At the very beginning of March, Justin Vernon and I had gone to Texas to work on the new Big Red Machine album. I had been living with my family in France as COVID was starting to spiral out of control in Europe. I said to my wife that maybe they should come back to the States with me because I was worried about getting separated. So we got tickets, and my kids and wife flew to [the family’s home in] Upstate New York and I flew to Texas. I was there for a week, and by the time I got back Upstate, the borders were being shut and we got stuck. I have the Long Pond studio here, so in a way it was lucky.I hunkered down here and started to write a ton of music—more than I ever have. I thought maybe they were National or Big Red Machine ideas or maybe something totally different. Things were happening.So when (Taylor) reached out, I had this large folder of ideas that were pretty well on their way. She was very clear that she didn’t want me to edit any of my ideas; she wanted to hear everything that was interesting to me at this moment, including really odd, experimental noise. So I made a folder of stuff, including some pretty out-there sketches. A few hours later, she sent “Cardigan,” fully written in a voice memo. That’s when I realized that this was unusual—just the focus and clarity of her ideas. It was pretty astonishing. Over the next couple months, this would just happen; all of a sudden, I’d get a voice memo. And then another. Eventually, it was so inspiring that I wrote more ideas that were specifically in response to what she was writing.
I hunkered down here and started to write a ton of music—more than I ever have. I thought maybe they were National or Big Red Machine ideas or maybe something totally different. Things were happening.
So when (Taylor) reached out, I had this large folder of ideas that were pretty well on their way. She was very clear that she didn’t want me to edit any of my ideas; she wanted to hear everything that was interesting to me at this moment, including really odd, experimental noise. So I made a folder of stuff, including some pretty out-there sketches. A few hours later, she sent “Cardigan,” fully written in a voice memo. That’s when I realized that this was unusual—just the focus and clarity of her ideas. It was pretty astonishing. Over the next couple months, this would just happen; all of a sudden, I’d get a voice memo. And then another. Eventually, it was so inspiring that I wrote more ideas that were specifically in response to what she was writing.
https://pitchfork.com/news/the-nationals-aaron-dessner-talks-taylor-swifts-new-album-folklore/
― Indexed, Friday, 24 July 2020 20:54 (three years ago) link
is it positive to say that my problems with this so far aren't really to do with swift herself so much as her producers
― imago, Friday, 24 July 2020 21:02 (three years ago) link
that is v much my feeling as well fwiw
― the quar on drugs (Simon H.), Friday, 24 July 2020 21:04 (three years ago) link
That's funny, her past few albums I blamed the producers for bringing out the stuff I liked least about Swift herself.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 24 July 2020 21:07 (three years ago) link
Lover was kind of engagingly knockabout at least imo!
― imago, Friday, 24 July 2020 21:08 (three years ago) link
literally do not understand anyone's issues with the production
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Friday, 24 July 2020 21:09 (three years ago) link
unless they're bored
i am already pre-annoyed from the rym discussion tho
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Friday, 24 July 2020 21:11 (three years ago) link
The guitar in “The Last Great American Dynasty” is so beautiful.
― Tim F, Friday, 24 July 2020 21:15 (three years ago) link
I can't think offhand of a time someone upped their game by getting The National or Bon Iver involved. certainly it didn't improve Kathleen Edwards or Sharon van Etten's tunes, just made them more pointlessly "atmospheric" to their detriment
― the quar on drugs (Simon H.), Friday, 24 July 2020 21:16 (three years ago) link
that said if she stays pals with Vernon I hope he passes on BJ Burton's deets at some point
― the quar on drugs (Simon H.), Friday, 24 July 2020 21:18 (three years ago) link
I said to Brad to that i hope the Vernon link leads to some work with Jenn Wasner.
― Tim F, Friday, 24 July 2020 21:22 (three years ago) link
yeah don't let these boring men write your music, listen to your critic friends and recruit weyes blood lol
― imago, Friday, 24 July 2020 21:22 (three years ago) link
re: other folk from this yearI loved the Christian Lee Hutson record (produced by Phoebe Bridgers)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Lg1-xTV4xk
― DJI, Friday, 24 July 2020 21:22 (three years ago) link
this gonna be rep stans listening to folklore pic.twitter.com/9jbFxLwuJQ— george (@ursogeorgeous) July 23, 2020
― Tim F, Friday, 24 July 2020 21:24 (three years ago) link
also if you're going to do a big major-label melodramatic response to strange times then do it like The 1975 imo: crazed, desperate, ambitious, bursting with nonsense and barely logical. when is taytay gonna lose it properly i ask? when will she release her 'piece of me'? (no, 'look what you made me do' was not it)
this album feels safe, just in a way we haven't really seen from her before, and i think the fault is this studied, my-first-echoey-sad-indie production
positivity! 'august' is actually p good. 'this is me trying' is also decent. i think in future i will listen to this album from track 8 onward haha
― imago, Friday, 24 July 2020 21:25 (three years ago) link
The 1975 album is pretty much a logical extension of their previous work though? The extra fragmented-ness is just a question of degree.
