Taylor Swift -- Evermore

on first listen this is good but it doesn't have the standouts that folklore did

Same, I prefer folklore to this but it’s still good

That being said I’d be surprised if this split the Taylor vote on the year end poll

on my 2nd time through now... "'Tis the Damn Season" is really a jam ("damn"!)

Pretty sure I prefer this album to Folklore, for various reasons (none of them interesting enough to dwell on).

wish there were more of the distorted drums on "closure" elsewhere, i'd been thinking that sort of thing would have worked quite nicely on some of folklore

evermore feels more like a collection of B-sides than a proper album to me

i think the title track is my favourite on first listen

Yeah this is very much an outtakes album, but it's quite pleasant.

It’s definitely looser, like a lot of quick follow ups to creative breakthroughs. The For The Roses to Folklore’s Blue, perhaps (and it shares with that album the sense that the song melodies bend to fit in all the words).

Folklore’s Blue

omg the audacity

Yeah on first listen I much prefer Folklore. Still I like that she released two (surprise) albums in a year. It’s refreshing especially for such a big act.

omfg “tis the damn season”

seven tracks in and i could not disagree more dramatically with the assertion that this is obviously a b-sides or an outtakes record

“happiness” ;_;

no one tell lj that taylor swift is exploring new time signatures

you could not make a song more tailored to my sensibilities than “long story short”

feeling some certainty after my first listen that this is going to be my favorite taylor record, every track blew me away and the sequencing kept me locked in (folklore has mostly great sequencing but it gets a little misty at the end imo)

that is ludicrously vmic lol but fine haha

I actually didn't hate folklore, is my horrid little secret here, so I probably will listen to this at some point

title track is her best closer by a mile

while it's not quite as immediately great as folklore there's still plenty to love here. i do wish there were more antonoff tracks to balance things out though. i agree the title track is her best closer, it's so good

one thing though is i quite like "champagne problems" but i swear the melody is pieced together from three or four different other of her songs?

and i take back it not having the sort of standouts that folklore did, "long story short" and "evermore" are just as great as the best moments from folklore

one thing though is i quite like "champagne problems" but i swear the melody is pieced together from three or four different other of her songs?

maybe this is intentional? the lyric's another look at the scenario of "Speak Now" too.

I can't help but hear these new songs in the light of her revisiting her past albums for the rerecording project.

I had the same impression about "Champagne Problems."

This is solid. "No Body, No Crime" sounds like normal times, i.e. Swift jamming with a skeleton of a song as she tosses lyrics to the Haim sisters.

I'll resist the hot takes, though. I need an album to crunch on next week.

xp like

"Time flies, messy as the mud on your truck tires"

sung with country inflections, amidst other singing in the more pop/r&b register of the 1989/Reputation era (or even "the 1")

these are songs as commentary on where she's at in her life, while at the same time being songs standing on their own

which is what she's always doing anyway, it all spirals, a mis en abyme

one of the tracks she's reused melodic phrases from in "champagne problems" is "all too well" but i haven't managed to place the others yet

there’ll be happiness after you
but there was happiness because of you
both of these things can be true

haha I'm listening to that tune as I type

"Evermore" is really gorgeous, and it's hard not to take for granted that she's singing with Vernon instead of the Panic at the Disco guy or Ed Sheeran.

He is absolutely her best-ever duet partner.

"Happiness" and "Marjorie" are my initial high points.

you booked the night train for a reason
so you could sit there in this hurt
bustling crowds or silent sleepers
you're not sure which is worse

the lyrics are so. good

"No Body No Crime" reminds me of something circa 1995 or so that I can't place

"happiness" has to be the most she's ever devastated me as a songwriter

Baba O'Marjorie

"No Body No Crime" reminds me of something circa 1995 or so that I can't place

“Sunny Came Home”?

shouldn't have said anything

why, was that it(?)

I don't know - probably - but I'll never be able to listen to it again without thinking of it

Sorry, I guess!

This is a v minor nitpick, but I wish "Long Story Short" didn't have those backing vox... sounds a little like the "Bob Clearmountain Mix" or something.

I don’t normally get into her lyrics too much (one way or another), but I really like how direct “Closure” is...

Don't treat me like
Some situation that needs to be handled

Imagine writing & recording a song as good as the title track, and having the discipline to hold it until the end of the second of two albums.

