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

That last sentence should be a Taylor Swift song title.

Be great if she lurked here. In fact, which one of you IS her on here.

there are no bad taylor swift albums just bad taylor swift listeners

Seems like 90% of the Twitter talk is about "Thank You Aimee"

But songs like that are bait I guess

she should be legally barred from writing about kim kardashian

i'm just glad that i started that thread about listening to things you don't listen to and listened to a taylor album because i don't think i would have listened to this otherwise. and i'm glad i did. i dig it. "but daddy i love him" is my 2nd fave. that's a cool-ass song.

Are folks gonna say that "imgonnagetyouback" is "payback" to Olivia Rodrigo or something (as it uses the same conceit as "Get Him Back!")

Zoladz in NY Times

There is a sonic uniformity to much of “The Tortured Poets Department,” however — gauzy backdrops, gently thumping synths, drum machine rhythms that lock Swift into a clipped, chirping staccato — that suggests their partnership has become too comfortable and risks growing stale.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/19/arts/music/taylor-swift-album-tortured-poets-department-review.html

Seems like the relationship everyone has an opinion on is the one between Swift and Antonoff

all the complaints about the sonic uniformity are odd to me because it's pretty dynamic and there's a lot of variety in its approach. there is a bit of a midtempo plod issue but that's all

i had been saying antonoff as a collaborator was getting stale before this album but he's produced some of his best work with her this time - the title track is fantastic!

sometimes on a song like daddy i get that glimmer of pop country past. like shania or faith hill. in a good way. i like them both a bunch.

"down bad" is like the good version of something like "midnight rain," which is the closest i get to not giving a shit about a taylor swift song at all. never feel like she's singing over a loop on this album, but rather over songs that acquire more definition depending on where they are in the frame, like a camera trying to focus on a subject that won't stop moving

sometimes on a song like daddy i get that glimmer of pop country past. like shania or faith hill. in a good way. i like them both a bunch.

― scott seward, Friday, April 19, 2024 11:42 AM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this album could've sucked total ass and i still would've lost my mind over "but daddy i love him." speak now taylor swift lives

"down bad" is one of the lesser tracks here but it feels like an improvement over many similar songs on reputation and midnights

co-sign

damn, listening to Faith's Cry album right now and Taylor could totally cover "Free". forgot how nu-jack "Free" was. okay, i'm going on a Faith Hill bender. Seeya.

i feel like for the past few years i have been constantly trying to parse "taylor swift: the real, completely bugfuck insane person (compliment)" from "taylor swift: the corporation"

I like this, and same!

Screamin', "But Daddy, I love him
I'm having his baby"
No, I'm not, but you should see your faces

when this album leaked i immediately listened to "fresh out the slammer" bc it has just the worst title of all time, i dreaded whatever peppy construction antonoff and swift would drape around that theme and just needed to brace for the worst and expose myself to it immediately, and then it turned out to be a slow-burning smokey lana del rey thing, maybe swift's most convincing attempt yet at her version of a lana song??? her fake ldr stuff usually either has to grow on me or is actually very bad, it's just a very artificial pose for her because she is neither cool nor relaxed nor do i believe that she has smoked even one crumb of weed, but on this track she is just stacking beautiful melodies on top of each other like it's the most natural thing in the world

i immediately listened to "fresh out the slammer"...she is just stacking beautiful melodies on top of each other

a song about pogs

watching American Pie and and stacking Pogs.

She's back, in pog form

Thank you, Nelson

the tortured pogs department

Could’ve called it 1989 Midnights.

or 1,989 Mid Songs (according to these teens not me)

An odd thing to realise but it strikes me that her songwriting has never been more like Ani DiFranco (in non-political mode). You could easily slide “You Had Time” or “Untouchable Face” or “Independence Day” onto this album.

Tim, stop it.

I'm getting excited.

all the complaints about the sonic uniformity are odd to me because it's pretty dynamic and there's a lot of variety in its approach. there is a bit of a midtempo plod issue but that's all

― ufo, 19. april 2024 17:40 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

As someone who spent two and a half hours today registering who played what on this album, I can cosign this. There's autoharp, omnichord, vibraphone, trombone, 'high strung guitar', a symphony orchestra playing arrangements by Bryce Dessner, etc. It's insane how much stuff is on this album, compared to how boring and samey it sounds.

I think I'll have to listen to this while high, it just seemed very samey to me earlier today and I switched it off after six songs. Aesthetically nice, unmemorable songs though

The orchestra is all the LCO people conducted by Robert Ames! Top drawer. I am going to listen to this tonight.

First six songs sounded good off an edible before bed late-night last night. Very "The Captain of Her Heart."

First listen, I like it more than Midnights -- I think the division of production and songwriting responsibilities helps break up the "plodding" tempos that have plagued these last two albums. I didn't pay much attention to Disc 2 but my favorite tracks were "But Daddy I Love Him" (Wow!), "Guilt as Sin", and "Clara Bow."

