Taylor Swift - Midnights

in pretty bad quality lol

It already turned back into a pumpkin!

(happy to preemptively make that joke)

she really baited everyone with the 70s stuff lol

So it doesn't sound like a Cardigans album?

it's just pop taylor but without the sort of baffling decisions that have been a regular presence on her pop albums

it's pretty easily her most consistent pop album but idk if there's going to be any big hits from this, it's a bit moodier and she's not really trying to force a big single

it's just pop taylor but without the sort of baffling decisions that have been a regular presence on her pop albums

Taylor Swift - At Her Very Best

well there's still one in "vigilante shit" but that's pretty minor

;_;

"sometimes i feel like everybody is a sexy baby and i’m a monster on a hill" holy fucking shit

"you're on your own kid" is taylor swift finally writing a rilo kiley song

i have to lol at lana getting a feature just for backing vocals

reading tea leaves here but getting “false god”: the
album from the cover

― flamenco drop (BradNelson)

i mean it's not quite the sophisti-taylor album we dreamed of but this was pretty close

def not listening to a shoddy leak days before release. cmon people

it's out tomorrow and even with a shoddy leak i think it's possibly her best, at minimum top 2

reactions elsewhere seem to be all over the place though lol

it's me
hi
i'm the problem, it's me

Would love if this opened with some “Reelin’ in the Years”-type riff.

Seems fitting that both Taylor and Liz Truss had to bring forward their release dates.

IDGI

Blonde zillionaire libertarians who'll shoot you without blinking?

How did Taylor “bring forward her release date”?

(I’d ask why you think she’s a libertarian, but don’t really care to know…)

it's me
hi
i'm the problem, it's me

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Thursday, October 20, 2022 8:01 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

know nothing about this but if this is a lyric from the new album i wonder if it's a response to that last billie eilish song

https://www.vulture.com/article/taylor-swift-midnights-into-it.html

^^^ I really like this piece, it takes seriously Taylor's work as craft rather than just as a reflection of her inner self (even if the overall frame is "who is Taylor really?"). Powers' suggestion that Carole King (or at least 'Tapestry') provides the better point of comparison for Taylor's work than Joni Mitchell seems pretty canny to me, though less because Taylor is more like King than Mitchell and more because the popular understanding of Mitchell-circa-Blue itself gets a lot of stuff wrong.

Laura Dern is credited in her video teaser…

Video to be released in a few hours. Listening now but won't get through more than a few songs tonight.

Damn, love how spare this is.

It’s basically “1989 pt. 2” so far, in terms of sonics…

it's distinctively moodier & doesn't have duds like "welcome to new york" and "bad blood" or anything as corny as "shake it off"

I wish there was at least one track like that to shake off the same-y tempos. I’m also hearing various melodic bits that sound recycled from other songs of hers. Overall, a little underwhelmed by the aesthetic retreat, and nothing super catches my ear, but maybe it’ll grow on me

sonically it's closest to the good half of lover but the production is richer

That is how I feel about the new 1975 album.

Xpost

I think the production on Lover was more distinctive, fwiw… going back now and listening to a track like “I Think He Knows” feels like a breath of fresh air.

(I mention that song specifically, because you can hear its chorus in “Lavender Haze,” and its bridge in “Question…”)

Man, if you don't like the way Taylor Swift writes a melody, you're just never going to like Taylor Swift I guess. Why? Because she keeps revisiting the same few tricks again and again and again for close to 20 years.

*you = me

She does that thing a lot where she quickly raises the pitch of a vocal line

To abuse a trendy phase – this kind of sounds like if you asked an AI to make a Taylor Swift pop album. (I do like “Anti-Hero”…)

Anti-Hero and Vigilante Shit are highlights for me so far.

lover was more upbeat but the production was a bit chintzy, i just much prefer how all the synth textures sound here

I'm not a theory nerd so I don't know how to describe each of her melodic crutches, but she does that thing a lot where, yes, she curves the ends of words up. Or takes the lyric down into a warmer chord you don't expect (except it's Taylor, and she's done it the same way 80 other times, so you DO expect it). Or that thing where she'll chop the cadence up very staccato. I don't think I'd mind so much if her accompaniment was ever more than an afterthought, but it seems purposely bland in order to place focus on her melodies and, y'all, them melodies are TIRED.

Still working my way through a first listen, but it feels like a deliberate grower album - the sort where what seems like "this is the best song" will change a lot for me over the course of say six months.

The dream sequence in "Anti-Hero" is great.

And stuff like that hints at how this is like revisiting a lot of the explicit motifs (sonic and otherwise) of the 1989 through Lover era, but holding onto the storytelling emphases and flourishes of Folklore and (even more so) Evermore - "Vigilante Shit" is basically "What if "Bad Blood" but "No Body, No Crime"?" ("Well he was doing lines and crossing all of mine" is hilarious and corny and I love it).

My first impression is that all the songs are basically good. They're all very catchy. And mellow, which might be same-y to some. But lie Time says there are so many 'good' songs here I'm sure favourites will shift a lot, turn into great songs in the spotlight.

It's not as exciting an idea or maybe album as folklore and evermore, but it seems like a remarkably consistently good selection of songs - possibly several of her greatest synth pop songs collected together.

she sounds much more comfortable overall with pop than before, she doesn't really awkwardly try to force things at all

lmao the "chaotic surprise" she was teasing was a deluxe edition with 7 additional tracks being released 3 hours later

they're all good but i generally get why they weren't on the main album for one reason or another

this album is fucking GOOD

bonus tracks are totally amazing

this album is fucking GOOD

― johnny crunch, Friday, October 21, 2022

lol wau. This to me after three passes sounds like her most enervated release, a poor second attempt at LOVER.

haven’t felt this positively about her album offcuts since 1989

“would’ve could’ve should’ve” is instantly one of her best songs jesus

My teen's hot take is that it sounds like a cross between half of Lover and half of Reputation.