#but she is such a beautiful album even if not taylor's absolute best album

[wewontbesleeping]

hmm thinking about "i've got a hundred thrown out speeches i almost said to you" in the context not of writing letters addressed to the fire. but of wedding vows. and it's making me sad

[louloulemons-posts]

weirdly specific I know but what about fem!goth!reader who's been best friends with eddie for years. he thinks he knows everything about her until one day he climbs through her window to hang (bc of course he does, he can't use a door like a normal person, even if her parents aren't home, where's the fun in that?) and finds her rocking out to taylor swift and it turns out shes a massive closet swiftie.

Weird But F-ing Beautiful

Modern!Eddie X Fem!Gothic!Reader

Summary : You were a metal head with a secret, you love Taylor Swift.

Word Count : 1k

(How I imagine Reader would defend Taylor)

Warnings : not proofread, 3am writing (again-pls someone save my sleep schedule), so many taylor references!, swears, petnames, cuteness, eddie and reader are just adorable honestly

~ / / / * \ \ \ ~

You and Eddie had known each other for years now, you’d say he was your best friend in the whole world.

The pair of you had a lot in common, you were both unusual and unique people. You bonded over that, along with your love of bands like Metallica and Black Sabbath.

You’d always liked darker things, loving halloween whilst most liked christmas. Horror movies and true crime documentaries brought you comfort.

Complaining about summer as your dark wardrobe made the heat cling to you, it was just the person you were. But you had a secret, one that even Eddie didn’t know of.

You absolutely loved Taylor Swift. You’d found yourself bopping along to one of her songs that was on the radio and were hooked, owing all of her albums and having them on regularly.

Enter Sandman to All of the Girls you Loved Before was quite the contrast, but you loved it.Walking down the halls to your locker, Lover was playing in your ears.

People who passed you wouldn’t think that, ripped tights, a skirt that went just above your knees, dark top with long flowing sleeves - bat wings Eddie liked to call them.

Fingers and neck decorated in mismatching jewels, huge boots, a corset around your waist and eye liner that took longer than you’d care to admit. Love Story didn’t really look like a song that’d be your favourite.

Arms wrapped around your waist, squeezing you softly. Pulling out an earbud you spoke, “Edward.”

“Hello Sweetheart.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Milkshakes?”

“You paying?”

~ / / / * \ \ \ ~

Sipping on your strawberry shake you chuckled at Eddie, leaning over the table you wiped whipped cream off his nose. “Thank you,” he blushed.

“Don’t mention it Rockstar.”

“Sooo,” he said.

“Hm?”

“I may or may not have gotten two tickets to see one of the best bands of all time, and I was wondering if you’d like to come with?”

“Oh my god One Direction have reunited?” You laughed, “Shut up. Will you come with me?”

“I mean I guess I could free up some time for you,” you smirked, taking another sip of your shake.

“Cool.”

“Cool.”

~ / / / * \ \ \ ~

“Thank you for the milkshake.”

“Anytime Sweetheart, I’ll text you the details of the concert and stuff.”

“Please do. I’ll see you later,” Leaning over and kissing his cheek, cherry red stain being left on his skin.

Heading up to your room, neither of your parents were home yet. Throwing your bag down you put a record on, Taylor.

Humming to yourself as you undid your boots, you decided to start on some homework. Turning up the music and tuning everything out for a while.

~ / / / * \ \ \ ~

Stood in front of your mirror, you began wiping your makeup from your face, eventually singing along. “I remember when we broke up,” you sang softly, humming mainly.

Sliding off your rings and necklaces, your hair being pulled out of your face, comfortable for the night. God how did this woman make these songs so catchy? What was in them?

You couldn’t help yourself, “I used to think we were forever ever …” You put your books away, cleaning your desk, “We are never ever ever getting back together!”

Dancing around your room, you laughed as you spun around your room. These songs just made you so happy, “We are never ever ever ever getting back together!”

“Okay I get the message,” a voice laughed.

“WHAT THE FUCK!” you screamed.

“Wow chill it’s me.” Eddie.

Storming over to your record player you turned it down, Stay Stay Stay playing quietly in the background. “What the fuck are you doing here? How’d you get in?” you shouted.

“Window. Came to bring this back, wasn’t expecting a concert.”

“Oh fuck off Edward,” you huffed, taking a ring out of his hand. Turning away from him and putting it with your others.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I um didn’t know you liked this music.”

“Well I do, got an issue?”

“No. Just … do you actually like metal or was that just umm …”

“I like both okay? Sometimes I just want to feel like a happy, silly teenage girl. Her music helps me do that, or if I need to cry, or fall in love or anything really. I love metal, I didn’t lie!”

“Okay. I believe you. She’s cool.”

“You think?”

“Well you like her, so she must be.”

“Shut up,” you smiled.

“I’m serious. Teach me the way of Taylor Swift,” he grinned, dropping on your bed.

“Well thats 10 albums, and then there’s Taylor’s versions.”

“God you’re a proper little nerd.”

“Says the one who loves D&D,” you smacked him lightly.

“I’m not saying she’s bad! I like that one umm … Enchanted?”

“Yes! It’s her newest re-release, god I love that album and 1989s out soon as well.”

“Slow down babe, you’re losing me.”

“Sorry, so um Enchanted?” you asked, standing up, pulling the vinyl out of its case, replacing it on the record player. The song played softly. “It’s beautiful.”

“It is,” you smiled, turning back to Eddie. “Thank you for bringing my ring back, where was it?”

“My van, must have fallen off.”

“Or you stole it.”

“Me?” You nodded.

“Don’t think it’d fit Sweetheart.” The chorus played, and Eddie began to hum along, standing to be in front of you. “I like this other side of you.”

“Thought you’d make fun of me.”

“I’d never. I like all parts of you, this might be my new favourite, maybe we can see her concert.”

You snorted, “You willing to sell a couple organs?”

“For you, I do anything.” You smiled up at him softly, he nudged your nose with his.

“As Taylor said, I was Enchanted to meet you,” he smiled, leaning down to press his lips to yours.

~ / / / * \ \ \ ~

A/N : This was so fun to do! I just jammed out to Taylor the whole time and it was great. Thank you so much for this request I hope you enjoyed it 🤍

Thank you so much for reading! Please leave any requests 🤍

[folkwhore1998]

It's flawless, really something. It's Fearless.

Let us take a moment to talk about Fearless (stolen) as well as Taylor's Version- Taylor's very first re-record.

Something that makes me so excited about the releases of Taylor's Versions is the vocal progression. Taylor has always been talented, but listening to the growth in her voice from when the album first came out to when it was re-released was astounding.

Fearless is still very much country but shifted into more of a pop scene. We do not get the twang that debut had.

Major highlights about Fearless: You Belong With Me and Love Story. Both songs are ones that even people not invested in Taylor's discography can recognize anywhere. No one talks about the fact Love Story was written in what...20 minutes? I can't even write some of my best essays in a span of a week. The ability to compose a song that has so much gravity in such a short amount of time is absolutely mind-blowing. Not to mention, she accomplished this right in the beginning of her music journey.

