Taylor Swift - Midnights

this is an incredibly surface-level gotcha, which is why reputable outlets like the 2023 huffington post are running with it

people were mad that Healy was yucking it up over jokes about Ice Spice being Eskimo on that cumtown podcast, so I guess doing a collab with Ice Spice would mute that?

― INDEPENDENTS DAY BY STEVEN SPILBERG (President Keyes), Thursday, May 25, 2023 1:43 PM (two minutes ago)

i just find this logic completely incongruous. maybe taylor swift is actually very dumb, but it's hard for me to believe that she does not understand the basic concept of the streisand effect. the idea that taylor swift would think "if i put ice spice on a remix, people will forgive me for dating someone who made racist jokes about ice spice" ... i think this reveals more about the critical thinking skills possessed by the writer than the celebrity, i'll just put it that way. you (not you specifically, president keyes) might think like a fifth grader but that doesn't mean taylor swift does too

& also what brad said. not only is she one of the biggest pop machines in music history but she is particularly famous for cultivating the idea that every little thing she does is carefully, deeply calculated. that she would make artistic/financial/reputational decisions based on a podcast controversy attached to a guy she's been dating for what a month? i find it fascinating that so many of her stans -- even (especially) the otherwise well adjusted adult ones -- seem to not understand a single thing about her

I also thought that, like, a foundational tenet of Swift fandom was that she shouldn't be judged by whom she is dating / has dated.

(I should never attempt using "whom," b/c I think I always end up using it wrong)

I also thought that, like, a foundational tenet of Swift fandom was that she shouldn't be judged by whom she is dating / has dated.

― Day 1 fan (morrisp), Thursday, May 25, 2023 2:06 PM (fifty-nine seconds ago)

yeah. well what's happening is that this story is causing a head on collision between two tentpole beliefs held by lots of (younger) pop fans these days. those positions are 1. women celebrities should not be defined by the men they date 2. good celebrities are deeply engaged w/ politics, speak out at any and all opportunity about oppression & those who don't are failing their fans and complicit in upholding said oppression. you can't have it both ways w/ this controversy

i just hope we get that "post-rock joni mitchell" collaboration matty talked about wanting to make a while ago

the "controversy" was completely dormant

was it though? i don't think the swifties have taken a break from melting down about matty's crimes on the adam friedland show since the news broke, but yeah i agree that if there's any calculation from swift here it's the streisand effect not some sort of weird damage control

i do wonder if matty's realised yet that getting him in hot water was the entire joke to friedland etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CnUYMmEHrs

"more lana del rey" does deliver on its promise and the new mix is a noticeable improvement too - the piano really makes it sound fuller

If Taylor Swift chooses to be in a relationship with a dummy who makes racist comments about blacks and Inuit, then yes, underneath the savvy business decisions, she is an idiot.

lol here we go

Taylor Swift might be an idiot, idgif either way, that Twitter thread made me jump out the window a couple days ago.

the correct response to it

"Karma is defenestration ... "

Can't we just all come together and blame Jack Antonoff for everything?

yeah. well what's happening is that this story is causing a head on collision between two tentpole beliefs held by lots of (younger) pop fans these days. those positions are 1. women celebrities should not be defined by the men they date 2. good celebrities are deeply engaged w/ politics, speak out at any and all opportunity about oppression & those who don't are failing their fans and complicit in upholding said oppression. you can't have it both ways w/ this controversy

― J0rdan S., Thursday, May 25, 2023 1:19 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

good post

Yeah. Partly explains why the Swifties in my life are perplexed (one thinks Matty is terrible, the other is a fan of the 1975 and gets that his current schtick is a bit, however bad a bit).

the friedland show stuff is about the only time i've felt disappointed in matty but the game of telephone with the swifties is really something

who is adam friedland and why are they trading in aughts-era "comedy" racism

former co-host of the podcast "cum town", vaguely chapo trap house-adjacent but not really political. the whole cum town/now friedland show schtick is juvenile ironic edgelord offensive humour shit, but somehow they've managed to keep it at that and not actually turn into frothing reactionaries? which is very unusual for vaguely left edgelord podcast hosts

really it's just completely absurd that it's at all relevant to explain any of this in the taylor swift thread lmao

Or that the Washington Post is covering it

yeah that's even more ridiculous

So apparently Matt Healy watches racist torture porn against black women....https://t.co/OqbyVPYXrN

— ⟭⟬ darth voider ⟭⟬ (@THISlSVOIDED) May 12, 2023

Was this all part of a joke or does Healy actually appreciate this vile form of “media.” Doing offensive accents or whatever is one thing, but I read this and felt confused and disturbed.

TW: if you read the whole thread, your day will be ruined. But I think it’s relevant to post this here bc *this* I think is why people are grossed out by him. Not the comments about Ice Spice.

