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 have never hear of "underlicks" in my life what are people talking about?

When you fall short of licking your lover's armpits, silly

We might just get away with it
The altar is my pits
Even if it's a false god

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1BDCbRWqNHfaaF6xVdWCNb?si=4Kqh1DkYSdOYMFzKWCcvhw&pi=u-cjuY4uoFTM6k

Underlicked and Overpaid: Christian Rock of the late 80s

Believe VC was just referring to licks that are occurring "under" the primary riff/theme of the song that are assisting in the melodic construction of the song. Listen to "Get Him Back!" The main riff is most easily heard on the last chorus when it's played on acoustic guitar (2:33) but is played throughout the song on the vamping bass in verse 1 then synth/electric guitar (I think?) in the chorus and verse 2 (side note: this use of three or four different instruments to carry the main riff adds interest to the song, making it more exciting and dynamic). But there is this descending 3-note lick on either synth or slide guitar that repeats many times throughout the song first at :15 and :27 that pushes the songs melody forward.

Compare this to "The Tortured Poet's Department." Can you identify a riff? I can't. There's the drums, the chords played on synths, the shimmering repeated synths...It's all backdrop. According to the credits Jack also plays a cello but I can't hear it.

Curious what others think about the swearing because I feel like I must be old man yelling at cloud but it really bothers me how clunky many of the swears are. I don't know how to delineate the songs where I think it totally works ("The Man," "Tolerate It," "Karma" all come to mind) and those where it feels utterly silly and superfluous ("Florida, go on fuck me up" is a real lyric on this album???).

She sounds like a person who allowed herself to use swear words not long ago. Awkward, yeah, but charming.

and believe me this Floridian gets "Florida, go on fuck me up!" in his bones.

I think "Gazing at me starry-eyed
In your Jehovah's Witness suit
Who the fuck was that guy?" works, but it still sounds like an OR line.

"Clara Bow" is such a stunning closer and sounds like a new direction from the Folklore/Evermore Dessner tracks. Love ending the album on that verse, especially.

I once joined a high school friend's spring break family trip to Destin. We were painfully sunburned, pulled a 'hey mister' and drank a case of warm beer behind a hearse parked in the hotel garage.

Compare this to "The Tortured Poet's Department." Can you identify a riff? I can't. There's the drums, the chords played on synths, the shimmering repeated synths...It's all backdrop.

You can also just think in terms of hooks. "Fortnight" is track 1 and the lead single, and it's hookless. Compare w/"I Forgot That You Existed" (Track 1 on the would-be "middling" album Lover), "The 1"... any of her singles...

... you keep making this point about it being hookless

Soon we'll have a pink cursive neon "Florida, go on fuck me up" on the wall of a spring-break bar.

I think that Swift is capable of writing hooks, and so their absence here is a choice rather than a failing. She is maybe not writing to our specific preferences anymore.

"i love you / it's ruining my life" isn't a hook?

when she varies the second verse so that it kind of narcotically slows down "all my mornings are mondays stuck in an endless february / i took the miracle move-on drug / the effects were temporary"... idk, these things are fucking stuck in my head

(xpost to ivy lol we identified the same hook)

I don't think the album's hookless at all, I don't think she knows how to write without hooks. They are not titanium hooks, some of them are the perfunctory stick-on kind you buy 6 to a pack, but I feel like there are hooks of various dimensions and durability throughout. (e.g. on "Fortnight" the "I love you/It's ruining my life" repeated coda — hook!)

It's funny that you could make a lot of these complaints about Folklore, which is where she first went full-on murmur-pop. I agree that Folklore has a stronger set of songs, but the melodic and songwriting approach is virtually identical. But also, a lot of people's complaints about this album were my complaints about Midnights, so we all just pick and choose which Taylor vibes we prefer I guess. I would like to hear her do other stuff, and I think she will, but I don't mind her Adult Contemporary phase. She's a contemporary adult.