Some thoughts on the below comments:

Lots of Puth heads here?
― Never fight uphill 'o me, boys! (President Keyes), Friday, April 19, 2024 6:49 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

But “Daddy I Love Him” is great
― Never fight uphill 'o me, boys! (President Keyes), Friday, April 19, 2024 7:13 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

With her and Taylor Swift to pick one album as a favorite if you're already a fan is as impossible as calling Dirty Mind your favorite Prince instead of Parade or Controversy, or calling Madonna your fave Madonna over Like a Prayer or Erotica or Ray of Light. They're all such different albums, offering discrete aural and lyrical experiences. To name one means you're choosing one phase. I miss the Beyoncé of B'Day and 4 but I'm delighted with Lemonade and Renaissance. Same with Taylor Swift. Speak Now ruled for a long time, but now I revel in Red and couldn't stop blasting Evermore that COVID summer.
― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, April 19, 2024 9:31 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

“so high school” is really dope, taylor’s avril lavigne album would be killer
― ivy., Friday, April 19, 2024 9:44 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Zoladz in NY Times
There is a sonic uniformity to much of “The Tortured Poets Department,” however — gauzy backdrops, gently thumping synths, drum machine rhythms that lock Swift into a clipped, chirping staccato — that suggests their partnership has become too comfortable and risks growing stale.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/19/arts/music/taylor-swift-album-tortured-poets-department-review.html
― curmudgeon, Friday, April 19, 2024 10:35 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

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.)

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, April 18, 2024 11:10 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

so far i don't think it sounds like blue nile at all. way more slower tempo future islands or alvvays indie friendly 2000s synth/new wave bands like that.

aka bands I never really felt anything for so I will stick with my judgment. :-D (The first song in particular really gives me said vibes, but it is also the case that if they hadn't been directly invoked in the lyrics, would I have been listening for that approach as much? Not sure!)

I like to think Paul Buchanan and co have woken up today in a much better financial position than yesterday.

this album just sounds like a taylor swift album to me. it doesn't make me think of anyone else. it did make me go listen to faith hill though. everyone should listen to Cry. such a cool album!
oh wait taylor does make me think of Lana every once in a while. she can't help it. she's a fangirl. its her homage.

Uh “Florida!” Is terrible

― Never fight uphill 'o me, boys! (President Keyes), Friday, April 19, 2024 5:13 AM (ten hours ago)

Gotta +1 this... the songs before it just sort of wash over me, but when I hit this it's like "oof"

Not sure I can think of a TS lyric worse than –

Little did you know your home's really only
A town you're just a guest in
So you work your life away just to pay
For a time-share down in Destin

...and she repeats it!

(I'm giving it another spin, b/c I don't want to not like it – and the album doesn't actively repel me the way Midnights did – but I think it's just lacking any of the things that I generally like about Taylor Swift songs/albums.)

that lyric is bad?

So you work your life away just to pay
For a tube of Desitin

everyone compares everything to the blue nile now and I also don't usually hear it. I steadfastly did not hear it in the 1975 outside of one track but that didn't keep everyone from comparing everything they did to the blue nile. I feel like this is a reflexive music critic thing, no offense to music critics here that I consider friends.

i think people should leave the blue nile alone. they are special!

i've been a blue nile fan since 1983 and i never hear people who sound like them. they are "just" a synth-pop band but they are unique. god, when i think of the boring shit i've heard that was compared to talk talk...ugh. there oughta be a law.

Ned Raggett at 5:22 19 Apr 24

aka bands I never really felt anything for so I will stick with my judgment. :-D (The first song in particular really gives me said vibes, but it is also the case that if they hadn't been directly invoked in the lyrics, would I have been listening for that approach as much? Not sure


to be clear I couldnt care less about Future Islands or Alvvays, but it sounds way more like that than Blue Nile

except the Future Islands Letterman performance that was a fun moment

this is the end of the NYT review. i still think perfection isn't the goal. i'm fine with a little extra messiness. feels more real.

"Sylvia Plath once called poetry “a tyrannical discipline,” because the poet must “go so far and so fast in such a small space; you’ve got to burn away all the peripherals.” Great poets know how to condense, or at least how to edit. The sharpest moments of “The Tortured Poets Department” would be even more piercing in the absence of excess, but instead the clutter lingers, while Swift holds an unlit match."

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/19/arts/music/taylor-swift-album-tortured-poets-department-review.html

xp Not sure I hear Alvvays, but maybe I don't know the songs you mean.

The Guardian review mentioned College's "A Real Hero."

except the Future Islands Letterman performance that was a fun moment

that guy always looks like he has to take a poop while singing. strong Chris Martin vibes.