The album itself just leaks and radiates nostalgia, and as Taylor has said, "are you ready to go back to high school with me?" ((For me, we are technically going back to middle school))

Here are my rankings of every song on Fearless (Taylor's Version) **NOTING: THERE IS NO BAD SONGS. I RANK ON HOW THEY RESONATE WITH ME. That is the beauty of music!**

1. The Way I Loved You 2. The Best Day 3. Don't You 4. Fearless 5. You're Not Sorry 6. Breathe 7. White Horse 8. Fifteen 9. Forever and Always 10. Love Story 11. You Belong With Me 12. The Other Side of The Door 13. Untouchable 14. Mr.Perfectly Fine 15. Jump Then Fall 16. Hey Stephen 17. Today Was a Fairytale 18. Come With Me in The Rain 19. You All Over Me 20. Tell Me Why 21. Change 22. Superstar 23. We Were Happy 24. That's When 25. Bye Bye Baby

*Does not include Forever & Always on piano- it falls within the same realm as the non-piano version*

I'm going to start linking Small Business Swifties in these! The patch included in this photo dump was made by LongStoryShortMarket. Photo credits of the heart-hands patch comes directly from Michaeline https://www.etsy.com/listing/1413978938/taylor-swift-13-heart-hands-iron-on Shop link: https://www.etsy.com/shop/LongStoryShortMarket?ref=shop-header-name&listing_id=1413978938&from_page=listing

Important honorable mentions:

These Fearless Era videos:

#TaylorSwift #TaylorsVersion #FearlessTV #FearlessTaylorsVersion #Fearless #TS #Rerecording #Swifties #TaylorNation #13 #LoveStory #YouBelongWithMe #Eras #TheErasTour #CertifiedSwiftie

@taylorswift @taylornation

[ts1989fanatic]

Let’s call the abuse of Taylor Swift what it really is – a hate crime against women

It doesn’t matter what your thoughts are on the artist’s latest relationship, writes Olivia Petter – we should not be talking about women this way in 2023

Of all the women in the public eye, Taylor Swift is one that people love to hate. Maybe it’s because she’s inordinately successful – her Eras tour is likely to be the highest-grossing tour of all time with an estimated $1.4bn in revenue. It could be because she’s incredibly talented – have you listened to the lyrics on her Folklore album? Maybe it’s because she’s exceptionally beautiful – that hair! Those eyes! That smile!

Or... perhaps it’s just that she’s a woman.

As a long-term, die-hard Swifty (this is what us Swift fans call ourselves), I have often wondered what it is about my favourite golden girl with the voice of an angry angel and the brain of an Ivy League English professor that riles people up quite so much.

Anyone who has seen her Miss Americana documentary for Netflix from 2020 will know that the 33-year-old has long been the subject of internet bile, with critics attacking everything from her vocals and the way she dresses, to her weight and the men she’s dated.

In the latest spate of hatred against Swift, it seems to be the latter that is causing the issue. You see, following a breakup with her long-term boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, and a rather surprising (though short-lived) fling with 1975 frontman Matty Healy, Swift has a new man in her life: Travis Kelce. The American football player is considered one of the best athletes in the game, and Swift has already made a handful of notable appearances at some of his big games.

Most recently, Swift was seen attending the Kansas City Chiefs-New York Jets game to watch Kelce play, alongside a close friend, Blake Lively, and Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds. Following the game, though, Barstool Sports personalities Dan “Big Cat” Katz and Eric “PFT Commenter” Sollenberger – hosts of the popular Pardon My Take podcast – decided to weigh in on Swift’s presence with a series of sexist comments, calling her “bad for football” and making lewd jokes about “Taylor Swift’s vagina."

Elsewhere in the podcast, Katz admitted that he’d accept Swift’s presence at Chiefs games if she and Kelce were to “release a sex video”, as he described what crude details the video would need to include for him to accept the rumoured relationship.

It’s a hideous series of comments to read in full. Here is one of the most successful women in the world being reduced to nothing but a sex object by two male sports fans. It’s textbook misogyny: what better way to minimise a powerful woman than by talking about her sex life, or making references to her genitals? We’ve seen it before, and I’m sure we’ll see it again – but hasn’t Swift had to deal with enough of this already?

For years, critics fixated on her love life, often neglecting to mention her music at all in long reads about who she was rumoured to be dating at the time. She is a woman that has, for far too long, been defined by the men in her life. At least by those without the common sense to actually listen to her music and show her even a modicum of respect as an artist.

Enough is enough. As the actor Rachel Zegler put it in a tweet, “You will never see people speaking this way about a man. That goes for a lot of different scenarios. We do not pick apart men’s attitudes and relationships the way we do women’s and it’s not always just men who speak this way about us. Women can and do, too. It sucks.”

It’s 2023; this sort of language should not be tolerated, let alone broadcast on a popular podcast. However, when it is, we should recognise it for what it is: hate speech spouted by men who are threatened by successful women, and therefore feel compelled to sexualise them in order to preserve their flimsy, fragile egos. How sad for them.

ts1989fanatic

Nothing but the absolute TRUTH

[letters-from-dekarios]

the tortured poets department (gale’s version)

tracks one through five

summary: an analyzation of TTPD with comparisons to gale dekarios’ story and life. some generalized things are part of the version of gale i’ve made in my mind that makes sense for his character to me.

or: me rambling about the TTPD songs and how each lyric relates to gale dekarios.

word count: 3.8k

tags: taylor swift is mothering with this new album, gale dekarios, i am mystra’s hateclub ceo, most of these songs are about their breakup sorry if i reiterate things a million times, MENTIONS OF S/H & SUICIDE. DO NOT READ IF THESE THINGS TRIGGER YOU.

author’s note: this multi-part series is going to be written in a much more casual style than my traditional fanfics. if you notice me rambling or screaming for like three sentences straight, don't be alarmed, I did spell check everything!

First and foremost, I absolutely LOVE this album. Artistically and lyrically, this is one of Taylor’s most sophisticated albums. It’s a story not really about boys or love or anything (not in the same way that other albums/songs have been, at least. take ‘love story’ or ‘enchanted’ for example), but instead is about her. Yes, her songs have technically always been about her. But this album has such a different ring to it. It’s about her and her feelings and about telling her story to the world, no matter if it makes people upset. This album is so unapologetically Taylor Swift that it is simply just… beautiful. I love this album SO much.

Now… let’s get into it!

fortnight;

I see this song both from the perspective of Gale and that of Mystra thinking of Gale.

“I was a functioning alcoholic till nobody noticed my new aesthetic”

makes me think of Gale hiding in his tower for a whole Year after receiving the orb. He and Mystra’s relationship wasn’t the longest either had ever had, but the breaking it off still hurt more than anything he’d ever experienced.

“All of this to say I hope you're okay/But you're the reason/And no one here's to blame/But what about your quiet treason?”

THIS IS SO. Gale knows that he’s, he was at fault for some of it too. But her treason against him (leaving him to die) goes overlooked by SO many. Even Gale overlooks her misdemeanors because he feels like he is ALSO at fault, and STILL wishes her the best despite it all.

“And for a fortnight there, we were forever/Run into you sometimes, ask about the weather/Now you're in my backyard, turned into good neighbors/Your wife waters flowers, I wanna kill her”

Metaphorically, they were together for a “fortnight”. They weren’t together for a Long time romantically, so their relationship wasn’t a long one. But now every time he uses the Weave or connects with her it’s like everything has changed and he has to play nice for fear of losing whatever friendship they had. And I’m sure some part of Gale is angry at Elminster for still being her Chosen and still having her affection (‘your wife waters flowers’).

