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

It is happening, again.

All’s fair in love and poetry... New album THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT. Out April 19 🤍https://t.co/WdrCmvLHyA

📷: Beth Garrabrant pic.twitter.com/CCPhmSZ2UD

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) February 5, 2024

Jeez Biden already gave her a Cabinet post

At this rate, the next Super Bowl will just be Taylor Swift, with the game taking place at halftime.

It would be a better allocation of resources.

Lana should sue.

The Ever-popular Tortured Artist Affect

she is so embarrassing, can't wait

It must be exhausting always torturing all these poets

As Chris Molanphy noted elsewhere, Taylor's now the first four-time album of the year Grammy winner. Let's see if this eventually makes it five...

re: the terrible album title, her ex's group chat name was apparently The Tortured Man Club

lol at the one announced track title (a bonus track) being “The Manuscript”

So that's what's going to save America from Trump

I like the name of the album.

somewhere, Jewel is weeping

Dead Poets Society ref, one presumes? Sorry if I am the last person in the universe to get that joke

Her longest album title to date was Taylor Swift.

The Yeah, I Showed Up at Your Poetry Open Mic Chapter

she must've seen all the long titles in the top 77 this year

heh

Oh my god you thought the ALBUM TITLE was bad.

The song title list is terrifying.

we need a poll of the song titles stat

SIDE A:

Fortnight (ft. Post Malone)
The Tortured Poets Department
My Boy Only Breaks His Favourite Toys
Down Bad

SIDE B:

So Long, London
But Daddy, I Love Him
Fresh Out The Slammer
Florida!!! (ft. Florence + the Machine)

SIDE C:

Guilty as Sin?
Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?
I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)
loml

SIDE D:

I Can Do It With A Broken Heart
The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived
The Alchemy
Clara Bow
Bonus Track: The Manuscript

it lost me with “ft. Post Malone”

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

I did worry that is what it was at first

“reputation, but even more embarrassing”

seriously can’t wait

absolute value of om

lotta ppl learning about the original it girl tonight

https://i.ibb.co/zS1NSnn/Screenshot-20240205-201252-Chrome.jpg

I feel like she's truly jumped the shark, last night felt like a heel turn, but I guess we'll see...

(all I know is - I live in a very Taylor-unfriendly household, and I couldn't muster up the gumption to rep for her even feebly right now)

Oh do not ask, “What is it?’

"My Boy Only Breaks His Favourite Toys"
"But Daddy, I Love Him"
"The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived"
"Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?"

are you fucking kidding me

How you could list those but not "Fresh Out the Slammer"...

because that one didn't have some reference to being smol

"Fresh Out the Slammer" sounds like early Paramore title.

...or Sublime.

the song titles are a headfake to make people miss the evil messages of violence that each song will contain

Amnesty International Presents

SIDE A:

Fortnight (ft. Post Malone)
The Tortured Poets Department
My Boy Only Breaks His Favourite Toys
Down Bad

SIDE B:

So Long, London
But Daddy, I Love Him
Fresh Out The Slammer
Florida!!! (ft. Florence + the Machine)

SIDE C:

Guilty as Sin?
Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?
I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)
loml

SIDE D:

I Can Do It With A Broken Heart
The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived
The Alchemy
Clara Bow
Bonus Track: The Manuscript

― Tim F, Monday, February 5, 2024 7:54 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I 100% unironically believed this entire list was inspired parody

April Fools

Are we sure this isn't coming out on April 1st.

hoping The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived is a Dr Demento-esque novelty track

"Iommi" is the Black Sabbath tribute Swifties had no idea they deserved.

What is this that stands before me?
Figure in black which points at me
Turn 'round quick and start to run
Find out I'm the chosen one
Hell, yeah!

Some people say my love can it be true
Happiness is your eyes when I'm kissing you

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:qpqyay6mqatzyyet3jdgxiwi/bafkreigbosz33xvvalqcchln6kixpudbgqjzpdu5bezi2mimikejrpq6iu@jpeg

lmao

i don't know what she's going for but i'm glad she's going for something at least

But Daddy I Love Him is now trending on Twitter

The Smallest Hands Who Ever Lived

deluxe version comes with a pop-up book featuring Travis Kelce

super deluxe same but uncensored pop-up

Clara Bowling Alley

When you hear an Iommi song
I hope you spill your favorite bong

hoping The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived is a Dr Demento-esque novelty track

It'll be a parody of Weezer's The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived.

At least there are no football metaphors, like "Blocked Kick" or "Touchback" or something.

is it just a coincidence that she’s dropping her album on Bicycle Day?

If I could successfully seed this theory on the Swiftie forums Taylor could make Timothy Leary a footnote in history.

Swifties on acid is exactly what 2024 needs, stat.

You belong with LSD

If the Chiefs win the Super Bowl maybe she can call in some favors and do a new version of the "Super Bowl Shuffle," then add it as a bonus track to the special Target-only LP that has a different color cover.

So the suggestion has been made to do a precover of this…

With guests Chief Keef and Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah.

(xp — although if someone wants to recruit them for the precovers, that would be cool too)

I think Taylor likes to give herself impossible challenges, like to write a song with the title “I Can Fix Him (Really I Can)” that isn’t terrible

Is the song called "Bonus Track:The Manuscript" or is it just an indication that "The Manuscript" is a bonus track? Becuz I really wish it is the former

"Fuck is this 'Bonus Track:The Manuscript'? Turn it up!"

"Three Minutes of Silence and then a Hidden Track" (Taylor's Version)

How you could list those but not "Fresh Out the Slammer"...

― Tim F, Monday, February 5, 2024 8:41 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

This is where I audibly said "Oh come on!" to my cat

And what did your cat say in response?

"Things done changed on this side."

"fresh out the slammer" is something they say in pog tournaments iirc. "fresh out" means "polish."

So it's a Polish joke?

I wish Taylor would have included her Jason Aldean diss "Try That in a Ball Gown"

ILM pre-covers when

Chat gpt write me a song called “so long, london” in the style of taylor swift

(Verse 1)
In a city of echoes, where dreams collide,
Beneath the city lights, our love did hide.
Cobbled streets whisper tales untold,
So long, London, the story unfolds.

(Pre-Chorus)
Big Ben chimed, but our time ran out,
Heartbreak's symphony, I can't silence the doubt.
Red buses passing, taking pieces of us,
Fading in the rain, like an old love fuss.

(Chorus)
So long, London, where love once gleamed,
A double-decker ride through our shattered dream.
Your rain can't wash away the memories we've spun,
In this goodbye symphony, the love's undone.

