‘Heartbreak Is the National Anthem’ Author Rob Sheffield on Taylor Swift’s Growth From Teen Prodigy to Transformative Figure — and Why Even Fans Love Arguing About Her

variety.com:

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic In hoping to write entertainingly about Taylor Swift, sometimes it seems like the best option is just to quote her lyrics at length and then hope some of the filler in-between benefits from some reflected wit.

But this has never been a problem that’s been faced by Rob Sheffield, who has long been not just one of the most authoritative journalists writing about Swift’s music but almost certainly the wittiest.

It helps to have a way with words in covering pop’s most excerptible lyricist, and Sheffield has proven himself over time with his Rolling Stone columns and reviews — and now a book about the superstar, “Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music,” which has both bon mots and depth to spare.

Saying his book is “about the superstar” should probably be amended to “about the superstar’s work,” since Sheffield makes no bones about the fact that he doesn’t care much about Swift’s private life. “Heartbreak Is the National Anthem” is a thoroughly engaging portrait not of Swift herself but of her song catalog, if a discography can be said to have its own biography.