Taylor Swift - Midnights

new album out october 21

https://www.instagram.com/p/Ch1Ed_Su6Qw/

lol at her listing "Track One" "Track Two" etc. like it's the actual tracklist in the graphic

Ha ha, just came here to post this (ya beat me)

I'm here for it...

oh it's the album cover & she just doesn't want to reveal the track titles yet that's such a goofy move lol

She was at the (awful) VMAs tonight, and I figured it was just b/c they gave her an award – but I also wondered if something was up, cuz it kind of seemed beneath her to show up in person

that Taylor, never without an agenda

anyway glad she's been so prolific through this pandemic, jeez

if this is a return to pop taylor i hope it doesn't mean she's abandoning the quality control too

She's entering her Helvetica Era

I get a Blue meets How I'm Feeling Now vibe from the cover (assuming it is the cover) - so I'm imagining this will be somewhat more pop (and perhaps more straightforward) than the last two but also kinda dark-confessional? The title and the "stories of sleepless nights" description are quite equivocal in this regard.

damn, she'll have four albums worth of material that she hasn't toured on

but yeah, based on her not touring in years, I bet this will def be poppier since folklore/evermore aren't exactly filled with stadium bops

it's confirmed to be the cover yeah, it's on the pre-order page. though obviously it'll be updated with the real titles eventually

i think you're otm re: the expected vibe tim

but idk if that's something she'll be able to pull off well

y'all thought reputation was bad? wait until her album with AG Cook

if she announced the whole album was produced by cook my confidence would go significantly up!

lol pls

I'd be here for hyperpop Swift tbh

in that vein if she happened to be working with bj burton (who co-produced one track on evermore) that'd be about as exciting as possible

you guys it's an aesthetic fakeout and she's going full country again

Two months is a long wait. Maybe we'll get new albums from Sky Ferreira and MBV before then.

poor CRJ, gotta share a release date with the pop juggernaut

Are Taylor semioticians catching any clues from the promo photo? (e.g., the odds and ends on the desk)

This longer description makes it sound VERY dark / confessional:

Midnights, the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life, will be out October 21. Meet me at midnight.

Pre-order now: https://t.co/jjqUNkphuG pic.twitter.com/Fh96zK8vro

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) August 29, 2022

The longer description is in one of the pics in the tweet

Like I said on twitter, I absolutely LOVE the concept she's developed for this album. What a rich place to take inspiration from. However, I expect I still won't like it very much because of the way she writes lyrics and melodies. ¯\(ツ)/¯

Oh, she actually announced the album at the end of her VMA speech! I totally missed that, lol

During her acceptance speech for video of the year at the #VMAs, Taylor Swift announces a new album out October 21. https://t.co/K3f4GrgiuJ pic.twitter.com/9q2jGVDoPl

— Variety (@Variety) August 29, 2022

poor CRJ, gotta share a release date with the pop juggernaut

― Murgatroid

Midnights, The Loneliest Time. Some kind of zeitgeist perhaps?

Exciting news

glad she's putting out new music - when she announced she was re-recording her old albums, I was a bit worried that it would occupy all her time and we wouldn't get any new material from her for awhile but clearly my worries were unfounded

I guess she just lives in recording studios now

i'm not really sure what's happening with the remakes because she already put out a few tracks from 1989, i would have thought she'd want to get them out quicker idk

Carly Rae Jepsen, Arctic Monkeys and this all on the same day, going to be a good day to be alive

Huh, didn't even know Arctic Monkeys were still around.

I'll check out Taylor and CRJ but will def skip AM.

I looked it up. Tegan and Sara and Dry Cleaning too

Huh, didn't even know Arctic Monkeys were still around

They're better than ever

I’m trying to imagine what this will sound like based off the destruction/album cover and the first band that comes to mind is Chromatics. Like I can’t picture this being a full blown pop return but I can’t imagine it being very guitar based?

Is it confirmed those track titles will be renamed? Because that would be cool if they were all just named “Track One,” Track Two” etc

Is it confirmed those track titles will be renamed? Because that would be cool if they were all just named “Track One,” Track Two” etc

Yeah my probably way-off-base prediction is that this could be a good opportunity to be explore a more moody noir version of the synth pop ballad vibes Taylor explored on stuff like “You Are In Love” and “Delicate” and the live version of “Love Story” she was performing on the 1989 tour.

I also thought “Renegade” was excellent and that that and “Long Story Short” suggested a pathway for merging the directions taken on the last two albums with a more propulsion pop sound - almost both tunes are very upbeat in presentation, which may not be the vibe she goes for here.

*albeit both tunes…

reading tea leaves here but getting “false god”: the
album from the cover

no complaints if we get an album of sophisti-taylor

i just hope she hasn't like, been listening to the weeknd too much or something lol

"all too well (10 minute version)" did have a bunch of tasteful sax in the background, if we get a vibe anything like that i'll be quite happy

any word on whether Dessner is involved again?

No word on collaborators so far.

I get late 90s indie vibes from the album cover. Not that I necessarily think this is going to be Taylor's Modest Mouse album or whatever.

Analyzing the cover art reminds me of the (traumatic) whiplash that was "Lover" cover reveal -> "ME!" released as lead single

Ha ha. Yeah, ouch, important warning. Anyway, I think what I was thinking was that it might fit in The Great Millennial Colour Drought

"... and when I'm up all night, I call Max and say, 'Let's make a banger about how boys are poopyheads!'"

"me!" came before the album cover, iirc the whiplash was just from the teasers for it?

I don’t predict anything like synthpop, but we’ll see…

Yeah the whiplash came from the various teaser images on Instagram and the mural that was painted to promote the release of "Me!", which all happened in April 2019. It wasn't till June that she announced the album Lover, its August release date and shared its cover art, and then a day later released "You Need to Calm Down".

Carly Rae Jepsen, Arctic Monkeys and this all on the same day, going to be a good day to be alive

― Bee OK, Monday, August 29, 2022 1:59 AM (ten hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Huh, didn't even know Arctic Monkeys were still around.

I'll check out Taylor and CRJ but will def skip AM.

― The Ghost Club, Monday, August 29, 2022 2:05 AM (nine hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I looked it up. Tegan and Sara and Dry Cleaning too

― Bee OK, Monday, August 29, 2022 2:05 AM (nine hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

What is this Meghan Trainor erasure?

Ok I was mistaking cover art for teaser images - regardless I remember similar Lana del Rey-vibes being predicted before ME! destroyed such notion.

Though the album itself did strike various poses

I got a “Taylor Nation” email promoting the pre-orders, complete with flickering flame and new “TS” monogram in the blue Helvetica.

"a journey through terrors and sweet dreams" sounds like its describing a david lynch movie imo

hear me out, what if this is her house album like Drake and Beyonce

Seems pretty unlikely to me, given the midcentury aesthetic of the photos

If folklore is for everyone who needs to go to therapy and evermore is everyone who is finally going to therapy then midnights is for everyone still going to therapy even when it feels like it isn't helping

— Rita (@ritalara) August 29, 2022

"Is it confirmed those track titles will be renamed? Because that would be cool if they were all just named “Track One,” Track Two” etc"

It's unlikely, but I hope she goes full-on Scott Walker circa Climate of Hunter and writes a song suite about kicking locusts in the bollocks. Or something. With half the tracks given names and the other half given numbers.

And if you compare the covers they both look as if there was originally a cigarette, but it was airbrushed out. I want to hear Taylor Swift punching meat.

"Babe, I just can't see
if you're the one for me
will it all work out?
Or will we kick locusts in the bollocks until
the black-blood spittle
fills the sliced eye-holes
of the fetid pig mulch"

This is her 5th "Lead single in August, album in October."

Guessing she purposely sticks with this schedule because the grammys new years day is Sept 1.

she released a single? where?

Yeah, you had me looking!

(I believe the Grammy eligibility period ends Sept. 30 – so Midnights won't be eligible until the 2024 awards, but if she releases a single in the next month I guess that will be eligible at next Feb.'s ceremony)

Oh my bad I didn't pay attention to whether a new song came out.

Also weird to make an observation like that when the last time she did the August single, October album strategy was 5 albums ago with 1989.

last two albums obviously did not have a leading single as they were surprise releases

xp i think it's a good and interesting observation regardless of when it happened last

Taylor Swift unveils all four variations of the cover for her 10th studio album, ‘Midnights.’ pic.twitter.com/N10AbwBLvR

— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) September 1, 2022

alt covers are clarifying, there's clear 70s vibes

jazz-tinged soft-rock taylor would also be totally acceptable

When Look What You Made Me Do meets Everything You Did.

Just hoping it doesn't end up sounding like Daddy's Home.

Gah, what are those covers reminding me of? The Clientele? American Analog Set? Saint Etienne? Some indie band.

Ivy...Superdrag

The first version made me think of Nightsongs by Stars.

https://media.pitchfork.com/photos/5929a6f6ea9e61561daa54a8/1:1/w_320,c_limit/67d15fe4.jpg

a little?

White borders and helvetica similar to the Cardigans singles artwork from the Gran Turismo period

xp i think it's a good and interesting observation regardless of when it happened last
― alpine static, Wednesday, August 31, 2022 8:59 PM (yesterday)

I think so too. I messed up the lead single part, but she is "big biz" and clearly likes tactically shooting for holiday-season sales or something.

https://www.discogs.com/lists/Album-Covers-That-Have-A-Specific-Design-With-The-Helvetica-Font-That-I-Wish-Was-Utilized-In-More-Album-Covers/641235?page=1

oh it's the album cover & she just doesn't want to reveal the track titles yet that's such a goofy move lol

This becomes even funnier as more covers are revealed.

On MIDNIGHTS she said the movies that have inspired it are
1) 70s movies of two romantic leads “unravel” before you — Kramer vs Kramer
2) Marriage Story and The Souvenir

Definitely not ready for the emotional landscape of this coming album lmao pic.twitter.com/ddRZe2Xc5K

— Elamin Abdelmahmoud (@elamin88) September 9, 2022

the!!! souvenir!!!!!!

sorry that may actually be the list of filmic inspirations for the “all too well” video

Now wanting a music video where John Mayer screws up making pancakes for his kid while Taylor’s trying to do an interview in the living room.

xp i think it’s about the album? next tweet says

(Context for this was talking about movies as inspiration — as she was writing, some movies dovetailed with the process: for 1989, she was watching John Hughes movies; for Folklore, lots of Guillermo del Toro; for Evermore, Sense and Sensibility)

— Elamin Abdelmahmoud (@elamin88) September 9, 2022

Lavender isn't really my color – but this morning I preordered the Target Exclusive CD, with three bonus tracks.

(...although I notice now they're titled "Bonus Track One," "Bonus Track Two (Remix)," and "Bonus Track Three (Remix)." So I guess it's one add'l song and two remixes.)

Antonoff highly visible in this “Making of Midnights” Insta reel

📹 | Taylor Swift will be announcing the #TSmidnightTS tracklist via TikTok!

— The first track she has announced is Track 13 titled ‘Mastermind’ pic.twitter.com/6rrz3aqhqm

— Taylor Swift News 🕰️ (@TSwiftNZ) September 21, 2022

lmao

the goofy deadpan vibe here is a good sign

lol

Some crazy ass theorising going on at the moment e.g. https://www.tiktok.com/@chacofemme/video/7145338640280014126?_t=8VrbzTQMTti&_r=1

anyway i'm very excited for taylor's muzak album

this is good

I hope “Mastermind” isn’t a clumsy pun that indicates the final track is about Scooter Braun (or her masters in general).

I hope it's a tribute to special master Raymond J. Dearie.

I just assume that Mastermind she'll tell us that Automator's on the planet Earth, and he's going to stop the war of the worlds.

Track 8 = “Vigilante Shit”

Not loving these titles so far…

lol there's a lana feature on this

Official track list for #Midnights by Taylor Swift:

1. Lavender Haze
2. Maroon
3. Anti-Hero
4. Snow On The Beach feat. Lana Del Rey
5. You’re On Your Own, Kid
6. Midnight Rain
7. Question...?
8. Vigilante Shit
9. Bejeweled
10. Labyrinth
11. Karma
12. Sweet Nothing
13. Mastermind

— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) October 7, 2022

symphonic metal-ass tracklist

symphonic metal-ass tracklist

Taylor Swift dumping the dude from the National or whatever and making an album with Tuomas Holopainen would be amazing.

Is Lana sneaking a coke reference onto a Taylor album?

I know they’re just titles, but they’re remarkably bad, IMO

waht

"Vigilante Shit" and "Bejeweled" are fabulous titles.

those song titles all scan like strains of cannabis.

Pretty sure that according to TikTok Swiftie lore ‘Karma’ is the provisional name of an album Taylor recorded but abandoned in between 1989 and Reputation.

those song titles all scan like strains of cannabis.

otm

I don't remember the last time someone of Taylor's stature announced an album with not a single note of music released this far into the campaign, like even Beyoncé released "Break My Soul"

there are some leaked bits & pieces floating around & they sound pretty promising

midnight snacks

Is it “70s singer-songwriter” sounding?

xp - yeah, I'm surprised that there still hasn't been a single yet. I mean, I guess when you reach this kind of superstar level and you've already got x100000 pre-saves and pre-orders, you don't have to worry about the hype but still feels odd.

she wants us to experience this all at once, in order, at midnight

probably

Joke's on her - that'll be 9pm PDT

evermore aside she has shown, to an almost political degree imo, a loyalty to the old school idea of putting out a big dumb pop single to lead a record and promoting it like your life depends on it. showing up at the NFL draft to make sure middle america streamed "me!" and such like. even "cardigan" she flogged in a really unnecessary and inescapable capitol one commercial. my bet would be on her still running that playbook once the album drops w/ whatever single they've chosen for this

the single being "anti-hero"

On Thursday (October 20), a teaser trailer will be shown in the third quarter of Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime Video, while a “special very chaotic surprise” is also set to take place at 3am EST (8am BST) on Friday. Lyric videos will then follow later that evening.

this is simply what she does

hahaha

also there were these peeks at some LYRICS

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/taylor-swift-spotify-lyric-reveal-billboard-1234611644/

usually, the single comes out before the album release though

it didn't with the last two albums

looks like the whole thing has leaked now

in pretty bad quality lol

It already turned back into a pumpkin!

