Taylor Swift - Folklore

Was Taylor referring to the National when she sang about that indie band in We Are Never etc

― self-clowning oven (Murgatroid), Thursday, July 23, 2020 11:13 PM (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

unfortunately it was best coast

cardigan is good but there are several tracks even better here imo! But it's not an album of singles that will take off so whatever.

Definitely some of her best melody lines ever here and they're allowed space to breathe

Holy shit @ "Illicit Affairs"

I think this is the best Swift album ever and I'm still only at August on my first play

still on my first time through and have been knocked for 6 a few times, most recently on "invisible string"

"August" has a very specific vibe I'm having trouble placing. The Sundays? Sixpence None the Richer?

On about the 4th time through August I realized the opening reminds me of "Life in a Northern Town." (A good thing.)

I also hear a bit of 'Back for Good' by Take That in it. The "I can see..." bit reminds me of "whatever I said, whatever I did".

re "August", it's very "Here's Where The Story Ends" or "Homeward" from The Sundays, but the chorus also has overtones of 90s Cocteau Twins.

Re « August » the « I can see » part reminds me of... « I’m Gonna Be (500 miles) » !

when brad compared it to cocteau twins i heard it immediately, the shimmering guitar + drum machine + the "i can see us lost in the memory..." melody

"Seven" is very Sufjan

with rapping

(also - I'm hesitant to type this - but in "Mirrorball," when she starts to sing "You'll find me on my tallest tiptoes," it totally sounds like she's about to sing "You'll find me on my toilet...")

cosigning this

Funnier later in the chorus (?) where it sounds like she’s saying “...but I’m still on my toilet.”

re "August", it's very "Here's Where The Story Ends" or "Homeward" from The Sundays, but the chorus also has overtones of 90s Cocteau Twins.

― Tim F, Friday, July 24, 2020

A helluva thing to read first thing

I love this album
I think it reflects both the best of Taylor's writing and also of The National folks' production
I feel like my fandom for both respective artists is justified
I hope Matt Berninger is having a good day

don’t know if anyone’s talked about “peace” yet, but...wow, “peace”

I like the pastoral home-movie clips that accompany each track on the Spotify phone app. They help to set the mood.

Peace was the one that set me off, tears forming in my eyes. What a great album

so "The Last American Dynasty" is her less starstruck "Starlight" crossed with "Showbiz Kids," no?

God, yes, me too on "Peace" - that one really stopped me in my tracks, a heart-stopping tear-jerker.

xp last american dynasty immediately reminded me of starlight yeah

This might be the first Swift album I'm excited to hear, but I'm also curious to see if it passes the teen test. That is, will my actual bonafide teen girls like and listen to it. My older one never really got into the last couple of Swift albums, but my younger one really liked the last one, I think partly based on how much she liked the documentary.

um "Cardigan" is really really beautiful

xp Josh in Chicago does Dark Souls pass the teen test?

I also bought one right of the bat at midnight. Turns out I purchased the non-explicit one, how the f**k was I supposed to know this would be the first TS release with profanities in in the middle of this whole frenzy and chaos.

I'm loving it, surely up to the standards of Lover, not sure yet if it surpasses it. I like the understatement of "conventional" Taylor, her subtleties and nuances hidden in plain sight. I'm afraid media will spin the "artistic statement" side of this to the point of exhaustion but in the long run this will pass, the songs will remain and it'll still be great.

For the time being, Speak Now > Lover/folklore > Red > Fearless > 1989 > rep > TS

hearing her swear is funny imo

I'm liking this a lot already. What's the term people use? "Tryhard?" So far this sounds much less try hard than her last few, imo. Just more relaxed, really pushing her strengths to the fore, perfect summer melancholia. Or at least perfect for *this* summer.

Older teen thinks it's really pretty so far, which it is. Younger teen was already listening to it, too, and her first take was "I like it, it's a lot more like her older stuff, before she went pop star."

Dark Souls does not pass the teen girl test, but that game was a great way to get them out of the room.

'this is me trying' is the most beautiful song ever.

No. "Cardigan" is.

I haven't listened to the album; I have only listened to/watched the video for "Cardigan." Does it sound like an LDR song to anyone else?

yes

for some reason LDR can hold my attention for an hour of dirges where Taylor can't, tho

This seems much less dirgy than LDR to me.

"Cardigan" is a little more revved-up than LDR, but the structure/rhyme scheme feels similar to me, and it almost sounds like Swift is singing in a slightly lower register than usual, but that may be my relative ignorance of her catalog talking.

re "August", it's very "Here's Where The Story Ends" or "Homeward" from The Sundays, but the chorus also has overtones of 90s Cocteau Twins.

sounds like she's been listening to Hatchie...

for some reason LDR can hold my attention for an hour of dirges where Taylor can't, tho

― k*r*n koltrane (Simon H.), Friday, July 24, 2020 6:45 AM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

you're playing yourself here

if I knew how to play anyone else I would!

take it to the gay thread, sailor

i don't really hear ldr but maybe that's because the piano parts on this are soooo national-y (for the obvious reason) so that's all i can think about

again, i understand that taylor is obsessed with ldr, but my mind immediately skips to references beyond her e.g. ... tori, "seven" even manages to have a kind of sarah mclachlan feel. feel like ldr would never make a record this lilith fair imo. which is not me dissing ldr but is def me praising this album

also to ufo's point, some of these songs would sound exactly like national songs with berninger singing over them. taylor manages to take them somewhere else though

ldr would never make a record this lilith fair

dangerous to say this so close to her long-dreaded spoken word release

I've never heard the National or Tori Amos. So I'll trust Brad on those affinities.

Brad otm there. A lot of these songs, you can totally hear the National, but listening to Swift sing then really underscores what she brings to the table. And Berninger, too, respectively.

rather spookily this and I am Easy to Find are both 16 tracks and almost exactly the same length

I don't hear LDR much; there's a lightness of being with which TS is imbued even at her most introspective.

not a band i'd compare the sound of the record to at all, but the verses of "the 1" are *very* the 1975