taylor swift iridescent smoke bombs thread 2019 - lover

If Tom Waits could sue for a Taco Bell sound alike, why couldn't she sue for a naked Taylor look alike?

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/can-taylor-swift-sue-kanye-west-over-famous-video-101540/

Ugh, the final paragraph in that piece.... #triggered

The entire Famous thing was misogynistic as fuck. from Kanye making that phone call and relying on Taylor’s goodwill. And to have his wife taping the call so they could publicly shame TS was gross as fuck. And people taking Kanye’s side—fuck them forever. If she’s mad at a guy who participated in that—good on her.

prince signed with warner when he was 18 (in 1977) and the dust up over his masters really began in 1993, 16 years later
taylor signed with big machine when she was 15-16 (in 2005) and this dust up happened 14 years after that
so...

anyway j0rd otm about how this shines a spotlight on the way younger artists who aren’t white dudes get exploited by the biz

I don’t think even young white dudes necessarily get a break(?) Prince and Taylor just got huge enough to make a stink.

(I’m just speaking of the “ownership of masters” contract terms, of course; not the other creepy stuff that Taylor’s also had to deal with)

Prince started his public feud with WB in 1993...a year after signing a $100 million dollar contract with them. And of course before that, even as a young dude, he had afaict total creative control. In 1996 WB let Prince go. 15 years or so after that, he signed to WB again. I was never entirely sure what Prince's problem with WB was, exactly, but then, Prince may not be your typical story.

Did/does Madonna own her masters? Springsteen? I think U2 might own their masters. I seem to recall reading that they negotiated a much lower royalty rate in return for owning the rights. Metallica owns its masters. It probably boils down to good management and smart negotiating skills.

Oh, and speaking of that Kanye video, apparently that "boundary pushing" new HBO show features (for some reason) an animated love scene between Harry Styles and another member of One Direction.

Springsteen got his masters back under the copyright reversion act, and then relicensed them to Columbia. He had a good relationship with them though.

There might be more to the Springsteen thing. I can say the remasters are copywrited to him. This article covers difficulty faced by smaller artists trying to get their masters back.

https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/7981597/album-copyrights-master-recordings-1976-law

Interesting article. I work in IP, and music rights are so murky to me; they’re like a dark art. I’d like to sit down with one of the music folks and hash through it all, for my own understanding.

You want murky, you should look into music business accounting.

it is considerably different for women imo, no matter their level of fame

― omar little, Tuesday, July 2, 2019 7:04 PM bookmarkflaglink

No, no, no, no, no, not love she said / Don't you know that it's different for girls? / no matter the fame

Call me a misogynist all you want (I'm not), but saying that one of the most famous and rich female musicians in the world is "playing the victim to sell more records" is just reality.

Do you know what's fucking more infuriating? Her using my identity to sell records. People get killed for being queer in the country, and her equating her being bullied with that is infuriating and insane.

Her music sucks, she sucks, end of fucking story.

Prepping the grill

— Scooter Braun (@scooterbraun) July 4, 2019

She should pull a Fogerty and just refuse to play any of those Big Machine songs.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, July 2, 2019 10:35 AM (one week ago)

I feel like this story sort of died out, but Fogerty actually had a lot to say about it (in relation to his own struggles over publishing rights): https://variety.com/2019/music/news/john-fogerty-interview-taylor-swift-1203261584/

Thanks for posting that, pretty interesting take!

@taylorswift13 just a thought, U should go in & re-record all the songs that U don’t own the masters on exactly how U did them but put brand new art & some kind of incentive so fans will no longer buy the old versions. I’d buy all of the new versions just to prove a point 💁🏼‍♀️

— Kelly Clarkson (@kellyclarkson) July 13, 2019

Prince was gonna do that with his WB stuff.

the def leppard move, iirc

She just rehires Max Martin and everyone else who played/worked on this albums — easy peasy, cheapy maleepy?

every hard rock band did it first

squeeze did it too

Country did it first

Jeff Lynne did it. Camper Van Beethoven did it.

Most those artists just had to get in a studio with their instruments and bash it out.

