Voicenotes is an album I refer to as "six time album of the year winner"
My only spare thought on TTPD is that she has gotten poisoned by "the vault tracks are good" (some of them are good, many were cut for good reasons) and decided to release an entire double album of vault tracks.
If you Venmo Fran from Fran Magazine $35 I will clue you in on the details and evidence for the real Swift conspiracy: that she is a clone of Anton LaVey’s daughter Xeena
love this point you make: "Okay, lol, but I think where something like TTPD feels most disappointing is that it’s alienating to people who wanna just vibe with the music. She’s making everyone do too much work here, and for what? These aren’t really songs, mostly, and if they are, they aren’t new ones."
because yes! that's my biggest gripe with the album -- it feels like i need to be on Taylor Swift Twitter to fully participate or enjoy the songs. as Grace Spelman aptly paraphrased: "music is not a puzzle to be solved" !!! https://twitter.com/GraceSpelman/status/1781487952566378992
I have the brain problem where I can't not enjoy a Taylor album, even when I'm not liking it all that much, so I've been listening to all of the songs, pretending they are about Lionel Messi leaving Barcelona. I don't know if this suggestion will help or harm anyone, but it making me enjoy a lot of them.
Also currently hung up on the lyric about someone looking like a finance guy, since none of them really do!
So insightful and genius, as always ogmg!! I wonder if she's hyper-aware of her ability to encapsulate universal expressions of all-encompassing emotion into hyper-specific glimpses, and has conflated her singular talent with a need to filter all her songs through a lens of "extremely literary, overwritten and overwrought symbolism" when her talent comes from her ability to distill the grand into the tangible, and she's reversed the process that makes her music sing!
HOT TTPD TAKE INCOMING!!! Here I go pearl clutching...
You should not say "...you told Lucy you'd kill yourself if I ever leave/And I had said that to Jack about you so I felt seen..." no matter how much you deconstruct/reflect upon that idea later, when you are every child and teen's role model and people are going to hear it without that context. IMO these are among the only words in the english language with potential to cause genuine harm.
Fight me about Taylor's Responsibility As A Public Figure(TM) below
i do think charlie puth should be a bigger artist. HOWEVER!! there are a LOT of songs about marriage and domestic bliss on this album (fresh out the slammer, but daddy i love him, title track) that undercut the fuck-you gesture she's trying to make. i could probably get behind this album if it were a more confident fuck you to the fans. (i would definitely read an essay putting this in conversation with recent pop girlie fuck yous: solar power, happier than ever, eternal sunshine...)
i may just be insane (very possible) but i felt like only maybe four songs on the album were lore dependent… the title track, so long london… uh i can't remember the other two but they'll come to me. i unfortunately love this album and have been listening to it since it came out even though it's making me Mentally Ill. agreed about the "new aesthetic" line however.
the one song i just don't like and that has grown zero on me is "the alchemy." (to a lesser extent, "cassandra") which is too bad bc i love the opening verse of the alchemy.
Down Fran crying at the gym! Now THAT is a great title. “Snubbing Joe Alwyn out of sadness and respect”. That was such a beautiful way to put it Fran, and I agree. If I listen to a new TS output at the start and I love it or I hate it, I usually just have to give it time. Wait for the noise to die down and then revisit it. That’s how I fell in love with Reputation, a few months after it first came out.
I still have songs on each of her albums that I skip, so I like your approach to any artist’s body of work. For Rep, I skip any “revenge” songs and go right to the “falling in love and lust” songs. Folklore and evermore are nice background music (except for when I’m depressed and they make me cry) so I can just put those albums on and let them be. Your newsletter is an island of normalcy that’s most welcome Fran. I saw The First Omen…maybe it’s the end of MY brave era, then listened to the first part of the album alone and basically lost my mind. I was like OH I can relate to feeling like an overgrown circus freak, snarling behind the bars. But alas! I am not rich. And so I must go to my job even when I’m depressed. Most people do. Anyway I’d love to hear a Taylor album or song edited by Fran.
Voicenotes is an album I refer to as "six time album of the year winner"
My only spare thought on TTPD is that she has gotten poisoned by "the vault tracks are good" (some of them are good, many were cut for good reasons) and decided to release an entire double album of vault tracks.
