State Champ Radio Album Reviews
Jake Shane, who has nearly 3 million followers on TikTok thanks to his viral comedy videos under the handle @octopusslover8, is reviewing albums for Billboard with exclusive new essays and videos. Find his latest Billboard album review below, for Taylor Swift’s just-released The Tortured Poets Department album.
Taylor Swift, known for her vulnerability, has never been so vulnerable.
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First thing Friday (April 19), Swift welcomed us into The Tortured Poets Department, her earth-shattering 11th studio album. Except, upon arrival, listeners discovered it was more a graveyard than a classroom. The air is cold and filled with tension from ghosts of relationships past — each step inviting the listener closer and closer into stories frozen in time. The end result is an album that feels like pages ripped from Swift’s diary loosely scattered across a frosty gravesite — each tomb sharing its own story of grief, loss and, in some instances, love.
Tortured Poets is undoubtably Swift’s most personal album to date — which, for Swift is a hard feat to beat. Through classic Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner production, Swift’s pen floats on lyrics sharp to the touch. This is especially true on the Dessner-produced track 5, “So Long, London.” In it, Swift says goodbye to a relationship she gave everything for, but received no ROI. “My spine split from carrying us up the hill,” Swift proclaims; this is Swift at her very best, painting a photo of heartbreak so vivid that it almost feels like our bones are breaking too. Close listeners will notice the beginning of the track sounds similar to Swift’s love song “Call It What You Want” off her sixth studio album Reputation. Perhaps the most cutting lyrics, though, on “So Long, London” come in the second verse, when Swift admits her regret for holding on to the “sinking ship” that the relationship was: “I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free.”
One of Swift’s defining talents is how she builds a cohesive narrative throughout her albums, and here, that ability has never been more on display. On Tortured Poets, Swift walks the listener through a barren graveyard filled with withered bones and torn memories, only to finally reach sunlight — on the final two tracks of the album (not including the extra 15 songs that dropped at 2 a.m. ET), Swift has once again found love. On “The Alchemy,” Swift sings of a love so undeniable, she is returning to her old, pre-tortured ways: “I haven’t come around in so long. But I’m making a comeback to where I belong.”
As always, Swift’s lyricism shines bright (arguably brighter than ever before). This is notable on the absolutely devastating “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” where Swift looks in the rearview of a past relationship with more questions than answers. “You hung me on your wall. Stabbed me with your push pins. In public, showed me off. Then sank in stoned oblivion.” Swift’s pen is pointed, but, then again, when is it not? She doesn’t want to talk to said “man,” but she wants a message delivered: “You didn’t measure up in any measure of a man.”
On “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” Swift is at her most bare, detailing the heartbreak-turned -depression she faced while performing the biggest tour of her career (and perhaps of all time). “She’s having the time of her life there in her glittering prime. The lights refract sequin stars off her silhouette every night. I can show you lies,” Swift croons over a synth beat. Swift calls back to folklore’s “mirrorball” by proving once again that she can be anything we want her to be, even if it’s not true. It is one of the first times Swift has broken the third wall since the start of the record-breaking tour, and it is almost reassuring to listeners and fans alike. Taylor is human, too, even when her stardom questions the laws of physics.
One of the greatest tales Swift tells is that of heartbreak to healing; she did it on Reputation, and on Tortured Poets she has done it once more — this time, though, with more maturity and the clarity only age can bring. At the end of the album, Swift has once again found love and forgiven heartbreak. It might not be her true love, but she’s happy — oh, and she’s Taylor Swift. Who can argue with that?
You can find Shane’s review of Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter here.
04/19/2024
The Queens MC’s groundbreaking debut turns 30 today.
04/19/2024
Jake Shane, who has nearly 3 million followers on TikTok thanks to his viral comedy videos under the handle @octopusslover8, is reviewing albums for Billboard with exclusive new essays and videos. Find his first Billboard album review below, for Beyoncé’s just-released Cowboy Carter album.
“People don’t make albums anymore,” Beyoncé declared in her 2013 HBO documentary Life Is But a Dream. “They just try to sell a bunch of lil quick singles. And they burn out, and they put out a new one, and they burn out, and they put out a new one.” She was right, finding a real “album” is becoming scarcer in the age of streaming, where songs with shorter run lengths are viewed as more “streamable.” A real album might be hard to find, but luckily we have Beyoncé, and boy does Beyoncé make a good one.
