Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant Reacts to Taylor Swift’s Music

The Pet Shop Boys are sharing their thoughts on Taylor Swift following the release of the superstar’s 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department.

In an interview with The Guardian, the group’s Neil Tennant shared, “I was looking at the chart earlier today … and it’s all Taylor Swift.”

He continued, “I have listened to Taylor Swift’s album. Taylor Swift sort of fascinates me as a phenomenon because she’s so popular and I sort of quite like the whole thing. But then when I listen to the records, and we both have the same feeling actually, that for a phenomenon as big [as she is] … where are the famous songs? What is Taylor Swift’s ‘Billie Jean’?”

When someone suggested “Shake It Off” as an equivalent to the popularity of Michael Jackson’s enduring hit, Tennant responded, “Is it though? No, ’cause I actually even know that that’s the answer, but I listened to that the other day, and it’s not ‘Billie Jean.’ It’s not… Melodically — she’s got a great voice, by the way, and the production’s beautiful — but melodically … it’s all sung one or two notes going up and down… But, anyway, it’s a fascinating thing.”

The interviewer then added that Swifties enjoy having a collective experience, and Tennant agreed. “I like that, I even sort of appreciate that, and I like the fact that it brings all these people together, even multigenerational, but I just think that the one disappointing thing is the music. Not even the lyrics, the music,” he said.

Watch the full interview via a fan account here.

On Friday (April 19), what was originally slated to be a standard 16-track album turned into a 31-song anthology when Swift surprised fans just hours after release with an additional second half of the project. “It’s a 2am surprise: The Tortured Poets Department is a secret DOUBLE album,” she wrote on Instagram. “I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you, so here’s the second installment of TTPD: The Anthology. 15 extra songs. And now the story isn’t mine anymore… it’s all yours.”

Following its release, The Tortured Poets Department sold 1.4 million copies in traditional album sales on its first day, according to initial reports to data tracking firm Luminate. That marks Swift’s biggest sales week ever for any album in the U.S. (Luminate’s sales, streaming and airplay data powers Billboard’s charts. All numbers in this story are for the U.S. only.)