Taylor Swift - Midnights

Where are my rights, as an Evermore fanatic, to be offended by this Midnights era getting exhaustively drawn out & attenuated... I really hope she regroups artistically when she comes off the tour.

hopefully we get that collaborative "post-rock joni mitchell" album matty dreamed up a while ago

The 1989

listened to “hit different” … it has the contours of a great taylor swift song but her production just sounds like shit these days i’m sorry to say

having interviewed matty before… he is someone, even w/in the context of normal ppl let alone celebs, where it takes literally nothing for him to get going for 2-3 straight mins on…. whatever. and he has a thought about everything. and he blazes thru joints the entire interview. the cumtown world stuff is an absolute unforced error on his part, no idea why he finds that scene cool or felt the need to risk the reputation of his art by going on those podcasts. well, i know why he wanted to but i don’t know why he did it. in any event, i would say that he is a deep thinker but also an indiscriminate talker. it’s kind’ve a horrible combo in general but also when you add in the “will say yes to every single interview request” part as well

"you're losing me" is out there. i assume the production is antonoff but it's less static than his stuff on midnights, it keeps shapeshifting to the very end. also features A Taylor Swift Bridge

Fans Speculate Who Taylor Swift Might Be Talking About In New Song ‘My Weird Little Racist Guy’ https://t.co/blYf3z71Rf pic.twitter.com/LqbyGT1L0n

— The Onion (@TheOnion) May 26, 2023

Ok kind of find that one funny

"you're losing me" is really good, fantastic bridge

I still don't really like Midnights, but I'm fascinated by the way Taylor is sort of stretching out the album's release over a period of months, so that what initially appeared to be a single album about a fairly boring happy marriage is gradually revealing itself to be a double album about a divorce.

(obvs I know they weren't officially married - just that this is turning into a full-on Divorce Album.)

I saw something that claimed she is up to the 5th released iteration of the album.

I don't care much about the remixes, but I do wonder if she'll keep adding tracks.

I have no idea how much of this she's doing on purpose. But it occurs to me that one effect of releasing an album in bits and pieces like this is that she's taking back control over the order in which people listen to the tracks. These days, album sequencing doesn't mean all that much, since it's so easy for people to skip and rearrange tracks. By spacing bits of the album out like Burma Shave signs, she's making us hear them in a particular order and on her timeline.

Are there any other truly new songs besides “You’re Losing Me”?

Hits Different is new, right?

Plus there was the whole 3 am drop when she initially released the album.

I think if she were doing it intentionally there'd be more actually new tracks, but that's why I'm interested to see if she keeps going with it.

i don't have any stake in taylor swift's music whatsoever, but i am absolutely a fan of there being differing versions of albums. some songs switched out, different sequencing, maybe short reprises referring to missing songs from differing versions, etc.

my big caveat is: just make it available for everyone to hear. exclusivity and FOMO bullshit needs to stop.

also xpost lily-

These days, album sequencing doesn't mean all that much

big oof. such a shame. everybody needs to listen to more full albums. maybe we should go back to the lovesexy model: just make the album one long track. maybe release the singles on their own. but wait six months or a year to put out a version with the tracks individually broken up.

“Hits Different” is on the Target edition that came out on release day (it’s the CD I have)

Oh, ok. I wish she were doing what I thought she was doing!

The AVClub listed these five versions (not including LPs with different covers):

Midnights, the 13-track original album available in both digital and physical formats, released at midnight Eastern on October 21, 2022

Midnights (3 AM Edition), the deluxe version of the album with seven additional tracks, available digitally only and released 3 A.M. Eastern on October 21, 2022

Midnights (Target Exclusive), which includes the 13 original tracks plus three bonus songs, including “Hits Different,” available only physically and only at Target, released October 21, 2022

Midnights (Til Dawn Edition), which features all 20 previously released tracks plus two remixes/re-recordings (featuring Ice Spice and Lana Del Rey) and “Hits Different,” available digitally only and released May 26, 2023

Midnights (the “Late Night Tracks” version), which swaps two “3 AM” tracks (“Paris” and “Glitch”) for the new remixes and adds a brand new “From the Vault” track, “You’re Losing Me”, available physically only and only on site at MetLife Stadium, released May 26, 2023

this handy infographic made the rounds on r/taylorswift a few days back-

https://i.redd.it/hwnl1ew1su1b1.png

I wish she were doing what I thought she was doing!

