The Tortured Poets Department ILX Pre-Cover Planning Thread

I nominate Neanderthal to give us a metal epic

LJ lured me here and I just recorded a draft of "Fortnight" (more of a post tonality feat than a Post Malone feat tho). I can send a recording if it counts and is still available.

Very much available, it's yours!

"Florida!!!" is the last one left!

I'm going to officially state that I'm out. I do like the excessive exclamation marks of 'Florida!!!' but I don't think I can take it on. Somebody else jump in and make the album complete.

Voting that whoever takes it should have to collab up with Alfred for vocals/spoken-word

little dog was so good

Truly

it's really nice to for me to be able to hear Dottie's bark again, she gave it her all

Already wondering if my initial idea for my track isn't completely stupid and impractical.

I have never knowingly heard a TS song so I feel unqualified to approach this one, as much as I enjoy our covers projects, but if anyone needs any help with mastering or the like hit me up on this thread.

You don't have to have heard anything by the artist or even be interested in their work though? Believe me I have less than zero interest in latter day U2 and Morrissey and I did tracks for both those projects. I just go on whether the titles give me any ideas. For instance I did a cover of a Morrissey track called Mountjoy, which I assume was named after the prison on Dublin but made me think of the snooker player, Doug Mountjoy. Doug Mountjoy's claim to fame was he was the first player to perform a maximum break on television, so I found some audio of the commentary (Ted Lowe of course!) and built the track around that.

Also doing something that sounds nothing like the artist you are covering seems the ideal approach.

Well, the last point is a given with my contributions for sure, and I do see what you mean, but I'm trying to think if I've ever done one of these when I haven't liked or at least been pretty familiar with the artist.

If Alfred reads this (or if someone wants to give him a nudge) and wishes to do his thing, I will happily provide the music.

He's been nudged

hi!

If MaresNest and Alfred are up for it, we have our roster complete.

Alfred, I ilx webmailed yer

Okay just to confirm the overall roster -- make sure to update your artist name if you want to change it, otherwise that's the credit.

Fortnight -- sund4r
The Tortured Poets Department -- sarahell
My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys -- Florin Cuchares
Down Bad -- Acoleuthic
So Long, London -- Mfktz
But Daddy I Love Him -- kurt schwitterz
Fresh Out the Slammer -- Tom D
Florida!!! -- Maresn3st/Aflred, Lord Sotosyn
Guilty as Sin? -- a hoy hoy
Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? -- Chris Irregardless
I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) -- Beer Swan
loml -- Elvis Telecom
I Can Do It With a Broken Heart -- HI DERE
The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived -- Bo Jackson Overdrive
The Alchemy -- ShariVari
Clara Bow -- Moka
Bonus Track: The Manuscript -- Renegade Priests

Plus we have H.P. on backup if someone has to step away, thanks for that -- if anyone else wants to be a backup too, just post!

Repeating myself from above: Files MUST be sent to me by March 15th via ned at kuci dot org, preferably AIFF format, mp3 acceptable but please PLEASE, do not send it as a WAV. Release date will be April 1.

Per my initial post, we need cover art but I am not an artist. That said, I have created a placeholder. By all means if someone has a better one, share it! Anyway:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53520763611_2af0838dd6.jpg

Also my current plan is to make it available for basic download only somewhere like mediafire or whatever -- I *could* place it on Soundcloud as I have with all the other ones and may still do but I also remember how Grady's YouTube account got completely nuked after LULU was up for a little while there and the amount of fame-driven fever pitch around the runup to this one tells me that floating it a little too publicly before release may be disastrous even for my basic SoundCloud setup, so. (I may place it there after the actual album itself is out.)

How do we feel about Bandcamp for these now?

IIRC Bandcamp only accepts files at full rate, so if we want to do that, no mp3s, just AIFFs please. We could set it up as a free download easily enough but again (even with the relative Wild West of the place in re actual covers) I kinda only want to put somewhere formal AFTER the actual album comes out.

Wait hold on, I have a better cover placeholder:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53521191716_63bf07f6c4_z.jpg

how did Ned hack my Grindr account

"Password, password...I know: JakeGyllenhallsThighs."

wondering if anyone would like to share their writing process some weeks out from deadline

not super familiar with the swift discog beyond the singles, I gather that isn't really important but it sounds kind of fun to anticipate what the record might sound like

does she move towards "country" again with this record? or is that maybe a decade or so on

Ultimately you shouldn't feel limited to actually sounding like her -- the goal is not to necessarily do a specific parody or pastiche of a 'typical' Taylor song, however defined. The pre-cover efforts certainly have contained many examples doing that for its various subjects over the years but it's not universal. If you want to hazard a guess with what it might all be like, though, feel free!

ok I think my song is ready. I think I nailed it.

sending it your way, Ned. I don't know if it's mixed too low... I don't know what I'm doing lol.

at least it's brief so I it's relatively painless.