“All my mornings are Mondays stuck in an endless February/I took the miracle move-on drug, the effects were temporary”

Even though February is the shortest month, I personally interpret the analogy like ‘this was short, but it feels longer’ and with ‘all my mornings are Mondays’ it’s like starting over time and time again but always ending up at the start. With Gale, even though their time together was futile, he’s still stuck on it. No matter how hard he tries, the effects of Mystra’s romantic loss on him is Hard. His mind always wraps back around to it.

“I love you, it’s ruining my life”

Gale still talked about Mystra and was willing to give up his life for her. He would’ve done Anything for her.

“Thought of calling you, but you won’t pick up”

Gale still tries to reach out to her even though he Knows she won’t listen to him. Even though he Knows she wants nothing to do with him right now, he still tries to reach her.

“Move to Florida, buy the car you want/buy it won’t start till I touch, touch, touch you”

He can move on and try to escape it all but no matter what he does, Mystra is Always There. She always will be. Because without her and her power, he has nothing. And it messes with him Terribly.

the tortured poets department;

“You’re in self-sabatoge mode, throwing spikes down on the road”

Mystra KNEW WHAT HE WAS DOING. How could she not?? How could she not know the magic he was using and not see what he was trying to do for her? He was destroying their relationship long before the tome and she had the Audacity to not say anything about it.

However, on Gale’s end, “But I've seen this episode and still loved the show”

LITERALLY KARSUS’ FOLLY. Gale was so aware of what Karsus had done and knew of his mistakes and sought to not be like him… yet he did something similar because he thought that the rest of the ‘show’ or relationship in this case could be different and wouldn’t affect the rest of it.

BUT, then, “And who's gonna hold you like me?/And who's gonna know you, if not me?”

Mystra knows he can try to move on, but she will always be there at the forefront of his mind. He can attempt to escape, but she is Always There.

“"You're not Dylan Thomas, I'm not Patti Smith/This ain't the Chelsea Hotel, we'rе modern idiots"”

I take this lyric as something Mystra says in a way to Gale. Kind of how she tells him to “be contented” (yes I reference this line a lot). Mystra tries to tell him that their love is not the grandest and not legendary. It is going to end. While she doesn’t refer to herself as an idiot, I feel the line can be taken as she sees the love itself as idiotic. She’s had so many lovers that this with Gale is just.. pointless, in a sense? She never had any intention of furthering his magic any more than it had been, so his idea with her is stupid.

“But you awaken with dread, pounding nails in your head/But I’ve read this one before, where you come undone”

She’s had So Many Chosen and even had someone try and literally usurp her power before. She knew what she was doing with him, even if Gale had no clue what was going to happen.

“Sometimes, I wonder if you're gonna screw this up with me/But you told Lucy you'd kill yourself if I ever leave/And I had said that to Jack about you, so I felt seen/Everyone we know understands why it's meant to be”

GALE IS INSECURE. MYSTRA TELLS HIM TO BE CONTENT AND HE TRIES TO!!!! He really Really tries to but cannot bring himself to. People who still just see him as her Chosen find little to no issue because they think he’s this great, grand, all-powerful wizard so it makes Sense.

“At dinner, you take my ring off my middle finger/And put it on the one people put wedding rings on/And that's the closest I've come to my heart exploding”

MYSTRA. She tells him to be contented even when he’s begging for more and wants to know her more intimately and instead of squashing the idea he had of becoming something greater with her, she just lets him SIT WITH THE IDEA. KNOWING FULL WELL WHAT HE WOULD'VE DONE AND WHAT HE WANTED TO DO. This song is so Mystra saying that Gale will never find anything greater than her and Gale’s heartbreak and realization over that fact.

my boy only breaks his favorite toys;

“Oh, here we go again/The voices in his head/Called the rain to end our days of wild”

I take this as Mystra seeing Gale and knowing that she was going to start something with him. After all, she had to know of his magic usage even as a small child up until she was back and fully alive again. In my headcanons/ideas she was appearing to him perhaps not with full strength but still showing herself even when he was 16/17. She also would’ve known the ideas in his head of growing more powerful and trying to love her with every part of himself.

“The sickest army doll/Purchased at the mall/Rivulets descend my plastic smile”

Mystra chose him much like one chooses a doll they purchase. She used him and abused him, and forced him to carry his fake plastic smile even when he had tears streaming down his face when she left him.

“But you should’ve seen him when he first got me”

GALES UTTER HAPPINESS OVER BEING CHOSEN BY MYSTRA? He had been practicing since he was a child. Mystra was his absolute everything!!

“My boy only breaks his favorite toys, toys, oh/I'm queen of sand castles he destroys, oh, oh”

AHHH. No matter how hard Gale could’ve and was trying, he crumbled the relationship in his hands. He didn’t mean to, but it happened regardless. Also, ‘queen of sandcastles he destroys’ THINKING that he was standing on stable ground with Mystra, before realizing that it was easy to ruin and never stable to begin with. At the same time, though, Mystra thinking that she had Gale exactly where she wanted him and then realizing that he was going down a path she wouldn’t support. But instead of helping him rebuild she just let him sit with his destruction.

“There was a litany of reasons why/We could've playеd for keeps this time”

both with Mystra and Gale, either of them could’ve fought to maintain the relationship. But Gale was the only one who actually… did.

“I know I'm just repeating mysеlf/Put me back on my shelf/But first, pull the string/And I'll tell you that he runs/Because he loves me (He loves me)”

Gale constantly says the same thing over and over about Mystra and their relationship. He has hope! But he knows she’s going to ‘put [him] back on [her] shelf’ and no longer play with him. She/Tav pulls his string (like Woody/Jessie, pulling their string makes them say their pre-recorded phrases) and he just repeats the idea that he can gain her forgiveness again and that she can love him again. I also relate the ‘repeating myself’ and ‘pull the string’ to one another, too. No matter how many times you pull the string, the doll just repeats the same phrases over and over again. In this case, we know Gale can and does change his tune if you let him, but if he doesn’t and he explodes he keeps the same exact idea for the rest of the game.

“Once I fix me/He's gonna miss me”

crying because Gale consistently thinks that if he does everything Mystra asks that she will forgive him and things can go back to how they were.

“Just say when, I'd play again/He was my best friend down at the sandlot/I felt more when we played pretend/Than with all the Kens/'Cause he took me out of my box”

In a heartbeat, Gale would go back to Mystra and return to their dysfunction. Their relationship was like ‘playing pretend’ and when brought back to reality it was much harsher. He felt more because it was so unrealistic and not expected to last, much like how when you made up stories playing pretend, you would start new ones over and over again. She ‘took [him] out of [his] box’ only to ‘put [him] back on [his] shelf’ but the idea that he was wanted was what made it worth it.

“Stole my tortured heart/Left all these broken parts/Told me I'm better off/But I'm not/I'm not, I'm not”

this is a prevalent theme in all of the album, being ‘stolen’ or ‘taken’ and then being ‘broken’ or ruined, before being casted aside for the idea of being ‘better off’. Gale thinks he’s not better off and would prefer being taken and toyed with, but in reality it’s more beneficial to him. It’s the process of it that hurts.

down bad;

I cannot even begin to comprehend this one. In Taylor’s explanation of this song she states that the metaphor for love-bombing is of an alien taking someone and showing them the galaxy and then sending them home when they really liked it there. And that is just. UGH.

