Depending on who you ask, Taylor SwiftsThe Tortured Poets Departmentis either forgettable or an instant classic.
feels like more of the same.
For female pop stars, frequent reinvention is central to the sport.
Congrats,youre in your reputation era!)
Swift is right that a shiny new era is often what fans want.
Artists make contrived pivots.
Fans nitpick or proclaim ones flop era prematurely.
Madonna revisits her many reinventions on her Celebration Tour, a retrospective of four decades in pop.
Of course,audiences can be unfairly ruthlesswhen it comes to an era that even slightly misses their expectations.
(It still debuted at No.
1 and spawned a chart-topping single, Chained to the Rhythm.)
But during the pandemic, a fan campaign for the album sent itclimbing back up the charts.
With the stakes of reinvention so high, some artists have been vocally resisting the pressure to shapeshift.
I feel like there are certain standards that pop women are held to that men arent, she toldBillboard.
In rejecting the siren call of another reinvention, she may have found her next one anyway.
