Spätstil Taylor Swift: Adornian Lateness and the Pop Star

This article analyzes Taylor Swift’s work through Theodor Adorno’s concept of lateness. Through a close reading of “But Daddy I Love Him” and “Clara Bow” from Swift’s 2024 album The Tortured Poets Department, I argue that Swift ironically subverts stylistic conventions and creates fragmentary soundscapes to reconfigure lateness and reflect on her unstable subject position under conditions of platformed visibility, affective economy, and commodified intimacy. I complicate Adorno’s idealized vision of artistic interiority to account for commercial pressures, online infrastructures, and identity parameters, ultimately proposing lateness as a fundamental language through which the contemporary pop star constructs persona and legacy.