“Did you really beam me up/In a cloud of sparkling dust/Just to do experiments on?/Tell me I was the chosen one/Showed me that this world is bigger than us/Then sent me back where I came from”

THIS. “Tell me i was the chosen one” She did!!! She literally picked Gale as her chosen and then told him to “be contented” as if he wouldn’t be striving for more. She gave him a small slice of godhood and expected him to not want more?

“Now I'm down bad, cryin' at the gym/Everything comes out teenage petulance/"Fuck it if I can't have him"/"I might just die, it would make no difference"”

Gale locked himself in his tower for a whole Year, nearly dying because he was so depressed over everything. Yes, he also nearly died because of the orb, BUT he mostly locked himself away because of his mourning the relationship.

“Down bad, wakin' up in blood/Starin' at the sky, come back and pick me up/Fuck it if I can't have us/I might just not get up, I might stay”

Had Tara not been there, I do not think Gale would’ve lived. 100% he would’ve died after that first year because he refused to get out of bed. He just wanted Mystra and to have the Weave and without that he was willing to die.

“Did you take all my old clothes/Just to leave me here, naked and alone/In a field in my same old town/That somehow seems so hollow now?/They'll say I'm nuts if I talk about/The existence of you”

THIS??? She took away his abilities (his old self) and left him with, essentially, nothing. And then expected him to just be in Waterdeep and be fine? And then when he’s abducted, if you don’t romance him and/or have him explode for you, he LITERALLY gets called crazy for talking about Mystra. Literally. I’m 90% sure you can tell him to shut up when he tells you the truth about the orb.

“I loved your hostile takeovers/Encounters closer and closer/All your indecent exposures/How dare you say that it's—“

AUGH. Whenever Gale talks about Mystra and how she appeared to him, no matter how much she’s hurt him, he still loves her? He still reminisces on those moments with love and adoration for her despite all the pain that came with it. Everything they did he loved, and her tossing him aside Hurt. Also the sadness in her voice as she says “how dare you say it’s—“ because she ALMOST says ‘over’ but it’s choked back because if she says it she’ll start crying. The same with Gale. He knows in his heart that it’s over but this part of him can’t handle the fact that it is and that Mystra would end it like that.

“I'll build you a fort on some planet/Where they can all understand it/How dare you think it's romantic/Leaving me safe and stranded/'Cause fuck it, I was in love/So fuck you if I can't have us/'Cause fuck it, I was in love”

Gale was SO ready to explore more with Mystra and have her in her entirety. Was it a bit selfish trying to be a god to do that? Yes. BUT she literally left him completely alone after having the orb!! He wanted so much with her and wanted to be able to expand his abilities to match her and instead she tossed him aside like she was “helping” him but really she was destroying him. He was so in love with her (and, yes, the weave too) that he would’ve done everything. Then as the game goes on you can see his progression to understanding how she hurt him and how he’s allowed to be angry about it.

so long, london;

this is one of my FAVORITE songs on this album. the intro is so beautiful and so haunting. this song also makes me SO sad.

“I saw in my mind fairy lights through the mist/I kept calm and carried the weight of the rift/Pulled him in tighter each time he was driftin' away”

UGH OKAY. Metaphorically, the fairy lights were like that light at the end of the tunnel. But the mist blocks them out, making it hard to tell if there really is this fantasy-like future ahead or if it’s your mind playing tricks on you. With Gale, he wanted so desperately to have a happy ending. And yes, he does eventually get it depending on how you play, but when it comes to Mystra and everything, he really… doesn’t? He tries so hard to carry the ‘rift’ or the breaking of their foundation. Every time Mystra pulls away from him, he tries to pull her close and hold onto that fantasy he thinks he’s going to have.

“My spine split from carrying us up the hill/Wet through my clothes, weary bones caught the chill/I stopped tryna make him laugh, stopped tryna drill the safe”

CARRYING US UP THE HILL? SISYPHUS (‘thanK you aIMee’ also has a similar lyric that makes me think of sisyphus as well but that will be saved for that song). Punished to forever push that stone up the hill with no end, never being free from the weight. Not only is she trying to push and carry this weight up, she also is soaked and her bones are tired. She has so much on her own plate that trying to keep up this relationship and keep it going is only making everything else worse. In the same sense, Gale kept trying to keep this dying relationship going. Rather than it being easy, everything just kept piling on top of one another and pulling him down more and more. Eventually, he let’s go of it and stops trying to win her over. He stops trying to ‘drill the safe’, or, stops trying to get something that was never his to begin with. Something that is locked away for a reason.

“Thinkin', "How much sad did you think I had/Did you think I had in me?"/Oh, the tragedy/So long, London/You'll find someone”

MYSTRA THINKING HE COULD HANDLE IT ALL? And then just leaving him. Leaving him to deal with it all on his own. The ‘so long, London’ to me is both Gale saying goodbye to the Weave AND Waterdeep. Obviously he returns to Waterdeep (if he doesn’t explode) but it’s not the same as how he went in. He’s much different when he returns. Also, he knows Mystra will find someone else. He has no worries about that. In the same sense, Mystra knows Gale will find someone else too. Even if he’s still holding onto parts of her.

“I didn't opt in to be your odd man out/I founded the club she's heard great things about/I left all I knew, you left me at the house by the Heath”

Gale went into it thinking he would have her forever. At least, his concept of forever. He didn’t want Mystra or the Weave if it meant that, one day, he might be closed out from it all. He left everything behind for her, and yet she left him behind in his tower to rot.

“I stopped CPR, after all, it's no use/The spirit was gone, we would never come to”

He tried so, so incredibly hard to bring the relationship back to life. But, eventually, he had to give up and realize that help wasn’t coming, it was long gone, and he had to let go. “And I'm pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free” THIS LYRIC ALONE. And the way Taylor says ‘free’ with the shake in her voice… This is. I feel like, deep down, Gale is genuinely hurt and angry with Mystra for all she did. And not just her, Elminster, too. If someone would’ve realized what was going on, he could’ve been saved. But, instead, he dedicated all his youth, his time, his energy, all to her. All to the Weave. Only for it to mean nothing in the end.

“And you say I abandoned the ship/But I was going down with it/My white-knuckle dying grip/Holding tight to your quiet resentment”

THIS?? Mystra saying that Gale was trying to usurp her authority or take over her magic when in reality all he wanted was to love her? Her accusing him of essentially trying to kill her when really he just wanted to be closer to her. He literally was willing to do anything for her, even after she hurt him he was willing to die for her. He tried holding on so so hard, that ‘white knuckle dying grip’ showing how tightly he was gripping onto this relationship. For better or for worse he was willing to drown if it meant he still had a piece of that relationship.

“And my friends said it isn't right to be scared/Every day of a love affair/Every breath feels like rarest air/When you're not sure if he wants to be there”

UGGHHHHH. Tav telling Gale pretty much that he doesn’t have to do this? He doesn’t have to hold onto Mystra and follow her every beck and call and he has to realize that. Every day Mystra finds someone else or focuses her attention on another Chosen, he’s so scared he’s going to lose her forever. Every moment she doesn’t speak to him or ignores him, he fears he’s going to have everything taken away from him. UGHHH.

“You swore that you loved me, but where were the clues?/I died on the altar waitin' for the proof/You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days”

THIS. LYRIC. TOO. Mystra promised him that she loved him, that she was essentially as devoted to him, but every moment Gale spent waiting for her to prove that, to show the same amount of love that he held for her, she failed him. She left him at the altar alone with all his hopes and dreams. She sacrificed him, or wanted him to sacrifice himself, really, for her. So she could keep going and not have to deal with him anymore.

“And I'm just getting color back into my face/I'm just mad as hell 'cause I loved this place for”

GALE FINALLY BEING ABLE TO BE HIMSELF AGAIN!! When he realizes he can trust Tav and doesn’t need to hide these parts of himself.. and then he tells them his secrets and he apologizes for keeping them but he was so wounded from his last relationship that he doesn’t know what to do. Then he gets color back into his face and he’s finally able to heal from it all. And he’s so mad because he loved the Weave and he loved being so talented with it but it’s all in the past and it’s all lost to him now. Even though he still has it but.. you get the picture. UGHH THIS SONG. THIS SONG!!

If you made it this far, thank you for sticking along! My mind works in weird ways when it comes to analyzing/reviewing lyrics. I tend to take things very literally so some of my interpretations are viewed that way!

Either way, I hope you enjoyed. Be on the lookout for tracks six through ten next!

[kaylor]

Okay but I still feel like the fact that red is a random collection of songs is what makes it such a good album because she was in her early 20s and I personally don’t know a single person in their early 20s (including me lol) who wasn’t absolutely batshit crazy at any given moment. Like one second you’re high as you’ve ever been and nothing can stop you and the world is filled with happiness and the next you’re laying face down on the floor wondering where you went wrong and then 10 minutes later your friends show up to take you to a bar lmao (not saying you said it’s a bad album, I just feel like the randomness of red is what makes it RED) anyway I wrote my 10th grade essay on this lol

okay so first of all i do agree with you somewhat but this argument does annoy me a little because it's part of a wider trend of swifties telling people they "just don't get it" when they have valid criticism of taylor's music and her artistic choices. another example is "ootw is repetitive because it's about anxiety". like just because a choice was deliberate and purposeful does not mean it's going to resonate with everybody. people are allowed to dislike repetitive songs, regardless of whether it's symbolic of something. just because an artistic choice was purposeful, doesn't mean it was the right choice. however i would much rather artists make those deliberate choices (even if sometimes i don't vibe with them) because the alternative is worse.

red being a fucking mess because "that's just what your 20s is like" is not a good argument for it being a good album. yes absolutely it's reflective of the chaos of that time in her life, no it doesn't make for a good cohesive album experience. the randomness of it is in fact detrimental to its quality as a single piece of work, because that back half truly is just all over the place thematically. yeah it's relatable but that doesn't make it Good. just because taylor swift does something on purpose doesn't make it the objectively best choice and doesn't mean it can't be improved upon.

this is the tracklist i made that i think still reflects the chaos of a breakup in your 20s but is still a cohesive piece of work. cut the bloat, thematically unrelated songs relegated to bonus tracks. brought holy ground to the front where she belongs. introduction -> fallout -> dance break -> sadness -> acceptance. don't cry about track 5 crimes because i don't care about track 5 traditions at all ❤️

state of grace

red

holy ground

treacherous

i knew you were trouble

all too well

wanegbt

22

i almost do

sad beautiful tragic

everything has changed

begin again

bonus tracks

come back be here

the lucky one

starlight

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 04/05/2024 (Taylor Swift, Tommy Richman, Kendrick Lamar's "euphoria")

Just a week after her album’s impact, Taylor’s been dethroned by… Sabrina Carpenter! She grabs her first #1 on the UK Singles Chart with the smash hit “Espresso” and welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

content warning: language, Yeat praise

Rundown

As always, let’s start with the notable dropouts, which are songs exiting the UK Top 75 - that’s what I cover - after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40. Now this week, we bid adieu to: “The Tortured Poets Department” by Taylor Swift (it got three-song-ruled and dropped out from #3, more on that later), “act II: date @ 8” by 4batz featuring a remix by Drake (not his best week, more on that later), “Von dutch” by Charli XCX, “Kitchen Stove” by Pozer, “Whatever” by Kygo and Ava Max, “Murder on the Dancefloor” by Sophie Ellis-Bextor and FINALLY, “Lovin’ on Me” by Jack Harlow.

As for our gains, we see healthy boosts for “Pedro” by Jaxomy, Agatino Romero and the late Raffaella Carrá at #60, “Outside of Love” by Becky Hill at #54, “Evergreen” by Richy Mitch & the Coal Miners at #46, “The Sound of Silence” by Disturbed at #42 (yeesh), “These Words” by Badger and Natasha Bedingfield at #22, “I Don’t Wanna Wait” by David Guetta and OneRepublic at #20 - I guess obvious covers and remixes have a good week - then finally, a song hitting the top 10 I’m personally very happy with: “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” by Shaboozey at #6. #1 incoming? Please?

We also continue to see the rise or, rather, resurgence of Amy Winehouse’s catalogue due to the biopic, with “Valerie” with Mark Ronson at #38, “Back to Black” at #39, and a re-entry for “Tears Dry on Their Own” at #49, which peaked at #16 when Ye’s “Stronger” was #1 in 2007. On that same album, he says he hates Nazis, look how far we’ve come. Anyways, “Tears Dry” contains a sample of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”, made famous by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, which didn’t chart in its original form for the longest time here. It peaked at #6 in 1970 but only in the form of a cover by Diana Ross, whose version charted whilst Freda Payne’s “Band of Gold” was #1 - just shows that we don’t really remember the bigger hits of the time. The Boys Town Gang reached #46 with their cover in 1981, Whitehouse and Jocelyn Brown both charted with covers coincidentally in August of 1998 - they peaked at #60 and #35 respectively - and finally, the original first charted at #80 in 2013, amazingly still its peak, and briefly re-entered earlier this year. “Tears Dry” itself was sampled the last time Amy made the top 40 in 2023, with Skepta’s #28-peaking tribute “Can’t Play Myself”.

As for our top five this week, we start in the dregs with “i like the way you kiss me” by Artemas at #5, ��Beautiful Things” by Benedict Cumberbatch at #4, “Too Sweet” by Hozier at #3, then of course Taylor Swift’s “Fortnight” featuring Post Malone at #2 and “Espresso” at #1. It’s an interesting one today, folks, with a lot of unique and frankly, fantastic stuff to cover, so let’s start with… Kygo?

