Episodes
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Gilmore Girls’ Purity Problem
Gilmore Girls is one of the most beloved and evergreen shows that came out of the early 2000's - it's also long been considered to be one of the most progressive and even feminist shows of its time period....but there is one MAJOR issue that the writers did not always handle well : the issue of...
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ANALYSIS : State of Grace and Begin Again
RED is famously one of Taylor Swift's greatest fall records - to some, it is one of the greatest fall records OF ALL TIME. In the spirit of season, here's a lyric analysis of the bookends of that album, State of Grace and Begin Again. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with...
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Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart Were DOOMED From the Start
In 2010, there was perhaps no one more famous on planet earth than Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, the stars of the Twilight series. After trying to keep their relationship a secret in spite of the magnifying glass on their lives for nearly a year, the truth finally came out...and ruined...
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Stuffed Animals as Iconic Pop Albums
One of my absolute favorite kinds of videos to watch on YouTube are ASMR videos - they're how I relax, unwind, calm down, and fall asleep. In celebration of the announcement that the Lizard Review will begin posting on YouTube this next week, I decided to pay tribute to my favorite YouTube videos...
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Do The Billboard Charts Matter?
Since the launch of Nielsen Soundscan in 1991, A LOT has changed about the way we consume music, which means that a lot has changed about the way music consumption is reflected on the Billboard chart which has purported itself to be a fair aggregate of the music that MOST people are generally...
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Revisiting 4 of The WILDEST Celebrity Marriages
With the influx of reality television, the media's obsession with female celebrities reaching a fever pitch, and the digital era all converging at once....there were some pretty interesting public weddings that took place in the y2k era. Before we had celebrities like Tom Holland and Zendaya…
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Revisiting Britney Spears' ICONIC 2003 Interview With Diane Sawyer
In November 2003, on the precipice of a brand new chapter of her life and career, Britney Spears sat down with Diane Sawyer for a Primetime interview to discuss everything from her so-called "new edgier image", to her new album, her family, life in the public eye, and her highly publicized…
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The Lizard's Favorite Summer Albums
Every season has its own set of albums that make it special - here's summer's very own list of the most free, hot, angry, fun, and sunny albums that I spin every single year without fail. Playlist on Spotify / Apple Music This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other...
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Taylor's Journey With Marriage Through Her Lyrics
Love and relationships are something Taylor Swift has loved to explore in her lyrics from day one - and part and parcel with that exploration, she has spent a fair amount of time in her catalog even from her youngest years ruminating on marriage. Through her lyrics she’s expressed a lot about…
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If Pop Girls Were Taylor Swift Albums
This episode dares to ask some of the boldest questions ever asked....questions like...what if Beyonce' were a Taylor Swift album? What if Dua Lipa were a Taylor Swift album? What if Avril Lavigne were a Taylor Swift album? If we could sort some of the most famous women in music into Taylor Swift...
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Revisiting Taylor Swift's Iconic 2012 Vogue Cover Article
Continuing on with my series of revisiting the ghosts of magazine articles' past, today we reflect upon yet another ICONIC moment of Taylore : the moment that Taylor got bangs for her Vogue cover shoot and discovered the look she perhaps was always meant to have... This is a public episode. If...
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The Ultimate Sunday (1994) Ranking
For the first time EVEERRRR, I attempt (and succeed at) ranking all eighteen songs from Sunday (1994.) I made the TierMaker myself! Feel free to use it at your own leisure to create your own rankings. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to...
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Going Through My Husband's Playlists
I am the supreme overlord of what music gets played in this household and when...but my husband DOES have his own playlists and he does on occasion listen to his own music. These playlists NEVER get played aloud in the house, but they exist, and today, we go through them to excavate some truly...
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Spotify's Top 100 Greatest Songs of the Streaming Era
The streaming era of music is still unfolding before our very eyes, but one thing is beyond for certain - streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music have changed the way we engage with, enjoy, and find music. Streaming has opened up the entire world (or at least, those with a spare 11.99 to...
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Panic! At The Ship of Theseus
Once upon a time in a land not so dissimilar to our own, there was a band that made all the wrong choices at all the right times...this is a story about the 2000's, the scene, the girls who loved it, and the men who hated it. Panic! At The Disco was a group of teenaged boys who wound up thrust…
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Revisiting Taylor Swift's Iconic 2014 Rolling Stone Interview
In 2014, Taylor was reinventing herself - new hair, new city, new midriff, new genre. The Rolling Stone interview that came out just a month before her record-breaking release of 1989 was our first real peek as fans into what this era truly held in store for us, and revisiting this article now 12...
