So Many Dudes Have Reviewed Taylor Swift's New Album

The music review machine is clearly in dire need of some diversity, and there’s nothing like a plethora of dudes tackling Taylor Swift’s very own feminine mystique to prove that.

Since her first album in 2006, Taylor Swift’s music has stayed true to one main theme: the experience of being a young woman. For many she’s provided multiple “girly” anthems, drawing from her endless oasis of experiences, celebrating the ups and downs and cliches of relationships and just having a couple boobs and a vagina paired with emotions—something perhaps enriched (or complicated) by her new understanding of feminism. So one would think that music publications might try to find women to review the latest album of one of the most successful female music acts whose entire career has been rooted in a woman’s experience. Nope. That is not the case.

It’s no secret that the world of music reviews is very dominated. In a post titled “No one sent us the new Taylor Swift album to review,” Aussie music blog Collapse Board masterfully assembled a lengthy list of album reviews of Taylor Swift’s 1989 from some of the biggest publications in the music industry like Rolling Stone, NME, Billboard, Stereogum, Noisey, Idolator, and others—all 25 reviews listed were penned by dudes. Just dudes reviewing Taylor Swift. Sounds like the name of your next favorite Tumblr.

While there certainly are exceptions, like Molly Lambert’s review at Grantland, music review writing is still a sausage party. A sausage party full of dudes in plaid dancing to “Shake It Off.”