Taylor Swift - Midnights

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.

I think if she were doing it intentionally there'd be more actually new tracks, but that's why I'm interested to see if she keeps going with it.

i don't have any stake in taylor swift's music whatsoever, but i am absolutely a fan of there being differing versions of albums. some songs switched out, different sequencing, maybe short reprises referring to missing songs from differing versions, etc.

my big caveat is: just make it available for everyone to hear. exclusivity and FOMO bullshit needs to stop.

also xpost lily-

These days, album sequencing doesn't mean all that much

big oof. such a shame. everybody needs to listen to more full albums. maybe we should go back to the lovesexy model: just make the album one long track. maybe release the singles on their own. but wait six months or a year to put out a version with the tracks individually broken up.

“Hits Different” is on the Target edition that came out on release day (it’s the CD I have)

Oh, ok. I wish she were doing what I thought she was doing!

The AVClub listed these five versions (not including LPs with different covers):

Midnights, the 13-track original album available in both digital and physical formats, released at midnight Eastern on October 21, 2022

Midnights (3 AM Edition), the deluxe version of the album with seven additional tracks, available digitally only and released 3 A.M. Eastern on October 21, 2022

Midnights (Target Exclusive), which includes the 13 original tracks plus three bonus songs, including “Hits Different,” available only physically and only at Target, released October 21, 2022

Midnights (Til Dawn Edition), which features all 20 previously released tracks plus two remixes/re-recordings (featuring Ice Spice and Lana Del Rey) and “Hits Different,” available digitally only and released May 26, 2023

Midnights (the “Late Night Tracks” version), which swaps two “3 AM” tracks (“Paris” and “Glitch”) for the new remixes and adds a brand new “From the Vault” track, “You’re Losing Me”, available physically only and only on site at MetLife Stadium, released May 26, 2023

this handy infographic made the rounds on r/taylorswift a few days back-

https://i.redd.it/hwnl1ew1su1b1.png

I wish she were doing what I thought she was doing!

To the extent that she released an overt “break-up song” now, after the break-up, I think you’re not wrong…

so anyway...

lol

I seem to recall that when this record came out in Nov, there was a broad consensus that it was a step back? And not in the sense of "she should continue making folklorish shit with the National guy," but that it retreat from the developments of Lover and Reputation? I haven't listened to the latter since it came out, and haven't heard the latter but for the singles, but yet I don't understand that this record, which appears to be sophisticated by any meaningful contemporaneous standard, could possibly be considered a creative retrenchment?

Every time I reach for it my hand passes through vapors. I look at the titles and can't remember how they go except for the singles (cuz they're on the radio). To my ears it's her dullest (I didn't mind Reputation).

Same. It’s both an a stylistic retread and a “retreat” in quality (in that it’s not very good).

OK, I'd like to know which record or M.O. or style to which it is a retread… I don't know her shit top to bottom, but I like this record, as I like vaporous shit!

it retreat from the developments of Lover and Reputation

idk who was saying this bit, what developments? it's a retreat back to the sort of sound she had on those albums (although more specifically the moodier stuff - "false god" is an obvious predecessor but it's stronger than this whole album), not a retreat from them.

it's a swift album without much of the way of standouts and that's enough to explain all the lukewarm reactions. personally i think it's one of her better albums - it's consistent, the production (while still not great) feels less flimsy than lover & reputation, the only real misstep is "question...?", but it also lacks the high points that all her best work does and even lover had at least despite its many many missteps. i don't really think much on reputation is too redeemable though.

i guess what i meant is reputation and lover did change up her sound but they weren't positive developments for the most part, some of her worst creative decisions on both of those. and so then people were also unhappy that this one did little new

It's not much different from Reputation and Lover other than length and blah songs.

think people are mostly reacting to the sound-- suspect many are ready for her to move on from folklorish shit with the national guy but expect it to be to a place that isn't 1989ish shit with the bleachers guy-- unfair obv as even the most restless artists (not taylor) need to get their bearings sometimes

lyrically she seems pretty deft to me here in dialing up the pop-zinger quotient for the touring-again singles without abandoning or forgetting how to use the-- idk-- detachment? irony? she was working with on the last couple albums

something like "maroon" is both the most in-character thing imaginable (a taylor swift song made of impressionistic details from a relationship that reminds her of a shade of red) and also relaxed+questioning (+villain-less) in an identifiably post-lover way-- sometimes a "retrenchment" is really a gathering-up, a return to yr old skills to see how they work with yr new ones

(people are sick of her and sick of her fans tho lol. i mean i know i am.)

anyway the speak now reissue "vault" disc, w its new-wavey single and reminder that she still talks to hayley, has me hoping for a full guitar-pop album

i think she should stop working with antonoff because he's happy to go along with her worst instincts (bland terrible synths)

I've probably said this but I love Reputation and think it has some of her best creative decisions, exactly b/c they feel like a stretch for her... this feels like the "safest" possible album she could have made, in terms of it being so entirely within her wheelhouse than many of the melodies are familiar.

(also, I just don't think the songs are very good, but that's obv subjective)

anyway the speak now reissue "vault" disc, w its new-wavey single and reminder that she still talks to hayley, has me hoping for a full guitar-pop album

From your lips to her ears. I've wanted that album from her basically ever since "The Story of Us."

mostly hate the sound of the album and how monotonous it gets listening front to back--all of her records have a couple duds but this is the first to only have a couple hits. but the other thing I recall on (admittedly limited) listens is that every song seemed to have a direct antecedent in her catalog. I haven't mapped it out or anything but it was more a "oh, this sounds sneakily like X on Reputation" or whatever. no doubt it's the one i've given the least time to, though, so I'd be happy to discover I'm wrong on future revisits.

every song seemed to have a direct antecedent in her catalog.

You mean it sounds like they're each from previous...ERAS?