THE SCARIEST JOB IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IS HATING A TAYLOR SWIFT ALBUM

When the review of Taylor Swift’s latest album hit Matt Mitchell’s inbox, the Paste Magazine music editor knew trouble would follow.

“Sylvia Plath did not stick her head in an oven for this!” was the scathing first line about Swift’s 11th album, “The Tortured Poets Department.”

The last time Paste published a negative review of Swift—the world’s biggest pop star with a die-hard fan base—in 2019 for the album “Lover,” the author was bombarded with angry responses and even some threatening messages, Mitchell said.

Mitchell reached out to the writer assigned to “Poets,” which dropped April 19, and they decided to take the author’s name off the review that published the same day. The magazine used “By Paste Staff” instead.

“This is a very once-in-a-blue-moon instance, and I don’t see it happening again,” Mitchell said in a recent interview, but then added, “Until, I mean, the next time that Taylor puts out a record and that record is reviewed unfavorably.”

Being critical of Swift has long come with hazards. Fans pick apart reviews on Reddit, where a message board about the superstar has more than 2.3 million members. They tweet at critics or send messages telling them they’re wrong or, worse, start harassing them.

Pop culture writer Kayleigh Donaldson was at home in Dundee, Scotland, when Paste’s review went live. Soon, alerts from X inundated her phone.

“Do better,” said one tweet. “You can’t hide from us,” said another.

For reasons Donaldson still can’t figure out, Swifties believed she had written it. She didn’t, which Paste also confirmed. She’s written movie reviews for the magazine, but never any music reviews. “It’s not my field at all,” said Donaldson, who also writes a Substack newsletter called Gossip Reading Club.

Donaldson said it’s unfortunate that harassment comes with the job. “I think a lot of people in my field are unable to avoid it,” she said.

Mitchell said other Paste employees got messages accusing them of writing the review, but they were mild in comparison. “I saw what happened with Kayleigh, and it really beat me up,” he said.

“The Tortured Poets Department” followed a year of record-breaking highs in Swift’s nearly two-decade career. Her “Eras Tour,” a greatest hits-like concert, grossed more than $1 billion, the first tour to do so. She was named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” in 2023, appearing on the December cover with one of her cats. A few months later she won album of the year at the 2023 Grammy Awards for “Midnights,” released in late 2022. Swift used the occasion to announce that “Poets” would arrive in April.

When Paste gave the album a 3.6 out of 10, Mitchell decided to also remove the writer’s name on the five-year-old “Lover” review to prevent that author from being harassed again.

Spencer Kornhaber, a pop-culture writer at the Atlantic magazine, remembers receiving a death threat when he wrote that the chorus to Swift’s 2019 song “Me!” sounded like a “dolphin screech.”

So when he figured out what he was going to write about “Poets,” he said there was a “little bit of fear.”

He called it a “dreary muddle,” and started the review with four words: “This album is OK.”

But he was surprised by the reaction. “I kind of got more positive feedback than I would have expected,” he said. Even some Swifties seemed to understand that “Poets” is a “tough album for everyone to digest,” he said.

On Reddit, some fans had a fairly rational discussion about his take on it, Kornhaber said.

“I don’t hate this review,” one fan wrote on Reddit. “I love this album but I don’t particularly disagree with their main points.”

He did get rough messages, as well: “Who cares what you think, Spencer,” one person tweeted at him. “You’re pathetic and alone in life,” someone else said.

Kornhaber said he tries not to let the negative words affect his work.

“Part of the point of your job is to maintain a sense of integrity and independence from the fear of how people are going to react,” he said.

It wasn’t all bad news for “Poets”—it got plenty of good reviews. And Swift made sure everyone knew it.

On X, she posted glowing reviews from several publications, including Rolling Stone, which labeled it an “instant classic.” Swift included the reviewers’ names in her posts.

Swift’s publicist didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Mitchell, the Paste editor, doesn’t understand why fans care so much about negative reviews.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “She’s still going to be the biggest American pop star, and she’s still going to sell her records and sell out her tours.”

It does say something about Swift, though, Mitchell said, that she’s maintained a strong fan base 18 years into her career.

“They love her and they will always love her,” he said. “You have to respect it. If it means that many of them are trashing your publication’s name, so be it.”

Write to Joseph Pisani at [email protected]

2024-05-04T13:01:16Z dg43tfdfdgfd