taylor swift iridescent smoke bombs thread 2019 - lover

There were a lot of “issues” songs in the 80s that were no doubt otm but sound pretty lame now

and I never even went to Sun City!

Dear Mr. Jesus!

I don’t find this song problematic so much as clunky is all

I don't necessarily find it problematic, but it certainly is clunky, which is itself I suppose problematic. It just felt cynical and shallow to me is all.

"and control your urges to scream about all the people you hate / 'cause shade never made anybody less gay" is actually p sharp commentary on twitter pride discourse this year

i'm fine with "gay rights!" - taylor swift but i do think the sudden intensity of her allyship and the awkward lyrics in "you need to calm down" are pretty comical. but that aspect of taylor's been there for a long time - the weird tension in her public persona of being simultaneously deeply confessional and absurdly calculated.

I don’t find this song problematic so much as clunky is all

otm and also applies 100% to all her other songs

the weird tension in her public persona of being simultaneously deeply confessional and absurdly calculated

What tension? It's not a binary. How isn't a confessional mode also calculated? To whom are you confessing and why?

Ya if anything the two are synonymous. I’ve said on other threads that you’re making a decision when you decide to write a song that references your public biography... it is presented as “confessional” but it is inherently manipulative. Not necessarily a bad thing! but that’s what it is

It's every bit as strategic as what love interest you are appearing in public with and when, but there are degrees of subtlety to it that enhance or detract from the confessional effect. Maybe a la Dylan it will be revealed down the line that the entire curated Taylor Swift persona has been one long game put on.

The confessional affect, you mean. It's a pose too.

Yeah, both effect and affect.

But I think the downside of doing that too much - or I guess more accurately too *well* - is that, whether you technically are or not, you start to seem like a product. And a generic one at that. "Me" sounds especially like a jingle, and the awkward sloganeering of this one similarly sounds like, well, slogans. "Why be mad when you could be GLAAD" sounds like a particularly clunky bit of ad copy.

i don't disagree with alfred and fgti

i guess what i'm trying to say is that the calculatedness comes through so strongly at times with her that it can feel awkward and it's also at odds with a more typical sort of 'authentic confessional singer-songwriter' positioning and even a lot of of pop star personas these days which try to do their best to seem like 'authentic' and 'real' people etc. (i agree everything is a pose of course and she's moved away from 'singer-songwriter' for a while too etc.) and that feels a bit weird.

not really much of a criticism, the awkward part of her calculatedness is usually endearing enough (and could that itself be a pose? sure) but i agree with josh that it hasn't really worked out on the latest single's lyrics

It's like her trademark Award Show Face: there's a reason why it became sort of a mocked meme, because whether or not she was actually modest or surprised or whatever, she was unable to convey that "authenticity" in a convincing manner.

I do wish participation in queer culture by otherwise straight and/or mostly-straight pop artists was more all in, rather than kind of superficially political. Appropriation of queer and qpoc language and tropes can be both egregious AND fabulous (see Madonna's "Vogue")

This is an interesting comment to me; I was recently reflecting on how “Vogue”-era Madonna largely (AFAIK; I was around but not plugged into this angle) escaped accusations of “cashing in”
on a culture she didn’t actually belong to, etc. I guess the key, for an artist doing this, is to sufficiently establish your “cred” first?

It reminded me of Bowie's 1975 R&B move, but with a biographical grounding: Madonna had already been a visible ally to gays and had spoken often about the many close friends who died from AIDS.

i guess what i'm trying to say is that the calculatedness comes through so strongly at times with her that it can feel awkward and it's also at odds with a more typical sort of 'authentic confessional singer-songwriter' positioning and even a lot of of pop star personas these days which try to do their best to seem like 'authentic' and 'real' people etc. (i agree everything is a pose of course and she's moved away from 'singer-songwriter' for a while too etc.) and that feels a bit weird.

My takeaway from what I retained of Swift's last album and these current singles is that the most interesting, "new" thing that her work is dealing with is a pop star struggling with pressures of public opinion.. The closest analogue to me n terms of content is the post-molestation allegations MJ work-- "Scream", i.e.-- but in Swift's case, the pressure she's described as feeling is the product of online harassment for being [whatever she is] and [whatever she is not], not real legal battles. (The only real actual shitty thing I can recall off-hand in her public biography, which might itself even be hearsay, was her expressed frustration at being mentioned in Kanye's "Famous", followed by Kim providing evidence that Taylor had verbally signed off on the verse that mentioned her. Aside from this? music that doesn't land? a reaction shot where she appears inauthentic? She's had so many recent glowing public moments as well, her testimony in that civil trial w the groping DJ, i.e.)