First time trying to play guitar too so I don't know if I should so a second attempt lol... there's still time to learn and send a better thing before the deadline... I tried doing a sample based song but I had no idea how to do it properly and kept crashing garageband after a pair of frustrating hours without saving any progress and didn't feel like paying for ableton, so I asked a friend for a keyboard controller and a guitar instead.

I'm sure it sucks and not in an interesting way like idk, The Shaggs... which seems apt for a Taylor Swift pre-covers project so I might just leave it at that.

Good thing it's the last song, tho. There's no track to skip to.

Ach, missed this! One for the reserves bench, plz

You’re on it!

Anyway Moka's track is in as mentioned so the countdown begins for the rest of you. You have a month from today!

Mine's is finished, Ned, haven't got round to sending you it yet. Can my artist name be changed to Tom D (ft. Norman Stanley Fletcher)?

I’ve never done one of these and it sounds fun. Any room left?

Answering Tom: sure! Send when you can.

Answering Heez: no room, and you'd be I think third in line as a sub, but we'll see what shakes down. Keep an eye out for next time!

Below is the list with artist names -- the asterisk shows I have the file.

* Fortnight -- sund4r
The Tortured Poets Department -- sarahell
My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys -- Florin Cuchares
Down Bad -- Acoleuthic
So Long, London -- Mfktz
But Daddy I Love Him -- kurt schwitterz
Fresh Out the Slammer -- Tom D (ft. Norman Stanley Fletcher)
Florida!!! -- Maresn3st/Aflred, Lord Sotosyn
Guilty as Sin? -- a hoy hoy
Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? -- Chris Irregardless
I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) -- Beer Swan
loml -- Elvis Telecom
I Can Do It With a Broken Heart -- HI DERE
The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived -- Bo Jackson Overdrive
The Alchemy -- ShariVari
* Clara Bow -- Moka

Bonus Track: The Manuscript -- Renegade Priests

Update! A little under two weeks to go! Tracks in hand marked with asterisks.

* Fortnight -- sund4r
The Tortured Poets Department -- sarahell
My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys -- Florin Cuchares
Down Bad -- Acoleuthic
* So Long, London -- Mfktz
But Daddy I Love Him -- kurt schwitterz
* Fresh Out the Slammer -- Tom D (ft. Norman Stanley Fletcher)
Florida!!! -- Maresn3st/Aflred, Lord Sotosyn
Guilty as Sin? -- a hoy hoy
* Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? -- Chris Irregardless
I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) -- Beer Swan
loml -- Elvis Telecom
I Can Do It With a Broken Heart -- HI DERE
The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived -- Bo Jackson Overdrive
The Alchemy -- ShariVari
* Clara Bow -- Moka

Bonus Track: The Manuscript -- Renegade Priests

Have next week off work, was hoping to spend some time coming up with some… thing

uh oh

On February 16, 2024 at The Eras Tour show in Melbourne, Australia, Swift announced a second version of the album featuring a new bonus track "The Bolter."[3]

On February 23, 2024 at The Eras Tour show in Sydney, Australia, Swift announced a third version of the album featuring a new bonus track "The Albatross."[4]

On March 3, 2024 at The Eras Tour show in Singapore, Swift announced a fourth version of the album featuring a new bonus track "The Black Dog."

I have to re-record everything due to being a uniquely shitty guitarist

I'm happy to tackle one of the new songs.

Hold that — H.P., Heez and Mark G had all mentioned being on the reserve bench if there was space or opportunity. Can you three please confirm if you’d like to choose these and which ones? Josh if one of them bows out, a song is yours.

10-4. I couldn't get to it until next week anyway.

i work best under pressure. I have three sets of riffs written and will decide maybe tomorrow which one I'm using lol

same, presently waffling between lo-fi electro pop and somber acoustic country/folk, seems like the play would be to marry the two somehow but I am no Taylor Swift

will throw out again that I'm up for a collab if anyone feels like laying something or other down but doesn't have the time/wherewithal to write/produce an entire song in the next two weeks

I'll grab The Bolter

gladly pick up the slack if anyone needs to duck out for any reason. i understand we are already queueing on the subs bench

It's like getting concert tickets all over again. I'll pay $1500 to cover one of her unreleased songs!

Happy to give up my song for $1500

We're live!

"I Want To Say Thank You To The Fans By Telling You A Secret!" -- ILX Pre-Covers The Tortured Poets Department

And this thread is locked!