― Tim F, Friday, 24 July 2020 21:32 (three years ago) link
i have actually really rather liked it from 'august' onward, 'invisible string' probably best track so far, absolutely no accounting for why
― imago, Friday, 24 July 2020 21:33 (three years ago) link
u horrible lot will say it took me 8 tracks to acclimatise but i genuinely think the melodies & sonics have got better
― imago, Friday, 24 July 2020 21:34 (three years ago) link
Leaving aside the inevitable critical framing, this album doesn’t feel like it’s even trying to be bold or dangerous or risky except from a “what does this mean career wise” perspective (and even then it could easily be framed as a pandemic one-off), and if that’s specifically what a listener is hoping for from Taylor then I suspect they will be disappointed.
In this regard, the point of comparison I keep coming back to is Tori Amos’s ‘Scarlet’s Walk’ - another superficially “safe” album where the ‘sharper’ piano attack referred to above softened but also the lyrical approach became less elliptical and more attuned to working up and examining the crevices of recognisable metaphors. But even more than that, the opening up of the viewpoints so that the songs feel part of a dialogue with (sometimes heard, sometimes unheard) other voices and viewpoints. They’re coming to the same space from opposite directions but the end result - songs bursting with specific imagery and detail but relatively straightforward to unpack lyrically, because they’re part of conversations - feels very similar.
Feel a strong simpatico between these songs and stuff like “Amber Waves”, “A Sorta Fairytale”, “Strange”, “Your Cloud” etc.
― Tim F, Friday, 24 July 2020 21:37 (three years ago) link
my crackpot theory about this album: frontloaded the more 'immediate' stuff, kept the slower, sadder stuff for later, but actually, the slower sadder stuff was more interesting (to me at least), if we're getting sad taylor i want truly-desolate taylor, not sad-indie taylor
― imago, Friday, 24 July 2020 21:43 (three years ago) link
lol sorry to ride roughshod over your much-more-thoughtful and probably accurate theory tho tim
― imago, Friday, 24 July 2020 21:44 (three years ago) link
Happy to hear an album from her that isn’t suited for stadiums/choreography — which is why Alfred’s Tunnel of Love comparison fits so well. An artist who plays Wembley not writing for Wembley.
― ... (Eazy), Friday, 24 July 2020 21:47 (three years ago) link
cardigan sounds awfully Lana Del Rey-ish.
― Darin, Friday, 24 July 2020 21:50 (three years ago) link
But, like, good.
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 24 July 2020 21:55 (three years ago) link
brb gonna find a support group for ppl who strongly disliked the first 7 tracks and rly quite liked the last 9, this is too weird
― imago, Friday, 24 July 2020 21:57 (three years ago) link
So AOTY ?
― AlXTC from Paris, Friday, 24 July 2020 22:11 (three years ago) link
yes i am sure we are all agreed this is aoty
― imago, Friday, 24 July 2020 22:13 (three years ago) link
"peace" is sick as hell isn't it lj
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Friday, 24 July 2020 22:14 (three years ago) link
Poll it this fall vs. Fetch The Bolt Cutters.
― ... (Eazy), Friday, 24 July 2020 22:25 (three years ago) link
yeah i was surprised 'peace' was rated so low on rym, it makes good use of that weird little alarm tone
second half of this album's production moves away from bon iver and towards...foxing? thinking aloud here haha
― imago, Friday, 24 July 2020 22:26 (three years ago) link
Foxing do seem destined for pop star collaborator status
― the quar on drugs (Simon H.), Friday, 24 July 2020 22:28 (three years ago) link
maybe it just made me want to hear 'nearer my god' again haha, now there's an album we can all agree on. yeah christ they NEED to work with some stars
― imago, Friday, 24 July 2020 22:29 (three years ago) link
Uh
Jessie Ware recorded the album of the year
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 24 July 2020 22:49 (three years ago) link
This isn on par with Lover and just as overstuffed. I love the songs I love, but I just can't with Long Albums anymore .
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 24 July 2020 22:51 (three years ago) link
so based on that clip up there - and perhaps there are exceptions - but it sounds like he made tracks and she wrote melodies and lyrics to those tracks? am i reading that wrong?
this album is really good and a bit boring and too long. if it were 11 tracks instead of 16, the boring part would fade away.
