Taylor Swift - RED - October 22

not totally sure which one you think that is

"the lucky one"

the one which is basically britney's "lucky" except about a girl who transformed herself into a 60s starlet and then there are LYNCHIAN GUITARS in the second verse

and then there is another amazing twist and it's prob not LDR after all but until the twist i was seriously thinking that

yeah my immediate association with that one was "lucky" and there's so much ghostly guitar reverb on this record that it's hard for me to pin it to lynch particularly

i don't have my notes with me but iirc the first seven tracks blew me away and after that a few inessential songs creep in. get rid of sheeran and lightbody and there wasn't a song i actually disliked though.

"we are never..." - in the context of the album (ie nothing else is like it) i'm far more ok with it and its vapidity; it's kind of like, you have to actually parody yourself in order to move on? i'm sure there must be other examples of artists doing this.

"stay stay stay" is great, it's the only out-and-out country moment really.

xp there was def a really obvious lynchian MOMENT - am just going on memory from the playback

am going to have to wrestle with my bf's ridiculous stereo system to listen today, gah

"22" is "15" sequel, yeah? (she said yeah.)

i think the snow patrol dude song would be really good w/o the snow patrol dude

oh well

yeah i thought that too!

I couldn't identify a single snow patrol song so he's just a dude voice to me.

also i said on twitter earlier that "i almost do" and "we are never ever getting back together" are kind of the same song in very small ways, feel like their placement together is way deliberate and it's awesome

i am only at snow patrol now and the guitar bit is lovely

also, not the right place to say this but - lex the boy is a proper 'bf' now huzzah yay etc. YAY

actually that is an appropriate sentiment for a taylor thread.

too many thoughts so i am livetweeting them all here: https://twitter.com/lex_ferenda

amazing that the muffled drum bullshit of jeff bhasker actually serves "holy ground." it's so insistent yet totally contained

also, not the right place to say this but - lex the boy is a proper 'bf' now huzzah yay etc. YAY

that was more about the need for a shorthand

officially will defend the ed sheeran duet even though it's the most inconsequential thing on here

whatever. u like a boy.

enjoying that xpost

listening now. FUCKING HELL "ALL TOO WELL". like i knew i'd been blown away by it but it just happened again

wait lex had you not heard it since the listening session? OMG OMG

no!! they let us listen once! this is how playbacks work! they are the devil's work.

and that's the basis for an album review?

for some publications, yes

"stay stay stay" will be sleeper favourite, just irresistible. Dear Old Taylor

ludicrous lyrical conflation of "i knew you were trouble" and "99 problems" happening in my head

hey, you called me up again just to break me like a promise / so casually cruel in the name of being honest

and all we are is skin & bone
trained to get along
forever going with the flow
but you're friction

"treacherous" is fucking masterful. and...sensual

just noticed that she changes the chorus from "this slope is treacherous" to "this hope is treacherous" at the end. of course she does

why did chapman get "axed" anyway?

I quite like "Holy Ground," especially those guitars; it's like a pop version of an Easter-era Patti Smith track.

Chapman wasn't axed. She speaks about it In a recent interview. She wanted to try some new songs styles after collaborating with so many different people in concert on the Speak Now tour and he encouraged her to branch out. He still coproduced a handful of songs on the album. I just don't know which ones offhand. He did Begin Again at least.

'22' is a guaranteed fuckin smash hit

dont really have a problem w the snow patrol 1 but then again i like the carly rae jepsen w owl city song so ymmv. it sounds kinda like a plaintive lil stars (torquil campbell etc) song

still am blissfully unawares wut a ed sheeran is outside of the context of this

'the lucky one' does sound like LDR, esp the 1st minute or so, it's ok

really like 'starlight' also - chorus is great & it has v dope momentum

omigod the Snow Patrol guy's part is dreadful.

this made me appreciate WANEGBT even more:

Later, in a sidestage room, the ponytailed singer calls Never Ever "a definitive portrait of how I felt when I finally stopped caring what my ex thought of me." But Swift still had to exact vengeance on the guy who "made me feel like I wasn't as good or as relevant as these hipster bands he listened to."

"So I made a song that I knew would absolutely drive him crazy when he heard it on the radio. Not only would it hopefully be played a lot, so that he'd have to hear it, but it's the opposite of the kind of music that he was trying to make me feel inferior to."

And why would Swift want to create a single specifically designed to torment someone?

"Because that's fun."

I've listened to this three times and almost exactly like all her other previous work, I'm astounded by the first half and a little iffy on the second, though it ends strong. I'll co-sign DLH thinking the lyrics are her most "unspecial" thus far (I'd say this is true for roughly half of the songs) but I'm so happy with how this album sounds, including the assuredness of her vocals.

Also: I JUST LIKE TO HANG OUT WITH YOU ALL THE TIME. <3

'All Too Well' and "Holy Ground" are my new standouts - All Too Well lyrically, Holy Ground as a song. All Too Well is like Dear John or Last Kiss, which are my new sorts of favourite Taylor songs. Slow building narratives that pile on detail and nuance and cut across memories and dates and then erupt in moments of catharsis and anger and/or sadness.

Not sure if Sad Beautiful Tragic fits in here or not. Lyrically it seemed a bit simpler than her other heartbreak waltzes. We'll see.

You call me up again just to break me like a promise / So casually cruel in the name of being honest.

Is seriously bringing me to the edge of emotional upset every time I hear it in ways nothing has since that point around 4:30 in 'Last Kiss' where she pulls out

"You can plan for a change in the weather and time / But I never planned on you changing your mind" and then that PAUSE.

the one that kills me in that is "I feel you forget me like I used to feel you breathe," while in "All Too Well" I try to keep it together until the scarf pops back up and I lose it, like the one Julianne Moore wears at the end of Far From Heaven.

the scarf bit doesn't feel sad to me? the line about plaid shirt days and the way that you subsume your identity into what he wants you to be is intense and real, but by the time the scarf reappears it feels like a softer kinder version of the evisceration at the end of dear john.

it's not quite shining like fireworks over your sad empty town, but it's that last minute reversal of feelings from her to him that she's been doing since Tim McGraw when the last chorus went from wistful to 'hear this song on the radio and realize how bad you messed up'

"all too well" is a highlight for me

"dance around the kitchen in the refrigerator light" OHHHHHH MANN

omg "22" is incredible too

the first few tracks seemed a little less impactful than "all too well" and "22" but that's prolly cause i'm working thus not paying 100% attention

the first half is more or less perfect. the back half is where i have more issues. duets aside, i love stay stay stay but it feels like a bonus track a la 'Ours' on the last album. it's almost an old taylor song but it's more self-conscious. the country isn't being entirely played straight anymore. sad beautiful tragic should be great, but the chorus isn't clicking entirely for me. Holy Ground and Begin Again number among the LP's best songs though.

probably will never get around to hearing this but

You call me up again just to break me like a promise / So casually cruel in the name of being honest. is an amazing line.

oh my god and the delivery you have no idea.

that song alone you should listen to because it is swift doing best what she does best.

after two listens I find the album lumpy, misshapen. Even the songs she wrote by herself sound too deliberate, too studio-bound. I don't hate it though. The album reminds me of Miranda Lambert's own uneven last albums -- young women who created a character and now struggling for a sound and ethos commensurate with their maturity.

I do like "Stay Stay Stay" though -- it's a perfect throwaway.

Don't particularly like Swift's music or any of the new songs I've heard, but I do love the idea of someone so totally aware that the song she just recorded will get played a lot on the radio and will drive her ex crazy, not least because she crafted it to be the polar opposite of music from a completely different scene that she is also totally aware of.

"begin again" is incredible