As Taylor Swift’s self-appointed biggest fan I humbly and respectfully ask, what is this? By this, I mean Swift’s release of a new “chapter” titled the ‘forever is the sweetest con’ chapter which I assumed was more new music because she’s got nothing else to do in that log cabin studio but write record and send her sweet vocals straight to my half-functioning eardrums. When I excitedly hopped out of bed this morning to start playing the six tracks on forever is the sweetest con, I made the crucial error of not reading the titles first. In my half-asleep state, I wondered why I already knew the chorus of the first track and just assumed that I had finally achieved oneness with the source. As it turns out, I’d heard all of the songs already, as they all appear in Swift’s last albums evermore and folklore.
You know what is not the sweetest con? This fucking so-called EP. It’s not that I’m mad at Taylor, as a devout Swiftie I made a blood oath to never get mad at her. But like, what is this? Why is this labeled as an EP in Apple Music when this is essentially a six-track playlist of a few songs that are melodically similar to two sibling albums? Why am I upset about this in particular when the sweetest con is the sixth “chapter” to come out of Swift’s pandemic musical era? Because I completely and utterly forgot about all the previous chapters as I think they are incredibly dumb ideas and wiped them from my memory.
But here I am wasting the battery life on my good headphones listening to a portion of evermore and folklore once again, just as she wanted. I assume that on this newish listen with these six songs in this specific order I’m supposed to garner some new revelation about their meaning and fall deeper into the pit of Swift conspiracy theories. However I am tired and I don’t have time to parse the true meaning of “mirrorball,” a song that was barely enjoyable the first time. Not gonna lie though, I’m glad I did listen to “invisible string” again, because I am working on a ukulele cover of that song and the strum pattern is killing me.
The main takeaway from Swift’s chapters being released as EPs is that spending all that time in the woods has obviously opened her eyes to the importance of recycling and the zero-waste lifestyle. Why make something new when the old thing hasn’t been fully used up? Taylor Swift, the planet’s champion.