(happy to preemptively make that joke)

she really baited everyone with the 70s stuff lol

So it doesn't sound like a Cardigans album?

it's just pop taylor but without the sort of baffling decisions that have been a regular presence on her pop albums

it's pretty easily her most consistent pop album but idk if there's going to be any big hits from this, it's a bit moodier and she's not really trying to force a big single

it's just pop taylor but without the sort of baffling decisions that have been a regular presence on her pop albums

Taylor Swift - At Her Very Best

well there's still one in "vigilante shit" but that's pretty minor

;_;

"sometimes i feel like everybody is a sexy baby and i’m a monster on a hill" holy fucking shit

"you're on your own kid" is taylor swift finally writing a rilo kiley song

i have to lol at lana getting a feature just for backing vocals

reading tea leaves here but getting “false god”: the
album from the cover

― flamenco drop (BradNelson)

i mean it's not quite the sophisti-taylor album we dreamed of but this was pretty close

def not listening to a shoddy leak days before release. cmon people

it's out tomorrow and even with a shoddy leak i think it's possibly her best, at minimum top 2

reactions elsewhere seem to be all over the place though lol

it's me
hi
i'm the problem, it's me

Would love if this opened with some “Reelin’ in the Years”-type riff.

Seems fitting that both Taylor and Liz Truss had to bring forward their release dates.

IDGI

Blonde zillionaire libertarians who'll shoot you without blinking?

How did Taylor “bring forward her release date”?

(I’d ask why you think she’s a libertarian, but don’t really care to know…)

it's me
hi
i'm the problem, it's me

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Thursday, October 20, 2022 8:01 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

know nothing about this but if this is a lyric from the new album i wonder if it's a response to that last billie eilish song

https://www.vulture.com/article/taylor-swift-midnights-into-it.html

^^^ I really like this piece, it takes seriously Taylor's work as craft rather than just as a reflection of her inner self (even if the overall frame is "who is Taylor really?"). Powers' suggestion that Carole King (or at least 'Tapestry') provides the better point of comparison for Taylor's work than Joni Mitchell seems pretty canny to me, though less because Taylor is more like King than Mitchell and more because the popular understanding of Mitchell-circa-Blue itself gets a lot of stuff wrong.

Laura Dern is credited in her video teaser…

Video to be released in a few hours. Listening now but won't get through more than a few songs tonight.

Damn, love how spare this is.

It’s basically “1989 pt. 2” so far, in terms of sonics…

it's distinctively moodier & doesn't have duds like "welcome to new york" and "bad blood" or anything as corny as "shake it off"

I wish there was at least one track like that to shake off the same-y tempos. I’m also hearing various melodic bits that sound recycled from other songs of hers. Overall, a little underwhelmed by the aesthetic retreat, and nothing super catches my ear, but maybe it’ll grow on me

sonically it's closest to the good half of lover but the production is richer

That is how I feel about the new 1975 album.

Xpost

I think the production on Lover was more distinctive, fwiw… going back now and listening to a track like “I Think He Knows” feels like a breath of fresh air.

(I mention that song specifically, because you can hear its chorus in “Lavender Haze,” and its bridge in “Question…”)

Man, if you don't like the way Taylor Swift writes a melody, you're just never going to like Taylor Swift I guess. Why? Because she keeps revisiting the same few tricks again and again and again for close to 20 years.

*you = me

She does that thing a lot where she quickly raises the pitch of a vocal line

To abuse a trendy phase – this kind of sounds like if you asked an AI to make a Taylor Swift pop album. (I do like “Anti-Hero”…)

Anti-Hero and Vigilante Shit are highlights for me so far.

lover was more upbeat but the production was a bit chintzy, i just much prefer how all the synth textures sound here

I'm not a theory nerd so I don't know how to describe each of her melodic crutches, but she does that thing a lot where, yes, she curves the ends of words up. Or takes the lyric down into a warmer chord you don't expect (except it's Taylor, and she's done it the same way 80 other times, so you DO expect it). Or that thing where she'll chop the cadence up very staccato. I don't think I'd mind so much if her accompaniment was ever more than an afterthought, but it seems purposely bland in order to place focus on her melodies and, y'all, them melodies are TIRED.

Still working my way through a first listen, but it feels like a deliberate grower album - the sort where what seems like "this is the best song" will change a lot for me over the course of say six months.

The dream sequence in "Anti-Hero" is great.

And stuff like that hints at how this is like revisiting a lot of the explicit motifs (sonic and otherwise) of the 1989 through Lover era, but holding onto the storytelling emphases and flourishes of Folklore and (even more so) Evermore - "Vigilante Shit" is basically "What if "Bad Blood" but "No Body, No Crime"?" ("Well he was doing lines and crossing all of mine" is hilarious and corny and I love it).

My first impression is that all the songs are basically good. They're all very catchy. And mellow, which might be same-y to some. But lie Time says there are so many 'good' songs here I'm sure favourites will shift a lot, turn into great songs in the spotlight.

It's not as exciting an idea or maybe album as folklore and evermore, but it seems like a remarkably consistently good selection of songs - possibly several of her greatest synth pop songs collected together.

she sounds much more comfortable overall with pop than before, she doesn't really awkwardly try to force things at all

lmao the "chaotic surprise" she was teasing was a deluxe edition with 7 additional tracks being released 3 hours later

they're all good but i generally get why they weren't on the main album for one reason or another

this album is fucking GOOD

bonus tracks are totally amazing

this album is fucking GOOD

― johnny crunch, Friday, October 21, 2022

lol wau. This to me after three passes sounds like her most enervated release, a poor second attempt at LOVER.

haven’t felt this positively about her album offcuts since 1989

“would’ve could’ve should’ve” is instantly one of her best songs jesus

My teen's hot take is that it sounds like a cross between half of Lover and half of Reputation.

sounds closer to 1989 than lover to me

the mark they saw on my collarbone
the rust that grew between telephones

^^ "maroon" is evidence that taylor swift should only write songs about what colors remind her of

in addition to rilo kiley, "you're on your own, kid" reminds me a little of vanessa carlton's "white houses," the song that invented taylor swift in 2004

Dropping a surprise Deluxe Edition on the day the album comes out (and everyone’s orders have already been locked in) is a shit move.

i mean if we're talking about physical pre-orders, the deluxe edition is digital only anyway

After two times thru I don't have a firm grasp on this but I think I a.) like the vibe and her attempt at something different sonically; b.) also think the vibe has a bit of a deadening/homogenizing effect on the songs; and c.) the songs are ... pretty good?

I think "a pretty good Taylor Swift album" isn't as exciting an idea as a great one or an abject failure and I know it's more of a tepid take than a hot one. But that's where I feel like I'm landing, pending more time with it.

xp oh, ok - lol

agree with tipsy, listened to this last night and it seemed 'pretty good' but very little of it stood out to me; it has a very homogenous feel to it.

This album feels very "Johnny Fever's Shambala Threads circa 2014-2017".

Or alternatively, "1989, but we're just going to stick to sounding mostly like Lorde and Chrvches instead of trying to rewrite Happy".

I was thinking Lorde too, but I realize that probably mostly means Antonoff.

One vocal line definitely reminded me of Lorde, I forget what it was

Possibly, but 1989 gave me Lorde vibes in some songs at the time, and that was before Lorde started working with Antonoff.

ok for the most part i'm like "i see why the bonus tracks didn't make the record" but i am baffled that "hits different" didn't make it

Joel Little-era Lorde is a more apt comparison than Jack Antonoff-era Lorde.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1kbLwvqugk

Bejeweled, Labyrinth, Karma run is very strong. Also love Midnight Rain.

Can't be the only one disappointed that Taylor used her barely-matched power and pull within the industry to make four pressings of the album that form a clock (or something) instead of being a concept like Zaireeka (Taylor's Version).

strangling vinyl production for the rest of the industry in the process!

I know what the title of this album is, but just now misread it as “Midgets”.

it's midge nights, and it's about the 2007 american league division series

Lol

delighted by the tall girl angst on "anti-hero"

brad otm about "hits different" but maybe she felt it was too upbeat lol

i'm really just delighted that she's discovered the idea of consistency with these last 3 albums, after how all-over the place her albums had been for ages

Xp it's not tall girl angst, it's fatphobia masquerading as ED commentary. The music video makes it explicit. Pretty disappointing.

Haven't seen the video yet, but I do not really see the "fatphobia" reading. Earlier this month she was talking about how this song addressed her life as being "unmanageably sized":

💬 | “I struggle a lot with the idea that my life has become unmanageably sized […] the idea of not feeling like a person. Don’t feel bad for me, you don’t need to. This song is a real guided tour through all the things I hate about myself.” — Taylor Swift on Track 3 Anti-Hero pic.twitter.com/f1DzHpdBA2

— Taylor Swift News 🕰️ (@TSwiftNZ) October 3, 2022

Yeah well I'd watch the video...

i watched the video and you’re gonna have to hold my hand and explain bc it just registered to me as… tall girl angst

i don't think the scene of her as a giant is fatphobia or that she mishandled the pretty banal ED commentary?

there's layers of too tall/too fat/too famous and she's addressing all of them

I mean, the scales reading 'fat'... Pretty explicit. Basically as a straight sized person she's saying one of her deepest fears is getting fat. That's not ok even as ED commentary. Fat liberation fans of Taylor are pissed...

https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSRsqCAtm/

the video is pretty directly saying that obsessing over her weight is unhealthy?

It's the framing of it. Read the tiktok comments, so many people saying "her biggest fear is looking like me". She's upset a lot of fat fans. I don't think we should dismiss minority perspectives, from the very people this type of discourse affects.

the bass on this album is v deep and rich. the drums dont hit, though.

I dunno this feels like when cis people cisplain something isn't transphobic... When trans people are saying it is.

If fat people say it's fatphobic, I'm going to believe them.

i mean you know nothing about my weight but just falling back on 'we should listen to __ identity!' can get pretty silly because you can find people from any minority with weird unreasonable opinions about what is and isn't offensive to them and cherry-pick them to bolster whatever you want

i'm reading it as pretty clearly as yes, she has internal struggles around her weight, but the whole point is she's saying that it's an unhealthy mindset to be in! it's not endorsing the fear and you haven't put forward any argument that it is

"Read the tiktok comments"
this is not something someone should ever do under any circumstances if they want to preserve their sanity and feelings of goodwill toward humanity

like i'm happy to listen to a more detailed critique but "read the tiktok comments" is not that, yeah

Much of the Miss Americana doco dwelt pretty frankly on Taylor’s very unhealthy eating disorder issues. It’s somewhat reductive to equate her ED with fatphobia.

Yeah it's not the best argument but explaining this shit is tiring. I've said my piece and you're welcome to do your own reading around how the way we talk about EDs is often fatphobic. But I'm not going to put a bunch of energy into explaining something that will mostly be dismissed anyway. Guess we're not there yet with fat liberation.

I'll see if I can find a good article or something. Sorry I can't be more erudite right now.

As someone who's about 60 lbs overweight, I wanna say that anyone on TikTok getting all blustery about Taylor being possibly fatphobic can stfu. You don't speak for every fat person, damn.

regardless of the merits of the scales scene i don't think it means that my interpretation of the song & video were wrong when they were about a different scene that also relates to the same lyric that she's clearly layering with multiple meanings.

i'm happy to believe the scales scene could be bad, but i just haven't seen a good explanation - taking it as an endorsement of fat = bad just seems particularly uncharitable to me. in my experience it is very good to get a proper understanding of what the argument is rather than relying on some vague comments on tiktok or wherever as an article of faith.

I read the scale thing as just a pretty straightforward depiction of an eating disorder, which she's talked about before. If it's fatphobic to depict someone with an eating disorder seeing herself as fat regardless of the number on the scale, then I don't know how you can simultaneously avoid fatphobia and normalize talking about & getting help for eating disorders.

The depiction of herself as huge - a kind of overgrown Alice in Wonderland who never finds a bottle that makes her shrink - read to me as insecurity about the sheer amount of space she takes up, both as a celebrity and as someone whose favorite aesthetic is middle-class cozy family life but whose actual desires and ambitions are too outsize for her to ever fit comfortably into that life. And I think there's a suggestion of clumsiness, too, that she knows that her gestures are too big, that she tries too hard, that she can telegraph her meanings and crush her enemies but she can't do subtlety.

I'm about halfway through the album and so far I'm underwhelmed and finding it all a bit samey, but I do really like Anti-Hero and the video. I really enjoy her comic acting these days, esp. the scene with Messy Taylor giving a lecture headed Everyone Will Betray You as normal Taylor nods along and takes notes.

It was neat to see Mary Elizabeth Ellis in the video, an actress I enjoy… I saw her at a Pavement show recently! (she ended up posting it on Instagram, so I’m not betraying any secrets here... turns out she’s a big Pave fan)

xp that's a great description, and this part:

someone whose favorite aesthetic is middle-class cozy family life but whose actual desires and ambitions are too outsize for her to ever fit comfortably into that life

I thought Mary Elizabeth Ellis was Kaitlin Olson at first

Sweet Nothing is a youth lagoon song, and I hate it

One way to think about this album: Evermore was perhaps not just the peak (so far) of “storytelling” Taylor, but also the album whose songs most frequently and deliberately zoomed out in terms of their sense of time and space: so many songs which have a clear sense of past, presence and future, the last of these often imagined by the main character (e.g. “so I’ll go back to LA and my so-called friends who’ll write books about me if I ever make it”). If the songs’ narrators seem like some of Taylor’s wisest, that’s in part because they’re often some of her most omniscient.

By comparison, Midnight’s songs feel very now-situated: even when they refer to past events, they typically remain locked within the mindset and perspectives of the protagonist’s current moment. So even if not all of the songs feel literally tied to or obviously set in middle-of-the-night scenarios, they’re almost all consistent with the kind of “piecing together” of events and impressions and conclusions we might engage in at that time.