(Verse 2)
Blooms of Hyde Park, witnessed our embrace,
Now they wither, lost in love's grace.
From the Thames to the West End stage,
Our love story ends, turning another page.

(Pre-Chorus)
Towers of London stand so tall,
Yet our love crumbled like the ancient wall.
The Eye keeps turning, but we stood still,
In this goodbye story, we find our will.

(Chorus)
So long, London, where love once gleamed,
A double-decker ride through our shattered dream.
Your rain can't wash away the memories we've spun,
In this goodbye symphony, the love's undone.

(Bridge)
Notting Hill's romance turned to dust,
Our fairy tale, now just wanderlust.
Regent's Park witnessed the tears we shed,
Farewell, my London love, our colors bled.

(Verse 3)
Past the Royal Palaces, where our love was crowned,
Now it's lost, in the silence profound.
St. Paul's Cathedral echoes our goodbye,
So long, London, beneath the tear-streaked sky.

(Chorus)
So long, London, where love once gleamed,
A double-decker ride through our shattered dream.
Your rain can't wash away the memories we've spun,
In this goodbye symphony, the love's undone.

(Outro)
As the Thames flows, so does time,
In the city's heartbeat, a broken rhyme.
So long, London, to the love we swore,
A chapter closes on the Thames' tranquil shore.

Not bad!

There has to be a line about losing a scarf in a double decker

Chatgpt add a line about losing a scarf in a double decker

Lost my scarf on a double-decker ride,
Winds of goodbye, where love can't hide

Love how ChatGPT makes sure everyone notes it has been a good software who's studied its touristic map

Hoping "The Manuscript" is wordplay on "the man you script"

The Man U Script.

The Manus Crypt

pls go away

Not sure which song I'm more excited for "My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys Down Bad" or "But Daddy, I Love Him Fresh Out the Slammer"

Okay pre-cover people, your time is now.

The Tortured Poets Department ILX Pre-Cover Planning Thread

I think Taylor likes to give herself impossible challenges, like to write a song with the title “I Can Fix Him (Really I Can)” that isn’t terrible

well, what would you title a song about Matty Healy

"Love It If You Fucked Off"

"Did You Give Me Crabs?"

"I Knew You Were Trouble (When You Were a Shit to Ice Spice)"

“Fresh Out The Slammer” had better be wall to wall slam poetry about the American carcel state (or a 45 second hardcore song)

Out on bail, fresh out of jail, California dreamin'
Soon as I step on the scene, I'm hearin' Swifties screamin'

well, what would you title a song about Matty Healy

"Dont Worry (Your Band's Music Will Still Place High in ILM's Top 77)"

so at the grammys, taylor caught up with boygenius for a photo op. the latter were visibly distressed after having given an emotional interview about sexual assault. julien baker was crying. taylor asked them if she could rest her trophies on their heads for the photo -- the trophies she won by beating them, especially in the best album category.

earlier in the night, when taylor won best album, she dragged a visibly disappointed lana del rey onto the stage and made some condescending remarks to her about how she is "soooo grateful to be her friend." again, she had beaten lana for this award.

is she purposefully humiliating her opponents? like achilles dragging hector's corpse through the streets of troy.

the way i read this, taylor is relishing pop's final triumph over indie. the death of pitchfork is a key context here.

Or maybe she is just awkwardly confusing "friend" with "peer"? I have no idea what her relationship actually is with these people. Maybe she's like Whitney in "The Curse"!

Travis Kelce floating in the sky during the Super Bowl is gonna suck

FUTK

combination of what treesh said and the fact she's basically an overgrown teenager (of the popular-girl variety, taken to its logical conclusion) who's not had to do any real adult stuff ever

my sympathy for her is non-existent tbh but how can she really hope to be taylor swift anyway, such a person is impossible

There was that pretty public thing about a decade ago where Swift’s backup dancers ditched her for Katie Perry mid-tour seemingly because she was distant and not fun. 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.

so at the grammys, taylor caught up with boygenius for a photo op. the latter were visibly distressed after having given an emotional interview about sexual assault. julien baker was crying. taylor asked them if she could rest her trophies on their heads for the photo -- the trophies she won by beating them, especially in the best album category.

boygenius mimed kissing taylor's grammy unprompted. what did that mean???

taylor swift is enormously embarrassing at any given awards show but please stop this ohnotheydidnt shit

FUTK

lol

I doubt Lana was humiliated or bothered. She posted this montage y’day (I think they genuinely are “friends”)

(I don’t know what the last pic with the gun is about….)

she is gonna murder taylor swift for her crimes

Both Lana and Phoebe have been on Taylor records before, which you have to presume means they are on decent terms.

It occurred to me that Taylor ignored Celine Dion in part bc she was still focused on LDR after convincing LDR to join her onstage. I think that's who she was talking to behind her when she reached out for the trophy.

Treeship I don't intuit that your observations are reflective of TS's intention. LDR is on the TS album and I think TS was trying to celebrate her despite her loss, an "a victory for me is a victory for humankind" sort of narcissistic benevolence.

I felt a breaking point on Grammys night, myself, I've always admired TS as a songwriter but had this odd mental move where the Walmart vibes of her business practice eclipsed my respect for her artistry. I remember a decade ago I installed a widget on my browser that muted an artist who I'd grown exhausted of engaging with as a reader/listener, no articles about them would appear, their name would be redacted in situations where their name were to otherwise pop up. I felt the same desire after the announcement of TS's new album, this sense of exhaustion, a desire to "read nothing, hear nothing" about her for a year or five.

At my local, a couple of bartender friends are big Swifties and often have TS in heavy rotation, which I like-- I like TS's music. I was chatting with them, after the Grammies, about the fact that I felt this tipping point, and I was trepidatious to express this, expecting some pushback or defensiveness from the Swift faithful; but they agreed. One posited that TS's current artistic goal is strictly quantitative, that she wanted to break more records (for Grammy wins, for streaming numbers), and that it had nothing to do with any personal sense of artistry. The other reminded us that, along with "Tortured Poets", we also had Reputation 2.0 and self-titled 2.0 on the horizon, and could anticipate LP12 shortly after, that another two to three years of Swift-omnipresence was assured. I said, "god, why can't she Rihanna herself for a few years and come back when we miss her," and the two of them felt the same way.

