taylor swift iridescent smoke bombs thread 2019 - lover

https://i.imgur.com/8toDjXK.jpg

poor Charli announced her album just a couple hours before

"me!" sucks, is that on there?

yep it's track 16

of 18

I love that Kehalni album cover!

Brad you've really got the scoop, I don't see this anywhere else online...

she announced it on instagram

18 Tracks: Exile On Tay-Tay St.

interesting title for the next single

"You Need to Calm down"
Released: June 14, 2019

she's right i do

its good advice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GulWnJx3uu0

always happy for an excuse to post that clip

Not a fan of the title...

The cd box sees a return to some kind of 'longbox' format. We never had those in England; i liked them!

august 23

this new song is shocking... and the video! oh my god. reminds me of The Feeling or something. very 2005. both of their vocals can give so much more, especially urie, but this is disappointing. hopefully the lp will have a few better cuts. 'wildest dreams' still knocks

Looks like there will be 4(!) different Target Deluxe Editions; but as with Reputation, no extra songs on any of them: https://www.target.com/c/taylor-swift/-/N-54u4c?AFID=Lover

(I guess with 18 tracks, that's not surprising)

The signalling via the album title and cover obv is pretty heavy-handed but I'm kinda hopeful that the album follows through on it - with a couple of exceptions taylor typically has been on shakiest ground when simultaneously leaning towards pop and away from relationship melodrama.

hoping, probably folornly, that single #2 is slightly less jojo siwa

i was scared that she was going to call the album la vie en rose though so at least she didn't do that

"you need to calm down" is a lot better than "me!" but it's not particularly good either, just inoffensive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWtfOHBF1_w

i'm not ready to defend this position but: i like this one

I like the beat/synth and the verses but the chorus is cringey imo.
It's borderline Mika territory !

it's more 'pleasant but fairly forgettable album track' than 'second single'

amazing thread title

why does every new single sound like "send my love to your new lover," was it THAT big of a hit?

those stacked-up notes beginning the chorus are admittedly a very good hook though

I mean it's OK, but does anyone else feel like there's elements of this song that are...y'know...pandering?

It sorta feels like when a huge corporation puts their logo in rainbow colours. Like, great cause, but the fact that you're only doing it now because you're confident enough that it won't tank your stock price does cheapen it somewhat.

you can want who you want
boys and boys and girls and girls

those stacked-up notes beginning the chorus are admittedly a very good hook though

― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Friday, June 14, 2019 5:31 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is the part i like so much

p4k's Michelle Kim disagrees:

Swift dedicates the second half of the song to prove her allyship to the gay community, which again, deserves some props. But her way of showing alliance is confounding: “Why be mad, when you can be GLAAD,” she sings, upping the LGBTQ-centering media organization, but also parroting a literal Tupperware slogan. And when she says “shade never made anyone less gay,” she adopts slang with queer black origins in an attempt to create a mic-drop moment, but ends up sounding like another corporation proving they’re “down for the cause” during Pride Month. All of this, coupled with a hook that’s mostly vowels, makes for a song that’s somehow bewildering and underwhelming at the same time.

I like this new song (it's so much better than "Me!"). The bridge is kind of a missed opportunity, but you can't have everything.

Maybe the third single will be good.

pretty good but the lyrics are brutal

This song is terrible

This is going to date horribly.

She's been pretty vocal about gay rights ... for the past couple of months. Especially for someone who has avoided politics, afaict. It scans kind of gross to me, like her newfound armchair activism is just part of the marketing roll out for the new album.

she has been speaking directly to her gay fans since at least 2014

She is absolutely not bandwagoning

On Vox the writer stated that Taylor is drawing a false equivalency between "being criticized for being a celebrity" and anti-gay protesters at Pride Parades

I think this equivalency makes an ugly second verse, but it's not, like, a bad comparison. I think it's a misguided equivalency but not a false equivalency. Connecting the motivation behind shit-posters on Twitter and God Hates Fags sign-wavers is... clunky but not wrong, as far as I'm concerned

I think the first verse is pretty effective, this isn't a single I like personally, but it's a single I've liked more than most of her recent singles incl. a couple of 1989 efforts

It is strange to see voices of poptimistic criticism become frustrated with a pop song once the writer becomes self-aware and conspicuously manipulative. The word "pandering" has been thrown around but what mainstream pop music in the past 10 years has not been pandering? It's almost like "we want the pandering to seem accidental instead of intentional" or something

I do wish participation in queer culture by otherwise straight and/or mostly-straight pop artists was more all in, rather than kind of superficially political. Appropriation of queer and qpoc language and tropes can be both egregious AND fabulous (see Madonna's "Vogue")

Except for the "parade" line, I wouldn't have known this alludes to Pride if I hadn't watched the video.

I like Motormouth Swift, so this sounds better than Repuation's first single, and if it gets on the radio I'll like it next to "Bad Guy" and "Old Town Road."

I don't feel pandered to as a queer man because, after all, a Pride parade is superficial performativity anyway.

As someone who is neither gay nor a fan, the first I noticed her being more politically vocal was recently, during the 2018 Tennessee election. She's since said or posted one or two other things, which is why it felt like part of her marketing ramp-up (esp. coming after relative social media silence). It's good to hear she's apparently been more vocal for a while, though it's not for me to say if she's been loud enough.

I'm neither gay nor a Swift fan in particular but I can think of some fairly obvious reasons that equating/comparing tweets against an extremely famous pop star with anti-LGBT sentiment could be seen as off-putting

i'm gay and i like her work and i can't say i give a shit

There were a lot of “issues” songs in the 80s that were no doubt otm but sound pretty lame now

and I never even went to Sun City!

Dear Mr. Jesus!

I don’t find this song problematic so much as clunky is all

I don't necessarily find it problematic, but it certainly is clunky, which is itself I suppose problematic. It just felt cynical and shallow to me is all.

"and control your urges to scream about all the people you hate / 'cause shade never made anybody less gay" is actually p sharp commentary on twitter pride discourse this year

i'm fine with "gay rights!" - taylor swift but i do think the sudden intensity of her allyship and the awkward lyrics in "you need to calm down" are pretty comical. but that aspect of taylor's been there for a long time - the weird tension in her public persona of being simultaneously deeply confessional and absurdly calculated.

I don’t find this song problematic so much as clunky is all

otm and also applies 100% to all her other songs

the weird tension in her public persona of being simultaneously deeply confessional and absurdly calculated

What tension? It's not a binary. How isn't a confessional mode also calculated? To whom are you confessing and why?

Ya if anything the two are synonymous. I’ve said on other threads that you’re making a decision when you decide to write a song that references your public biography... it is presented as “confessional” but it is inherently manipulative. Not necessarily a bad thing! but that’s what it is

It's every bit as strategic as what love interest you are appearing in public with and when, but there are degrees of subtlety to it that enhance or detract from the confessional effect. Maybe a la Dylan it will be revealed down the line that the entire curated Taylor Swift persona has been one long game put on.

The confessional affect, you mean. It's a pose too.

Yeah, both effect and affect.

But I think the downside of doing that too much - or I guess more accurately too *well* - is that, whether you technically are or not, you start to seem like a product. And a generic one at that. "Me" sounds especially like a jingle, and the awkward sloganeering of this one similarly sounds like, well, slogans. "Why be mad when you could be GLAAD" sounds like a particularly clunky bit of ad copy.

i don't disagree with alfred and fgti

i guess what i'm trying to say is that the calculatedness comes through so strongly at times with her that it can feel awkward and it's also at odds with a more typical sort of 'authentic confessional singer-songwriter' positioning and even a lot of of pop star personas these days which try to do their best to seem like 'authentic' and 'real' people etc. (i agree everything is a pose of course and she's moved away from 'singer-songwriter' for a while too etc.) and that feels a bit weird.

not really much of a criticism, the awkward part of her calculatedness is usually endearing enough (and could that itself be a pose? sure) but i agree with josh that it hasn't really worked out on the latest single's lyrics

It's like her trademark Award Show Face: there's a reason why it became sort of a mocked meme, because whether or not she was actually modest or surprised or whatever, she was unable to convey that "authenticity" in a convincing manner.

I do wish participation in queer culture by otherwise straight and/or mostly-straight pop artists was more all in, rather than kind of superficially political. Appropriation of queer and qpoc language and tropes can be both egregious AND fabulous (see Madonna's "Vogue")

This is an interesting comment to me; I was recently reflecting on how “Vogue”-era Madonna largely (AFAIK; I was around but not plugged into this angle) escaped accusations of “cashing in”
on a culture she didn’t actually belong to, etc. I guess the key, for an artist doing this, is to sufficiently establish your “cred” first?

It reminded me of Bowie's 1975 R&B move, but with a biographical grounding: Madonna had already been a visible ally to gays and had spoken often about the many close friends who died from AIDS.

i guess what i'm trying to say is that the calculatedness comes through so strongly at times with her that it can feel awkward and it's also at odds with a more typical sort of 'authentic confessional singer-songwriter' positioning and even a lot of of pop star personas these days which try to do their best to seem like 'authentic' and 'real' people etc. (i agree everything is a pose of course and she's moved away from 'singer-songwriter' for a while too etc.) and that feels a bit weird.

