Taylor Swift - RED - October 22

Keepers:

Starlight
Holy Ground
Red
State of Grace
Stay Stay Stay
I Almost Do
Begin Again

those + All Too Well + I Knew You Were Trouble + 22+ maybe Treacherous

"red" is so, so good, good in a way that for some dumb reason i never even expected from or wanted out of her

I'm listening to the album whilst purposely skipping the snow patrol and sheeran tracks, is there a reason to change that

Le1f is doing a set on pitchfork as we speak

The people watching him are dead

i just tweeted that, but why are you writing about it in the taylor swift thread?

the back half of this album is kinda -_-

hmmm not sure about that. stay, holy ground, sad beautiful tragic, lucky one, and starlight are pretty strong.

I mean. The back half is more -_- than the first half, like Speak Now, but I stand by Stay x3, Holy Ground, Starlight and Begin Again.

Speak Now had Never Grow Up/Innocent/Haunted which weren't the greatest.

(Remember the days I had an a blog I could use for stuff like this?)

The thing that's struck me, is how Red has a wonderful reverence running through it: that love may 'break and burn and end', but the moments of love experienced are the 'worthwhile fight', which feels like a more mature perspective from Taylor, who has been more caught up in the extremes of the experience itself than that hindsight appreciation. In State of Grace, and also Holy Ground, you get the same sense of reflection and captured glimpses of the past as many of her other songs (and Lex's interview is great for drawing that out, her intent to capture those fragments in a single song), but while, say, Forever and Always, and Dear John, are very pointed in the specific memory--they're designed as a message, and fuelled by regret and bitterness, and seem concerned with conveying that damage to the man in question--the songs on Red have a much more graceful appreciation of the memory passed, and love shared. Holy Ground is so lovely with the 'hooray' refrain kicking in, and even though we learn this is another failed relationship -- "I guess we fell apart in the usual way" -- there's a gentle nostalgia and sense of joyfulness driving it with those drums instead of acrimony.

All Too Well is my obsession right now, because it's a Dear John (Dear Jake?), but feels directed inwards, rather than to him. It manages to capture that sense of looking back, and having nothing but glimpses of something that is gone so completely, you have to remind yourself it existed at all. "Wind in my hair/I was there/I remember it/All too well," is as much a reassurance for herself as anyone else. I love how her trademark reversal of POV comes in at the end, with the scarf, and still feels like a surprise even after 3 albums-worth of this trope, and it's just such a satisfying narrative closer, it really hits the way Dear John did, with that final 'I took your matches/ before fire could catch us/so don't look now', but here we have 'It reminds you of innocence/and smells like me/ You can't get rid of it/ because you remember all too well'. And of course, that crushing line 'You call me up again/ just to break me like a promise' which is so typically Taylor and succinct, it cuts through just the way 'you made a rebel of a careless man's careful daughter' managed to pack a lifetime of relationships into a single line.

Treacherous is the one growing on me fastest, because of the quiet intimacy to it, and the late surge 'get you alone/follow you home' section. "Nothing safe is worth the drive". It really is one of her more intimate/sexual songs, not just with the 'say it with your hands', but the sense of hesitance and decision that comes -- cycling through 'this path is dangerous/but I, I, I like it' to 'I will get you alone' to 'this hope is treacherous' like following an impulse through the late night to the morning after.

I Knew You Were Trouble is a beast, of course; 22 charming, Starlight too, Red requires me to get over the Masarati reference which is about as un-Taylor as a ref to drop as you can get. Begin Again is a wonderfully optimistic note to end on, and I much prefer The Last Time as a Snow Patrol song that happens to have Taylor on it vs the Ed Sheeran one...

But on the Ed note, I do like how Everything Has Changed has that turn on a dime sentiment that comes up again in some of the other songs -- State of Grace's 'I never saw you coming/ and I'll never be the same', Holy Ground's 'took off fast/like a green light, go', and Everything Has Changed with 'I know something now/ something I didn't before' and 'All I know is a newfound grace/ all my days I'll know your face'. It's that wonderful concept of this person -- this person! -- arriving in your life, and it being the start of something irrevocable, the before and after of a meaningful presence, and how those beginnings seem almost miraculous in the simplicity of their change.

So, yes, fall = love of a new Taylor album is right on schedule.

