Taylor Swift - Folklore

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

William Bowery is who Harry Styles is when he's on 'shrooms.

Ned Fucking Raggett!

― the quar on drugs (Simon H.), Monday, July 27, 2020 9:50 AM (one hour ago)

ahah

― AlXTC from Paris, Monday, July 27, 2020 9:51 AM (one hour ago)

That would have been a great ILX cover project !

― AlXTC from Paris, Monday, July 27, 2020 9:52 AM (one hour ago)

A vision, it's true.

QED xps

https://exilehaylor.tumblr.com/post/624764980399669248/william-bowery-is-harry-styles

Heh. A lot of that is one step above "Harry Styles is a person, William Bowery is a person, ergo, Harry Styles is William Bowery."

if you rearrange the letters in "william bowery" you get "bowie willamry". harry styles is a known fan of bowie and "williamry" sounds like "william"

there is/was a music critic named William Bowers, right? maybe it's him being lazy with the pseudonymns.

William Bowery = Bill Bowery = Bowery Bill = Bill the Butcher = Daniel Day-Lewis = Paul Thomas Anderson = Aimee Mann

Puzzle solved.

and you guessed it, Aimee "Mann" = noted "man", Harry Styles

if she were a man
then she'd be a Mann

lol

I did think of the character Daniel Day-Lewis played in Gangs of New York tbh.

Ned Fucking Raggett!

― the quar on drugs (Simon H.), Monday, July 27, 2020 11:50 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

YOU WANTED THE BEST - YOU GOT THE BEST!!!

exilehaylor dot tumblr dot com

isn't it just so pretty to think: all along, there was some invisible string tying you to meEEeEEeEEeEEeeeee

meeEEeeEEeeEEeeEEeeeeeeee• to a 16th note pace -- can't notate letters and put them on a staff, unfortunately

OKAY -- I spent my evening re-sequencing the tracklist, and I'm so happy with it that I really am bummed it isn't the actual tracklist you can get on vinyl because it sounds like a bonafide classic to me this way (seriously not trying to pat myself on the back), and it feels so good to fall in love with this music:

1. epiphany
2. mirrorball
3. august
4. invisible string
5. betty
6. the last great american dynasty
7. illicit affairs
8. cardigan
9. hoax
10. seven
11. mad woman
12. exile (ft. Bon Iver)
13. this is me trying
14. my tears ricochet
15. peace
16. the 1

i'm still trying to suss out how i feel about this overall, but it strikes me as a far more honest record than lover, which has some great songs as always but just feels clumsy and distracted as a full body of work. there's some resonant writing on lover but nothing w/ the emotional clarity and power of songs on here like "peace" or "invisible string". i mean compare "invisible string" which has obvious autobiographical elements but is more just a beautiful & broadly applicable song about having a soulmate to "london boy"... lol.

i'm not a fan of the national, and aside from a few bon iver things that whole scene has never really grabbed my attention. in my heart of hearts i still feel like there is better production out there for her -- ok fine i just want her version of 'the weight of these wings' -- but there's some really interesting and surprising textural elements on this record that have never really been present in her collaborations w/ pop producers even dating all the way back, so that's cool. the beginning of the album especially is rewarding as a headphones record.

if we draw a line in the sand after red, i still think reputation is my favorite... i think she really channeled the villainy that has always run alongside her public persona in a powerful way & just came up w/ an awesome pop record save for a few clunkers. but this is a good pivot for her and really has some knockout songs. i think there's a pastoral element -- that final third of 1989, LDR-ness about it -- that keeps me at a bit of a distance. but this is a better path for her to follow than working w/ frank dukes & louis bell. she isn't going to win at the pop game right now and as the initial response to this record on streaming shows, doesn't even need to.

ok fine i just want her version of 'the weight of these wings'

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, July 28, 2020 3:05 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

This would be fun, though hard for me to imagine her doing something as ragged as "Ugly Lights" or as classic as "To Learn Her." I'd love to see her do something more akin to Golden Hour.

would love to hear the song taylor swift writes after dropping acid

i'm still trying to suss out how i feel about this overall, but it strikes me as a far more honest record than lover, which has some great songs as always but just feels clumsy and distracted as a full body of work. there's some resonant writing on lover but nothing w/ the emotional clarity and power of songs on here like "peace" or "invisible string". i mean compare "invisible string" which has obvious autobiographical elements but is more just a beautiful & broadly applicable song about having a soulmate to "london boy"... lol.

i'm not a fan of the national, and aside from a few bon iver things that whole scene has never really grabbed my attention. in my heart of hearts i still feel like there is better production out there for her -- ok fine i just want her version of 'the weight of these wings' -- but there's some really interesting and surprising textural elements on this record that have never really been present in her collaborations w/ pop producers even dating all the way back, so that's cool. the beginning of the album especially is rewarding as a headphones record.

if we draw a line in the sand after red, i still think reputation is my favorite... i think she really channeled the villainy that has always run alongside her public persona in a powerful way & just came up w/ an awesome pop record save for a few clunkers. but this is a good pivot for her and really has some knockout songs. i think there's a pastoral element -- that final third of 1989, LDR-ness about it -- that keeps me at a bit of a distance. but this is a better path for her to follow than working w/ frank dukes & louis bell. she isn't going to win at the pop game right now and as the initial response to this record on streaming shows, doesn't even need to.

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, July 28, 2020 4:05 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Fully agree

this might be the record that gets me into taylor swift. wish i could still buy new cds lol

I really liked Bon Iver's first album but found everything else he's done pleasant but slightly unmemorable; like, I really enjoyed listening to the last album of his, but can't recall a single song. But I like his contribution here a lot and I like that song, though, someone I know pointed out something about about the lyrics that made me think 'yeah, this is kind of an unsettling metaphor right now'. I'm assuming TS knows that and this is an attempt to turn nationalist tropes on their head, but singing about homeland is always a bit dicey.

There isn't a single album which wouldn't be improved by a couple of omissions, this one no exception; but I like Lover as much as the best songs on this one.