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

“Those who swiftly write the album off in search of instant satisfaction will not. Those who give it the chance will likely come to love it – as have I.”

That's what I always say about Miami Vice (2006).

Taylor Swift is going to finally write the Jose Yero breakup anthem we've been waiting for.

Those who give it the chance will likely come to love it – as have I.

Yeah Kristi Noem, jeez.

Taylor has the top 14 slots of the Hot 100

Taylor taking it over here: ITT: Tell The Beatles to Fuck Off

Well, yeah...

https://helios-i.mashable.com/imagery/articles/01WB7bBmscKnyMcMnE8LLtj/hero-image.fill.size_1248x702.v1611609541.jpg

Taylor has the top 14 slots of the Hot 100

Interesting to compare the chart positions with the tracklist order; "I Can Do it With a Broken Heart" is really punching above its weight.

1. Fortnight (1)
2. Down Bad (4)
3. I Can Do It With a Broken Heart (13)
4. The Tortured Poets Department (2)
5. So Long, London (5)
6. My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys (3)
7. But Daddy I Love Him (6)
8. Florida!!! (8)
9. Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? (10)
10. Guilty as Sin? (9)
11. Fresh Out the Slammer (7)
12. loml (12)
13. The Alchemy (15)
14. The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived (14)

NOT IN TOP 14
I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) (11)
Clara Bow (16)

I mean, iHeartRadio had a whole campaign to play nothing but the album on a bunch of stations the weekend it was released, so it's not Wolfman Jack carefully curating the tracks...

I assumed "Fortnight" was the only one getting any significant radio airplay and the rest were streams. Since "Fortnight" just happens to be the first track, I would expect chart positions that roughly matched the album sequence, because people are largely playing it in order but some of them don't finish it. So I was struck by one song that AFAIK is not a single being a notable exception to that.

SiriusXM is also running a 24/7 "Taylor's Versions" channel that leaned hard into this one once they were allowed to.

I stopped in Target last week for a few minutes; "Out of the Woods" was playing, I was bopping along... then it segued into a somber ballad that sounded like Taylor, but I wasn't entirely sure. I Shazam'd it – turned out to be "The Manuscript" (track 31 of the album!). Guess they programmed a DJ set...

Ross Douthat’s take on the album reinforces my view that the biggest problem with TS’s ubiquity is how people who can’t write well about music feel both empowered and obliged to make an exception in her case.

so she IS like the Beatles after all

I remember when George Will wrote a column about Springsteen.

Taylor has inspired a lot of pieces by non-music writers over the years. In the early days it was often stuff like "She's a bad example for my daughters because all she ever sings about is boys."

Yeah, and there was some fussing about slut-shaming in "Fifteen" (which I continue to think is a serious misreading of the song, and I feel like the subsequent catalog bears that out). More recently of course it's conservatives who worry about the example she's setting by not being normative enough, no husband or kids, no songs about God, etc. In all cases I think her chosen avatar — the pretty blonde who likes pretty dresses — fries some people's circuits so that they can't perceive or understand her as an individual artist.

I thought the slut shaming thing came from Better Than Revenge?

there was slut shaming discourse around both

In “Fifteen,” Swift sings about a girl who fell in love at age fifteen, stating that “Abigail gave everything she had,” her virginity, “to a boy who changed his mind.” I might not be an expert on this situation, but I am sure that Abigail has more to offer as a person than her virginity, and Swift’s placing a woman’s entire value on whether or not she has had sex before is troublesome to me as a woman, especially when the message is coming from someone who identifies as a feminist.

and the "is taylor swift feminist???" discourse prevailed for several years thereafter

Also, "is Taylor Swift the Aryan snow goddess?"

fifteen discourse was fun cuz it was so obviously the critics themselves who could not imagine abigail having something else to offer

wanted to share my friend isabel's piece about the lyrics on this record bc it's one of the better things i've read about taylor swift in a while, the section on "the manuscript" in particular https://wildandunwise.substack.com/p/im-just-a-notch-in-your-bedpost-but

In “Fifteen,” Swift sings about a girl who fell in love at age fifteen, stating that “Abigail gave everything she had,” her virginity, “to a boy who changed his mind.” I might not be an expert on this situation, but I am sure that Abigail has more to offer as a person than her virginity, and Swift’s placing a woman’s entire value on whether or not she has had sex before is troublesome to me as a woman, especially when the message is coming from someone who identifies as a feminist.

