the same way we now have cauliflower hair white kids from the suburbs who grew up on Kanye and nothing else of hip-hop culture or the influences he brought into his work who proclaim themselves “rap fans”, there’s an equivalent Stanley cup Disney adult Taylor fan conflating success in pop metrics and stan culture with actual quality in art. But that’s a whole other discussion.
Jim Halpert isn't really right imo. Big artists like Taylor existed like crazy in the 90s and 00s, she's just one of the last stars with a VERY huge following of fans and stans.
Most of them like music, they're listening to other artists as well. They're just very into her stuff. Thats it. The same stuff happened with Eminem, Backstreet Boys etc. in the past too lol and like you said, with Ye too but Ye's impact was very different since he was also in fashion and did way more stuff than Taylor ever did so far outside of music
- Flaphead 🎧Sep 30, 2025mov
Jim Halpert isn't really right imo. Big artists like Taylor existed like crazy in the 90s and 00s, she's just one of the last stars with a VERY huge following of fans and stans.
Most of them like music, they're listening to other artists as well. They're just very into her stuff. Thats it. The same stuff happened with Eminem, Backstreet Boys etc. in the past too lol and like you said, with Ye too but Ye's impact was very different since he was also in fashion and did way more stuff than Taylor ever did so far outside of music
True—I'm just saying when the tent is that big, there are always going to be the casual fans who tap in solely for their favorite and no one else. Type of folks to spend thousands on the Eras tour and roll up after all of the openers finish, or who proudly call older hip hop heads "dusty" because they're not hyping up the flavor of the week.
I do think Ye and Taylor have vasty different impacts, to be fair—I just see a ton of parallels having grown up with both. Maybe that's a thread for another day, I just hate how poisoned current discourse is about Kanye which obviously is entirely his own fault lol
- Sep 30, 2025
Sep 30, 2025·editedFlapheadThis is definitely true for some segments of her fan base, but that’s more due to how ridiculously large it is at this point than the quality of the music imo
I have a long running theory that Taylor has had the impact on a generation of women, pop fans, and pop music that Kanye did on the same generation of men, rap fans, and rap music. In the same way we now have cauliflower hair white kids from the suburbs who grew up on Kanye and nothing else of hip-hop culture or the influences he brought into his work who proclaim themselves “rap fans”, there’s an equivalent Stanley cup Disney adult Taylor fan conflating success in pop metrics and stan culture with actual quality in art. But that’s a whole other discussion.
To your final point, I think Taylor, and every pop artist/favorite of stantwt is a byproduct of this more than a driving force. I spend a decent amount of time in those circles and Taylor’s online fanbase is not unique at all when it comes to positioning commercial performance over everything else. Ariana’s does it, Billie’s does it, Sabrina’s (obviously a big overlap with Taylor’s fanbase) Olivia’s, Drake’s etc.
It’s a phenomenon that, at least imo, predates Taylor as crazy as that may sound. Not her career, but her massive, communal, online following, which began around the time of 1989. By this time we had the One Direction craze, and K-Pop was just beginning to boom, those fanbases are the real “pioneers” of what we see today.
Taylor’s fanbase probably takes more pride in it because she’s the only one constantly setting and/or breaking records but otherwise it’s very standard stan behavior.
- Sep 30, 2025·edited·1 replyhalleys comet
believe what you want lol. cant change anyone’s mind on a kanye forum
What they said isn't some high and mighty (or hot) take. They're not really wrong. The majority of her fans largely just listen to music that's adjacent to her. She's massively influential as an artist in many ways, but one of those is that she's almost entirely a brand of herself that people can solely revolve around/listen to.
I know many Swifties IRL who are passionate about her music and her art, but much of that passion doesn't extend to other avenues of music outside of the girly pop (Sabrina, Gracie Abrams) that's in the same lane. The adoration isn't of the music or the sound, and it's more about her and her personality.
Also, let me be clear: I think the same sentiment in fans extended towards Kanye for a good chunk of his career.
Sep 30, 2025·1 replyThomForkWhat they said isn't some high and mighty (or hot) take. They're not really wrong. The majority of her fans largely just listen to music that's adjacent to her. She's massively influential as an artist in many ways, but one of those is that she's almost entirely a brand of herself that people can solely revolve around/listen to.
I know many Swifties IRL who are passionate about her music and her art, but much of that passion doesn't extend to other avenues of music outside of the girly pop (Sabrina, Gracie Abrams) that's in the same lane. The adoration isn't of the music or the sound, and it's more about her and her personality.
Also, let me be clear: I think the same sentiment in fans extended towards Kanye for a good chunk of his career.
That post said "her fans don't like music, they like her"
You don't see how your post is completely different to that? You stated that they like her music and artists adjacent to her. That would automatically nullify the outlandish original statement, no? Lol
And the Swifties I see online are very tapped into the music. Sure, her persona and lore around her personal life contribute. But those fans learn and recite the songs, study the albums, just as much. Her lyrics get a***yzed and picked apart similar to some of our favorite rappers. So idk if that's fair to say about the Swifties, man!
Sep 30, 2025Botneylike I feel like this will be an inessential Taylor album, nobody was really needing a new TS album at this point and nobody really knows what this is for
erm actually this won't be anything like TTPD
- Sep 30, 2025·1 replyprovider
That post said "her fans don't like music, they like her"
You don't see how your post is completely different to that? You stated that they like her music and artists adjacent to her. That would automatically nullify the outlandish original statement, no? Lol
And the Swifties I see online are very tapped into the music. Sure, her persona and lore around her personal life contribute. But those fans learn and recite the songs, study the albums, just as much. Her lyrics get a***yzed and picked apart similar to some of our favorite rappers. So idk if that's fair to say about the Swifties, man!
I mean, it doesn't really nullify anything because the reason they enjoy the music and artists adjacent to her is because of their connection to her. They're not expanding their tastes beyond what's already in front of them and what she's telling them to enjoy. Their lyrical a***ysis basically begins and ends with what they can glean about her personal life.
It's low-key why she co-signs so many people and curates this posse around her - she knows a s*** ton of her fans won't listen/check someone out without her explicitly telling them to go listen....because they're not in it for the music. They're not listening to Gracie Abrams because they love the music; they're listening to Gracie Abrams because of her connection to Taylor.
People may get mad at this comparison, but it's like Nav. A lot of people listen to him bc of his connection to XO, the Weeknd, and other collaborators rather than people legit vibing with Nav as a proper artist lol.
- Sep 30, 2025·1 replyThomFork
I mean, it doesn't really nullify anything because the reason they enjoy the music and artists adjacent to her is because of their connection to her. They're not expanding their tastes beyond what's already in front of them and what she's telling them to enjoy. Their lyrical a***ysis basically begins and ends with what they can glean about her personal life.
It's low-key why she co-signs so many people and curates this posse around her - she knows a s*** ton of her fans won't listen/check someone out without her explicitly telling them to go listen....because they're not in it for the music. They're not listening to Gracie Abrams because they love the music; they're listening to Gracie Abrams because of her connection to Taylor.
People may get mad at this comparison, but it's like Nav. A lot of people listen to him bc of his connection to XO, the Weeknd, and other collaborators rather than people legit vibing with Nav as a proper artist lol.
Wow. Respect for expanding on what you meant. I think that all can be valid for a number of fans, of Taylor, or any artist for that matter. To say an entire or large portion of a fanbase can be attributed to that is just where I veer off the road a bit lol. But word