A 100% honest and also very safe evaluation

Hi, my name is RECOVERED FOR SECURITY REASONS and I am honored to share with you my 100% honest review of pop icon Taylor Swift’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department.

Before I get to the review, I want to address rumors that critics like me are afraid to criticize (Queen) Swift’s great music. These slanderous accusations suggest that we are afraid that negative reviews will cause Swift’s loyal (and wonderful) fans to join us online and say mean things over and over again until we collapse into puddles of rightly ridiculed critic slime.

This is absurd, because there have already been some (extremely stupid) less than stellar reviews of Swift’s new album from people who have mysteriously disappeared from the public eye. Also, many media outlets no longer have time for critical reviews of Taylor Swift because they’re now writing about whether people are tired of reading so much about Taylor Swift.

But I digress.

Enjoy my completely unnecessary review of “The Tortured Poets Department”

As an established critic for PUBLICATION NAME REDACTED FOR SAFETY REASONS, I don’t believe that music reviews have any real meaning to the world. Who cares what some random writer like me thinks about music? If you like an album, listen to it; if you don’t, don’t listen to it. I shouldn’t have a role in that decision.

Anyway, here is my completely worthless review of The Tortured Poets Department, which I love and would literally die for, along with my review of Swift’s next album, which has not yet been announced.

With the release of her highly anticipated album, The Tortured Poets Department, superstar Taylor Swift has definitely released another album. It contains songs—31 in all!—and they’re all very good, assuming you like them, which is definitely the case for me.

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If you don’t like Swift’s new album, it’s okay not to say so

If you don’t like them, that’s fine, you can just shut up because nobody cares what you think. Music is there to bring joy and some people like certain sounds and words while others like other types of sounds and words and some people don’t like words at all, just sounds.

It’s a free country. Dig what you dig.

Swift’s words and sounds on this new album, as on previous albums, are good and important and meaningful to people who like her and also like her mouth sounds and the music that goes with them. That’s cool. Liking music is a great thing, so maybe just enjoy it and don’t make a big deal out of an artist’s album if it’s not exactly what you wanted.

Some people like Nickelback. That’s their damn business, not yours. For goodness sake.

Maybe music is subjective and Swift’s music is great for those who like it

Perhaps the most haunting aspect of Swift’s new album is its ability to drown people in a vortex of overanalysis when maybe, just maybe, people should take one listen and say, “Yeah, that’s really good, I like that,” or “Hmmm, not really my thing, I’ll put on some Nickelback,” and then move on with their lives.

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Tons of people love Swift and her music and I think that’s cool because people deserve to love things and if the lyrics make them happy, sad or emotional, YAY! That’s a good thing.

And if it’s wrong for me to say the album is great because I’m a little bit scared that their fans might come after me, then I don’t want to be right, because in that case, being right could be extremely humiliating and difficult.

Do I love The Tortured Poets Department? Sure. But who cares?

So I’m going to stick with the statement, “This album marks a high point in Swift’s career and will resonate with her fans for years to come,” because that’s probably true, and at the end of the day, who cares what I think?

Swift is a hugely popular billionaire, but I am not. Scoreboard.

Their next album will be just as amazing, if not better, because… well, you know.

People, just like what you like. Who am I to say otherwise?

Now please excuse me. I have to go and find out with my media colleagues who is responsible for all the news about Taylor Swift.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on X, formerly Twitter, @RexHuppke and Facebook facebook.com/RexIsAJerk

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Taylor Swift’s ‘Tortured Poets’: An honest, unnecessary critique