I don't think this is as strong as folklore, but it's pretty good. Time will tell if it stands on it's own or always seems like a collection of very good bonus tracks to me.

"“Sunny Came Home”?"

thanks I'd just managed to eliminate that particular earworm from my brain after 25 years, now it's back

tis the damn season owns

exactly, akm

My experience is—it’s hard for me to believe this album is nearly as long as Folklore, which feels like a slog from song to (good, if slightly overworked) song; whereas Evermore just flows effortlessly and lightly, it’s so loose, engaging, and delightful!

(Sorry, I’m posting too much... I didn’t expect ever to be this into a Taylor Swift album again!)

well maybe she'll release another one in four months so don't get comfy yet

So is this the PLUS to Folklore's SIGN? Or the Rise to Folklore's Black Is?

“ivy” is the standout to me on first listen

― winters (josh), Friday, December 11, 2020 12:05 AM (sixteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Can't think of another moment in her catalog that sounds quite like the last minute of "Cowboy Like Me" - the guitar, harmonica, and vocal overdubs are beautifully balanced.

that song... is perfect

"champagne problems" kinda sits on a chord progression that's similar to both "all too well" and "cornelia st." not really bothered by this bc taylor has used similar chordal patterns before

"great" may be overstating it, i wouldn't swap them for anything on the record, and "it's time to go" sort of confirms this is her joni mitchell record, taylor just had the good sense to cut "the windfall (everything for nothing)" from the official tracklist

I think my CD is scheduled to arrive tmrrw. Looking forward to it

lol I haven’t heard these yet but I still get the windfall joke

but which is 'Ray's Dad's Cadillac'?

closure sounds like casiontone for the painfully alone imo, i like its sentiment but it doesnt work for me

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iRbIYkccgw

Really nice songs, IMO

girl... enough

I guess “Right Where You Left Me” sounds a little like “You Belong to Me”... which is not an unwelcome callback, for a post-breakup song years later.

Such good lyrics—

I’m sure that you got a wife out there
Kids and Christmas

Wow, just listened to "Tolerate It" and "closure": p cool; 5/4 grooves were not what I expected from her.

I find “Tolerate It” pops into my head a lot.

One of several remarkable things about "Cowboy Like Me" is how it kicks off with what turns out to essentially be the bridge melody, when it returns around 2:50. Can anyone think of another example of a song that does that? (I'm a connoisseur of bridges in songs, I can't off the top of my head.)

I love how this song floats along, stately & serene, lightly touching down every time it shifts from section to section.

It’s easy to imagine a Matrix-produced version of “Long Story Short” being a hit for an Avril or Michelle Branch in the early ‘00s (this is a virtue, btw).

I feel like "Ivy" through "Long Story Short" is her finest 3 song run ever.

Yes! (That’s the run I just experienced in the car.)

i wish to know
the fatal flaw that makes you long to be
magnificently cursed

the "lay the table with the fancy shit" chapter

the AND NOW! backing vocals in "long story short" are so deliriously infectious

Ftr, I was wrong about “Cowboy” kicking off with the bridge melody (don’t know why I heard it that way earlier).

Maybe not the thread for this I don't know

I’m thrilled to tell you that my new version of Fearless (Taylor’s Version) is done and will be with you soon. It has 26 songs including 6 never before released songs from the vault. Love Story (Taylor’s Version) will be out tonight. Pre-order now at https://t.co/NqBDS6cGFl 💛💛 pic.twitter.com/Vjyy2gA72O

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) February 11, 2021

I thought the old Taylor was dead?

Thought this 1989-esque cover of "Champagne Problems" was alright

https://open.spotify.com/track/6RhtrocZlbccSXo80rfAyN?si=6bebef75a8184836

i put this on last night while enduring a few vaccine side effects and i cried through every song that doesn't feature haim

how's one to know
i'd live and die for moments that we stole
on begged and borrowed time

so tell me to run
or dare to sit and watch what we'll become
and drink my husband's wine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_wr-9X47ao

oh this is wonderful

It’s great - feels of a piece with “long story short”

Distracting band name, in a Taylor Swift context.

i would love a whole taylor album in the vein of this & "long story short"

fuck this is a good record. happy melancholidays y'all!