To the extent that she released an overt “break-up song” now, after the break-up, I think you’re not wrong…

so anyway...

lol

I seem to recall that when this record came out in Nov, there was a broad consensus that it was a step back? And not in the sense of "she should continue making folklorish shit with the National guy," but that it retreat from the developments of Lover and Reputation? I haven't listened to the latter since it came out, and haven't heard the latter but for the singles, but yet I don't understand that this record, which appears to be sophisticated by any meaningful contemporaneous standard, could possibly be considered a creative retrenchment?

Every time I reach for it my hand passes through vapors. I look at the titles and can't remember how they go except for the singles (cuz they're on the radio). To my ears it's her dullest (I didn't mind Reputation).

Same. It’s both an a stylistic retread and a “retreat” in quality (in that it’s not very good).

OK, I'd like to know which record or M.O. or style to which it is a retread… I don't know her shit top to bottom, but I like this record, as I like vaporous shit!

it retreat from the developments of Lover and Reputation

idk who was saying this bit, what developments? it's a retreat back to the sort of sound she had on those albums (although more specifically the moodier stuff - "false god" is an obvious predecessor but it's stronger than this whole album), not a retreat from them.

it's a swift album without much of the way of standouts and that's enough to explain all the lukewarm reactions. personally i think it's one of her better albums - it's consistent, the production (while still not great) feels less flimsy than lover & reputation, the only real misstep is "question...?", but it also lacks the high points that all her best work does and even lover had at least despite its many many missteps. i don't really think much on reputation is too redeemable though.

i guess what i meant is reputation and lover did change up her sound but they weren't positive developments for the most part, some of her worst creative decisions on both of those. and so then people were also unhappy that this one did little new

It's not much different from Reputation and Lover other than length and blah songs.

think people are mostly reacting to the sound-- suspect many are ready for her to move on from folklorish shit with the national guy but expect it to be to a place that isn't 1989ish shit with the bleachers guy-- unfair obv as even the most restless artists (not taylor) need to get their bearings sometimes

lyrically she seems pretty deft to me here in dialing up the pop-zinger quotient for the touring-again singles without abandoning or forgetting how to use the-- idk-- detachment? irony? she was working with on the last couple albums

something like "maroon" is both the most in-character thing imaginable (a taylor swift song made of impressionistic details from a relationship that reminds her of a shade of red) and also relaxed+questioning (+villain-less) in an identifiably post-lover way-- sometimes a "retrenchment" is really a gathering-up, a return to yr old skills to see how they work with yr new ones

(people are sick of her and sick of her fans tho lol. i mean i know i am.)

anyway the speak now reissue "vault" disc, w its new-wavey single and reminder that she still talks to hayley, has me hoping for a full guitar-pop album

i think she should stop working with antonoff because he's happy to go along with her worst instincts (bland terrible synths)

I've probably said this but I love Reputation and think it has some of her best creative decisions, exactly b/c they feel like a stretch for her... this feels like the "safest" possible album she could have made, in terms of it being so entirely within her wheelhouse than many of the melodies are familiar.

(also, I just don't think the songs are very good, but that's obv subjective)

anyway the speak now reissue "vault" disc, w its new-wavey single and reminder that she still talks to hayley, has me hoping for a full guitar-pop album

From your lips to her ears. I've wanted that album from her basically ever since "The Story of Us."

mostly hate the sound of the album and how monotonous it gets listening front to back--all of her records have a couple duds but this is the first to only have a couple hits. but the other thing I recall on (admittedly limited) listens is that every song seemed to have a direct antecedent in her catalog. I haven't mapped it out or anything but it was more a "oh, this sounds sneakily like X on Reputation" or whatever. no doubt it's the one i've given the least time to, though, so I'd be happy to discover I'm wrong on future revisits.

every song seemed to have a direct antecedent in her catalog.

