Taylor Swift Glitchy Snake Gifs thread 2017 - Reputation

do y'all have promo copies or is this on apple music?

good tracks: Delicate, Getaway Car, Dress, New Year's Day. the emphasis on "de-li-cate" is a bit awkward though

a significant chunk of this feels like Bad Blood was the template which is really not a good thing. the production is generally bland. the I Did Something Bad bridge is especially odd?

Call It What You Want is almost good but I kept expecting a real chorus that never came and the title hook is really awkward rhythmically. the chorus feels more like it should be a pre-chorus or verse variation before the real thing when it happens the first time. King of My Heart suffers from its half-hearted cut-up post-chorus

I guess I just don't understand why all the old rockist tropes, long since thought dead, suddenly are valid when it comes to Taylor Swift

Got a girl from the south side, got braids in her hair
First time I seen her walk by, man I 'bout fell off my chair
Had to get her number, it took me like six weeks
Now me and her go way back like Cadillac seats

Body like a back road, drivin' with my eyes closed
I know every curve like the back of my hand
Doin' 15 in a 30, I ain't in no hurry
I'mma take it slow just as fast as I can

The way she fit in them blue jeans, she don't need no belt
But I can turn them inside out, I don't need no help
Got hips like honey, so thick and so sweet
It ain't no curves like hers on them downtown streets

Body like a back road, drivin' with my eyes closed
I know every curve like the back of my hand
Doin' 15 in a 30, I ain't in no hurry
I'mma take it slow just as fast as I can

We're out here in the boondocks
With the breeze and the birds
Tangled up in the tall grass
With my lips on hers
On the highway to heaven
Headed south of her smile
Get there when we get there
Every inch is a mile

Body like a back road, drivin' with my eyes closed
I know every curve like the back of my hand
Doin' 15 in a 30, I ain't in no hurry
I'mma take it slow just as fast as I can

I'mma take it slow
Just as fast as I can
(Body like a back road)
(Drivin' with my eyes closed) Got braids in her hair
(I know every curve like the back of my hand)

I also don't understand the levels of shitposting that are going on here, except that they're probably at my expense

Ann Powers--

https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2017/11/10/562360434/the-old-taylors-not-dead

...Too often, African-American music has been treated as delicious forbidden fruit that white performers have plucked to become more sensual. From Mae West in the 1920s to Miley Cyrus in the 2010s, white women performers especially have slipped into something dangerously close to blackface when they long to publicly loosen up. Swift does not go that far on Reputation — it's no Bangerz — but she has stepped over a previously self-imposed line.

Would like Swift’s Dead Petz.

I swear this isn't a shitposting - I actually really like End Game. And I fear I'm the only person who does so :( I like how it's a little melodramatic and there's some yearning going on, but it doesn't take itself too seriously (unlike look what you made me do, which, ugh) also the guest verses are nice

I don't think Look What You Made Me Do is taking itself seriously, it's trying to be campy (see the video) but she can't really pull it off

dress is great

it really is

it really is

wow whoops

take the first three songs and "Look What You Made Me Do" off this and it's a pretty good pop album. Still not anywhere near the standard of 1989 or Red but not the disaster I was anticipating. The key change in "Getaway Car" is such a moment, I can't tell if it's shamelessly brilliant or just a step too far. I miss her lyrics being evocative rather than descriptive but some of the melodies are gorgeous.

Meanwhile Jeppo released another new single yesterday, it's the Kid Froopy situation all over again eh?!?!

I don't know, I've been through the album twice and the songwriting is inconsistent and maddening as fuck. Her talk-singing annoys me.

Lorde got more out of Antonoff.

The key change in "Getaway Car" is such a moment, I can't tell if it's shamelessly brilliant or just a step too far.

the key change bridge takes that song from "good" to "remarkable" imo

"Dress" uses her falsetto to better effect than "Wildest Dreams" did.

I like Ann Powers' take on this album. I think Swift's made an album that she wanted to make, in sync with her tastes, and I'm happy for her. I don't know how much I love it yet but as ever I'll live in the album for a while before I settle on anything.

"so it goes" is.... extremely mediocre

"Dress" uses her falsetto to better effect than "Wildest Dreams" did.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, November 11, 2017 10:05 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol when i first listened to it i thought "well this is the version of 'wildest dreams' that probably won't irritate me if it makes it to radio"

ready for it
end game
i did something bad
don't blame me
delicate
getaway car
king of my heart
dancing with our hands tied
dress
call it what you want
new year's day

she's never put out an album this short but if the tracklist just ran like this i would put it above all of her albums except red & fearless. in its actual form i think i rate it next to speak now as her very good but ultimately flawed albums.

but i'm gonna listen to this way more than 1989 in reality bcuz i'll just listen to it the way i just outlined. it's kinda how i rate beyonce's 4 very high because i take out the 3 bad songs and tack on the much superior bonus tracks in my head.

ha yeah otm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE7JvEsCGkc

i really love this performance (and her performance of "new year's day" on fallon)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8QV5fa7xa4

halfway through this album, it's really generic and dull, not a patch on 1989. These songs are so forgettable. I'm sure it'll be a monster hit.