The tension between “what I knew then” / “what I know now” has always been an important recurring motif of Taylor’s songwriting and in particular a large chunk of her best songs (think “Tim McGraw”, “Fifteen”, “The Best Day”, “Back To December”, “Dear John”, “Last Kiss”, “All Too Well”, “Holy Ground”…. etc. etc.).

So it’s perhaps not surprising that she has now made a quasi-concept album whose concept is basically “what I think I know right now”.

only my first listen but i think i love this

side thought bc i have been in a sylvia plath rabbit hole for about a month or two revisiting her poetry in particular and i only mention that to say that the act of “mining” one’s self and everything connected to experience is never easy for anyone to do once, or a few times, let alone repeatedly let alone that it becomes a career
she keeps crafting these beautifully phrased expressions of her own love/sadness/discomfort & i really feel that idea of mining here in this album & the work/craft of that

anyway. antihero & mastermind are def repeaters for me immediately. oh and maroon. holy shit.

I’m finding this a little…er…monotonous, particularly the plodding midsection. “Vigilante Shit” is the diabolical nadir, featuring the kind of corny writing that I thought she had managed to shed with the -more albums; that said, “Karma” can probably be characterised as equally corny but I’m charmed by the punchier cadences; it’s one of the few songs on the album with any zip or vim.

At the moment for me it sits alongside reputation and Lover- nothing quite so grim as “Me!”, but lacking a standout like “delicate”, “new year’s day” or “False God”. Certainly I think it’s well below the Fearless-1989 run or anything she put out in 2020.

"sweet like hon-nay" in karma is the most memorable moment

The 3am tracks are a pretty weak batch, IMO

This album bums me out… maybe I was too jazzed up, because Evermore is one of my favorite albums of the past, I dunno, 10 years… but I def. wasn’t expecting it to be followed by what feels like the weakest Taylor Swift album (even the debut and Speak Now, neither of which I rate very highly, each have higher highs than anything here).

I was hoping I’d like it more as I returned to it, but that doesn’t seem to be happening, oh well

two more listens and I think it's fine. better than lover and reputation, doesn't touch folklore or evermore, 1989 feels like a special case that is unfair to compare to. I'm not a fan of anything much earlier tbh.

This one just feels like something I’d listen as a whole more so than her previous pop albums, which I always end up skipping tracks of.

yeah which is why i'm baffled by people saying it's her worst

i don't think it's as good as folklore but it's very solid, the only misstep is "vigilante shit" which is nowhere near as bad as the worst of lover and reputation

agree

yeah which is why i'm baffled by people saying it's her worst

It's simple: I skip more tracks than any of hers in years, therefore it's her worst.

yeah i just don't know what on here is more skippable than large chunks of lover & reputation

I wasn't mad about them either, but Lover has tracks I adore to death.

Much like her last two albums, I like this one & see her mainly as just a really strong singer songwriter, into the more stripped back approach on these last few albums, was never really a fan until these three projects. Don’t really like when she tries to wrestle w the production and structures of Pop qua Pop/ making Anthems on Lover/reputation

Agree too. But also I like this Vigilante song.

I wish you could actually hear Lana in Snow in the Beach.

I keep hearing "I don't dress for women/ I don't dress for men" in the voice of current-era Bob Dylan.

like the good songs on lover, this album is just fairly normal swift songs with synth-pop arrangements rather than trying to awkwardly force herself to be some weird idea of a popstar

antonoff has been the best of her pop collaborators but i hope she finds someone interesting to work with in the future because he's not the most inspired as a pop producer & i don't think swift brings a whole lot to the table in terms of real vision for the arrangements either. i did like his work on folklore though, i think that played to his strengths more, so a whole album of singer-songwriter swift produced by antonoff would be very welcome.

Given the similarities between this and the moodier tracks on Lover, I revisited that album, and feel like Midnights generally is at least as good as the best of those tracks? I suspect at the time stuff like “Cornelia Street” and “False God” (both great tracks mind) was boosted by being surrounded by tunes like “London Boy”.

Agreed though that Midnights probably exhausts the possibilities of working with Antonoff (though “August” had suggested they could produce a really nice burnished pop-rock album if they wanted), and it’s funny how the Dessner arrangement on “Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve” (nb. Is this a naming mistake? Feels like this song and “The Great War” should swap titles”) feels like it pops just due to its novelty - in much the same way that “Gold Rush” did on Evermore (interesting thought experiment: would “Gold Rush” stand out if it was on this album? Perhaps not?).

idk i think "cornelia street" and "false god" would still be highlights on this but there'd be far less of a gap

Breihan alludes to "Cornelia Street (a song I like) in his review too:

https://www.stereogum.com/2203504/taylor-swift-midnights-review/reviews/premature-evaluation/

this album doesn’t really sound like chvrches to me lol, maybe “anti-hero” does?

It doesn't sound like Chvrches at all. For one, Chvrches have more forward momentum than this album (and I'm no Chvrches fan).

Funny, I mentioned to my daughter the other day that some people were comparing it to Chvrches (who she didn't know). She didn't seem interested, but told me this morning she actually gave Chvrches a listen and didn't hear the comparison at all, other than in a general (and I paraphrase) "pop songs doing pop things" sense.

Surprised to find I'm much less interested in this than I was in evermore/folklore. It just sounds kind of .... tasteful. Contra many on this board I do like "Vigilante Shit," it has a little more snap to it.

the breihan review made interesting points but it was hard to get into it after that very clearly, flat out wrong assertion that begins and frames it

xps

Bejeweled and Karma sound a bit like chvrches

Karma is a cat purring in my lap 'cause it loves me

kvrma

If you drew a vector from taylor swifts last 2 albums to some of these songs in glenn's n-dimensional genre space, it would point toward chvrches but also pass through some of Swift's previous poppier stuff.

Karma was funnier then I thought she sang "karma is my boyfriend. karma is a guy."

this album does have her returning to that annoying 'talk singing' thing she does that she mostly dropped on the last two (the "it's me, hi" bits at the end of anti-hero, for instance). I don't know why she does this, it sounds dumb, has always sounded dumb.

Taylor Swift made a Bill Callahan album.

"Out of the Woods" from 1989 is Taylor Swift sounding like Chvrches.

This is more subdued than that and closer in sound to "Blank Space". As I said earlier, the overall album feels very 2014-2017 Rolling Shambala thread, of which you have a lot of artists having at least a little bit of Chvrches in their DNA.

Contra many on this board I do like "Vigilante Shit," it has a little more snap to it.

This song is eye-rolling on one level, but also has lodged in my head more than anything else so far. She's the zillionth lyricist to say something like "I don't start shit but I can tell you how it ends," but she makes a good hook out of it.

Subsequent listens haven't much changed my feeling about the album, which is that it's fine and far from her best. That's also how I felt about Lover and Reputation, but of those three I like Lover's range. The one-producer/one-sound approach here is an idea that I support in theory, but in this case I think she'd have been better off with more/different collaborators.

The obvious producer to make the next great Taylor Swift album is Mutt Lange, but he seems retired. (Also I just recently found out his name is pronounced "Lahnj" or something, is that true? I've been saying "Lang" for years.)

Mutt produced/co-wrote half of the Bryan Adams album that came out this year, so you can still probably keep your dream alive for a bit.

C'mon Mutt!

all day long on the Tay's Lange

The obvious producer to make the next great Taylor Swift album is Mutt Lange

From your lips to god's ears, as they say.

lol at Tay's Lange

I think the Pitchfork review is fairly on target, and its matter-of-fact faint praise captures the sense (for me) of the album just not being much fun to listen to.

She's the zillionth lyricist to say something like "I don't start shit but I can tell you how it ends," but she makes a good hook out of it.

Heh, both that sentiment and also the drums-first sound of the first few songs remind of me of this summer's Drake album.

I have found “Sweet Nothings” running through my head a lot today… guess that’s a standout

lot of these songs remind me of St. Vincent (Cheerleader/Prince Johnny).

this is the first taylor swift album to leave me feeling nothing. aside from boredom i guess. it’s not only the production here that feels stale, but the songs just feel mapped along the contours of older, better songs. there’s several songs out of the first handful where i keep expecting her to break into the chorus melody of “i think he knows.” several songs have the same twinkle and swoop of “dress.” i should prob dig more into the lyrics but it doesn’t feel like there’s a big pot of gold at the end of this rainbow

ultimately i just think she doesn’t have a real aesthetic vision for pop production that is divorced from the guitar as the driving instrument. probably her one glaring weakness as a musician & pop star at this point. like, “i knew you were trouble” and “22” are amazing songs but even those were catching the very tail end of what was contemporary at the time. i love reputation & think it’s the most underrated album in her catalog (something this thread confirms) but the production on that album is generally fossilized. 1989 has some amazing songs that sound like haim. lover is actually the album where she kinda charts her own vision for pop production… it also contains her flat out most embarrassing songs ever.

she has just never really offered much of an idea of what pop music should sound like. her vision stops at “i can recreate pop music i like.” maybe that’s an unfair way to judge her, but she’s in very rarified air as a musician, up there with artists who had revolutionary ideas about pop. comparing what beyonce did on renaissance — not just how thrilling the production is on its face, but the way in which it converses with and rearranges the past and present — to this album is just laughable. i get that they’re very different musicians whose music has always had different aims, but it also feels fair to stack taylor up to the greats of her time, let alone the past. her range has a hard ceiling.

“would’ve could’ve should’ve” is dope tho

As far as conventional "songwriting" goes, Beyonce and Swift have nothing in common: she claims (and has established) a lineage while Beyonce is a product and an auteurist part of star-driven machinery behind the popular song. But I agree this album is the first one, after several listens, that leaves me with nothing. I just don't wanna listen to it again.

I'm not, I hope, setting up a hierarchy.

what do you mean by lineage in that context

Like, "I am a product of several generations of songwriters." She sold herself as a songwriter from the start.

My son, who is not a Taylor Swift fan but respects her and liked "Folklore," dismissed this album as dull and also said, "I mean, she's no Beyoncé."

Those are good points about the limits of her pop conception and capabilities. I had the thought that next time she and CRJ should just do an album together, because they have somewhat complementary strengths and weaknesses. Carly is a lot more comfortable with a Madonna groove than Taylor ever could be. But also I think Taylor should just lean into guitar music, she's good at it and "All Too Well" showed what she could do with a Midwestern rock beat.

j0rd's post does get at what i said about antonoff as a creative partner - neither of them have that much vision for pop so their arrangements are fairly unexciting (but i'm not anywhere near as frustrated by it idk, i'm just happy to have to have an album that's so solid even if she's had higher highs elsewhere). i'd love her to find someone who really pushes her in regard to vision for pop without like, awkwardly forcing it or exposing her sometimes terrible judgment like martin & little both did (pretty much always for little, only sometimes for martin).

or really just make a focused singer-songwriter thing continuing on from folklore/evermore - just take swift & her guitar as the starting point (even the good songs on lover sounded generally so much better in the solo acoustic versions) and go from there, even antonoff would be a good choice for something like that

j0rdan otm

Ann Powers was on Sam Sanders' Into It podcast the other day, and they talked about how Taylor and Beyonce are both interested in legacies but Taylor is preoccupied with her individual legacy as a Great Artist (who taps into cultural moods but is fundamentally a self-portraitist), while Beyonce is more concerned with familial and cultural legacies. I have to think more about what that might say about their aesthetic tendencies.

i think there’s prob broad truth there. i haven’t listened to the podcast so i won’t quibble too much but taylor is (or has at points in her career been) concerned with cultural legacy — it’s just white middle class culture. she cares deeply about the lineage of white singer-songwriters i.e. james taylor (bragged in song about how many albums of his that she owns) and carole king (did her rock & roll hall of fame induction speech). even when she’s making electronic pop records i think you can see her carrying that legacy in the rate with which she produces… by the standards of the modern pop star she’s in her own class in that regard. the act of churning out music bcuz the songs are just pouring out of you is pretty foreign nowadays but i think taylor pointedly views herself in the lineage of 60s and 70s singer-songwriters who would put out an album per year w/o fail... i think this comes out whenever she talks about her songwriting process. and then from an aesthetic POV obv it’s a useful & even necessary framing for lots of her music… just not as interesting a text for contemporary pop as the cultural history beyonce is pulling from

She should do a track with Sleaford Mods.

Beyonce is more concerned with familial and cultural legacies.

I have to think about what this means.

taylor is (or has at points in her career been) concerned with cultural legacy — it’s just white middle class culture. she cares deeply about the lineage of white singer-songwriters i.e. james taylor (bragged in song about how many albums of his that she owns) and carole king (did her rock & roll hall of fame induction speech).

This is true (and the podcast did invoke Carole King, along with Joni Mitchell) but one of the hallmarks of this '70s singer-songwriter tradition, besides a certain formalized approach to songwriting, is a sustained focus on the Self. She clearly valorizes this lineage but is less interested in upholding "white middle-class culture" per se than that culture's individualistic notions of artistry and success.

Carole King and Joni Mitchell are conveniently two very different singer-songwriter extremes. King and Mitchell did release nearly annual albums in the '70s, but the latter displayed a restless creativity, changing and evolving, whereas the former ... I don't know, I assume Carole King played it safe, though honestly I barely know anything from the dozens of solo albums she's released. Swift seems much more interested in chasing commercial success or validation, which I suspect sands off the rough edges of risk and is maybe why she comes off more an imitator or replicator than trend setter or innovator. It's like the hypothesis made in the KLF's "Manual" (however generalized) that many great artists don't necessarily fall off so much as grow bored of the formulas. I'm no Beyonce expert, but she's seemed more the creatively restless sort herself, aware of the charts but not necessarily beholden to them. She sets her own standards.

I disagree about Swift not taking risks – it’s just that her risks have largely been so successful, it has seemed she could pull off anything. I also disagree she hasn’t set trends; she’s been a huge influence on younger artists. Obviously, she’s not Beyoncé… or Joni Mitchell, for that matter.

Yeah, jumping from country to post-EDM pop in 2012, then working with The National dude strikes me as risks -- and the audience went along.

I think working with the National guy was totally a risk, but then she retrenched. I think working with proven huge hitmakers is much less of a risk. At this point would she risk writing an entire album herself again, like she did with "Speak Now"?

