Taylor Swift - Midnights

Everything helps, and 35k is a huge number, but you can’t help but wonder how many more she could have signed up (especially in TX, GA, TN, PA) if she had partnered with Headcount to set up booths at her concerts as other artists do. Not to cast shade on a good thing! But some folks are taking like she’s single-handedly leading a youth voter wave, and, well… hopefully she’ll do more over the next year!

If I had her power (but was still me) you better believe I'd be working to destroy the right / Republican party permanently.

Did you know these flags are apparently a popular thing(?) IMO, this is going a little far...

https://i.etsystatic.com/30929088/r/il/12f5e0/5010714171/il_794xN.5010714171_k4ou.jpg

Again?

she is the one who voted illegally in 50 states to get Biden the victory

Must be exhausting always writing-in the anti-hero

I've honestly wondered why more artists don't do this. A @taylorswift13 tour to swing states shortly before voter registration deadlines and/or prior to the election could honestly swing the election. Just need to limit ticket sales to people with an in-state zip code. https://t.co/DCSThbXyIP

— Secrets and Laws (@secretsandlaws) September 27, 2023

SwiftVote Veterans for Truth

Last time I remember anyone doing anything like this was the Vote for Change tour, with Springsteen, Fogerty, Dixie Chicks, Pearl Jam, REM, Death Cab, Bright Eyes, a few others. Didn't move the needle much, but the shows I saw were great! I stood next to Michael Stipe for some of the show, there was a mini set of Bruce et al. backing Fogerty ... and Kerry lost.

Anyway, I wish she did this, it could make a difference.

2004 was the first election I really followed from start-to-finish because at the time it seemed like the stakes were so much higher than anything else in my lifetime. I also remember not getting my hopes up that Bruce et al would change anything because quite a few articles suggested that the country was too polarized to have that many swing voters (i.e. it would be a close election, which it was) and that most people attending those shows were already likely to vote Kerry. Wish I had seen those shows, just to have seen some of them at a reasonable peak rather than wait until they were audibly much older. (Fogerty especially, also Mellencamp)

It is a little hard to imagine Swift going on a full-on pro-Biden tour, considering that she didn't even endorse a candidate in 2016.

Springsteen never endorsed a candidate until 2004.

My daughter told me that it's a running joke among Swift fans that her 1989 World Tour concert film features too much frenetic editing. So hilariously, someone posted on Tik Tok (I assume?) a version of "Blank Space" that accelerates every time there's a cut, starting normal before quickly careening out of control like a runaway merry go round.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPR7rMHSV/

Snagged some of the just-announced early Eras tickets for tomorrow afternoon. Finally my procrastination pays off!

And having seen said film -- that was very good, I thought.

Has any other act released a big-budget tour film while the big-budget tour is still touring?

Justin Beiber: Never Say Never

Good for him. Bieber is one of those acts that may as well be touring all the time, I have no idea, lol.

Film was very good indeed. Had a really good time with my kid. Our showtime was during school hours, so we were maybe 12 in the entire theater? Judging by the tik toks, it was a much different experience than what most got this weekend, but it was still joyful and loads of fun to sing along and dance in our seats together.

As a film, I most appreciated its simplicity: it is literally just the show, in its near entirety, with some modest FX introducing each era. The show itself has been well documented, but despite knowing many people who went, none seemed aware of just how much performing the dancers were doing. One in particular stole a couple scenes and was a riot.

I wonder if the “concert film” is about to become A THING, the way super hero movies were.

I would think there are only a handful of artists who can bring in big enough crowds to make it profitable?

We'll probably see a Morgan Wallen one

If nothing else the success of the financial model is what will attract others.

I'll stream/illegally download it when it comes out online but I don't see myself shelling out $20 to see someone who I like more as a songwriter than a performer (Swifties marvelling at how she could walk to the beat onstage comes to mind, the bar is apparently that low lol)

*to see someone onscreen, like I would obv shell out more to see her in person but it feels even less essential to see it in concert film form is what I meant

anyway

I've come to Taylor Swift through my kids and only know a handful of songs. Will be taking my 9 year old to the movie this Friday.

Does it feel three hours long? Because that's a long concert movie.

I wonder if the “concert film” is about to become A THING, the way super hero movies were.

It was a minor thing in the late 2000s/early 2010s, bookended by Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana (2008) and One Direction (2013) and including Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, and the Jonas Brothers. Tbf, some (all?) of those weren't exactly full-on concert films but more like backstage documentaries with ample performance footage. And that kind of thing never went away, it just moved to streaming (Billie Eilish, Lizzo, etc.) So the interesting thing about the Swift movie is that it's apparently just a concert film. In fact, I saw Stop Making Sense the other night at a theater that was also playing Eras Tour and thought it notable that two of its screens were devoted to concert films.

i would make a gag about SMS having a more "adult flavor for a mature audience" but TS's songs are hornier than TH songs

I think YGFDE is a better example of adult flavor. PW and FR not withstanding.

I've come to Taylor Swift through my kids and only know a handful of songs. Will be taking my 9 year old to the movie this Friday.

Does it feel three hours long? Because that's a long concert movie.

― Cow_Art, Tuesday, October 17, 2023 8:02 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I have a 9-year-old, too. Personally, I didn't think it felt overly long (though I'm a fan, and she did ask me at a couple points how much time was left). We did get up twice (well timed with the f bombs) to use the bathroom and get popcorn. Have fun!

I've read / tried to read a few long pieces recently about the tour and/or film, and they feel like so much mythmaking; like the writers are such huge fans that they're unable to address the subject without producing hagiography. And yet they also don't explain what they like so much about Taylor as a musical artist... it's just taken as a given that she's the greatest thing ever, and all that remains is to articulate how transporting it is to be in her presence or watch her on film.

