Taylor Swift - Midnights

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

Also liked this one

Also don't forget THE FANS having the best time of their lives wherever seats they have inside the stadium 😏pic.twitter.com/V6MDEInQsq

— kiano⁽ᵀⱽ⁾ I Can See You & Timeless stan (@_18nz) July 14, 2023

i agree, VM, "Karma" is theee one

Maroon imo

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."

I've been thinking about how Midnights' mediocrity is startling not just in light of Evermore's excellence, but also the recent output of artists (such as NIKI and Olivia Rodrigo) who are heavily influenced by Taylor, yet express those influences in their own artistic voice... while Taylor herself suddenly sounds like little more than a carbon-copy of herself. E.g., "Vampire" (Olivia's new song) runs laps around anything on Midnights – it feels fresh & current & vital, without even sounding particularly "groundbreaking" (it doesn't have to).

take it for what it's worth, but with the 20-30-year-olds that I work with, Midnights is among her best albums

I've been thinking about how Midnights' mediocrity is startling not just in light of Evermore's excellence, but also the recent output of artists (such as NIKI and Olivia Rodrigo) who are heavily influenced by Taylor, yet express those influences in their own artistic voice... while Taylor herself suddenly sounds like little more than a carbon-copy of herself. E.g., "Vampire" (Olivia's new song) runs laps around anything on Midnights – it feels fresh & current & vital, without even sounding particularly "groundbreaking" (it doesn't have to).

― Bittern Storm Over My Hammy (morrisp), Sunday, July 16, 2023 5:52 PM (yesterday)

i have a hard time agreeing here on olivia given that she had to retroactively award co-writing credits to ppl she ripped off on three diff songs, including two to taylor herself. even "driver's license" everyone was like, "oh this is the new lorde. cool." i don't think people really care about this w/ her but it's what has kept me at a distance personally even tho from an objective POV i can see why she ticks just about every box ppl look for in "new pop star i'm obsessing over." she's also not even 21 so i expect we'll hear her artistic voice show more over time -- the new song is cool enough, it still goes directly off the billie eilish blueprint to me but the instrumentation & structure also align w/ her audience growing up in a world where queen is the biggest and most important classic rock band to exist

one of the issues w/ taylor is that she has repeatedly made it clear to us that when she thinks about pop music, she is unwilling to de-tangle the commercialism from the art. which, in her defense, is an honest way of looking at pop music, but also any number of legendary beloved artists before her have successfully made very commercial music w/o thinking about it strictly thru the lens of commercialism -- or even while rejecting the aspect of commercialism entirely (a single like "that's the way love goes" comes to mind). but taylor has walked us thru her thought process on a song like "me" and it is "i want every person on earth to hear this single, and so it must sound like xyz." (and also "i must flog the song in papa johns and capital one commercials" -- she hasn't said this part explicitly but it's clearly part of the package when she's conceptualizing songs like this).

i was thinking over the weekend about how lover is the only album since reputation where she let another producer/producer team penetrate the antonoff/martin and then antonoff/marting/dessner bubble. one is joel little -- i just like very little music this man has ever produced and his stuff on lover is absolute bottom of the barrel taylor music for me. hopefully they never work together again. but more interesting is the stuff she did w/ louis bell & frank dukes -- "i forgot that you existed" which, don't we wish we could all say the same about that song. but then they did "afterglow" and "it's nice to have a friend" ... "afterglow" is a very generic taylor swift song (basically "wildest dreams" part 2 or something) and "it's nice to have a friend" is one of the best songs on the album but completely anti-commercial by her standards. neither of those last two have been performed on the 'eras' tour so they don't seem to be particularly special songs to either her or her fans. frank dukes is goated but i don't think louis bell is a bulletproof producer by any stretch, yet he has worked very mainstream pop that i like -- particularly the new post malone music which is basically just compelling mainstream guitar pop (to me anyway). she never seemed to find a sweet spot w/ any of these guys where she was making a. commercially appealing music b. that is good c. that sounds generally like her d. but also seems to have fresh ideas about her sound or the sound of pop in general. and i feel like, traditionally speaking, when you pair the biggest pop star in the world w/ the biggest pop producers... you're hoping to hit all 4 of those bullet points, and great pop stars have often done that. i just think she really really wants her commercial music to be commercial as all hell, and that's what drives everything. even just the small slice of "it's nice to have a friend" shows that she can go in the studio w/ big mainstream pop producers & come up w/ something interesting -- but it seems pretty clear to me that she went into those sessions basically thinking "how i can make the biggest song possible for the age group 6-12 and their parents." she's big enough & good enough that she doesn't have to think about things this way, but she does.

