As we should know by now, Taylor Swift doesn’t like to do what’s expected of her. Straight away on her return with her 10th album, she’s complaining about people asking why she hasn’t yet married her steady boyfriend Joe Alwyn: “The only kinda girl they see is a one-night or a wife,” she sings on Lavender Haze. Later, on Labyrinth, she’s thinking of an ex: “You know how much I hate that everybody just expects me to bounce back just like that.”
Nor has her recent career followed the standard superstar growth trajectory. After releasing not one but two understated lockdown albums with no warning – Folklore in July 2020 and Evermore that December – she set about undermining the ability of music executive Scooter Braun to profit from the sale of her master recordings by beginning the epic process of making new versions of all her early albums.
