Todd Rundgren criticised Taylor Swift in an interview with Vulture, calling her “the apotheosis of mediocrity” and saying there was an argument that she had “ruined music”. His remarks came after he was asked which artist he would choose to parody through producing an album; Rundgren, who produced Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell”, named Swift.

Rundgren argued that the prominence of female pop stars grew after boys shifted spending from music to video games in the 1990s, leading the industry to target young girls. His comments followed Swift’s release of “The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore”, whose song “Patient Zero” set a Spotify record for most streams in a day by a female artist so far in 2026; Swift also recorded the highest daily Spotify streams among female artists that year. She received the first Artist-Director Award at the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards.