taylor swift iridescent smoke bombs thread 2019 - lover

really into false god now

I went to the show last night! It was my first time seeing her. As I'd said upthread, it was at a small venue, 2000 people, and we were about 10m from the stage. I don't have much to say that you probably can't read anywhere else. She mostly stuck to bangers, plus an acoustic interlude where she played, solo, songs she emphasized she'd written herself: "Death By A Thousand Cuts", "Cornelia Street", "The Man". They brought out a piano and did an amazing "All Too Well", with the band coming in periodically, then went right into "Red" and "Daylight", again on piano. The band was fun to watch; the guitarist with the feathered mullet mugged a bunch & I lolled. "Style" was another highlight. I'm still deaf from the screaming of the fans, who sang every word louder than mic'ed Taylor (I think maybe her mic was pretty low in the mix though, and she rarely belted anything). Tons of pro-looking cameras so this show might get released eventually. You can see the setlist if you want.

hang your head low
in the glow
of the vending machine
i'm not dying!

next year she'll be coming to Portugal for the first time. I still can't believe I'll see her live.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for more South American dates so much I can barely type.

Xgau put his review online yesterday: https://robertchristgau.substack.com . I've always liked his vision of Swift, and this is no exception.

"Lana Del Rey: Norman Fucking Rockwell! (Interscope) American studies paper on the late ‘60s fused with soft-core porn whose erotic charge is the deeper part of the synthesis (“Hope is a dangerous thing to for a woman like me to have—but I have it,” “Love Song”) ***"

Yeah maybe but I'll be fucked if I'm going to pay for 'old horny man' reviews like this.

I didn't get the horny vibes, but I just checked the rest of his reviews on LDR and boy he has never taken her seriously, at all.

It’s not just that Swift knows even more about having lovers, the concept here, than she does about being a star, the concept of Reputation.

reputation isn't rly about "being a star". unfamous people get talked about too. it's a concept calculated to foreground taylor swift's most canonically unpopular qualities but the experiences it's about are probably unavoidable for any of the "millions of women who manage serial relationships", so i think that album was for them as much as this one. i mean if you can't relate to getaway car it's because you haven't had enough rebound sex, not because you're not a pop star.

i do prefer this album and despite what strikes me as outrageous recycling of antonoffisms on "cruel summer" think that on that and the title track and "the archer" and "cornelia street" and... gosh a lot of it she seems to have relaxed back into her talent after successfully whiteknuckling the pop transition.

and the concept of lover is not "having lovers"

It's not just that Swift knows even more about the things that you do on a mattress, the concept here, than she does about being an actress,

should have mentioned "i think he knows" in that list, sometimes feels like the most complete version of neo-swift here.

yes! completely agreed. even the ungainly bridge is charming

lyrical smile
indigo eyes
hand on my thigh
we can handle the sparks
i'll drive

er we can follow*

Xgau suxxx

i am genuinely uninterested in what he thinks about any woman

gosh a lot of it she seems to have relaxed back into her talent after successfully whiteknuckling the pop transition.

This is a nice take/turn of phrase, btw

i am genuinely uninterested in what he thinks about any woman

he's probably better on women then Marcus but that's maybe only due to the latter's being more pitched at dissertation and deep beliefs level, and it's not to say that Xgau is anywhere near "good" on discussing women and the music they make.

"I Think He Knows" is one of my keepers these days.

as for Xgau, I'm surprised you guys have focused on the first lines and not his usual obsession with serial monogamy and how "this one’s for them.

With X-Gau I do put some value in going with the A when most established critics wouldn't really care. I like the risks he's taken through the years in assessing her; putting her in the same level of Merrit in his Red review, tongue-in-cheek as it was, would be an example. I'm not sure his take on music made by women in general is one of his strengths, but when it comes to Swift, most of the positive remarks he's made on her music are closer to the things I personally cherish in her work than any positive remark people like Petridis or Sheffield would make. I suppose the bar is really low with this guys, but still.