I feel like even posting these thoughts are "contributing to the problem", like I might as well be commenting on all the Home Depots I saw yesterday while driving through the suburbs, and that even pseudonymously posting anything other than "yay" about TS will cause my leftovers to spontaneously spoil or something... I just need a break ffs

Today I learned that TS ex-Joe and Phoebe ex-Paul were on a What's App group called the Tortured Man Club. Coincidence?

i completely agree with that fgti. feel like she’s at the same point she was at between 1989 and reputation, but on an even vaster scale! little worried about this record tbh!!!

I was thinking this, this morning, when I cast my mind back to moments in my life where it felt as if something was "culturally omnipresent"-- MJ in the late 80s, "Titanic" in the late 90s-- that it does seem like TS's achievements to this end dwarf all other instances of the similar. The respect I feel for her about this fact is similar to the respect I might feel toward a devastating earthquake or an enormous tsunami, it's an awful "wow"

after MJ died I thought we'd never see anyone get that famous again but I guess I was wrong

Feel like TS as hyperobject is the take that was missing from this piece https://www.theringer.com/music/2024/2/5/24061480/taylor-swift-new-album-tortured-poets-department-grammys-winner-super-bowl-imperial-phase

i hate fortnite but this is awesome

— Post Malone (@PostMalone) March 29, 2018

Great post by fgti above. I was already fairly Taylor-ed out (despite liking, even loving, some of her music), but something new “flipped” for me the other night.

(being a fan of her music probably makes it harder, actually, then if I could totally dismiss her on all fronts)

I loved that Ringer article and the quotes, but, goddamn, it's long.

We'd often send people away for years (sometimes decades) when they were this omnipresent. The Bee Gees, Phil Collins, LMFAO...

Does that not happen anymore because because of SEO?
Or does she do something that somehow makes her omnipresence more palatable?

There is no "we" left to send anyone away.

i was being hyperbolic earlier, maybe, but i do think she acted like a jerk at the grammys.

It's hard to remember anyone hitting this level of fame without becoming a mental wreck or an addict, maybe just Paul McCartney?

Maybe she really will stop after album 13, and retreat into the wilderness (Rhode Island)

TS as the walmart of music makes so much sense.

I was thinking of her album announcement a bit like when Tim Apple comes out and shows off the new phones. "And here's a secret we've been keeping from you for two years--do you guys like....Post Malone?"

Taylor Swift is like the Apple-U2-iPod debacle, except we are all the iPod.

It's hard to remember anyone hitting this level of fame without becoming a mental wreck or an addict, maybe just Paul McCartney?

― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes), Wednesday, February 7, 2024 10:39 AM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is a good point. i should have sympathy.

TS as the walmart of music makes so much sense.

― ✖✖✖ (Moka)

She is neither cheap nor poorly lit.

As far as sympathy goes, sure, but she also clearly craves this level of fame.

She is more like Target

https://external-preview.redd.it/nA5A7z_sab73B6b_larouoxyZf1drXHUYPJZ9cslibo.jpg?auto=webp&s=a76785971e6a46e809c6ed3701c620fe915cb7c8

She is like those limited edition designer fashion lines that pop up in Target and sell out immediately to people that line up for them.

Who is the Stanley cup of pop music?

One of the times I went to Target they had a display of TS vinyl near the registers

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

Will officially be out in less than 25 hours and counting...

IVY

Why are you doing this to me?

Is there anything on it that sounds like it could have fit on Evermore?

not really, except lyrically she is kinda back in evermore mode

exception: “i can fix him (no i really can)” which is so evermore it’s… fumbling toward ecstasy-y? all of my posts are coming off as wish fulfillment

OMG I was just thinking the other day “imagine if Taylor made her own FTE”.

This idea works in my head especially given Sarah’s preceding album was kinda awkward and ungainly in a lot of the same kinds of ways that Taylor can be.

OMG I was just thinking the other day “imagine if Taylor made her own FTE”.

This idea works in my head especially given Sarah’s preceding album was kinda awkward and ungainly in a lot of the same kinds of ways that Taylor can be.

also for a 16-track hour-long experience this is really well-paced. she finally figured it out

i'm only on the second track but if it keeps this up it's her best? she has absolutely nailed the gorgeous pulsating synthpop ballad sound here

general reaction i am seeing elsewhere is very negative lol?

she loooves her overlapping vocal lines here

i'm getting a bit tired of it being nearly all in this one mode but it is very good at this mode to be fair

it's too long as always but it's genuinely her best music. although absolutely not her best lyrics it is full of clunkers

"the black dog" is way too good to be a bonus track

very funny of her to make an album that seems to be in significant part about her breakup with healy sound like this

general reaction i am seeing elsewhere is very negative lol?

― ufo, Thursday, April 18, 2024 6:09 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

they’re so wrong

gorgeous pulsating synthpop ballad sound

hmmmmmm this is not what I feel I want from her but I am keeping my mind open

it's like a whole album of the synth version of "love story" from the 1989 tour

My idea of "gorgeous pulsating synthpop" Swiftsound is "Cruel Summer."

"cruel summer" is a good reference point too

i hate that i know anything about taylor swift’s personal life!!! curse every day on earth that i think for one crumb of a second about who she’s dating!!!!! but this album is somehow more about dating matty healy than it even is about her breaking up with that actor man

that context really makes the album much funnier this time

didn't her relationship with Matty last for all of two weeks which is beside the point blah blah but still

we did this dance with 1989 and harry styles

thank you, next

the title track is somehow both one of her very best songs and her very worst lyrics

you left my typewriter at my apartment
straight from the tortured poets department
i think some things i never say
like who uses typewriters anyway?

is so good

is this on soulseek or something? I'm not seeing yet at NAR.

very low quality on slsk, would almost recommend waiting

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.

but you should see your faces!

Sophistipop!

"My friends all smell like weed or little babies" lol

so real

i'm glad everyone here will get to experience "guilty as sin?"

which i am thinking of as part of a triptych with "treacherous" and "dress"; barely-contained desire, in fact the act of attempting to contain it is a pretense, a performance that falls apart immediately. also just a great song about masturbation

i keep recalling things
we nev
er did
messy top lip kiss
how i long for our tryst

my bedsheets are ablaze
i screamed
his name
building up like waves
crashing over my grave

Amazing comparison from Molly Knight on Bluesky:

The Tortured Poets Department is Taylor Swift’s Boys for Pele and Matty Healy is her Trent Reznor and “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” is her “Caught a Lite Sneeze.”

if this was her boys for pele it'd be even better though

Gotta say I really like “loml”

lol glenn kotche is on this?

Holy shit @ "But Daddy I Love Him".

