Taylor Swift - RED - October 22

i didn't say on this board, although there's already a fair amount of bitching about this song and blaming him for it itt

I like Max Martin, but he's had his ups and downs and if the production sucks on a song that you have production credits on, better look out.

i heartily disapprove of "my life would suck without you" being the stock negative comparator here btw, that song banged

at some point I'm going to record some kewpie-doll chirpy teenager singing a song titled "I Got My Period (So My Boyfriend Dumped Me ;_;)" and you guys will go apeshit for it

― Lil Swayne of Pie (DJP), Tuesday, August 14, 2012 3:30 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

lmfao

this is one of the greatest posts ever

― Jandek at the Disco (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, August 14, 2012 5:19 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/tasteofcountry.com/files/2012/07/TAYLOR-SWIFT.jpg

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc6/198714_10150278299138718_6849997_n.jpg

My daughter posing with Taylor Swift.

picking her nose for her. how sweet.

She'd do anything for Taylor.

(Or she would have six months ago; I think she's moved on)

now there's a title: "Do Anything (I'd Pick Your Nose For You)"

Worst Meatloaf single ever.

so i just listened to a few recent hits, and is it fair to say that Taylor's basic deal is thinking she and her boyfriend are better than everyone else but then he cheats on her and she decides she's better than him? Like, are there examples of big songs where she does not suggest her general superiority with "we'd laugh at their vacant stares" type shit?

found "back to december"

btw, not saying you can't necessarily make great music out of this perspective, just confirming that an air of superiority is part of her deal

Is it? I think you've maybe happened on particular songs. Songs not particularly superior - Tim McGraw, Fearless, Our Song, etc.

And I don't know if you'd see Hey Stephen or whatever as superior, but stories that involve romantic competitors will always have some air of 'I am the best option' but that's less I am better than them and more I am the one waiting there all night and writing songs for you etc.

it's still true that that's a tendency in taylor swift songs, particularly wrt other women she regards herself as better than. i like her a lot (haven't heard this new song with the terrible title yet), but it's annoying. i chalk it up to being young, but it's nagl.

"hey stephen" doesn't fit that descrip, but "you belong with me" and "speak now" totally do

And like - the most superior she ever feels to me is when she's writing about small towns - see White Horse, big world/small town, etc. etc. etc.

it's her fallback topic so she gets the same pass from me that clipse does when they talk about selling drugs or when Merle sings about shitkicking or Death Grips screams about being probed by aliens or whatever

And that's less a 'superior' thing as much as a reaction to being the kid who wanted out of the small town.

sometime she's superior about sexual purity which is fucked up but also kind of interesting. there's an old epic molly lambert post about taylor swift that basically postulates that once she gets comfortable with the fact that she just wants to have sex with a lot of boys, not fall in love with them, she'll stop pulling that particular "she's better known for what she does on the mattress" bullshit

(again i really like the first three swift albums and thinks she's a tremendous songwriter)

lambert goes extremely hard: http://thisrecording.com/today/2011/2/28/in-which-your-ballroom-days-are-over-baby-they-got-the-guns.html

God, I just tried to read that. So many pictures. Jesus.

haha i love molly lambert on this recording, but she's not for everyone. lots of pictures, lots of extreme sentiments delivered in declarative sentences.

Yeah, I agree with her point, but that was just almost unreadable.

looking at it, i'm not even sure that's the lambert post i was thinking of :/ multiple gender studies through taylor swift lyrics posts on this recording.

idk why TS gets raked over the coals for employing tropes that PLENTY of other artists, male and female, do ALL THE TIME without the same reaction, or why TS adopting a particular stance in one or two or three songs means that people go right ahead to pronounce that as being "her deal" as though she - like any other artist - doesn't contradict herself from song to song

all of the problematic stuff is there, even give or take a few wilful misreadings, but there's also lots of stuff which is, like, the opposite of that

