Babylon
The strongest of the four 'Encore' songs -- a glamorous-but-hollow-adulthood metaphor Swift actually commits to, instead of just naming and moving past.
Read review →Artist
Taylor Swift
Pennsylvania-born singer-songwriter who moved from Nashville country through the pop mainstream and back through folk and indie textures over a two-decade catalog, becoming the era's dominant touring and streaming act. "I Knew It, I Knew You," her first film soundtrack single, was written for Toy Story 5 and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 — her ninth chart-topping debut, the most of any woman.
Reviews
Cleveland!
A jaunty, bell-heavy arrangement dresses up another round of Swift litigating her critics -- charming on first listen, thin on the fourth.
Read review →I Knew It, I Knew You
Taylor Swift's Toy Story 5 tie-in debuted at No. 1 on the strength of the franchise and the name attached to it, not because it's a top-tier Swift single — a pleasant three minutes doing very little most of her catalog hasn't already done better.
Read review →Patient Zero
Taylor Swift's 16th No. 1 debuts on the strength of a built-in audience and a same-day rollout, not because 'The Encore' had a song this thin queued up and waiting to be the lead single.
Read review →Pink Clouding
A recovery-adjacent title borrowed from addiction recovery's own vocabulary for premature euphoria, set to a brighter beat than the hindsight in the lyric actually earns.
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