The album’s first track, “shut up,” opens with strings that culminate in a final orchestral section reminiscent of a Bing Crosby Christmas song. The disco riff that drives “love language” wouldn’t sound out of place on Off the Wall, and the strings that underline the chorus of “my hair” feel like a direct invocation of Etta James’ “At Last.” It’s these songs that push the Ariana envelope; their novelty makes them feel like the cornerstones of the record, giving pause between the more familiar sounding tracks. With their subtle 1950s, 60s, and 70s influence, “shut up,” “love language,” and “my hair” challenge Grande to use her immense vocal prowess for a type of singing that is more stylistic than the belting and high notes for which she is deservedly famous. “my hair” is a particular stand-out with its jazz chords, Grande’s understated vocal delivery on the verses, and her entirely whistle-toned final chorus. “love language” also dabbles in harmonies not typically found on a pop record, but it’s the crunch between the vocal layers during the striking chorus of “shut up” that sticks with me most.

Only a few other songs on Positions come into their own – “34+35,” “obvious,” “just like magic,” and the title track are the B-listers. The rest of the album feels like filler. Perhaps this should be expected when an artist is as prolific as Grande. This album is her third in a little over two years; she is producing records at a frequency which is standard in the rap industry, as opposed to the pop industry, where artists usually take breaks of at least two years in between full-length releases. The result is an album which can sometimes feel rushed. Positions is the kind of record I will happily jam out to for a couple of months, then forget about, cast out of my Spotify “recently played.” The strings that show up over the trap beats on almost every song come across as a weak attempt to maintain the cohesiveness of the album’s retro aesthetic. The Ty Dolla $ign and the Weeknd collaborations take themselves too seriously and get bogged down in their slowness. “motive,” featuring Doja Cat, doesn’t live up to its potential. Both artists are proven hitmakers, yet this collaboration lacks Doja Cat’s youthful levity, and it fails to build to any high point. 

Positions continues to co-opt Black musical styles like R&B, rap, and jazz, even after the backlash Grande received for her 2019 single “7 rings,” which many accused of being culturally appropriative in both its lyrics and its flow. While Michael Harriot argues that “anyone making popular music [today] is – by definition – making black music, regardless of their color,” it is clear that many Black music critics feel Grande belongs to a category of musicians who fail to pay homage to the culture from which they are borrowing. In Pitchfork, critic Rawiya Kameir contends, “Pop culture seem[s] to reflect the philosophy that undergirded centuries of American life: We want the fruits of Blackness, but not Black people,” invoking the singer as one of those “fruits.” Grande continues to fail to publicly reckon with her history of appropriating Black culture. 

Positions ultimately signals a new phase in Grande’s personal healing and musical evolution. The album’s lyrics dwell much more on sex – what it delivers in 1950s Bing Crosby energy, it doubles up on in 1990s bedroom jams – and much less on the trauma that Grande has endured in the public eye over the last few years. While the singer still discloses some of her personal struggles, notably on the confessional closing track “pov,” many songs are exceedingly sexually explicit and playful, sometimes at the risk of clumsiness – I’ll let you add 34 and 35 together. The album makes musical choices that go beyond Grande’s comfort zone, and its lyrics assert her success and power, encouraging listeners to do the same: “Just like magic / Middle finger to my thumb and then I snap it / […] I get everything I want ‘cause I attract it.” Though Grande does manage to bottle up some of that magic in Positions, and share it with her fans, the record’s shortcomings, and what I predict will be its lack of staying power mean that it can only be considered a moderate success. 

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Schitt’s Creek’s path to international success raises some important questions about Canadian arts funding, which has been unable to match the growing number of artists and organizations seeking government support since the 1990s. The series is actually a little less home-grown than the average Canadian may suspect – Schitt’s Creek could not have achieved its level of recognition without an American network and audience. When Eugene Levy and his son Dan Levy began pitching their project to television networks, they faced rejection from large American companies before finally getting picked up by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). The national public broadcaster’s existence is, however, constantly being threatened by cuts to federal funding; most recently, these cuts were advocated for by the new federal Conservative Party leader, Erin O’Toole. Since the CBC couldn’t foot the entire bill for the show’s debut, the Levys sought out an offer from the midsize American cable network Pop TV, and Schitt’s Creek ended up premiering in both the States and Canada in 2015. Viewership was modest until the Schitts and Roses found their way to American Netflix in 2017, at which point ratings exploded.