there'er some good songs but prob id call it her worst album? most of that is how great her other records were and still are

yes not a patch on red or 1989. it's just not memorable at all and it seems weird to have made this move; it's like, moving intentionally into a kind of pop music that is rapidly losing relevance. wish she'd doubled down on her strengths. oh well I'm sure it'll be successful and she'll do another great thing at some point.

what kind of pop that's losing relevance is she moving into on this record? genuinely curious, i haven't heard the record & don't know how to define the pop of the singles

that fallon performance is fantastic

yeah i'm okay with that

maybe it's cause i'm old™ but these unplugged arrangements are so nice, it's like i can actually hear the songs now

On Loving Taylor Swift While Being Brown

"what kind of pop that's losing relevance is she moving into on this record" pop of the katy perry ilk, which just seems to be falling out of favor these days, partly, I felt, due to the continued success of 1989 which seemed to buckle down on strong songwriting overall rather than over-reliance on one hook repeated ad nauseum.

"pop of the katy perry ilk" doesn't mean anything, though. In 2011 it meant Dr. Luke and Bonnie McKee. Around "Prism" it meant fake trap-pop and a bunch of singles that did nothing. No one is sure what it means now, including Katy Perry.

Can you describe the qualities of the "pop that's falling out of favor" i'm genuinely curious. sonically, lyrically, compositionally, what?

Two-chord cheerleader-chant boilerplate? I know my guitar teacher feels really bad when kids bring him stuff like Taylor Swift or Katy Perry, and he's just got nothing to offer.

ah yes, the number one hit "be aggressive, be, be aggressive, b-e, a-g-g, r-e-s-s-i-v-e"

(less snarkily: there are very few Katy Perry songs that resemble cheerleader chants -- probably more for Taylor Swift -- and if her discography is "boilerplate," after Teenage Dream it would have to be at least six separate kinds of boilerplate. "Rise" sounds nothing like "Birthday," which sounds nothing like "Chained to the Rhythm," which sounds nothing like "Swish Swish," etc.)

it wouldn’t be an ilm Taylor Swift thread without condescending nonsense; katherine otm

I mean, it's not just ILM but virtually everywhere. if I could go back in time I'd probably pick a different hill to die on, but unfortunately I am here, fallen on the hill of pop music not actually sounding the same

I didn't say all her songs sound the same. I haven't heard anything from the new album besides the first single, but I felt like the last two were really hedgy, with some glimmers of personality but lots of sort of generic Big Pop built to sell above all else. Product. If there is any sort of prevalent style perhaps falling from prominence, it's music strictly as off the rack product. Maybe? Maybe not.

many of the tracks sound like retreads of her own material, not other people's.

"generic Big Pop" is also meaningless. so is "product" -- literally every piece of music that one can pay money for is a product.

Sure. Everyone wants a hit. But the Max Martin school what I might call "generic Big Pop" - it's about selling sort of prefab hits designed to be, generically, hits. It's like something Robyn told me in an interview once:

Max Martin is an interesting example. He's one of the people that I grew up around, in the studio. He's still someone that I'm in touch with. I really admire him, and even though we do different things now, he's still someone I call when I don't know what to do with a song. He has a very particular way of looking at songs. He is a hit machine. (laughs) That's his specialty. But that's what he does. He writes songs. He's not an artist. He doesn't have the need for expressing his personal thoughts in a song. For him, it's about the melody. It's about cracking a code, being as efficient as possible.

That's sort of a what, rockist view? I assume Max Martin is pretty rockist, in his way. But I'm also reminded of Jay-Z's retirement doc. There's a scene where he is meeting with Timbaland, and Timbaland (as I remember it) is just playing him various tracks at various price points. Better/bigger the hook, the higher the price. Jay-Z picked "Dirt Off your Shoulder," but I remember some of the other tracks ending up smaller hits for other acts. That's what I meant by off the rack.

Anyway, the reason I think that sort of big pop stuff might be fading is that more radio stuff (to my limited exposure) seems to be driven increasingly by grassroots/street-level trends, from mixtape rap or Bjorky R&B. (The fact that so many singers are citing Bjork at all is part of this). Sort of like when hip-hop shifted from samples to original or at least stranger homegrown music, maybe some pop stars might be hitting a ceiling with the Max Martin style? I dunno, you guys are much better versed in and enthusiastic about this stuff than I am.

generic Big Post

designing a record to sell, vs. making the best music you can (in whatever genre) that hopefully will sell.

dude, c'mon – you KNOW this isn't a binary. I think Swift enter the studio making the best music she can and hoping it sells.

Maybe? I was just weirded out by the way she sort of willed herself into being a big pop star. Like, she had written plenty of hits herself, but followed it up by hiring literally the biggest hitmakers in the world to make her even bigger. Maybe she's making the best music she can, but whether or not she is she sure knows it's going to sell.

I dunno, I'll readily concede that maybe it just isn't my thing. But there are plenty of acts I'm not necessarily super into - like Rihanna or Beyonce, say - who I (casually) feel are digging for new or good producers/ ideas, like Madonna used to do, maybe. Vs. just going a safer route that might even sell more.

you don't become a big pop star by accident you will yourself into that situation AND hire the biggest hitmakers in the world