is what it is for me.” Like Wolverine’s claws, Taylor Swift’s razor-sharp pen is her hidden superpower, the X-factor that makes her the best there is at what she does. But unlike Wolverine’s claws, keeping it sharp requires constant maintenance. It requires feedback and criticism from an engaged audience.
In music, the big shift became obvious when streaming platforms like Spotify started impacting the Billboard charts, and the data painted a drastically different picture of what listeners were into than what radio had been pushing. Radio’s favoring of slick, simplistic production that compresses well and upbeat melodies that feel like what marketing professionals refer to as a “call to action” are the demands of the platform, not necessarily the audience.
In order to adapt, albums got longer and more concerned with maintaining a vibe than with crafting bright, obvious radio singles. Lyrics got deeper and denser in order to better reward repeat listens — even if that just meant burying them under layers of processing, regional slang, and exuberant ad-libs. Thematically, songs could be sadder and more complicated, owing to the waning influence of radio’s myopic focus on uptempo pop hits that sound like they could be used to sell things.