It’s an important lesson for politicians: never give your enemies a name. Hillary Clinton did it, disastrously, with her off-the-cuff announcement about a “basket of deplorables”. Did it cost her the election? On its own, no, but it certainly didn’t …
Why the Southport suspect’s identity matters
After an atrocity has been committed, a morbid curiosity often takes hold of online sleuths. As they search for clues of the suspect’s identity, what they really want is to look into the eyes of evil, perhaps believing that they’ll …
Mama Swifties need to grow up
It’s been a bumper week for middle-aged journalists enthusing about Taylor Swift. Broadsheet music critics attending the Edinburgh leg of her ongoing Eras tour seemed positively high on second-hand oestrogen fumes as they filed their encomiums. And there were further …
The night Taylor Swift conquered Europe
I’m just off the train at Nanterre, a suburb west of Paris, and walking down a pedestrianised avenue to Paris La Defense Arena, a hulking, 40,000-capacity quadrilateral that’s the largest indoor arena in Europe. “Welcome to New York”, sings one …
Taylor Swift, America’s national hero
A record number of Americans are likely to watch this Sunday’s Super Bowl, probably only half of whom will be following the actual game. The other half will be scanning the luxury boxes for tantalising glimpses of Taylor Swift, the …
Why the Right fears Taylor Swift
In pop music, one of the most time-honoured devices for upping the emotional ante is known colloquially as the “Truck Driver’s Gear Change”. In it, the melody stays the same, but is modulated up a whole note, with the effect …
Why Taylor Swift can’t deny being gay
The American fascination with the private lives of celebrities has always been inflamed by the mix of sex with scandal. In 1907, the country was enthralled by what was deemed the “Trial of the Century” after railroad heir Harry Kendall …
What Madonna can teach Taylor Swift
There’s a moment in Taylor Swift’s music video for “Look What You Made Me Do” in which all the ghosts of her past stand in a line as though they’re about to be executed by firing squad — only instead, …
Taylor Swift’s tragic appeal
The scene at the ship’s bow in Titanic is so iconic it has spawned innumerable homages and pastiches. But would the fictionalised love story between Jack and Rose carry the same iconic power, had their relationship not been doomed? Would …
The dawn of the Bohemian Peasants
It is a drab Wednesday in April and I am sat naked in a transparent plastic shed. Tucked away in a forest near the sleepy town of Uckfield, a woman starts to hit me in the face with some birch …
Kanye West’s tragic victory
It took me a while to figure out what the first two instalments of the new Netflix documentary jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy reminded me of, this portrait of the artist as a young man trying to get ahead in the …
Why pop can’t escape the Eighties
Last year, the Canadian musician Tamara Lindeman, who performs as the Weather Station, explained to Uncut that her new album Ignorance was influenced by pop, but not just any old pop: “Eighties pop music, which was, I think, the best …