Taylor Swift - Midnights

What makes you think this album's a retrenchment? Those Dessner albums were huge hits.

Maybe retrenchment was the wrong word. I'm mostly going by some of your ho hum responses to it, tbh, especially given the praise of the last two albums.

I think she’s genuinely tight with Antonoff and enjoys working with him (isn’t just looking to him as a hitmaker); and she also worked with Dessner on the bonus tracks, but they’re particularly not very good

Every artist seems to like Antonoff as a person/hang. Afaict the 1975 are the only to use him but downplay his creative input.

im able to instantly detect if jack antonoff worked on a song due to a visceral hatred of his production style pic.twitter.com/qebe0nugXS

— caleb gamman (@calebgamman) October 21, 2022

I just read an interview with this guy who has a weird visceral reaction to Antonoff's production style. I kinda feel it too. There's this ASMR-ness to most everything he does which I really do not like.

among several other habits, it's that he doesn't like voices that sound like voices, voices aren't enough for him. it's clear in the dessner tracks that he's willing to have the singer sound like themselves. jack's not down w/that.

Antonoff's production style is far too bland for me to pick it out from a lineup. Kudos to that astute listener, although I'm glad I'm not similarly afflicted.

to me it's just that woozy, underwater synth sound I hear everywhere

Jack piped her vocal into a mic'd lavender biscuit tin on lavender haze because the song is about lavender biscuits.

seems easy enough to pick out jack antonoff songs on an album where you already know he produced songs and any other producer would indeed be used to do something different from what he does

The most recent TapeOp has an interview with Suzy Shinn, who does a lot of stuff for Weezer, Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco, largely stuff like that. They ask:

I read that you love Jack Antonoff and Butch Walker because it’s easy to hear their production thumbprint on a record. Which of their signatures are exciting to you?

Everyone has their style. With Jack, his melodies, chord changes, and even his synth sounds – I can just tell. The same with Butch, with the more guitar-driven, live feeling. But both of these guys produce emotionally-driven records. They have heart, each in their own specific way. That’s what I try, in my own way, to emulate.

And I thought, really? I mean, good for you, he just sounds kind of blandly big budget indie-adjacent to me, even the stuff I like (and I generally don't have a problem with his stuff). Though to be fair Antonoff's own TapeOp feature was great, the dude really likes what he does and puts a lot of thought into it. But to me he's like a big, soft body pillow. Maybe that's why so many people like working with him.

xp I think the last few tracks on Reputation are sort of an outlier in that regard – they've never sounded particularly Antonoff-y to me (in fact I mistakenly thought for a while that "...Nice Things" was once of the Martin/Shellback tracks). Maybe also "False God" and the Chicks duet on Lover?

"getaway car", "out of the woods", "i wish you would" and "sweeter than fiction" are all pretty distinctively antonoff, they all sound reminiscent of his solo work. he doesn't have that much in the way of trademarks though because he's generally more about helping realise someone else's vision than bringing his own to the table.

"i wish you would" is one of the very best pop taylor tracks though, wish she'd do more like that

being good at a supporting role is surely why people like working with him so much though, there's not many big pop producers who really do what he does in that way

"Getaway Car" and "Woods" are absolutely the prototypical Swift/Antonoff tracks in my mind

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBlmTMMl7zg

IDK, I love this album I think - even though objectively I can see that the production is kinda boring.

I think perhaps the root cause is that I really feel very close to TS's songwriting at this point, and so it's really that which I focus on more than the production or whether a song works as pop or whatever (for example, yeah some of these songs might work better if they were guitar driven but I think my increased enjoyment would only be incremental). In saying that, I should emphasise that I don't really care about whether and to what extent the songs are autobiographical or confessional (e.g. I feel like Evermore is simultaneously her least autobiographical album (give or take the debut I guess) and the album which is the most focused expression of Taylor's songwriting craft). But there's a different layer of character which is conveyed by the craft of her approach, and if I think about my relative appreciation for Taylor songs they can probably be plotted on a line with songs that feel "like Taylor" being better and songs that feel like she's writing to someone else's formula at the other end of the spectrum (the

One thing I noticed on my most recent listen to Midnights is how few archetypal Taylor bridges there are, and how few of those that are there are very exciting or memorable in and of themselves a la "August" or "Ivy" (in fact they tend to be more like archetypal bridges in pop songs, pauses for breath rather than escalations in the drama). That sounds like a criticism but it's not, there's a certain vibe to a lot of these songs where they feel very much stuck in a particular thought pattern, or alternatively tunnelling very directly by way of accumulation of detail with no detours.

