Taylor Swift - RED - October 22

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

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

Agreed. Although the real killer is "After plaid shirt days and nights when you made me your own /
Now you mail back my things and I walk home alone." "When you made me your own" made me start when I was first listening to the song - the clearest indication yet that she's not about fairy tales and princesses anymore. The picking back up on the scarf at the end of the song is brilliant - it's like whatever Chekhov said about a loaded gun in act one that must go off in act five.

But the "dance around the kitchen in the refrigerator light" is a brilliant line, too, and it recalls the "dance around the room in your PJs getting ready for school" line in "Never Grow Up." And there's a section of "All Too Well" that looks at the boyfriend's childhood in the same way as she looked at her own in "Never Grow Up" -

Photo album on my counter
Your cheeks were turning red
You used to be a little kid with glasses in a twin size bed
And your mother's telling stories 'bout you on the t-ball team

recalls

Your little hands wrapped around my finger
And it's so quiet in the world tonight
Your little eyelids flutter 'cause you're dreaming
So I tuck you in, turn on your favorite night light

She has a collection of core themes and images that she returns to over and over again in her songwriting. Although I think "All Too Well" might be her best song yet.

"Starlight" has maybe the greatest chorus melody of any song that she, or anyone, has ever written.

btw lex, great piece

Yeah. Really good.

or should I say LEGIT piece

nice piece lex!

Now you mail back my things and I walk home alone." "When you made me your own" made me start when I was first listening to the song - the clearest indication yet that she's not about fairy tales and princesses anymore. The picking back up on the scarf at the end of the song is brilliant - it's like whatever Chekhov said about a loaded gun in act one that must go off in act five.

― Driver 8, Thursday, October 18, 2012 3:12 PM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no longer chekhov's gun, it is not deemed taylor's scarf

now* instead of not

Agreed. Future literature students will study Taylor's scarf.

extended bridge in 'holy ground' sounds exactly like "to call for hands above to lean on, wouldn't be good enough for me no"

just read your piece lex, super stuff. would be nice if the haters could find another thread to hang out on but yknowitsilm.

the what

A+, lex

"haters"

"Starlight" is proof that Taylor is from an advanced civilization in the future, and has been sent back in time to teach us how to perfect popular music.

"Starlight" X-post with the Segue thread--

Oh my, what a marvelous tune
It was the best night, never would forget how we moved
The whole place was dressed to the nines
And we were dancin, Dancin' with Mr. D

Great interview/analysis, Lex. The closing bit about the car is great.

it's cool how incestuous this place is that nobody even bothers to link to the piece

What's it going to take for TS to listen to and love this album before she starts writing her next release?
http://991.com/gallery_180x180/Rickie-Lee-Jones-Pirates-298551-991.jpg

what's this lex's article you guys are talking about?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/oct/18/taylor-swift-want-believe-pretty-lies

enjoyed it, nice job lex.

thanks y'all

do i school the commenters who are going on about slut-shaming and virginal images? can't be bovd tbh

just don't even fucking go there. guardian comments are such a cesspit of fat middle aged men in offices swinging their tiny dicks around.

there are always a couple of really nice ones though!

really i don't scan the "i don't even like pop music" ones any more (like wtf are you doing commenting on an article ABOUT POP MUSIC then), but the ongoing "TS is feminism's worst nightmare" beef is just based in so many outright inaccuracies that it annoys me particularly. just wanna thoroughly fisk those arguments

you should!

Good piece, The Lex. So happy I can't see the comments from here.

speaking as a noncommittal non-close reading average-ass listener, this is a v good album and i thoroughly enjoyed it. (apart from when snow patrol dude showed up). (also maybe a couple songs too long, not that the songs are bad).

congrats to the lex first and foremost for introducing the guardian to "throwing shade"

Irl fistpump when that wasn't subbed out

really enjoyed the piece lex. can't wait to hear this.

Um. Confession. The Ed Sheeran track is really growing on me. Alot. I was skipping it but then I wasn't paying attention and I've heard it three or four times now and I kind of like it a lot.

Not as much as my new favourite 'Stay Stay Stay' but still.

AND I GUESS WE FELL APART IN THE USUAL WAY
AND THE STORY'S GOT DUST ON EVERY PAGE

stay stay stay for real is taylor effortlessly doing what she does best. like 'ours' it's not super ponderous or deep or whatever. it's a trifle.

but it's the kind of thing that delights and is delightfully crafted and that she could probably write in her sleep in 2012.

it's also the only thing that has the pure joy of something like 'hey stephen'. nuTaylor joyousness is A++ wonderful, but her ability to convey it without the big sweep of strings is fun too.

(see also: the piss-take joyful relishing of stealing a man at the altar in 'speak now')

anyway, i was wrong about it. it's not cutesy. it's funny.

i'm pretty sure we almost broke up last night / i threw my phone across the room at you / i was expecting some dramatic turn away but youuuuuuuu / stayed.

this morning i said we should talk about it / because i heard you should never leave a fight unresolved / that's when you came in wearing a football helmet / and said "okay, let's talk"

oh my god the football helmet line totally passed me by until now

that

wow

i really don't get the criticism that the lyrics aren't as special. there are so many perfectly judged lines on this album, so many passing details that you almost miss and so many elegant ways of putting things.

"all we know / is touch and go / we are alone with our changing minds" - and then you remember that the casual, low-key "changing minds" is one of those swiftian motifs, not as obvious as tuesday nights or kissing in the rain, but her way of conveying how heartbreak is so easily and thoughtlessly inflicted, and the line becomes devastating. and then what she changes it to a verse later! "all we know / is don't let go / we are alone, just you and me / up in your room and our slates are clean" - forgiveness of the previous verse, redemption of it.

"put your lips close to mine, as long as they don't touch / out of focus, eye to eye til the gravity's too much" - and they say she presents herself as virginal. L-O-L.

recurrence of traffic lights throughout this!

interesting angle on the album, and taylor generally: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/oct/18/taylor-swift-red-review

real pity it was just a capsule review, b/c there are some things to unpack in there! impressive that at this point anyone can come up with a really original angle on taylor that i've never seen before.

also i'm kind of impressed that "the lucky one" continues to go undiscussed considering how baity it is (and as a song it's getting kinda underrated! the twist is awesome!)