Taylor Swift Is Completely Forgettable

It would be way too easy for a crusty old guy like me to postulate that the reason so many Taylor Swift fans have been posting about post-“Eras Tour” show amnesia was that Taylor’s show was simply that forgettable. But with Taylor once again discussing this weird happening, just recently on her fiancé Travis Kelce and his brother Jason’s podcast, “New Heights,” a deeper dive into what really happened might be warranted.

Mentioning how much she embedded the show with “elements of musical theater, Broadway, ballet, things you would see in an opera,” to deliver her songs in “highest intensity, rapid fire” with something fresh “every 15 to 30 seconds,” Taylor also added, “Oh, I think we did it.” Meaning that she might have overstimulated her audience to the point where they simply couldn’t take in and then retain all that Taylor stadium goodness.

There is surely scientific evidence that our brains, specifically our hippocampus and amygdala fire so intensely when meeting lights and sound of the kind Taylor offered her faithful. And as much fun as we might be having with all the rush of dopamine, adrenaline, and norepinephrine, our little 10 percent just can’t handle all the info; even enjoying what we do our memory can’t take it all in. Which is what Swifties were reporting as far back as two years ago when they’d leave a Taylor show not remembering if the young singer/songwriter had indeed performed specific songs…when she had at the show they had just witnessed.

I have nothing against old Taylor Swift. I don’t know enough of her music to comment on her songs and from what I have read, I have come to respect a lot of the way she has thrown her money around. There are reports she sent money to fans who lost work during the pandemic, and she alone kept Nashville record store Grimey’s New & Preloved Music (to locals simply known as Grimey’s) afloat by covering the store’s employees’ salaries and three months of healthcare.

And I love me some Grimey’s!

I guess we could ask ourselves, or Taylor (and wait, let me get her on the phone right now): why such a bombardment of lights, sound and fury? Is it because the audience expects it, are audiences these days not capable of enjoying something quieter, and Taylor, and all modern-day performers simply providing what the live stadium concert beast now demands? And if this last point is true, are stadium shows (and this has been argued by better than me) actually the antithesis of what a live music performance should be? (I surely know plenty of folks who won’t attend a stadium concert because they are too big and wild).

Back in the day when I went to concerts and was treated to, what was then, an amazing display of visual and sound, my friends and I never forgot what we saw or heard (ok, to be fair, lots of my friends forgot, but this was for a whole different reason…wink wink). But for my father and his generation, even plenty of rock critics like Lester Bangs, these shows lacked legitimacy because of the modern-day ballyhoo that we so loved.

We just didn’t forget them.

And so it rolls as we de-evolve.