Taylor Swift - Folklore

would love to hear the song taylor swift writes after dropping acid

i'm still trying to suss out how i feel about this overall, but it strikes me as a far more honest record than lover, which has some great songs as always but just feels clumsy and distracted as a full body of work. there's some resonant writing on lover but nothing w/ the emotional clarity and power of songs on here like "peace" or "invisible string". i mean compare "invisible string" which has obvious autobiographical elements but is more just a beautiful & broadly applicable song about having a soulmate to "london boy"... lol.

i'm not a fan of the national, and aside from a few bon iver things that whole scene has never really grabbed my attention. in my heart of hearts i still feel like there is better production out there for her -- ok fine i just want her version of 'the weight of these wings' -- but there's some really interesting and surprising textural elements on this record that have never really been present in her collaborations w/ pop producers even dating all the way back, so that's cool. the beginning of the album especially is rewarding as a headphones record.

if we draw a line in the sand after red, i still think reputation is my favorite... i think she really channeled the villainy that has always run alongside her public persona in a powerful way & just came up w/ an awesome pop record save for a few clunkers. but this is a good pivot for her and really has some knockout songs. i think there's a pastoral element -- that final third of 1989, LDR-ness about it -- that keeps me at a bit of a distance. but this is a better path for her to follow than working w/ frank dukes & louis bell. she isn't going to win at the pop game right now and as the initial response to this record on streaming shows, doesn't even need to.

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, July 28, 2020 4:05 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Fully agree

this might be the record that gets me into taylor swift. wish i could still buy new cds lol

I really liked Bon Iver's first album but found everything else he's done pleasant but slightly unmemorable; like, I really enjoyed listening to the last album of his, but can't recall a single song. But I like his contribution here a lot and I like that song, though, someone I know pointed out something about about the lyrics that made me think 'yeah, this is kind of an unsettling metaphor right now'. I'm assuming TS knows that and this is an attempt to turn nationalist tropes on their head, but singing about homeland is always a bit dicey.

There isn't a single album which wouldn't be improved by a couple of omissions, this one no exception; but I like Lover as much as the best songs on this one.

i should go back and relisten to that album; I think I gave it one shot and something annoyed me and I never went back.

"Cruel Summer" is top ten Taylor in my caon

*canon

"Cruel Summer" is the real keeper for me from Lover, if I'm just playing one song from it.

I like the live versions of "London Boy" I've heard (thinking especially of the BBC Live Lounge version) but I skip the album version.

There isn't a single album which wouldn't be improved by a couple of omissions, this one no exception; but I like Lover as much as the best songs on this one.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, July 28, 2020 11:33 AM (fifty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The s/t is pretty tight, no?

my favorite song on this album is “peace” because it sounds like frank ocean “solo” and i’m not ashamed of that fact at all

xpc
urious if Alfred was talking just about TS or in general there

lol

my favorite song at the moment is "august" -- it's "oh my god I can't believe music can be this impossibly beautiful and perfect" to me

I think "Exile" is awesome. Would I like other Bon Iver stuff(?)

"Exile" makes me wish Vernon had just sung in his lower register his whole career, maybe I would've had another artist I like for the past decade.

yeah you'd probably like his albums; try the "For Emma" or the s/t

cool, I'll give it a shot

"Exile" makes me wish Vernon had just sung in his lower register his whole career, maybe I would've had another artist I like for the past decade.

Crooked Fingers is hella underrated

this piece made me realize something that should have been obvious, which is that we clearly have a serious deficit of actual queer pop stars

xpost oh i love Bachmann

Taylor Swift’s ‘betty’ is Queer Canon. I Don’t Make the Rules.

this style of headline writing makes me want to die

Millennial Writing Style Is SLAYING X'ers and NO ONE Cares

whenever I find this person who Made The Rules they're going to get a real talking to

yeah that sort of breathless basic fawning is so unseemly

also there are plenty of queer people making great pop, they just don't become stars very often

Taylor Swift’s ‘betty’ is Queer Canon. I Don’t Make the Rules.

Such erudite etymological wordplay.

xp yeah that was an odd comment? Like there's more well-known and out young, queer pop musicians right now than maybe any other time in history? Lil Nas X, King Princess, Troye Sivan, Frank Ocean, Hayley Kiyoko all come to mind without a google search. Not suggesting that's cause for a "yay, systemic pop homophobia is over" but the arguable issue in swift's case is moreso that - same as it ever was - it's chic for straight presenting artists to co-opt queer culture/sensibilities... but i haven't heard the album yet so i dunno if that's what she's even doing.

chic and if you'll permit a slice of trenchant social commentary, lucrative

but i haven't heard the album yet so i dunno if that's what she's even doing

it's a projection based on the characters being named after blake lively's daughters

i know i prefer to think of the narrative as queer but i'd never insist on it and i guess taylor swift wouldn't either

but the arguable issue in swift's case is moreso that - same as it ever was - it's chic for straight presenting artists to co-opt queer culture/sensibilities... but i haven't heard the album yet so i dunno if that's what she's even doing.

tbc I do not think she is doing this! there are definitely clicks to be gotten by straining to include her in "the queer canon" tho. and I do think if there were more queer pop stars who were anywhere near her popularity level, ppl wouldn't be able to get away with that take. or they'd at least have a rougher go of it.

Sam Smith is another obvious one.

and of course also tbc I should have absolutely no say or influence on what goes in that "canon" I just found this instance funny xp

imo what's really annoying about that headline is not capitalizing "is," which is a verb

a lot of the initial push to read the triptych as a queer, sapphic love story has, in my estimation, come from kaylors who have oriented their lives around the theory that taylor swift is closeted

what's a "kaylor"?

you know maybe it's better if i don't explain that

(stans who believe karlie kloss and taylor swift were romantically involved)

https://www.theringer.com/music/2017/11/9/16625462/taylor-swift-karlie-kloss-kaylor-tumblr-shipping

thanks! figured it was a 'ship, but I have never heard of Kloss before

but also if taylor swift actually wrote a song suite about three women in love, that's totally awesome 2 me

hard to feel co-opted when a great writer is making a high school love triangle feel emotionally vivid and complex to me

I'm assuming TS knows that and this is an attempt to turn nationalist tropes on their head, but singing about homeland is always a bit dicey.

― akm, Tuesday, 28 July 2020 16:32 (yesterday) link

when i listened to this for the first time i definitely assumed it was about her breaking up with america rather than just a dude, and bon iver blurting "so step right out!" was the voice of all the conservatives who turned on her after she starting being vocal about politics. i like the song fine but i like it more this way than just as a "the last time" redux

yesterday the enjambment in the first verse of "seven" really fucked me up

you know maybe it's better if i don't explain that

this is definitely the kind of knowledge that, upon gaining it, wipes something more useful out of your brain

singing about homeland is always a bit dicey.

IMO it’s a better line for the metaphor than any alternative I can think of — “You’re not my country anymore”? My “nation”? Those don’t really work for a relationship (which can actually feel like a “homeland”).

"polycule" would have been more au courant

The clunky metaphor is actually the next line — “You were my town, now I’m in exile...”

“Town” is weak; something like “home” would be better, but she already said “homeland.”

(clunky metaphors are kind of her thing, though)

Whoever annotates the Genius.com entries for Taylor Swift songs has an annoying tendency of flagging lyrics just to point out very slight similarities with lyrics from previous songs of hers (like, literally, a repeated word).

Yeah, I saw some of those notations last night, those drive me nuts.