Schitt’s Creek undoubtedly also benefits from its ambiguous setting. Although Dan Levy has admitted that the fictional Schitt’s Creek is a small town in Canada, that fact isn’t obvious to viewers. Other than the occasional reference to cities like Vancouver and Montreal, the show omits direct cultural signifiers, and many of my non-Canadian friends are surprised when they learn that Schitt’s Creek isn’t American. Yet, when the series set a new Emmy record, the CBC and other Canadians took to the Internet to praise the show. The CBC’s president and CEO, Catherine Tait, wrote in the Toronto Star that “[t]his great show exists because of Canada – a country that values ideas like decency and acceptance; a country that provides financial support to Canadian shows through the Canada Media Fund; and yes, a country that has a national public broadcaster whose mandate is to find, invest in and promote these stories.” Ontario premier Doug Ford added on Twitter that, “Ontario is proud of [the cast]. Fun fact: Schitt’s Creek was filmed in Goodwood and Toronto #OntarioMade.” Schitt’s Creek already has an extensive collection of Canadian Screen Awards, so this revelling and back-patting in the wake of its success at the American Emmy Awards feels a tad ironic. A series which intentionally concealed its Canadian identity is now the greatest pride of Canadian television since The Beachcombers, which premiered nearly half a century ago. 

But why shouldn’t we celebrate these Emmy wins? It’s no secret that recognition in the United States is often a TV show’s greatest achievement. The Levys knew that they could make Schitt’s Creek successful by having an American network cover costs, by intentionally keeping their setting vague, and by getting American Netflix to provide the series’ ultimate launch to fame.  As a fan, I’m proud of Schitt’s Creek’s newfound cult status, but I’m also disappointed that this show, which I would love to consider a symbol of Canadian artistic achievement, is really no such thing. If anything, Schitt’s Creek is a testament to the Canadian government’s continued lack of support for the arts.

If Canadian superstar Eugene Levy struggled to find the local funding to produce his show, which has an all-white central cast, how can other Canadian artists, especially artists of colour, expect to receive support for their own projects?  Like Schitt’s Creek, the sitcom Kim’s Convenience features an entrepreneurial family with two grown children – in this instance, a Korean-Canadian family running a corner store in Toronto. The series premiered on the CBC  only a year later than Schitt’s Creek, but it’s marketed as “the show to watch once you’ve finished binging Schitt’s Creek.” Perhaps it wouldn’t be if its creator, Ins Choi, had the same bargaining power in the States as the Levys, and if the show had a mostly white cast. 

Kim’s Convenience is just one example of artists of colour being systemically disadvantaged within the Canadian arts scene. When determining which arts institutions will receive federal grants, the Canada Council for the Arts continues to use a metric of “artistic excellence.” Many consider this criterion exclusionary to artists who aren’t white men, because art that is seen as “legitimate” in the West has historically been male and Eurocentric. Take, for instance, the prevalence of Mozart and Verdi in Canada’s opera houses, despite the wealth of fascinating new indie opera that is being produced by composers with diverse racial and gender identities. Though the Council has implemented certain measures to provide support for traditionally underfunded groups, in particular Indigenous artists, funding is still unevenly distributed across Canada’s vast geographic regions. Canadian arts organizations continue to survive from project to project. And it will only get worse, given the economic effects of the global pandemic, which will inevitably shrink the small piece of the federal pie devoted to arts funding.

Schitt’s Creek is excellent television, but it’s not perfect. I love how the show balances ridiculousness and truth, with nuggets of poignant sincerity just around the corner from expertly crafted laugh-out-loud moments. Its characters are all people we’ve encountered before, whether in our own small town diners, or in the reality TV we watch as a guilty pleasure late at night.  Schitt’s Creek also does right in the romantic storyline between characters David (Dan Levy) and Patrick (Noah Reid). According to a letter penned to the cast by a group of 1,800 mothers of queer children, the series “will serve as a catalyst to help change the world into a kinder, safer, more loving place for all LGBTQ people to live.” But the cast’s obvious lack of racial diversity is ultimately a detriment to what could have otherwise been a fully-rounded depiction of Canadian – or, in this case, broadly “North American” – life.  Perhaps Schitt’s Creek’s smashing success will open the door for more empowering stories about marginalized communities. With the power to make important social change, while also keeping audiences in stitches, one can only hope that Schitt’s Creek lands more than just a nickel in that pesky arts funding jar.

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@realtimcannonGuilty pleasures be like…##taylorswift ##folklore ##countrymusic ##MyBFF ##popmusic♬ original sound – realtimcannon

Part of the reason that I am loud and proud about my love for Taylor is that I can’t bring myself to hide one of my interests simply because it is shared by many other women. It frustrates me to no end that girls and young women are belittled and mocked for the things that they collectively enjoy because patriarchy deems them frivolous, unsophisticated, or lacking in value and merit. See: boy bands, romantic comedies, and our girl Tay. 