― Never fight uphill 'o me, boys! (President Keyes), Tuesday, April 30, 2024 9:58 AM (four hours ago)

who wrote this?

https://blog.washcoll.edu/wordpress/theelm/2013/10/hypocrite-posing-as-good-role-model/

wow that analysis is extremely off-base and i read a lot of college writing (as well as college student essays about TS)
needs revision, try again!

Christian sites seem really hectoring and disapproving about the lyrics to “But Daddy I Love Him”, which is kind of funny to watch.

I haven't read everything written about this album (who could!) but that song in particular I haven't really seen anyone give a socio-political gloss to even though it lends itself to it easily. I know the read on it is it's about her possessive fans, but it could be about plenty of other things.

Sarahs and Hannahs in their Sunday best
Clutching their pearls, sighing "What a mess"
I just learned these people try and save you
... cause they hate you

I think she was inspired by Sarah Brand’s “Red Dress”

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…..

― ivy., Friday, April 19, 2024 1:02 AM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'm really taken with this song; it strikes me as the emotional apex of the record and sits roughly 3/4 through, where "Marjorie" did on Evermore. Her singing is worn and pretty. The lyrics are so carefully composed and far less verbose than on many of the other songs. There are some gutting lines, especially in the final verse: "Oh, what a valiant roar/ What a bland goodbye," and "I'm combing through the braids of lies/ 'I'll never leave'." I think it's really smart how she calls the song "loml" but only ever uses that phrase from the perspective of her ex: "You said I'm the love of your life." The only time she actually uses a phrase that follows the "loml" cadence is in the final line when it reveals itself to have a different meaning: "You're the loss of my life."

It also occurred to me listening to this track yesterday that she's doing the "Dear John" trick of writing a song about someone in their own style. (William Bowery was credited for "Exile," "Evermore," and "Sweet Nothings," all plaintive, simple, repetitive piano tracks.) Her vocals sit roughly equally in the mix with the piano, an anomaly on the record that I think is very much intentional. Dessner's production gives her space and the strings add emotional heft.

The more I listen to this album the more I find to like about it. I think if you take the 6 best tracks from Midnights and the 6 best tracks from TTPD, you probably have the best album of her career, which is interesting for what I'm inclined to think of as her two weakest albums.

One interesting trend … imo on each of the last three albums the second half has been significantly better than the first, which has made them all growers for me.

The more I listen to the album the more I suspect that TS had a very deliberate plan for it being about perception and narratives, and the way that one's experience and recollection of events will be bent into shapes in order to wring narrative sense out of them - or, "What if the songwriter of Folklore and Evermore tried to write another Speak Now?"

Taylor has been writing about the relationship between reality and our storytelling version of reality since "Tim McGraw", and you can tie perhaps the majority of her best songs back to that question one way or another, but I don't think her music previously has grappled with what it means to be an unreliable narrator of yr own life as relentlessly as she does here (e.g. the difference between "Guilty As Sin" and "Enchanted").

In different ways the title track and "loml" are the most explicit articulations of that overarching meta-concept - the first in terms of its subject matter and the second in terms of its lyrical structure.

otm she's writing on a really sophisticated level, which can be awkward when it's clumsy but she's playing with perspectives in a complex way. (true story, I got in an argument about this with somebody on NUMTOTs and then immediately quit NUMTOTs because it was like, why am I even here.)

I had numtots with ponzu sauce for dinner!

The lyrics are so carefully composed and far less verbose than on many of the other songs.

I think this it true of more of the album than first appears.

I think of it as relatively lesser song on the original album but on the last listen I was struck by these lyrics from "My Boy..."

There was a litany of reasons why
We could've played for keeps this time
I know I'm just repeating myself
Put me back on my shelf
But first - Pull the string
And I'll tell you that he runs
Because he loves me

So much packed into the above.

now I'm down bad, cryin' at the gym

really enjoy how the first verse of "down bad" likens love and subsequent rejection to being abducted by aliens

"you made the universe feel so big but then you left and everything contracted into something so small and shitty and dull which it maybe was the entire time????"

I don't think her music previously has grappled with what it means to be an unreliable narrator of yr own life as relentlessly as she does here

otm. to me this is the taylor swift album that deals most directly with illusion and disillusion, it is the great throughline of these songs, applying that perspective not only to her romantic relationships but her career ("clara bow") and her craft ("the manuscript")

Beauty is a beast that roars
Down on all fours
Demanding more
Only when your girlish glow
Flickers just so
Do they let you know
It's hell on earth to be heavenly
Them's the breaks
They don't come gently

think this might be the best thing she's ever written

that song in its entirety is very special but when she says "Them's the breaks/ they don't come gently" I melt

My favorite song on here is "The Bolter" (I don't have a deep lyrical analysis, I just like the melody & music).

