Taylor Swift -- Evermore

Marjorie & Closure were my big first-listen attention-grabbers. A good friend is going through something very similar to the situation that Closure describes, so that really hit a spot.

"closure" is really something else

also i am a fan of the bon iver part in "evermore"

much as it's sort of a double-time restaging of the effect of his bridge on "exile," but i think it works, his entrance kind of feels like a rush of panicked thoughts that briefly take over the song

I like "Closure" better than anything on folklore, though I'm mystified by her accent. I might be okay with it, though. That song definitely captures a particular kind of post-breakup feeling; it feels real. I like the "beers and candles" line and also the way she delivers it.

yeah she verges on a British accent at point on that song no?

"tolerate it" and "happiness" are like getting sucker-punched right in the emotions every time

the repetition of "i haven't met the new me yet/you haven't met the new me yet" in "happiness" and the way its meaning is changed by the different contexts it appears in... "all too well"-level

I've heard my kids play "Champagne Problems" and "No Body, No Crime" so far. The former seemed to ride that super-familiar C-G-Am-F chord "Hey Soul Sister" (et al) progression a little too hard. The latter was pretty primo MOR '90s, which was OK. Looking forward to listening to the rest of it at some point.

halfway thru this

my report is: it needs to lose 'champagne problems' urgently but otherwise not bad at all, odd-numbered tracks are particularly not-bad

have finished

my report is: sags a little in the middle, claws its way back, culminating in 'marjorie' into 'closure' which is probably the best two-track run of swift imo

Here's one for ya

Niche tweet: #Folklore is the Emily album and #Evermore is the Amy album. pic.twitter.com/RSeMLFpI9c

— Dr. Karen Tongson (@inlandemperor) December 12, 2020

“ivy” is just a fucking amazing song

i always forget the bridge is coming, and then it's like

so YEAH
it's a FIRE
it's a GODDAMN BLAZE IN THE DARK
and you starrrrrrted it

oh

goddamn

i find it interesting that the subject of taylor swift's sincerity has generated so much discussion lately when this album has, like, "marjorie" on it, but i also know that this discussion has nothing to do with her actual work

Yes, and I’m glad this actual thread has been spared the reach of that discussion.

for whatever reason, the one song that has really stayed with me from these first few days with this album is gold rush, which i haven't seen discussed much... that insistent, nagging melody in the chorus! her delivery! it's so good

“gold rush“ feels like an inversion of her usual themes bc she loves describing relationships as these magnetic fields that draw attention and on this song she is outright refusing someone bc of the attention that hovers around them (but also... reluctantly? as if she’s trying to convince herself she doesn’t want it—“so inviting, i almost jump in”). love the insistent pulse bleachers bring to the track too, and the intro/coda, like they’re these watery portals in and out of the song

"gold rush" and "ivy" are both amazing, yes.

Even more than with Folklore, I think questions of autobiography/sincerity feel almost irrelevant here - yes, there's "marjorie" and "long story short" and "closure" which are (or seem) autobiographical (and interestingly are clustered together near the end), but otherwise this album feels even more focused than its predecessor on inventing fictionalised narrative frameworks that provide a testing ground for exploring ideas about interpersonal relationships and for inhabiting perspectives increasingly imbued with moral ambiguity (an ironic development for a singer who used to present as pop's most self-righteous victim).

"long story short" of course is such a witty and knowing and sly dig not just at the singer's publicly-presented life to now but also her entire songwriting approach.

otm

This is my favorite TS album since Red, by a wide margin... it’s that thing where an artist you keep up with releases a random album that fits right in your “zone,” somehow. Love that!

“ivy” is just a fucking amazing song

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Sunday, December 13, 2020 5:27 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah "Ivy" and "Cowboy Like Me" have been stuck in my head all weekend. Second half of this album really outshines the first, but in a way that feels more like a crescendo. Love albums that do this - take you on a pleasant scenic drive and then hit the accelerator at some point and never look back, The National's Alligator being a prime example.

yeah "ivy" is where the album really takes off

she just needs any sort of editing instinct! nobody would really miss those middle two tracks and going straight from Happiness into Ivy would just work so much better

I like "Ivy" and loooove "Long Story Short" and a few others in the front, but, damn, y'all, after spending too much time on it last weekend, I haven't been so underwhelmed by a Swift release in years: her most melodically desiccated. What a helluva streak, though: three albums in 18 months is nothing to sneeze at.

the first half of the album is relatively weak for sure, i only really like "gold rush" and "no body, no crime" before "ivy". it's never bad but that section is nowhere near as strong as folklore

"dorothea" is funny to me because it's the absolute most national-y of all the dessner collabs, it still catches me off guard when her voice comes in instead of berninger's

“tolerate it” and “happiness” are two of her very best songs ever and they are in that first block

wack opinions itt

agree with brad! albeit as someone who's much less of a fan

“tis the damn season” too!

which feels thematically to me like a sequel to "i wish you would," but more assured and precise

this album does start off with its two weakest songs (musically—"champagne problems" is a lyrical success imo), i'm guessing that tends to throw ppl off

I didn't hate 'willow'! but yeah

anyway alfred i'm not sure i've ever seen an album grow on you so your opinion makes sense to me. but for my money it is her most accomplished body of work since red

my friend said "willow" reminded her of her high school loreena mckennitt phase and that is also now what the song makes me think of

anyway alfred i'm not sure i've ever seen an album grow on you so your opinion makes sense to me. but for my money it is her most accomplished body of work since red

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson),

Folklore sure did!

