Taylor Swift - 1989

"I don't have to pretend I like Acid Rock." PREACH.

Yeah these Vault tracks are all awesome. The Antonoff sound but more 1989 than Midnights in vibe. None of these would have necessarily fit well with the album, but very glad to have them here.

My daughter's conspiracy theory is that a lot of these Vault tracks were not really written contemporaneously with "1989." I think she described them as "very Antonoff" or something, and hypothesized that they may have started from demos or scraps or fragments from "1989" but were fleshed out and finished much more recently.

Antonoff wrote & produced 3 of the original tracks, but what you said is probably right.

It's really too bad Martin didn't help with the re-record. "Style" in particular is a pretty terrible attempt at a facsimile. Whoever is playing the electric guitar is noticeably not the same person, and yet they mixed it way more to the front during the pre-chorus than in the original, and it really competes with her vocals.

Ha, I almost referenced Nile Rodgers's style in that post -- was going to say that you can try to copy it but you'll never get it quite right -- and then discovered this: https://medium.com/cuepoint/the-oral-history-of-taylor-swift-s-1989-d9869cc13adc#.cw9c2ox39

Niklas Ljungfelt (guitarist): I played on “Style,” a song I started with Ali Payami for ourselves. He was playing it for Max Martin at his studio; Taylor overheard it and loved it. She and Max wrote new lyrics. But I recorded the guitar on it before it was a Taylor song. It was an instrumental. I didn’t have a clue that Taylor would sing on it. The inspiration came from Daft Punk and funky electronic music. Taylor liked that a lot when she heard the song the first time. [She was] taking a big step from the music she had done before.

she doesn't say "this sick beats" this time so that's an improvement

Indexed is right about the new “Style” guitar line; its weakness is so jarring.

There’s something so lifeless and tepid about this batch of re-recordings… that “spark” is just missing from every element (including her vocal performance). Admittedly, I don’t know how the takes would sound to someone who isn’t already familiar with the originals.

That someone is me, and they sound great to my ears.

My daughter says she would recommend a newbie just go with the new recordings, cuz by and large they are close enough, so why not? Plus you get all the Vault tracks, which she distinguishes from bonus tracks.

i hadn't listened to this album in at least 2 years, and I would not have known this was a different recording just by listening to it.

xp Well they are distinguished from the bonus tracks, as we’ve heard those before… it is fascinating that she had these vault tracks in her pocket, and chose to release that weaker batch of songs instead. Gives credence to your daughter’s “conspiracy theory, perhaps…

Radio stations still play the singles from this album. If I were a programmer there’s no way I’d swap them out for these new versions

Would anyone notice? I dunno. Has anyone noticed the nu versions of, say, ELO and Def Leppard? Are they in circulation on the radio?

I should amend my earlier comment, for accuracy:

it is fascinating that she had these vault tracks songs written and in her pocket, and chose to record and release that weaker batch of songs instead.

The "Bad Blood" version with Kendrick is her worst single, right? We can all agree?

the original version that the ac stations played is even worse! also "me!"

xp the re-recorded version of "i knew you were trouble" from red has made it onto many radio stations where that song had still been in gold rotation. but that one legitimately sounds very close to the original

“Bad Blood” is much better than “Me!,” omg

“BB” is basic, but I think it’s fine/listenable (and the “blood runs cold!” part is cool)

you could also change "weaker batch of songs" to "batch of songs that I think are weaker" for accuracy xxxp

she might think these are the weaker ones.

Well sure, I can’t speak for her (though she did say, “To be perfectly honest, this is my most FAVORITE re-record I’ve ever done because the 5 From The Vault tracks are so insane. I can’t believe they were ever left behind.”)