What makes you think this album's a retrenchment? Those Dessner albums were huge hits.

Maybe retrenchment was the wrong word. I'm mostly going by some of your ho hum responses to it, tbh, especially given the praise of the last two albums.

I think she’s genuinely tight with Antonoff and enjoys working with him (isn’t just looking to him as a hitmaker); and she also worked with Dessner on the bonus tracks, but they’re particularly not very good

Every artist seems to like Antonoff as a person/hang. Afaict the 1975 are the only to use him but downplay his creative input.

im able to instantly detect if jack antonoff worked on a song due to a visceral hatred of his production style pic.twitter.com/qebe0nugXS

— caleb gamman (@calebgamman) October 21, 2022

I just read an interview with this guy who has a weird visceral reaction to Antonoff's production style. I kinda feel it too. There's this ASMR-ness to most everything he does which I really do not like.

among several other habits, it's that he doesn't like voices that sound like voices, voices aren't enough for him. it's clear in the dessner tracks that he's willing to have the singer sound like themselves. jack's not down w/that.

Antonoff's production style is far too bland for me to pick it out from a lineup. Kudos to that astute listener, although I'm glad I'm not similarly afflicted.

to me it's just that woozy, underwater synth sound I hear everywhere

Jack piped her vocal into a mic'd lavender biscuit tin on lavender haze because the song is about lavender biscuits.

seems easy enough to pick out jack antonoff songs on an album where you already know he produced songs and any other producer would indeed be used to do something different from what he does

The most recent TapeOp has an interview with Suzy Shinn, who does a lot of stuff for Weezer, Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco, largely stuff like that. They ask:

I read that you love Jack Antonoff and Butch Walker because it’s easy to hear their production thumbprint on a record. Which of their signatures are exciting to you?

Everyone has their style. With Jack, his melodies, chord changes, and even his synth sounds – I can just tell. The same with Butch, with the more guitar-driven, live feeling. But both of these guys produce emotionally-driven records. They have heart, each in their own specific way. That’s what I try, in my own way, to emulate.

And I thought, really? I mean, good for you, he just sounds kind of blandly big budget indie-adjacent to me, even the stuff I like (and I generally don't have a problem with his stuff). Though to be fair Antonoff's own TapeOp feature was great, the dude really likes what he does and puts a lot of thought into it. But to me he's like a big, soft body pillow. Maybe that's why so many people like working with him.

xp I think the last few tracks on Reputation are sort of an outlier in that regard – they've never sounded particularly Antonoff-y to me (in fact I mistakenly thought for a while that "...Nice Things" was once of the Martin/Shellback tracks). Maybe also "False God" and the Chicks duet on Lover?

"getaway car", "out of the woods", "i wish you would" and "sweeter than fiction" are all pretty distinctively antonoff, they all sound reminiscent of his solo work. he doesn't have that much in the way of trademarks though because he's generally more about helping realise someone else's vision than bringing his own to the table.

"i wish you would" is one of the very best pop taylor tracks though, wish she'd do more like that

being good at a supporting role is surely why people like working with him so much though, there's not many big pop producers who really do what he does in that way

"Getaway Car" and "Woods" are absolutely the prototypical Swift/Antonoff tracks in my mind

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBlmTMMl7zg

IDK, I love this album I think - even though objectively I can see that the production is kinda boring.

I think perhaps the root cause is that I really feel very close to TS's songwriting at this point, and so it's really that which I focus on more than the production or whether a song works as pop or whatever (for example, yeah some of these songs might work better if they were guitar driven but I think my increased enjoyment would only be incremental). In saying that, I should emphasise that I don't really care about whether and to what extent the songs are autobiographical or confessional (e.g. I feel like Evermore is simultaneously her least autobiographical album (give or take the debut I guess) and the album which is the most focused expression of Taylor's songwriting craft). But there's a different layer of character which is conveyed by the craft of her approach, and if I think about my relative appreciation for Taylor songs they can probably be plotted on a line with songs that feel "like Taylor" being better and songs that feel like she's writing to someone else's formula at the other end of the spectrum (the

One thing I noticed on my most recent listen to Midnights is how few archetypal Taylor bridges there are, and how few of those that are there are very exciting or memorable in and of themselves a la "August" or "Ivy" (in fact they tend to be more like archetypal bridges in pop songs, pauses for breath rather than escalations in the drama). That sounds like a criticism but it's not, there's a certain vibe to a lot of these songs where they feel very much stuck in a particular thought pattern, or alternatively tunnelling very directly by way of accumulation of detail with no detours.

An example of the "stuck" style being "Midnight Rain" where the recursive pitch-shifted chorus vocal kind of mocks the rest of the song, or rather the character of the singer and her inability to break out of the duality she's constructed; an example of the latter "tunnelling" style being "You're On Your Own, Kid" which has a fantastic sense of build and momentum even though it sort of deliberately doesn't try to take it anywhere, it just piles on more nuance and accreted meaning to the realisation captured by the refrain.

Taylor tends to use bridges to open up perspectives or document narrative milestones within her songs' stories, but these songs mostly avoid both perspective shifts and milestones - even songs like "You're On Your Own, Kid" or (another example of that style) "Mastermind" don't so much change their narrators' perspectives as expand or deepen them (the fact that the "you" in "Mastermind" is revealed to be fully aware of what is going on doesn't actually change anything - which is sort of the point!).

I think Taylor has deliberately adopted a kind of structural straightforwardness to her songwriting here (this is not to say the songs are simpler: they're as wordy as ever, and there's a notable emphasis on internal rhyme schemes) in part to give expression to the kind of vibe she wants these songs to convey, which is one aspect of what strikes me as distinct and interesting about this album, as opposed to it just being a return to previous stylistic approaches. But those angles to the album mostly sit outside of discussions about e.g Antonoff's synth and drum sounds.

I was noticing the lack of classic Taylor bridges as well, and wondering if this was what I was missing in the album. Often I'll be meh on a Taylor Swift song and then it gets to the bridge and I decide I like it after all.

There's this ASMR-ness to most everything he does which I really do not like

Omg you're right! This explains so much. I'm one of those people who hates ASMR, like whatever it's supposed to do to people, it does the opposite to me.

Beautifully put, as always. And this hits on my feelings for the album as well, i def respond to it on the songwriting level

and in light of folklore/evermore these feel very much somehow in that zone, without being the same or even referential

xpost

Thanks.

I forgot to add to the end of the first paragraph (hence it trailing off) that I think one of the complicating factors with Taylor's writing is that often the songs that don't feel very reflective of her songwriting craft are also ones which are very obviously autobiographical - e.g. "I Forgot That You Existed" (the upshot synthesising these qualities is that these songs tend to make her seem quite shallow).

I can't help hearing "Midnight Rain" as a "slowed + reverb" version of "All You Have to Do Is Stay" (one of my favorite 1989 songs), and it's not a pleasant effect.

Tim, what's your least favorite Swift album?

Probably the debut, even though a decent chunk of the songs on it are all-time for me (e.g. "Tim McGraw", "Stay Beautiful", "Mary's Song", "Our Song", "Invisible") and as good as anything she ever did later - but as a collection of songs it now feels unformed at times.

It probably took Folklore and Evermore for me to feel completely good about the overall direction Swift's career had taken post-Red, even though the three albums in between are all excellent in different ways - but the subsequent albums allowed me to view them as part of an ongoing conversation rather than State of the Union addresses where I have to ask "does this album capture everything (or the most in relative terms) that I love about this artist?". Midnights is close enough to Evermore both stylistically (in terms of songwriting, not sonics) and timing-wise that I've been able to skip over that interim step of measuring it against some idealised ultimate Taylor album.

So maybe the real answer is that I no longer conceive of any of them in those terms.

Gosh, I don’t know how you find the songwriting similar to Evermore… that’s just remarkable to me

Well there are some clear differences which I have spelt out in some (you might even say excruciating) detail in posts above, but they're also clearly products of the same songwriter with the same general approach. Once you strip away the arrangement choices there's not a huge amount separating "You're On Your Own, Kid" from "Long Story Short" or "Maroon" from "Coney Island" or "Mastermind" from "Gold Rush".

I guess I’m just not as perceptive a listener, I don’t hear the similarities between those pairs of songs…

Told y'all it was fatphobic. And now... It's gone.

https://www.seventeen.com/celebrity/music/a41780539/taylor-swift-removes-fat-scale-anti-hero/

As someone who struggles with his weight/size, it's a relatable scene. Those who were complaining about it would do well to consider that other people's experiences are different from their own and those people should be free to represent that in their art. However, the edit only removes the brief shot of the scale with the word "FAT" on it. Taking that out doesn't change the content of the scene at all. The way I see it, the complainers didn't get what they wanted and the right-wing "cancel culture" crybabies get something new to whine about. Well done!

now Taylor's going to have to remove all those neuroableist lyrics about being "insane" and whatnot

I need to listen through a couple more times before firming up by opinion but this is the first Swift album that has left me cold and felt rather staid. On nearly every track I am reminded of and can identify a clear antecedent in her catalogue from the run since 1989.

A few posts that resonated with me:

This to me after three passes sounds like her most enervated release

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, October 21, 2022 7:51 AM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I’m finding this a little…er…monotonous, particularly the plodding midsection.

― monotony, Saturday, October 22, 2022 6:09 AM (five days ago) bookmarkflaglink

The one-producer/one-sound approach here is an idea that I support in theory, but in this case I think she'd have been better off with more/different collaborators.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, October 24, 2022 11:01 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is the first taylor swift album to leave me feeling nothing. aside from boredom i guess. it’s not only the production here that feels stale, but the songs just feel mapped along the contours of older, better songs. there’s several songs out of the first handful where i keep expecting her to break into the chorus melody of “i think he knows.”

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, October 25, 2022 8:39 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Midnights is close enough to Evermore both stylistically (in terms of songwriting, not sonics)

― Tim F, Wednesday, October 26, 2022 11:15 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

'folklore' is such an amazing album

However, the edit only removes the brief shot of the scale with the word "FAT" on it. Taking that out doesn't change the content of the scene at all.

that particular bit seemed to be what attracted criticism in particular but as i've said before i don't really understand the criticisms i've seen because it's presenting the whole bit as the unhealthy influence of evil taylor, not an endorsement of fat = bad.

the scene didn't need to have that detail to achieve what it wanted though so removing it is no big deal if it makes people happy i guess

Once I watched the scene in question it didn’t strike me as fatphobic per se, but perhaps unnecessarily confronting for people who have been subject to that - so yeah I think it was the right call to just take it out.

Perhaps a more wishy washy position than current public debates allow but I guess here we are (I also always felt roughly the same way about the “I’ll tell mine that you’re gay” from the original “Picture to Burn” - a better lyric than its replacement, but sensible to replace).

I gave this a listen while cooking dinner... I'd previously peeked in to hear Aaron's tracks but today I listened in full

I really really like Jack as a producer in general, but not-so-much on this. I found myself wanting to take his bass pads away. They're on everything. No song is given the chance to be buoyed aloft by a normal slurpy bouncy bass line, it's just all pads. There is very little high-frequency content, too... I kept wishing every snare and hat was louder, that there was something going on up there

Bf was less interested in the production and said "I struggle with enjoying Taylor's songs because they always come off as so autobiographical, and I don't find myself caring about her personally, so they're not particularly interesting to me". I kinda get it... there is something tawdry or self-pornographing about writing songs of such specificity (instead of universality), it feels less like she's killing me softly with her song and more like her songs are written in collaboration with People magazine

That said I loved a lot of lyrical moments. I wish this amazing stanza-- "Did you hear my covert narcissism / I disguise as altruism / Like some kind of congressman / Tale as old as time"-- was awarded a worthwhile rejoinder

Yeah – beyond just thinking the lyrics are not very good on this album, I also feel like she doesn’t “sell” the personal stuff in a way that seems like SHE even cares about it… it feels like she’s just sort of going through the motions.

Like, the first song is all about how people keep asking when she’s gonna marry her boyfriend… is that really happening(?) I guess it must be, if she’s singing about it… but it definitely doesn’t hit like songs on previous albums dealing with the same themes. And I find it hard to care, especially coming after all the exquisite songs on Evermore that went to such other places with the lyrics.

Listening now. This is my first Taylor Swift album listening experience.

i dunno, i feel like she’s of course tugging at autobiographical threads & mining those feelings but my impression is she’s writing them into new stories and wearing different shoes, like whatifs and thought exercises

maybe that’s why i feel more generous?
just because it’s all “i feel” stuff doesn’t necessarily mean it’s pure autobiography

she got pretty good at spreading her wings into fiction on the last couple of albums, i prefer thinking that midnights is part of that

Like, the first song is all about how people keep asking when she’s gonna marry her boyfriend… is that really happening(?)

her boyfriend gets asked it a lot in interviews yeah

VegemiteGrrl otm

I roll my eyes when journalists and the artists themselves allude to autobiography. Like VegemiteGrrl, I assume most writing consists of what-ifs.

She did introduce the album as “the stories of thirteen sleepless nights scattered throughout my life”… but I think it’s cool if you’re able to hear the songs a different way.

(not that imagining them to be fictional would really help for me)

i think the rerelease of stuff like the 10-minute version of “all too well” also helped put everyone back into the autobiography mindset

So many TS lyrics seem like they're based on scenarios out of movies though

I find her lyrics to be kind of impressionistic, I don't even really think of them as telling a story per se

least fave thing about taylor swift (including during superfan era c. speak now) has always been that she thinks her lyrics are autobiographical

This discussion reminds me of the several times now that songwriters have been audibly taken aback when Marc Maron assumes all of their songs are autobiographical and thier response has basically been some variation of, "of course not, why would you assume so?".

I would actually love to hear Taylor Swift on WTF -- she's never done it, has she?

I don't believe she has, could be interesting, although I fear 40 minutes of Marc being all defensive about why he never listened to her music.