― alpine static, Friday, 24 July 2020 22:54 (three years ago) link
but it sounds like he made tracks and she wrote melodies and lyrics to those tracks
yes she's been writing this way with producers since 1989
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Friday, 24 July 2020 23:04 (three years ago) link
I wonder how much that process has then influenced the overall output of her last few albums, including her lyrical approach.
I mean, if someone gives you the bones of the arrangement for “I Forgot That You Existed” or “You Need To Calm Down”, you’re hardly going to turn that into a “Cardigan” or “Epiphany” lyrically.
So in that sense, Taylor’s output may well be strongly contingent on her collaborators, but not in the way people traditionally mean: rather, because her own creative process seems to strongly involve following the lines of possibility afforded by the material she gets from them.
― Tim F, Friday, 24 July 2020 23:14 (three years ago) link
i do tire of dessner's approach a little by the end of this, but i have that same problem with nearly every national album (except i am easy to find but that's still longer than it needed to be)
there's nothing even close to a bad track though which is the first in a long time for her. so much better than lover for that alone
― ufo, Friday, 24 July 2020 23:15 (three years ago) link
she had production credits on all of lover so i'd assume she was more involved in the arrangements on that than with the dessner tracks on this & her past martin/shellback collaborations
― ufo, Friday, 24 July 2020 23:19 (three years ago) link
wish he'd aaron lessner am I right
― the quar on drugs (Simon H.), Friday, 24 July 2020 23:24 (three years ago) link
worth noting that this is an overwhelmingly common arrangement
― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Friday, 24 July 2020 23:29 (three years ago) link
"betty" is the track that's closest to being from her nebraska and i would love a whole album of it
― ufo, Friday, 24 July 2020 23:31 (three years ago) link
xpost I know. Wasn't saying it isn't.
anyway, it must be totally wild to send off a folder of tracks to Taylor Swift and then weeks later they start coming back with a bunch of words and melodies you never could've expected.
not to mention sending off a folder of things you think of as yours and then when they come back, they're really no longer yours ... they are now Taylor Swift songs. I mean, I know he has collaborated with many people, but in most cases his name makes the headline.
― alpine static, Friday, 24 July 2020 23:38 (three years ago) link
This album sent me back to Lover, which I haven't listened to in a long time, and is sounding really good.
― Your dream has symbolic content (morrisp), Friday, 24 July 2020 23:41 (three years ago) link
xpost None of this feels much like Nebraska to me at all, but if I had to choose the song that comes closest, it would probably be Seven. This dark story told from the perspective of a child who doesn't understand what she's seeing - seems like new ground for Taylor and I like it. The rest of this seems lyrically like pretty generic TSwift to me. Seven, Illicit Affairs, Invisible String, August and Peace are songs I'll probably listen to again, but to me it feels like a step back from Lover. There's nothing on here that grabs me the way The Archer did.
My problem with Betty and August and Cardigan - the whole high school trio - is that I find Taylor Swift's version of high school really boring. Like a Sarah Dessen YA novel. I really don't care whether Betty and James get back together or not; they'll both be fine, and they'll break up next year when they go to college anyway.
― Lily Dale, Saturday, 25 July 2020 00:21 (three years ago) link
I have never thought the subject matter per se of Taylor’s songs was particularly interesting - the topics are primarily useful as a framework for her to stretch herself as a songwriter and performer.
Like, nothing about the relationship story in “All Too Well” is interesting except what the songwriting details (e.g. the Chekhov’s gun device) and the execution/delivery bring to the table.
Which is not to say that “Seven” isn’t a stretch for Taylor - but less, I think, because of the story it tells than because that story then demands a different approach to the storytelling given the narrator’s position necessitates a very specific and oblique approach to the subject matter.
― Tim F, Saturday, 25 July 2020 00:34 (three years ago) link
the high school trio is made far more interesting by the queer reading, which i absolutely buy into now
― ufo, Saturday, 25 July 2020 00:37 (three years ago) link
Also re album of the year Beyoncé hasn’t done her Afro-futurist thing yet so I will wait for that
― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Saturday, 25 July 2020 04:21 (three years ago) link
"Cold was the steel of my ax to grind for the boys who broke my heart / Now I send their babies presents"― Ned Raggett
this line is so good, and also the followup:
"Gold was the color of the leaves when I showed you around Centennial Park / Hell was the journey but it brought me heaven"
― sleeve, Saturday, 25 July 2020 05:58 (three years ago) link