President Keyes otm about the afterlife of 1989 in the wild. I hear "Blank Space" and "Style" more often than other older singles, "You Belong With Me" and karaoke favorite "Love Story" excepted.

ppl have been suspicious of the temporal provenance of the vault tracks since swift dropped the "fuck the patriarchy" keychain on the ground in the 10 minute "all too well." imo it doesn't matter and who cares

I don’t think of it as a “gotcha” thing; but as a fan of her music, I think it’s interesting to think about the provenance of those songs and how they fit in her “story” as a songwriter.

Like, “Mr. Perfectly Fine” from the (“Fearless” vault) is one of my favorite songs of the past few years, and it’s fascinating to think she wrote and discarded it.

(I also wouldn’t “hold it against her” if she’s not being entirely truthful about when they were fleshed out / finished… artists fudge the truth about that kind of thing all the time.)

Yeah, no one cares, it's just trivia. Even Springsteen, I believe one of his box sets of leftovers from the '70s had at least one song that was 100% recorded recently, because they didn't have any good takes. But in Swift's case, it might answer the question "these songs are so good, why weren't they on the album?" Maybe because they weren't done and she's gotten better?

And yeah, fwiw I still hear "1989" tracks all the time. In fact, the other night the local pop station was playing "1989 (Taylor's Version)" in its entirety, which I don't recall them doing for the other re-releases.

she doesn't say "this sick beats" this time so that's an improvement

Unless you mean she said it wrong the first time? I guess the distortion on the “t” does make it sound like “beats.”

<i>The "Bad Blood" version with Kendrick is her worst single, right? We can all agree?</i>

I've said it elsewhere on this board but Kendrick's verse on bad blood sucks donkey butt and his verse on Freedom fucking rules and there's an essay in there somewhere about that

yes on the original it sounds like she say 'beats' and on this it sounds less like 'beats' and more like 'beat'

I’m sure it’s “This sick beast”

And what sick beat, its hour come round at last / Slouches towards Stockholm to be born?

I’m sure it’s “This sick beast”

assuming you're not being sarcastic and/or making a Yeats joke: "Taylor Swift Trademarks ‘This Sick Beat’ and Other ‘1989’ Phrases":

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/taylor-swift-trademarks-this-sick-beat-and-other-1989-phrases-41228/

I assumed these were all jokes...

It’s all fun and jokes until the falcon cannot hear the falconer

Surely some Reputation is at hand;
Surely the Taylor's Version is at hand.

the players lack all conviction, while the haters are filled with passionate intensity

Horse girls, pass by

(if Taylor ever did write a song premised on The Second Coming it would finally justify all the lazy Joni Mitchell critical comparisons)

The Pitchfork review, exploring how the vault tracks differ from the album cuts, makes an interesting observation (which may help explain why I like them so much):

On “Suburban Legends,” Swift writes in the dense, largely rhymeless run-on style that defines later records like Folklore and Midnights. The second verse builds to the lines, “I am standing in a 1950s gymnasium/And I can still see it now”—an unwieldy contrast to the appealingly quantized bounce of 1989 cuts like “How You Get the Girl” and “Style.”

I’m surprised that “Slut!” seems to be generally disfavored… I think it’s such a good song (and with a great refrain—“If I’m gonna be drunk / I might as well be drunk in love”)

See, Beyonce, this is what happens when you don't trademark your phrases

If I’m gonna be crazy, I may as may be…

We played TS in the car yesterday and a few of the redone 1989 songs came up. "Style" was the one I noticed was particularly lacking for the reasons some of you mentioned: guitar and mixing were weaker, less emotion in the vocal. But I've also listened to that song many more times than the others so the differences jump out

Finally got around to listening to the new vault songs, they're really good! The best batch of vault tracks of any of the do-overs? She's taking the imperial phase to kind of ridiculous extremes here.

On par with the Fearless vault tracks IMO (though there is one track more of those)

It's interesting that Midnights was received rather poorly here yet there seems to be universal approval of the Vault tracks. There's a lot of "Mastermind" and "Labyrinth" in "Suburban Legends" and "Is It Over Now."

Well as J0rdan and I discussed above, they’re in a similar mode but so much better!