My takeaway from what I retained of Swift's last album and these current singles is that the most interesting, "new" thing that her work is dealing with is a pop star struggling with pressures of public opinion.. The closest analogue to me n terms of content is the post-molestation allegations MJ work-- "Scream", i.e.-- but in Swift's case, the pressure she's described as feeling is the product of online harassment for being [whatever she is] and [whatever she is not], not real legal battles. (The only real actual shitty thing I can recall off-hand in her public biography, which might itself even be hearsay, was her expressed frustration at being mentioned in Kanye's "Famous", followed by Kim providing evidence that Taylor had verbally signed off on the verse that mentioned her. Aside from this? music that doesn't land? a reaction shot where she appears inauthentic? She's had so many recent glowing public moments as well, her testimony in that civil trial w the groping DJ, i.e.)

What I think is kind of interesting about this aspect of her songwriting is that it likely has a great deal of resonance with her fanbase who themselves have experienced bullying, online or otherwise, that may appear incidental, but has had intense internal psychological consequences. We look at the evidence of Taylor overstating harm, and identify it as such, but also feel commonality with it in the ways we as listeners have, say, allowed some offhand online comment to destroy our day/week/month... and that to me is interesting, I guess, or at least the most interesting thing about this music

You are somebody that I don't know
But you're takin' shots at me like it's Patrón
And I'm just like, damn, it's 7 AM
Say it in the street, that's a knock-out
But you say it in a Tweet, that's a cop-out
And I'm just like, "Hey, are you okay?"

I mean. I hear this and think "her feelings are extremely hurt because somebody tweeted something at her and it kept her up all night and so she wrote this deflecting verse that awkwardly deploys vague-AAVEisms as signifiers for resilience and indifference." It's "Shake It Off", but clunkier, which suggests it's coming from an even more distressed place

Are the songs made with Max Martin again? I've read a lot about his process, and certainly clunky lyrics are a big part of it.

Sounds like The Knife's Heartbeats. Surprised no one's mentioned it. Good though, it's fun which is more than you can say about the last album. Very 'back half of the album'ish tho yeah.

Are the songs made with Max Martin again? I've read a lot about his process, and certainly clunky lyrics are a big part of it.

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, June 15, 2019 1:23 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this and "Me" were both Joel Little

(also max martin is very rarely a lyricist)

Maybe just Swedish hit makers in general? I remember reading something, maybe it is in the Seabrook book, about how many of the songs he's worked on contain really awkward lyrics and phrases, because he was more about the rhythm and sound of the words than the meaning.

Cf.: https://time.com/3088143/ariana-grande-break-free-lyrics/

Oh that is so interesting

I've had a private fantasy that Max Martin knowingly writes (or influences decisions toward) awkward lyrical choices on the part of artists he produces as a nod to his Swedish pop roots-- ABBA's own unusual choices of adjectives and unusual weighting. I can't imagine that Swift herself wrote "Say you'll remember me / standing in a NICE dress"-- the choice of "nice" is a weak adjective to describe "dress", the vowel-consonant salad of "nice dress" is ugly, and placing "nice" on the downbeat is awkward. At first I was disappointed with that line as it showed the seams of Who Wrote What on that song, but now I just think of it as Max pouring one out for Ace Of Base

does taylor swift have any songs where she expresses self-doubt

maybe it’s on bar 69

xp
Is it cool that I said all that?
Is it chill that you're in my head?
'Cause I know that it's delicate (delicate)
Is it cool that I said all that
Is it too soon to do this yet?
'Cause I know that it's delicate
Isn't it? Isn't it? Isn't it? Isn't it?
Isn't it? Isn't it? Isn't it? Isn't it?

There were a lot of “issues” songs in the 80s that were no doubt otm but sound pretty lame now

― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDlwcnexmSk

The “shade never made anybody less gay” line is the clunkiest one for me because:

1. It’s a clearly engineered “mic drop” moment that feels like it was included to be printed on Official Taylor Swift Merchandise Available On The Lover World Tour Starting August 2019. Buy It To Prove Your Allyship!

2. The verse is about Westboro Baptist Church, and culminates with this line. What they do is despicable hate speech. It isn’t “shade”. Shade makes what they do sound cheeky and playful.

Why is the verse necessarily about the Westboro Baptist Church?

I have no idea what triggercut's talking about -- no offense, dear.

Even if it was, the Westboro assholes' moment seems to have passed.

It’s about angry people holding hateful signs at Pride parades. Is there another group that has that reputation? Pretty obvious who she had in mind imo.

i don't think there's anything lyrically awkward about "delicate"

offered without comment: https://pitchfork.com/news/taylor-swift-surprises-nyc-bar-plays-shake-it-off-watch/

Me neither — I was responding to, “ does taylor swift have any songs where she expresses self-doubt”

(xp)

(Well, I actually do think one line is awkward...)

xpost Ugh, it really is all part of her album rollout, isn't it?

It suggests the actions of someone who sees Kacey Musgraves as a threat.

Kacey only has several million records and a dozen hits to go!

yeah, of course, just maybe Taylor thinks she'd like the ease with the LGBTQI community that Kacey seems to have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkk9gvTmCXY

that certainly is a music video for this song (i like it)

Taylor missed a chance to throw shade at Kanye by having one of those protesters hold a We Want Hen Fap sign.

shade never made anyone less ye

there is nothing about this that feels ~real~ to me

Taylor's strength as a songwriter has always been the little details, the specifics, that made her feel so relatable even at her commercial and critical peaks

here she doesn't sound angry or frustrated, it's just a nothingy shrug of Pride slogans and gay slang, and it's annoying that yet again celebrities who identify as cis and hetero will no doubt get to shape narratives about LGBT life

its very funny to me that the absurd rumour about the video "katy and taylor will kiss while dressed as a burger and fries" that taylor felt the need to publicly deny on her tumblr wasnt completely made up

Nothing in the new video that freaks me out as much as

https://i.imgur.com/Uk76C3C.gif

I think listening to Madame X (even once) has temporarily broken my ability to find lyrics clunky or heavy-handed or bedevilled by false equivalences.

Her songs have always felt very calculated to me; like that’s just part of the Taylor experience.

lmao otm xp

I think listening to Madame X (even once) has temporarily broken my ability to find lyrics clunky or heavy-handed or bedevilled by false equivalences.

― Tim F, Tuesday, June 18, 2019 9:48 AM

Posters Who Are Killing

Quite the Tumblr post:

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/8518131/taylor-swift-scooter-braun-big-machine-catalog-response

Why does this all ultimately feel like it's still about the Kim and Kanye thing? Like it's her final shot at getting people to see her as innocent or whatever; her coming out of that clean still seems SO important to her. She has known for ages that she doesn't own her masters. That 'not owning the masters' point is the one that people seem to be clinging to and raging about, where it seems like pretty standard in the pop world. How many pop stars own their masters? (not a rhetorical question if anyone knows).

She's good at whipping her fans into a frenzy, but look: her 2 singles from this album have been bad. I think there's only so far the manufactured celeb drama can carry in sustaining people's interest in her over the long term if she keeps releasing bad music.

fuckin excuse me

scooter braun is a piece of shit my man, think before posting, thanks

Taylor missed a chance to throw shade at Kanye by having one of those protesters hold a We Want Hen Fap sign.

― ☮ (peace, man), Monday, June 17, 2019 6:17 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

legitimate lol over here

"When you're fifteen, somebody gives you a contract, you're gonna sign it."

Glad she called out Kanye for the "Famous" video.

Response from the Big Machine guy: https://variety.com/2019/music/news/big-machines-scott-borchetta-fires-back-at-taylor-swift-reveals-deal-memos-1203256699/

More claims from both “camps”: https://variety.com/2019/music/news/taylor-swifts-masters-scooter-brauns-bullying-inside-the-big-machine-ithaca-holdings-deal-1203256640/

12. Important to note that last weekend, @scooterbraun posted this photo on his IG of him and his wife @yael along with @karliekloss and Josh Kushner.

Karlie has always been a very close friend of Taylor’s.

This is interesting.... pic.twitter.com/JUc2Qvuo9G

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) July 1, 2019

Lol no it’s not interesting

Taylor Swift claims victimhood despite being an incredibly wealthy, popular straight white woman in non-shocker, story at 5.

Seriously, I'm no fan of these music industry dudes like Braun and Borchetta, but what's happening here is clear. She's relying on a narrative of victimhood in order to stay afloat. Fuck her.

i would love for the thread to continue to be like this

why does an incredibly wealthy, popular straight white woman need to stay afloat? bc she released two singles that critics didn't like?

i'm also really enjoying the different permutations of "playing the victim" running through both that tweet thread and... this thread

guys this is quite liderally her worst-case scenaireo

Lol all these beefing dum dums. All I know about this Scooter dude is from that New Yorker profile several years ago when he and Justin Bieber were walking around punching people in the dick. Sounds about right. But all of these people, Taylor included, seem like they might also punch you in the dick without a moment's notice.

lol i guess she does not deserve me rushing to her defense

"lol no it's not interesting" the closest thing to otm here

whatever your thoughts on the personal politics the fact that the sale was assisted by the fuckin carlyle group is gross

ban investment funds imo

World War White People

— Omar S (@Omars_Words) July 1, 2019

6. Omg @todrick just posted these two tweets
7. Wow.
9. Holy cow.
10. Wow! Now Demi Lovato is getting involved.

Waiting for a reveal when the dust settles in, like, a day or two, that there has been an invisible puppet master working these very rich lying (I presume all of them) backstabbers behind the scenes. Smiling and twiddling his fingers like Mr Burns.