^^^ HOTTTT POST, A+

"Starlight" has the irresitable momentum of the Corrs' "Breathless" and other prime Mutt Lange pop (doncha love the piano?). But then the lines about dreaming about ten kids let the song down. She's past 21 and can boast of a catalog of unusual acuity into relationships yet she's still clinging to Disney World princess fantasies?

That's basically her MO, no? Esp on this album, which accounts for the wild shifts in mood (something I initially saw as a flaw, and now find as an intriguing stylistic choice); that knowledge that comes from experience, that you are wary and cautious and should know better, but guardedness is no match for the rush of infatuation and its attendant daydreaming optimism.

Also, not that it matters that it's about Ethel and RFK, but didn't they have 10 kids (at least)? We know how much she likes to cram in those details.

RFK-Ethel is not exactly a model for healthy marriages (a healthy sex life mayhaps).

On that note, is anyone else thrown by "chose the Rose Garden over Madison Square"? Unless its just a general rose garden. Unless it's about Reagan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Garden_(arena)

So it's about Oden then, cool.

But then the lines about dreaming about ten kids let the song down.

oh that is the most self-aware lol-at-myself moment TS has ever recorded though!

MISSING HIM WAS DARK GREY ALL ALONE

Bonus track "Girl at Home" will please a lot of fans.

state of grace: best opening song in a taylor swift album? I mean, fearless is a better song but as an opening state of grace has that special something.

this is a state of grace
this is the worthwhile fight
love is a ruthless game
unless you play it good and right
THESE ARE THE HANDS OF FATE
YOU'RE MY ACHILLES' HEEL
THIS IS THE GOLDEN AGE
OF SOMETHING GOOD AND RIGHT AND REAL

― lex pretend, Wednesday, October 17, 2012 3:17 PM

now this make sense

the bridge of "treacherous" >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

such a neat trick she plays - the sexual intimacy isn't the climax of the song but the scene-setting, and the bridge is this sudden wrenching away that intensifies the emotions

the only track i consistently skip on this is the one with the snow patrol dude uuugh

hahaha i like it so much now

also, uh, ilxor owen p. did them strings

its too much of a plodding snow patrol song for me. them strings is dope tho

Starlight is amazing.

i feel more blue about "red" the more i listen to it. that synth in the chorus is so cheap-sounding/bad

I can't distinguish "Red" from "22." f

"22" is another one where the pop feels sorta... grafted on to me? idk.... something about the production doesn't sit right w/ me

more i listen to this, more mixed i feel about it. i don't feel like it touches Speak Now.

"Starlight," "Holy Ground," and "Stay Stay Stay" will likely be my keepers.

"stay stay stay" is another one that i go back and forth on. i think it won me over tonight but i think it's also a bit too luau for me to totally love.

The mandolin and "I was expecting some dramatic turnaway" are the winners.

or ukelele?

yeah i think it's a ukelele?

Huh. Speak Now always felt like a little sophomore slump to me. I've only listened to this twice, but I'm much more into it on first impression than I was into Speak Now.

i love this much more than i loved speak now at the same stage.

TOP-TIER/A+/IN AWE/AMONG BEST OF HER CAREER: State Of Grace, Red, Treacherous, I Knew You Were Trouble, All Too Well, Begin Again
EXCELLENT/ONLY SLIGHTLY BENEATH/MIGHT RISE INTO TOP TIER: 22, I Almost Do, Holy Ground, Sad Beautiful Tragic
REALLY WELL-CRAFTED AND ENJOYABLE BITS OF VARIETY THAT MIGHT WELL RISE: Stay Stay Stay, The Lucky One
OK I GUESS: We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, Starlight
NO: the duets

My score sheet reads about the same

Saddens me that I do not have access to this yet so as to provide cheer and solace.

Lex's comment upthread about the ten kids thing being Taylor having a joke at her own expense rings true to me even though I haven't heard the song.

I think it's easy to draw too sharp a distinction between the imaginary and the real in depictions of relationships, given the extent to which people's expectations and narrative frames end up determining or at least colouring their experience of what "actually happens". Taylor's always been interested in this dynamic, the assumption and the abandonment of the romantic frame, and I think the worst you could say is that thematically (if not in terms of detail) she can be a bit heavyhanded at times, but not that she's actually stuck in a fantasy land.