The very last lines of the album brought me up short.

it’s early but if there’s something i don’t completely love about the album it’s that the hardcore breakup songs feel so personal and full of pointed invective that i find it hard to find my own place in them. musically they’re two of the best songs on the record, “so long, london”’s quick low key panic attack pulse really makes it the ideal portrait of feeling abandoned in a relationship you’ve devoted years of your life to, and “smallest man”’s late-song power ballad explosion/collapse does make it feel like a less patient “all too well” but it’s still kinda fun to listen her totally murder whoever she’s talking about. it must feel so weird to be in this relationship that is theoretically a break from your fucked up crazy life and then it ends up being exactly like your fucked up crazy life, a performance under glass

i think “loml” is almost of a piece with these songs but it’s got just a little more dimension to it, probably because it’s living as much in the dream of the relationship as in the raw reality of its end. and she sort of does the thing in where in the chorus she’ll turn a phrase around as if it were an object in her hands so the light hits it from different angles, in this case it’s “the love of my life” converting into “the loss of my life”… makes u think…..

…and now there’s a 31-track version online too.

oh fuck there’s a deluxe version of this with fifteen additional tracks. taylor swift i need sleep in order to not experience mood disorders

Just got done listening to the first one w my daughter trying to decide if I should tell her or not.

the second album rumour was real???

and “smallest man”’s late-song power ballad explosion/collapse does make it feel like a less patient “all too well” but it’s still kinda fun to listen her totally murder whoever she’s talking about

It's almost certainly about Matty Healy, right?

how did she have time for this

uh there are so many sexy songs about matty healy on this album that i don’t think “smallest man” is about him but whatever i don’t really want to know

there's a few references on it that make me think it's very much about healy

yeah i’m rethinking my assumptions. regardless i will defend to the death taylor swift’s right to lust after a disaster of a man and bury his freshly dead body on the same album

We’ve all been there.

i was right that "the black dog" was too good to be a bonus track!

One distinguishing feature of this album compared to Midnights is that the songs tend to be filled with more internal variation - e.g. the way that "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?" speeds up and slows down. Or the general sense during "I Can Fix Him" of "I don't know where this is going".

The songs on Midnights tended to feel kind of... dogged? Very trapped within a single thought? Which worked really well I felt on "You're On Your Own, Kid" especially where the vibe becomes self-conscious, but otherwise (esp. due to lack of bridges generally) could make the songs feel more claustrophobic than a lot of her other work.

These songs feel a lot roomier generally.

Anyway I approve of her just going ahead and releasing her own Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, all two hours of it.

second disc turns into folklore pt. 3 pretty quickly

so far i’m only obsessed with “so high school”

i’m not going to be able to stay awake through all these bonus tracks but general impression is she picked the right songs for the album

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!!!

― ivy., Friday, 19 April 2024 04:03 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

massive lol at this bit

first disc is mostly synthpop with antonoff, second disc is mostly folk songs with dessner

“second disc” ennobles what really sounds like a bunch of cast-offs to me. sadly a completely dessner-led swift album would kinda bore me, turns out!!!

it doesn't live up to folklore yeah and the highlights so far are the ones where she isn't really working in that mode or reaching beyond it - "the black dog", "so high school", "thank you aimee"

"I'm not trying to exaggerate but I think I might die if it happened to me"

"the prophecy" is alright too but the second disc is not great. it's very much a separate thing though

i really hate to be the one to say this, but isn't hats like matty healy's favourite album, so any reference lyrically or musically to it is some sort of guarded tribute to his taste, even if he cops it bad

yeah that feels pretty deliberate to me

I thought Midnights was ok, just a major letdown after Folklore/Evermore/the ten minute All Too Well. But this is Be Here Now levels of over the top badness. Two hours of plodding rhythms and boring synths, every now and then livened up by a funny line/rhyme or a 'oh I wonder who that is about' reference. A few good songs, but they drown in the sameness.

the best songs on here are way better than anything on midnights

Probably true, but even the longest version of Midnights was 40 minutes shorter.

i recommend just ignoring the second disc which is largely a significant step down in quality

Starting this now—
I think they put a LDR song upfront by mistake

You smokеd, then ate seven bars of chocolate
We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist

ILM in a nutshell

Lots of Puth heads here?

I thought Midnights was ok, just a major letdown after Folklore/Evermore/the ten minute All Too Well. But this is Be Here Now levels of over the top badness. Two hours of plodding rhythms and boring synths, every now and then livened up by a funny line/rhyme or a 'oh I wonder who that is about' reference. A few good songs, but they drown in the sameness.

― Frederik B, Friday, April 19, 2024 5:04 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

kindof agree w this, tho i like midnights more than ok & not a giant fan or folklore/evermore

Uh “Florida!” Is terrible

But “Daddy I Love Him” is great

Uh “Florida!” Is terrible

― Never fight uphill 'o me, boys! (President Keyes),

I like the line about Destin, a shit spring break town; but I'm proud to say our version was better.

i'd take taylor over patti smith. as a songwriter. easily. but she is nice to be nice to her elders.

"I like the line about Destin, a shit spring break town"

my god i love Destin, but yes, good description

i think this is my favorite taylor swift record and i will get mad if ppl treat the “anthology” version as the real album

Wow, ivy. After two listens to the original album the incessant midtempo-ness of the thing is tiring me.

i'm just treating the second half as a separate album that is just a frustratingly underwhelming folklore retread

but i love that burst at the end of the chorus in "the black dog"

I want something to POP. "But Daddy I Love Him" is a moment, I guess.

my biggest problem with the regular album is that it doesn't spent more time in gorgeous synth ballad blue nile tribute mode

the regular album is definitely my favourite - there's no real duds, it has some of her very best songs on it, the production generally works. it could still use an editor as it doesn't need to be an hour but eh that's nothing compared to the sort of issues most of her albums have

no idea why "fortnight" is the single though. it's good but it's hard to see it being much of a hit, it's rather sleepy

Wow, ivy

what, is this not the real midnights? a full album of insomnia-driven spirals about people you’ve lost and still long for or wish you would’ve told the truth to when you were still talking? i guess “florida!!!” is the only “fast” track but i appreciate the sleepy amniotic shuffle, a body turning over in bed again and again. the melodies are gorgeous and i think there’s a ton of internal variation in its half-asleep whispers too… is “guilty as sin?” not her sexiest song? is “but daddy i love him” not like a giant wedding cake of songwriting? is “i can do it with a broken heart” not actually completely manic and simultaneously in denial of and in acceptance of it? i feel like everyone is tired and has cloth in their ears which i understand, taylor swift is exhausting, i guess she was due for significant blowback from a bunch of ppl who form their opinions on someone’s work based on how tired they are, but the moment i heard this i noticed how it moved and shifted in a way none of her previous pop albums have. it is not REALLY my favorite swift album because i am way too sentimental about red and evermore but its 16 tracks long and the songs are full of gorgeous melodies and impossibly none of them are embarrassing. a triumph, imo

The second disc is much better imo

im sorry that post really reads like i didn’t get enough sleep

i feel like everyone is tired and has cloth in their ears which i understand, taylor swift is exhausting, i guess she was due for significant blowback from a bunch of ppl who form their opinions on someone’s work based on how tired they are

OK this is not me.