All I know is that if Taylor Swift was truly unaware that the rights to her life's work were being sold and transferred behind her back, let alone to an enemy, she needs new management.

I wonder what he will do with her masters? License them out to Trump rallies?

Light them on fire?

You know, ride the catalog trend.

No, that’s her new label

guys this is quite liderally her worst-case scenaireo

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Monday, July 1, 2019 8:31 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

A spokesman said, "this is the one thing we didn't want to happen."

The plot thickens: The head of Big Machine is named Scott. Taylor's dad is named Scott. Scooter's real first name? Scott. No wonder Taylor is paranoid.

Actual headline: Taylor Swift Vs. Scooter Braun: Will Ariana Grande Weigh In and What Happens Next?

I assume we all die.

guys I don't know isn't this just like the way society treats LGBTI people?

(please excuse the omitted Q in my rush to make u think)

https://pitchfork.com/news/taylor-swifts-music-ownership-controversy-with-scooter-braun-what-it-means-and-why-it-matters/

p clearheaded piece about this

posts upthread by people who hate taylor swift so much they’d rather defend the status quo of the record industry = a real good look

lol at the notion of Taylor Swift as anything other than her own gigantic status quo.

i'm aware that taylor swift is rich

It's not just that she is rich, it's that as far as I can tell she has yet to even make a case *why* she should get her masters back and have more power and make money at the expense of the indie label she made successful then left for Universal? Like I said earlier, a lot of this does not add up. At the least it seems inconceivable that this all went down without the knowledge of her or her management team, and if it did, she needs new management.

she has yet to even make a case *why* she should get her masters back

she's never owned her masters, this is the problem, they now belong to someone who sucks ass, this is the other problem

also josh i wasn't referring to you at all, mainly the two posters who've accused her of playing the victim which is some coded misogynistic nonsense

No, I know. I'm just asking what makes her special. Few artists, let alone at that level, own their own masters, unless maybe they were part of some renegotiated deal. Which I guess Big Machine tried, she didn't like, she left for more money and I assume more power elsewhere. Whether or not Scooter is an asshole seems irrelevant.

'All recording artists should own their masters' is a perfectly reasonable stance, regardless of who said recording artist happens to be.

i'm not arguing that she's special! and "that's just the way it is" seems more like a bruce hornsby song than a counterargument

She's only special insofar as she has more money/power to leverage than the overwhelming majority of singers/musicians. While that does make her insufferable on some level, I'm glad she's using her privilege for a good cause, even if she has something to gain in the process.

To be fair, the offer Swift claimed Big Machine offered her (the 'one for one' deal) was straight garbage.

hmm. should David Attenborough own the rights to Blue Planet II?

The fight to own masters is nothing new, people have been fighting this fight for a century. It is definitely not reasonable imo for a label, a business partner, to just give the masters back to the artist when they ask. They deserve some sort of compensation, don't they? The irony here is that Big Machine was the small indie, made huge by her success. She left for an even bigger major label, and we know how much they care about masters. I mean, we're not talking about Swift fighting with Greg Ginn and SST here.

The offer Swift claims Big Machine made may have been garbage, or maybe it was never made. These people all lie, all the time, especially when there are millions of dollars to be made.

The fact that it's nothing new doesn't make it any less significant imho. I understand your cynicism (and I frankly dislike TS's music, to boot), but if small steps are to be potentially made here, I'm all for it.

But she's not leading some artists rights charge is she? She just wants her masters back so she can have more power and make more money. How does that help anybody else?

The media is making it into a narrative about Taylor wanting to own the masters (which she does want obv) when, if you read the Tumblr post, it is clearly about Scooter owning said masters

"When I left my masters in Scott’s hands, I made peace with the fact that eventually he would sell them."

And she has a right to be upset. But corporate properties change hands all the time. she should have just partnered up with someone and bought big machine herself.

How does that help anybody else?

If it can create a precedent and draw further attention to the issue, that's good enough in my book.

I think back to Prince's battle with Warner Bros. Why did he re-sign with Warner Brothers in the first place? Because they gave him a shit ton of money. Ironically, with Prince, when he was releasing music himself he kind of did a shitty job of it.

But corporate properties change hands all the time. she should have just partnered up with someone and bought big machine herself.

yes, if only Taylor could've seen into the future at that time and saw that her life's work thus far would be sold to Scooter Braun

Is Braun a known bad guy? The little I had read about him before this mention anything particularly negative... (tho someone upthread mentioned an unflattering New Yorker profile that I wasn't aware of).

*"didn't mention anything..."

Even the New Yorker profile wasn't that unfattering. But again, what difference does it make that she doesn't like the guy? Whoever gets to make those decisions? I'm at peace with you selling my masters ... except to Scooter Braun! There is definitely more to this story, more we don't know. It's weird that she made that Tumblr post in the first place, coming out guns blazing, and then going silent. Doesn't she often stir up attention getting controversies before each album release?

I mean the post does literally end with a "call to action" to buy her new album.

Nihilistic hot take: the way it's framed in the media™ is just as important as what's 'actually' going on.

'All recording artists should own their masters' is a perfectly reasonable stance, regardless of who said recording artist happens to be.

There's a very easy* way to make sure you own your masters: FUND THE PROJECT YOURSELF, IN FULL, FROM BEGINNING TO END. "Hey, Giant Corporation - I want you to loan me a bunch of money to record, market, and promote an album...but I want to own it outright afterward" is not a perfectly reasonable stance, regardless of which giant corporation it happens to be.

*not actually easy at all

There's a very easy*

I do agree that it's rich (pun intended) coming from her, as she could have indeed funded herself (or rather her father could have funded her) from the get-go. It's just that a public scandal microscopically increases the likelihood that this very real issue will be discussed and debated in terms that have an infinitesimal (and I wish to stress this) chance of maybe (although probably not) changing something. (I don't know what's wrong with me, I want to be vaguely optimistic about this for once.)

She should pull a Fogerty and just refuse to play any of those Big Machine songs.

I was wondering if she'll record a "Zanz(/Vanz) Kant Danz" type song.

Most of her songs are like that.

i think this might become an inflection point in a post-me too world about the rights of women in the music industry and the way contracts in the pop/major label world are designed. if anything it will at least have raised some level of awareness for artists who are unsigned going forward.... of course that's a pretty small slice of the industry, and would do nothing to address i.e. the myriad number of rappers who get signed to deals by shady dudes when they're 15 or whatever before they even get approached by majors in the first place

What does this have to do with the rights of women specifically?

Does Jay Z own all his masters? For some reason I think he does. If so, how did he pull that off? Does Beyonce own her masters? She might!

if you can't see the fault lines this discussion is breaking along, you're very dense

by "this discussion" i mean about taylor and scooter in broader society, not the one happening specifically in this thread

A summary of "unfollows," etc.: https://hollywoodlife.com/2019/07/01/taylor-swift-blocks-justin-bieber-demi-lovato-spotify/

"Kacey is also taking major heat from Tay and her Swifties after she hit the like button on Scooter’s wife’s post defending him."

xpost I guess I am just very dense. This all seems like a mess of rich people feuding in public about petty grade-school bullshit.

The news comes from the ‘Taylor Swift Spotify’ Twitter account, which claims to ‘pull data using Spotify’s Web-API to identify’ Taylor’s Spotify account activity.

Not creepy at all!

Rihanna, Miley Cyrus, Nicki Minaj, Camila Cabello, Selena Gomez, Adele, and Gwen Stefani have all have reportedly unfollowed Scooter on social media after his acquisition of Taylor’s life’s work. Even his own client, Ariana Grande, deleted her Instagram story congratulating Scooter on the purchase after seeing Tayor’s message. Halsey wrote a lengthy tweet describing how Taylor was the inspiration behind why she writes all of her own music and ended with “I am standing with her” with a broken heart emoji.

I mean, just reading that is kind of ridiculous. Unfollowed on social media! A lengthy tweet! This is truly the worst, stupidest era of everything.

the media's focus is often not on the core issues because the core issues are a bit more complex and less trashy

anyway Jordan otm i think, also the fact is women are disproportionately affected by the way major label artists are dealt with largely because there's little representation of women within the industry, so there are fewer people to advocate for them. i'm not sure if this is what he was getting at but there's that too.

Is Braun a known bad guy? The little I had read about him before this mention anything particularly negative... (tho someone upthread mentioned an unflattering New Yorker profile that I wasn't aware of).

― stan by me (morrisp), Tuesday, July 2, 2019 12:53 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is what I was wondering, besides that tweet about k-pop fans I haven't heard anything

assuming the kpop thing is just his mismanagement of CL's western pop career, or something related

Like if you read Justin Bieber's bro-ish, culty Instagram post ("One thing i know is both scooter and i love you (...) Neither scooter or i have anything negative to say about you we truly want the best for you."), he (Bieb) seems to take all responsibility for taunting Taylor with that screenshot; and it does seem kind of bizarre to think that a biz guy like Braun would personally get involved in something like that? But these are all bizarre people, so who knows.

what i was saying is that, generally speaking, i think the kinds of pop artists who sign deals as young artists -- taylor references the deal being signed when she was 15 -- are women, and obv we're currently in a time where the treatment of women by powerful men is a major topic of discussion in both culture & politics. taylor's framing of the story -- whether it's accurate or not -- is framed along those lines. to me that is pretty obvious... i guess the men on the big machine side of the story (and they are principally men) might call it cynical, but we've already seen a lot of major women pop stars take taylor's side, either on the issue of scooter specifically or on the subject of who owns art and the position women artists are put in by labels at a young age (i.e. sky ferreira) more generally. i posted that excerpt of the hollywood life blog to illustrate which people are even tacitly taking taylor's side: "Rihanna, Miley Cyrus, Nicki Minaj, Camila Cabello, Selena Gomez, Adele, and Gwen Stefani" etc. the sexual and emotional abuse alleged in the kesha vs dr luke battle is what got most of the headlines, but at its heart -- or legally at least -- it was about a woman who had signed a legal but almost certainly predatory contract with an older man, who had mostly kept the profits from that music for himself. so when i said that i think this could be an inflection point for the rights of women in the music industry, that's what i was talking about.

