Taylor Swift -- Evermore

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/

I was surprised to learn it was Marcus Mumford doing the backing vocals on "Cowboy Like Me".

Good review by Sodomsky.

xp Hadn't looked at the credits. Adore that song. Looks like it's Vernon on electric guitar and drums? Reminds me every so slightly of "Beth/Rest."

Yeah that is an excellent review I think.

agreed, sodomsky nails a lot of it

he's among their best

after almost a week, my favorite tracks are the section of “Ivy” -> “Cowboy Like Me” -> “Long Story Short” -> “Marjorie” (“Cowboy” being the favorite among this lot)

(favorite tracks at the moment)

Yeah that's where it peaks for me, too. I listened to the NYT Popcast on Evermore yesterday and couldn't believe they all dismissed "Cowboy." Too subtle, I guess, but it was funny to hear Caramanica deride Dessner's production as heavy-handed and fussy and then trash the most straightforward and gorgeous singer/songwriter/country song she's put out since like "Never Grow Up."

first take on this album last week was that it wasn't as strong as Folklore and now I think it might be stronger? a testament to the album that everyone has different favorites, or that the favorites change from day to day. Frankly cannot get Willow out of my head, and yes to the Tori Amos comparisons, which seem strongest in parts of Gold Dust (itself an Amos-y title)and...something else, can't remember. Maybe it was Happiness. I walked around in a light rain at night the other night slightly high and listened to this entire album for the 20th time and was just kind of blown away by it. It's both meticulous and effortless sounding. Both albums are great crash courses in songcraft. You can kind of imagine how they were written; so many are based on what are essentially loops of piano, the kinds of things I am guessing, now, that Aaron might have dozens and dozens of. They're the kinds of melodies that come to your head at any time during the day (if you are at all musical) but he actually writes them down and records them; they are not, for the most part, very complicated, but they resonate and provide a kind of open template for a counter melody on top. What's most amazing about these songs though is those countermelodies, which I imagine Swift wrote herself; and they go everywhere. Sometimes there are like five of them in a song. I have a hard time breaking some of these songs into 'verse/chorus' structures; there are pre-choruses, post-choruses, entirely different meters for the verses with varying melodies. Exquisite.

Frankly cannot get Willow out of my head

She has an incredible ability to write earworms. I have had this experience with every one of her albums dating back to the s/t. Can still remember tossing and turning at night with "The Outside" chorus blaring in my brain.

and yes to the Tori Amos comparisons, which seem strongest in parts of Gold Dust (itself an Amos-y title)and

lol this slip pretty much proves yr point

ha! yeah, gold rush

and the other song was happiness, listening to it now. in fact if someone had played this for me and told me it was a tori amos song I'd have believed them.

also, I wonder if it's weird for Aaron Dessner who went from being 'guy in a moderately famous indie rock band' to cowriter of what will probably be seen as collectively one of the best American music releases of the 21st century.

I have been curious about how/if her core fanbase have been acquainting themselves with his work and everything he's attached to (namely The National ofc)

Some good stuff here from Marissa Moss on Evermore / Taylor's relationship with country music

https://dontrocktheinbox.substack.com/p/dont-rock-the-inbox-issue-3

xp Speaking of her core fanbase – I was chatting w/a coworker who seemed like a gonzo fan (based on his Slack comments re: Folklore); I mentioned Red, and he admitted that he hasn't heard anything earlier than 1989.

FYI, there’s an EP with a few different versions (mixes?) of “Willow,” including the one that brad posted above.

There’s something so... relaxed, superficially “minor” about “Ivy” and “Cowboy Like Me”, a vibe which feels almost like a breakthrough in her songwriting (they’re not actually minor at all, of course - this is some of her loveliest songwriting, performed with great delicacy) - an increasing realisation that you can skip the exclamation marks and the bold underline emphasis and still capture something important and alluring.

^yeah, this is well-stated... these songs don’t have that slightly “show-offy” quality that her stuff often has (including folklore, even though its songs present themselves as “understated”).

(and “show-offy” isn’t bad – just to be clear! – but I think one reason I connect w/evermore so much is that the songs work that other vibe which Tim expressed.)