I like it, too. I like guitars.

"How Did It End" is really nice, too... that one must have slipped by in my initial listens (the piano figure isn't much, it sounds almost like a practice exercise; but I like the song built on top of it).

Swifties are losing their minds on social media at the changes to the Eras setlist in Paris

didn't need the last 9 words

can't believe she isn't doing the title track live

otm. to me this is the taylor swift album that deals most directly with illusion and disillusion, it is the great throughline of these songs, applying that perspective not only to her romantic relationships but her career ("clara bow") and her craft ("the manuscript")

― ivy., Thursday, 9 May 2024 14:15 (eight hours ago) link

Relatedly I like how "I Can Do It With A Broken Heart" is such a clear sequel to "Long Story Short" - a deceptively cheerful song which pokes fun at herself including her penchant for melodrama.

"He said he'd love all his life / But that life was too short". Literally and thematically it echoes "And I fell from the pedestal / Right down the rabbit hole / Long story short, it was a bad time": the idea that even Taylor acknowledges that her songwriting could be accused of belaboring every point.

This would be less obvious on "I Can Do It..." if the song wasn't placed immediately after "loml" ("You said I'm the love of your life / About a million times"); the abruptness with which she now cuts to the point mocking every other extended examination of the same situation.

Also: "I cry a lot but I am so productive, it's an art". You can't persuade me that the person who wrote these lyrics doesn't fully understand the double-meaning here.

I kinda disliked the spoken bit at the end, which felt a bit on the nose, until I realised she was saying "Try and come for my job".

i feel like this album has completely dropped out of public consciousness in record time for a Swift release, but maybe I'm just not paying attention anymore.

Oh yeah it feels like a million years old because of all the Kendrick stuff

I was at the 2nd night of the Paris show. My friend is a massive fan and couldn't get tickets in the UK but managed to get two there. I went with her because she thought I would love it, and I would consider myself a fan - not anywhere near on the level of some of us here, but I think she's a good lyricist who makes interesting mistakes and even what I would consider her weaker moments are still interesting to me even if I find myself struggling with them. I think the new album is her best yet, in part because of ivy and Tim F posting here and opening it up, but also I think it's just the most sonically pleasing music she's ever recorded, and I don't hear any of the weird distracting poor cadence moments that plague at least a couple of songs on every album she does. I didn't watch the Eras concert on Disney+ because I didn't want any spoilers for what to expect, but I was really excited for it - a trip overseas, to see the biggest popstar in the world put on a spectacular show, touring their best material.

It was... a bit underwhelming? She started with a Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince intro, then into Cruel Summer, and I thought: excellent, this is going to be a lot of fun! But it really lost momentum. It's a 3.5 hr show and it really droops with the Evermore/Folklore section in the middle, which is a huge energy drop. She cuts chunks out of the 1989 material so it's mostly just one verse and one chorus of those songs. Her stage presence isn't great, and I felt like there's a lack of imagination in the staging. There is a part where she changes costume that's meant to be fun and campy, but she just isn't that kind of performer and instead of being playfully kitsch it just feels so awkward and contrived, it actually gave me the motivation to go to the bar at that exact moment. We were standing, maybe 10 rows from the front, and everyone around us lapped it up, to the point where people around us were crying at the end of it. I didn't think it was terrible, but I didn't think it was particularly great. The price of a ticket in France was considerably lower than the price in the UK, and I think I would have been very annoyed if I had paid that much. It didn't amaze me as a spectacle or inspire me to revisit her catalogue. I enjoyed it, but when I've spoken to colleagues and pals who are going to the UK shows later this year I've had to force myself to be a bit more enthusiastic in my thoughts than I'm inclined to be.

I knew the fans would be intense around it, but the performative fandom aspect was unlike anything I've ever experienced before. The idea that I would spend time at home making custom jewelery to swap with strangers is bizarre, but people all around me were doing this with their friendship bracelets. Twenty-five years ago I guess I would have been a "stan" for Garbage, in that I loved them very much and spoke about them all the time to anyone who was remotely into music, I had posters and keyrings and all that stuff too. I get the idea that your love for a band can be very important to your sense of identity. But the scale and intensity of Swifties around me felt almost like a cult.