What I'd like to see her start to do - because I think she'd be ace at it - is to play with songs which still deals with this but does so in a way that moves outside the you-me romantic dialogue template (maybe she does this on Red, I don't know yet). Running with the Blue analogy, she's proven she's great at writing songs in the vein of "All I Want" or "This Flight, Tonight", but I want her to try her hand at a "The Last Time I Saw Richard".

Funnily enough the song that maybe comes closest to this on her first three albums is "Never Grow Up".

"Dear John" suggests she understands what The Real looks like. "Fifteen" shows she can scrutinze a phase she's abandoned "Never Grow Up" too. But I know what you mean.

My problem with this thing is its length congeals the songs into hypertrophied perk.

um. i like this about as much as 'speak now' but not as much as 'fearless'. i'm not even sure where the first album figures into my calculus now, given how far removed from 'Tim McGraw' we are at this point, although that still numbers among her finest moments.

'Speak Now' is easily a more consistent album. 'Innocent' aside, there's not much I don't care for on 'Speak Now', although i think the highs are higher here. RED has more songs that I don't really love but don't really hate, which is disappointing.

also, T-$wift songs aside (22, Never Ever, I Knew You Were Trouble.) the sonic palette is less varied here than 'big pop crossover' might suggest. a lot of the slow ballads bleed into one another, distinguished only by the lyrics (which are still pretty great, often, but just saying).

Speak Now opened with two Fearless-style Taylor country-pop romance/sex songs, but followed that up with strings-drenched adult alternative, the perky fluff of the title track, two perfect heartbreak waltzes (Last Kiss & Dear John, the latter of which had a killer faux-john mayer blues guitar solo), banjo-twang, Story of Us' power-pop, Never Grow Up (lullabye), Enchanted (the first of the impeccably paced reverby tracks that we get more of on RED), Kelly Clarkson revenge dance-rock, Paramore/Evanescence drama on Haunted, and the epic inspirational album closer. I mean, Innocent/Haunted don't do it for me and Never Grow Up/Better Than Revenge I go back and forth on, but it's a lot of breadth, it's a lot of breadth done well, and it's all written herself.

They've been talking about RED as something she wanted to do to explore what it was like working with a whole bunch of collaborators, and while Max Martin/Shellback brought stuff to the table that feels new and rewarding, the best track here is still a Swift/Liz Rose co-write, the other collaborations are negligible and her solo-penned tracks are more of a mixed bag than before. Of her own stuff, 'State of Grace' 'Treacherous' and 'Red' are somewhat new, mostly in that they have a bit more drive and sense of build/drama than older Swift fare. 'Stay Stay Stay' is something old done very well, 'I Almost Do' 'Sad Beautiful Tragic' and 'The Lucky One' are all kind of inferior versions of stuff from 'Speak Now' - 'Begin Again' and 'All Too Well' (w/ Rose) are the two Fearless/Speak Now type songs that match the calibre of that stuff. 'Starlight' is kind of Enchanted Part 2. Obviously all the stuff I'm describing as 'inferior' is still very very good but it's not at the benchmark of previous Swift stuff - usually it's great verses and a weak refrainor vice versa.

the toning down of the country instrumentation and Chapman's harmonies don't do the material any favours - like 'Back to December' (which I love) a lot of it ends up risking losing its character and sounding very adult alternative.

'Holy Ground' is the only thing that feels super revelatory insofar as it's not just new for Swift (a la the Max Martin stuff) but also new for me. Country-pop women mining Springsteen and Patti Smith and Joan Jett 'Bad Reputation' drums is more and more exciting to me every time I listen to it.

I mean. I like (probably love) a lot of this album. But as a whole, it feels like a less exciting move now than it did a few days ago. We'll see.

The worst stuff: the Max Martin-Shellback collabs. Swift is too much her own person to need the saccharine boost.

See? I quite like 'Trouble' and '22'! they're fun and she's having fun with them. 'Never Ever' is still...kind of tinny for me. Trouble is addictive with the things it does to her voice and 22's chorus destroys house parties and dancefloors and my heart.

but yeah, 'Trouble' is the only one of those that's a good taylor swift song. '22' is a watered-down K$ track and 'Never Ever' is ... idk.