Kenneth Turan is the film critic for the Los Angeles Times and NPR's Morning Edition, as well as the director of the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. He has been a staff writer for the Washington Post and TV Guide, and served as the Times' book review editor.
Though Swift performs a range of experience and emotions, the music on her 11th album feels thin and is often in service of lyrics that could have used a red pencil.
"I'm not playing with persona," St. Vincent says of All Born Screaming. "It's a really a record about life and death and love. That's it. That's all we got."
On Friday — the day Swift released her 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department — she smashed the all-time Spotify record for most album streams in a single day, with more than 300 million.