Taylor Swift - RED - October 22

yeah i will say i don't think lambert gives swift enough credit in some parts of that post, or strategically ignores some songs to make her patented *sweeping claims.* but it's good. she's a force for good.

"white horse" may be one of the most masterful deconstructions of an artist's own aesthetic i've heard, actually.

she claims her own aggression in songs but not consistently in public presentation, i think is what lambert means. it was sort of hilarious to me that one grammys when swift won everything and every time she was like what? little old me? and i was like, come on lady, let your inner tracy flick out.

oh yeah the lambert piece was a+ and i think she knows that swift knows and she's just using swift as a jump-off point (and maybe a warning, because she's definitely correct that swift seems increasingly willing to play that down)

yes i think swift and paltrow and betty draper are jumping off points for that essay, which is why it makes no sense to me to criticize lambert for painting betty draper as a certain kind of person, or whatever. also, you and molly lambert and i should get brunch!

i don't know how to talk about music but why is the rhythm of the new taylor swift song's chorus so plodding? the chorus is terrible. i like the indie record line, though.

and on TS's last album, it was odd b/c the most outward aggression and meanness was directed at women, whereas the songs aimed at guys were weepy ballads - but really i think "dear john" and "innocent", far from being poor-little-old-me songs, were actually way more cutting and withering than "speak now" and "better than revenge", which were awkward attempts on TS's part to be funny (respectively, successful and very much not successful) (i don't think she's naturally funny at all, and "better than revenge" demonstrated all too well the bad comedian's quality of falling back on archetypes and hackneyed gender roles)

"dear john" is the number one taylor swift song to me that is super-terrifying, i would not want to mess with this woman. she's pissed. i like that song a lot.

i don't know how to talk about music but why is the rhythm of the new taylor swift song's chorus so plodding? the chorus is terrible.

yeah it seems very clumsy and basic - too much repetition padding it out, and pretending it's repetition-for-emphasis doesn't work. it's the chorus especially that reminds me of "my life. would suck. without you." - plodding is exactly it

not to beat a dead horse or jam up the love fest, but i get that the talor/gwynneth/betty triange was just a jumping off point, and i think it's a good piece overall. i don't reject the association of those three, but i am a little bit suspicious about the implications, about what's really being critiqued and the ways in which criticism of "traditional femininity" can reinforce misogyny. that's all.

i think it's safe to say we disagree, and i don't really see the piece in your summary of it, which is why i keep quibbling with your posts, but for the sake of the thread, we should probably leave it at that.

"dear john" is the number one taylor swift song to me that is super-terrifying, i would not want to mess with this woman. she's pissed. i like that song a lot.

yeah it's such a deliberate, elongated revenge. that's where she takes the conceit of every song being about a specific person and instead of it being a lil game to entertain her tween fans with gossipy clues, it's actually seriously personal and she wants this dude to really really feel humiliated.

"don't you think i was too young to be messed with" - it's like the secret message is that the "you" is superfluous

"dear john" is the number one taylor swift song to me that is super-terrifying, i would not want to mess with this woman. she's pissed.

If you really think this, I would stick with Molly Lambert and avoid Miranda Lambert.

i don't understand what you mean. i like miranda lambert. i get that you think molly lambert is unreadable. what happened, i am confused?

when the original link went up I thought, "Man, it's about time Miranda Lambert weighted in gender politics."

pretty good song, i think! i'm more or less indifferent but respect swift's steez etc etc. good chorus anyway, i'm looking forward to hearing it on the pop station at the gym for the next 12 mos. i guess unlike lambert (and her ilx fans) i don't find the combo of undeniable talent and slightly-caveated social conservatism to be as profoundly compelling. i wonder what it means that this doesn't sound like country anymore. but pink doesn't sound like r&b anymore either...

there's a couple claims in that lambert piece that are kind of suspect. i had no sense that BPD and narcissism are classed as female and male, respectively (minor point i guess)

"It is the thing that is scariest and most fascist about the bulk of politicians and politics in general, and why Obama is genuinely revolutionary in his feminism and aversion to macho bullshit, but also why he gets called a pussy (sigh)."

