Todd Rundgren Calls Taylor Swift 'Apotheosis of Mediocrity' in New Interview

Veteran producer Todd Rundgren has once again taken aim at Taylor Swift, describing the pop superstar as "the apotheosis of mediocrity" and arguing that she has "ruined music."

The remarks came in a new interview with Vulture, during which Rundgren was asked which contemporary artist he would choose to parody if he were to make a spoof album — a nod to his work on Meat Loaf's 1977 record Bat Out of Hell, which he has said was partly conceived as a send-up of Bruce Springsteen.

"Taylor Swift, of course. There's an argument to be made that she ruined music," Rundgren said, adding, "It's just that, to me, Taylor Swift is the apotheosis of mediocrity."

He expanded on the criticism later in the conversation, saying, "Taylor Swift doesn't do anything particularly great except grow hair." He went on to say that she is "not a great singer," "not a great songwriter" and "not a great dancer."

The interview was not uniformly negative. Rundgren praised Lady Gaga, calling her a "real musician" and a "classically trained piano player." He also floated a theory that female pop stars rose to dominance after young men shifted their spending towards video games in the 1990s.

This is not the first time Rundgren has criticised Swift. He made similar comments about the singer during an appearance on Rick Rubin's Broken Record podcast in 2022.

Swift has not responded to Rundgren's latest remarks. When her album The Life of a Showgirl received mixed reactions following its release last year, she addressed criticism of her work during an appearance on Apple Music's The Zane Lowe Show. "I have a lot of respect for people's subjective opinions on art. I'm not the art police," she said. "Everybody is allowed to feel exactly how they want."

Rundgren's comments come days after Swift released The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore, an expanded edition of her 2025 album featuring four additional tracks, including "Patient Zero." Swift premiered the song's music video during the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday.

The deluxe edition of Swift's 12th studio album, now out, also includes the newly recorded song "Babylon," along with "Pink Clouding" and "Cleveland!"

The original album spent 12 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and opened with a record-breaking 4.002 million equivalent album units in the United States in its first week.