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Lover Remade
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelizardreview.substack.com/subscribe
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The Top 10 Most Formative Pop Culture Moments of My Life : Part Two
Here in the top FIVE of the most important pop culture moments of my lifetime, we get down into the instances that I've carried with me for almost my entire life - including the single greatest televised pop performance ever, Justin Timberlake being an enemy to women, a frantic hoedown in an...
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The Top 10 Most Formative Pop Culture Moments of My Life : Part One
What do Paris Hilton going to jail, Beyonce surprise releasing her self titled record in 2013, and the Jonas Brothers' purity rings all have in common...? They were all representative of moments in pop culture that helped define both the zeitgeist and the way that I engaged with pop culture and…
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The Lizard's 2026 Grammy's Predictions
The 2026 Grammy's are almost right on top of us, and as such, it's time to do one of my most favorite things in the entire world....BE WRONG FOR AN HOUR!!! 🎉 Although my predictions usually don't come to pass (2025 notwithstanding - I had an oddly good sense of who would win last year but that…
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Freeing Myself From the Shackles of Hate : The Gracie Abrams Files
Gracie Abrams is one of the most famous gen z artists in music, and her biggest claim to fame is that she's a songwriter following in the footsteps of Taylor Swift. She's had multiple top ten songs, is dating a very famous actor, and is lucky enough to call her a friend of Taylor Swift. But you...
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The Lizard's 2025 Movies Wrapped : Powered by Wikipedia
Do you like movies? I like movies. Movies are good. Movies are fun to watch. I enjoy the endeavor of picking a movie to watch. I like popping popcorn in the microwave. Movies are powerful. Movies can change how we think and see the world. Movies are art. Movies....are movies.... This is a public...
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The Lizard's Top 32 Songs of 2025
If I had to sum up the year in music of 2025 in one word I would call it : DYNAMIC!! There were so many great records that came out from so many different corners of music, and we were TRULY lucky this year that we got to listen to it all. Here's MY personal list of my favorite 32 songs of the...
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My Very Own Made Up Taylor Swift Christmas Album
It's been nearly 20 years since the last time Taylor Swift released a Christmas project - it was called the Sounds of the Season, and while it's a beloved and nostalgic piece of Christmas lore to me now, we DESPERATELY need something newer and, frankly....BETTER!!!!! Come with me as I cobble...
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The Lizard's Favorite Christmas Songs, Ranked
Lots of people walk into department and grocery stores and malls during the holiday season and hear Christmas music playing and groan. NOT ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There are a lot of great (and greatly bad) Christmas songs in the world...but only a select few can make it onto my all time favorite...
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I Watched The Terrible Jonas Brothers Christmas Movie So You Don't Have To
Just don't watch it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelizardreview.substack.com/subscribe
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My Favorite Songs from My Least Favorite Era of Music
In determining your taste in music, what you HATE is almost as important as what you LOVE...after many many years of considering it, I've finally decided what my least favorite era in the history of music is - we talk about WHAT I hate about it, what artists were the biggest offenders, and also,...
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2026 Grammy's Nominations : Tater Tots Strike Back
This year's Grammy's is a STARK contrast to last year's Pop Girl Summit. The nominees this year, particularly in the Big Four, are far more dynamic and representative of music from all across the board. Who got snubbed, who got what they deserved, and WHO were the jumpscares that we never…
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A Frighteningly Angry Halloween Lyric Analysis
There's nothing as scary as female rage...HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelizardreview.substack.com/subscribe
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EVERY Autumn is Gilmore Girls Autumn
Gilmore Girls is one of my favorite shows of all time...and it also happens to be one of the most fall-coded shows ever created. We're FINALLLYYY doing Autumn behaviors on The Lizard Review and kicking it off STRONG with a semi-chaotic ranking of my twelve favorite Gilmore Girls episodes of all...
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No, Taylor Swift Is Not A Tradwife
Insane sentence to have to type OR say in the year 2025...but alas, here we are. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelizardreview.substack.com/subscribe
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If I Can't Have Showgirl, I Want Badlands
My trip abroad and beyond was filled with many happenstances including roaches, pizza, and a Polaroid to heal old wounds...but now that I'm finally back from a long workation, it's finally time to get myself back into the official mindset of SHOWGIRL. Shift with me back into Showgirl and Swiftie...
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A Ranking of The Lizard's Favorite Pop Records (sort of)
In honor of there being a very huge pop record coming out in the next couple of weeks (I wonder to what I refer...) I decided to reflect on some of my favorite pop records of all time and also attempted to "rank" them, even though ranking is an evil word here on The Lizard Review. This is a…
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Going to the South with Hayley Williams
When a song is just soooo good you have to LIB OUT!!!!!!! Hayley Williams surprise released a 17-song confection with no official title on her website - it was completely contextless, and we all dove into the tracks not knowing quite what to expect : one of the absolute best ways to engage with…
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The Lizard's Ultimate Showgirl Primer Guide
Many might say that a "showgirl" is a very specific thing, and that you can't just walk around calling any celebrity you feel like a "showgirl..." here on The Lizard Review, I DO EXACTLY THAT!!!!!! In preparation for Taylor's new album The Life of a Showgirl, come with me on this mega episode as…
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You Look Like A Showgirl In This Light
One of the most compelling songs on the Tortured Poets Department happened to be the final song - a tale of women in history who have risen to prominence and fame and have experienced all of the wonderful and terrible things that go along with them. Clara Bow was an interesting enough song as its...
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2025 VMA's Nominations and an Impassioned Plea for the Lawn Mowing To Stop
Will this year's MTV Video Music Awards be, as the kids say, a "flop summit"? Following a lukewarm eight months of music for 2024, one could say it wouldn't necessarily be surprising...breakdown all of the nominees for this year's award show with me, including some Taylor Swift ts12 predicting…
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The Lizard's Favorite Taylor Swift Songs
One of the most important rituals of any stan is the process of "ranking" things. Anything and everything. Outifts, albums, lead singles, cats, romantic partners, and, of course, songs. Judging by the title of the episode you may be thinking you are about to experience yet another one such…
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Why Artists Start Making Bad Music
A question that haunts every single person about at least one band or artist that they used to love : what happened? In the longest episode of The Lizard Review yet, I go through four different examples of four VERY different artists who all have only one thing in common - they once were…
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The Lizard's Essential Albums : The One That Takes Me on a Holiday Away From Reality
The latest in my series about the albums that made me into who I am - this is about an album that made me feel very far away from wherever I didn't want to be when I was a kid. It's an album that made me dream of beaches and oceans and piers and highways along the coast that I had never been to...
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It's New, The Declaration of Independence. It's Blue, Some of the Stripes on the Flag.
The 4th of July is many things...the most important is that it's a celebration of the day I got married, but the SECOND most important thing is that it's a celebration of the start of summertime. And what more perfect way to kick off summer than doing a lyrical analysis of Taylor Swift's best...
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Music Catchup : Is Sabrina Carpenter Singlehandedly Dismantling Modern Feminism?!?!!?
A lot of people seem to seriously, seriously think so. In this episode, I go into a biigggg discussion on why people feel that way, her newest song and album cover, and whether or not there's ANY credence to this claim whatsoever. PLUS : we get into Pitchfork's MISERABLY negative review of Benson...
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I'm Guilty As Sin and Fresh Out The Slammer In Your Silver Ford With Stained Glass Windows
Is love truly the only thing that can save us in the end? That is the question posed by the four songs we're comparing and contrasting today in this lyrical analysis - Guilty as Sin and Fresh Out The Slammer by Taylor Swift, and Stained Glass Window and Silver Ford by Sunday (1994.) What do these...
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I Met Sunday (1994) And Drank Their Last Coors Light
On a fateful autumn day this last September I encountered a brand new band who had only yet released a nine song EP. They were mysterious, different, talented, and had some of the most specific and interesting branding I've seen from any other bands I've discovered so far this decade. That nine...
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My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Analyses
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...
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The Lizard's Top 15 Y2K Songs
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...
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Happiness vs Happiness
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...
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Severance and Sandwich
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...
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The Lizard's Top 5 Greatest Pop Ballads of All Time
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...
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Learning the Basics of Szanese
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...
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Detailed amphibious rantings on music, television, movies, and all that's in between.
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