Taylor Swift - RED - October 22

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.

Ke$ha could not pull off 22, it's way too dorky and innocently lyricked for her. The only thing that makes it sound like k$ are taylor's gnarly vocal intonations in the bridge - which are almost more avril than k$ anyway

favourite song on the album for me is either 22 or treacherous

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)

"the lucky one" probably comes closest - this song is still getting way under-discussed, it's easily one of the most striking songs on red. "love story" might be a good comparison point - in both songs, swift begins by telling a well-known cultural narrative but their power derives from her own role as deux ex machina - how at the last minute she reaches in and flips the tragic ending that "should" have been coming to an ideal ending. ("the lucky one" is also interesting in that this involves the heroine going back to the countryside from the big city that swift usually idealises.)

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

one of the most impressive things about red is how she pulls this off - it should really be NAGL for her for exactly that reason, but 1) there are relatively few "pop" tracks; 2) with the exception of WANEGBT, they're all still defined by the taylor-ness of the sentiments and the songcraft; i don't buy that "22" or "trouble" could be by anyone; 3) they're judiciously sprinkled throughout the track listing in such a way that they provide injections of levity into an otherwise fairly ~serious-sounding~ album; 4) following on from that, they're kind of a way in which taylor holds on to her...immaturity, i guess? i don't think at this stage she's going to do explicitly teenage high-school-crush pop rushes any more, and nor would we want her to, but this is the outlet for that now

at the first playback i went to, they played us:

we are never ever etc
22
the last time
everything has changed
i knew you were trouble

now there is a troubling vision of what this album could have been

also as with EVERY ALBUM these days people are way to quick to set their judgments in stone. at this stage with speak now, i thought "last kiss" was the killer ballad, hated "mean", found "haunted" a bit too on-the-nose paramorey and don't recall having any particular love for "sparks fly" o_0 o_0

and it's not like speak now is some standard of front-to-back flawlessness given that it contains "better than revenge" and "the story of us"

so far:

state of grace 8,5
red 8,5
treacherous 7,5
i knew you were trouble 8
all too well 7
22 7,5
i almost do 7
we are never getting back 8,5
stay stay stay 8
the last time 6
holy ground 7,5
sad beautiful tragic 7
the lucky one 7
everything has changed 6,5
starlight 8,5
begin again 7

Xpost, definitely some of the judgements I'm seeing (itt and elsewhere) seem rather... pithy.

It was really Fearless that I misjudged at first - I thought it was too soft and tentative.

Speak Now i felt ready for, but Taylor's definitely an artist where it's easy to read into changes too negatively.

Also how much better does the "some indie record that's much cooler than mine" line seem now we know the full backstory.

i think several people who fell in love with taylor on her debut were put off by fearless at first, whereas for those of us for whom it was our introduction it was more immediate.

really not into people having to turn round fully thought-through judgements on the swift or lamar records this week. let them breeeeaaaathe

OK I am totally willing to spend $ on this, but my options seem to be either buying the actual physical CD for $9.99, or downloading the mp3s for $14.99. C'mon now.

Am I right in remembering Speak Now had a fairly high itunes price too?

vinyl is available from november 19 ;)

really not into people having to turn round fully thought-through judgements on the swift or lamar records this week. let them breeeeaaaathe

you try gettin' paid for breathing

Am I right in remembering Speak Now had a fairly high itunes price too?

Maybe? I got it on Amazon for I think $5.99, but that probably wasn't the first-week price.

hey what's the "indie record" backstory? xposts

It's in lex's interview.

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

"That was the most important line of the song," Swift says. "It was a relationship where I felt very critiqued and subpar. He'd listen to this music that nobody had heard of … but as soon as anyone else liked these bands, he'd drop them. I felt that was a strange way to be a music fan. And I couldn't understand why he would never say anything nice about the songs I wrote or the music I made."

oh yeah

Can't believe TSwift dated an ILM-er.

last kiss IS the killer ballad lex. duh.

But also the fact that she wanted to make a pop song that would particularly offend his indie sensibilities...

I don't think I was able to post at the time but yes, great interview lex!

wanting the mp3 of her calling you so legit

i don't even know how to begin to cut that section out (of a lol .wma file)

http://mp3cut.net - i guess it might take a long time to upload if it's a big file but otherwise is probably easier 2 use than boiling water imo

http://www11.zippyshare.com/v/99604550/file.html