i think this is way way off

(did we talk about caitlin flanagan's piece on jfk the scary womanizer and liberals as... whatever people who fall in love/excuse scary womanizers are) (lol trolling)

i had thought that BPD was associated with women, but i can't really cite that and don't know where i got that idea from.

definitely don't think of Obama as having an aversion to macho bullshit, true. i am just going to mindlessly defend everything molly lambert ever said, though, tbh.

welp now i have to go find this stupid caitlin flanagan piece THANKS

that was one of those remarks which keeps me from thinking the piece is perfect. I'm not sure you can BE a successful pol in the U.S. without macho bullshit posturing.

the beauty of molly lambert's former blogstyle is her free association and the fact that she never cites anything, but i can see how others would disagree.

even women (e.g. HRC).

the best molly lambert thisrecording blogpost is a different one but it means too much to me to post on ilx lol

hs when i said 'lol trolling' i kind of meant myself

oh bringing up caitlin flanagan is definitely trolling

just found something on stanford's website about BPD occurring 2-3 times as frequently among women as men fwiw

whoa ok

also molly lambert rules caitlin flanagan drools

i don't understand what you mean. i like miranda lambert. i get that you think molly lambert is unreadable. what happened, i am confused?

xpost It was a joke. That is, if Taylor Swift scares you with "Dear John," then lookout for the female country singer who actually threatens to shoot you if you do her wrong. Bringing in Molly was just a goofy connector to Miranda.

i just read the caitlin flanagan on jfk article and i don't really get it

sorry for offtopic

Jeff ‏@jeff1317

I never thought I'd hear a dubstep/pop solo Taylor Swift song... but then that just happened... #red

lol?

just read a ton of molly lambert posts over last couple days bc of this thread and they are so good, esp love her writing about jack nicholson, warren beaty, sharon stone/basic instinct - all her film writing and celebrity analysis stuff is compelling. piece where she deconstructs john mayer is hilarious too - not sure if that was linked here?

<3 isn't she the best

i just wish there was like a catalog or rss feed or something where i could regularly read her writing

her writing for grantland is way less good :( she has this regular column reporting on stuff like us weekly. i don't think it adequately accommodates her genius.

i haven't looked at grantland in months, actually; maybe that's no longer true.

i haven't seen anything there remotely like her this recording format which suxx

Jeff ‏@jeff1317

I never thought I'd hear a dubstep/pop solo Taylor Swift song... but then that just happened... #red

lol?

who is that dude? lol

idk some guy who always has all the information on taylor. very reliable.

he is reliable yeah

oh shit it leaked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XemtXy7aAWA

someone should do that skrillex_bee.gif photoshop but with taylor's face on the bee's body

I smell a new song coming!
http://bostonherald.com/track/inside_track/view.bg?articleid=1061154912

biggest digital sales week for a female artist eva

http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2012/08/21/159559500/taylor-swift-princess-of-punk

Uh, I think Ann Powers tries a little too hard here to lump all sorts of female performers together, but hey I'm a guy (and also she might have been given a limited wordcount). And maybe discussing Poly Styrene, Aretha, Pussy Riot and Taylor here the way she does makes sense to some. And I kinda like the Avril sound Taylor's going for with Max Martin btw.

Finally, someone else who thought of Poly Styrene when they heard Taylor Swift.

"The dialect Swift adopts in her new song is obviously modeled on Lavigne's perky smirk, which itself distills and dilutes a quarter-century's worth of unladylike singers: Patti Smith, Joan Jett, Deborah Harry, Poly Styrene, Exene Cervenka, Cyndi Lauper, Kathleen Hanna, Gwen Stefani, Courtney Love."

this is true as far as it goes. But the laundry list needs editing.

As just tweeted by Popdust:

http://desmond.yfrog.com/Himg861/scaled.php?tn=0&server=861&filename=a0ncw.jpg&xsize=640&ysize=640

why were you tailgating?

Nothing better to do.