The most important element in The Taylor Swift Story is her feminist arc. “Tim McGraw” launched her to country fame at the age of 16, and as her star rose, she was criticized and ridiculed for her large catalogue of songs about what many considered to be an unacceptably long string of boyfriends. Then came the infamous 2009 VMAs moment with Kanye West; from that point on, the narrative of Swiftian victimhood –  both self-written and imposed upon her by others – began. That narrative was further cemented in 2016 when Swift challenged West’s song “Famous,” which featured the lyric: “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that bitch famous.” The world largely took West’s side, and the public hatred towards Taylor Swift came to a crescendo in the summer of 2016, when #TaylorSwiftIsOverParty started trending on Twitter. Taylor has been criticized for being too drama-entangled, too crafty in her creative and business choices, too much of a “serial dater,” too self-pitying, too catty, too two-faced. You name it, and she has been too much of it. 

In 2017, Taylor’s public image began to shift. She won a civil countersuit for a single dollar against ex-DJ David Mueller, who sexually assaulted her on a red carpet in front of a wall of cameras. Her album Reputation hardened her image, and she retreated from public life. In 2019, she admonished music executive Scooter Braun for purchasing the rights to more than a decade of her music recordings, claiming that she was never given the opportunity to purchase the masters herself. The Netflix documentary Miss Americana showed her opening up about her struggle with disordered eating, and her successful fight to unshackle herself from the political neutrality forced upon her by her labels and management. Her next album Lover featured her long overdue feminist anthem “The Man.” Now, in folklore, Taylor tackles the topics of sexism and women’s empowerment in a subtler, overarching, and more incisive way. In “the last great american dynasty,” she quips: “There goes the most shameless woman this town has ever seen / She had a marvellous time ruining everything. In “mad woman,” she sings: “Women like hunting witches, too / Doing your dirtiest work for you.” And in “seven”, she recalls the freedom of a childhood unburdened by gender norms: “Before I learned civility / I used to scream ferociously any time I wanted.” And this newfound power goes beyond her lyrics – she is the owner of her last two albums, and has directed her last two music videos. 

Taylor’s feminism has never been – and still isn’t – perfect. It has been very white, and a very long time in the making. It has been whipped out at opportune times, and set aside at inopportune ones. But it has certainly grown. Taylor and her feminism have evolved in a way that feels personal to me. Like so many young women, I grew up with Taylor Swift. I first heard “Teardrops On My Guitar” on the radio, sitting in the backseat of my dad’s 1996 Camry when I was in primary school. Now, I get to see her transition into her 30s, exactly one decade older than me, growing as an artist and as a person. There is value in that. 

All this to say, I love folklore. Taylor’s voice, which has never been her strongest attribute, shines in the lower register she adopts for these songs. The production is spot on, from the grin-inducing harmonica that opens “Betty” to the driving pedal point of “Peace,” which is the song from this album that I believe will join the ranks of “Love Story” and “Blank Space” in the Swift Hall of Fame. The songwriting on folklore is masterfully clever, honest, and intimate, even in this form of fictitious storytelling which is a departure from her typically autobiographical fare. Lyrically, folklore is quick in wit and languorous in emotion. We have returned to the long forms of Red, swimming in indulgent bridges and lush codas that often take these songs past the four minute mark. Swift is once again delivering, as she always does. And that is precisely why I am frustrated that this album is receiving widespread acclaim, while her other albums have not. 

As the critics on the New York Times’ Popcast series suggest, folklore may be getting rave reviews because it is packaged in the trappings of “serious” (read: middle-aged, white, male) music. The black and white album cover, the lowercase song titles, the production by Aaron Dessner (a member of The National, synonymous with “dad indie rock”), the collaboration with Bon Iver (another indie touchstone), and the dense, acoustic sonic landscape all work together to create something that is a little less “Top 40” and a little more “found in the back of the record store.” The Times’ Jon Caramanica brings up this point as a jab at the album, but also to criticize the broader sexist culture that is creating this current folklore mania. Swift’s musical prowess has always been on display, albeit in a shinier, pinker, pop-ier package. Is it merely a coincidence that previous Taylor critics are suddenly jumping on the bandwagon, now that she is serving up something slightly darker? I don’t think so. While I don’t fully agree with Caramanica’s negative reading of the album, I do think his analysis of the culture is correct. Taylor Swift was pigeonholed as a “guilty pleasure” until Dessner and Justin Vernon stepped in to “legitimize” her.

So if you don’t consider yourself a Swiftie, or if you only consider yourself one now that you’ve listened to folklore, I encourage you to spend time with the rest of Taylor Swift’s discography. Maybe I only love Taylor because her music is nostalgic for me. But maybe you’ll find that her canon is truly filled with artful melodies, and words that will speak to you in surprising ways. Go listen to “All Too Well,” and get back to me.

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