New Entries

#75 - “For Life” - Kygo and Zak Abel featuring Nile Rodgers

Produced by Kygo, Nile Rodgers, Ollie Green and Franklin

I’m honestly a bit surprised Kygo is still notching chart hits, especially without a big name attached this time. Sure, Nile Rodgers is a legend, but he’s doing so much dance-pop garbage in his later years that I don’t think many people check specifically for his collaborations, so there’s got to be something in this that’s unique, right? Aaaaaaand it’s a sample. It’s a nostalgia bait sample of a 2000s EDM track because of course it is. French house act Modjo debuted with “Lady - Hear Me Tonight”, which spent two weeks at #1 in 2000 and is an absolute classic I still return to today, even if Modjo were basically a one-hit wonder. “Lady” of course is built on a sample of “Soup for One” by Rodgers’ own band CHIC, which comes from a 1982 soundtrack album, never charted and kind of been eclipsed by “Lady”, largely because the original is honestly pretty bad, uninteresting and surprisingly stiff for an 80s funk track, with some of the weakest and most slap-dash implementation of synths. “Lady” really took the best parts of that song - its undeniable guitar melody, that isn’t even put to great use in the original - and constructed an entirely new, incredible song out of it. So I can’t tell if it’s pathetic and desperate for Rodgers to try and reclaim it, or something that speaks to the power of musical transformation. Oh, what am I kidding? It’s Kygo, it’s just kind of boring. It’s a rote piano house track that goes for the same tropical atmosphere Kygo has been doing for years - a lot of the same festival synths are there, it’s all full of bubbly swooshing that actively sound like pastel colours. The only real hook of the song is taken from Modjo and re-sang by Zak Abel, with slight lyric modifications taken from the “I’m Good (Blue)” department of refusing to allow for fun in your dance songs, and even that just feels desperate. What did Nile Rodgers even do here, man? Sign a legal document saying you can use the hook? It’s not even his Goddamn hook.

#69 - “Solo” - Myles Smith

Produced by Peter Fenn

Myles Smith is a singer-songwriter I hadn’t heard of until today but has been active since at least last year and is making at least some consistent buzz so I was interested to see what his first slow-burning chart hit here has to offer and… are we just, IN, 2012, 2013 now? We had festival house with the last song, the next song is heavily Yeezus-inspired, and this is a full-on Aloe Blacc stomp-rock song. It isn’t bad either - I actually had to get used to hearing his richer voice on this kind of scattered clap-stomp-holler folk track, and whilst this is nothing unique given the solemn pianos, spattering of strings and of course, that jingling indie folk rolick, that doesn’t feel particularly organic on this one, it still is far from bad. The lyrics are somewhat generic but not in an awful way, and the “so low”/”solo” double meaning is somewhat clever or at least, would be if in the context of the song, they actually meant separate things. It’s a bit annoying that it’s the main conceit because both have negative connotations for Mr. Smith here, so it just feels like he’s repeating himself rather than elaborating on his feelings or presenting a dichotomy. I imagine it’ll be a lost on a few people due to botched execution, which bothers me because it was an active attempt at clever songwriting that gets kind of lost in sonic translation. This sounds like I’m picking apart the song’s flaws but it is really just a fine little woodlands jams with a great singer, infectious hook and by the end, a damn fine melodramatic string section. I can see it growing on me, especially due to its gorgeous outro, but for right now, I’m somewhat lukewarm, not going to raise a fuss if it ends up smashing though and in a Noah Kahan world, I suppose it’s quite likely.

#64 - “If We Being Real” - Yeat

Produced by Synthetic, Radiate, Fendii, LRBG, Perdu and Dreamr

So terrible news: I like Yeat now. I’m still not granting him his silly little umaluts, and I won’t go too in-depth here, mostly because there’s another song worthy of in-depth analysis, and every piece Yeat’s put out fits into the jigsaw of the album’s narrative as a whole… it would require a lot more time and space, and frankly words, that I’m willing to give #64. No track feels unnecessary on 2093, the atmosphere is consistent across all 24 tracks, and lyrically, it’s a concept album, which I would have never expected from Yeat and he pulls it off brilliantly both sonically and thematically without straining himself to areas he probably couldn’t reach like trying to be super lyrical or stepping away from rage pads. Given the album’s experimentation and length, I wasn’t surprised by the lukewarm commercial reception, but I did at least expect maybe the songs with Future, Wayne or Drake on the deluxe, to have charted by now, when this hasn’t even happened in the US. So when the penultimate track on an album that’s over an hour in its standard issue becomes his first solo hit in the top 75, I have to assume TikTok virality is involved.

Regardless, I’m glad it’s here because it’s brilliant. Sonically as a separate track, it’s one extended verse over a corrupted industrial beat that cracks in right after a mystical intro full of textured but meandering strings, that get swooshed out of existence by a cinematic, malfunctioning clunker incorporating Yeat’s inhuman ad-libs, manipulated behind vocal recognition, into infectious loops within the beat. This is one of few songs - another’s coming later - where I can understand the sheer amount of producers. Lyrically, the title refers to Yeat or more accurately, his psychopathic billionaire character, attempting to shed some of his CEO veneer and ultimately failing, adopting a lot of the violent, power-hungry rhetoric the rest of the album relies on, making it a pretty ironic and depressing title, especially when considering its place in the rest of the album, coming right before the… actually honest and heartbreaking closer, “1093”. In the backhalf of this album, Yeat’s bragging sounds increasingly monotone and routine, and him rapping in and out of distorted filters or going up and down from his traditional murmur to a choking yell, exemplifies how sick and tired he is of the lyfestyle he curated for himself. This song in particular ends with him barely on beat for a beat that doesn’t even really have a beat, becoming a factorial ambiance more so than anything coherently rhythmic. I have no idea why this song in particular is going viral - it doesn’t have a chorus or even really some of the catchier, more potent lyrics on the album, and its beat barely functions as such for the vast majority of the song - Hell, it’s not even one of the album’s integral moments like the opener, “Bought the Earth”, “ILUV”, “Shade”, “Riot & Set it off”, or really countless others, but I’m not complaining because the sound design, the care placed into thematic and narrative consistency, it’s all still here. This is a 10/10 album, and if this song gets more people to check it out, I really can’t be upset with that.

#58 - “Love Me JeJe” - Tems

Produced by Guilty Beatz and Spax

So what’s “Love Me JeJe” actually mean? Well, in Nigerian Pidgin, it means “gentle” or “tender”, and the use of a more regional term rather than the English actually contributes greatly to why I think this song works: Tems’ buttery voice has always been able to display both coldness and a sensual warmth, often at the same time, but on some of the bubbliest guitars I’ve heard over an Afrobeats rhythm since the genre started charting consistently, she’s fully in that second category. Hell, most of the lyrics are pretty basic here, especially the practically meaningless chorus, but that’s to its benefit because thinking too much about this song defeats its purpose: to be gentle. It’s a frankly adorable expression of love and care at its most optimistic extent possible. Despite the clean, tropical percussion, it still feels cute and homegrown. Hell, the second verse, after a nice back-and-forth choir vocal, even references the Nigerian electricity provider that’s apparently nationally infamous for its power outages, with the lyric comparing the love she feels with her partner to the feeling when electricity comes back on in the village and all her neighbours inform the locals. Combine that with how breezy this is, the easy-flowing bridge into an outro full of murmuring, chatter and reverb-drenched laughing, it just makes for a really cute, likeable song. Not necessarily what I expected out of a lead single from Tems, but a delightful surprise. Now to balance that with pure hatred.