Like if you read Justin Bieber's bro-ish, culty Instagram post ("One thing i know is both scooter and i love you (...) Neither scooter or i have anything negative to say about you we truly want the best for you."), he (Bieb) seems to take all responsibility for taunting Taylor with that screenshot; and it does seem kind of bizarre to think that a biz guy like Braun would personally get involved in something like that? But these are all bizarre people, so who knows.

― stan by me (morrisp), Tuesday, July 2, 2019 4:05 PM (fifteen minutes ago)

it's hard to tell for her post whether taylor's claim of being bullied by scooter relates back only to that one instagram post -- because it's pretty easy to believe that he didn't know it was going to be used to taunt her -- or if there's other stuff she didn't want to bring up.

Depends if you see Kanye and his manager bullying her with the "Famous" video.

(Let alone the "Famous" lyrics themselves.)

the timeline of when scooter was reported to have taken on kanye and when the "famous" video came out is just in this specific time frame where you could easily argue that he would've known, or that he wouldn't have or wasn't formally managing him yet

Looks like he was managing Kanye by May 2016 and the video with a deepfake naked Taylor Swift dropped in July 2016, and the taunting “Taylor Swift what up” Instagram post from the bros was posted on August 2.

That was some bullshit, but does every pop star taking a shot at another pop star constitute bullying? I dunno. In her case that implies she was in some vulnerable, weaker position of power, which she most certainly was not. She may have been mad, and rightly so, but I don't see how she was bullied. If you are one of the most famous and successful people in the entire world and you are upset that Kim Kardashian called you a name, you really need to prioritize your outrage.

They showed a nude Swift lookalike taking part in a big group sex thing w/Kanye & Kim in the video

Yeah, that was fucked up. But I don't think it's bullying. And I think reflected more poorly on Kanye et al. than it affected Taylor.

I was commenting more specifically on Kim Kardashian apparently calling Taylor Swift a snake, and Taylor Swift reacting by saying it was the most hurt she had ever felt in her life or something.

well.... taylor was one of a number of celebs.... i think you could at least say there's some sort of artistic statement being made by the video. the song lyric tho is just bad aside from being wrong on the facts

If it were your wife or daughter, would you feel the same way?

(or sister or mother, whatever is appropriate)

I don't know, I don't think that is a fair comparison. If my mom or daughter were being bullied in school for being fat or ugly or unsuccessful or whatever, I would absolutely be mad. But if my mom or daughter was a massively successful pop star, and she was being made fun of in the most juvenile way by a bunch of equally famous and successful idiots simply for being a massively successful pop star, I think I could probably ignore them. I don't Even know what Kim Kardashian's voice sounds like. But, like, how much shit does Taylor Swift get on a daily basis? Just for being rich and famous and pretty. Not long ago people were debating whether or not she was affiliated with the alt right. That would be far more anger inducing then Kanye West farting out his mouth or whatever.

right but i mean i think the point isn't how you would yourself feel about them being attacked, but how you would feel if they were hurt about being attacked.

But attacked for what? What was Taylor Swift "attacked" for? She could feel sad or mad, but she came out the other end in an equal or greater position of power. I can't call that bullying.

That's why this is all so silly. There are no victims here, just a bunch of rich people fighting. Was Jay Z bullying Nas?

i think for a female pop star to have her image used in a way that she might find degrading by someone who is an equally famous and maybe even more famous male pop star *could* be called bullying.....

How has this turned into "did Kanye bully Tay in his video from... *checks wiki* 2016"? Asking JiC if he'd feel the same if x happened to his mother or daughter? Bonkers derail.

it is considerably different for women imo, no matter their level of fame

Probably. I can only imagine the pressure she feels on a daily basis. I'm saying, of all the bs she has to put up with, as a woman or otherwise, bs from Kanye West, who these days is most famous for bs, seems the easiest to ignore.

I haven't followed this story, and I'd no idea who "Scooter" was, so I assumed "Scooter" Libby got involved with several pop stars so I was like, "Yay, Taylor!" when she blocked him.

i think she's dealt with a fair amount of shit, like that groping DJ dude. I just think she really does not like dudes trying to have their way with her in any capacity, business or personal or image-wise and if anything i think it's commendable and if she wants to battle back on this kind of thing it's all good.

also as far as this Scooter Braun dude goes, other celebs he knows praising him for his total decency is something mutually exclusive from however he treated TS.

I get the same cognitive dissonance with his rather unfortunate name. Scooter for me is the Eurodance legend; Braun the less fortunate pornography director Lasse Braun. It's quite the combination.

xp

Long new article w/mucho context & analysis: https://variety.com/2019/music/news/what-is-taylor-swift-endgame-in-the-big-machine-battle-scooter-braun-scott-borchetta-1203258187/

How has this turned into "did Kanye bully Tay in his video from... *checks wiki* 2016"?

Because she is saying that his acquiring of her masters is “my worst case scenario.” And he was newly managing Kanye at the time, and then taunted her with an Instagram post soon after. And that’s why him posting with

...Karlie Kloss last weekend (dismisses upthread) feels like a continuation of this bullying.

But attacked for what? What was Taylor Swift "attacked" for?

I think an unconsented deepfake of someone naked, who has never consented to being naked in public, is different than some childish diss. Watch the video and see how she and Amber Rose are short versus any of the others.

*are shot (sorry for all these typos lately)

If Tom Waits could sue for a Taco Bell sound alike, why couldn't she sue for a naked Taylor look alike?

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/can-taylor-swift-sue-kanye-west-over-famous-video-101540/

Ugh, the final paragraph in that piece.... #triggered

The entire Famous thing was misogynistic as fuck. from Kanye making that phone call and relying on Taylor’s goodwill. And to have his wife taping the call so they could publicly shame TS was gross as fuck. And people taking Kanye’s side—fuck them forever. If she’s mad at a guy who participated in that—good on her.

prince signed with warner when he was 18 (in 1977) and the dust up over his masters really began in 1993, 16 years later
taylor signed with big machine when she was 15-16 (in 2005) and this dust up happened 14 years after that
so...

anyway j0rd otm about how this shines a spotlight on the way younger artists who aren’t white dudes get exploited by the biz

I don’t think even young white dudes necessarily get a break(?) Prince and Taylor just got huge enough to make a stink.

(I’m just speaking of the “ownership of masters” contract terms, of course; not the other creepy stuff that Taylor’s also had to deal with)

Prince started his public feud with WB in 1993...a year after signing a $100 million dollar contract with them. And of course before that, even as a young dude, he had afaict total creative control. In 1996 WB let Prince go. 15 years or so after that, he signed to WB again. I was never entirely sure what Prince's problem with WB was, exactly, but then, Prince may not be your typical story.

Did/does Madonna own her masters? Springsteen? I think U2 might own their masters. I seem to recall reading that they negotiated a much lower royalty rate in return for owning the rights. Metallica owns its masters. It probably boils down to good management and smart negotiating skills.

Oh, and speaking of that Kanye video, apparently that "boundary pushing" new HBO show features (for some reason) an animated love scene between Harry Styles and another member of One Direction.

Springsteen got his masters back under the copyright reversion act, and then relicensed them to Columbia. He had a good relationship with them though.

There might be more to the Springsteen thing. I can say the remasters are copywrited to him. This article covers difficulty faced by smaller artists trying to get their masters back.

https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/7981597/album-copyrights-master-recordings-1976-law

Interesting article. I work in IP, and music rights are so murky to me; they’re like a dark art. I’d like to sit down with one of the music folks and hash through it all, for my own understanding.

You want murky, you should look into music business accounting.

it is considerably different for women imo, no matter their level of fame

― omar little, Tuesday, July 2, 2019 7:04 PM bookmarkflaglink

No, no, no, no, no, not love she said / Don't you know that it's different for girls? / no matter the fame

Call me a misogynist all you want (I'm not), but saying that one of the most famous and rich female musicians in the world is "playing the victim to sell more records" is just reality.

Do you know what's fucking more infuriating? Her using my identity to sell records. People get killed for being queer in the country, and her equating her being bullied with that is infuriating and insane.

Her music sucks, she sucks, end of fucking story.

Prepping the grill

— Scooter Braun (@scooterbraun) July 4, 2019

She should pull a Fogerty and just refuse to play any of those Big Machine songs.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, July 2, 2019 10:35 AM (one week ago)

I feel like this story sort of died out, but Fogerty actually had a lot to say about it (in relation to his own struggles over publishing rights): https://variety.com/2019/music/news/john-fogerty-interview-taylor-swift-1203261584/

Thanks for posting that, pretty interesting take!

