Does Taylor Swift have the worst singles among the MPGs?

[eclipsed]

 

It's common for an artist to have a dud in their discography now and then but after seeing this I got to thinking Taylor kinda has some real awful singles, some that are just downright terrible songs. Shake It Off, ME!, We Are Never Getting Back Together, Look What You Made Me Do, You Need To Calm Down, Karma, I Can Do It With A Broken Heart, End Game maybe I'm forgetting some

 

I don't know how people feel about Willow, Fortnight, Anti Hero but I don't think those are good either. All filled with cringey basic lyricism and usually weak production also.

[FolkLover1989]

SIO and WANGEBT here

Lmfao

These two are not only bigger but more remembered hit than most of other MPG singles

[D.Va]

Yes.

Her singles used to be on point but starting from Lovers she lost her taste (I do think Willow is good tho).

[Devin]

yea

[eclipsed]

Just now, FolkLover1989 said:

SIO and WANGEBT here

Lmfao

These two are not only bigger but more remembered hit than most of other MPG singles

I mean I wasn't talking about success, I feel like most of these songs wouldn't be succesful if they were done by another artist I was more so talking about them just being bad songs. Like none of them give the classics like the other MPGs singles idk and in fairness I never hear We Are Never Getting Back Together, I do hear SIO from time to time but when I do its gonna be a skip.. 

 

 

[Folklore89sm]

She also has some of the best do it evens out. Songs like Blank Space, Love Story, Style, Wildest Dreams, IKYWT (in spite of its dated dubstep chorus), You Belong With Me, Lover, Cruel Summer, and cardigan all hold up very well and often much better than most of the other hits of their respective years.

[Badgalbriel]

Cardigan is there. So no. 

[kimberly]

yes.

 

my even more controversial take: I think her picks for "Track 5" highlights have been getting worse / inconsistent, as well.

 

as a Taylor listener and former fan, I'd say her best work is usually album cuts and more likely the songs that casual listeners mostly overlook.

[GraceRandolph]

Honestly yes, and Gaga's singles also don't do her overall discography justice.

[Klein]

We Are Never, Look and Karma don't belong to that list, but I get what you're getting at. As others have said, she's got some incredible other singles (Blank Space, Cardigan, Love Story, Begin Again, Cruel Summer, willow, Anti-Hero, Back To December, You Belong With Me, 22, Teardrops, Wildest Dreams, Our Song, Mine, Style and many more...) too. But it's no news that Taylor shines within her deep cuts anyway. I feel like that's why there's such a huge discrepancy between fans and non fans regarding Taylor. 

 

Even for myself, before I actually explored her catalogue after hearing evermore and folklore, I didn't feel the need to do so. What I knew was songs like IKYWT, SIO, BB, ME!, YNTCD etc... and that's not something that makes you want to go further sadly. I think that explains why the re-recordings/Eras Tour have been so successful: with All Too Well (10 minutes), people revisited the past albums in their globality and took notice of all these songs that were simply gorgeous on albums they otherwise dismissed because of poor single representing them. 

[eclipsed]

Just now, GraceRandolph said:

Honestly yes, and Gaga's singles also don't do her overall discography justice.

I feel like she has some of the best, I think she has a lot of songs that could have been singles that weren't but for me her only real dud is Stupid Love. PI probably shouldn't have been a single, but I still think its good and I don't think much else from Joanne would have been a hit anyway.

[Kristie Kuwa]

Crazy in Love, Halo, Single Ladies, Love On Top, Drunk in Love, Cuff It, Texas Hold Em

 

Pon de Replay, Umbrella, We Found Love, Diamonds, Love On the brain, TIWYCF

 

Just Dance, Pokerface, Bad Romance, Paparazzi, Shallow, DWAS

 

BOMT, Oops, Toxic, Everytime, S&S, Womanizer

 

Break Free, TUN, 7 Rings, WCBF, One Last Time, Dangerous Woman

 

-----------

 

Lovestory, Shake it Off, Blank Space, Cruel Summer, LWYMMD, Antihero

 

I guess to each their own

 

[flashfox]

KP does 

 

[Achilles.]

13 minutes ago, kimberly said:

my even more controversial take: I think her picks for "Track 5" highlights have been getting worse / inconsistent, as well.

Not a coincidence that this happened after she got too caught up in the stan feedback loop and ran with their misinterpretation of what a track 5 was meant to entail. Stans went around telling everyone they were the "best written" or "most emotional" songs on the albums, but really the best of her track 5s were the ones that laid out the central overarching theme or concept of its album (White Horse, Dear John, All Too Well, Delicate). And her latest pop track 5s (The Archer, YOYOK, So Long London) have all kinda felt like they were trying too hard to be track 5s when they obviously should not have been (Cornelia Street, Midnight Rain, and Guilty As Sin deserved the honors). 

[Blank Space]

Her bad singles started from reputation. She had great singles till then. 