If you Venmo Fran from Fran Magazine $35 I will clue you in on the details and evidence for the real Swift conspiracy: that she is a clone of Anton LaVey’s daughter Xeena
MFA in poetry here 🫡 it's a slant rhyme
love this point you make: "Okay, lol, but I think where something like TTPD feels most disappointing is that it’s alienating to people who wanna just vibe with the music. She’s making everyone do too much work here, and for what? These aren’t really songs, mostly, and if they are, they aren’t new ones."
because yes! that's my biggest gripe with the album -- it feels like i need to be on Taylor Swift Twitter to fully participate or enjoy the songs. as Grace Spelman aptly paraphrased: "music is not a puzzle to be solved" !!! https://twitter.com/GraceSpelman/status/1781487952566378992
This essay is so brave
I have the brain problem where I can't not enjoy a Taylor album, even when I'm not liking it all that much, so I've been listening to all of the songs, pretending they are about Lionel Messi leaving Barcelona. I don't know if this suggestion will help or harm anyone, but it making me enjoy a lot of them.
Also currently hung up on the lyric about someone looking like a finance guy, since none of them really do!
as a Taylor Swift Agnostic I really enjoyed reading this!
spot-on and feeling validating by your firm declaration as 1989 as her best. Calling him “The Souvenir Part II’s Joe Alwyn” is soooo funny
So insightful and genius, as always ogmg!! I wonder if she's hyper-aware of her ability to encapsulate universal expressions of all-encompassing emotion into hyper-specific glimpses, and has conflated her singular talent with a need to filter all her songs through a lens of "extremely literary, overwritten and overwrought symbolism" when her talent comes from her ability to distill the grand into the tangible, and she's reversed the process that makes her music sing!
the song is called "you belong with me"
HOT TTPD TAKE INCOMING!!! Here I go pearl clutching...
You should not say "...you told Lucy you'd kill yourself if I ever leave/And I had said that to Jack about you so I felt seen..." no matter how much you deconstruct/reflect upon that idea later, when you are every child and teen's role model and people are going to hear it without that context. IMO these are among the only words in the english language with potential to cause genuine harm.
Fight me about Taylor's Responsibility As A Public Figure(TM) below
I also love that scene in Ladybird. But they're the greatest!!!
i never cheated, deleted everyone cuz they made you uncomfortable nuh uh uh baby no - Joe
i do think charlie puth should be a bigger artist. HOWEVER!! there are a LOT of songs about marriage and domestic bliss on this album (fresh out the slammer, but daddy i love him, title track) that undercut the fuck-you gesture she's trying to make. i could probably get behind this album if it were a more confident fuck you to the fans. (i would definitely read an essay putting this in conversation with recent pop girlie fuck yous: solar power, happier than ever, eternal sunshine...)
i may just be insane (very possible) but i felt like only maybe four songs on the album were lore dependent… the title track, so long london… uh i can't remember the other two but they'll come to me. i unfortunately love this album and have been listening to it since it came out even though it's making me Mentally Ill. agreed about the "new aesthetic" line however.
the one song i just don't like and that has grown zero on me is "the alchemy." (to a lesser extent, "cassandra") which is too bad bc i love the opening verse of the alchemy.
Down Fran crying at the gym! Now THAT is a great title. “Snubbing Joe Alwyn out of sadness and respect”. That was such a beautiful way to put it Fran, and I agree. If I listen to a new TS output at the start and I love it or I hate it, I usually just have to give it time. Wait for the noise to die down and then revisit it. That’s how I fell in love with Reputation, a few months after it first came out.
I still have songs on each of her albums that I skip, so I like your approach to any artist’s body of work. For Rep, I skip any “revenge” songs and go right to the “falling in love and lust” songs. Folklore and evermore are nice background music (except for when I’m depressed and they make me cry) so I can just put those albums on and let them be. Your newsletter is an island of normalcy that’s most welcome Fran. I saw The First Omen…maybe it’s the end of MY brave era, then listened to the first part of the album alone and basically lost my mind. I was like OH I can relate to feeling like an overgrown circus freak, snarling behind the bars. But alas! I am not rich. And so I must go to my job even when I’m depressed. Most people do. Anyway I’d love to hear a Taylor album or song edited by Fran.