Taylor Swift’s ‘Anti-Hero’ and ‘Cruel Summer’: How the Superstar Had the Feel-Cruel Hits of the Summer and Winter, Too

variety.com:

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic “Summer’s lease hath all too short a date,” wrote William Shakespeare in one of his sonnets.

Well, Bill, you might be enchanted to meet Taylor Swift, who has been busy proving just how long a summer can last: four years and counting, in the case of “Cruel Summer.” The song was released in 2019 but didn’t become a smash until 2023, when by popular acclamation her quasi-oldie was all but officially declared the song of summer. (“What’s past is prologue,” indeed!) The remarkable comeback of “Cruel Summer” was hardly the only major story as Swift singles went in 2023.

Going back into the darker months, “Anti-Hero” was arguably the song of the winter — and the one that reestablished Swift’s supremacy at radio.

Prior to the arrival of the “Midnights” album late in 2022, there was a period of years in which it was assumed that, as massive as she would always be as a seller and a streamer, she might have graduated past the point of having strings of No.