The Lizard Review (The Lizard )

Article One // Article Two

A lyrical analysis of one of the best songs on Lover.

NEW MUSIC FRIDAY with Camila Cabello, JoJo Siwa, Twenty-One Pilots, Flyana Boss, and of course the cowboy herself...Beyonce...if that ain't country, you tell me what is!!!

New Music from Chappell Roan, Jojo Siwa, Glass Animals, Lizzy McAlpine, and the ever-present Charli XCX.

a previously paywalled episode I'm sharing with EVERYONE in honor of TTPD coming out. A purrrfect primer for the new album 🤍

your last correspondence before The Tortured Poets Department comes out...here is a Dear Reader lyrical analysis 📖

a lyrical analysis of the strongest soldier on The Anthology - an overlooked masterpiece, one of her strongest pieces of writing, and proof she is Emily Swiftinson.

a thorough lyrical analysis of Taylor Swift's I Hate It Here, and for some reason Perez Hilton comes up organically?

ruminations on the brand new Billie Eilish record that truly do range from hard and soft. WARNING : I cry. I also do impressions. Classic.

From nonsensical Stan Wars about which pop girl is polluting the environment more, to boring indie girls, to Meghan Trainor...it's all righttt here for your enjoyment.

What's the one thing Taylor Swift and Halsey have in common?

NEW MUSIC FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Halsey, Sabrina Carpenter, and of course, Charli XCX.

A lyrical analysis / manifestation circle, in the hopes of receiving this song as a surprise song in London...

A short list of the songs that make me absolutely buckwild insane, including a longer playlist. Playlist on Spotify // Playlist on Apple

I'M BACK FROM LONDON!! My welcome home gift was the latest album from Camila Cabello and it unfortunately DID NOT come with a receipt so I'm unable to return it....additionally some SZA, Halsey, and Kesha.

Lasso hasn't been seen except in the shadows late at night in the mountains. Brat can only be seen by those with the wherewithal to comprehend it. And Chanel No. 5 will never be seen at all.....

The first in a series where I go through the most IMPORTANT and influential albums in my life - this one made me feel seen and heard at one of the most pivotal times in my life.

NEW MUSIC AND POP CULTURE FRIDAY!!!!! Featuring Remi Wolf, Clairo, Halsey, Longlegs, Griff, Zach Bryan, and a shadow figure lurking in the background.

Gwen Stefani did a lot of things during her LAMB era that I'm sure you'd LIKE to forget about...sadly I won't let you!!! Plus, Britney Spears, The Backstreet Boys, and Doja Cat. Accompanying playlist on Spotify // Apple Music

The second in a series where I go through the most IMPORTANT and influential albums in my life - this one served in ways I never thought possible and did it all while shaking the foundations of my reality. Through others, we become ourselves.

A lyrical analysis of, what else.....August by Taylor Swift. A song about a first love that becomes a lost love and everything that goes along with it.

An American tradition (gathering celebrities into one room and forcing them to play nice with one another for four hours) has returned....Join me in reading through ALLLL the nominees for the MTV Video Music Awards, and hear some of my predictions for who will win what (and why.)

Halsey is regaining footing after a disappointing lead single, Tinashe is pushing forward amidst her viral success, Addison Rae is BACK, Beabadoobee is Michelle Branch 2.0, Gaga and Bruno Mars surprise the hell out of me, and the internet wants you believe that Blake Lively is trying to destroy it all...all that AND MORE in today's NMF.

Sabrina Carpenter's new album where she exposes Shawn Mendes as a poor man's Justin Bieber, Maude Latour's debut record where she more than proves herself as capable of fitting in with her gen z contemporaries, and a brief look at how we treat celebrities following Chappell Roan's comments on celebrity and fan culture.

Britney Spears' most iconic performances. Miley Cyrus getting caught on smack cam in front of a live audience. Beyonce pregnancy announcement. Madonna showing cheek and panty live on television. Eminem fighting a puppet. Kurt Cobain tormenting Axl Rose for fun. And that's just the beginning...

Was it the best one ever? Well, no.... Was it the worst one ever!? WELL, NO!!! The 2024 VMA's was truly a moment of divas being up, and flops being down and down BAD. Not everyone can share pieces of the crown I fear!

A 2010's empire built upon notions of standing up for yourself, girl power, and unrelenting poptimism comes crumbling down right before our eyes in Katy Perry's final stab at relevancy in the 2020's, her new album 143.

The third in a series where I go through the most IMPORTANT and influential albums in my life - this one is about the boundless joy that comes from realizing it does not matter what anybody thinks about you, and it reminds us that life and music and art are all things that can be fun, if you allow them to be.

A deep and personal look into my latest and greatest fixation, a brand new band called Sunday (1994) and their new EP that's perfect for the Fall season.

