Updated
ST. JOHN’S, NL—I do not jump on bandwagons, but I do appreciate good music no matter who makes it.
Long before 2012, when the term “Swifties” was coined, and long before Taylor Swift became mega-, mega-, mega-famous via her Eras Tour “era,” and long before she became hated amongst the MAGA crowd after Trump’s victory, I have already been collecting all her albums on CD—and later on vinyl.
Here are the Taylor Swift records in my vinyl collection so far (in chronological order—from left to right):
After the not-so-nice public reception of reputation, I lost interest in Taylor Swift. Then came her interesting projects folklore and evermore, but I was afraid to spend any money on anything frivolous then because of the pandemic.
And after the pandemic, I just couldn’t keep up anymore, because—aside from the fast pace in which her new music was being released—we were bombarded with the re-recordings of her earlier albums. Not to mention that those releases literally had countless variants and editions. It was all too much.
But I have been setting aside money since the Eras Tour started last year, for completing my Taylor Swift vinyl collection was one of my “projects” when I go home for my vacation. Of course, I always opt for the editions that bear the “official” and representative album covers. I still haven’t unwrapped and put them in protective plastic sleeves—but, at last, here are the LPs for which I penny-pinched for months and months:
The heaviest on the pocket was the latest album, The Tortured Poets Department. The standard edition was already hard to save for as it was, but (along with its infinite gimmicky variants) it also had to come with an “essential” 4-disc, 31-song expanded edition that was torturously pricey:
So there—my Taylor Swift vinyl set is finally up to date. I am now all set and ready for the release of The Life of a Showgirl this October.