And it IS the real Midnights.

i like this. wait where does the regular album end the YT i am listening to has 31 tracks. i like daddy and florida and who's afraid and tortured poets. those are the best.

first 16 are the regular album, 17-31 are "the anthology"

The bass drop in "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me" made me lol in a good way.

she could make the best punk rock album with a punk rock band. she's so good at pissed.

The ones she wrote herself are the punkiest!

okay so it ends with "clara bow". got it. haven't gotten there yet.

i do really hate that she released EVERY SONG from these sessions to goose streaming numbers. i have a headache

Well at least fans don’t have to track down four versions of the CD to hear the bonus tracks

i think the underwhelming reaction from a lot of places is because people want her to either make massive pop hits (which this doesn't really have) or return to country/folk singer-songwriter stuff (which the regular album doesn't do much of) and instead most of the regular album is in midtempo synthpop mode which doesn't do much for people who don't adore the blue nile

would have been cool if the 2nd album was just songs about really detailed football offensive schemes. "Sweep Pass". "Flea Flicker".

she really made an album just for me lol

I adore the Blue Nile

I don't know what I want from her.

The Prophecy is my favorite I think

you could remix the hell out of "i can do it with a broken heart" a la pet shop boys.

But it’s a bit Sufjan I guess

yeah where IS Neil Tennant?

i can hear tennant singing "i can do it with a broken heart" deadpan

It does have a midtempo plod, I understand those complaints and it's one of my issues with Midnights. I don't know why it works for me here better except that Tim F is otm about it feeling "roomier." The prior stuff it most recalls for me is the latter half of 1989 -- "Wildest Dreams," "This Love." I like her gauzy sweeping synth mode I guess.

Ann Powers’ article piqued my interest far more than the album it’s about— prob won’t listen, I’m on a Swift-free listening diet these days—

https://www.npr.org/2024/04/19/1245630721/taylor-swift-tortured-poets-department-review

Interesting points, I’ve always felt as if Swift’s autofictive bent made for ugly listening, having Powers reframe it as necessarily dangerous has me reexamining my own discomfort

I joked to myself last night while reading this “has any Taylor Swift album passed the Bechdel Test”

Curious as to other people’s takes on the (as always) very good article, gonna read it again in the daylight

My main problem with the disc 1 stuff is that (much like on Midnights and Lover) most songs have parts that sound like they were cribbed from earlier Taylor songs.

i like this album a lot. could you cut 3 or 4 songs and make it better/tighter? of course. you always could. 16 songs will always be too many songs for one album. but if you make something perfect then you offend God. so, best to keep it a little lumpy.

okay, almost on to the extra stuff.

I can say that Powers' upcoming Joni book is awesome btw

as a sound lover who doesn't care what or who her songs are about - something american critics should think about (but they never do) is that a large portion of her audience around the world from south america to turkey to india to china does not speak or understand English - i have to say that the sounds she makes are really captivating and enjoyable in a full body way.

I renounced the Perfect Album as ideal a couple years ago and suddenly my outlook improved.

This is good:

Listening to Tortured Poets, I often thought of "The Last Day of Our Acquaintance," a song that Sinéad O'Connor recorded when she was in her young prime, not yet banished from the mainstream for her insistence on speaking politically. Like Swift's best work, its lyrics are very specific — allegedly about a former manager and lover — yet her directness and conviction expand their reach. In 1990, that a woman in her mid-twenties would address a belittling man in this way felt startling and new. Taylor Swift came to prominence in a culture already changing to make room for such testimonies, if not — still — fully able to honor them. She has made it more possible for them to be heard. "I talk and you won't listen to me," O'Connor wailed. "I know your answer already." Swift doesn't have to worry about whether people will listen. But she knows that this could change. That's why she is writing it all down.

Powers’ piece would be entirely literary analysis, if not for the single paragraph where she talks about music.

On Tortured Poets she's less strategic than usual. She lets the details fall the way they would in a confession session among besties, not trying to change them from painful memories into points of connection. She's just sharing. Swift bares every crack in her broken heart as a way of challenging power structures, of arguing that emotional work that men can sidestep is still expected from women who seem to own the world.

i thought this was good, aligns with my earlier post about not really being able to involve myself in her angrier songs this time around, because the room isn’t being made for me, it’s for her

oh my god lol no way

y’all..😭 there are so many wrong things about this pic.twitter.com/NW8hPDlDNP

— 𖤐 𝗖𝗛𝗥𝗜𝗦 𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗗𝗘 𖤐 (@ghostijn) April 19, 2024

yeah, these extra songs are something else entirely. i'm four songs in and i kinda forgot that i was listening to something. its mood music. i'll try and focus.

she should’ve kept that one in the vault

xp

Lmaooooo the accompanying photo

God I am going to have to listen to this. Keeping abreast of Beyoncé’s music feels like delicious food that keeps getting delivered. Keeping abreast of Taylor’s music feels like a babysitter screaming at me that I have to eat an entire banana every morning, including the black spots

The Beyoncé album has seven or eight songs I've kept but they're really fucking good songs and I haven't stopped listening to them or not gotten a thrill when they come up on my phone.

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.

It’s akin to my old crack about how you should have hundreds of ‘best band of all time’ in your brain and they change per your whim. The Cure album I have listened to the most is Faith but my fave album by them always shifts.

i really hate that she called this "a double album" bc as a single album it is very focused and excellent and as a double album it is a terrible endless listening experience (imo)

agree. She should have released the second half under a different name a week later.

i agree. "so high school" could have been on that first disc though. wonder why she didn't put it in with that stuff.

scott, are your kids Swifties?

but you told lucy you’d kill yourself if i ever leave
and i said that to jack about you so i felt seen
then Rhoda screamed and she asked me
"Where have all the rude boys gone?"

you can just buy the actual album as 2XLP or 1CD though. so, she does actually make it one separate thing as an object. (with bonus track "the manuscript")

“so high school” is really dope, taylor’s avril lavigne album would be killer

(looks like worldwide the bonus track is different for some unknown reason.)

i think my kids like Taylor but they don't really listen to her as far as i know. they get into pretty rarified spotify zones. they listen to lots of women though. i'm glad about that. the last time Cyrus was home he was raving about Patrice Rushen!