In observance of the Holy Rite of the Lizard's Birthday, please participate in a FAVORED Lizard Birthday Ritual by watching the greatest film ever made, Practical Magic, starring two of the greatest actresses of our times, Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock, and then come back and listen to this episode for a full dissection of the film's true depths....sadly not many critics have ever seen the greatness in this work of art....THANK GOD FOR THE LIZARD!!!!!!!!!!

The year : 2008. The book : a bestseller. The actors : thought they were making a cute little indie film only to discover their entire lives being upended. Rock band Muse : said sure go ahead give throw them a bone, no one will even remember we were on this soundtrack! Hayley Williams : was also there. The author : Mormon lady obsessed with making playlists. The director : looked like she collected "crystals" from the river on her time off. The girl obsessed with it all : A LIZARD!!!! This is the story of the greatest set of movie soundtracks ever made....The Twilight Saga soundtracks.

This is the story of a thousand wigs, a thousand tears, a thousand hours, a thousand years, a thousand shows, a thousand influences, a thousand hurts from the biggest to the smallest, and of a thousand different people, one of them being myself, somehow all of them being Halsey. They told her she has no sense of identity, and they asked her, "do you even know who you are?"

The Great Impersonator repeats this question. Do YOU even know who you are? What are we, if we are not just the sum of our own thousands of people?

Happy Halloween!!!!!!!!! Here's an early episode 🎃 One of the most iconic pieces of Halloween history is a little film starring three queens (Bette Midler, SJP, and Kathy Najimy) that captures the essence of what Halloween felt like when you were a kid - magical, ripe with possibility, and creepy. It was a massive commercial and critical FLOP when it was first released, but over time, this film has become one of the greatest cult classic success stories, and is watched by MILLIONS of people every single year. I couldn't think of anything better to celebrate one of the best holidays of all time than to take a deep dive into Hocus Pocus ✨

What do Taylor Swift and Halsey have in common...? Well, they're both writers, they're both creatives...and they both dated the exact same TORTURED POET and lived to write about it, and in doing so have given us an interesting codex of songs to compare and contrast. In this episode, I pull apart Halsey's Lonely Is The Muse from her latest record The Great Impersonator, and reflect on what it means to actually BE a muse, and how the experience can often intersect in surprising ways with sexism and gender.

Allow me to introduce you to your new favorite girl band...Flo just released their debut LP titled ACCESS ALL AREAS - a referential, nostalgic, y2k r&b bonanza inspired by the likes of Destiny's Child, but put together by three young gen z women who have been working to put this album together for nearly five entire years.

On the walls of long forgotten about structures buried deep beneath the sands of time, there is an old fable etched in a language that no one speaks anymore. It is a tale of love lost, of infatuation, of meeting the wrong person at the wrong time, and of heartbreak. It is a tale that spans decades, that spans eras, that spans across timelines, that spans across lovers and outfits and rules....it is the story of CHLOE, SAM, SOPHIA, and MARCUS, and it's the greatest story ever told. I've already lyrically analyzed it before, but let's go deeper, girls....let's dig this son of a b***h up and dust it off.

Happy Holidays!!! Here's some of the Christmas music I've been adding to my ever expanding Christmas playlist this year, from Kelly Clarkson, to Ella Fitzgerald, to The Carpenters. Also, an evisceration of yet ANOTHER of Gwen Stefani's baffling tributes to Blake Shelton (yeah, it's a Christmas record, for some goddamn reason.)

Drinking detox tea outside the AMC. Stealing gas money so she can ride the mechanical bull like she's a cowgirl. Calling the cops on your new girlfriend. Scoring 40's. Working at the trampoline park part time. Recording vocals in her mother's Kia. Doing Paper Magazine interviews in her minions pajama pants. Making one of the best albums of 2024 from her living room with a blanket up as a divider for privacy. Cece Natalie is part of the new wave of pop music that we don't even fully understand yet - an innovative, creative, self-made self-produced self-written 19 year old who's blowing up (kinda.)

Defining suicidal ideation for Elmo, getting caught up in one of the most obvious PR-created hate trains of the decade, Luigi, the end of an Eras, cowboys, and MORE are all what helped to define 2024 as a year of evanescent everything, from viral trends to culturally impactful music to everything in-between.

In one of the most STACKED Grammy's for the girls in recent memory, it's hard to pick favorites OR frontrunners....we have Miss Pretty Girl Sabrina Carpenter, Miss I'm Everywhere I'm So Julia Charli XCX, Miss I'm LITERALLY Everywhere Taylor Swift, Miss Congeniality Chappell Roan, and Miss Cowboy Carter herself Beyonce. And that's just the beginning... here's me doing my best to put my FINAL word in on who I think will win, should win, or WILL NOT be winning at this year's Grammy Awards.