I always have held that "autobiographical lyrics" tend to end up being 'untrue', insofar as they're a. attempting to assert a point-of-view (i.e. projecting), b. the 'truth' gets bent out of necessity of creating poetry

On the other hand, lyrics that exist entirely within the realm of fiction (and/or the abstract) have a greater likelihood of hitting upon truths both broad and personal

To make my case for Taylor being awesome I played bf my favourite tracks from folklore and evermore last night and he walked away begrudging but convinced, yay

q: was one of them "ivy"

I have more than once been blindsided when lyrics/writing I assumed were fictional, metaphorical, or otherwise written at a remove turned out to be autobiographical. Anyway, pretty sure Taylor iced a dude and HAIM helped her cover it up.

xpost q was one of them illicit affair

least fave thing about taylor swift (including during superfan era c. speak now) artists has always been that they she think their lyrics are autobiographical

― difficult listening hour,

relistened to Evermore last night. insanely good record. I can't help but think the production's 'modernity' is hurting it, not because its Objectionable in any real way and more bc acoustic guitar & piano have all of these Worthy associations w folk music, 70s AOR, Joni Mitchell, etc. In other words, easily translates as "singer songwriter seriousness." Whereas the light touch pop production doesn't have those associations

I totally hear the repetitiveness that Tim F is getting at in this -- the tunneling feeling. It's kind of unsatisfying in a weird way, like you want the songs to be somewhat more conventional. But I do think it makes the structures of this album more, not less, interesting

I can't help but think the production's 'modernity' is hurting it

This is referring to the new one, obv

xp no I don't think so? I love "Ivy" so much tho

illicit affairs is one of my favorites, i love the sneaky quiet build into that chorus - repeat it twice, hits like a brick then boom, out, done. it’s like a heist of feels!

also invisible string which adheres to brad’s theory that she should always write songs abt colors

one of my students wrote a fantastic essay about "ivy"

Some days Taylor’s finest song.

ivy is beautiful it is true

One of the upshots of Folklore and Evermore’s focus on telling stories about others is that you can hear Taylor really thinking about how to tell a complete, self-contained narrative within the constraints of the song format. “Ivy” for example is very effective at evoking the basic contours of an archetypal love triangle situation but very economically: “so tell me to run, or dare to sit and watch what will become / and drink my husband’s wine” - that final line telling so much about the state of the marriage with a single detail.

By contrast. when Taylor relies on her own life to fill in the blanks it can allow her to become a bit lazy at times (only at times) - I feel like a song like “Lavender Haze” is a bit weak in part because its narrative implicitly relies on what “we” already know about Taylor’s life to enable us to make sense of it (it’s also just one of the less interesting songs on the album) - so in some ways there is less “at stake” in the songwriting.

This is a good piece:

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2022/10/taylor-swift-midnights-jack-antonoff-criticism/671911/

Yeah even if you think the album has problems and Antonoff is one of them, he's there because she wants him to be. Blaming him for anything is falling into "TS can't fail, she can only be failed" thinking.

also invisible string which adheres to brad’s theory that she should always write songs abt colors

Hahaha this is so true

It's interesting to me that the respective "contentious collaborators" in Joni and Taylor's mid-30s output (Jaco and Jack) are about as aesthetically dissimilar as could be possible

What I do like about this album is the sense, more so than on others, that she's sharing half-formed, almost garbled thoughts, one-liners, and broken conversations; the homogeneity of the production makes it seem as if we're overhearing her confiding to a friend over Zoom.

That Atlantic piece implies there’s a significant movement afoot to blame Antonoff for the album’s mediocrity, but it quotes one Buzzfeed review (which doesn’t really say that), and links to one (clearly deranged, from the description) TikTok. Feels kinda strawmanny.

felt the same, altho damon albarn did eventually ride to its rescue

(out of the past)

I don't believe she has, could be interesting, although I fear 40 minutes of Marc being all defensive about why he never listened to her music.

― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Friday, October 28, 2022 12:23 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Look, I'm not *against* it. I'm just an old guy. I can't keep up. Can you keep up? It's hard, right? Now, Jack's an interesting dude. He's been in here. What's it like working with *that guy*?

Cosign "Ivy" being among her best songs.

The NYT Popcast on this is worth a listen with a number of insightful discussions on the production, lyrics, process, criticism, etc. Roundtable with Joe Coscarelli, Jon Pareles, Lindsay Zoladz, and Caryn Ganz.

My daughters are of course psyched about the tour announcement, but I'm trying to temper their expectations a tad knowing that the dynamic pricing will inevitably lead to expensive disappointment.

I’m enchanted to announce my next tour: Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour, a journey through the musical eras of my career (past & present!) The first leg of the tour will be in stadiums across the US, with international dates to be announced as soon as we can!https://t.co/KFuqvrhSGo pic.twitter.com/eVyTcuW8sK

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) November 1, 2022

that's sure a lot of ground to cover. i was expecting she'd just focus on the last four albums since she has yet to be able to tour any of them & she's previously tended to just do latest album + a few older hits + maybe one or two deeper cuts acoustic

.@taylorswift13 scores one of the most historic weeks in @billboardcharts history, as she becomes the first artist to claim the #Hot100’s entire top 10 in a single week. https://t.co/kMVGrXx7xq

— billboard (@billboard) October 31, 2022

So many great openers for this tour... just not really in Chicago. Would love to see Paramore open for her though, wow.

I know :(

She has three of the top 4 in the UK this week but that's just next level xps

Every song on this album gets an older song of hers stuck in my head for a day.

am I tripping or does 'willow' off evermore make you think of 'slow burn' by kacey musgraves

Fans apparently crashed Ticketmaster - surprising no one but Ticketmaster, I guess - so they paused sales and are apparently trying to get their shit together. One of my kids had a friend with one person left ahead of them in the queue when it went down.

Elon Musk use whatever remains of your fortune to buy Tickemaster challenge

That would be rad, he should waste his money on that.

My daughter managed to get 6 tix, around $300 a pop. Her roommate paid around $400 each for floor. That's insane to me. I went to Seatgeek to see what secondary markets were asking and was immediately put in a general queue, because I guess Seatgeek is the official vendor of several stadiums. Looked at Stubhub instead and nosebleeds were going for $500+.

if I emailed @taylorswift13 like democrats email me:

Subj: Taylor, I'm begging.

Taylor, I've signed up for Verified Fan. I've checked my spam. I've refreshed Ticketmaster, and yet STILL I'm waitlisted at this crucial time.

Can you RUSH a presale code to me by 10AM tomorrow?

— Amy Farley (@amyfarley) November 15, 2022

It tooks me 5 hours 'in the queue' to eventually buy tickets

It took my daughter around that long to get her tickets, and after spending over $2000 or whatever the bank sent her an automatic fraud notification flagging the purchase and saying it would be cancelled if she did not confirm the purchase. Which she did and ... the bank cancelled it anyway. In a panic she called my wife, who called the bank, pissed, basically asking, you know, what the fuck? It got sorted in the end, though.

Other kid told me that she has lots of friends that didn't even get a shot at tix. Floor seats on stubhub are over in the thousands right now, lol. I saw Row 1/field tix being sold for $45,000. Good luck with that.

You're on your own, kid

This is what the monoculture looks like:

Current parenthood situation. Getting a full dose of the Taylor Swift concert @Ticketmaster presale fiasco. Going on hour four! pic.twitter.com/ZpBHkVoU4S

— Julián Castro (@JulianCastro) November 15, 2022

Daily reminder that Ticketmaster is a monopoly, it’s merger with LiveNation should never have been approved, and they need to be reigned in.

Break them up.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 15, 2022

The Queue Has Been Temporarily Paused
2000+ People Ahead Of You pic.twitter.com/2L5h1VWTwF

— Texas A&M University (@TAMU) November 15, 2022

What's more stressful...registering for classes or trying to buy tickets to Taylor Swift's #TSTheErasTour? pic.twitter.com/1Dx0NYMfRr

— UGA (@universityofga) November 15, 2022

The Taylor Swift eras tour ticketmaster waiting room pic.twitter.com/Y5YBh9UWhQ

— Vulture (@vulture) November 15, 2022

Your kid is rich

lol years of babysitting, man. Anyway, it's a credit card, she's only ("only") on the hook for $300 of that.

more seriously i went through this (ended up saying fuck off to the whole thing) with springsteen and this whole business of big time concerts in 2022 is incredibly dispiriting. i get that things change but this is just obscene

Coworker started queueing just before 10 and said she finally got her tickets at quarter past three. Her husband never did manage to get through.

Reading reports that the ticket prices started out fairly reasonable (at least as far as these mega stadium shows go), but that the dynamic pricing model might have kicked in later?

My kid says dynamic pricing was indeed a thing.

xpost I did the same with Springsteen. I was, like, I love Springsteen, got verified fan code, waited in the queue and in the end said fuck this, too.

What I don't get, beyond the obvious explanation that Ticketmaster is a terrible garbage company, is how they claimed to be overwhelmed by the demand and not expecting this many people. But... didn't they set the number of verified presale slots "approved"? Shouldn't they have had a pretty good fucking idea of how many people would be trying to buy tickets?

I do not want to play devil's advocate, but I would not rule out them being overwhelmed by hackers and scalpers and other shitheads on a huge scale. Maybe the equivalent in terms of scale to a DOS attack. Should have been ready for that, too, though.

Ticket prices here in Kansas City MO seemed static this afternoon ($109 was what mine were), but maybe they became dynamic later. Service charges were like another 30-40% of the ticket price, though, plus another $50 for parking at a venue where you need a car to get there.

My kid says dynamic pricing was indeed a thing.

Not trying to single you or your kid out Josh, but I'm genuinely unclear on if there was dynamic pricing at play yesterday or not. I've seen absolute insistences on both sides that there was absolutely not dynamic pricing involved because Taylor wouldn't allow it, while others are absolutely swearing their was dynamic pricing going on.

I was just talking to someone about this today. It is pretty unclear, afaict. Were the tickets just expensive, or were they being dynamically inflated in real time? I'm pretty sure my kid said four of her six tickets, all in the same row, were one price, but the other two she bought (again, same row, same purchasing session, right next to the other four) were a little more expensive. That seems suspicious to me. Anyway, the idea that anyone would claim Taylor Swift "wouldn't allow it" is hilarious, because she sure allowed the sale of a whole lot of "VIP" tickets larded with merch, and besides, everyone else is doing it. There's no way Taylor Swift is going to be the righteous voice of reason when even Springsteen bought in.

FWIW, five VIP packages, ranging from I think $199 to $899 a ticket. Plus fees:

https://www.ticketmaster.com/promo/fxqil5

Go big or go home, I guess.

C'mon I don't think it would be out of character for Taylor to sell VIP packages but also want to make sure there was no dynamic pricing for the lower priced tickets. I don't think having the former necessarily means she'd be fine with the later. She's smart and savvy, I'm sure she saw the blowback Springsteen got for it and hoped to avoid it.

Maybe! Springsteen got blowback, but he still sold out the tour, and never said a word about it publicly, let alone reversed his position. I think it's here to stay, and in fact has been in effect for a couple of years already. If anything, if Taylor Swift went out of her way not to have dynamic pricing her people would probably have said something about it.

Yeah, if anything I'm wondering if it's just going to end up another thing Ticketmaster forces on the artists. "Oh, you don't like dynamic pricing? Good luck with all those other venues!"

Someone in my office posted on Slack, for those buying tickets (which doesn't include me): "Use your phone/cellular, and not our work Wifi, or else everyone will get flagged by Ticketmaster for being on the same network... they’ll boot you out of the queue because you’ll be flagged as a potential bot"

So word to the wise, I guess.

Everything I have ever heard about this stuff is that Ticketmaster in a sense exists to take the heat off artists. The number one reason ticket prices are high is because artists ok higher prices, to make more money. If they wanted prices to be lower, prices would be lower; we can thank the Eagles for recognizing there's a lot more money to be wrung out of fans. At the same time, a big stage spectacular like Taylor Swift puts on costs a lot of money, so I have no idea what the minimum ticket price would be for her to even break even, let alone make hundreds of millions of dollars.

The number one reason ticket prices are high is because artists ok higher prices

That.... seems to be really at odds with statements from artists recently about the difficulties of touring right now precisely BECAUSE they don't want to raise tickets. I mean obviously the Taylor Swifts of the world operate at an entirely different level, but I think putting most of the blame on high ticket prices on the artists is disingenuous at best.

Josh is correct. If supply is low and demand is high, fans will scalp these tickets at absurdly high prices in the secondary market no matter what. So artists have to decide whether they keep the scalping money themselves (through Ticketmaster reselling, VIP meet-and-greet packages and dynamic pricing etc. etc.) or keep them artificially low (through something like Verified Fan). Bruce and Taylor made their decisions (which is probably why neither of them are talking about any of this). Those TM fees are usually split between TM and the venue once the artists take their gigantic % (at this level, usually 90-95, or Jimmy Buffett's famous 105) of the base ticket sales.

I mean, undoubtedly true with some artists. I just push back at the blanket statement of, "ticket prices are high because artists ok higher prices".

This was pretty interesting:

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/31/1120252212/does-ticketmaster-have-a-monopoly-on-live-events

Pretty early on, the first guest (CFO of Live Nation Joe Berchtold, so grain of salt, I guess) insists the ticket prices are set by artists, and Ticketmaster executes what the artist wants to do. Ticketmaster et al. are of course making money on top of the ticket price (hence the fees), but that base ticket price is set by the act and their people.

But who knows, supposedly even Pearl Jam had dynamic pricing for their most recent tour so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(And yeah, we're mostly talking about the expensive tickets being charged by those top acts.)

Artists with leverage definitely set their own prices. There's 0 chance Taylor and Bruce were surprised by the dynamic-pricing and resale shenanigans. Artists who play smaller clubs who could easily be replaced (business-wise) by others who can draw the same or better crowds have no leverage and therefore have less clout to negotiate things like low ticket prices or Ticketmaster fees.

lmao what a clusterfuck

Due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand, tomorrow's public on-sale for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour has been cancelled.

— Ticketmaster (@Ticketmaster) November 17, 2022

Is that the real Ticketmaster account? lol

That's so fucked up. I wonder what percentage of tix from the "presale" went to fans.

that you had to ask if that's the real Ticketmaster is really lol @ Twitter jeez

Taylor should circumvent Ticketmaster and tour farmers markets with Neil Young.

Holy fuck, that is really fucked up.