@taylorswift13 just a thought, U should go in & re-record all the songs that U don’t own the masters on exactly how U did them but put brand new art & some kind of incentive so fans will no longer buy the old versions. I’d buy all of the new versions just to prove a point 💁🏼‍♀️

— Kelly Clarkson (@kellyclarkson) July 13, 2019

Prince was gonna do that with his WB stuff.

the def leppard move, iirc

She just rehires Max Martin and everyone else who played/worked on this albums — easy peasy, cheapy maleepy?

every hard rock band did it first

squeeze did it too

Country did it first

Jeff Lynne did it. Camper Van Beethoven did it.

Most those artists just had to get in a studio with their instruments and bash it out.

(I mean good luck to Taylor if she actually tried this, but it sounds hella frustrating and futile, I doubt she cares that much.)

should really do it live to address all points and sell the tour as "the last time I'll ever play these songs" then release the netflix special for the summer and the album in the winter and say this is all sounding very familiar when i say it out loud

This one isn't as bad as the first two, but still ehhhhhhhhh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KpKc3C9V3w

I feel like it shoots for a calm, dramatic grandeur, and sort of misses the mark (I think some tracks on 1989 may have achieved it better).

i think this one is good

some restraint and subtlety is nice to hear from her

The chorus doesn't hit as hard as it should.

personally very encouraged by how unconcerned this song is with being a radio single

would be delighted at this point if, outside of the singles, the rest of this album ended up being a bunch of moody, unforced ballads in the mode of this or new years' day from reputation. tons of people are trafficking in big hooks and big choruses in the context of this kind of music rn, none of them possess her singular talent for diaristic, melodramatic emo lyrics. i am super down for more stuff like this where she stretches out those muscles again in the context of tracks that aren't forcing her ideas into the shape of max martin hooks

i LOVE this song

I feel like it shoots for a calm, dramatic grandeur, and sort of misses the mark

I see what you did there.

first song of the era that i'd voluntarily listen to again, so, that's something

Agree with that.

I'm trying not to think about the fact that this means my most optimistic take on this forthcoming album is "maybe there will be a few songs that vaguely recall "This Love" and "You Are In Love"..."

would be delighted at this point if, outside of the singles, the rest of this album ended up being a bunch of moody, unforced ballads in the mode of this or new years' day from reputation.

also in terms of production these sorts of songs don't really bring out the worst tendencies of her taste like when she's trying to make a no 1 hit. ultimately i rate reputation over 1989 and maybe on par with speak now but there's something unforgivable about how dated her idea of pop music is on lots of that record. i feel like i always have a tendency to make peace w that album while i'm listening to it and then i get to "new year's day" and am like "oh right this is what a taylor swift song sounds like, wtf is the rest of this shit?" still tho stuff like "delicate" and "call it what you want" are "moody and unforced" in the way you describe and just on a pure taste level those songs are far more satisfying than ones like "i did something bad" or "don't blame me" that are kinda good in spite of themselves. it feels weird to say that antonoff is her best current collaborator given how mediocre he is generally and how bad "look what you made me do is" specifically but if they followed the path of "the archer", "out of the woods", "call it what you want' and "new year's day" they'd make her best album in years.

this might be one of the 5 best songs she's released since red

it's also just str8 up far more honest songwriting than this other bs she's been putting out

j0rd heavily otm

also in terms of production these sorts of songs don't really bring out the worst tendencies of her taste like when she's trying to make a no 1 hit.

I definitely think the simplicity of the arrangement/production on "The Archer" is a big part of its appeal. It's a bit reminiscent of the keyboard version of "Love Story" Taylor played on the 1989 tour.

Casting back to when her songwriting was at its peak on Red, it occurs to me that a lot of the best songs on that (e.g. "Treacherous", "Holy Ground") really placed the arrangements in a role designed to let her voice carry the show almost by itself (as distinct from all the zany detail you get on e.g "Shake It Off", "Look What You Made Me Do", "Ready For It", "You Need To Calm Down" etc. where the approach seems almost diametrically opposite - Taylor's conversational vocals intended to create a sort of warp and weft with the dynamic arrangement).

Neither of those Red tunes are literally one-note arrangements the way that "The Archer" is, but they share a recognition that Taylor is at her best when the melodic charisma of the top line, the emotional vulnerability of the vocal performance and the relatability and detail of the lyrics all come together. "The Archer" doesn't match those earlier songs primarily because Taylor herself is in second gear, but it feels like it's coming from a similar songwriting perspective.

"Cruelty wins at the movies" is a good line, a refutation (maybe she could call an album Refutation?) of her lyrical approach the last decade. Lately I admire her most over static synth patches like this. In 2014 she could've gotten a song like "The Archer" on the radio by force of will; now it plays philosophically like a cut from Eurythmics' Savage.

i wish there was a little more to it, but it's still quite nice

The verse melody reminds me of the verse melody from Hilary Duff‘s “Come Clean.”

It's a solid album track.

they share a recognition that Taylor is at her best when the melodic charisma of the top line, the emotional vulnerability of the vocal performance and the relatability and detail of the lyrics all come together.

part of what makes "you need to calm down" frustrating to me is that it has a really strong top line, but the rest of it has nothing else you describe and that's precisely why it sucks

Hella lotta info about the track here: https://variety.com/2019/music/news/taylor-swift-the-archer-instagram-chat-video-1203277338/

Kind of a cool song tbh

Another slow one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvUAzpn48xA

her songwriting seems to have just fallen...completely off? idk it seems wild to me that the same person that made "holy ground" and "treacherous" and "all too well" is now churning out rote, hackneyed stuff like this

It's pretty sad.

“the archer” and this are both great idgi

this song specifically sounds like the alt-country record i've been wanting her to make for years. i don't hear rote or hackneyed at all, seems like at least part of this album is gonna be red as recorded by jack antonoff

maybe i'm just being cynical but it sounds almost like a song calculated to be put next to "thinking out loud" on a wedding playlist or something

i mean fair, that's not not what's going on here

can i go... where. you. gooooo

imo her singing improved again

I was surprised by how much I liked the verse to this, but then in the chorus I started cringing at her head voice (which I just dislike) and the way it ended with the word "lover" isolated like it's clever or some shit, and then the bridge devolved entirely into the Will Ferrell/Rachel Dratch SNL sketch and I ended up scowling out the window wishing for something to punch

lol

Yeah, the bridge is really weak

I was surprised by how much I liked the verse to this, but then in the chorus I started cringing at her head voice (which I just dislike) and the way it ended with the word "lover" isolated like it's clever or some shit, and then the bridge devolved entirely into the Will Ferrell/Rachel Dratch SNL sketch and I ended up scowling out the window wishing for something to punch

― brigadier pudding (DJP), Friday, August 16, 2019 12:13 PM (forty-three minutes ago)

i like this song but i also felt like this

Musically it's one of the strongest things I've heard from her since "Teardrops On My Guitar"; it's just kind of a shame about... everything else

max martin is apparently not on this record at all

I dig this new song but yes the bridge is a drag

She just posted the tracklisting, Dixie Chicks on the album

this tracklist leaked about a week ago and i was praying that “death by a thousand cuts” would be a real taylor swift song

i like this song, it reminds me of widowspeak

"with every guitar string scar on my hand" is such an awkwardly phrased line and I don't believe someone somewhere couldn't have suggested an edit

Brad's review of 'Red' is possibly the best piece of music writing I read this year.

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/taylor-swift-red/

if you'd told me there was a Chan Marshall credit on "Lover" I'd have believed you.

thank you nourry <3

apparently the "hey kids! spelling is fun!" bit is removed from the album version of "me!" lol

WTF?? That was the best part of the song!!!

I have apparently been schooled w/r/t my skepticism of this idea (when it was floated earlier): https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8527959/taylor-swift-re-record-old-songs-regain-control-scooter-braun

Pitchfork will have to review the albums all over again! LOL

Taylor been hanging out w/Jeff Lynne, Squeeze, and Prince's ghost, I see.

Sounds like she may have to wait 5 years from each album’s release to redo its songs (depending on the actual particulars of her contract): https://variety.com/2019/music/news/taylor-swift-scooter-braun-re-record-big-machine-songs-explained-1203309904/

LOL that would mean she can currently re-record everything through to 1989.

Look What You Made Me Do (Again)

Doesn't everybody leave their Christmas lights up until January?

“cruel summer” is amazing

her idea of pop music has been updated but is still kinda bland from a production perspective

I'm not sure Taylor Swift is who I ever would expect modern pop production from at this point

This album is definitely good and better than the singles portended, not sure where it ranks among her post-Red catalog yet

I think I have tickets for the “private” show here in Paris next month? she’s playing the Olympia, a 2000 seat venue. she’s only played one show here ever, on the Speak Now tour, besides promos (which this one is too, though they’re making a few tickets available for the public).

did it leak?

Not that I'm aware of.

For sure the production ain't fresh. "False God" sounds like it could've been recorded by Carly Rae Jepsen in 2011.

"if i was man / then i'd be the man" ... not really her best writing...

It leaked a couple of hours ago

this album gets good at paper hearts i think... too many H&M beats in the first half

Yeah, the bridge is really weak

I agree the bridge sucks, which is funny because I heard T.Swift say in a recent interview(?) that "Lover" is/might be her favorite song she's ever written, and that she loves writing good bridges and she was really proud of the bridge on this one.

I do miss the Cornelia Street Cafe.