An example of the "stuck" style being "Midnight Rain" where the recursive pitch-shifted chorus vocal kind of mocks the rest of the song, or rather the character of the singer and her inability to break out of the duality she's constructed; an example of the latter "tunnelling" style being "You're On Your Own, Kid" which has a fantastic sense of build and momentum even though it sort of deliberately doesn't try to take it anywhere, it just piles on more nuance and accreted meaning to the realisation captured by the refrain.

Taylor tends to use bridges to open up perspectives or document narrative milestones within her songs' stories, but these songs mostly avoid both perspective shifts and milestones - even songs like "You're On Your Own, Kid" or (another example of that style) "Mastermind" don't so much change their narrators' perspectives as expand or deepen them (the fact that the "you" in "Mastermind" is revealed to be fully aware of what is going on doesn't actually change anything - which is sort of the point!).

I think Taylor has deliberately adopted a kind of structural straightforwardness to her songwriting here (this is not to say the songs are simpler: they're as wordy as ever, and there's a notable emphasis on internal rhyme schemes) in part to give expression to the kind of vibe she wants these songs to convey, which is one aspect of what strikes me as distinct and interesting about this album, as opposed to it just being a return to previous stylistic approaches. But those angles to the album mostly sit outside of discussions about e.g Antonoff's synth and drum sounds.

I was noticing the lack of classic Taylor bridges as well, and wondering if this was what I was missing in the album. Often I'll be meh on a Taylor Swift song and then it gets to the bridge and I decide I like it after all.

There's this ASMR-ness to most everything he does which I really do not like

Omg you're right! This explains so much. I'm one of those people who hates ASMR, like whatever it's supposed to do to people, it does the opposite to me.

Beautifully put, as always. And this hits on my feelings for the album as well, i def respond to it on the songwriting level

and in light of folklore/evermore these feel very much somehow in that zone, without being the same or even referential

xpost

Thanks.

I forgot to add to the end of the first paragraph (hence it trailing off) that I think one of the complicating factors with Taylor's writing is that often the songs that don't feel very reflective of her songwriting craft are also ones which are very obviously autobiographical - e.g. "I Forgot That You Existed" (the upshot synthesising these qualities is that these songs tend to make her seem quite shallow).

I can't help hearing "Midnight Rain" as a "slowed + reverb" version of "All You Have to Do Is Stay" (one of my favorite 1989 songs), and it's not a pleasant effect.

Tim, what's your least favorite Swift album?

Probably the debut, even though a decent chunk of the songs on it are all-time for me (e.g. "Tim McGraw", "Stay Beautiful", "Mary's Song", "Our Song", "Invisible") and as good as anything she ever did later - but as a collection of songs it now feels unformed at times.

It probably took Folklore and Evermore for me to feel completely good about the overall direction Swift's career had taken post-Red, even though the three albums in between are all excellent in different ways - but the subsequent albums allowed me to view them as part of an ongoing conversation rather than State of the Union addresses where I have to ask "does this album capture everything (or the most in relative terms) that I love about this artist?". Midnights is close enough to Evermore both stylistically (in terms of songwriting, not sonics) and timing-wise that I've been able to skip over that interim step of measuring it against some idealised ultimate Taylor album.

So maybe the real answer is that I no longer conceive of any of them in those terms.

Gosh, I don’t know how you find the songwriting similar to Evermore… that’s just remarkable to me

Well there are some clear differences which I have spelt out in some (you might even say excruciating) detail in posts above, but they're also clearly products of the same songwriter with the same general approach. Once you strip away the arrangement choices there's not a huge amount separating "You're On Your Own, Kid" from "Long Story Short" or "Maroon" from "Coney Island" or "Mastermind" from "Gold Rush".

I guess I’m just not as perceptive a listener, I don’t hear the similarities between those pairs of songs…

Told y'all it was fatphobic. And now... It's gone.

https://www.seventeen.com/celebrity/music/a41780539/taylor-swift-removes-fat-scale-anti-hero/

As someone who struggles with his weight/size, it's a relatable scene. Those who were complaining about it would do well to consider that other people's experiences are different from their own and those people should be free to represent that in their art. However, the edit only removes the brief shot of the scale with the word "FAT" on it. Taking that out doesn't change the content of the scene at all. The way I see it, the complainers didn't get what they wanted and the right-wing "cancel culture" crybabies get something new to whine about. Well done!

now Taylor's going to have to remove all those neuroableist lyrics about being "insane" and whatnot

I need to listen through a couple more times before firming up by opinion but this is the first Swift album that has left me cold and felt rather staid. On nearly every track I am reminded of and can identify a clear antecedent in her catalogue from the run since 1989.

A few posts that resonated with me:

This to me after three passes sounds like her most enervated release

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, October 21, 2022 7:51 AM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I’m finding this a little…er…monotonous, particularly the plodding midsection.