Beyoncé’s eighth studio album, the country-influenced and genre-defying Cowboy Carter, is a tour de force and yet another example of Beyoncé’s innate ability to put together an album. Much like Renaissance, most of the songs blend beautifully into each other, almost forcing the modern listener to hear the album in order — exactly how Beyoncé intended it. This is especially notable in the jump from the “Dolly P” interlude to Beyoncé’s stunning reworking of Parton’s classic “Jolene.” Instead of Parton’s infamous “begging” of Jolene to not take her man, Beyoncé changes the narrative — she’s not begging you; she’s warning you. It’s a perfect rendition of the classic song in 2024. We’ve heard a million and one versions of superstars “begging” for the villainous Jolene to not take their man, but Beyoncé isn’t most superstars, and she’s not going to beg; she’s going to tell you.
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Beyoncé follows up her rendition of “Jolene” with perhaps the most cinematic moment on the album — track 11, “Daughter,” is a scorching country ballad-turned-Italian opera that finds our protagonist setting the scene of smoke, bodies and, of course in true Beyoncé fashion, bloodstained custom couture.
Beyoncé’s duet with Miley Cyrus, “II Most Wanted,” finds the two stars going line for line, Miley’s rasp perfectly matching Beyoncé’s powerhouse vocals. Beyoncé and Cyrus’ harmonies flowing, they insist “I’ll be your shotgun rider, till the day I die.” The two superstars might be singing about their respective romantic partners, but it’s just as easy to believe they’re singing about each other. As they lyrically and sonically ride side by side, their chemistry is tangible and undeniable.
If “II Most Wanted” weren’t proof enough of Beyoncé’s undeniable talent for a cohesive duet, look no further than “Just for Fun,” which features country star Willie Jones. Another standout is “Levii’s Jeans” featuring Post Malone, who delivers some of the cleanest vocals of his career — setting the scene for a hot summer day in the South, where we find our superstar wearing a perfectly fitted pair of Levi’s.
It would be remiss to talk about Cowboy Carter without mentioning Beyoncé’s cover of The Beatles classic “Blackbird,” which she aptly restyled as “Blackbiird.” The cover features rising country star Tanner Adell. Once again, we find our superstar making an already-classic song her own entirely. It’s a pin-drop moment on the album — talking about it almost feels like I’m taking away from the time you could spend listening to it instead.
Beyoncé said, “This ain’t a country album, it’s a Beyoncé album.” And while Beyoncé has never been wrong, she has also never been so right. “Genres are a funny little concept,” Linda Martell (country star and trailblazer) states at the beginning of “Spaghettii” — almost laughing at every single Beyoncé detractor who questioned how the superstar would fit into the country genre. Country? Genre? This is Beyoncé. Just press play.
When RM officially introduced himself to the music industry through BTS‘ debut in 2013, the then-18-year-old Kim Namjoon was known through the stage name Rap Monster after being praised by hip-hop veterans for his spitting abilities, but he later shared a love-hate relationship with the moniker. In 2017, the star made the formal move to professionally go by RM after realizing it didn’t fully represent who he was or his love for all music. Instead, “RM” now opened his name up to represent a range of meanings, one of them thought to be the “Real Me.”
Even if rap is where RM started, his first proper solo album, Indigo, shows that it’s only one facet of the musician. With assistance from longtime musical legends in different genres, plus rising up-and-comers, the LP is a collection of songs that the star describes as an “archive” of his 20s.
Not only are RM’s artistic inspirations wide, but the 28-year-old plays with how he presents them to the world. On one track, he’s feeling feisty and confident to take on the world, and later, he’s reflective and alone in his hotel room. RM is not trying to bring what’s topping the charts today to this record, but it’s meant to showcase the ever-evolving people we are and become. Captures and snapshots of the “real” Kim Namjoon live throughout the album, but Indigo emphasizes that he is not a static piece of art.
While it’s tough to rank these songs from “worst” to “best,” Billboard is taking these flickers of RM and looking at how the global star is opening himself up in new musical form.
In 2022, country music veterans, established artists and newcomers incorporated a range of styles, from ’80s and ’90s country, folk, R&B, classic rock and more to frame urgent, detailed storytelling and vulnerable musical vignettes.
Some projects, like Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville and Miranda Lambert’s Palomino, offer sonic sketches of quirky, fictional towns or an escape to charming map dots and larger cities across the country. Other artists, such as Lainey Wilson, Zach Bryan and Hailey Whitters, delve deep into their own stories, cementing their artistic visions in the process.
Here are Billboard‘s picks for the 10 best country albums from 2022:
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