"taylor’s avril lavigne album would be killer"

yes, this!

"who's afraid of little old me" is officially my new anthem. gonna have a quilt made with the lyrics on it. hang it on the wall. so cool.

my favorite too

The verse melody recalls Lana Del Rey’s “Blue Jeans.”

Breihan has a review up already:

https://www.stereogum.com/2260059/premature-evaluation-taylor-swift-the-tortured-poets-department/reviews/premature-evaluation/

he's completely wrong because this does the things it does so much better than her previous attempts at them, at least on the regular album

"loml" feels like a song I should actually like – it recalls the FolkMore piano pieces – but it just sits there.

very sedate for a Black Sab tribute but at least it mentioned funerals

i think breihan's review is gonna mirror the general reception of this, which makes sense, blah blah blah i'm too tired to even talk shit about tom breihan

let's just say as a taylor swift fan 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" and the sudden inflation of this into two hours feels like an impulse of the latter. now, suddenly, this album i was pleasantly surprised by is confusing and irritating to talk about. oh well i guess that's the way things are now

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.

i'm not well versed on new pop but the LDR, name dropping in a sardonic voice is not what i want from taylor

i love you, it's ruining my life

I often get the feeling that Swift wants to make certain kinds of records, maybe ones that sound like LDR or boygenius or the National or Blue Nile, but cannot because she’s Taylor Swift and her notebooks are full of Taylor Swift lyrics.

It’s like 1980s Elvis Costello trying to make an ambient pop album with David Sylvain and showing up with a bunch of lyrics like Everyday I Write the Book.

not feeling this at all :/

It’s like 1980s Elvis Costello trying to make an ambient pop album with David Sylvain and showing up with a bunch of lyrics like Everyday I Write the Book.

like Duncan Shiek, who said his debut album was supposed to be like Secrets of the Beehive. Ok man, I know you have good taste but that missed the mark entirely if that's what you were shooting for

“You’re not Dylan Thomas/ I’m not Patti Smith / this ain’t the Chelsea Hotel” these are true statements

Never mind what I said above about the blue Nile, I just heard Guilty as Sin.

I'd probably keep like three tracks from this and don't mind if I never hear the rest again. It's not at all bad, but just feels like small variations on things she's already done. She really needs to work with new producers

Listening now to the bonus tracks for the first time, totally separate from the main album, which itself I have yet to relisten to. The bonus tracks easily works as a standalone album; there's a virtue in simply splitting the listens that way.

It's not at all bad, but just feels like small variations on things she's already done. She really needs to work with new producers

In some ways, this feels like the ur-Taylor Swift album, or a parody of a Taylor Swift album: songs that are mostly about her exes, with lyrics that are simultaneously pointed and allusive, produced by Antonoff *and* Dessner, with familiar Swiftian melodies and chord changes.

Some artists on top of the world use that opportunity to branch out and do something unexpected, knowing that fans will follow, but she's already strategically reinvented herself a couple of times already. Instead, I feel like she's using the opportunity to indulge her existing tendencies and obsessions, having been assured there's a very large market for the phenomenon of Taylor Swift that transcends current pop trends.

i think all the "the _____" songs are really strong, and, since they're the bonus tracks on the various vinyl editions, kinda feel they form a little decoder EP on their own

A guy I know who’s a big Swiftie sez he wishes she’d work with other folks at this point; but guesses that since she had all this personal stuff to get off her chest, she went back to her most trusted collaborators one more time.

(which I thought was sort of an interestingly charitable way of framing it)

this album has been painted by its detractors as an indifferent haze and in particular with critics it feels like they're reacting to midnights one album too late, just imo!!! the only way i can explain why it feels like i'm listening to a different album from everyone else. although in response to jaymc's suggestion that this is the ur-Taylor Swift album, i assume the eras tour put her in a nostalgic mood, because when i listen to it i feel like i get every kind of taylor. as a result of that some ppl may/do feel like it's a tired echo of things she's done before, and better. but to me it is fascinating to see her approach pop-country idioms like "but daddy i love him" at this point in her life, or to hear a reputation-ish track like "who's afraid of little old me" that partially charts her fear of descending into spinsterhood after successive and very public romantic failures. they're extensions of and commentary on her past in a way that feels really richly annotated to me, e.g. "the manuscript" which seems to deal with the same subject matter as "dear john" but from the distance of adulthood, returning to this story and feeling a dull ache of recognition when you reread it, and also recognizing the ways it still splinters into your present life

this is also her most depressed project imo. there's just something different in the tone like some black mold crept into it

I will definitely say that ending the main album with "Clara Bow" and the bonus tracks with "The Manuscript" is a really strong one-two. The first is a meditation on fame and perception that suddenly gets explicitly, searingly meta in the very final lines, the second is a depiction of an arc where you get a sense that a pattern is being followed and something has to be inevitably let go. I'm not going to say there's a one to one connection between the two songs (or any of the others and their direct complements) but it's quite something, and they function as absolute songs of ending.

I listened to 3/4s of the first disc and gave up. Somebody should give Antonoff six months off to R&D some new tricks. The production feels like a serving tray, Swift's lyrics feel unedited. I like that Paste said this was Rupi Kaur and not Sylvia Plath and I agree with that. It does feel like the ur-Taylor album, in a kind of "NYC as defined in My Dinner With Andre" fashion, that the conventions and methods are so clearly defined that any deviations, although desired, feel unwelcome when they arrive; we are both inmates and wardens, here. I got the sensation that I was listening to some people doing Sudoku puzzles rather than making music and I gave up on it

this album has been painted by its detractors as an indifferent haze and in particular with critics it feels like they're reacting to midnights one album too late, just imo!!!

Yeah that's how I break it down to an extent. All I can say is that the songs here — most of them anyway — have already sunk in for me more than most of Midnights did. Several of them do sound like bits and pieces of other Taylor Swift songs, sure, because she has her shticks and tics and gimmicks and shorthands. But overall I find it an enjoyable listen, and for every cringey line there's one that hits. (Still have not messed with the bonus album, I want to just listen to the main one for a bit.)

