Taylor Swift - Folklore

“Shake It Off” wasn’t obnoxious (and neither was “We Are Never...,” if you’re counting back that far). This is veering into “pop is bad” territory!

I mean, different strokes, I guess.

shake it off was foully obnoxious, we are never was iconic, rip terrace house

"we are never" was the last decent one, it was all sharply downhill from there leading to the unmitigated abomination that is "me!"

i assume "look what you made me do" hasn't come up bc it's the best lead single of those three albums and it's great

i fully admit i was not read for the taylor swift heel turn at the time and now i think it's so campy and arch and delightful

i was not ready*

arch(er)

Yeah, whatever you think LWYMMD was, laboured attempted at an obnoxious pop hit doesn’t seem like a good description.

“Shake It Off” and “Me!” are really the only two - in both cases they don’t even seem to fit in with the rest of the album that produced them.

I remember being on a date the first time I heard "Shake it Off" and immediately knowing I'd hear it several hundred more times whether I liked it or not

i still don't think lwymmd was good but it's at least entertaining and the video really helped sell it

"shake it off" isn't bad but also not at all good either. "me!" on the other hand is one of the worst things she's ever done

imo "cardigan" is a bad choice for first single and it would have been a massive error to drop it in advance of the album rather than on the same day

we live in a world where the post-LDR sadcore continuum is producing monster chart hits like "someone you loved", and "cardigan" to me feels just as targeted towards mainstream trends as "me!" felt targeted at pop radio playlists during the era of "high hopes" and the jonas brothers

ah the "look what you made me do" video........ cinema

what would have been a better lead single from it though, "exile"? "cardigan" seems like as good as it gets as far as lead single choices go here

yes it really had to be a choice between two of the worst songs on the album

"cardigan" is great and "exile" at least has a fantastic bridge

Yeah, actually, "We are Never ..." has grown on me.

I really like Exile and I say that as someone who has been deeply allergic to Bon Iver for virtually his entire career. Would love to hear an entire album of duets, in that vein (as opposed to the godawful Brendon Urie vein).

I don't care for that song or like the Bon Iver records much, but he has a good voice and I'm not mad when he shows up in things (eg the Hadestown studio album, Bonny Light Horseman, Yeezus)

surely monsieur iver will be duetting with tay at whichever grammy ceremony this album will be competing in

grammy wouldn't be the same without albums like taylor or bomb ivor in them

bon (h)iver? more like mauvais été, amirite?

c'est vrai

I don't care for that song or like the Bon Iver records much, but he has a good voice and I'm not mad when he shows up in things (eg the Hadestown studio album, Bonny Light Horseman, Yeezus)

― the quar on drugs (Simon H.), Sunday, 26 July 2020 23:31 (yesterday) link

One of the upshots of Hadestown is that I wasn't at all surprised to hear him sing in baritone.

I bet Taylor would just love that album if she heard it.

I still listen to it more than the Broadway cast album tbh. "If It's True", fuck.

that does also make me wonder if she likes/has heard Anais Mitchell actually

Oh yeah it's much better IMO, even if the Broadway cast album adds a lot of good songs. I think there's an interconnection of the personal and the mythical on a lot of the songs ("If It's True" yeah, but also stuff like "Wedding Song" and "Flowers") that really chimes in with some of the songwriting on Folklore - which the duet on "Exile" drives home, but it's not the only example.

Re Anais more generally, songs like "Your Fonder Heart" or "Any Way The Wind Blows" are very Taylor-esque in parts.

Actually the (non-Hadestown) song that really underscores the connection is "Namesake".

I believe Lover and Reputation would've been received much better as albums if she'd released them suddenly and all at once like she has with this one. She bungled the release of those ones with terrible first single choices and cringy marketing campaigns, and this ultimately impacted how they were received as projects. I do think this album is better than both of those, but the fact that it has pretty much forced people to accept it as a complete project helps it. It's interesting, it really does feel like Taylor is really still pulling for the idea of the ALBUM as the ultimate unit of musical consumption when the rest of the music culture feels like it's pulling strongly against it. It seems somewhat conservative or traditional in the present environment, but I like that. I think this album, which feels like a collection of thematically linked short stories to me, is a good example of being able to do things over the course of a record that can't be just done in one song.

Taylor's pretty lucky that official greatest hits compilations are no longer a thing - if she had one it would be a total mess.

This album is as boring as a Bon Iver album.

CTRL+F Paysage D'Hiver

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Taylor's pretty lucky that official greatest hits compilations are no longer a thing - if she had one it would be a total mess.

Wait that's why I would like it.

Anyway Jill Mapes wrote a positive review for Pitchfork that wasn't 10.0 and so logically she's been trashed by stans for hours.

Yeah it's kinda being discussed in the stan thread

Been through the album a few times now and even though I quite like some of the Dessner tunes, the Antonoff songs (My Tears, Mirrorball, Seven, August, This is Me Trying, Illicit Affairs, Betty) are so much more thrilling, and sure feels like the two could have made something really really special together.

Also, fans have noticed some parallel images with the film Portrait of a Lady on Fire:

Taylor really said “that film has a very sad ending but it’s art, I think I will put references about it” #folklore pic.twitter.com/5Cepig4gWY

— ELIZA(betty) (@YeeHawSwiftie) July 26, 2020

Seven is a Dessner one I think

You're right - was thinking Antonoff did that whole middle block.

I like how “the 1” keeps basically the same repetitive piano figure through the whole song, and the entire melody and structure comes just through the vocal lines. It’s a nice stripped down illustration of her writing style.

and it builds impressively

She loves her crescendos.

working on “taylor swift phrases” pic.twitter.com/hOfK2H0nxY

— Julie Greiner (@JulieAbridged) July 26, 2020

Seven is a Dessner one I think

Ned Fucking Raggett!

ahah

That would have been a great ILX cover project !

wait, which thread is the stan thread?

"peace" sounds like a Bon Iver song

I wonder what brought her to Dessner? And/or what she would have done had he not had a stack of songs and sketches and ideas ready to send her way that she immediately responded to. Related, I wonder how wide a net she cast looking for collaborators and ideas. I assume it couldn't have just been Dessner, there must have been others now bound by NDAs (or maybe slated for future projects?).

This was pretty interesting (if it hasn't been posted yet):

https://www.vulture.com/2020/07/taylor-swift-folklore-aaron-dessner-breaks-down-every-song.html

Then there's all this (intentionally?) mysterious stuff about William Bowery, who gets two credits on the record but maybe contributed more and maybe is a pseudonym. I've seen her boyfriend Joe Alwyn and Harry Styles mentioned as possibilities. I think Harry Styles is a good guess, since he and Swift reportedly worked on some unreleased music in the past, and maybe they went with a pseudonym to get around label conflicts. But who knows.

"william bowery" definitely a harry styles-ass pseudonym