This was an album about growing up, about moving away, about changing from a girl into a woman, about navigating the world while being unsure of how (or even if) you fit into it. It was also an album that shook the foundations of pop so much that it launched the careers of dozens of other girls after it, that pissed men off, that confused critics, and that changed the way I would look at music for the rest of my life. It's an album that will forever be an iconic piece of my history, whether it also happened to teach me internalized misogyny or not.

Essential Playlist on Spotify // On Apple Music

A lyrical analysis of one of the GREATEST songs that almost never was...a vault track deep from the archives of the original Golden Era of Taylor Swift : Foolish One from Speak Now (Taylor's Version.) It's one of the best vault tracks because it does everything a vault track should do - shed more light on songs from long ago, take us right back to the time period it would have originally existed in, and give us a strong case of nostalgia ULTIMATE. Foolish One, you son of a b***h....

Oh if only there were a man in my life who wasn't working on Super Bowl Sunday...catch up with me on some of the latest pop culture news including the Super Bowl and all its nonsense featuring Queen SZA gallantly allowing Kendrick on stage, what albums we have to look forward to in the next couple of months, an impending Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot, and all of the latest music from January. INCLUDING : Tate McRae, Lady Gaga, Jennie and that character from Euphoria everyone hated, and Sabrina Carpenter.

Happy Valentine's Day! In honor of the magnificence of this holiday, I did a bit of a sister song lyrical analysis of TWO songs that I believe fully encapsulate the spirit of the day and that I also believe are intrinsically and inextricably linked together and have been since the dawn of time - one Paramore song, one Taylor Swift song! I also start the episode off by detailing a truly demented dream that I had and confess that I sincerely believe my dreams can tell prophecies. Typical Friday stuff.

Friday only comes along every once in a blue moon...on THIS New Music Friday, we get into the brand new single by up and coming band Sunday (1994), as well as the new single from Selena Gomez featuring Gracie Abrams from the already ill-fated collaborative record being cobbled together with Benny Blanco. Plus, the new album from It Girl Tate McRae, and a shocking reminder from Marina that sometimes it's okay to leave before the party is over...

SZA is one of the most innovative, unique, and talented artists working in music right now and she also happens to be one of my favorite artists as well. In this episode, come along with me and learn the basic fundamentals of engaging with SZA's music in the best possible way you can. Take Beyonce's advice and remove the barriers of genre from your mind, and soon, you will find yourself realizing that genre really is just another word that means only what we decide it means...

In the past five years, the number of truly great, iconic, and timeless pop ballads has dwindled significantly in comparison to years prior...WHERE ARE ALL THE GREAT POP BALLADS?!?!?!?!?! Join me as I struggle to answer this question, clarify what is NEEDED in order to create one of these iconic pop ballads, AND as I count down my personal top five GREATEST pop ballads ever created.

Playlist on Spotify // Apple Music

Many of you are aware of my ritual of watching the new episode of Severance every Friday while eating a sandwich...nothing has ever been more important to me in the history of the world...and now that season two has officially concluded, there was no new Severance and no sandwich to be had...so I decided to bring Severance and Sandwich to the Lizard Review for a little bit of a kiki on my personal experience with the show now that we're two seasons in, some opinions on the weirdoness of the fandom, and some interesting conversations about show's storylines and themes.

Happiness is a butterfly...or is happiness a sunset? There will be happiness after you...or will it always escape from my hands into moonlight? Two different schools of thought on the same concept are presented by two of the most established and prolific female songwriters in the world - Lana Del Rey and Taylor Swift. On the one hand, Taylor Swift writes a full narrative of the five stages of grief and how to get back to happiness after all of it in her song Happiness from Evermore. On the other, Lana Del Rey wonders if it's even possible to ever get back to happiness at all on Happiness Is a Butterfly from NFR. Let's examine BOTH of these songs and determine if either of these women are actually mentally stable enough to be giving anyone advice about anything...

One of my all time favorite time periods of music had it all...the best boy bands and girl bands in history, some of the most iconic female pop stars of all time, iconic producers, and legendary iconography. It ALSO had misogyny, villainous men topping the charts, and beloved female pop stars punching one another backstage at the VMA's. Nonetheless, I love y2k, flaws and all, and I decided to (attempt) to count down fifteen of my favorite songs from the era.

One of the most underrated and overlooked songs on Tortured Poets may actually be one that has the most to mine....a simple and admittedly childish metaphor is actually far more than it seems once you really start digging into the depths of this song and what it represents in the narrative of the album. Celebrate ONE YEAR of Tortured Poets on The Lizard Review by analyzing one of my favorite songs from the album with me!