― monotony, Saturday, October 22, 2022 6:09 AM (five days ago) bookmarkflaglink

The one-producer/one-sound approach here is an idea that I support in theory, but in this case I think she'd have been better off with more/different collaborators.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, October 24, 2022 11:01 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is the first taylor swift album to leave me feeling nothing. aside from boredom i guess. it’s not only the production here that feels stale, but the songs just feel mapped along the contours of older, better songs. there’s several songs out of the first handful where i keep expecting her to break into the chorus melody of “i think he knows.”

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, October 25, 2022 8:39 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Midnights is close enough to Evermore both stylistically (in terms of songwriting, not sonics)

― Tim F, Wednesday, October 26, 2022 11:15 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

'folklore' is such an amazing album

However, the edit only removes the brief shot of the scale with the word "FAT" on it. Taking that out doesn't change the content of the scene at all.

that particular bit seemed to be what attracted criticism in particular but as i've said before i don't really understand the criticisms i've seen because it's presenting the whole bit as the unhealthy influence of evil taylor, not an endorsement of fat = bad.

the scene didn't need to have that detail to achieve what it wanted though so removing it is no big deal if it makes people happy i guess

Once I watched the scene in question it didn’t strike me as fatphobic per se, but perhaps unnecessarily confronting for people who have been subject to that - so yeah I think it was the right call to just take it out.

Perhaps a more wishy washy position than current public debates allow but I guess here we are (I also always felt roughly the same way about the “I’ll tell mine that you’re gay” from the original “Picture to Burn” - a better lyric than its replacement, but sensible to replace).

I gave this a listen while cooking dinner... I'd previously peeked in to hear Aaron's tracks but today I listened in full

I really really like Jack as a producer in general, but not-so-much on this. I found myself wanting to take his bass pads away. They're on everything. No song is given the chance to be buoyed aloft by a normal slurpy bouncy bass line, it's just all pads. There is very little high-frequency content, too... I kept wishing every snare and hat was louder, that there was something going on up there

Bf was less interested in the production and said "I struggle with enjoying Taylor's songs because they always come off as so autobiographical, and I don't find myself caring about her personally, so they're not particularly interesting to me". I kinda get it... there is something tawdry or self-pornographing about writing songs of such specificity (instead of universality), it feels less like she's killing me softly with her song and more like her songs are written in collaboration with People magazine

That said I loved a lot of lyrical moments. I wish this amazing stanza-- "Did you hear my covert narcissism / I disguise as altruism / Like some kind of congressman / Tale as old as time"-- was awarded a worthwhile rejoinder

Yeah – beyond just thinking the lyrics are not very good on this album, I also feel like she doesn’t “sell” the personal stuff in a way that seems like SHE even cares about it… it feels like she’s just sort of going through the motions.

Like, the first song is all about how people keep asking when she’s gonna marry her boyfriend… is that really happening(?) I guess it must be, if she’s singing about it… but it definitely doesn’t hit like songs on previous albums dealing with the same themes. And I find it hard to care, especially coming after all the exquisite songs on Evermore that went to such other places with the lyrics.

Listening now. This is my first Taylor Swift album listening experience.

i dunno, i feel like she’s of course tugging at autobiographical threads & mining those feelings but my impression is she’s writing them into new stories and wearing different shoes, like whatifs and thought exercises

maybe that’s why i feel more generous?
just because it’s all “i feel” stuff doesn’t necessarily mean it’s pure autobiography

she got pretty good at spreading her wings into fiction on the last couple of albums, i prefer thinking that midnights is part of that

Like, the first song is all about how people keep asking when she’s gonna marry her boyfriend… is that really happening(?)

her boyfriend gets asked it a lot in interviews yeah

VegemiteGrrl otm

I roll my eyes when journalists and the artists themselves allude to autobiography. Like VegemiteGrrl, I assume most writing consists of what-ifs.

She did introduce the album as “the stories of thirteen sleepless nights scattered throughout my life”… but I think it’s cool if you’re able to hear the songs a different way.

(not that imagining them to be fictional would really help for me)

i think the rerelease of stuff like the 10-minute version of “all too well” also helped put everyone back into the autobiography mindset

So many TS lyrics seem like they're based on scenarios out of movies though

I find her lyrics to be kind of impressionistic, I don't even really think of them as telling a story per se

least fave thing about taylor swift (including during superfan era c. speak now) has always been that she thinks her lyrics are autobiographical

This discussion reminds me of the several times now that songwriters have been audibly taken aback when Marc Maron assumes all of their songs are autobiographical and thier response has basically been some variation of, "of course not, why would you assume so?".