They're going to have to invent a new category of venue larger than football stadiums to accommodate her future tours.

i guess because of the amount of tickets on "secondary markets" that it's too late for Taylor to be like "i'm refunding everyone and starting all over again" huh

I'm really curious to know what she will, or even can, do. Announce another whole tour? Extend a whole new leg? Doesn't seem like enough gaps in the dates to add that many shows in between stops.

I predict she won't do shit. And that includes marshaling her "army" to help take down Ticketmaster.

Josh you seem really cynical and bitter towards her. I mean, she may not always have the best answer, but it seems like she has a decent track record of at least trying to apologize to her fans for problems.

Cynical for sure! If she wanted to make a difference she probably could, though as those that tried before her discovered it would come at great expense and inconvenience. But bitter? Nah, fans have no right to see her live and she has no obligation to do anything for them. Economically speaking, this outcome makes total sense. I'm strictly armchair in this brouhaha. I just find it gross.

I don’t get why so many people want to see her live in the first place. I would say I’m a moderate to serious fan of her music, depending on the album… but it’s not like her singing or musicianship are the focus of the appeal, at least for me (it’s the songwriting/recording). I’ve never particularly enjoyed seeing her perform on TV or whatever.

Last night, out of boredom/curiosity, I turned on the Reputation tour doc… and had to turn it right off, it was so not my thing (and Reputation is probably my second-favorite album of hers).

I guess you have to be a true “fan,” in every respect, to want to see her do her thing onstage… and all these people are!

xp - Even looking at it solely from the cynical/economic standpoint, even just adding more shows sense, no?

Iirc that's what Garth Brooks did/does. He just keeps adding shows until he sates demand. But I don't think it's as easy to do that (relatively speaking) when you have a huge state of the art touring spectacular like a lot of pop stars have.

xxp Yeah I saw her once, on the Speak Now tour, and it was fun, she was fine. But live performance is never going to be her strongest suit. Lots of forced, on-the-nose between songs patter etc. (I actually got a free media pass for that tour, I wonder if they even bother with those any more.)

The real scoop is that "Mean" is actually about Josh In Chicago.

Can't remember where I saw it, but someone did some math on the alleged demand numbers Ticketmaster was pushing, the stadium capacities and calendar and apparently she'd have to perform nightly for like two and a half years to meet the demand.

Lol, yeah, exactly, she can only play so much!

I've seen her twice, the first on the Speak Now tour (where iirc she was still kind of in aw shucks, pre-supermodel strut mode, and she had a fake front porch set with someone feeding a stuffed goat) and the second part of a big radio station obligation holiday thing (where I was standing next to her mom). The vibe was definitely pretty different between the two. The holiday show reminded me of any number of huge pop star show, so if that's what you're into, that's what you're gonna get.

Sure this was going to end in tears for some anyway, given the demand, but that still doesn't excuse Ticketmaster fucking things up royally.

otm

taylor swift's family has been part of america's ruling class, why not be cynical?

Josh said that to her mom, she she elbowed him in the solar plexus (Taylor was performing "Our Song" at that moment).

ehhhh: https://instagram.com/stories/taylorswift/2974356694747521845?utm_source=ig_story_item_share&igshid=Zjc2ZTc4Nzk=

I figured she'd address it somehow. I'm both encouraged by that response, in that I didn't expect her to punch back directly at Ticketmaster at all, but also.. like it really reads like basically, "yeah, this tour is all sold out and I hope we can figure out something for my next tour" and doesn't address some of the other issues.

I don't know, I don't care about getting tickets, I just hope this momentum of anti-Ticketmaster sentiment keeps some pressure on.

Check out the Springsteen thread for his own belated response, which is basically a big shrug.

I'm starting to think the only solution to this stuff is to seriously curtail secondary market sales, but I'm not sure how you legally go about doing that. Ed Sheeran supposedly limits how much his tickets can be resold for, I don't know how that works.

Definitely love the trend towards big artists saying, "sorry you are too poor to see me, sucks 2 b u, buy my new album!".

2.4 million people(?!)

A guy I work with (who was lukewarm about the new album, so I was surprised he went for tickets) says he managed to get great seats in the Capital One presale.

To me, the Capital One thing is like an extra little twist of the knife... I've taken advantage of such things in the past where I could (e.g., an "Amex Presale"), but the idea of needing to have a particular credit card feels extra moded.

Also throw in the fact that football season ticket holders in these venues also get a special pre-sale. I heard it was six tickets each at Soldier Field, so of course there's no tickets left.

^^Wow. In some cases that might be the only benefit of having season tickets (Cough Cough Houston Texans).

Saw a post on reddit where a Texans (I believe) season ticket holder said that their special pre-sale was sold out in under a minute.

Antitrust investigation opened up? Good luck with that, DOJ.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FkyEa6UWAAIu6Pv.jpg

“Like Capital One, Citi offers cardholders early access to concert presales through its Citi Entertainment program, which has no fee to access and is available to all Citi credit card and debit card holders. American Express offers some cardholders preferential access to tickets for Broadway shows and concerts, in addition to exclusive entrances at some venues.”

Keep journalism alive

Rather delayed but finally giving this a full listen. Low key electronic Taylor really is remarkably good.

I gave it a spin a few weeks ago after loving "Glitch" on Four Tet's Spotify playlist. Pretty solid album!

I re-listened today… every track after the first three still ended up being a skip for me, except for “Karma” & “Sweet Nothing” (“Hits Different” is also OK).

Curious: what’s the consensus about the meaning of the lyric “at tea time” in Anti-Hero? Does Taylor mean to imply that her critics are upper crust snobs drinking tea at a country club, or is it a draggy reference about serving tea?

totally thought it was about serving tea

Thought it was about gossip — tea — so “at tea time” = when ppl are gossiping (everybody agrees)

yeah seems pretty clearly like the latter to me?

I’ve always maintained that Taylor’s narrator may be winning out on the links but, rhetorically, she’s straight up getting wrecked by the other players

I always thought it was a “my critics are snobs” line (and the only weak line in an otherwise fairly brilliant lyric)

My bf thinks she’s referencing drag

Either way it’s not my favourite line in an otherwise delightful lyric? Idk there’s a lot of good stuff there

LL's gloss seems definitive to me

Thought it was about gossip — tea — so “at tea time” = when ppl are gossiping (everybody agrees)

― Piggy Lepton (La Lechera), Thursday, March 2, 2023 5:24 PM

this is how i hear it.

Yeah, clearly about gossiping. That's when everybody agrees she's the problem!

It’s HER

I thought she was just using "tea time" in the British sense? She's spent a lot of time there the past few years so it wouldn't be odd for some British phrases to sneak into her writing.

i'd read it as both the british sense and about gossip

Yeah I'm not suggesting it doesn't draw on that double meaning, more that I don't think it is intended to imply anything about the people agreeing - it's everybody! The song is pretty focused on directing the criticism and loathing inward - the only exception (the daughter in law who kills her) is imaginary, and is more a metaphor for what she fears her value may be reduced to.

yeah i agree there

“Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby
And I'm a monster on the hill
Too big to hang out, slowly lurching toward your favorite city”

This is not pop lyric writing imo, this is something else and something very good and very funny.

Did you hear my covert narcissism
I disguise as altruism
Like some kind of congressman?

This part gets me every time, but the entire song is full of memorable lyrics.

The part that shocked me into caring about this song was that line — the narcissism/altruism/congressman line. It seems to come out of nowhere?

In the video where the crowd was singing along she absolutely spits the word congressman — that took me by surprise too.

What I love about the congressman line is that it’s not clear whether she’s speaking in general or specifically critiquing even her own confessionalism on this song, like, “look, even now I am crying out for attention and to be loved, and trying to make myself look like a more self-reflective person than I really am.”

lol she sure seems to be going ridiculously all out for this tour

It cost them so much babysitting and other jobs, but my kids are going to lose their shit.

LOL same here. We are going to Nashville. They are approaching Losing Their Shit stage currently and should be at full-on Interstellar Overdrive (or something like that) stage by the time we get there.

she played “enchanted” ;_;

i don’t love the setlist personally. shoutout to her for doing 45 songs tho

Here’s the chunk I’d be all over (could leave the rest):

“Tis the Damn Season”
“Willow”
“Marjorie”
“Champagne Problems”
“Tolerate It”
“…Ready for It?”
“Delicate”

When your fans have no taste

The Evermore segment included live debuts of “’Tis the Damn Season,” “Marjorie,” and “Tolerate It,” as well as a self-aware gag from Swift, who said the album is one that “I absolutely love—despite what some of you say on TikTok… I’ve seen it. I’ve seen all of it!”

otm

Looks like she's actually dividing it up into eras, which makes sense given the name of the tour, but seems like a bit of a missed opportunity to put songs from different eras together in interesting ways.

xp I think she's adressing weird persistent rumours that SHE didn't like evermore and has 'buried' it since release. Although yeah, the fans also underrated it.

Oh thanks, interesting. (I won’t pretend to understand the logic of that rumor, considering that she did the thing of breaking the songs up into a bunch of digital EPs, giving “Willow” a ton of remixes, etc.)

My daughter gave me the lowdown this morning. Apparently she barely tweeted or posted anything about Evermore, compared to Folklore (which got its own special?), and then didn't mention the album on its "birthday" (anniversary) either.

Ok, definitely a different level of tea-leaf reading happening there.

Just did some Twitter searching (yes, I'm bored) – she only tweeted twice about Folklore, post–2020: (a) in Feb. 2021, announcing she put FL & Evermore together in a playlist; (b) in July 2021, the "Happy Anniversary" tweet (debuting a new version of "The Lakes"). As for Evermore – she tweeted about it seven (7) times in 2021 (and that's not counting the aforementioned playlist tweet, or an announcement of a deluxe version of the LP).

I think if an artist was tweeting a lot about their albums’ birthdays I’d probably block them

I would like to celebrate the anniversary of every post I made on ILX.

both the opening and closing tracks are very confusing choices

I was there last night. My daughter’s Christmas present. Great stage/set and performance.

There really should be one catch-all thread for her at this point. Anyway, assuming it is accurate, I was impressed by this:

Taylor Swift was one of the only celebrities who did their due diligence on crypto exchange FTX, according to the lawyer suing the now-bankrupt company’s celebrity promoters.

Attorney Adam Moskowitz has gone after basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal, football star Tom Brady, “Seinfeld” creator Larry David and more than a dozen other FTX promoters in a class action lawsuit that accuses them of promoting the sale of unregistered securities.

Moskowitz is seeking $5 billion in the lawsuit, he said during an episode of The Scoop podcast with Frank Chaparro. He claims the exchange’s celebrity boosters didn’t do their due diligence to check whether they may be breaking the law before cutting TV and digital ads for FTX.

“The one person I found that did that was Taylor Swift. In our discovery, Taylor Swift actually asked them, 'Can you tell me that these are not unregistered securities?’” Moskowitz said. Swift reportedly came close to inking a $100 million sponsorship deal with FTX, but the partnership never materialized. Swift did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

https://www.theblock.co/amp/post/226981/taylor-swift-ftx-shaquille-oneal-lawsuit

embarrassing that she even got that close to it at all really

Yeah, even promoting a "bona fide" scheme for $100million, and yet they still shout about John L / Country Life Butter....

Where was Beyonce in all this? Busy doing private shows for dictators or something? (I wonder if Swift does that stuff, too. Probably. A Wall Street friend of mine says that Coldplay is *always* taking corporate gigs, and god knows those dorks don't need the money.)

Oh, goddamn
I almost got caught up in a crypto scam
They said "Shaq's on board," but I responded
"Oh, tell me
Are these unregistered securities"
They wouldn't say, I never signed
And now I'm grateful

swift does do corporate gigs but i don't think she's done the middle eastern dictator circuit or anything. at least if she has it hasn't gotten out publicly afaik

I would be so fucking embarrassed to be an audience member at a fucking corporate gig gee wiz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otc8CboPT2s

How many global pop superstars still are on the "private shows for dictators" circuit?

Guarantee it's a least double the number of ones we actually know about.

Taylor Swift actually asked them, 'Can you tell me that these are not unregistered securities?’” Moskowitz said.

Strongly doubting this quote but kudos to her for having a good team.

I doubt the quote too but it's also not entirely implausible either considering her dad is a stockbroker and her mom worked in mutual funds that she picked up a few things along the way

I still think about a long magazine (RS?) profile from years back, in which the writer observed her making deals and talked about how good at bizniss she is... and also mentioned that she was paranoid that stereo speakers in the room could be listening in on her conversations (she asked something like, "If they can produce sound by vibrating, how do we know they can't transmit sound back to someone?").

For those in the know, yes, they totally can

i guess i'm a late swiftie. i actually can't get over how beautiful folklore is... 'cardigan' has made me cry a few times over now, and 'august' and 'hoax' are so tender...

I don't feel like "unregistered securities" are that arcane a thing for a 30-something multi-millionaire to understand or ask about.

I mean, of course she has finance people. But I wouldn't be surprised if she's on the more diligent end of wealthy celebrities when it comes to understanding her money. She's always seemed pretty business savvy.

It's probably telling (and fits with that thing I read) that she was negotiating/asking questions directly, rather than just leaving it to her ppl to vet & arrange... which is how I'm sure at least some other stars would handle it.

(also fits with her intense personal involvement with ownership of her masters etc., which I recall reading something about...)

her dad was a big stockbroker/finance guy

I don't know how long this clip has been floating around, but I hadn't seen it before. It's her arguing with her dad about why she needs to come out against Marsha Blackburn in the 2018 elections.

"I can't see another commercial and see her disguising these policies behind the words 'Tennessee Christian values.' Those aren't Tennessee Christian values. I live in Tennessee, I am Christian. That's not what we stand for."

I’ve never seen this before but this video of @taylorswift13 is worth watching

pic.twitter.com/DKxdl9pj2A

— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) May 2, 2023

That's awesome. Can't imagine the amount of pressure she must have felt from the TS machine to just be quiet.

"Did Bob Hope do that? Or Bing Crosby? What about Mick Jagger?"

Iirc that's from her Netflix doc "Miss Americana," which is really good and

And ... scene.