It makes me queasy, feels cult-like, this level of devotion...

Yeah, it's odd, especially since this megastar iconography thing probably reached its peak with Michael Jackson. I guess because TS doesn't seem like she has skeletons in the closet or aspirations to be a cult leader it comes off as more wholesome?

genuinely didn't think we'd ever see another pop star on the order of Michael Jackson but Taylor has got to be up there right? is she huge internationally as well?

The film earned an additional estimated $31 million to $33 million across 94 international territories in over 4,500 theaters, putting its global receipts at $126 million to $130 million.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/15/business/media/taylor-swift-eras-movie-box-office.html

I've read / tried to read a few long pieces recently about the tour and/or film, and they feel like so much mythmaking; like the writers are such huge fans that they're unable to address the subject without producing hagiography. And yet they also don't explain what they like so much about Taylor as a musical artist... it's just taken as a given that she's the greatest thing ever, and all that remains is to articulate how transporting it is to be in her presence or watch her on film.

It makes me queasy, feels cult-like, this level of devotion...

― Chavez video on MTV, July 1995 (morrisp), Tuesday, October 17, 2023 10:53 AM (fifty-six minutes ago)

you may be looking in the wrong place for what amounts to music criticism. i think it makes sense that coverage of the tour is going to largely focus on the spectacle of the show, what it's like to be there, why this person provokes the responses the writer is witnessing etc. stadium tours are not really about putting songwriting in the spotlight

It is interesting to think of Swift's success in the context of streaming, the balkanization of music, the explosion of micro and regional-specific genres, etc. For some reason I find it reassuring that someone can still unite music fans to the degree she has.

I also genuinely believe Swift is the most talented songwriter of the 21st century and felt for a long time (and still even hear/read it on occasion) that she was dismissed by many--primarily older men--who saw/see her work as inferior or unworthy, so there's a righteousness in supporting the Eras tour and being witness to her success.

i'd be interested in reading a good piece that tried to really tease out what is driving her celebrity to break through several new heights in the last 12 months, from someone who really understands her career. i think i feel what you're feeling about the tour related journalism morris insofar as there doesn't seem to be anyone really getting to anything revelatory to answer the question "why"

the big taffy akner piece in the times about the tour is a great example of something that tells both a personal narrative about the writer's relationship to taylor and the tour, as well as retells taylor's career story, without actually providing much if any insight as to what happened to get us to this moment. like, this excerpt...

The college student told me that the night before, she’d been “baptized” — her word. She’s in her 20s now, but she has been listening to Taylor Swift since she was a teenager. She used to sing her songs in front of a mirror, alone in her bedroom, and Taylor Swift was a part of her childhood, not just in the way you look back fondly, but in the ways you look back with embarrassment.

“All the ways you’re so ashamed of the person you were right before this moment,” she said. “You could so easily be ashamed of singing Taylor Swift in your bedroom. You could leave it behind. But she doesn’t let you. She says, ‘Look, I’m getting older, too.’ You grow with her. What if we weren’t ashamed of our eras? What if we realized they were always with us, and you just didn’t have to feel shame about who you were?” She started crying; baby, I did, too.

tries to offer some insight as to a fan's relationship w/ this artist and how it's changed over time but what we get is meaningless gobbledygook. how has she grown with her audience, aside from the natural course of aging? what does "what if we weren't ashamed of our eras" mean... like actually?

the one thing i've heard/read about taylor that has stuck w/ me is brittany spanos from rolling stone saying on a podcast last year that taylor made a decision to consciously court a younger, child-based audience w/ lead singles like "shake it off," "look what you made me do," and "me!" ... the first and third of which are brightly colored brainless mainstream fluff of the highest order & the second of which is a song only babies could enjoy. i think this is the only thing i can remember that's really offered a theory as to how the most calculated pop star of her generation managed to further weaponize that celebrity

I have a young kid and all through the years of birthday parties, preschool festivals, elementary school picnics, etc. there have been DJs playing TS like every other song. Kids who are teens now probably lived through this too.

xp Do you buy that theory? My child is obsessed with the first four albums and loses interest with Reputation when she shifted to a more adult sound. I wouldn't have ever thought to lump those three tracks together into a "mindless" bucket -- "Me!" is one of many throwaway collaborations she's done with male musicians starting with Red that seemed more about cross-pollination fanbases than courting a younger audience.

Spelling is fun!

Hey... I enjoy "Look What You Made Me Do"!

"me!" is very trolls-coded, that's the only one i'd really buy that theory about

i grew to love "look what you made me do" but i am a baby tbh

(fwiw, that NYT Magazine piece was one of the ones I was referring to...)

thinking about it, i'd argue "look what you made me do" is the least calculated and most like personal lead t swift single ever maybe, like that shit is her to the bone, creeping sense of secondhand-embarrassment and all

How does one even distinguish between songs that were written and recorded with calculation to court a young audience from those that were written and recorded with sincerity because Taylor Swift is a young woman interested in writing and recording songs for young people/women?

Me!" is one of many throwaway collaborations she's done with male musicians starting with Red that seemed more about cross-pollination fanbases than courting a younger audience.

Why not both?

We need to get all Derrida here and deconstruct this sincerity vs calculation binary, never useful in pop music.

"I believe this wonderful song I'm writing for my teen fans makes a lot of money" is a perfectly honest position.

If it has a Bon Iver feature it's sincere. If it has an Ed Sheeran feature it's calculation.

if it has a G-Eazy feature it's 2014