Cruel Summer

I totally forgot Olivia would be getting a tour boost (and maybe some extra physicals, or is that her normal weekly amount?) and now I'm pre-exhausted for discourse about the timing of Taylor dropping Encore and probably promoting it for at least a few weeks

They did, by about 15-20% (I have no clue if this is good for a Monday, bad, terrible, amazing, just that they did all increase)

I mean, Snakegate actually happened and was itself a reported-on phenomenon that measurably impacted overall public perception, whereas any backlash over The Encore is confined to internet spaces like snark subreddits and stan Twitter and will have genuinely almost zero impact on her overall public standing. It just feels bigger for some people because it's an outlet for them to vent their frustrations and feel validated about not liking her or the new music or both or something else entirely. Being perceived as being a maliciously manipulative person will always be more damaging than being perceived as, at worst, putting out a few duds that people can just skip.

Oh no - I guess this explains any drops my fave might have tomorrow on their charts, smh Spotify get it together

I love the new songs and I happened to have exquisite, distinguishing, exceptional taste. For instance, have I mentioned holy hymn that is the Live From Paris version of Cornelia Street lately? (the way this still has a ******* willow thumbnail I can't)

#TaylorSwiftIsOverParty is Cancelled!.mp3 yet again! Yes Patient Zero yes smash

"Where is Evermore LPSS Taylor, I know you're hiding it from me!"

You see when two queens come together to maximize their joint slay

I hereby issue a retraction. Pay no attention to what this confused, deranged person said earlier. How can I spin this in favor of my fave? Let's see… yes Taylor yes ratings!

Personally, I want her to go back to country. I want to see a whole album full of serious attempts at showing how she's grown since she mostly stepped away. I'd be happy with many other directions - expanding on the Evermore sound and sounds of collabs from around then, the perpetually rumored Fleetwood Mac vibes album, even a completely new direction - but I want to see the artist whose work I first fell in love with show me what she can do with another decade and a half under her belt. Anything but another purely mainstream radio-ready pop album; I feel like she's played out all her cards there and we need to change course more long term, not just temporarily. I know she loves pop music and will always make it in some way or amount, but I don't think we really need another full album focused on those kinds of songs and sounds.

John Summit also begs for collabs from various high profile women in dance music and attempted to feud with Charli for not returning his very poorly worded request for a "slutty" collab. He doesn't know anything and there's no credibility to this rumor.

The way this one actually goes with how it's kinda wordy and confused some of us trying to follow on the first listen

I would imagine that the delay is because initial results from Luminate are so close that they have to do essentially a full audit and flag any purchases that are on the threshold of normal consumer activity versus irregular buying patterns. I wish they'd break down an example of this sometime because I just think it's so interesting. When it really comes down to it, what consumption do you throw out for seeming suspicious in some way, and what consumption do you intentionally include because it's a real person buying multiple different products (not just four of the same thing) they genuinely want, or copies they want to gift - even if they're maybe a couple over the standard guidelines?

Not to be messy but if we wanna lock those other three debuts in the Hot 100 top five, don't forget you can go to the clean version on iTunes and buy just the new songs individually, not to mention both clean and explicit on Amazon Music - someone inform the Twitter Swiffers or something

1) no Gaga no ratings! 2) **** like the 20 minute delay turned this year into a disaster and I wouldn't be surprised at all if that had a huge impact on it with people just tuning out before it even started - all the winners were being announced online before anyone saw them on TV anyway, a mess

Don't say that, just because it's true doesn't mean it doesn't hurt every time I think about it She kinda teased that she might do something with Choke Enough outtakes on a live stream recently though so maybe, just maybe, we'll get something else soon before she leaves us until like 2031

Bouncing between Babylon and an assortment of Preach Now and Preach Now (Taylor's Gospels) tracks today and living literally my BEST Swiftie life

Choke Enough is my most played and favorite album of all time that has completely and totally dominated my Apple Replay lists for over a year now. I consider her equally my favorite artist with Taylor now, I have over 680 different tracks from her in my library because I have all her older releases, unreleased material, live performances, instrumentals, stems, Bandcamp releases, personal edits, and everything else I can find and enjoy absolutely all of the material - I am so perched it hurts!

The largest debut one still doesn't actually feel entirely real, the way she kept nudging up toward it from Midnights to 1989 TV to TTPD and every time it felt like we'd hit the peak of what was possible - and then she just goes and blows the roof off it and takes the pure sales record too

Even without the video, which I think is among her very best, this has become my most played song of the year already. I hope it catches on, but more than anything else I'm just so excited to hear a couple new versions of it, when she's ready to release the acoustic and piano versions (hopefully before their physical shipment date). It feels so great to be this into a new Taylor song after not connecting with most of Showgirl. And on top of that, Babylon is hot on its heels as a contender for my #2 most played track of the year, too!

As soon as that car shot happened I knew I LOVED it - the monologue had gone on just the tiniest bit too long by then but she pulled me back in sooo hard!

It's really hard to name all that many other times when something like this has happened - over 20 years into her career and still at the literal top of the industry despite all the peaks and valleys, and having definitively been so for going on a decade now at least. On top of almost completely dominating the US, at the very least, for the decade before that! If there's anything I love about that, it's that it makes it incredibly likely that even if she flops to hell and back, there are decades more releases ahead, I'm genuinely so excited to see all the directions she goes in from here.

I think the Popstar remix actually melted my brain, I know it's a trend to release these lately but this is the best $5 I've spent on an extra iTunes album version in my life

See, this is the kind of thing that having not really had that, I love to hear, particularly about people younger than me. I still have some very vivid memories of hiding my real favorite music artists from my parents and family, and I don't think I mentioned Madonna's name to anyone in my family until she did the Super Bowl - by which time I was halfway through high school. Genuinely, I'm happy for you to have that kind of open and honest history with her.

The Nick León mix of Brainrot, wait a SECOND I knew this would be magical when I saw his name, he did such an exceptional remix of Oklou's Blade Bird last year, maybe I need to dig into his work more