Taylor Swift - Folklore

There was the Jessie Ware, which is awesome but I don't think she's a household name, at least not in the States. But then there's the Gaga, who *is*, but whose album as far as I can tell missed the landing pad entirely and splashed down in the water.

"Rain on Me" and "Stupid Love" are radio hits, album debuted at #1. I still hear the hits.

i've only listened to "cardigan" so far but i'm really glad to see that she's released an album that's not geared in some way for radio. the white stations she's meant to cater to in particular have largely given up on introducing its audience to new music, but she of all people does not need them. artistically, this move also lets her play to her strengths -- i agree with those who've suggested that her high-octane pop material often lacks the flexibility to let her really do her thing lyrically.

'this is me trying' is the most beautiful song ever.

― Nourry, Friday, July 24, 2020 3:35 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I just got that funny feeling in my stomach listening to it, like when something is beautiful that it moves you physically. this album is incredible.

the broader 'teen test' of course is the streaming charts, and for the moment this album seems to be doing significantly better than lover was doing at this point. it's even doing major damage on apple music, a service that serves a pretty rap-centric audience.

anyway the numerous comparisons to "this love" upthread have me hopeful, will def give it a full listen soon

the devil's in the details but you got a friend in meee

My anecdotal "hit" standard is whether I hear something if I seek it out or not. Dua Lipa, for example, I hear a lot. From my kids and from other places. But Lady Gaga, had I not known she had a new album out I would not have known if she had a new album out.

Do they not play #1 singles in America then?

Maybe I hear the wrong radio? Fewer cars driving by?

^ it sounds too absurd to be real, but yes, legitimately a good number of #1 hits in the us this year will ultimately fail to find a home at radio. this is partly because pop radio is being historically slow to accept new hits but also because of the recent frequency of efforts to hype the charts, which prompted rule changes at billboard that will go into effect soon but have not yet. (and yes, i'd say it's clear that tay's 16 exclusive deluxe physicals is an obvious chart-hyping strategy that i doubt they'd be going forward with if the new rules had already gone into effect, but it's not like she needs it to make a splashy debut.)

re: gaga on american radio lately: it's not just you. "stupid love" was briefly accepted pretty widely at radio, but it ran out of steam fast in the sales-and-streams department and it was ultimately dropped from playlists quickly. "rain on me" is doing quite a bit better, but it too seems to be slowing down in its ascent and could also be dropped prematurely.

as i mentioned above, white radio is currently being hyper-conservative wrt which hits it accepts into heavy rotation, and those that it does accept are likely to stay for a pretty long while. because white radio has spent the past several years largely ignoring streaming charts, it overwhelmingly determines what gets played by passive audience research. new would-be hits like "rain on me" will certainly get their chance, but if they don't light up in this audience testing, they'll get dropped so fast it's like they never existed. (incidentally this was the fate that befell numerous taylor swift singles from her past couple of albums.)

Rain On Me was pretty much inescapable here in the UK

thinking about how if cardigan/august/betty is the "same story in different perspective" trio then how "when i felt like i was an old cardigan under someone's bed, you put me on and said i was your favorite" gets colored by the double meaning, how to put someone on also means to lie to them, so what initially seems like a heartwarming lyric on first listen gets twisted when you hear those next songs. james shows up to the party and puts on the cardigan and hopes it's enough, betty knew she'd come back to him but he chased two girls and lost the one. there is tenderness there but she's also aware of what he's done.

you said the way my blue eyes shined put those georgia stars to shame that night. i said, "that's a lie".

she's in top form all over the album but i think "peace" is kind of the most devastating thing she's ever done

Even beyond the trio, so many of the songs here (in fact almost all of them) are about how time changes perspectives on events and places them in different lights, which really does feel like a strong connection back to “Tim McGraw” via so much of her best work in the interim.

the delivery on "peace" is absolutely stunning.

xp "time, mystical time" yeah

Even beyond the trio, so many of the songs here (in fact almost all of them) are about how time changes perspectives on events and places them in different lights, which really does feel like a strong connection back to “Tim McGraw” via so much of her best work in the interim.

She mastered that right from the get-go. I remember being totally floored by "Fifteen", the way it acknowledged how things feel when you're that age, the way they feel when you look back at them with the passing of time, and the eloquence and precision she had to express it. And she can't have been older than eighteen when she wrote it!

I've only listened to it one time through, but it seemed every song didn't really do anything until about 2/3rds of the way through. I liked some of it pretty well though, especially August and Illicit Affairs.

the thing is while this is a little long i don't really know what i'd cut except maybe "mad woman" which isn't even bad, it just doesn't stand out as much

I’ve listen to three or four times and still haven’t really taken in the last song, I just run out of steam (kind of hard to imagine the version w/“bonus track”). But I’ll get there.

Muttered this on an FB thread today in response to a post from Jody Rosen on "the deftness of her genre hopping" about something I was thinking about earlier today in a similar vein: I was thinking Bowie to an extent but perhaps maybe also Robert Palmer and Linda Ronstadt, both of whom never seem to quite get that same level of appreciation Bowie got on the variety-within-a-pop-context front. Not trying to draw exact comparisons, just that Swift’s career is now long enough and detailed enough that there’s room to place her in that context. (Especially also since, as time progresses and the immediate ‘who is this about’ reaction that seems to linger about many of her songs as they appear fades into the past, everything becomes...more universal? Timeless in a certain way? Others can spell this out more than I.). Alfred followed this up with a good point that her work moves well beyond "autobiographical analysis, the hobbyhorse of journalistic approaches," which strikes me as apt.

