Taylor Swift - Folklore

I like the pastoral home-movie clips that accompany each track on the Spotify phone app. They help to set the mood.

Peace was the one that set me off, tears forming in my eyes. What a great album

so "The Last American Dynasty" is her less starstruck "Starlight" crossed with "Showbiz Kids," no?

God, yes, me too on "Peace" - that one really stopped me in my tracks, a heart-stopping tear-jerker.

xp last american dynasty immediately reminded me of starlight yeah

This might be the first Swift album I'm excited to hear, but I'm also curious to see if it passes the teen test. That is, will my actual bonafide teen girls like and listen to it. My older one never really got into the last couple of Swift albums, but my younger one really liked the last one, I think partly based on how much she liked the documentary.

um "Cardigan" is really really beautiful

xp Josh in Chicago does Dark Souls pass the teen test?

I also bought one right of the bat at midnight. Turns out I purchased the non-explicit one, how the f**k was I supposed to know this would be the first TS release with profanities in in the middle of this whole frenzy and chaos.

I'm loving it, surely up to the standards of Lover, not sure yet if it surpasses it. I like the understatement of "conventional" Taylor, her subtleties and nuances hidden in plain sight. I'm afraid media will spin the "artistic statement" side of this to the point of exhaustion but in the long run this will pass, the songs will remain and it'll still be great.

For the time being, Speak Now > Lover/folklore > Red > Fearless > 1989 > rep > TS

hearing her swear is funny imo

I'm liking this a lot already. What's the term people use? "Tryhard?" So far this sounds much less try hard than her last few, imo. Just more relaxed, really pushing her strengths to the fore, perfect summer melancholia. Or at least perfect for *this* summer.

Older teen thinks it's really pretty so far, which it is. Younger teen was already listening to it, too, and her first take was "I like it, it's a lot more like her older stuff, before she went pop star."

Dark Souls does not pass the teen girl test, but that game was a great way to get them out of the room.

'this is me trying' is the most beautiful song ever.

No. "Cardigan" is.

I haven't listened to the album; I have only listened to/watched the video for "Cardigan." Does it sound like an LDR song to anyone else?

yes

for some reason LDR can hold my attention for an hour of dirges where Taylor can't, tho

This seems much less dirgy than LDR to me.

"Cardigan" is a little more revved-up than LDR, but the structure/rhyme scheme feels similar to me, and it almost sounds like Swift is singing in a slightly lower register than usual, but that may be my relative ignorance of her catalog talking.

re "August", it's very "Here's Where The Story Ends" or "Homeward" from The Sundays, but the chorus also has overtones of 90s Cocteau Twins.

sounds like she's been listening to Hatchie...

for some reason LDR can hold my attention for an hour of dirges where Taylor can't, tho

― k*r*n koltrane (Simon H.), Friday, July 24, 2020 6:45 AM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

you're playing yourself here

if I knew how to play anyone else I would!

take it to the gay thread, sailor

i don't really hear ldr but maybe that's because the piano parts on this are soooo national-y (for the obvious reason) so that's all i can think about

again, i understand that taylor is obsessed with ldr, but my mind immediately skips to references beyond her e.g. ... tori, "seven" even manages to have a kind of sarah mclachlan feel. feel like ldr would never make a record this lilith fair imo. which is not me dissing ldr but is def me praising this album

also to ufo's point, some of these songs would sound exactly like national songs with berninger singing over them. taylor manages to take them somewhere else though

ldr would never make a record this lilith fair

dangerous to say this so close to her long-dreaded spoken word release

I've never heard the National or Tori Amos. So I'll trust Brad on those affinities.

Brad otm there. A lot of these songs, you can totally hear the National, but listening to Swift sing then really underscores what she brings to the table. And Berninger, too, respectively.

rather spookily this and I am Easy to Find are both 16 tracks and almost exactly the same length

I don't hear LDR much; there's a lightness of being with which TS is imbued even at her most introspective.

not a band i'd compare the sound of the record to at all, but the verses of "the 1" are *very* the 1975

lol i hear it

I had this dream you're doing cool shit
Having adventures on your own
You meet some woman on the internet and take her home

the lyrics on this record are so fucking GOOD which is another reason i can't compare it to ldr

their lyrical approaches have almost nothing in common but I'll stop myself there lol

sorry 4 giving in to the irresistible diss simon

if I was going to get upset I wouldn't love utterly dissable artists

I know I'm obsessed with The 1975, but the beginning of 'mirrorball' is almost exactly the same as The 1975's 'medicine'.

I want you to know
I'm a mirrorball
I can change everything about me to fit in
You are not like the regulars
The masquerade revelers
Drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten

fuckin slaps!!!!

The overall mood definitely feels Lilith Fair without sounding a lot like anyone in particular, tho the piano production does evoke Sarah Mclachlan (more than Tori, I think, whose piano attack is sharper). Also obviously all the '70s women-piano-pop that Lilith Fair itself evoked, Carole King and Carly Simon etc.

And agreed about the lyrics. One of my FB friends just complimented the gauche/goes slant rhyme. I've always liked the craftsman side of Taylor, the obvious pleasure she gets in putting things together just the way she wants them.

lovely, mature album with especially vivid lyrics for swift. generally liked the Antonoff tracks more than the Dessner ones (and I'm a National fan, though more in the 00s than the 10s). early favorites are "Mirrorball" and "Epiphany" - both have really gauzy, light production that elevate swift in a way that feels like new territory for her, though maybe bits of 1989 sounded like this?

Hmm, I typically can't stand Swift's music but I may check this out based on the Sarah McLachlan comparisons.

"mirrorball" is like a more self-aware "enchanted," like it has all the same totally-gone falling-for-someone swoonings but it's also like "what am i doing, am i losing myself in trying so hard to appeal to this person and reflect their interests?"

though maybe bits of 1989 sounded like this?

― Indexed, Friday, July 24, 2020 7:46 AM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i was expecting this record to sound like "safe & sound" but, surprisingly, "this love" seems to be the actual touchstone

I was gonna say "Clean," but yeah.

it can be both!!!!

every time i look up the lyrics to one of these songs i see a line or a verse that kicks my ass. all of "seven" is amazing, the second verse is i think trying to portray a greater adult darkness as viewed from the eyes of a child, cf. "i think your house is haunted / your dad is always mad and that must be why / and i think you should come live with me / and we can be pirates / then you won't have to cry," which is staggering on its *own*, and then the bridge is

please picture me in the weeds
before i learned civility
i used to scream ferociously
any time i wanted

fuck

Kinda sad about matty because he had come up with the "taylor nebraska" whole thing in an interview and how he would be glad to produce it and now this thing comes up and that box has obviously been ticked now.