Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music

by Rob Sheffield

She reinvented pop in the fangirl’s image. In the 2000s, when she began, a young girl writing her own hit songs about her own feelings was rare. Now that’s just what pop is.

She’s always presented herself not just a witness but the author in her life story, turning all her worst experiences into songs. Yet she’s always done it in a way that makes these experiences public property, to the point where she makes the world think of her as a character.

“ME!” sounds even more bizarre if you go back and listen knowing she was on to Folklore less than a year later. She sure swerved violently from “Spelling is fun!” to “If I’m dead to you, why are you at the wake?”

Maybe love doesn’t have to be burning red. Maybe it doesn’t even have to be golden. Maybe the definition of romance is a sad little plate of cranberry sauce, sitting forlorn on the table, that you don’t even see because you’re just so in love.

This is a great example of what I didn’t like about this.