I hear many hooks but few guitars, which seems to be the underlicking issue

I didn't enjoy the Olivia Rodrigo song, but the repeating synth line was played on a guitar at one point. Did the guitarist make their instrument sing? Only Rick Beato can say.

i think the "who's gonna knowww you like me" chorus on the title track is one of the most beautiful and ethereal things she's ever written, completely eradicates midnights from my memory and replaces it with something with actual stakes and dynamics. that and the "but daddy i love him" bridge, and the chorus of "guilty as sin?"... these constitute some of her best melodies imo, though i admit with the latter i am more partial to swift in amy grant slow jam mode than anyone else on earth

... you keep making this point about it being hookless

sorry, I don't mean to repeat myself (it's the first time I've mentioned hooks! just building on Indexed's point about comparing the music to other things specifically)

yeah but it's getting awfully close to "isn't it interesting that there's no music on this record"

"underlick" is pro songwriting jargon, but i think it's a useful term to describe the secondary instrumental melodies that help a song stick in your brain. indexed's olivia rodrigo example is a good one. the example i like to give is the little sax figure during the verses in "peg." or to use one closer to home, that fun little guitar move during the verse of "it's not living (if it's not with you)," by the 1975

morrisp os supplying the hooks that he says the album.lacks, ovu

I think it's a fair argument that these same songs with a crack studio band would sound different, fuller, more interesting. Which is more a complaint about production and arrangement choices than the songwriting per se — because, right, a lot of the bits and pieces we end up loving about songs often come from that kind of input. (Thinking again of the Petty thread and how much the Heartbreakers do for all of those songs.)

sorry, I'll back off... :P

there are definitely songs on here where swift's melody is strong enough to overcome the lack of melodic character in the backing track, but not enough imo

imagine that "move to floooorida. Buy the caaaar you want." is a saxaphone if that helps

or a saxophone even. But these songs aren't less melodically interesting than an OR song where she talks the verses.

sorry, I'll back off... :P

― rendered nugatory (morrisp),

;)

sufjan

there are definitely songs on here where swift's melody is strong enough to overcome the lack of melodic character in the backing track, but not enough imo

― the defenestration of prog (voodoo chili), Monday, April 22, 2024 12:20 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

that's not swift's melody. It is an independent vocal melody used in a way that one could also use an instrument.

you could play it on a guitar, call it a riff

an underiff, say

Same with the oh wah ohs in My Boy...these are extra melodic phrases that function as hooks. They aren't the song's core melody

that's still swift's melody, but whatever. "florida!!!" does actually have a couple memorable musical moments - the five-beat pattern during the chorus is one. the first verse reminds me of "i knew you were trouble" (which has lots of little musical moments that i could sing for you right now)

Same with the oh wah ohs in My Boy...these are extra melodic phrases that function as hooks. They aren't the song's core melody

― 145 feet up in a Jeffrey Pine (Sufjan Grafton), Monday, April 22, 2024 12:38 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah the oh-whoa-ohs are absolutely part of the song's core melody

musical moment on the antonoff tracks i really love: that glittering little synthetic piano note on the chorus of "i can do it with a broken heart"

dolorous baritone guitar stuff on "fresh out the slammer," also when the drumbeat breaks down

oh man and the slide guitar in the background of the "guilty as sin" chorus

an underriff is an upper level enforcer, and reports to the riff

That baritone riff is my favorite instrumental moment.

this conversation is forcing me to hew even closer to the details in this record and and i continue to find it very rich actually

"guilty as sin" and "but daddy i love him" are my favorite of the antonoff tracks (also the countriest ones on the first disc, maybe a coincidence)

oh "but daddy" is a dessner co-write, go figure

Yeah I have the first line of the Guilty as Sin chorus pinging around my brain right now, unbidden. A hook!

"guilty as sin" and "but daddy i love him" are my favorite of the antonoff tracks (also the countriest ones on the first disc, maybe a coincidence)

― the defenestration of prog (voodoo chili), Monday, April 22, 2024 12:56 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Same! Those are keepers. And most of the Dessner tracks work really well, too. I don't mean to be all negative. About half this album is good to great, imo.

I didn't enjoy the Olivia Rodrigo song, but the repeating synth line was played on a guitar at one point. Did the guitarist make their instrument sing? Only Rick Beato can say.

― 145 feet up in a Jeffrey Pine (Sufjan Grafton), Monday, April 22, 2024 12:05 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Thanks for giving it a listen. I probably should have used one of the many Taylor/Antonoff songs I like instead of an OR song -- GUTS was just fresh for me because I listened to it yesterday. (And I think Dan Nigro's production is far more exciting and varied than Antonoff's these days.)