So I feel a little tacky being the person to bring up the breakup, but does Midnights become more interesting if we think of it as an impending-breakup album? Because I found it pretty blah on a first listen, and honestly I still do, but in hindsight I guess you could put together "Anti-Hero," "Sweet Nothing," "Mastermind," and maybe "Bejeweled" as a (possibly unintended) portrayal of a relationship that's fallen into toxic patterns: she's the one ostensibly controlling everything, but also the one who's entirely to blame if anything goes wrong; he's a kind of faceless, blandly perfect, endlessly patient angel in the house, but also the one who constantly makes her feel like she has to apologize and diminish herself.

"Sweet Nothing" in particular is very pretty but the title phrase is double-edged: would you really want to be someone's nothing? And "Anti-Hero" picks up a pattern that started in Lover, of "If we ever break up it will be my fault because you do everything right and I do everything wrong, including failing to take responsibility for my actions" but makes it into a huge, gleeful hit; it may be lyrically about midnight self-loathing, but vibe-wise it's a long way from something like "The Archer" or "Peace."

Huh, I wasn’t aware she had a breakup (or that her ex apparently had a few writing credits on Folklore & Evermore).

Yeah, I don't think anyone treated it as a big news item at the time it happened, which is refreshing and makes me feel bad about being the person to bring it up.

Seems totally valid to bring it up in the context of analyzing the album!

Looks like it did get coverage as general “pop culture news”; don’t know why I’m not up on that stuff anymore.

Karma remix w/Ice Spice on the way. Don't know if I'm excited about it exactly, but I like the gesture anyway.

Um. SO much to tell you. I’m a massive fan of this brilliant artist and after getting to know her I can confirm: she is THE ONE to watch. So delighted to say that Karma Featuring the incredible @icespicee_ will be out TOMORROW night at MIDNIGHT ET as a part of the new Midnights… pic.twitter.com/OaRrHBWTUw

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) May 24, 2023

Also a new version of "Snow on the Beach" with a longer Lana verse (not that it will likely improve the song too much)

I guess she heard all the "We can't actually hear Lana" talk.

“hits different” on streaming is the real news

I hope that CD edition she mentions eventually gets a wider release with all these bonus tracks.

I wuz in a coffee shop last week when "Anti-Hero" came on... one of the barista bros said to the other: "I love this song, but I always forget about the 'sexy baby' part! Ugh, right?"

looool judging by the Reddit response even the Swifties are starting to turn on her over this constant milking the fans for different versions of the album

Terrible day for people that are me https://t.co/rd4wD4kHEO pic.twitter.com/ULz1DqCoSb

— MAStermind (@samisntokay) May 24, 2023

No copy of the debut, no credibility

Gotta click on the image. Looks like they have 6?

Taylor Swift Is Dating An Alleged Racist — And Is Now Using A Black Woman To Cover Her Ass
Her remix of "Karma" with Bronx rapper Ice Spice reeks of damage control and exploitative PR strategy.

By
Cambria Roth
May 25, 2023, 11:36 AM EDT

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/taylor-swift-ice-spice-karma-collaboration_n_646f6a21e4b0a7554f3d5b98

xp I stan corrected

my friend brought this up yesterday but i guess i am sorta disappointed that the guy who got greta thunberg to record an intro for his record is dating miss private jet plane

The Root is on it too.

https://www.theroot.com/why-is-taylor-swift-doing-a-song-with-ice-spice-1850475314

Reason #47 not to date Matty Healy. But I'm sure she'll get a lot of songs out of it.

Quite a thread here:

Before I leave for NYC, here is my thread on seeing Taylor this weekend while she is dating a racist, Islamophobic, anti-semitic overall problematic white man. While I don't necessarily "owe" anyone this thread, it is important to me to take my public leadership seriously.

— Holly Stallcup (@HollyStallcup) May 25, 2023

All that said I still think it's better for her to do a collab with Ice Spice than not, regardless and because of the circumstances.

putting aside how stuff like that huff post article reveals the extent of these ppl's disordered relationship w/ this celebrity, the logic doesn't even make sense. the "controversy" was completely dormant so why would she revive it and blow it up to massive proportions... as a PR strategy?

perhaps what she really cares the most about is money. no that can't be it

Not sure about PR strategy, but people were mad that Healy was yucking it up over jokes about Ice Spice being Eskimo on that cumtown podcast, so I guess doing a collab with Ice Spice would mute that?

well it has done the opposite

idk if i like this automatic assumption that swift's business decisions have anything to do with the reputation of the guy she's dating

this is an incredibly surface-level gotcha, which is why reputable outlets like the 2023 huffington post are running with it

people were mad that Healy was yucking it up over jokes about Ice Spice being Eskimo on that cumtown podcast, so I guess doing a collab with Ice Spice would mute that?

― INDEPENDENTS DAY BY STEVEN SPILBERG (President Keyes), Thursday, May 25, 2023 1:43 PM (two minutes ago)

i just find this logic completely incongruous. maybe taylor swift is actually very dumb, but it's hard for me to believe that she does not understand the basic concept of the streisand effect. the idea that taylor swift would think "if i put ice spice on a remix, people will forgive me for dating someone who made racist jokes about ice spice" ... i think this reveals more about the critical thinking skills possessed by the writer than the celebrity, i'll just put it that way. you (not you specifically, president keyes) might think like a fifth grader but that doesn't mean taylor swift does too

& also what brad said. not only is she one of the biggest pop machines in music history but she is particularly famous for cultivating the idea that every little thing she does is carefully, deeply calculated. that she would make artistic/financial/reputational decisions based on a podcast controversy attached to a guy she's been dating for what a month? i find it fascinating that so many of her stans -- even (especially) the otherwise well adjusted adult ones -- seem to not understand a single thing about her

I also thought that, like, a foundational tenet of Swift fandom was that she shouldn't be judged by whom she is dating / has dated.

(I should never attempt using "whom," b/c I think I always end up using it wrong)

I also thought that, like, a foundational tenet of Swift fandom was that she shouldn't be judged by whom she is dating / has dated.

― Day 1 fan (morrisp), Thursday, May 25, 2023 2:06 PM (fifty-nine seconds ago)

yeah. well what's happening is that this story is causing a head on collision between two tentpole beliefs held by lots of (younger) pop fans these days. those positions are 1. women celebrities should not be defined by the men they date 2. good celebrities are deeply engaged w/ politics, speak out at any and all opportunity about oppression & those who don't are failing their fans and complicit in upholding said oppression. you can't have it both ways w/ this controversy

i just hope we get that "post-rock joni mitchell" collaboration matty talked about wanting to make a while ago

the "controversy" was completely dormant

was it though? i don't think the swifties have taken a break from melting down about matty's crimes on the adam friedland show since the news broke, but yeah i agree that if there's any calculation from swift here it's the streisand effect not some sort of weird damage control

i do wonder if matty's realised yet that getting him in hot water was the entire joke to friedland etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CnUYMmEHrs

"more lana del rey" does deliver on its promise and the new mix is a noticeable improvement too - the piano really makes it sound fuller

If Taylor Swift chooses to be in a relationship with a dummy who makes racist comments about blacks and Inuit, then yes, underneath the savvy business decisions, she is an idiot.

lol here we go

Taylor Swift might be an idiot, idgif either way, that Twitter thread made me jump out the window a couple days ago.

the correct response to it

"Karma is defenestration ... "

Can't we just all come together and blame Jack Antonoff for everything?

yeah. well what's happening is that this story is causing a head on collision between two tentpole beliefs held by lots of (younger) pop fans these days. those positions are 1. women celebrities should not be defined by the men they date 2. good celebrities are deeply engaged w/ politics, speak out at any and all opportunity about oppression & those who don't are failing their fans and complicit in upholding said oppression. you can't have it both ways w/ this controversy

― J0rdan S., Thursday, May 25, 2023 1:19 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

good post

Yeah. Partly explains why the Swifties in my life are perplexed (one thinks Matty is terrible, the other is a fan of the 1975 and gets that his current schtick is a bit, however bad a bit).

the friedland show stuff is about the only time i've felt disappointed in matty but the game of telephone with the swifties is really something

who is adam friedland and why are they trading in aughts-era "comedy" racism

former co-host of the podcast "cum town", vaguely chapo trap house-adjacent but not really political. the whole cum town/now friedland show schtick is juvenile ironic edgelord offensive humour shit, but somehow they've managed to keep it at that and not actually turn into frothing reactionaries? which is very unusual for vaguely left edgelord podcast hosts

really it's just completely absurd that it's at all relevant to explain any of this in the taylor swift thread lmao

Or that the Washington Post is covering it

yeah that's even more ridiculous

So apparently Matt Healy watches racist torture porn against black women....https://t.co/OqbyVPYXrN

— ⟭⟬ darth voider ⟭⟬ (@THISlSVOIDED) May 12, 2023

Was this all part of a joke or does Healy actually appreciate this vile form of “media.” Doing offensive accents or whatever is one thing, but I read this and felt confused and disturbed.

TW: if you read the whole thread, your day will be ruined. But I think it’s relevant to post this here bc *this* I think is why people are grossed out by him. Not the comments about Ice Spice.

Was this all part of a joke

i'm not listening to the podcast but i feel comfortable saying: yes, he was on cumtown

it really depresses me how stupid things like this distract us from what's really important, which is the music.

like, we need to focus on her music and how much it fucking sucks

Ice Spice is not a good rapper. So I'm finding that out.

Yeah, the new "Karma" seems worse in every respect. "Snow on the Beach" has Moar Lana as advertised, I guess, but...

i bothered to listen to the bit of the podcast and the context is one of the cum town guys telling a story about matty watching the racist porn after they hung out, and he's pretty clearly just going along with it and riffing with them. it's not a funny bit at all, completely reasonable for people to be offended even by joking about that, but with any context at all it's pretty clear you shouldn't take any of it at face value

but people are indeed mad at pretty much all of it, not just that. they're mad even at other stuff too like him nazi salute during a live performance of "love it if we made it" which is pretty obviously commentary on trump & kanye with any context at all

Where does the "Islamophobic/antisemitic" charge – in the first tweet of that insta-famous Twitter thread linked above – come from?

antisemitism: nazi salute during show
islamophobia: i cannot remember the details of this at all bc it happened more than five possibly almost ten years ago but he did get in hot water running his mouth off on twitter about something. iirc he apologized?

The Islamophobia thing was in reaction to this (from 2019):

“Nowadays, I honestly think, if you’re piously religious–if you’re dogmatically faithful–you should be kind of ashamed of yourself,” says Healy. “I’m bored with certain religions as well because certain racisms are aligned with them."

“You can’t criticize Islam as a set of ideas…because you’re inherently criticizing people. But that’s a problem with society because Islamophobia does exist, people are bigoted. But what that really is is thick, scared people not liking brown people. Whereas I love people, I love brown people.”

He continues: “I just don’t know when I’m allowed to be offended. Religious people are always allowed to be offended: ‘Oh, we’re offended by this, I’m offended by that.’

“I have to get up every day and read some abhorrent that’s happened in the name of religion. And I never get a day. I never get a day where I’m allowed to be offended. … Where are my rights as an atheist?”

yeah, exhausting position imo

i guess even with all of this he comes off more to me as "guy who talks a lot of shit" instead of "irredeemable racist and anti-semite" but ymmv

just hate that this is getting so much airing in a t swift thread

Where are my rights, as an Evermore fanatic, to be offended by this Midnights era getting exhaustively drawn out & attenuated... I really hope she regroups artistically when she comes off the tour.

hopefully we get that collaborative "post-rock joni mitchell" album matty dreamed up a while ago

The 1989

listened to “hit different” … it has the contours of a great taylor swift song but her production just sounds like shit these days i’m sorry to say

having interviewed matty before… he is someone, even w/in the context of normal ppl let alone celebs, where it takes literally nothing for him to get going for 2-3 straight mins on…. whatever. and he has a thought about everything. and he blazes thru joints the entire interview. the cumtown world stuff is an absolute unforced error on his part, no idea why he finds that scene cool or felt the need to risk the reputation of his art by going on those podcasts. well, i know why he wanted to but i don’t know why he did it. in any event, i would say that he is a deep thinker but also an indiscriminate talker. it’s kind’ve a horrible combo in general but also when you add in the “will say yes to every single interview request” part as well

"you're losing me" is out there. i assume the production is antonoff but it's less static than his stuff on midnights, it keeps shapeshifting to the very end. also features A Taylor Swift Bridge

Fans Speculate Who Taylor Swift Might Be Talking About In New Song ‘My Weird Little Racist Guy’ https://t.co/blYf3z71Rf pic.twitter.com/LqbyGT1L0n

— The Onion (@TheOnion) May 26, 2023

Ok kind of find that one funny

"you're losing me" is really good, fantastic bridge

I still don't really like Midnights, but I'm fascinated by the way Taylor is sort of stretching out the album's release over a period of months, so that what initially appeared to be a single album about a fairly boring happy marriage is gradually revealing itself to be a double album about a divorce.

(obvs I know they weren't officially married - just that this is turning into a full-on Divorce Album.)

I saw something that claimed she is up to the 5th released iteration of the album.

I don't care much about the remixes, but I do wonder if she'll keep adding tracks.

I have no idea how much of this she's doing on purpose. But it occurs to me that one effect of releasing an album in bits and pieces like this is that she's taking back control over the order in which people listen to the tracks. These days, album sequencing doesn't mean all that much, since it's so easy for people to skip and rearrange tracks. By spacing bits of the album out like Burma Shave signs, she's making us hear them in a particular order and on her timeline.

Are there any other truly new songs besides “You’re Losing Me”?

Hits Different is new, right?

Plus there was the whole 3 am drop when she initially released the album.

I think if she were doing it intentionally there'd be more actually new tracks, but that's why I'm interested to see if she keeps going with it.

i don't have any stake in taylor swift's music whatsoever, but i am absolutely a fan of there being differing versions of albums. some songs switched out, different sequencing, maybe short reprises referring to missing songs from differing versions, etc.

my big caveat is: just make it available for everyone to hear. exclusivity and FOMO bullshit needs to stop.

also xpost lily-

These days, album sequencing doesn't mean all that much

big oof. such a shame. everybody needs to listen to more full albums. maybe we should go back to the lovesexy model: just make the album one long track. maybe release the singles on their own. but wait six months or a year to put out a version with the tracks individually broken up.

