The New Taylor Swift Record

Peen Simmons

Let’s Get Obtuse!
Is not particularly good. Continues the slide since Midnights of being oddly hookless and lyrically meandering and overly concerned with the artist’s self-created lore as subject/hook.

I’m not a hater. She’s a pro who has been a pro for a long time. 1989 and Red are both legit classic pop records that I like a ton. I thought Folklore and Evermore were interesting steps toward becoming a stronger and more complete/compelling/grown up lyricist. I like how those records sound and legitimately loved them.

Anton Jackoff caught a lot of shit for Midnights and Tortured Poetry Attempts being generally washy and slack. But it doesn’t seem like Max Martin and Shellback had any more luck getting Tay Tay to tune up her navel gazing and lazy writing.

Also, her Beavis and Butthead worthy paean to Travis’ peen is some cringey shit that would be too corny for a half-assed Nikki or Cardi mixtape. Get a bucket and a mop, I guess.

Anyway, this record sounds like rights-free soft rock and at this point the constant beefing with and vague booking about and talking down to fellow pop stars starts to feel like maybe Taylor should consider that the problem is, in fact, her. Maybe she’s a Kanye.

She’s hit that point that a lot of previously precocious artists hit as they drift into middle age where their lack of formal education and broader normal real world experience and more rigorous artistic practice habits leaves them as little more than tedious ciphers with nothing to say but with enough clout and reach that they never need to shut up or get told to do better.

Also her need always be the biggest winner and the biggest hater makes her a fitting superstar for the Trump era.
 
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Swifties are enthusiastically embracing Taylor’s new album. Perhaps, they lack the ability to discern the drop in quality.

Swifties are not critics and I don’t trust their opinions on the matter. Same with how I don’t trust when dudes here tell me Dave Grohl has still got it or Jason Isbell isn’t phoning it in when he’s writing stuff like this…



Swifties (and most weird mega fandoms) are cults. They’re a source of fervor and not truth.
 
I was going to listen until I saw that she’s trying to have a beef war with some other pop starlet. That’s just not worth my time.
 
Most of John's post-Beatles stuff is unlistenable without the weight and lore of the Beatles behind it. Either you get ponderous and self-referential or you go the way of the Bee Gees or Manfred Mann, regenerating as a new pop confection every ten years and hoping you can pull it over on the audience again.
 
Most of John's post-Beatles stuff is unlistenable without the weight and lore of the Beatles behind it. Either you get ponderous and self-referential or you go the way of the Bee Gees or Manfred Mann, regenerating as a new pop confection every ten years and hoping you can pull it over on the audience again.
I don't think all his solo output was gold or anything, but what's unlistenable outside of Some Time In New York City?

...and those Unfinished Music albums don't count :tongue:
 
They had me in the first half of this review.

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I don't think all his solo output was gold or anything, but what's unlistenable outside of Some Time In New York City?

...and those Unfinished Music albums don't count :tongue:
Off the top of my head, Rock 'N' Roll would have been filed with Sha Na Na in the cutout bin if its author didn't record In My Life with his friends ten years earlier.
 
Off the top of my head, Rock 'N' Roll would have been filed with Sha Na Na in the cutout bin if its author didn't record In My Life with his friends ten years earlier.
Not trying to be ironic or contrarian, I genuinely prefer Sha Na Na to solo Lennon.
 
I was going to listen until I saw that she’s trying to have a beef war with some other pop starlet. That’s just not worth my time.
To be fair the beef songs aren’t the majority of it. It’s not worth your time for other reasons. But for someone who is really pushing 40 to make score-settling spite such a key part of their creative process (especially when yr a billionaire who is one of the most famous people on the planet)…well, it’s trashy and lame.

It would be one thing if she were good at being mean and talking trash. But she’s basically asking to talk to the manager whenever she thinks she’s being savage or whatever. She’s not a particularly clever or cutting writer when she’s being self-consciously mean and petty. Probably because she’s been rich and famous and insulated since she was a teen and her frame of reference for most interpersonal matters seems to be high school.
 
Off the top of my head, Rock 'N' Roll would have been filed with Sha Na Na in the cutout bin if its author didn't record In My Life with his friends ten years earlier.
To be fair, Rock N Roll was a record made as part of a legal settlement in a copyright suit and John fleshed it out into a full LP because it was a good time/distraction from other stuff.

That one is hardly a major statement. The album wouldn’t have gotten made at all if he didn’t bite too much off of “You Can’t Catch Me” when writing “Come Together.”
 
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So she put out a stinker. Wah. This never stopped Neil Young. Or Rush. Has she lost a step? Maybe. She just needs to hold on the the damn ball.

She needs life's equivalent of games against the Jets, Cowboys and Bears. I still think she's a playoff team. 'Kick Him In The Baldonis' should get her back in the charts.

Digging the Sha Nah Nah shoutout. Bowser rules!

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I don’t think @baimun will appreciate being referred to as a cult member.

I know more about Swift wood than I care to as my wife is a die hard swifty… went to the Eras tour twice, bought tickets for the theatre roll out of the album, pre-ordered multiple copies (colors) of the vinyl. She nearly lost her shit when she got a signed copy of the CD.

I was hoping it would be like Reputation but none of the songs have that kind of edge. I know my wife will have these songs on infinite repeat for a while… so wish me God Speed and long life on my Air Pod batteries. :helper:
 
I think it's better than the last one.

Plus I have the maturity of a 12-year-old, so Wood keeps making me laugh.
 
I think it's better than the last one.

Plus I have the maturity of a 12-year-old, so Wood keeps making me laugh.
Musically, it's the best track on the record IMO. That Motown groove is pretty infectious.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I’m pretty sure Travis does NOT have a micro penis.

“Forgive me, it sounds cocky
He (ah!) matized me
And opened my eyes
Redwood tree
It ain't hard to see
His love was the key
That opened my thighs”
-TS
 
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