It is unsettling and deeply aggravating that world-class artists are dropping mid-tier (at best) albums during world tours and force-feeding their setlist with their awful songs. Tyler, The Creator did it last week with ‘Don’t Tap That Glass’. Taylor Swift did it with ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ at the Era’s tour. It’s starting to feel less like spontaneity and more like a scam.
Songs from ‘Cherry Bomb’ and ‘SWEET/I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO DANCE’ have been swapped out and replaced with songs from ‘Don’t Tap That Glass’. Similarly, Taylor Swift permanently got rid of six songs to accommodate ‘TTPD’.
Fans, like me, are spending hundreds (if not thousands) to go to these ludicrously expensive concerts during a cost-of-living crisis. We buy tickets, hotels, flights, and overpriced sweatshop merch. We spend this money to watch an artist perform songs we cherish. So, when it comes down to it, there is something solemnly nefarious about making a rushed, untested album and swapping out classics during a tour.
I can make an easy comparison for these artists, as they evidently don’t get it. Using the last leg of a tour to promote your awful albums is like ordering McNuggets and getting given a new, secret McFlurry flavour. Sure, you technically did get McDonald’s, but it’s not what you rocked up for.
I’m all for artistic evolution. If you’re going to release an album during a tour, playing one or two songs isn’t bad. Testing the waters and teasing the album is fun! However, when you start pushing out songs’ fans want to hear, it starts to feel like you’re using your tour to cut costs on promotion.
Taylor Swift and Tyler, The Creator are legendary. They have both transformed music and broken barriers. They’re great songwriters and storytellers, and I am so, so excited to see Tyler in two weeks. I have been listening to him for almost a decade. However, that doesn’t mean I want to sit through two hours of songs I barely know while albums I grew up on are pushed out.
Despite my having a whinge about ‘the good old days’, like I’m not a nineteen-year-old girl in the Perth metro, it is not just about nostalgia. It’s about respect. We are the people who have supported these artists for years, and we are the reason they can tour the world. I bought the ‘Chromakopa’ tickets in November for a reason, and it wasn’t for ‘Don’t Tap That Glass’.
I understand artists need to keep things fresh and sell records. However, when the scale tips, it starts to feel less like artistry and more like bait and switch marketing. If you want to tour a new album, do another tour. Don’t hijack the old one because you don’t want to shell out a couple of bucks from your account in Panama.
At the end of the way, fans don’t want to be billboards. We want to scream the songs we love. That’s what live music has always been about.
meah taylor 
Ebony B 
Brooke Hitch Higgins