All that said, I would be as happy as anyone for this to be her last Antonoff record.

paste also accused her of appropriating poetry which has always been aligned with climate justice, it is a completely unserious review, come on

https://notebook.substack.com/p/is-that-a-bad-thing-to-say-in-a-song

this is pretty good, lands largely where i'm at with the album and my closer readings of it

one of these days tho i'll write the definitive piece on this album that doesn't mention her exes at all (i won't)

The production feels like a serving tray, Swift's lyrics feel unedited.

In addition to this, the melodies just aren’t there (for me, anyway). There’s not a single melody that grabs me or makes me want to listen to the song again. It’s very difficult for me to square with her years of output. How is this the same songwriter?

not even "but daddy i love him"? idgi

i think everyone is ready to be tired of her and that's ok

Yeah given my big problem with the album is how similar it is to previous things she's done, I think I'm just tired of her. she's had an enormous amount of output in the last five years

also really tickled by dave moore's observations on taylor swift as a rapper: https://theotherdave.substack.com/p/how-you-get-the-world-reflections-654

Taylor Swift seems to come up with lyrics like a rapper might, in disconnected bits of inspired wordplay or the perfect one-line evocation of an idea, which is then sometimes backfilled with other words to make it scan or, just as frequently, left stranded with other one-liners like a confetti of fortune cookie slips. This style is immediately noticeable on Poets, where those one-liners have never been sharper (even if they’re perhaps “sharp” in the way someone elbowing you in the ribs is sharp). Meanwhile the songs qua songs have never cohered less.

But I don’t mind this time. The album reminds me of the deluge of mid-aughts Lil Wayne mixtapes; I was totally unsurprised that she immediately dropped an additional album’s worth of material two hours after midnight of the album’s release. (She’s figured out how to make money on her mixtapes: replace unauthorized samples with wallpaper.) Swift isn’t a preternatural genius of wordplay like Wayne is, but she has been pushing the limits of her rhyme schemes for a decade to incorporate hip-hop’s expansive use of assonance, accommodating endless slant rhymes. My friend Isabel points out a representative chain in “So High School”: bottles, Aristotle, full throttle, Grand Theft Auto, scout’s honor, got her.1 My favorite audacious move is on “Clara Bow,” where out of the literally thousands of rhyming possibilities with “oh” she decides instead to use “remarkable.”

Every Taylor Swift line is another bathroom tile, mirror shard, or empty wine bottle in a sprawling Magic Garden blown up to the absurd proportions of the city-within-a-soundstage of Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche New York. (On-lookers feel trapped on the set, but this has never bothered me. You can leave!) On this album, some of her mirror’s edges stick out a bit more than usual—you wouldn’t want your kids to climb on them. There’s more “fuck,” sure, but also more blood. My favorite line so far is in “So Long, London” when she invents the tag line to a gruesome spaghetti western of a breakup: “Two graves. One gun.”

I've pitched Swift albums (I haven't reviewed her yet for a major publication), but the last couple days have reminded me: is writing about her ex's required? Like, must I spend three paragraphs plotting how autobiography and art intersect? Rereading on a whim reviews of Blood on the Tracks, Desire, and Street-Legal, I noted a similar obsession with how many tunes were "about" or nodded to Sara and I just couldn't.

Maybe Swift should release an instrumental album -- Taylor Swift Composes Tone Poems of Color, say.

ha -- Dave and I are often on the same tip. I said to a friend last year when she released the last re-recording that she's become a mid '00s mix tape rapper except that she occupies a bigger cultural space than Wayne did pre-2008.

i don't think so!!! i wish it happened less often!!! that substack piece i posted upthread (not the dave moore one) suggests that not knowing or thinking about swift's public life actually makes the album more enjoyable, and i agree!!! and then that piece discusses her public life and who the songs are about lol

xp

I've realized I'm a gay writer so attuned to subtexts that limning a text (i.e. who's fucking or dating whom) holds no interest, lol

i have actually been compelled to write about enjoying her music as a queer person lately, largely bc she is finally horny again on this album and even though she is an extremely awkward heterosexual i always feel the fluid queerness of desire in her songs devoted to the subject (i am once again especially referring to "dress"). also i don't even know why i did this but i wrote a small thing on my tumblr yesterday about "fifteen" and my many years of confusion and trauma before coming out as a trans woman https://www.tumblr.com/unbornwhiskeyy/748211375167389696/i-listened-to-fifteen-today-and-as-usual-i-burst

I've pitched Swift albums (I haven't reviewed her yet for a major publication), but the last couple days have reminded me: is writing about her ex's required? Like, must I spend three paragraphs plotting how autobiography and art intersect?

Taylor's easter-egg ex-pop, Beyonce's bibliographic R&B, Genius dot com and the MCU have more or less conditioned an entire generation of music fans to hear lyrics as clues and cheer for the billionaire business plan

— Eric Harvey (@ericdharvey) April 19, 2024

I just see so many reviews that are like, "here's all the references what do I win"

— Eric Harvey (@ericdharvey) April 19, 2024

Last night I played some of the new album for my oldest (9yo), whose favorites are Speak Now and the s/t, and she said, "It's so much less fun. It's all kind of...sad."

Later, we played Lover front-to-back, and well, she has a point. Not just a more upbeat album, but MUCH broader range and palette of sounds. It was produced by Antonoff, too, but is more dynamic in production, composition, and style. Vocal samples ("Cruel Summer," "False God") and piano ("I Forgot that You Existed") and horns ("False God") and acoustic guitar ballads ("Lover," "Soon You'll Get Better") and handclapped girl-group throwbacks ("Paper Rings"). Even the ungodly "ME!" sounded fresh after a trip through the gauzy murk of TTPD.

I think it's why "But Daddy I Love Him" is an early consensus favorite here; it's the first hard shift since "Lavender Haze," brightening the palette with non-electronic instruments.

Harvey otm

an extremely awkward heterosexual

lol that is definitely her sexual orientation.

Great Tumblr post, ivy. I think that line about "I didn't know who I was supposed to be" is a key example of how/why she works as a writer. It's very specific song, right down to the real name of her best friend, but she almost instinctively locates the universal in her own experience. (Every bit as much as say Westerberg on "Sixteen Blue.")

Seems awfully improbable now but I'd love to hear a Taylor Swift album produced by George Daniel.