Robert Palmer and Linda Ronstadt, both of whom never seem to quite get that same level of appreciation Bowie got on the variety-within-a-pop-context front.

Very simple explanation here; Bowie's magpie-ism registers as "cool"/"arty" to the critic-brain, where Palmer's and Ronstadt's shifts register as "mercenary"/"empty-shell".

Their loss!

she had a marvelous time ruining everything

The proof is irrefuable!

https://media3.giphy.com/media/1447XAXteQjahi/source.gif

https://media3.giphy.com/media/1447XAXteQjahi/source.gif

"exile" is pretty easily my least favorite song here but that bridge is a killer, some peter gabriel/kate bush "don't give up" shit

i don't like the verse in "exile" much at all but that's more than made up by the chorus & especially the bridge

but you know instead of reassuring and life-affirming it's about miscommunication and mutual alienation while still feeling yoked to the memory of an old warmth now lost

... like iirc a lot of the record is xp

salt air
and the rust on your door
i never needed anything more

^^^ love this opening

Your integrity makes me seem small
You paint dreamscapes on the wall

I believe Aaron Dessner when he says what he enjoyed most was the creative partnership, but I wonder at what point in all this he realized, whoa, I’m about to make a shit-ton of money.

I was thinking about that, too. And Justin Vernon, for that matter, who at this point already has several credits with Kanye, Eminem, et al., he must be swimming in it.

So Dessner has never even been in the same room with Swift, right?

so she says

I’m confused by “genre hopping” - all of Taylor Swift’s music seems to exist on a pretty narrow spectrum between pop and country to my ears?

The National guys all have several shit-tons of money already, I doubt the thought really took him aback tbf

Also anyone who is feeling this should join Brad and I in enjoying the last three Vanessa Carlton albums

― Tim F, Saturday, July 25, 2020 1:49 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

oh boy otm

I actually have no sense of how rich "band I've heard of but not Taylor Swift level megastar" makes you. If you're in the National, could you just not work for the rest of your life? It's not *that* rich, is it?

It's like the Chris Rock routine about "rich" vs. "wealthy." The National guys might not even be "rich," but I'm sure they're fine with money. However, I'm willing to bet Dessner potentially makes as much from this album as he's made from the last several National albums and tours combined.

I don't hear any genre hopping with her. I think maybe a better way to put it is how comfortable she's been with at this point a pretty diverse slate of collaborators. That's a testament to her talents (as singer/lyricist) and her personality, which tbh didn't really click with me at all until this album and, in particular, the documentary. She's the through-line but unlike (for example) Bowie or Madonna, she *doesn't * sound like a "musical chameleon," or someone who hops from style to style and image to image. She just sounds like a really sympathetic and sensitive collaborator, attuned to what others are bringing and what she can bring to them.

Playing the most recent National album again. I should play this for my kids to see if they hear any similarities.

I seriously doubt Dessner has a day job, and I'm sure he does just fine, as he works with many many artists and I'm sure he's paid well for it. He's done a few film scores also but nothing huge. "Rich" I'm not sure but he likely has a comfortable life.

A day job?! The National has sold millions of records and did p/ much non-stop touring, selling out huge venues (in Europe at least). They're all millionairs, easily.

Oh sure it’s just that whatever comfortable lifestyle he already has he just got a nice bonus.

Looking at Spotify, just their top 10 songs have had around 400 million streams so I imagine they do ok

Lol, 400 million streams on Spotify probably gets them a sandwich.

Touring is expensive. It's very easy to come back from a big headlining tour having barely broken even, or even lost money.

• You have to pay the road crew, tour manager, publicist, etc. out of pocket
• Visas, travel expenses, hotels, etc.
• Insurance
• If you're not a headliner, if you're opening for a major touring act or on a festival tour (Warped, Knotfest, Ozzfest when that was a thing, etc.), you have often bought that slot

I'm sure the National do well, because they've managed to make it a sustainable business for quite a long time, and Dessner does other stuff, but if he's more than upper-middle-class I'd be really shocked. Run of the mill doctors and lawyers make more money in a given year than highly successful, highly recognizable musicians.

Run of the mill doctors and lawyers kindergarten teachers make more money in a given year than highly successful, highly recognizable musicians.

Yeah, seriously. Just to underscore costs, Swift's Reputation tour reportedly made $266 million, which is a ton of money, but Swift herself is worth somewhere around $350 million, which means she got paid piles of money, of course, but that the bulk of the tour money probably went to the machine. Assuming any of these numbers are even close to accurate, in 2018 she reportedly earned $5 million in record sales, $2.4 million through streaming, and $2 million in publishing royalties. I bet she makes the most through endorsements and stuff, though.

Anyway, I was curious. One estimate has it that Spotify pays $1 for every 229 streams. So barring some special secret negotiation, 400 million streams likely gets the National a little under $2 million. Divided across the band members, minus costs, and yeah, you're doing well but not buying a private island or anything. But if Swift made $ 2.4 million in total streaming, then the National probably make much, much less than annually.

One estimate has it that Spotify pays $1 for every 229 streams. So barring some special secret negotiation, 400 million streams likely gets the National a little under $2 million.

This isn't the thread for this, but a) that seems way higher than I've read elsewhere, and b) Spotify doesn't pay individual artists for how much their music is streamed. A lot of people are very mad about that fact and have been since the beginning. Spotify takes all the money generated by all the songs that are streamed, throws it in a big pot, and divides it up among all the artists and labels.