What I think is kind of interesting about this aspect of her songwriting is that it likely has a great deal of resonance with her fanbase who themselves have experienced bullying, online or otherwise, that may appear incidental, but has had intense internal psychological consequences. We look at the evidence of Taylor overstating harm, and identify it as such, but also feel commonality with it in the ways we as listeners have, say, allowed some offhand online comment to destroy our day/week/month... and that to me is interesting, I guess, or at least the most interesting thing about this music

You are somebody that I don't know
But you're takin' shots at me like it's Patrón
And I'm just like, damn, it's 7 AM
Say it in the street, that's a knock-out
But you say it in a Tweet, that's a cop-out
And I'm just like, "Hey, are you okay?"

I mean. I hear this and think "her feelings are extremely hurt because somebody tweeted something at her and it kept her up all night and so she wrote this deflecting verse that awkwardly deploys vague-AAVEisms as signifiers for resilience and indifference." It's "Shake It Off", but clunkier, which suggests it's coming from an even more distressed place

Are the songs made with Max Martin again? I've read a lot about his process, and certainly clunky lyrics are a big part of it.

Sounds like The Knife's Heartbeats. Surprised no one's mentioned it. Good though, it's fun which is more than you can say about the last album. Very 'back half of the album'ish tho yeah.

Are the songs made with Max Martin again? I've read a lot about his process, and certainly clunky lyrics are a big part of it.

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, June 15, 2019 1:23 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this and "Me" were both Joel Little

(also max martin is very rarely a lyricist)

Maybe just Swedish hit makers in general? I remember reading something, maybe it is in the Seabrook book, about how many of the songs he's worked on contain really awkward lyrics and phrases, because he was more about the rhythm and sound of the words than the meaning.

Cf.: https://time.com/3088143/ariana-grande-break-free-lyrics/

Oh that is so interesting

I've had a private fantasy that Max Martin knowingly writes (or influences decisions toward) awkward lyrical choices on the part of artists he produces as a nod to his Swedish pop roots-- ABBA's own unusual choices of adjectives and unusual weighting. I can't imagine that Swift herself wrote "Say you'll remember me / standing in a NICE dress"-- the choice of "nice" is a weak adjective to describe "dress", the vowel-consonant salad of "nice dress" is ugly, and placing "nice" on the downbeat is awkward. At first I was disappointed with that line as it showed the seams of Who Wrote What on that song, but now I just think of it as Max pouring one out for Ace Of Base

does taylor swift have any songs where she expresses self-doubt

maybe it’s on bar 69

xp
Is it cool that I said all that?
Is it chill that you're in my head?
'Cause I know that it's delicate (delicate)
Is it cool that I said all that
Is it too soon to do this yet?
'Cause I know that it's delicate
Isn't it? Isn't it? Isn't it? Isn't it?
Isn't it? Isn't it? Isn't it? Isn't it?

There were a lot of “issues” songs in the 80s that were no doubt otm but sound pretty lame now

― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes)

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

The “shade never made anybody less gay” line is the clunkiest one for me because:

1. It’s a clearly engineered “mic drop” moment that feels like it was included to be printed on Official Taylor Swift Merchandise Available On The Lover World Tour Starting August 2019. Buy It To Prove Your Allyship!

2. The verse is about Westboro Baptist Church, and culminates with this line. What they do is despicable hate speech. It isn’t “shade”. Shade makes what they do sound cheeky and playful.

Why is the verse necessarily about the Westboro Baptist Church?

I have no idea what triggercut's talking about -- no offense, dear.

Even if it was, the Westboro assholes' moment seems to have passed.

It’s about angry people holding hateful signs at Pride parades. Is there another group that has that reputation? Pretty obvious who she had in mind imo.

i don't think there's anything lyrically awkward about "delicate"

offered without comment: https://pitchfork.com/news/taylor-swift-surprises-nyc-bar-plays-shake-it-off-watch/

Me neither — I was responding to, “ does taylor swift have any songs where she expresses self-doubt”

(xp)

(Well, I actually do think one line is awkward...)

xpost Ugh, it really is all part of her album rollout, isn't it?

It suggests the actions of someone who sees Kacey Musgraves as a threat.

Kacey only has several million records and a dozen hits to go!

yeah, of course, just maybe Taylor thinks she'd like the ease with the LGBTQI community that Kacey seems to have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkk9gvTmCXY

that certainly is a music video for this song (i like it)

Taylor missed a chance to throw shade at Kanye by having one of those protesters hold a We Want Hen Fap sign.

shade never made anyone less ye

there is nothing about this that feels ~real~ to me

Taylor's strength as a songwriter has always been the little details, the specifics, that made her feel so relatable even at her commercial and critical peaks

here she doesn't sound angry or frustrated, it's just a nothingy shrug of Pride slogans and gay slang, and it's annoying that yet again celebrities who identify as cis and hetero will no doubt get to shape narratives about LGBT life

its very funny to me that the absurd rumour about the video "katy and taylor will kiss while dressed as a burger and fries" that taylor felt the need to publicly deny on her tumblr wasnt completely made up

nah, that's "Robert De Niro's Waiting"