The force of nature that is Taylor Swift - New Album coming April 2024 (6 Viewers)

[Ghost Rider]

Even more so as she just came downstairs saying TS dropped a surprise 15 more songs at 2am...a surprise double album.
The force of nature seems to be pretty accurate...that or an extremely crazy person who is addicted to the work of it all. Given how much music she has put out over the last 2 years plus touring all over. Pretty nuts.

I put it on when it dropped. I fell asleep half way, but I liked what I heard.

So now that it's been out a few weeks, what are your thoughts?

Even more so as she just came downstairs saying TS dropped a surprise 15 more songs at 2am...a surprise double album.
The force of nature seems to be pretty accurate...that or an extremely crazy person who is addicted to the work of it all. Given how much music she has put out over the last 2 years plus touring all over. Pretty nuts.

I put it on when it dropped. I fell asleep half way, but I liked what I heard.

So now that it's been out a few weeks, what are your thoughts?

It is similar to Midnights sound wise, but I'm gonna need more time to figure out what's what. Ask me in ninety days, lol.

I don't agree with that at all; I think it sounds pretty different from Midnights relatively speaking. It could be argued that are both are pretty synth-driven, but the choice of synth tones on the two album are pretty different, as are the styles. Plus, TTPD has a lot more guitar on it than Midnights, which barely had any. (talking the main discs in both cases)

The Anthology disc of TTPD (disc 2 - the extra 15 songs) is more or less the last chapter in the trilogy started by Folklore and Evermore, only this one is far very summery than the first two. Folklore was more like autumn, while Evermore is very much a winter record. The Anthology disc of TTPD just feels like a major summer record.

I look forward to your feedback in 90s days.

 

[Chaz McNulty]

Guys, there's nothing to 'get'. It's music. Art. Either you like it, don't like it or are ambivalent about it. If she's not your cup of tea, that's okay. There's plenty of popular artists, shows, movies, etc that I 'don't get'. It's all good.

Truth. If someone doesn't get or like her music, there is nothing you, I or anyone can say that will convince them. Plenty of people do like her music. Many do not, and that's cool, too. It would be boring if we all liked the same stuff. Fortunately, there is a lot of music out there, and there is something for everyone.

As for the new album, it is a grower, but mostly pretty excellent. With 31 songs, it is lot to get into at once, and there are some songs that have already fallen into the skip category for me, but it's not that I think they are bad; there are just others I want to hear right now. The big pop hooks are mostly absent, so it can take a handful of dedicated listens to really get what is going on. There is a lot of variety and plenty of new, different stuff for her. Because of the scope and sprawling nature of it, this is like her White Album.

I am finding that there are probably around a dozen songs that are a bit too much lyrically driven and are missing something. I can understand the sentiment that some people have that they sound similar. I may change my mind on these, but they are skips for me right now.

She still has a lot of great songs though. On my first listen I really enjoyed 'But Daddy, I Love Him'. It had a bit of that old Taylor sound to it.

 

[NewbieJr]

Guys, there's nothing to 'get'. It's music. Art. Either you like it, don't like it or are ambivalent about it. If she's not your cup of tea, that's okay. There's plenty of popular artists, shows, movies, etc that I 'don't get'. It's all good.

Truth. If someone doesn't get or like her music, there is nothing you, I or anyone can say that will convince them. Plenty of people do like her music. Many do not, and that's cool, too. It would be boring if we all liked the same stuff. Fortunately, there is a lot of music out there, and there is something for everyone.

As for the new album, it is a grower, but mostly pretty excellent. With 31 songs, it is lot to get into at once, and there are some songs that have already fallen into the skip category for me, but it's not that I think they are bad; there are just others I want to hear right now. The big pop hooks are mostly absent, so it can take a handful of dedicated listens to really get what is going on. There is a lot of variety and plenty of new, different stuff for her. Because of the scope and sprawling nature of it, this is like her White Album.

I'm there with you on the new album. At first listen, I wasn't really digging it (admittedly, it was on while I was in my office, so I wasn't able to pay close attention). Listened to it a second time and thought it pretty-much sounded the same. Nothing was really jumping out at me. Then on Threads, I was reading a couple posts about Swifties favorite songs on TTPD and I started checking them out in smaller batches. Melodies were becoming familiar. And I started really liking a lot of the songs. Like you said, 31 songs is a lot to absorb. Now that I'm fairly familiar with most of the songs, I have between 15-20 that I rotate. Back in the day, they called extra songs, "filler". Songs artists would throw together to fill out an album. Since Swift's songs are all basically a diary entry, I doubt she would consider any of them to be filler, but this album would have been up there with her best if she would have trimmed it by about 10 songs.

 

[Ghost Rider]

Guys, there's nothing to 'get'. It's music. Art. Either you like it, don't like it or are ambivalent about it. If she's not your cup of tea, that's okay. There's plenty of popular artists, shows, movies, etc that I 'don't get'. It's all good.

Truth. If someone doesn't get or like her music, there is nothing you, I or anyone can say that will convince them. Plenty of people do like her music. Many do not, and that's cool, too. It would be boring if we all liked the same stuff. Fortunately, there is a lot of music out there, and there is something for everyone.

As for the new album, it is a grower, but mostly pretty excellent. With 31 songs, it is lot to get into at once, and there are some songs that have already fallen into the skip category for me, but it's not that I think they are bad; there are just others I want to hear right now. The big pop hooks are mostly absent, so it can take a handful of dedicated listens to really get what is going on. There is a lot of variety and plenty of new, different stuff for her. Because of the scope and sprawling nature of it, this is like her White Album.