Paul Westerberg being an extremely awkward heterosexual

"It's so much less fun. It's all kind of...sad."

it sure is!!! that's what being a woman in your mid-to-late-30s is all about

Any time I try to write something extended and serious about Taylor I ask myself “is this bit about Taylor the songwriter or Taylor the public persona” and usually remove anything in the second category - basically the same thing I do with usage of passive tense in any work writing.

Those tweets seem unfair; it’s not like Taylor is the first songwriter with biographical lyrics (or like fans of Dylan or the Beatles never engaged in strained, exhaustive exegesis).

Anyway, I thought the truly unhinged fringe fan thing was to interpret every line of a Taylor song as referring to her release roadmap – like insisting “I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve” (in “Cowboy Like Me”) is about her Instagram Easter eggs, etc.

just coming here to say that ivy has been otm itt and i’m into the Album songs as they stand - haven’t dug into the rest of the anthology songs yet

My favourite tweet about this album so far was “this album is tolerate it on crystal meth” which is correct on several levels (paranoid intensity, horniness, still going way past the point it probably should have gone to bed) and I’m here for that vibe TBH.

I'd say coke tbh -- not much difference!

True but “Tolerate It” already implied a certain amount of coke consumption

ivy. your enthusiasm is wonderful and your posts about this record, I enjoy them v much (more than the actual record)

Yes seconded!

Seems awfully improbable now but I'd love to hear a Taylor Swift album produced by George Daniel.

i'm pretty sad that she & healy broke up before they had the chance to make music together, (beyond some scrapped attempts from the midnights sessions?) that should have produced excellent results

Don't want to contribute to a "backlash," cause artists need space to fail - but - production seems fair game. And the album sounds like demos to me till the very last track (Clara Bow), when a group of musicians finally get a crack at one tune...

— Damon K 🎤 (@dada_drummer) April 20, 2024

thread

it sure is!!! that's what being a woman in your mid-to-late-30s is all about

― ivy., Saturday, April 20, 2024 2:39 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

In retrospect Lover does seem to be a solid black demarcating line between both her 20s and 30s (literally) and the type of art she was motivated to make in those stages of her life. Covid lockdowns probably accelerated the transition. I wonder if we'll ever get another effervescent smash like "Cruel Summer" again? It must be thrilling as an artist to see your fans, the critical community (mostly), and the public broadly embrace you after taking such dramatic artistic shifts in just a few years' time.

xp I don't know how a person could hear some of these songs before Clara Bow and say they sound like demos.

Loved «  so high school » immediately.

I thought it was silly that ppl predicted a link w the movie Dead Poets Society, but apparently two of its stars appear in the video (so joke’s on me).

ok so i think i understand why i’ve always been underwhelmed by antonoff’s production for taylor in the past: there is a lot of swelling and pulsating, but not a lot of unique and memorable underlicks or melodic instrumental moments that you can sing. no riffs, licks, fills, or other moments of musical personality (this is also prob why damon k thinks these songs “feel like demos”). i also think that’s why some taylor fans like it—it puts the focus entirely on her voice and lyrics, sets the mood and doesn’t get in the way. but to a listener like me, who is not invested in her personal life or the grand narrative of her career, everything just washes over me and all that stands out are the show-offy lyrical moments, which clunk more than they connect. it puts an undue pressure on taylor to deliver an “anti-hero”-level melody, which she can obviously not do every time!

there were a few songs on this one that grabbed me with musical moments: the plaintive piano intro on “loml,” the chamber choir of “so long, london,” the mournful acoustic guitar figure from “clara bow.” guess what? those are all dessner’s!

still haven’t listened to evermore, maybe i should check that one

I hear so many production touches in these songs. I understand fatigue with this set of producers and things not catching ones ear, but "like demos" is a provably bad label for why that might be.

there are plenty of interesting textural and percussive touches in the production, but nearly all of the melody comes from her voice

Yeah that’s a great observation, vc. There’s a definite contrast with Jack A’s work for, say, LDR.

i understand the complaint bc antonoff's whole approach to producing a taylor swift song is primarily rhythmic, been the case since 1989, the drums are usually the lead and the synths are usually oscillating arpeggios. i also think... almost all of her arrangements are musical echoes and deconstructions of the melody she's providing? martin would occasionally interrupt her with some kind of subatomic drop i guess, and i was listening to "enchanted" the other day and missing when her music was allowed to have guitar solos. but dessner really broke open the formula

a song can have a guitar solo or 1 million words in it - it can't have both!

they made their choice. "Demos" implies choices left unmade.

can't engage with damon k's point bc i don't think i've ever agreed with him about music. i support his tirades against spotify

xpost Or the common people of Ancient Greece

i don’t agree with damon that they sound like demos, but his criticism of the lack of space left for instruments besides her voice is otm to me

vc otm about the lack of riffs in the music itself. "Fortnight" is a prime example, with the album beginning on a mere three ascending softly played notes before the pulsing synths and Taylor enter. There are little musical flourishes added throughout and Post Malone's vocals add some depth but truly the entire song hangs on her vocal melodies. "The Tortured Poet's Department" similarly begins simply, 4 bars of the beat, with a meager synth swell before Taylor comes in. Thinking back on Lover and Midnights it's very much the same, with only "You Need to Calm Down" and "Bejeweled" coming to mind as Antonoff tunes with an instrumental identity that stands shoulder to shoulder with Taylor.

And that's fine! She should be the feature, after all. But I think that's exactly what Damon means by: "The insularity of the Antonoff tracks is stifling, the sound of one man with DAW keyboard shortcuts. I mean, cello too? Let someone besides the vocalist make an instrument sing once in a while..."

I have decided that my fantasy next-Taylor-album is with someone like Jack White producing, bringing in some alt-Nashville cowriters like Maren Morris or Brandy Clark or Allison Russell. I want her to make a rock-ish Americana album, something like that.

A Tom Petty album! She should co-write with Mike Campbell.

I nominate Frank Liddell.

She needs to quadruple down, remove more melodies and other people. Make her Ricky Music.

ha i was actually thinking about the petty listening thread and how there was always a little hook from campbell or tench to latch onto even in the weaker tracks.

maybe she should get a heartbreakers for her next era? or at least a 400 unit

Why can't she keep a man (to play riffs and underlicks)?

the smallest man who ever riffed

a tattooed golden riff player

Even my Swiftie friend said that he thinks a “loud rock album” would be great. It seems like such a no-brainer move… cycle back to that Red sound… triangulate the Swiftie dads (or whatever)…

She can rock pretty well! "All Too Well" is basically a heartland rock song, and it's her epic.

Roffle

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5_q6PGu4Vl/