You mean it sounds like they're each from previous...ERAS?

which appears to be sophisticated by any meaningful contemporaneous standard

maybe i have an incomplete understanding of the word "sophisticated" but this feels like a real stretch, as an objective statement. or perhaps it's the tautological implication that sophistication = quality?

i guess i'm just hearing something different bcuz my big sticking point w/ this album is that it presents her to be an aesthetic philistine. she is undoubtedly the world's no 1 pop star and yet seems to have no real ideas about what pop could or should sound like, except broadly speaking "other pop songs." and on top of that it's a (presumably) big budget pop album that sounds pretty cheap & thin to my ears. sophisticated? i wish i heard that. if we're judging recent major pop albums by levels of sophistication (which is a weird point of framing anyway), midnights doesn't even sniff beyonce, sza, bad bunny etc

and as for the creative retrenchment aspect -- and i said this in another thread the other day -- it's instructive to me that "cruel summer" is now in rotation right along w/ "anti-hero" and "karma" bcuz it highlights pretty directly how she's working over the same sound but w/ worse songs, to me. i mean, you listen to "lavender haze" (which i do like) and don't immediately hear "cruel summer" ?? am i missing something

I'm torn over the "Cruel Summer" revival. I'm happy this ebullient banger that should've taken off in 2019 beyond #29 or wherever it peaked is peaking in July; otoh "Cruel Summer" has been my secret Taylor Swift banger since it came out. Basically this is how I've wanted Swift to sound for years -- what a chorus.

the other day my son asked me what a comma was. So I go into a pedantic explanation about punctuation and whatnot. Then he asks, "But why does Taylor Swift say a comma is her boyfriend?"

Hahaha

comma chameleon

good post, j0rdan

i like all those songs - especially Karma - but they sound like she's just running the same mold through the machine

this, to me, is at least part of what made Folklore/Evermore so interesting and enjoyable. a world where she released Rep > Lover > Midnights would be worrisome.

Without knowing a whit about Antonoff's working methods, I wonder if he's more protean -- more tabula rasa -- than the Dessners, whose ethos is defined and as songwriters in a band have an interest in driving the sound.

alright, I understand where you guys are coming from! again, I don't know her shit over time but for Red and 1989, and I suppose I understand you saying that it's too redolent of what she done with Antonoff…when I say "sophisticated," I mean it is formally composed, immaculate and fastidious, and indeed not formally daring, like, say, bad Bunny Un verano… I too think that the end of the Antonoff era is overdue…

I will say, after listening to it in the car with my daughter since my last post, I think that there is a monotony to it, in that she most often doesn't differentiate her choruses and her verses: she tends to put one melody on a verse, a slightly different melody on the chorus, while a three chord pattern repeats throughout the song, occasionally with more emphasis on the chorus. And this method does appear to be an Antonoff hallmark. Her country shit that I have heard, which again I am not intimately familiar with, but also like mainstream country of the past 30 years, does tend to use verse/chorus differentiation and other traditional songwriting mechanisms like bridges and middle eights, that neither she nor many of the pop music field presently wish to use.

when I listened to it in November, there was no question that "Karma" was the champ… still is now to my ears, hands down…

I'm torn over the "Cruel Summer" revival. I'm happy this ebullient banger that should've taken off in 2019 beyond #29 or wherever it peaked is peaking in July; otoh "Cruel Summer" has been my secret Taylor Swift banger since it came out. Basically this is how I've wanted Swift to sound for years -- what a chorus.

― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, July 13, 2023 11:36 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

why taylor swift’s “the eras tour” is the tour of the decade (it’s not up for debate)
a thread: pic.twitter.com/lNUjSWbVl8

— Ron (@midnightstrack2) July 14, 2023