"There are certain songs you don't mess with, especially if you don't have the range, and we all know Taylor Swift has all the range of a dial tone," Judge wrote.
"Maurice White did not die for this," she added, referring to one of the song's writers, who died in 2016 at the age of 74 due to complications from Parkinson's disease.
Kelsie Gibson of Popsugar offered a defense of the tune, however lukewarm, in a piece titled "Taylor Swift Just Made a Classic Earth, Wind & Fire Song Country, and I Don't Hate It." In the piece, she argued that "While the stripped-down version is a complete 180 from the soul classic, it's also strangely reminiscent of Swift's older country material."
"I have to say, I kinda love it," Gibson added.
The conversation grew more complicated on Twitter, where the song was met with bewildered detractors.
"It is with a heavy heart I must announce that I listened to the Taylor Swift cover of September," Connor Finnegan of Inverse tweeted.
One particularly dramatic user said the cover "has killed my spirit!" Another made this bold claim: "Taylor Swift covering September has ruined my Friday."
That said, the cover did have its defenders and they were just as passionate, calling it everything from "hella lit" to "absolutely beautiful" to "Taylor Swift's greatest cover of all time."
One user wrote that the song "hit me in the feels because my birthday is on 9/20, and it's one of my mother's favorites. (She came of age in the 70's.) I can't wait to play it for her when I get home!"