#50 - “euphoria” - Kendrick Lamar

Produced by Cardo, Kyuro, Sounwave, Johnny Juliano, Yung Exclusive and Matthew “MTech” Bernard

There’s part of me that finds it quite funny that Drake gets into serious beef with an incredibly analytical and perfectionist rapper like Kendrick right after putting out his own exposé of himself. For All the Dogs is as much of a dissection of Aubrey Drake Graham, albeit perhaps unintentionally, as Kendrick or really anyone could perform, as long as you’re paying attention. It’s been like that (no pun intended) for a while, but his latest is the most obvious and desperate attempt at clinging to status and image that it places his insecurities fully on display. You could recite lyrics from that album on a jazz beat and call it a diss track, so the fact that Kendrick went back to back with damn near dissections of Drake’s paranoia - especially on the Instagram follow-up track he made that is chilling - as well as a myriad of different issues he has with Drake, simply because… well, he doesn’t fuck with Drake. One could argue that this feud is complex and storied, with so many different  beligerents… but the motives behind it are genuinely a lot simpler than most rap feuds, and the diss tracks that are made from it are way more straightforward. They just outline the reasons they dislike each other, almost systematically, it’s genuinely refreshing, or at least a lot more than what’s going on with Quavo and Chris Brown, yeesh.

This track in particular is as calculated as can be, acting as a dissertation on why K-Dot doesn’t really like Drake too much. It’s condescending, damn near academic, with its smooth jazz intro and categorical shoot down of each possible avenue you could hit Drake from. We have sextuple entendres on this thing, a total of three beats, two of which are cheap-sounding but absolutely murderous drill bangers, and Genius annotations that rival War and Peace when combined. I’m not a lyrical expert, and there’s so much in here that I didn’t get until I was pointed towards that direction by Genius annotations, Reddit, X, or, embarrassingly, YouTube Shorts. You don’t need to research or analyse for this to hit hard though, there are plenty of lines that aren’t going over anyone’s heads… until you look into the exact way the bars are constructed and suddenly they have 20 double meanings and hidden easter eggs. This is really sheer venom, filled with so many layers that I wouldn’t be surprised if he genuinely wins a GRAMMY for it - and it would be in character considering Drake doesn’t even nominate his songs anymore. It’s already having an effect too, that 4batz album came out today, and he’s not signed to OVO as rumoured. Ye’s on the record… but not the already existing and heavily-streamed Drake remix. Already, he may be losing some of that prestige.

As far as it is sonically, it’s six minutes of murder, and Kendrick’s delivery is energised, violent, damn near deranged at times, to perfectly balance how, somewhat subtly through his meta commentary about his own bars and albums, the lyrics are basically an essay. It has an introduction, a conclusion, a hypothesis, written examples, he even presents counter-arguments and weaves them into his own analysis. By the time he was going extremely in-depth about his experiences as a father, and just repeating that Drake knows nothing about that, it almost felt like overkill. My personal favourite lines and ideas presented here are the concise slow dagger of the intro verse, the “Demun”/”throwaway” scheme, the voice and character he puts on between “Cutthroat business” and “I’ll explain that phrase” - he’s like a disappointed teaching assistant, obviously the YNW Melly line and its set-up, the incredible Daft Punk line that got a cackle out of me on first listen, then followed up by a mocking interpolation of one of Drake’s most revered songs, the straightforward rant about everything he hates that references an iconic moment of DMX’s trademark honesty (rest in peace), the “record” scheme in verse three, and when he started the fake Canadian accent, I just lost it. Drake’s biggest weakness here is that when he’s funny, I’m laughing at him, but when Kendrick’s funny, I’m laughing with him, and much louder. If he does respond, unless the man tells us that Kendrick’s whole life and career has been a farce, or he brings, like, the actual former President Obama on the track or something, I can’t see how it tops this. This is one of the best diss tracks ever in terms of sheer detail, and might honestly be one of the greatest throwaway rap singles period. It’ll be tough to beat.

#31 - “MILLION DOLLAR BABY” - Tommy Richman

Produced by Max Vossberg, Jonah Roy, Mannyvelli, Sparkheem and Kavi

This is the sudden breakout hit for Virginia rapper-turned-singer Tommy Richman, which actually comes in two versions on Spotify, the original and a more distorted “VHS” version. Also, this is brilliant. Sure, Richman just sounds like Brent Faiyaz, but a trend I haven’t been able to talk about on here necessarily but has been very exciting for me is the return of grittier, groovier synth funk and hyphy beats into underground hip hop and R&B, with this representing the more melodic end of that sound, which is typically restricted to Midwest and Dirty South rappers. The sound design on this one is actually even unique to that sound, starting with a bizarrely British-sounding Memphis rap vocal loop which I think isn’t a sample and is just him doing a bad impression, filtered below an infectious beat that actually took me by surprise. It even has cowbells and the type of punchy jabbing drums that I love from classic southern rap, but instead of the smooth-talking rappers you usually expect over this, we get a Brent Faiyaz impression that didn’t click with me until hearing this song. I never really got his appeal until I hear it over this and I start to realise the very distinct new jack swing element to his vocals, as he pretty seamlessly transitions from soulful double-tracked harmonies to much more rhythmic, half-rap flows. Now this ISN’T Brent Faiyaz… and I still don’t really like Brent Faiyaz, but hearing his wannabes I think helped me gather what was distinct about him, and the literal Richman North of Richmond here pitting his filtered splatter of vocal ideas and riffs over the beat in a very Devil-may-care fashion exemplifies the elements I do like about him, just with an instrumental that I personally like a lot more. Also, the VHS version is labelled as such but is really just like a bass-boosted version of the song that sounds like it was done in 10 seconds in Audacity, though the vocal mixing sounds a bit different too. I would love for someone to explain why that was the version I ended up adding to my playlist, because I couldn’t tell you.

#8 - “I Can Do It with a Broken Heart” - Taylor Swift

Produced by Jack Antonoff and Taylor Swift

I know I wrote my whole Taylor spiel last week, but I’m not bothered about this one at all, and I really did expect it to be a fan favourite, mostly because, as the one track I actually enjoy on the standard version, she’s having fun! The lyrics are actively vapid, which doesn’t feel like the intention when she’s singing over soppy adult contemporary but very much feeds into the almost childish character she plays here over synthpop with an actual pulse. The synths here sound like a theme park she’s taking the boy to, especially with the backing vocals and chatter samples implemented into the ambiance and classic Antonoff wonky synths - though some of this doesn’t even sound like it’s in his ballpark. Like were Marian Hill or Sofi Tukker ghost-producing this? Some of these loop choices and flashy sound effects are frankly ridiculous, in the best way of course because the song is camp and fun. Sure, some of Taylor’s lyrics still come off a bit awkward, mostly because of her choice of slower melodies sometimes clashing with the fast-paced patter of the synthscape, but that’s a nitpick. I do love this song, I think it’s fun, Hell, I think it’s funny which is something Taylor has always kind of failed to translate to me in the past, so that is something. I just don’t think we have the same sense of humour. Does she like Norm Macdonald? I don’t feel like she does. Correct me if I’m wrong, Swifties.

Conclusion

It should be incredibly obvious who gets Best of the Week, it’s Kenny, easily, with “euphoria”, and I’m sorry, Swifties, but Yeat better. “If We Being Real” takes away with the Honourable Mention pretty easily as well, though really, strong competition and strong week all around - Tems was close too. There can’t be a Dishonourable Mention in this climate so, Worst of the Week goes to Kygo and Zak Abel for “For Life” that “features” Nile Rodgers, it genuinely just is a lazy template of a song. As for what’s on the horizon, I’m not sure. Dua’ll have some impact, but outside of that, time may have to tell. For now, thank you for reading, long live Cola Boyy, and I’ll see you next week!

