i will say i have a pet peeve with the idea that people don't like music bc they don't relate. like, ask an asexual how many sex songs they have on their favorite playlist
i don't want to be like "an artists job is to ____" bc i think an artists job is just to make art but i will say that theres such thing as making art in a way to share the experience with ppl who have not had that experience.
like a lot of the times when ppl make art it's to share a feeling with the audience. not explain it to the audience. they want to pull that feeling out of the audience.
that's what a lot of artistic devices do. like certain chords are used bc they make the listerner feel a way, instead of directly telling the listener "i felt sad." or like similes and metaphors are like that too. i'm not telling you he was super strong. i'm saying he was strong like an ox. now you are feeling a reaction similar to what i did when i saw that strong man.
the work is often on the artist to make people relate. to pull that reaction from them. that's not the job of the person experiencing the art.
so the goal with a lot of art is to make the audience relate. if the only ppl who like it are the ones who understand that experience, that job wasn't done. the audience is not supposed to be doing that work. if ppl feel connected to the music only bc they relate, that's more about them than the art. it doesn't take compelling art to make me happy about something i was already happy about.
same way it doesn't take much to compel me to buy a cookie if i already know i like cookies. i don't need fancy advertising when i already know how a good a cookie is.
i hate reducing any art to a flat good or bad, bc it kind of shuts off critical thinking, so to like get into the details, i didn't find the album compelling. and i relate to some of the experiences in it. 🧍it kind of felt like feelings were being explained/told to me but not pulled out of me, you know?
like, with IDSB, i don't necessarily relate to what she was talking about, but it still pulls a cheeky "oohhh i did something bad >:)" feeling out of me.
"november flush and your flannel cure" pulls an image and an idea to mind. i don't have to imagine what it's like, taylor put it there herself through the lyrics
but i wasn't really feeling pulled any sort of way with a lot of tloas? like w the song tloas, i kinda wish it went more into the actual life of a showgirl more than "it's not as fun as it looks". that could be said about a lot of things. or like if it was more about just telling that story, (which is fine, story telling is like taylor's whole thing lol it doesn't need to all be conceptual art), then i feel like it'd make more sense to call the song showgirl/the showgirl at least. bc the life aspect wasnt really dug into.
like the ratio of banger lines to neutral/okay lines to bad lines was really off. not many "woah!(good lines)" moments, and then too many ":/ (bad lines) moments overshadowing the good ones, and then too many neutral ones to where they end up overshadowing the good ones and simultaneously emphasizing the bad ones.
NO ONE TELL ME I SHOULDNT HAVE LISTENED TO THE ALBUM IF I DIDNT LIKE THE ALBUM😭IM CALLED THEAUTISMSPECIAL BC MY SPECIAL INTEREST IS CRITIQUING HER LYRICS AND ROTATING HER MUSIC IN MY MIND✋✋I NEVER SAID I HAD TO LIKE IT OKAY. I AM STILL HAVING FUN
listen i may not be good at social cues but i can see a potential bad faith misinterpretation from a mile away SOMETIMES. IF i have my glasses on. SO THERE