Edited 7 hours ago by Blank Space

[kimberly]

9 minutes ago, Achilles. said:

Not a coincidence that this happened after she got too caught up in the stan feedback loop and ran with their misinterpretation of what a track 5 was meant to entail. Stans went around telling everyone they were the "best written" or "most emotional" songs on the albums, but really the best of her track 5s were the ones that laid out the central overarching theme or concept of its album (White Horse, Dear John, All Too Well, Delicate). And her latest pop track 5s (The Archer, YOYOK, So Long London) have all kinda felt like they were trying too hard to be track 5s when they obviously should not have been (Cornelia Street, Midnight Rain, and Guilty As Sin deserved the honors). 

exactly! you get it 

 

let me also say "My Tears Ricochet" and "Tolerate It" weren't exactly the right choices either, for the reason you mentioned. they are the most "I'm a songwriter and I can write a song you can all cry to" options available on their respective albums, as opposed to being true centerpieces.

 

her single choices, track listing, merch, music videos, chart tactics have generally gotten much worse since she signed her new record deal with Republic/Universal. are we/Swifties ready for that convo? (of course there are some exceptions, so don't come for me. thank you "cardigan" )

[Achilles.]

8 minutes ago, kimberly said:

let me also say "My Tears Ricochet" and "Tolerate It" weren't exactly the right choices either, for the reason you mentioned. they are the most "I'm a songwriter and I can write a song you can all cry to" options available on their respective albums, as opposed to being true centerpieces.

I give those two a pass because they're just so ******* good, much more natural than tryhard like some of the others. And I do think my tears ricochet makes sense as the track 5 because it does speak to the concept of the album: ostensibly fictional storytelling that is actually still based on her personal experience.
 

Not sure what else would really work as the track 5 of evermore; it's a cohesive body of work, but not as easy to summarize in a sentence or a lyric as some of her other albums. Maybe happiness or cowboy like me. But then, if happiness were the track 5 it would still get your "I can write a song you can all cry to" criticism.

[longjohn9898]

By a mile

[EarthJang]

Yes but only since reputation.

She pick the right lead single on folkmore tho. 

[Le Grande]

She also has the worst discography so there is not much to choose from. Apart from Delicate and Wilow, everything else has been dribblepiss.

[Moonlight Nation]

32 minutes ago, eclipsed said:

It's common for an artist to have a dud in their discography now and then but after seeing this I got to thinking Taylor kinda has some real awful singles, some that are just downright terrible songs. Shake It Off, ME!, We Are Never Getting Back Together, Look What You Made Me Do, You Need To Calm Down, Karma, I Can Do It With A Broken Heart, End Game maybe I'm forgetting some

"Bad Blood", "...Ready For It?", and "The Man" also come to mind 

 

From your list, I'll defend "Shake It Off", "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", and "End Game" as heartfelt catchy fun, but the rest are among the weakest, most juvenile, and most embarrassing pop singles from 21st century A-list superstars in terms of both melodies and lyrics. I also agree with your thoughts on "Fortnight" and "Anti Hero".

 

This doesn't take away from the genuinely excellent singles Taylor has released, but this inconsistency is unforgiveable, especially considering how many of these became hits and are still performed to this day.

 

 

Not to bring up that list again, but you'd think that in order to be considered among the very best pop stars you'd need to have a strong collection of hit singles. Yes, Taylor has historically gotten the 'albums artist' label, but so has Beyoncé post-2011, Kanye West (let's focus on his 2004-2016 prime), Kendrick Lamar, and The Weeknd, yet their singles are consistently great and representative of their artistic strengths. Even Lana, who couldn't care less about playing the pop game, has for the most part made inspired selections for her album's singles.

 

Not to mention it's one thing to have weak singles that underperform. These get swept under the rug and quickly forgotten. But to have career-lows like "Bad Blood", "Look What You Made Me Do", "ME!", "You Need To Calm Down", and "Karma" all being top 2 hits is rough. Very few major artists have this amount of stinkers among their smash hits, even less so when it comes to MPGs. 

[davidson]

I mean till Reputation Taylor had really great singles. 

Look What You Made Me Do was the perfect lead single choice, Ready For It was ok but after hearing the album I think that Don't Blame Me should've been 2nd single. We all knew that End Game would be the 3rd single because of the features. I was angry that Delicate became the 4th and final single but in the end it was the right choice.

Getaway Car and maybe Call It What You Want should've been singles too.

 

Lover era was a bit of a mess. Only Lover (song) or maybe YNTCD were the right choices for singles. I like ME! but it wasn't a single material, the same as The Man but I knew that Taylor would make it a single because of its message. We had Cruel Summer (then), Miss Americana or even Paper Rings.

 

Folklore and Evermore were great if Taylor wanted to create only one main single and video for each album although The 1, Exile, August and Champagne Problems, Tis The Damn Season, Ivy would probably do well as singles too.

 

Midnights was fine but I wish there were more singles - Maroon, Midnight Rain...

 

And now we have TTPD... Down Bad, Guilty as Sin? or MBOBHFT are waiting... please don't mess it up Taylor.

Edited 6 hours ago by davidson

[prézli]

The worst discography also.

[duybeeGAshantiGA]

And that Karma is a cat song being a single eye- 

 

I never voluntarily played it but whenever my gym played it I was like what a tuneless pos.

[SlowGinFizzzz]

Yes, but not just the singles.