Has Taylor Swift jumped the shark?

Nate Sloan (0:00)

The biggest pop star on the planet just released new music, and the Internet is in an uproar.

Charlie Harding (0:05)

Not happy.

Nate Sloan (0:06)

Taylor Swift has just dropped four new songs to follow up last year's release, Life of a Showgirl. It's called Life of a Showgirl, The Encore, and it has people asking, has Taylor Swift jumped the shark? Has Taylor Swift lost the plot? Charlie, I'm asking, is Taylor Swift in her Ozymandias era?

Charlie Harding (0:27)

Ozymandias?

Nate Sloan (0:28)

Ozymandias?

Charlie Harding (0:29)

Ozymandias?

Nate Sloan (0:30)

The Persebus Shelley poem from the 19th century, you know.

Charlie Harding (0:33)

Of course.

Nate Sloan (0:34)

Look on my works, ye mighty and despair. We will answer all of the above and in the process, we're going to take you to songwriting school.

Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan.

Charlie Harding (0:53)

And I'm songwriter Charlie Harding.

Nate Sloan (0:55)

Charlie, you'll recall that it was a year and three days ago that we were discussing the release of Life of a Showgirl. It was Taylor Swift's return to form supposedly, her album full of the bangers that we had been missing, thanks to co-production from her longtime collaborators, Max Martin and Shellbeck.

Charlie Harding (1:21)

You know that I count my days as a music journalist in between Taylor Swift releases. Here we are.

Nate Sloan (1:26)

They come fast and furious these days, Charlie. Not a lot of downtime. You'll of course remember how you described that release, right?

Charlie Harding (1:36)

Yes, but maybe some other people could use a refresher.

Nate Sloan (1:38)

Okay, well played, Charlie. Yes, I'll quote to you, it's polyphonic auto-fiction, you said.

Charlie Harding (1:45)

That's right. One of the things that Taylor does for us is that she makes us think that we know what's happening through all the clues, the Easter eggs that she leaves. We're trying to map out what song is about who, and yet she's also known for writing songs that are entirely fictional.

So she's interweaving reality and fiction, and that we ought to perhaps be in a greater space of suspended disbelief when we're listening to a Taylor Swift song.

Nate Sloan (2:14)

Right, and your polyamorous, autoerotic-

Charlie Harding (2:17)

No, no, no, no, no.

Nate Sloan (2:18)

Sorry, sorry. I mean polyphonic autofiction. There we go. Was one of many reactions to this album, which was somewhat polarizing. I would think is a fair way to describe it. Now, a year later, we have four new songs. This is Life of a Showgirl, Encore. These are tracks that Taylor created as a celebration of the success of Life of a Showgirl, which did indeed debut at number one and produced radio hits such as The Fate of Ophelia.

She went back to Stockholm and she celebrated, I guess, the only way she knows how, which is by writing more songs with Max Martin and Shellback. Does it hurt that releasing four new songs might also bump awareness of Taylor Swift as we move into a crucial Grammy voting season? Perhaps. Sure. She's nothing if not canny.

But if the reaction to Life of a Showgirl was, let's say, polarized, I feel like the reaction to these four new songs has been a little more unanimously.

Charlie Harding (3:32)

Let's see, we're recording this, what, like four or five days after those songs were released.

I have not listened to them. I was taking care of my nephew and niece over the weekend. I have been working diligently, and yet I have seen the discourse everywhere. I feel like I've been told that I'm not supposed to enjoy these songs, so I'm curious about how you might lead me through them to maybe listen with a fresh set of ears.

Nate Sloan (4:00)

Well, here's what I propose, Charlie, because you can find no shortage of hot takes on the Internet from Reddit pages with titles like, I'm a Swiftie and even I don't like these new songs, to Guardian reviewers who use profanity in their description of these songs, which is not something I think I've encountered in the pages of that August British publication before.

But that's not what we want to do here on Switched on Pop, and I'm so glad you haven't listened to these songs. You haven't been poisoned by the Internet discourse, and you haven't had time to develop your own reaction, so we can listen to these songs with your fresh ears, and we can answer a question that I think is more interesting ultimately than whether these songs are good or bad. We can approach these songs maybe like you would approach one of your songwriting classes, Charlie.