Is that meant for this thread?

The album has a song called "Cornelia Street," observed from a car.

Oh, okay. I thought maybe you meant to post to Redd's Roster of Restaurants of the Old Weird New York

fucking hell "London Boy."

She sounds like Madonna in 2001 hitting a pub for the first time. The song is in part about being a tourist but lol.

it's really bad

it's too soon for declarations, but I'll make one: this album has a lot of tired-ass shit on it.

on first listen this has its moments ("cruel summer" was the standout) but it's mostly so so bland. it's not as dire as "me!" suggested at least but is pretty in line with how dull the "you need to calm down" verses are.

"Cruel Summer" and "London Boy" and I was almost thinking this was a tribute to the Terry Hall/Belinda Carlisle romance somehow in a roundabout way. I would think that.

"if i was a man / then i'd be the man" ... not really her best writing...

"If I Were a Boy" it ain't.

I played 5-6 tracks on the drive home tonight. I really dug the spunky, poper-pop/new wave style in "Paper Rings," it easily stood out. The rest kinda blended together.

power-pop* — obviously.

Okay now that I've HEARD "London Boy," I'm still trying to process my exact reaction.

as with reputation there's...potentially a listenable album somewhere in here but Marie Kondo needs to come in and clean out a whole lot of it

"I Think He Knows" and "False God" are both really good

London Boy; basically this (9:00 onwards)

https://youtu.be/5NnOAl7eU_4

I had to stop midway through the first chorus of “Paper Rings”

"I Think He Knows" and "False God" are both really good

― monotony, Thursday, August 22, 2019 10:13 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Definitely the closest things to good songs on this

pfft “soon you’ll get better” is wonderful

People comparing her Twitter to Hillary Clinton! Wow!

"cruel summer", "i think he knows", "paper rings", "soon you'll get better" and "death by a thousand cuts" are all quite good which is enough to put this above reputation for me

"false god" doesn't quite lean enough into its sophisti vibes to work for me, the production lets it down

I need to clear my head with the new Raphael Saadiq.

I'm far more interested in hearing about the Big Machine/Scooter Braun merger than her new album.

https://www.bigmachinelabelgroup.com/news/so-its-time-some-truth

I really want to read more about what Big Machine was offering Taylor to stay, and why she decided to leave. It is weird that Borchetta would be highly disclosive about so many little aspects of closing this merger, but not specific about what Big Machine was offering Taylor to stay. Like, he's posting a screenshot from the negotiation, but he's not getting specific about what Taylor turned down?

wtf is "London Boy"

It's no "American Boy"

Did someone give her the encyclopedia entry for London and say "write a love song about this" or something

"You said you wanted a banger."

"And yet you gave me mash."

it's like raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain on your coronation day

Did Annie Clark really co-write "Cruel Summer" or is it just one of those preventative credits that artists have to give now to prevent lawsuits? I ask cause the way Taylor sings "cruel" is a tiny bit similar to how Annie sings it in her own "Cruel"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvqWLuAUQes

Imagine a alternate timeline where Taylor Swift produces Sleater-Kinney.

It's too early to use my imagination.

I think this is a nice album, though could probably have been pared by a few tracks.

Say, for example, all of them

(I have not heard the album but I cannot resist the easy joke)

Yeah, I expected someone to reply: "pared by to a few tracks."

I'm only up to "Death by a Thousand Cuts" and I already feel like I've been listening to this album for several hours.

That said, none of these songs are unpleasant (though "London Boy" is indeed clunky bit of lyric writing).

I dislike how songs written w/Antoff often repeat elements / ideas... "Cruel Summer" could be "Getaway Car Pt. II"

AntONoff.

That pre-chorus melody that runs throughout "The Archer" is another example

and the bridge of "Paper Rings" (which is otherwise one of the better songs here)

"It's Nice to Have a Friend" is the most interesting track, IMO. How would you describe that musical setting? It's evoking or imitating, what, a certain style of Chinese music?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRqZ9pAcwHo

this version of "the archer" >>>> the album version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n0GIzp5uoU

why is the version of "you need to calm down" on this *m*zon ad better than the actual track

that version of the archer is not better than the album version but is very pretty

I was in Target earlier, and bought this CD after passing the display. #normcore

are we at the point yet where target will sell no cd's other than event releases like this (+ a few gospel and ccm releases on one barely visible shelf in the back)

We're at the point where Target will probably soon stop selling cds altogether

I bought this year's Ariana Grande album at Target.

Target also sells vinyl.

Every time I listen to this it immediately sends me down a youtube rabbithole of other, better tracks called 'Lover', which frankly, I'm loving, well done TS!

^I’ve grown to like the track a lot (except, sadly, the bridge). Reminds me of a Neko Case song.

i'm not going to listen to the album because i don't like her music but i liked this interview:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/aug/24/taylor-swift-pop-music-hunger-games-gladiators

finally listened to the title track since everyone was comparing it to mazzy star, am now convinced I've been listening to an entirely different mazzy star

i don’t understand the comparison. “sad beautiful tragic” however

finally listened to the title track since everyone was comparing it to mazzy star, am now convinced I've been listening to an entirely different mazzy star

lol

Maybe they were thinking of the Cowboy Junkies (it sounds nothing like Mazzy Star)

melodically it reminds me a lot of “crazy” by aerosmith

well, that's a ringing endorsement.

“False God” is a standout... it reminds me a little of something from the first Eleanor Friedberger album.

This comparison is probably a stretch but the pitch-shifted vocal sample that plays throughout False God kind of reminds me of the Junior Boys or Caribou circa-Our Love

“crazy” is a great song!

The Mazzy Star thing is pretty much exclusively in her delivery of the first line of each of the two verses, and the guitar too I guess though I agree the guitar is closer to cowboy junkies

I’m slowly coming around to the album. I forgot how great it feels to fall in love with a Taylor Swift song.

I'm finding there's a lot more to this album than "London Boy".

it's a very good record imo. i kinda missed the extreme dynamics of reputation but i'm adjusting to this as a refinement of both that record and 1989 (a lot of tracks here melodically feel like sequels to "king of my heart" and i'm not complaining). taylor in ldr mode never works for me ("so it goes" >>>> "wildest dreams" > "miss americana and the heartbreak prince") but the rest of it is good-to-great outside of "me!" (my worst take is that "you need to calm down" is good as hell). but the material i live for is the between-worlds stuff like "cornelia street," "the archer," "paper rings," "lover" etc. these all remind me of the songwriter who wrote red. "soon you'll get better" is so "the old taylor is back from the dead" that i should feel pandered to but it feels so natural. weirdly my favorite song is probably "death by a thousand cuts" which doesn't sound like any previous taylor swift song, the phasing piano line is a really wonderful touch

yeah I have deleted "Me!" but think the rest is very good and I look forward to getting lost in it and coming out its, well, lover.

I thought I did not like the "Lover" bridge but the line "I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover" has been stuck in my head for days so I guess I fell for this one already.

“Need to Calm Down” is great, and sequenced at just the right spot on the album.

I think a lot of pop tracks these days (not just by Swift) suffer from pre-release (as singles or otherwise) — when they’re picked apart / agonized over — and then they end up sounding much better in context of the full LP.

(^not the case for “Me!,” sadly – it still stinks in context)

I walked into it with worry, which has been pretty much the standard since Red and those misleading first singles, but still. And of course Need to Calm Down and Me are far from her best, but in the context of the album they're much...tolerable? I think would be a way to put it... just as WANEGBT, Look what you made me do and Shake it off were back in their respective days. It does sound like a kind of refinement of 1989/Rep, which somehow brings her full circle to her Red-era songwriting; Cornelia in particular takes me back to All Too Well: her vocals, the classic-Taylor confessional approach, and how it sounds like the emotional backbone of the album. I wonder what would have happened had it been chosen as first single instead. It wouldn't have made it to #1, but a lot of the pre-release thrashing would have been avoided.

I rate albums by their peaks, and the best stuff here is pretty good. Cornelia, Paper Rings, Lover, Archer, Soon, Afterglow, that's too many good songs to make a bad album, I think. I haven't paid attention to the lyrics yet, though.

The middle stretch is her best since Red if I tie "London Boy" to a stake and burn it alive.

i resequenced it for my own purposes and may end up only listening to this version lol

1. the archer
2. cruel summer
3. i think he knows
4. the man
5. cornelia street
6. soon you'll get better
7. it's nice to have a friend
8. lover
9. paper rings
10. death by a thousand cuts
11. false god
12. afterglow
13. daylight

I wish Taylor Swift had covered the Killers' "The Man."

Fuck me if this lump in the throat I get from "Cornelia Street" doesn't get bigger every time.

haven't messed with sequencing but my abridged version is almost the exact same song selection (just minus the man) xxp

"the man" has been stuck in my head since friday i think it's undeniable

the verses & bridge on the man don't really work for me :/ at least not yet

Having trouble tracking the political metaphor in “Miss Americana...”. Who exactly is the “Heartbreak Prince” – is it, like, America itself?

HE LOOKS UP, GRINNING LIKE A DEVIL

Re: Miss Americana, that one confuses me too. It seems to switch back and forth between being about America - "crazier for you than I was at sixteen," "I think you should come home" - and being about someone specific - "you are the only one who seems to care."

I like that she calls herself "Miss Americana," though, it's clever.