Regarding concepts; I really should go back to "reputation" as it's not as fresh in my mind as the others, but even though it's not entirely about "being a star", the notion of the public eye in that album is not something to be dismissed either. Unfamous people get talked about too, right, but the feeling I got back then was she was discussing a different level of criticism and observation; one that went beyond gossip or even the "Youtube comments section" chat of "Mean". And maybe that was coming mostly from the artwork, videos and a somewhat more oppresive sounding production rather than the songs themselves, but it was still a component that was there. Such level of oppression was something I can understand and even feel for her, but also put it a lot more out of my reach than the rest of her efforts.

I really love "I think he knows", it reminds me of "All you had to do was stay" in its commitment for the hook.

Regarding concepts; I really should go back to "reputation" as it's not as fresh in my mind as the others, but even though it's not entirely about "being a star", the notion of the public eye in that album is not something to be dismissed either.

yeah uh the album is called Reputation (and I know the title encompasses ever definition).

she was discussing a different level of criticism and observation

i think this is social media as much as fame-- or maybe just that i suspect people a little younger than me can relate to the superstar panopticon more than i do

i guess tho that it is undeniably (self-consciously) part of a lineage of "paranoid superstar" albums. i was gonna say "but it's not exactly the wall" but then i was like, unfamous people get repressed by postwar systems of control too

anyway a lot of it is just taylor songs tho of course.

Reputation still, uh, "slaps" (first & hopefully last time I use that term)

yeah no

(misused "panopticon" there of course, because the concept failed to prepare us for the reality)

"Death by a thousand cuts" is so amazing. It looks like it's just about to fall apart, all the time, but it never does. Instead it keeps growing and growing.

So when does this album come out?

Seriously, though, all I've got are anecdotes, but I think this is the first Swift album whose songs I have yet to encounter in the wild.

Been to Target lately?

I've heard "Lover" and "The Man" without making an effort

I heard “Me!” today in a BK

xpost Yes! I've been to two Targets in the last week, and I didn't notice any Swift.

Ours has a freestanding display of Lover CDs near the registers.

I was driving an in-law's car with XM radio and turned on a pop station and had basically heard every song on the record within two hours

I'll ask my kids, they're usually good gauges. I do know that neither of them have been listening to it, but one of them did put on "Speak Now" the other day.

Saw it at Target this morning.

our target's cd section has withered almost completely away except for the freestanding middle-of-aisle display of four different versions of diary-shaped taylor deluxes. (i got v3.)

I just saw her Capital One commercial again.

I do agree that this album cycle feels somewhat less Zeitgeist-y than her last few (but that's probably not a bad thing).

OK, just asked my almost 15-year old (aka target demo) and she said she likes the song "Lover" but not much else, esp. not those singles. She has one friend who is a Swift fan, but that friend doesn't like the new album. So ... who knows.

Oh, I did see a commercial for ... Capital One? Is was before a movie I saw, and it featured Swift as a klutzy waitress and stuff, where kids would recognize her and freak out and she would sort of wink and smile. Seemed like something Michael Jackson would do.

I finally figured out what "Death..." reminds me of: "No Scrubbs," the chorus.

Yeah, totally otm

15 is probably a little young for the target demo tbh (just)

I heard the sad Dixie chicks one when I was waiting to pick up hibachi the other day, not sure if it’s getting country airplay or if that was an employee’s playlist

now im into 'i think he knows'

its only taylor doing the hi pitched falsetto (prince-ish) beginning chorus part? idk ive heard her there before

this album rules. i only skip ‘London boy’ and ‘me’ now

she shouldve make a whole album that sounds like ‘lover’ tho. i don’t really get how u can write a song like that and not want to squeeze that vibe out for all it’s worth

agree w that, but that album would flop, and she's like an llc, she has an obligation to the army of people who depend on her for a living to make big hit records

i don't really think the eventual return-to-her-roots singer-songwriter album she's likely going to make at some point is going to flop

Agree but she needs to wait til she's like 45