(I mean good luck to Taylor if she actually tried this, but it sounds hella frustrating and futile, I doubt she cares that much.)

should really do it live to address all points and sell the tour as "the last time I'll ever play these songs" then release the netflix special for the summer and the album in the winter and say this is all sounding very familiar when i say it out loud

This one isn't as bad as the first two, but still ehhhhhhhhh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KpKc3C9V3w

I feel like it shoots for a calm, dramatic grandeur, and sort of misses the mark (I think some tracks on 1989 may have achieved it better).

i think this one is good

some restraint and subtlety is nice to hear from her

The chorus doesn't hit as hard as it should.

personally very encouraged by how unconcerned this song is with being a radio single

would be delighted at this point if, outside of the singles, the rest of this album ended up being a bunch of moody, unforced ballads in the mode of this or new years' day from reputation. tons of people are trafficking in big hooks and big choruses in the context of this kind of music rn, none of them possess her singular talent for diaristic, melodramatic emo lyrics. i am super down for more stuff like this where she stretches out those muscles again in the context of tracks that aren't forcing her ideas into the shape of max martin hooks

i LOVE this song

I feel like it shoots for a calm, dramatic grandeur, and sort of misses the mark

I see what you did there.

first song of the era that i'd voluntarily listen to again, so, that's something

Agree with that.

I'm trying not to think about the fact that this means my most optimistic take on this forthcoming album is "maybe there will be a few songs that vaguely recall "This Love" and "You Are In Love"..."

would be delighted at this point if, outside of the singles, the rest of this album ended up being a bunch of moody, unforced ballads in the mode of this or new years' day from reputation.

also in terms of production these sorts of songs don't really bring out the worst tendencies of her taste like when she's trying to make a no 1 hit. ultimately i rate reputation over 1989 and maybe on par with speak now but there's something unforgivable about how dated her idea of pop music is on lots of that record. i feel like i always have a tendency to make peace w that album while i'm listening to it and then i get to "new year's day" and am like "oh right this is what a taylor swift song sounds like, wtf is the rest of this shit?" still tho stuff like "delicate" and "call it what you want" are "moody and unforced" in the way you describe and just on a pure taste level those songs are far more satisfying than ones like "i did something bad" or "don't blame me" that are kinda good in spite of themselves. it feels weird to say that antonoff is her best current collaborator given how mediocre he is generally and how bad "look what you made me do is" specifically but if they followed the path of "the archer", "out of the woods", "call it what you want' and "new year's day" they'd make her best album in years.

this might be one of the 5 best songs she's released since red

it's also just str8 up far more honest songwriting than this other bs she's been putting out

j0rd heavily otm

also in terms of production these sorts of songs don't really bring out the worst tendencies of her taste like when she's trying to make a no 1 hit.

I definitely think the simplicity of the arrangement/production on "The Archer" is a big part of its appeal. It's a bit reminiscent of the keyboard version of "Love Story" Taylor played on the 1989 tour.

Casting back to when her songwriting was at its peak on Red, it occurs to me that a lot of the best songs on that (e.g. "Treacherous", "Holy Ground") really placed the arrangements in a role designed to let her voice carry the show almost by itself (as distinct from all the zany detail you get on e.g "Shake It Off", "Look What You Made Me Do", "Ready For It", "You Need To Calm Down" etc. where the approach seems almost diametrically opposite - Taylor's conversational vocals intended to create a sort of warp and weft with the dynamic arrangement).

Neither of those Red tunes are literally one-note arrangements the way that "The Archer" is, but they share a recognition that Taylor is at her best when the melodic charisma of the top line, the emotional vulnerability of the vocal performance and the relatability and detail of the lyrics all come together. "The Archer" doesn't match those earlier songs primarily because Taylor herself is in second gear, but it feels like it's coming from a similar songwriting perspective.

"Cruelty wins at the movies" is a good line, a refutation (maybe she could call an album Refutation?) of her lyrical approach the last decade. Lately I admire her most over static synth patches like this. In 2014 she could've gotten a song like "The Archer" on the radio by force of will; now it plays philosophically like a cut from Eurythmics' Savage.

i wish there was a little more to it, but it's still quite nice

The verse melody reminds me of the verse melody from Hilary Duff‘s “Come Clean.”

It's a solid album track.

they share a recognition that Taylor is at her best when the melodic charisma of the top line, the emotional vulnerability of the vocal performance and the relatability and detail of the lyrics all come together.

part of what makes "you need to calm down" frustrating to me is that it has a really strong top line, but the rest of it has nothing else you describe and that's precisely why it sucks