Taylor Swift - RED - October 22

I'll say this: the hipster line in "22" is much better inflected than the one in "We Are Never..."

You out clubbin' but I just made Caramel Delights

xxpost I think they're both part of the same logic though. Being unimpressed by the cool kids* is totally part of the pop lexicon - seems like every pop star does this, just as every pop star wants to celebrate being "miserable and magical". Being a damaged every(wo)man is kind of the standard persona now.

*(also, not that it particularly matters, but assuming this is about partying with Selena Gomez then it's more likely that the party they had to escape was full of models and actors with a soundtrack of rap rather than, like, brooklyn barristas and a soundtrack of best coast)

It might not bother me if it didn't make the whole thing totally 'Raise Your Glass Part II'.

And it's all probably subordinate to my private theory that "Raise Your Glass" is an example of one of those moments where a pop-cultural artefact is so self-identical with the trend it represents that it basically exhausts any further creative potential for that trend.

Being unimpressed by the cool kids* is totally part of the pop lexicon - seems like every pop star does this

i haven't noticed this at all! maybe because no pink song since the missundaztood era has made the slightest impression on me

(also, not that it particularly matters, but assuming this is about partying with Selena Gomez then it's more likely that the party they had to escape was full of models and actors with a soundtrack of rap rather than, like, brooklyn barristas and a soundtrack of best coast)

she dated indie kid gyllenhaal

not to bring biography into this too much but that is clearly the root of a lot of these things

most likely

oh yeah totally, there's that too. That's why I never bought alfred's criticism of the "indie record" line as being reflective of nervousness about her public image.

And I've no problem with her feeling some need to purge herself of her plaid shirt days. As I was saying it's the elevation of her and her friends' beautiful dark twisted fantasy that bugs me, rather than the mocking of cool kids/hipsters except insofar as the latter feeds into the former.

btw i'm not pursuing this discussion to try to win the point, more because I think the nuances are kind of interesting - totally get with and sympathise with yr position lex, and as I said it might simply be that i've had to pay more attention to p!nk.

Without checking, I'm pretty sure Australia is her strongest market on a per capita basis.

And it's possible actually that this kind of reflexive positioning as the anti-hero of the underdogs is something that Australians embrace in their popular music to a greater extent than in comparable countries which is part of why P!nk is so big here (though also, she's toured fuckloads), which is why I feel this sense of being target-marketed to when I hear it at work.

I feel like Swift has a different definition of "cool kids" than Pink (and Gaga and Ke$ha, for that matter). Pink et al do the anti-hero thing and align themselves as the freaks/weirdos in reaction to the the more palatable pretty and popular. They are Transgressive whereas Swift is not, and therefore not "cool." Swift and her pals leave the cool kids to paint each other's faces and bake sweets. Swift ends up DREAMING instead of sleeping while Pink raises her glass (of alcohol, presumably).

imo hipster-bashing is actually a really unique and refreshing position to take in the pop landscape in a time when so many pop stars and rappers are falling over themselves to get that hipster cred (fucking solange, jeez - kanye and drake too)

yeah man drake's been all up on ty segall's dick lately

xxpost I agree billy but I feel like the verses and pre-chorus of "22" are basically taylor trying to write a song in the transgressive vein and this is the closest she ends up getting.

(do they really bake sweets and paint faces? I had assumed breakfast at midnight was more a complement to getting drunk at home)

OTOH "You Belong With Me" definitely had the same working definition as P!nk et.al., just in a different setting.

Yeah that's true, but I never feel like Pink etc feel like they're dorks, and I think Taylor fully embraces that (and why I find the strain of "I wanna get back to being myself after having my identity subsumed by this Cool Guy who tried to Change Me [if you believe tabloid tumors]" songwriting on Red to be particularly poignant).

And yeah judging by her twitter they paint each other's faces and make pies constantly.

Yes I was going to come back and say that taylor thinking she's a dork is probably a key distinction.

BUT I think a big part of the target market for p!nk and even gaga is dorks dreaming of being transgressives - which itself is part of the more general way in which the gay coming out narrative is now the (not so) secret narrative to so much current pop.

Agree about the identity issues underpinning much of Red.