OMG, that Lambert blurt was incredible! Unreadable, but incredible! And then I clicked through to her Fleetwood Mac piece, and not only was it written the exact same way but it took 800 words before she even mentioned Fleetwood Mac. And then she just cut and pasted comments from youtube, which I had to skim to see if it ever reverted back to her authorial voice but I don't think it ever did? But I could be wrong.

just listened to this. not sure what to make of it. it's such a deliberate performance of stereotypical teen girl style that it puts me at a significant distance as a fuddy-duddy adult male listener. i felt the same way about kitty pryde, as though the persona is almost aggressively asserting the legitimacy of attitudes and styles of speech to which i can't easily relate. i don't like it, but it doesn't strike me as awful. chorus is undeniable.

it's funny that the "indie" line sticks out for so many, as much of the song is delivered in a similarly affected tone, but it's clearly an intentional provocation, so no big surprise. the air quotes teenspeak is equally theatrical on "you said you needed space - what", "you call me, i love you" and "like, ever". she's a big pop star in her mid-twenties ostentatiously playing at being "just an ordinary girl", but doing so in a way that seems quite knowing, even a bit self-mocking.

idk why TS gets raked over the coals for employing tropes that PLENTY of other artists, male and female, do ALL THE TIME without the same reaction, or why TS adopting a particular stance in one or two or three songs means that people go right ahead to pronounce that as being "her deal" as though she - like any other artist - doesn't contradict herself from song to song

i am asking for confirmation if that's her deal based on the songs I've heard

and while i think female singer-songwriters get more shit than men for regurgitating familiar woes, in general the problem with "why are people giving her grief, when so many guys get away with it?" arguments is that it could be argued that the problem is that guys are "getting away with it."

not that it's necessarily an apt comparison, but male artists who spend a lot of time complaining bitterly about relationship woes are often called "misogynist". so it's not like guys get an entirely free pass. tbh, regardless of gender, i think it's the quality of bitterness more than the fact of complaining that sets people's alarms off.

Are guys "getting away with it" or just being dismissed as dudes being dudes, as in, that battle has already been lost? Like, no one respects the gender politics of John Mayer or Adam Levine or whomever, right? They have no reputation to tarnish?

Just spitballing. Don't think TS deserves much deep thought, as much as she invites it as an easy target first-person singer public figure.

other girls get away with it too - when rihanna or nicki or missy take the "I am better than these other women" approach, which they all do A LOT, it doesn't get called out in this fashion

also part of the reason I think this song raises such hackles is that because she's conveyed the image of someone who's so above the norm in her hits that people are happy to dogpile when she descends into it, as well as the fact that her first single after the album that was uniformly reported as "taylor's letters to her exes" is a broad jingle about an ex.

xpost not saying guys "get a free pass" - and it's evolving (john mayer definitely gets more shit than say, tom petty) - but i can admit women get it worse. there are more guys in the media who scream "WELL WHY ARE YOU BLOWING DAVE COULIER/DAVID CROSBY IN THE FIRST PLACE?" than women who scream "WELL WHY ARE YOU FUCKING THAT MODEL IN THE FIRST PLACE?"

Rihanna and Missy are public ciphers though, and this is an age obsessed with celebrity and biography.

whoa now, who was blowing david crosby?

joni

missy IS better than these other women, let's not forget.

Im willing to suggest that pop music is inherently misogynistic, so in order to operate successfully in that world female pop singers have to "own it." The downside is going too far down the "own it" rabbit hole, which brings us to the Britney meltdown.

xps: gaaaaaaaah!

Unfair catch-22. Unless you're Missy, or Dolly, or one of the select few who is indeed superior.

tbf to Joni she wasn't sure she was blowing David Crosby or eating a hoagie.

Or lounging on a sweaty raft in a pool.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Qaqm69tkZXk/SEovpZhBxiI/AAAAAAAAAZw/JG022uDkZ3M/s320/barf.jpg

lex it wasn't my intention to rake Swift over the coals! Missy is a good comparison in terms of pulling the exceptional woman thing, for sure. I think their sexual politics are pretty different. I think about these things with Swift because I like her music and sometimes it frustrates me.

Rihanna doesn't mean much to me so I don't care if she does it tbh