Let us go then, you and I/When the evening is spread out against the sky/Like a tight end playing in the Super Bowl -- The Tortured Poets Department, Taylor Swift, April 19

can't wait to hear AC/DC's Taylor Swift album

I think it's probably very difficult to be Taylor Swift and be friendly to people without it being scrutinized and overinterpreted, which is why one of the few things she's done artistically lately that I've enjoyed was the video for Anti-Hero that showed her as a giant clumsy Taylor looming over people and getting in the way. She's a naturally heavy-handed person and so famous that everything she does is constantly scrutinized for coded messages (partly her own doing, but when the NYT feels free to publicly speculate on her sexuality because OMG she used BLUE and PINK in her album cover and it must be a SECRET MESSAGE, you know things have gotten out of hand), and I can't really imagine how she could have behaved at the Grammys that wouldn't have come across as either cold, calculated or condescending.

That said, I do think she's overexposed, mainly because I think she's already rung all the changes on everything interesting she has to say, and I think her writing has been - just on a pure sentence level - getting worse.

xp I literally wrote and then erased a comparison of Taylor to Target. Personally, I'd rather have Target Taylor than the Taylor of Folklore and Evermore, which were - imo - more like farm-to-table restaurants where each menu item is lowercased italicized ode to how hard the ingredients were to source, and then the food is, like, an overcooked burger.

a lowercase italicized ode, I meant to say

Who is the Stanley cup of pop music?

― Josh in Chicago

Sophie Ellis Bextor

I just listened to the back half of Evermore on the drive to work, it still sounds so good to me

My Walmart analogy was not an aesthetic comment, but a comment on a feeling of monopolism

I can't really imagine how she could have behaved at the Grammys that wouldn't have come across as either cold, calculated or condescending.

fwiw, I kind of disagree with this; I couldn't believe her album announcement / acceptance speech, I think my jaw was literally open as she delivered it.

Since then it seems she’s done a lot of photo ops with female artists—Haim, LDR, boygenius—raising their profiles and helping her image.

― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes), Wednesday, February 7, 2024 6:42 AM (two hours ago)

Supporting acts who have opened for Taylor Swift on The Eras Tour (2023-2024):

Phoebe Bridgers
Haim
Beabadoobee
Paramore
Gayle
Muna
Gracie Abrams
Owenn
Girl in Red
Sabrina Carpenter
Louta

Remember when The Beatles were so famous that they thought they couldn't tour, and their every public appearance became A Thing, and they were talking about going to the desert or an ocean liner or something?

That.

Taylor would more likely announce a Bigger Than Jesus tour.

President Keyes, you appear to have misspelled Yeezus.

idk it feels like when you're so good at Madden Football that you're winning every game 56-0 with minimal effort, sometimes you do goofy shit like kicking 93 yard field goals, punting on first down, intentionally starting every drive at the 1 yard line, etc. "can I stop micromanaging my career, have ridiculous fun and still win anyway?"

FGTI, booming post

Taylor Swift once had a Walgreens promotion iirc

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/ee/2d/3a/ee2d3a630f40addc9e1a781b73313114--store-displays-taylor-swift.jpg

Hopefully someday she can crack the Cracker Barrel market

AI. Taylor Swift. Walmart Employee. Black Friday. pic.twitter.com/JOxbyd4xCK

— Patrick M. Kehoe (@PatrickMKehoe1) December 1, 2023

That's just gross

Quick note from the precovers thread that we have four songs left to claim (a fifth is spoken for but not the exact song yet, so in practical terms, four spots).

sometimes you do goofy shit like kicking 93 yard field goals, punting on first down, intentionally starting every drive at the 1 yard line, etc. "can I stop micromanaging my career, have ridiculous fun and still win anyway?"

Miley released Dead Petz on Soundcloud the night she won a bunch for "We Can't Stop" and Bangerz.

Maybe this will be her Smiley Smile

Miley released Dead Petz on Soundcloud the night she won a bunch for "We Can't Stop" and Bangerz.