I'm there with you on the new album. At first listen, I wasn't really digging it (admittedly, it was on while I was in my office, so I wasn't able to pay close attention). Listened to it a second time and thought it pretty-much sounded the same. Nothing was really jumping out at me. Then on Threads, I was reading a couple posts about Swifties favorite songs on TTPD and I started checking them out in smaller batches. Melodies were becoming familiar. And I started really liking a lot of the songs. Like you said, 31 songs is a lot to absorb. Now that I'm fairly familiar with most of the songs, I have between 15-20 that I rotate. Back in the day, they called extra songs, "filler". Songs artists would throw together to fill out an album. Since Swift's songs are all basically a diary entry, I doubt she would consider any of them to be filler, but this album would have been up there with her best if she would have trimmed it by about 10 songs.

I find this works best at the start with any album that is long (say, 60+ minutes). And with a 2-hour album, it definitely makes it a lot easier to work on chunks of songs at a time rather than trying to tackle the whole thing.

 

[eoMMan]

A friend of mine was asking…

So now that she owns her masters, which was partly funded by her massive tour and sales from her “Taylor Version” re-recorded albums, will she be reimbursing fans who purchased the Taylor version albums?

He says that fans bought those albums because they felt bad for her but now it has a bad look that she owns the originals as well. Was it a money grab and her plan all along that she would eventually buy back the masters?

IDK

 

[Joe Schmo]

A friend of mine was asking…

So now that she owns her masters, which was partly funded by her massive tour and sales from her “Taylor Version” re-recorded albums, will she be reimbursing fans who purchased the Taylor version albums?

He says that fans bought those albums because they felt bad for her but now it has a bad look that she owns the originals as well. Was it a money grab and her plan all along that she would eventually buy back the masters?

IDK

See this is the problem right here, feeling bad for Taylor Swift the mega-rich, mega-famous superstar is kind of self delusional on anyone's part. No way her fans are entitled to a refund of any sort just because they fed into her machine. Hopefully a learning lesson on putting stars/heroes on pedestals.

 

[Ghost Rider]

A friend of mine was asking…

So now that she owns her masters, which was partly funded by her massive tour and sales from her “Taylor Version” re-recorded albums, will she be reimbursing fans who purchased the Taylor version albums?

He says that fans bought those albums because they felt bad for her but now it has a bad look that she owns the originals as well. Was it a money grab and her plan all along that she would eventually buy back the masters?

IDK

Your friend is very misguided.

No fan was forced to buy any of the Taylor's Version re-recordings, and it is worth noting that all had a ton more material than the originals. The original Fearless, for example, had 13 songs, and then the re-recording had 26, six of which were brand new songs to fans (From the Vault). Red went from 16 to 30 tracks. I cannot recall the numbers of the others, but fans got more than their money's worth especially since they were sold on CD and digitally for the price of a single album, despite all having around 23 or 24 (I think) to 30 songs each.

Her fans tend to be very vocal on social media places like X for example (annoyingly so lol), and I haven't seen any complaining. I suspect the ones taking a "the fans got ripped off" stance are non-fans who dislike her and want to find any reason to criticize her. Actual fans are more than happy with the way this played out.

As for her plan, I am sure she always hoped that she would be able to buy her original masters back some day, but the re-records were a way of taking back ownership of her songs and controlling them to an extent. Like when you hear a song in a movie or TV show; you have to get the rights from the owners of both the masters and the publishing. Because she writes all of her songs, she has always owned the publishing, so she had the right to always say no, meaning those who owned the masters the last few years were handicapped as to what they could do with it. In essence, she devalued them and then bought them back for less than she likely would have had to pay for them six years ago. Considering how ugly the business side of the music industry Is (most IN the industry will testify to this) and how male-dominated it is, this is a big win for the artist.

 

[Grace Under Pressure]

Crazy take lol

 

[General Malaise]

Rumor going round that she and Travis got married in secret. Maybe her fans can waive their claims to album refunds as a wedding gift.

 

[culdeus]

A friend of mine was asking…

So now that she owns her masters, which was partly funded by her massive tour and sales from her “Taylor Version” re-recorded albums, will she be reimbursing fans who purchased the Taylor version albums?

He says that fans bought those albums because they felt bad for her but now it has a bad look that she owns the originals as well. Was it a money grab and her plan all along that she would eventually buy back the masters?

IDK

Who buys albums?

I don't even know how to buy an album even if I wanted to. Like what do you do. Go to Amazon? Buy a CD? Vinyl?

Do swifties have a record player as a rule?

 

[B Maverick]

Do swifties have a record player as a rule?

Not sure if its a rule, but my 16 yo swiftie daughter does have one with some albums on vinyl.

 

[Ghost Rider]

A friend of mine was asking…

So now that she owns her masters, which was partly funded by her massive tour and sales from her “Taylor Version” re-recorded albums, will she be reimbursing fans who purchased the Taylor version albums?

He says that fans bought those albums because they felt bad for her but now it has a bad look that she owns the originals as well. Was it a money grab and her plan all along that she would eventually buy back the masters?

IDK

Who buys albums?

I don't even know how to buy an album even if I wanted to. Like what do you do. Go to Amazon? Buy a CD? Vinyl?

Do swifties have a record player as a rule?

Vinyl has made a bit of a comeback, and Swift sells an absurd amount of physical product (relative to anyone else these days). Vinyl making a comeback is not something I saw coming, for sure.

 

[General Malaise]

Yeah, my oldest has a record player and collects albums. I bought him a few of Taylor Swift's records, including Folklore, which I think is her best (just ahead of Red).