Yeah, I don't think many ppl "get" how good it is. Like forget everything about Taylor Swift (if you want); don't think of it as "Folklore's fun little sister" (or whatever her line is)... this album is something else altogther.

i think it might be her best album, though I need to revisit red. It's got the strangest, most complex songs she's ever released, but it's still very much a taylor swift record. it's also a lot less corny than folklore, which blew me away at first but just sounds a tad cliched now

like it still blows my mind that there are TWO songs on this record in 5/4 time

how’s one to know

I'm probably the only one that didn't know this about "Marjorie" but posting since I didn't find anything else in the thread...

The experience writing that song was really surreal, because I was kind of a wreck at times writing it, and I’d sort of breakdown sometimes. It was really hard to actually even sing it in the vocal booth without sounding like I had sort of a break [in my voice], because it just was really emotional. I think that one of the hardest forms of regret to sort of work through is the regret of being so young when you lost someone that you didn’t have the perspective to learn and appreciate who they were fully. I’d open up my grandmother’s closet and she had beautiful dresses from the 60s, I wish I’d asked her where she wore every single one of them, things like that. She was a singer and my mom would look at me so many times a year and say, ‘God, you’re just like her,’ when I’ll do some manners that I don’t recognize as being anyone other than mine. She died when I was 13, and she died, I think, when I was on a trip to Nashville to try and make it, to try to hand out my demos and CDs to record labels and things like that, so there were pretty insane coincidences like that, and I’ve always felt that thing like she was seeing this, because we have sort of to do that. One of the things on this song that still rips me apart when I listen to it is that she’s singing with me on this song. My mum found a bunch of her old records, a bunch of old vinyls of her singing opera, and I sent them to Aaron and he added them to the song. It says ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were singing to me now’, and then you actually hear Marjorie, my grandmother, actually sing. And it’s moments like that on the record that just make you feel like your whole heart is in this whole thing that you’re doing. Is all of you that you put into these things.

from this interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQacWbsLbS4

I have come to the better-late-than-never conclusion over the last two days that "Marjorie" is one of her best songs. A brilliant mix of internal dialogue, concise storytelling, creative song structure, and magical lyricism. It deserves someone more knowledgeable and articulate than me to unpack, but a few things I love:

- how she anchors the song in these initial "advice" verses that are universal -- they could be interpreted as messages to her fans, reminders to herself, and/or values she believes her grandmother imparted on her
- the way she alters each pre-chorus ("If I didn't know better, I'd think you were...") to shift from just hearing her grandmother's voice in her head to being in conversation with one another: "Talking to me now"/"Listening to me now"/"Singing to me now"
- the way the song builds to that "Singing to me now" moment when Dessner adds Marjorie's vocals -- got choked up listening to this yesterday -- and how he brings these back in the outro
- how unlike most of her songs, which revolve around the chorus, that build in momentum is driven entirely by the bridge where the entire song's story is told in 16 utterly devastating lines that weave a specific narrative story, internal rhyming ("long limbs and frozen swims"), relatable emotions of regret and grief ("I should have asked you questions"/"I should have asked you how to be" !!!!) that then intersect back into specifics ("Watched as you signed your name Marjorie")...
- the way she ends the song returning to the pre-chorus instead of the chorus
- Dessner's production here is so light yet pretty complex:

That’s a track that actually existed for a while, and you can hear elements of it behind the song ‘peace.’ This weird drone that you hear on ‘peace,’ if you pay attention to the bridge of ‘marjorie,’ you’ll hear a little bit of that in the distance. Some of what you hear is from my friend Jason Treuting playing percussion, playing these chord sticks, that he actually made for a piece that my brother wrote called ‘Music for Wooden Strings.’ […] I collect a lot of rhythmic elements like that, and all kinds of other sounds, and I give them to my friend Ryan Olson, who’s a producer from Minnesota and has been developing this crazy software called Allovers Hi-Hat Generator. It can take sounds, any sounds, and split them into identifiable sound samples, and then regenerate them in randomized patterns that are weirdly very musical. […] That’s how I made the backing rhythm of ‘marjorie.’ Then I wrote a song to it, and Taylor wrote to that. In a weird way, it’s one of the most experimental songs on the album — it doesn’t sound that way, but when you pick apart the layers underneath it, it’s pretty interesting.