The release of Dead Petz coincided with the night that she hosted the MTV Music Awards, which was in August of 2015 two years after Bangerz was released, and not after she won anything.

Also Miley Cyrus had never won a Grammy until this past weekend. Nothing from Bangerz was even nominated the year it was released, outside of a nomination for Dr Luke for Produder of the Year, which was for a bunch of other things as well. She won some MTV Video Awards, such as one for "Wrecking Ball" in 2014. She was nominated for a bunch of MTV awards in 2013 for "We Can't Stop", but lost them all. The only award I found that she won for "We Can't Stop" was the 2013 Teen Choice Award for "Choice Summer Song".

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GFwRVCuWYAAmVGD.png

we all follow the same twitter accounts

sometimes you do goofy shit like kicking 93 yard field goals, punting on first down, intentionally starting every drive at the 1 yard line, etc. "can I stop micromanaging my career, have ridiculous fun and still win anyway?"

It's like what they say during strength workouts, if you're getting too many reps, your weights are not heavy enough.

Oops, thanks for the Miley corrections. I just remembered it was the night she did the big number with Robin Thicke.

I agree with fgti and ivy. One of things that made Folklore and Evermore possible - not the albums specifically but more the sense of discovering a new way to engage with this artist - was that they arrived after a period of about four years during which TS’s position within cultural discourse had been at a low ebb, even if she had released two previous albums during that period. Is it even possible to “rediscover” Taylor in 2024?

Of course it is, you all have to watch the new extended version of the Eras film now or you miss out, you see.

https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Culture/taylor-swift-eras-tour-concert-film-heading-disney/story?id=107040492

Now even Zach Bryan is covering Bon Iver.

Inside you (America) there are three wolves

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:kqdyhnklmmv34nmml6btyqv6/bafkreic77s37oskq6ffob57hmw4mfjhzmkvg2r2gspkp4pwt362lxkxrmi@jpeg

until this thread i have never in my life even once considered that taylor swift is a songwriter, or lyricist, or an artist of anything. other than "entertainments."

this is horribly short shrift, but i will assure her when introduced that there is no valuation attached to this regarding her musical talents. the only song i even identify to her is shake it off?

Have you visited ILM in the past 15 years?

lol not those threads

I've been a fan of her songwriting since "You Belong With Me" tbh, when she's good she's very good

cool, thx, it's not like a matter of pride like said, it's just convenient ignorance on my part. i expect someday i'll be exposed better

Anyway, it's almost here! So enjoy this in the meantime.

"I Want To Say Thank You To The Fans By Telling You A Secret!" -- ILX Pre-Covers The Tortured Poets Department

Hm. You know...I'll give her this: we're just a little over a week out from release and not one note of it has leaked anywhere? And I guess no lead single?

she's still tabbing out our songs to steal them

Terrible

Huh, for some reason I thought it was due this summer. Maybe she's hoping everyone forgot?

She hasn't done a pre-album single since "Me!"

Huh, I thought "Anti Hero" preceded Midnights, guess I remembered wrong!

It'd be funny if this album comes out and it's actually a cake.

"As a special thank you to all my fans, I am transforming all my songs into edible confections that can be purchased in 300 different flavors each priced at $19.89 in honor of my birth year."

omfg i'm so pleasantly surprised by this (it leaked)

she should be banned from writing lyrics after writing the title track but also it made me cry

ilm siren: blue nile “downtown lights” referenced on taylor swift album

sound of this thing is just gorgeous, she’s found the pulsing soft rock region of the midnights sound and is just dwelling in it and the arrangements move and burst and digress into synth fantasias or broken drumbeats and she’s writing bridges again. could’ve been called “swoon”

proof she lurks

yeah this is fucking great

i take back what i said about the title track’s lyrics, reflexively cringed at the dylan thomas and patti smith name drops and that line about charlie puth, but im embracing my cringe, and by extension taylor swift’s, but it also does the “white horse” thing, where they fail to live up to these images they’ve romanticized, they’re just two idiots. i never found love in the city. i just sat in self-pity and cried in the car