Yeah I've been thinking a lot about how gay American pop has become as far as the kinds of stars/narratives that have become prevalent; the wanting to be transgressive is key, and I think its's partly why some gays (and Sdoyle feminists) have embraced Gaga etc and not Swift (though WANEGBT's campiness has helped) because Swift seems uninterested or maybe cautious of transgression. This comes out a lot in her public interviews; she'd make a great centrist politician.

ooh that reminds me i must get round to putting online the swift quotes that didn't make it into the interview

Yes! I feel like that must have her most interesting quotes esp considering her craft. I assume you asked her those sorts of Q's, which is why you are So Legit.

Ever notice how much this chick looks like Christina Applegate in Don't Tell Mom (the Babysitter's Dead)?

ooh that reminds me i must get round to putting online the swift quotes that didn't make it into the interview
--lex pretend

Is this the part where she responds to your request to cut into her flesh and wear her skin as a suit?

haha

November 2008: Taylor Swift has a #1 album, and the last song is called "Change." November 2012: Taylor Swift has a #1 album, and the last song is called "Begin Again." I think we have to consider the possibility that she's actually running the country.

Apparently the liner notes include her secret political/punditry/out-swifting-silver messages for the US electorate. These confirm that "All Too Well" is actually about the 47% video; the subject of "Treacherous" is post denver mittmentum.

the Papa John promo is "carry out only" which is fucking bullshit

also, uh, ilxor owen p. did them strings

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Monday, October 22, 2012 4:32 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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

― king louie riel (rennavate), Monday, October 22, 2012 4:33 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ok, I had assumed that BradNelson was completely and totally bullshitting, but I just read through the liner notes for the 1st time. Nice job, owen!

November 2008: Taylor Swift has a #1 album, and the last song is called "Change." November 2012: Taylor Swift has a #1 album, and the last song is called "Begin Again." I think we have to consider the possibility that she's actually running the country.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, November 7, 2012 5:48 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

:D

No comment!

been spending the last three days watching her interviews on youtube. wow, what a personality that she has. now I'm officially in love with taylor swift the person. my favs are her interviews with ellen and jonathan ross.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOSHsthCZWY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggwKZh6TsNU

^^

so. SFJ and the Salon article huh.

is this the right place to act like a teenage girl? because taylor just won 3 EMA's. yaaay! so proud of you, tay tay.

that salon article literally gave me a stroke

I'md ying

I read the comments :(

REAL MUSIC BLA BLA BLA I'M SO SERIOUS CAN I SHOW YOU MY RECORD COLLECTION WHICH IS AN EXTENSION OF MY O SO CURATED MENTAL SPACE? ALSO I AM FUN AT PARTIES I PROMISE

what sfj article please?

it's his twitter. @sfj

SASHA FIERCE JONES

i love it when critics get righteously angry and stop pussyfooting around

http://msmagazine.com/blog/files/2011/10/ryan-gosling.jpg

Yeah the Salon article is the worst kind of cultural criticism -- throw a bunch of things together in a blender and pretend you've made some kind of connection between them. I especially like the suggestion that "Fifteen" resonated with families who were trying to rein in their spending. Waht.

The sfj tweets are funny, tho.

Heh, Guarino once (5+ years ago) wrote a favorable review of my old band, for a suburban newspaper. Weird to see him caught up in this.

I'm sure he had no role at all in this

I don't know what you mean by that.

Mark is a good guy, and it's kind of easy for SFJ to just shoot him down like a dick from his perch; can't think of the last time one of his New Yorker essays did anything for me but exist. I think the Guarino essay is fine, if maybe too messy in the way it delineates Swift's balance of "safe" and "personal." Same with its theory that her calculation has dovetailed with the economy (which maybe it has, but it's a total coincidence). But I think incensed reactions to it are somewhat misplaced, and I think the sexist stuff is a non-starter. Young female singers processed through the pop machine are a thing, no? While male singers processed through the same are much less so? Just can't get too excited about this controversy.

Anyway: Taylor Swift is touring stadiums this summer!

I don't think it's sexist, I just think it's a good illustration of how not to take pop culture "seriously." (For one thing, to take it seriously, it helps to actually enjoy it. Not at all clear he does.)

That's totally fair. He's begging his own question.

"Are we taking TS too seriously? Yes, because here are a bunch of pop stars no one takes seriously, including me, because they are not worth taking seriously."

Mark is a good guy

lol didn't take long for that to happen http://gazingmales.tumblr.com/post/35515975912/an-assignment-for-mark-guarino-who-will-probably-be