Was this all part of a joke

i'm not listening to the podcast but i feel comfortable saying: yes, he was on cumtown

it really depresses me how stupid things like this distract us from what's really important, which is the music.

like, we need to focus on her music and how much it fucking sucks

Ice Spice is not a good rapper. So I'm finding that out.

Yeah, the new "Karma" seems worse in every respect. "Snow on the Beach" has Moar Lana as advertised, I guess, but...

i bothered to listen to the bit of the podcast and the context is one of the cum town guys telling a story about matty watching the racist porn after they hung out, and he's pretty clearly just going along with it and riffing with them. it's not a funny bit at all, completely reasonable for people to be offended even by joking about that, but with any context at all it's pretty clear you shouldn't take any of it at face value

but people are indeed mad at pretty much all of it, not just that. they're mad even at other stuff too like him nazi salute during a live performance of "love it if we made it" which is pretty obviously commentary on trump & kanye with any context at all

Where does the "Islamophobic/antisemitic" charge – in the first tweet of that insta-famous Twitter thread linked above – come from?

antisemitism: nazi salute during show
islamophobia: i cannot remember the details of this at all bc it happened more than five possibly almost ten years ago but he did get in hot water running his mouth off on twitter about something. iirc he apologized?

The Islamophobia thing was in reaction to this (from 2019):

“Nowadays, I honestly think, if you’re piously religious–if you’re dogmatically faithful–you should be kind of ashamed of yourself,” says Healy. “I’m bored with certain religions as well because certain racisms are aligned with them."

“You can’t criticize Islam as a set of ideas…because you’re inherently criticizing people. But that’s a problem with society because Islamophobia does exist, people are bigoted. But what that really is is thick, scared people not liking brown people. Whereas I love people, I love brown people.”

He continues: “I just don’t know when I’m allowed to be offended. Religious people are always allowed to be offended: ‘Oh, we’re offended by this, I’m offended by that.’

“I have to get up every day and read some abhorrent that’s happened in the name of religion. And I never get a day. I never get a day where I’m allowed to be offended. … Where are my rights as an atheist?”

yeah, exhausting position imo

i guess even with all of this he comes off more to me as "guy who talks a lot of shit" instead of "irredeemable racist and anti-semite" but ymmv

just hate that this is getting so much airing in a t swift thread

Where are my rights, as an Evermore fanatic, to be offended by this Midnights era getting exhaustively drawn out & attenuated... I really hope she regroups artistically when she comes off the tour.

hopefully we get that collaborative "post-rock joni mitchell" album matty dreamed up a while ago

The 1989

listened to “hit different” … it has the contours of a great taylor swift song but her production just sounds like shit these days i’m sorry to say

having interviewed matty before… he is someone, even w/in the context of normal ppl let alone celebs, where it takes literally nothing for him to get going for 2-3 straight mins on…. whatever. and he has a thought about everything. and he blazes thru joints the entire interview. the cumtown world stuff is an absolute unforced error on his part, no idea why he finds that scene cool or felt the need to risk the reputation of his art by going on those podcasts. well, i know why he wanted to but i don’t know why he did it. in any event, i would say that he is a deep thinker but also an indiscriminate talker. it’s kind’ve a horrible combo in general but also when you add in the “will say yes to every single interview request” part as well

"you're losing me" is out there. i assume the production is antonoff but it's less static than his stuff on midnights, it keeps shapeshifting to the very end. also features A Taylor Swift Bridge

Fans Speculate Who Taylor Swift Might Be Talking About In New Song ‘My Weird Little Racist Guy’ https://t.co/blYf3z71Rf pic.twitter.com/LqbyGT1L0n

— The Onion (@TheOnion) May 26, 2023

Ok kind of find that one funny

"you're losing me" is really good, fantastic bridge

I still don't really like Midnights, but I'm fascinated by the way Taylor is sort of stretching out the album's release over a period of months, so that what initially appeared to be a single album about a fairly boring happy marriage is gradually revealing itself to be a double album about a divorce.

(obvs I know they weren't officially married - just that this is turning into a full-on Divorce Album.)

I saw something that claimed she is up to the 5th released iteration of the album.

I don't care much about the remixes, but I do wonder if she'll keep adding tracks.

I have no idea how much of this she's doing on purpose. But it occurs to me that one effect of releasing an album in bits and pieces like this is that she's taking back control over the order in which people listen to the tracks. These days, album sequencing doesn't mean all that much, since it's so easy for people to skip and rearrange tracks. By spacing bits of the album out like Burma Shave signs, she's making us hear them in a particular order and on her timeline.

Are there any other truly new songs besides “You’re Losing Me”?

Hits Different is new, right?

Plus there was the whole 3 am drop when she initially released the album.