“Daylight” kind of uses the same closing-track trick as “Clean” (from 1989)... it’s a good song, though, I like the bridge with that warbly background vocal.

Some of these songs reach for the same “refined ‘80s pop” sound as 1989, maybe even to better results. I can’t get over how good “False God” is, both the music and lyric — it’s like the coolest song playing in a late-night, uptown NYC sushi bar / disco in the late Eighties.

the chorus melody of "the man" sounds like it was thought up by danielle haim. that's about its only redeeming feature.

"i think he knows" would've been my pick for the first single, but i think "false god" is my firm favourite. a subtle sophistipop song possibly about cunnilingus on a taylor swift album? loving that concept!

also really like "it's nice to have a friend"

"paper rings" is perfect imo

i just caught the line "i used to think love would be burning red" in "daylight" and got v emotional

the 80s pop sound was way better on 1989, like 1989 wasn't the best sounding pop album or anything but it still has much richer sounding production than this album

1989 had the benefit of Martin/Shellback; but it also didn’t have anything like “False God.”

"you are in love" wasn't too far off and better at the specific thing it does than "false god" is at its sophisti sound

not enough love for "Soon You'll Get Better" and "Death by a Thousand Cuts."

"you are in love" wasn't too far off and better at the specific thing it does than "false god" is at its sophisti sound

― ufo, Monday, August 26, 2019 6:31 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

"you are in love" sounds like "secret garden" by bruce springsteen, i think they're different targets

"death by a thousand cuts" may be my favorite pop taylor swift song, feels like she mastered something there

the slightly off-rhythm guitar!

not enough love for "Soon You'll Get Better" and "Death by a Thousand Cuts."

"Soon You'll Get Better" is well done, but a little hard to discuss/evaluate (due to lyrical content).

on the contrary it's for her a model of restraint, even the Jesus mention

"Death By A Thousand Cuts" is mostly v good but the bit about getting lost in a "haunted club" (?) and "our songs, our films, united we stand" etc is very odd to me

Something for everyone I guess, Miss Americana might actually be my favorite. Best lyric on the whole album: “You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes”

the chorus melody of "the man" sounds like it was thought up by danielle haim. that's about its only redeeming feature.

^^

i uniformly hate the joel little songs on here... me, you need to calm down, miss americana, the man... all terrible. there's something really chintzy and cloying in all those productions. if i'm cutting ones i'm starting there.

"it's nice to have a friend" makes me wonder what the frank dukes/louis bell sessions sounded like when they weren't doing stuff bland spotify pop like "i forgot that you existed"

i need to see if i can get into "afterglow" and "daylight"... it feels like there's one too many songs on this album that remind me of "wildest dreams"

if i'm recutting this album i'm going

1. lover
2. cruel summer
3. the archer
4. i think he knows
5. paper rings
6. cornelia street
7. death by a thousand cuts
8. soon you'll get better
9. false god
10. it's nice to have a friend

still a little too short to be called a properly good album by her standards... maybe if i come around on those other two songs tho

I’ve taken my own stab at an ideal alternate sequence:

1. The Archer
2. Death By A Thousand Cuts
3. I Think He Knows
4. Cruel Summer
5. Cornelia Street
6. False God
7. Soon You’ll Get Better (ft. Dixie Chicks)
8. Daylight
9. Lover

It’s pretty leaned out, but all in all, you have a dreamier, moodier, more focused and more potent record. There’s the Dixie Chicks track cutting through the fog, and then there’s “Lover” serving as the closer that brings everything back down to blissful reality.

“Afterglow” would be the B-side

I'm listening to this album now and i have news:

it's good

extremely benoit & sergio vibes from much of it!

subscribe to my blog for further sneak previews

i mean this as the highest compliment: “afterglow” would be a killer amy grant album track

I'm finding "I forgot that you existed" somewhat hard to swallow. It's probably her weakest album opener to date... I suppose I've never been a fan of WANEGBT.

But everything from Cruel Summer up to Afterglow really rolls; "London Boy" and "You Need to Calm Down" just a couple bumps in the road. I'd even defend "London Boy" as a kind of companion to "Welcome to NY", another widely ridiculed song portraying a rose-tinted view of a big city. But it's a feeling me, as a tourist, can really relate to. And Xgau pretty much nailed it for me in his 1989 review; all he said about "Welcome" there kind of applies here, to me (though I can concede "London" is weaker than "Welcome")

"The Man" is much better than I expected it to be, and "I Think He Knows" is really great, though it's somewhat buried among the other standouts in a first listen. And "Paper Rings", is it "Stay Stay Stay" part 2?

Production's probably not as...resourceful? than in 1989/Rep. In the sense that it's very clear Antonoff's is not the provider of ideas than Max Martin was. He's less of a source. But he does seem to provide a lot more room for her songwriting to breath here. I've always considered "Speak Now" her strongest and I'm always hoping she, at some point, will go back to fully writing on herself (as she is obviously a better songwriter than all the partners she's had), so this is a welcome change.

i put it on shuffle and it went archer - cornelia st - death by a thousand cuts - and i am currently an emotional mess

"Death by a thousand cuts" - in my mind is the closest thing she'll ever have to a Mike Garson moment.

I don’t think “London Boy” requires elaborate defenses; it’s a fine song.

There was a trending “Twitter Moment” over the weekend in which Londoners were making fun of it — hanging their hats on the idea that she claims to visit various, far-flung neighborhoods all in the same day, via a circuitous route. Since she never says that in the song, I can only conclude that Londoners need something to complain about!

it's definitely worth making fun of, but yeah, the song is fine. it sounds more like a Reputation track than this album, but that's part of the sprawl here. at least she doesn't try to pull off an accent.

"london boy" would still be pretty bad if the lyrics weren't as embarrassing as they are

Why are they embarrassing?

This 4-different-deluxe-editions-each-with-different-pages-of-diary-entries is one of the great formatting wheezes of recent years. ZTT would be proud

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D9R3rLQWwAAWlkt.jpg

in order to go to the Paris show in a couple of weeks I bought a different deluxe edition that comes with a tote bag, a phone grip, some temporary tattoos based on images from the "You Need To Calm Down" video, and four pretty big post cards. it cost 40 € but with a ticket to the show included, I'm ok having this goofy junk.

https://www.difymusic.com/taylorswift

in case anyone cares.

40€ only for a CD+show ticket ?? That's very cheap !

yes ! at the Olympia

I don't even care about her but I may get it just for the opportunity !

Oh, of course, it's sold out...

I'm suprised she plays at the Olympia : shouldn't she play Bercy or even Stade de France or is she not that big in France ?

she played the Zenith in 2011 but it didn't sell out and she's not played France since. This show is mostly for promotion; there are 200 tickets being sold along with those boxes, and there's a loterie for some other tickets; but I think it'll be a lot of radio people there who she's trying to charm into playing her stuff & breaking her here. I don't think she's yet very popular here; the review in Libération yesterday was characteristically blasé.

Bizarre.
Ariana is playing at Bercy tonight... and tomorrow !

looking at her previous chart positions the best she's ever charted in France was #9 with 1989 (Red was 30, Reputation was 16), so yeah she doesn't seem to be very popular in France, at least not compared to most of the world which wpuld make touring there not a good prospect for her. it seems like the only time she's really toured Europe was the Speak Now tour - more recently she's only played the UK and Ireland consistently, with some dates in Germany and the Netherlands but nowhere else.

Beyoncé played the Stade de France with Jay-Z last summer. it's not like American music is unpopular here. & yet Swift struggles. I reckon it's that Swift was a country artist, and there's absolutely no interest in that here (and not much elsewhere in Europe either).

yeah that's my guess too - not much appetite for country in Europe and then probably didn't have the resources put into really trying to breakthrough in Europe when she did go pop due to the existing lack of interest - some of her pop singles seem to have been hits in France though but not to the same degree as elsewhere

Why are they embarrassing?

Americans are not permitted to say they "fancy" someone

To my ears, she comes across as playful rather than fake.

playful but still deeply embarrassing

"paper rings" kinda sounds like it was made to soundtrack a target commercial - i'm still on the fence about it

well you are talking about an artist who released 4 different versions of the album at target...

Ha, that reminds me that, er, "Me" is being used by the ABC network in Fall preview commercials.

Can't spell ABC without ME.

there's a capital one commercial where taylor plays a diner waitress and "me!" plays in the background... it sounds prefect in that setting

I'm listening to this album now and i have news:

it's good

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, August 27, 2019 4:00 AM (thirteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

extremely benoit & sergio vibes from much of it!

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, August 27, 2019 4:13 AM (thirteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

what the? i wish there were these vibes, pls explain

i most enjoy cruel summer & the more ballad leaning songs -- soon youll get better is great & just endlessly, universally relatable; lover is like 90% great but is slightly off somehow

lover is like 90% great but is slightly off somehow

Yeah, it's the bridge! It just kills me... this could have been an almost perfect song.

I'm no songwriter, but I feel like they could have even somehow segued right from the 2nd chorus into the the final two lines of the bridge ("And you'll save all your dirties jokes for me...") -- that section works fine melodically, it's the rest of it that sticks out like a sore thumb. Of course, that would mean losing lyrical content.

it's not a very sophisticated comparison, I'm just talking about the slow synthy moody ones like the archer, cornelia street..

xpost

ok now i like “miss americana” lol

I really like "Lover"; I love when she's able to turn the broad, generic statements around into the brutally specific, like in "Your are in love", and I can feel it happening here in the "guitar scars" line.

i know this’ll wear off eventually but i’m pretty sure “death by a thousand cuts” and “afterglow” are my favorite taylor swift songs

"Death By A Thousand Cuts" is mostly v good but the bit about getting lost in a "haunted club" (?) and "our songs, our films, united we stand" etc is very odd to me

I agree those lyrics are odd, but I like the "wtf" aspect; the way everything gets kicked up a notch into this heightened register, and suddenly she's not just singing about a failed relationship anymore.

