what do you mean “cutting songs”? also i absolutely agree with what you said man how come you’re always right? lol

What I mean by that is that an album should work as a cohesive unit and ideally every song should bring something new or exciting to the table, add to the narrative, expand the universe, etc. When we look at the vault tracks for Fearless TV and Red TV for example (though to be fair, less with Red), there are a bunch of tracks on there that wouldn't have added anything to the album except weight and runtime. And a long runtime makes a record less memorable imo – rarely am I going to take time out of my day to listen to an album that is 2+ hours long. And Taylor is a GREAT album artist, no doubt. I just dislike the narrative that has sprung up that Taylor releasing vault tracks etc. is a sign that she is freeee from the shakles of Big Machine where evil man Scott B told her to cut all of those good songs >:( like. Scott B fucking sucks but having an editor on you who really brings out your strengths and teaches you to sharpen your skill and vision is not bad per se. (I don't think their particular relationship was healthy in that regard, but that's not shocking information.) Obviously this is in part due to the streaming era, but we still have artists who create albums™ and I hope Taylor remains one of them.