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

I'll wait if this thread shuts off until 12:01 a.m.

the leak is 128 kbps mp3s but it's listenable enough

I think the imagined lyrics for an album titled like this inevitably will outshine the real ones

the lyrics regularly live up to how goofy the track titles are, both for good and bad

brings me no pleasure to say my favorite songs are called (sigh) "but daddy, i love him" "guilty as sin?" and "i can fix him (no really, i can)"

"but daddy, i love him" is like country taylor trying very hard to return despite being immersed in the sparkling haze the rest of the album is in, euphoric

"but daddy i love him" is so good

Is this 2005? Wait for the release date.

"the smallest man who ever lived" sounds like evermore too

i think the lyrics on this are largely good, which is why the silly stuff jumps out

chorus of “i can do it with a broken heart” feels like one of the more psychologically-accurate portraits of taylor swift’s mental health which is at least somewhat down to the fact that it’s childish and sing-songy

i'm only on the second track but if it keeps this up it's her best?

lol

I wasn't gonna bother but my son was like "Want me to download the Taylor Swift album?" So now I'm listening but will withhold comment until midnight.

FURTHER CONSPIRACIES

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/story/could-taylor-swift-release-two-albums-this-week

you left my typewriter at my apartment
straight from the tortured poets department

Not having heard it yet, I’m humming this to “Mariner’s Apartment Complex.”

One meaning of this error is associated with a bad disc or cassette, with a suggestion to insert a new cassette or turn the disc over. Hmm, like a double album? Is this a glitch, much like the title of the song on (you guessed it) Reputation?

What song on Reputation?

Vanity Fair's resident Swiftie makes the case for why Reputation (Taylor's Version) could come alongside The Tortured Poets Department on Friday.

Clearly not a real Swiftie if she doesn't know that "Glitch" is a Midnights song.

You know what? the second album leaked too--six and a half years ago

I was gonna say – it would be wild for one album to leak in its entirety, but not even the existence of the second album…

Seems like she'd be leaving money on the table by missing out on a long run-up to sell four different variants ahead of time... but I'm sure she'll sell loads either way.

God, I didn't realize she was even selling three different versions of the *CD* for this one (with a diff bonus track on each)

Sorry, four (4) versions

Yup.

I don't think I can recall a single instance when speculation of a surprise second album hot on the heals of a new release actually came true.

I also think releasing two at the same time would surely drag the streaming numbers for the "new" one, you'd think she'd want to make sure to juice those as much as possible for the first weekend. I could see her announcing the future release date for it at midnight or something though.

Are we sure it was the actual album that leaked and not the ILX Pre-Covers version?

OK I'm still not commenting personally but here's my Taylor-skeptic son's take (which I don't necessarily share): "It sounds like she's going for local-coffee-house but it's giving Starbucks."

my 13 yr old niece pronounced taylor "mid" at easter so maybe the backlash has begun with the youngsters

Either that or she's, you know, thirteen. (I think I started to really differentiate my tastes some around then!)

My younger daughter (now 16) really hasn't been talking about it at all, and not too long ago noted Swift's overexposure, but she is apparently still having friends over for a "listening party" this Saturday.

I don't think I can recall a single instance when speculation of a surprise second album hot on the heals of a new release actually came true.

― MarkoP, Thursday, April 18, 2024 5:06 PM (fifty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Just happened with Future/metro

Well those were announced on the same day(?) The theory here is that there are pallets full of "Reputation (TV)" CDs sitting in the back of every Target store in the nation right now, ready to be unloaded tonight, and no one has snuck a pic or told a friend etc.

just thankful it wasn't "Fortnite (ft. Post Malone)"

i wouldn't have expected it to be the single and there isn't any sort of lyrical reference to fortnite or wordplay there

Interestingly enough my 12 year old son also said tonight that, “no one listens to Taylor anymore, she’s mid and no one likes that she flies her private jet everywhere”, so maybe there is something to that age group.

Ned Raggett at 4:58 18 Apr 24

Either that or she's, you know, thirteen. (I think I started to really differentiate my tastes some around then!)


well I know she likes other pop stuff specifically Olivia. Rodrigo and Weekend cuz those were on her Xmas list

Oh I’m sorry, I misread her Fortnight post lol… I guess she didn’t mention Fortnite (there’s a slight possibility I don’t know the spelling of either word).

I was so swept up in her talking about the magic of Post Malone

FWIW my 13 year old says "Actually everyone likes Taylor Swift but some people lie and say they don't like Taylor Swift to try to be cool and different"

Got me there. I was trying to be cool and different. :(

How dare you

It would seem to me to be almost inevitable that TS’s omnipresence within popular culture would make her an obvious target for oppositional self-identification for young people. That’s not to say there’s no good reason for it, but that I think it would happen regardless of TS’s aesthetic choices at this point.

Interesting to think that her musical career has now been going longer than Madonna circa Ray of Light or even Music.

holy shit is that right?!? that amazes me.

It's true. 18 years since her debut album now.

Well Post Malone is mostly a ghostly presence so I take that as a positive.

i'm so depressed i act like it's my birthday!!!
every day!!!

i'm so obsessed with him but he avoids me!!!
like the plague!!!

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

― ivy., Thursday, 18 April 2024 03:00 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah I think these lyrics actually work okay for this reason. The vibe reminds me of "Gold Rush" and "At dinner parties I call you out on your contrarian shit", TS implicitly poking fun at the song's narrator even as she is explicitly poking fun at the song's object.

All that chat about the Blue Nile reference a lot today but the truth is it actually SOUNDS a lot like Hats in certain ways out of the gate. (Also, so far, this is an ultimate 'iron fist/velvet glove' experience in terms of lyrics-vs-music.)

yeah, that's why i was like 'oh this is her best album' immediately

In terms of her generational appeal, she's a core Millennial. Which means she reaches easily to Zoomers (who grew up with her) and over time built a sizable Xer fanbase and even to a limited degree Boomers. (My parents have mostly ignored her but they really liked "You Need to Calm Down.") But for younger kids, she's their parents' music. So some will like her and some will think she's lame.

My very short reaction to a few listens is that I think this is good. I like the vibe a lot more than Midnights, but I need to listen more to figure out why. A few songs jumped out but I feel like more will.

who's gonna hooooooooooooooold you

But Daddy I Love Him might be the first time she’s really addressed the shitty behaviour of some of her fans? Honestly, it’s satisfying.