Btw (to balance my picking apart the bridge of "Lover" above) -- this is an example of the kind of bridge that really works for me, melodically -- it effortlessly flows from the section that preceded it, feels like a "natural part of the song," and even elevates the song / makes you go "yeah!". I love when bridges do that. And those weird lyrics are part of the overall effect... I get a scalp tingle when she launches into, "Our songs, our films...."

this is our house, these are our rules..

I had more trouble with the "Went home and tried to stalk you on the internet/Now I've read all of the books beside your bed" on "Paper Rings" -- the latter too incongruously weird for the persona she's created.

im not sure if that one is supposed to be taken as "i stalked you on the internet so well that i read the books you own" or "we have spent so much time together that i've read the books next to your bed"... either way i don't mind that one but there are def some lyrics that don't really track for me even on like "the archer"

I wake in the night, I pace like a ghost
The room is on fire, invisible smoke
And all of my heroes die all alone
Help me hold onto you

pacing like a ghost (?) and the room is on fire but the smoke is invisible ... wha

Taylor swift who can recall her past lives

im not sure if that one is supposed to be taken as "i stalked you on the internet so well that i read the books you own" or "we have spent so much time together that i've read the books next to your bed".

It's the latter; same with the next verse:

Like the shoulder that I gave you in the street
Cat and mouse for a month or two or three
Now I wake up in the night and watch you breathe

“room is on fire / invisible smoke” is taylor pulling apart a metaphor for an anxiety attack imo

crowd mostly moving from ParlSq up Whitehall now, think it's already dissipating tbh

lol oops

a post of a London boy

man i love the "death by a thousand cuts" bridge(/lyrics overall) sooo much haha. goosebumps every time.

i guess i have always liked the impressionistic side of her lyrical approach, so i don't mind that she's leaning on it so heavily on the last few albums, and perhaps even becoming more imprecise in how/where she deploys it.

You guys, I want to be defined by the things I love, not the things I hate. (I’d be happy to provide a detailed list of things in each category, to facilitate your definitions of me — just lmk)

For example, please do not define me by this — but one thing I recently discovered that I hate are the vocal stylings of a certain “Brendon Urie of Panic! At The Disco.”

^^ you need to calm down

I don't know if "It's Nice to Have a Friend" is my favorite song on this album, but it stands out as the most unique-sounding song on any of her albums. Kind of like Sade's "Turn My Back on You" looms in her discography. It's not that the Swift & Sade tunes sound exactly alike but they seem to share a haunting, almost ineffable sonic world. Or maybe I played them too close together and it's affecting my opinion. Still, "Friend" should be the last song on here, or followed by the title tune.

“daylight” pretty much has to be the closer i think

Lyrically, it's a logical closer. Just doesn't hit me the way a few others do. However, anything but "I Forgot That You Existed"--thematic kiss-off to her last LP or not--should be the opener. It may be her weakest opener ever (as someone else mentioned above) although "Welcome to New York" would be an acceptable alternate choice re: weakest opener.

I think “I Forgot...” is a great opener!

“i forgot that you existed” is 100000x better than “welcome to new york,” a bad song i made myself like

"Death by a Thousand Cuts" & "Afterglow" are two of my three favorite songs here ("It's Nice to Have a Friend" being the other). The second half is soooo good aside from "London Boy" & "ME!"

They were mentioned together in a previous post but which is worse: "London Boy" or "Welcome to New York"?

"london boy" is worse lyrically, "welcome to new york" worse musically and probably overall

Welcome To New York. London Boy isn't as bad as people are saying it is, and if anything TS seems to know even less about how NY really works on "Welcome..."

It perhaps wouldn't work well as an opener but "New Romantics" basically rendered "Welcome..." entirely redundant in the "I just moved to NY and it feels so liberating to live in this city and have a shitload of money" stakes.

"new romantics" has been the opener on my edited 1989 tracklist since release

I think experiencing "Welcome to New York" in concert made me like it more than I should. Hearing 60,000 or so people sing along to it in a Boston suburb was a real treat. "New Romantics" would've been an excellent opener! Hate that it was relegated to the bonus tracks.

It at least could have replaced “I Know Places" (that album’s bum track).

Remove both tracks and add in "You Are In Love".

London Boy isn't as bad as people are saying it is

otm

The "London Boy (A to Zedd Remix)" is gonna be ace!

She could have at least got J Hus to jump on there or something

There's still time.

I've tried liking "Daylight," and while it's nice it feels as if she and Antonoff put it at the end because it's slow enough to feel like a closer or something instead of a retread.

^The bridge is terrific though; it makes the song! (Don’t know why so much bridge tawk for this album...)

Oh fuck I love tracks 2-15 so much I haven't been able to get to the end of this album for days.

she has become very good at singing "darling"

her performance of "Lover" at the VMAs was really quite something. I know the crowd was full of fellow celebs but it was still pretty powerful to see so many people at an awards show vibing on the same thing in a seemingly genuine way, especially for a song that hadn't been out two weeks but that everyone was already treating like a staple.

I’ve never been a huge Taylor fan, but I’m really liking the sadder/more anxious songs on this album. I like how under all the candy-colored happiness there’s this consistent undercurrent of fear that she’s going to screw it up and it’s all going to go away.

i love this album

Yeah I’m in deep too

Currently obsessed with “I Think He Knows”. By 16th Avenue does she mean Music Row or is that some significant New York or London reference?

she's a big fan of the nuttery
https://thenutteryny.com/about-us

"cornelia street" might be the best version of the breathy synthy kinda song she's started writing since 1989

‘i forgot that you existed’ is my #breakupgoals

i agree that ‘if i was a man, id be the man’ is a bad lyric... but it’s also otm

‘calm down’ and ‘ME!’ are 2 of the worst songs on here, and prob some of the worst of her career imo. ‘lover’ is fantastic, such a great chorus

I’m at that point I reach with Taylor Swift albums, where some songs still sound awesome to me, but others have suddenly become skippable (“The Man,” “The Archer”...).

Archer must be skipped unless you want to spend the next 20 minutes staring out the nearest rain-streaked window

"cornelia street" might be the best version of the breathy synthy kinda song she's started writing since 1989

Yeah, it kind of is. It's like she finally managed to marry those vibes with the diaristic/narrative idiosyncrasy that was so integral to classic-TS.

so "Holy Ground"

Live Lounge:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p07m7pwb

1 London Boy
2 Lover
3 Can't Stop Loving You (Phil Collins cover)
4 Holy Ground
5 The Archer
6 You Need to Calm Down

yess holy ground.

I think at this point I can swallow this album from beginning to end. Which is more than I can say for most.

I can even somewhat enjoy "Me!" here? Am I going too far? Possibly. But it feels so much more earned at Track #16 than as first single. It's like the shallow/simplistic first couple of singles are now part of a more complex whole?

Can't believe she's making a cover version from a Phil Collins 34-point Metacritic album. That's gutsy.

yesss I hope she plays "Holy Ground" at the show here next week

I am really into "Afterglow" and "I Think He Knows" now.

"Death By A Thousand Cuts" sounds she's adapting the Imogen Heap sounds of "Clean" to a poppier song.

I think at this point I can swallow this album from beginning to end. Which is more than I can say for most.

I can even somewhat enjoy "Me!" here? Am I going too far? Possibly.

same on all counts but this was so inevitable for me that i’m suspicious of it. same thing happened with red, i had my own edit and discovered i preferred the sprawl. “me” is a bad song but it’s just kinda this cloud-skipping detour in sequence and it’s fine. i guess, unlike “bad blood,” which i still struggle through, at least it didn’t exactly become a world-blanketing hit

even though I like "You Need To Calm Down" and "London Boy" fine enough, I'm enjoying my edit without them (and without "Me!" obviously). I also cut "It's Nice to Have a Friend" because it and "Daylight" are good but seem unnecessary & then I can just start the album over again a little faster.

had a real moment with “daylight” yesterday

also i was talking to a friend about how i’m confused about what i’m supposed to think the verse and chorus are on “death by a thousand cuts.” obv “saying goodbye is etc.” is the chorus but the rest of the song doesn’t feel like verses, just more distorted and desperate unfoldings of the chorus. my friend then made the point that the song’s more like three incredible bridges strung together

that sounds right! it's an excellent song

I do like "Daylight" but I'll treat it like a b-side and only indulge periodically, whereas I'm mainlining the rest

Her lyrics can still be, I guess, endearingly clumsy (“Running through rose thorns / I saw the scoreboard / And ran for my life”).

And I like “Paper Rings,” but the details of the relationship don’t track — in the verses, they’re a couple who met on a night out, she was instantly obsessed, and they played “cat and mouse” for a few months before falling hard for each other; and in the chorus, they’re a pair of friends who “accidentally” became lovers?

"You Need To Calm Down" I've warmed to, "ME!" remains a rubber donut, and "Daylight" is a weak closer -- a limper "New Year's Day."