K Michelle's January album too. C'mon now.

i stand corrected! but this album is hardly melodically desiccated

the 5/4 rhythm adds a kind of verisimilitude to "tolerate it," it's the kind of halting, tentative rhythm of walking on eggshells around someone

the sighed "i" that leads into the chorus, that "iiiiiiiiiiiii," and the way it signifies the shift in the song's focus, from the subject's domination of every angle of the narrator's perspective, to the tortured feelings roiling beneath the narrator's outward expressions of care for this subject, that is exquisite and complex songwriting. of all the tracks on this record i feel like it's the one that confirms her craft has hit a different level even from the previous record

thanks, that's a wonderful reading of the song

I love the first half of this album but I can see how it could seem weak. it doesn't liftoff, nor does it bore inward. She's listening instead.

personally i wouldn't go nearly as far as "dessicated" but I do think this is melodically inferior to Folklore (which might be her best in that regard). these might be her best lyrics though.

If anyone else listened to the EOY NYT Popcast, Lindsay Zoladz talked about how she felt Folklore was masquerading as a stripped down record and was actually over-produced. I don't know if I agree that it's "over"-produced, certainly not any more than any of her other albums since Fearless, but I can see her point.

I wonder how folks are receiving the production on this album relative to Folklore? Personally I prefer most of the Antonoff songs on Folklore to the Dessner ones (there are exceptions of course), and I thought I appreciated that it didn't feel like a one trick pony National album with Swift vocals; but I have to say I'm very much enjoying the atmosphere and flow of Evermore, and I'm unsure if it's the songs, the production, or something else.

I agree that the production on Folklore could be seen as kind of fussy or mannered, while this one feels just right. It's packed with hooks -- delicate guitar licks, piano lines, vocal melodies that swoop in -- but nothing's pushing for attention, it all feels "in the pocket."

i think i can get with zoladz's description if it's specifically aimed at "exile"?

if anything evermore has production of even greater depth than folklore, the instrumentation of which almost always feels like it's lightly stirring (which is one of the things i really like about the record). "cowboy like me" and "dorothea" and "tolerate it" are in contrast very crafted atmospheres that remind me of like... fumbling towards ecstasy in terms of the layers they're trying to build around the songs

this conversation thankfully hasn't really happened on ilm but i told tim the other day that instead of torturing oneself over indie folk appropriation or whatever ppl should recognize these records for the revival of lilith fair sonics that they are

otm about late '90s. Yesterday I jotted down "1998-era Tori Amos" when listening to "Happiness."

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

“Sunny Came Home”?

― good karma, my aesthetic (morrisp), Friday, December 11, 2020 12:20 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm about late '90s. Yesterday I jotted down "1998-era Tori Amos" when listening to "Happiness."

Totally. I hope her next record goes towards Choirgirl sonics

Repeating myself, but I just feel like this is really smart writing, especially given it's the chorus to the album's most conventionally catchy, pop-minded track:

And I fell from the pedestal
Right down the rabbit hole
Long story short, it was a bad time
Pushed from the precipice
Clung to the nearest lips
Long story short, it was the wrong guy

(also, "actually, I always felt I must look better in the rear view" - though I think the key here is to recognise that the singer is being ironic in presenting this as a new and insightful realisation)

Perhaps it's the subsequent reference to dropping a sword that makes me think of it, but I'm actually struck less by sonic similarities with Tori Amos (though they're there) than the increasing lyrical similarities at least with Tori's early work when the songs had fairly recognisable and coherent narratives, and she was doing stuff like this a lot.

In the case of "Long Story Short", I'm vaguely reminded of this section of "Take To The Sky" - there's that similar sense of combined earnestness and acknowledging yr own ridiculousness:

But my priest says, "You ain't saving no souls"
My father says, "You ain't making any money"
My doctor says, "You just took it to the limit"
And here I stand with this sword in my hand

(or, for a more concise example: "So you've found a girl who thinks really deep thoughts / what's so amazing about really deep thoughts?")

TS has been progressively embracing moral ambiguity and a decentring of her own POV for a while, of course, but the extent of that shift feels really apparent now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYHt7_RANiY

really enjoying this slightly quieter and more impressionistic arrangement, especially as i can't get this song out of my fucking head

Another stunner is “ivy,” a knotty fairytale that reveals darker characters in the storybook setting of Swift’s early work. Backed by banjo, trumpet, and gentle harmonies from Vernon, she begins with an allusion to Miller Williams’ 1997 poem “Compassion.” “I’ll meet you where the spirit meets the bone,” she sings before describing a forest dreamland corrupted by someone else’s roots. The Arkansas poet she quotes happens to be the father of outlaw country legend Lucinda Williams, who used the same line as the title of the first album she released on her own label, 2014’s Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone. (“We can do what we want to do now,” Williams said at the time, after decades of mistreatment from the music industry. “Plus we own the masters, everything we record.”)

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/taylor-swift-evermore/