had to retroactively award co-writing credits to ppl she ripped off on three diff songs, including two to taylor herself.

Well I mean that was dumb and I think simply reflected the current realities of the industry and legal climate. But in a way it kind of plays into my point, which is that she sounds so fresh and fun without even having to sound “original.” Midnights is a turgid drag and sounds much less original! (obv Taylor’s not gonna sue herself, lol)

i just like very little music this man has ever produced and his stuff on lover is absolute bottom of the barrel taylor music for me.

Totally. Little brought this cute perkiness that sounded nightmarish to me.

xo (you also cited Beyoncé positively, and she credited Right Said Fred when she probably didn’t have to, and I recall Kelis got pissed at her… etc. It’s just the industry right now)

idk "1 step forward 3 steps back" is literally just a re-write of a taylor swift song that was 3 years old when olivia was making the album. this isn't an endorsement of post-"blurred lines" copyright culture but "good 4 u" does exactly like the paramore song it's ripping off. it is what it is

there is a funny feedback loop between olivia ripping off "cruel summer" for her second single and then taylor ripping it off herself the first track on 'midnights' & then the song finally coming out as a single at the same time olivia drops her new single & there's two other taylor singles on the charts

OK sure on "1 Step Forward," but Swift & Antonoff had credit on that from the jump, and Rodrigo was very open about it.

Don't agree that the little thing is "Cruel Summer" is a "rip-off" (it's at most a little homage which shows how heavily Taylor-inspired she is – part of my point); or "Good 4 U," per this video (and my own ears, they've never sounded too alike to me).

(sorry, the little thing in "Déja Vu," which is basically a brief shouted bit that Olivia even said was inspired by the bridge of "Cruel Summer")

(and then had to deal in the others on the songwriting credit anyway later, just for "good measure," which never would have happened in another decade)

lol printing money:

The Eras Tour era might be over in the U.S., but that doesn’t mean you have to put your friendship bracelets up on the shelf. AMC Theatres announced on Thursday morning (Aug. 31) that it has teamed up with the singer to present Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour concert film, which will debut on thousands of screens beginning Oct. 13.

According to a release, every U.S. AMC Theatre location will run the movie at least four times per day on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sundays, with tickets for priced at $19.89 plus tax for adults and $13.13 for children and seniors plus tax (except for AMC’s branded premium large-format screens.) The film will be available in AMC theaters in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, with tickets on sale now here and here.

Swift posted a trailer for the film as well, writing, “The Eras Tour has been the most meaningful, electric experience of my life so far and I’m overjoyed to tell you that it’ll be coming to the big screen soon. Starting Oct 13th you’ll be able to experience the concert film in theaters in North America! Tickets are on sale now at http://taylor.lnk.to/TSTheErasTourFilm…. Eras attire, friendship bracelets, singing and dancing encouraged. 1, 2, 3 LGB!!!! (iykyk).”

one probably has nothing to do with the other but it's funny to think that Killers of the Flower Moon's release was pushed for Taylor

Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KudedLV0tP0

get that money while you can, girl (and then give most of it away)

THere's never been a theatrical release in history you couldn't eventually get tickets for - so finally a way in for the masses.

yeah, i mean, i think it's cool. a relatively affordable way to go see the show for all those folks who got shut out. there must be thousands of parents out there who had to tell their kids they couldn't go ... this is a nice consolation, imo.

i'll probably go see it!

And prices are lower for youth and seniors.

I wonder if all the shows will sell out, or if people will be scalping movie tickets?