“Hits Different” is on the Target edition that came out on release day (it’s the CD I have)

Oh, ok. I wish she were doing what I thought she was doing!

The AVClub listed these five versions (not including LPs with different covers):

Midnights, the 13-track original album available in both digital and physical formats, released at midnight Eastern on October 21, 2022

Midnights (3 AM Edition), the deluxe version of the album with seven additional tracks, available digitally only and released 3 A.M. Eastern on October 21, 2022

Midnights (Target Exclusive), which includes the 13 original tracks plus three bonus songs, including “Hits Different,” available only physically and only at Target, released October 21, 2022

Midnights (Til Dawn Edition), which features all 20 previously released tracks plus two remixes/re-recordings (featuring Ice Spice and Lana Del Rey) and “Hits Different,” available digitally only and released May 26, 2023

Midnights (the “Late Night Tracks” version), which swaps two “3 AM” tracks (“Paris” and “Glitch”) for the new remixes and adds a brand new “From the Vault” track, “You’re Losing Me”, available physically only and only on site at MetLife Stadium, released May 26, 2023

this handy infographic made the rounds on r/taylorswift a few days back-

https://i.redd.it/hwnl1ew1su1b1.png

I wish she were doing what I thought she was doing!

To the extent that she released an overt “break-up song” now, after the break-up, I think you’re not wrong…

so anyway...

lol

I seem to recall that when this record came out in Nov, there was a broad consensus that it was a step back? And not in the sense of "she should continue making folklorish shit with the National guy," but that it retreat from the developments of Lover and Reputation? I haven't listened to the latter since it came out, and haven't heard the latter but for the singles, but yet I don't understand that this record, which appears to be sophisticated by any meaningful contemporaneous standard, could possibly be considered a creative retrenchment?

Every time I reach for it my hand passes through vapors. I look at the titles and can't remember how they go except for the singles (cuz they're on the radio). To my ears it's her dullest (I didn't mind Reputation).

Same. It’s both an a stylistic retread and a “retreat” in quality (in that it’s not very good).

OK, I'd like to know which record or M.O. or style to which it is a retread… I don't know her shit top to bottom, but I like this record, as I like vaporous shit!

it retreat from the developments of Lover and Reputation

idk who was saying this bit, what developments? it's a retreat back to the sort of sound she had on those albums (although more specifically the moodier stuff - "false god" is an obvious predecessor but it's stronger than this whole album), not a retreat from them.

it's a swift album without much of the way of standouts and that's enough to explain all the lukewarm reactions. personally i think it's one of her better albums - it's consistent, the production (while still not great) feels less flimsy than lover & reputation, the only real misstep is "question...?", but it also lacks the high points that all her best work does and even lover had at least despite its many many missteps. i don't really think much on reputation is too redeemable though.

i guess what i meant is reputation and lover did change up her sound but they weren't positive developments for the most part, some of her worst creative decisions on both of those. and so then people were also unhappy that this one did little new

It's not much different from Reputation and Lover other than length and blah songs.

think people are mostly reacting to the sound-- suspect many are ready for her to move on from folklorish shit with the national guy but expect it to be to a place that isn't 1989ish shit with the bleachers guy-- unfair obv as even the most restless artists (not taylor) need to get their bearings sometimes

lyrically she seems pretty deft to me here in dialing up the pop-zinger quotient for the touring-again singles without abandoning or forgetting how to use the-- idk-- detachment? irony? she was working with on the last couple albums

something like "maroon" is both the most in-character thing imaginable (a taylor swift song made of impressionistic details from a relationship that reminds her of a shade of red) and also relaxed+questioning (+villain-less) in an identifiably post-lover way-- sometimes a "retrenchment" is really a gathering-up, a return to yr old skills to see how they work with yr new ones

(people are sick of her and sick of her fans tho lol. i mean i know i am.)

anyway the speak now reissue "vault" disc, w its new-wavey single and reminder that she still talks to hayley, has me hoping for a full guitar-pop album

i think she should stop working with antonoff because he's happy to go along with her worst instincts (bland terrible synths)

I've probably said this but I love Reputation and think it has some of her best creative decisions, exactly b/c they feel like a stretch for her... this feels like the "safest" possible album she could have made, in terms of it being so entirely within her wheelhouse than many of the melodies are familiar.

(also, I just don't think the songs are very good, but that's obv subjective)

anyway the speak now reissue "vault" disc, w its new-wavey single and reminder that she still talks to hayley, has me hoping for a full guitar-pop album

From your lips to her ears. I've wanted that album from her basically ever since "The Story of Us."

mostly hate the sound of the album and how monotonous it gets listening front to back--all of her records have a couple duds but this is the first to only have a couple hits. but the other thing I recall on (admittedly limited) listens is that every song seemed to have a direct antecedent in her catalog. I haven't mapped it out or anything but it was more a "oh, this sounds sneakily like X on Reputation" or whatever. no doubt it's the one i've given the least time to, though, so I'd be happy to discover I'm wrong on future revisits.

every song seemed to have a direct antecedent in her catalog.

You mean it sounds like they're each from previous...ERAS?

which appears to be sophisticated by any meaningful contemporaneous standard

maybe i have an incomplete understanding of the word "sophisticated" but this feels like a real stretch, as an objective statement. or perhaps it's the tautological implication that sophistication = quality?

i guess i'm just hearing something different bcuz my big sticking point w/ this album is that it presents her to be an aesthetic philistine. she is undoubtedly the world's no 1 pop star and yet seems to have no real ideas about what pop could or should sound like, except broadly speaking "other pop songs." and on top of that it's a (presumably) big budget pop album that sounds pretty cheap & thin to my ears. sophisticated? i wish i heard that. if we're judging recent major pop albums by levels of sophistication (which is a weird point of framing anyway), midnights doesn't even sniff beyonce, sza, bad bunny etc

and as for the creative retrenchment aspect -- and i said this in another thread the other day -- it's instructive to me that "cruel summer" is now in rotation right along w/ "anti-hero" and "karma" bcuz it highlights pretty directly how she's working over the same sound but w/ worse songs, to me. i mean, you listen to "lavender haze" (which i do like) and don't immediately hear "cruel summer" ?? am i missing something

I'm torn over the "Cruel Summer" revival. I'm happy this ebullient banger that should've taken off in 2019 beyond #29 or wherever it peaked is peaking in July; otoh "Cruel Summer" has been my secret Taylor Swift banger since it came out. Basically this is how I've wanted Swift to sound for years -- what a chorus.

the other day my son asked me what a comma was. So I go into a pedantic explanation about punctuation and whatnot. Then he asks, "But why does Taylor Swift say a comma is her boyfriend?"

Hahaha

comma chameleon

good post, j0rdan

i like all those songs - especially Karma - but they sound like she's just running the same mold through the machine

this, to me, is at least part of what made Folklore/Evermore so interesting and enjoyable. a world where she released Rep > Lover > Midnights would be worrisome.

Without knowing a whit about Antonoff's working methods, I wonder if he's more protean -- more tabula rasa -- than the Dessners, whose ethos is defined and as songwriters in a band have an interest in driving the sound.

alright, I understand where you guys are coming from! again, I don't know her shit over time but for Red and 1989, and I suppose I understand you saying that it's too redolent of what she done with Antonoff…when I say "sophisticated," I mean it is formally composed, immaculate and fastidious, and indeed not formally daring, like, say, bad Bunny Un verano… I too think that the end of the Antonoff era is overdue…

I will say, after listening to it in the car with my daughter since my last post, I think that there is a monotony to it, in that she most often doesn't differentiate her choruses and her verses: she tends to put one melody on a verse, a slightly different melody on the chorus, while a three chord pattern repeats throughout the song, occasionally with more emphasis on the chorus. And this method does appear to be an Antonoff hallmark. Her country shit that I have heard, which again I am not intimately familiar with, but also like mainstream country of the past 30 years, does tend to use verse/chorus differentiation and other traditional songwriting mechanisms like bridges and middle eights, that neither she nor many of the pop music field presently wish to use.

when I listened to it in November, there was no question that "Karma" was the champ… still is now to my ears, hands down…

I'm torn over the "Cruel Summer" revival. I'm happy this ebullient banger that should've taken off in 2019 beyond #29 or wherever it peaked is peaking in July; otoh "Cruel Summer" has been my secret Taylor Swift banger since it came out. Basically this is how I've wanted Swift to sound for years -- what a chorus.

― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, July 13, 2023 11:36 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

why taylor swift’s “the eras tour” is the tour of the decade (it’s not up for debate)
a thread: pic.twitter.com/lNUjSWbVl8

— Ron (@midnightstrack2) July 14, 2023

Also liked this one

Also don't forget THE FANS having the best time of their lives wherever seats they have inside the stadium 😏pic.twitter.com/V6MDEInQsq

— kiano⁽ᵀⱽ⁾ I Can See You & Timeless stan (@_18nz) July 14, 2023

i agree, VM, "Karma" is theee one

Maroon imo

she is undoubtedly the world's no 1 pop star and yet seems to have no real ideas about what pop could or should sound like, except broadly speaking "other pop songs."

I've been thinking about how Midnights' mediocrity is startling not just in light of Evermore's excellence, but also the recent output of artists (such as NIKI and Olivia Rodrigo) who are heavily influenced by Taylor, yet express those influences in their own artistic voice... while Taylor herself suddenly sounds like little more than a carbon-copy of herself. E.g., "Vampire" (Olivia's new song) runs laps around anything on Midnights – it feels fresh & current & vital, without even sounding particularly "groundbreaking" (it doesn't have to).

take it for what it's worth, but with the 20-30-year-olds that I work with, Midnights is among her best albums

I've been thinking about how Midnights' mediocrity is startling not just in light of Evermore's excellence, but also the recent output of artists (such as NIKI and Olivia Rodrigo) who are heavily influenced by Taylor, yet express those influences in their own artistic voice... while Taylor herself suddenly sounds like little more than a carbon-copy of herself. E.g., "Vampire" (Olivia's new song) runs laps around anything on Midnights – it feels fresh & current & vital, without even sounding particularly "groundbreaking" (it doesn't have to).

― Bittern Storm Over My Hammy (morrisp), Sunday, July 16, 2023 5:52 PM (yesterday)

i have a hard time agreeing here on olivia given that she had to retroactively award co-writing credits to ppl she ripped off on three diff songs, including two to taylor herself. even "driver's license" everyone was like, "oh this is the new lorde. cool." i don't think people really care about this w/ her but it's what has kept me at a distance personally even tho from an objective POV i can see why she ticks just about every box ppl look for in "new pop star i'm obsessing over." she's also not even 21 so i expect we'll hear her artistic voice show more over time -- the new song is cool enough, it still goes directly off the billie eilish blueprint to me but the instrumentation & structure also align w/ her audience growing up in a world where queen is the biggest and most important classic rock band to exist

one of the issues w/ taylor is that she has repeatedly made it clear to us that when she thinks about pop music, she is unwilling to de-tangle the commercialism from the art. which, in her defense, is an honest way of looking at pop music, but also any number of legendary beloved artists before her have successfully made very commercial music w/o thinking about it strictly thru the lens of commercialism -- or even while rejecting the aspect of commercialism entirely (a single like "that's the way love goes" comes to mind). but taylor has walked us thru her thought process on a song like "me" and it is "i want every person on earth to hear this single, and so it must sound like xyz." (and also "i must flog the song in papa johns and capital one commercials" -- she hasn't said this part explicitly but it's clearly part of the package when she's conceptualizing songs like this).

i was thinking over the weekend about how lover is the only album since reputation where she let another producer/producer team penetrate the antonoff/martin and then antonoff/marting/dessner bubble. one is joel little -- i just like very little music this man has ever produced and his stuff on lover is absolute bottom of the barrel taylor music for me. hopefully they never work together again. but more interesting is the stuff she did w/ louis bell & frank dukes -- "i forgot that you existed" which, don't we wish we could all say the same about that song. but then they did "afterglow" and "it's nice to have a friend" ... "afterglow" is a very generic taylor swift song (basically "wildest dreams" part 2 or something) and "it's nice to have a friend" is one of the best songs on the album but completely anti-commercial by her standards. neither of those last two have been performed on the 'eras' tour so they don't seem to be particularly special songs to either her or her fans. frank dukes is goated but i don't think louis bell is a bulletproof producer by any stretch, yet he has worked very mainstream pop that i like -- particularly the new post malone music which is basically just compelling mainstream guitar pop (to me anyway). she never seemed to find a sweet spot w/ any of these guys where she was making a. commercially appealing music b. that is good c. that sounds generally like her d. but also seems to have fresh ideas about her sound or the sound of pop in general. and i feel like, traditionally speaking, when you pair the biggest pop star in the world w/ the biggest pop producers... you're hoping to hit all 4 of those bullet points, and great pop stars have often done that. i just think she really really wants her commercial music to be commercial as all hell, and that's what drives everything. even just the small slice of "it's nice to have a friend" shows that she can go in the studio w/ big mainstream pop producers & come up w/ something interesting -- but it seems pretty clear to me that she went into those sessions basically thinking "how i can make the biggest song possible for the age group 6-12 and their parents." she's big enough & good enough that she doesn't have to think about things this way, but she does.

had to retroactively award co-writing credits to ppl she ripped off on three diff songs, including two to taylor herself.

Well I mean that was dumb and I think simply reflected the current realities of the industry and legal climate. But in a way it kind of plays into my point, which is that she sounds so fresh and fun without even having to sound “original.” Midnights is a turgid drag and sounds much less original! (obv Taylor’s not gonna sue herself, lol)

i just like very little music this man has ever produced and his stuff on lover is absolute bottom of the barrel taylor music for me.

Totally. Little brought this cute perkiness that sounded nightmarish to me.

xo (you also cited Beyoncé positively, and she credited Right Said Fred when she probably didn’t have to, and I recall Kelis got pissed at her… etc. It’s just the industry right now)