[sharktunes]

Golden Days and Gray Skies: The Nostalgia of Fearless (Taylor's Version)

As a longtime Taylor Swift fan, I was beyond excited for the release of Fearless (Taylor's Version). This album holds a special place in my heart, as the original Fearless was the soundtrack to my childhood year. Taylor’s decision to re-record her early albums is not just a business move, it’s a powerful reclaiming of her music and her story.

Track list

Fearless The title track is such a perfect opener. It captures that feeling of young love and adventure. Taylor’s voice sounds even more powerful now, and it makes me feel all the butterflies again.

Fifteen This song just feel so high school. It’s all about those first crushes and the lessons we learn. The way she tells the story is so relatable, and I love how it feels like she’s giving us advice from a big sister.

Love Story This is an absolute classic. It still gives me chills every time I hear it. The romance in this song is timeless, and it feels just as magical now as it did back in 2008.

Hey Stephen This track is just pure fun. It has such a catchy beat, and the lyrics are super cute. You can’t help but smile when you listen to it. It’s all about those exciting crush moments.

White Horse This song hits hard. It’s about realizing that not every relationship is a fairy tale, and Taylor nails the emotion here. Her voice is so raw and beautiful, it really pulls at your heartstrings.

You Belong With Me Who doesn’t love this anthem? It perfectly captures that feeling of wanting someone who doesn’t see you that way. The chorus is super catchy, and I still find myself singing along every time.

Breathe (feat. Colbie Caillat) This collaboration is so soothing. It talks about the pain of letting go, and both their voices blend beautifully together. It’s one of those songs that makes you feel all the emotions.

Tell Me Why This track really captures confusion in relationships. You can feel her frustration in every line, and it’s so relatable for anyone who’s been through a tough breakup.

You’re Not Sorry This song is all about betrayal, and Taylor delivers it with such power. You can hear the hurt in her voice, making it a standout moment on the album for sure.

The Way I Loved You I love how this song contrasts a passionate relationship with a more stable one. It really shows how complicated love can be, and the storytelling is just amazing.

Forever & Always This one hits home too. It talks about heartbreak, and Taylor’s delivery makes it feel so real. You can really sense the pain in her voice.

The Best Day Aww, this song always makes me tear up! It’s such a sweet tribute to her family, especially her mom. The love she expresses here is so genuine, it warms my heart.

Change This track is all about overcoming obstacles, and it gives me chills. The message of resilience is uplifting, and I love singing along to this one. It feels empowering.

Jump Then Fall This track is such a bubbly addition to the album! It’s all about the excitement and innocence of falling in love. The cheerful melody always puts a smile on my face.

Untouchable The dreamy, soft vibes of this song are mesmerizing. It has a unique atmosphere compared to the rest of the album, and Taylor’s voice sounds magical here.

Forever & Always (Piano Version) This stripped-down version is heartbreakingly beautiful. The raw emotion in her voice paired with the piano makes it even more poignant than the original version.

Come In with the Rain A hidden gem! This song is so underrated. It’s about waiting for someone to come back into your life, and Taylor expresses that yearning so well.

Superstar This sweet song feels like a love letter to a distant crush. The starstruck tone and tender lyrics make it feel personal yet relatable.

The Other Side of the Door This is one of my favorite tracks! The bridge is absolutely iconic, with Taylor pouring her emotions out in a way that feels so authentic. It’s a perfect mix of drama and vulnerability.

Today Was a Fairytale This song is pure magic. It’s light, romantic, and feels like it was taken straight out of a fairy tale. It’s a timeless track that complements the album beautifully.

Vault Tracks

You All Over Me (feat. Maren Morris) This new track is fantastic. It talks about memories after a breakup, and Maren’s voice adds something special to it. I can totally relate to the lyrics.

Mr. Perfectly Fine Such an upbeat song! It’s catchy and fun while reflecting on moving on from someone who wasn’t right for you. I find myself dancing every time I hear it.

We Were Happy This one feels nostalgic and bittersweet, like looking back at happier times in a relationship. You can really feel the longing in her voice, which makes it so relatable.

That’s When (feat. Keith Urban) A beautiful duet about timing in love. Their voices work so well together, and the lyrics are heartfelt, definitely one of my favorites from the vault!

Don’t You (feat. Phoebe Bridgers) Wow, this song is hauntingly beautiful! It dives deep into heartbreak, and both artists bring so much emotion to it. It just sticks with you.

Bye Bye Baby This closing track wraps up everything nicely. It reflects on loss but also hints at moving forward. Such a perfect ending to an amazing album.

As a Swiftie, I absolutely love this album so I would give the whole album a 9/10 rating. It's nostalgic yet fresh, showcasing Taylor's incredible talent as both a songwriter and performer. If you are a person who loves country pop, I really do recommend this album for you to listen.

-Ashjoe

[taylovelinus]

I feel like I have a half-baked thesis somewhere in my mind about how Taylor Swift is more culturally relevant now and has more star power currently than she did in 2014 (during her first peak of superstardom), but her music isn’t the center of her newfound relevancy at the moment and isn’t necessarily as widely successful as her music was during her first peak of her superstardom. It’s noticeable to me and it’s fascinating to watch, but I can’t exactly put my finger on why or how it’s happened. og 1989 had 5 top ten singles with 3 peaking at #1; the album was certified 9 times platinum, won album of the year and best pop vocal album at the grammys that year, the grammy museum interview….. if you were around for 2014, you know how absolutely inescapable she and her music were. The 1989 world tour was hugely successful, you couldn’t turn on the radio or go into a store without hearing those songs. The impact 1989 had on pop music in the 2010s is so significant it’s difficult to describe, and her jump from country to pop was a big deal and was pretty groundbreaking — few artists have moved genres and succeeded in the manner and to the degree that she did. Now, in 2024, her sales and streams are maybe the best they’ve ever been, but her music isn’t impactful on radio and on the culture the way it used to be. It’s good music, but few people beyond core swifties could even name a single from TTPD. Am I making sense? like, in 2014, her MUSIC was *the moment*. in 2024, SHE herself is the moment, and it feels like her music is secondary to her fame, despite the fact that her art is her livelihood and her passion. I don’t know if this is strictly the result of social media, but I’m sure that plays a part.

anyway I’m just ruminating about this on this beautiful monday evening. peace and love on planet earth, stream The Prophecy by Taylor Swift

[gaybosposts]

Hit Me Hard And Soft album review

This is Billie Eilish’s third studio album release and it’s her best. Period.

1. SKINNY

A sad but amazing opening for the album. I’m just going to say it now. Billie’s vocals on this album are heavenly. I get transported into my own head when she sings so beautiful like on this song and basically the whole album. This song is a definite 9/10.

2. LUNCH

This song is so different from SKINNY. It’s more of something to jam to before it goes into one of the most beautiful songs on this whole album. Also, the lyrics on this song are so good. Billie be getting freaky behind the scenes. 9/10.

3. CHIHIRO

This… may be my favourite from this whole album. The last 40 seconds are pure bliss. Also, to name and base this song after the main character from Spirited Away is absolute perfection. 11/10.

4. BIRDS OF A FEATHER

The beat is interesting but also amazing. The lyrics are amazing- fuck it. Everything about this track is amazing. Hell… more than amazing. 10/10.

5. WILDFLOWER

The production for this whole album is honestly god tier alone. But this may be the best produced track from this album so far. But after this… things got more serious. 10/10.

6. THE GREATEST

I… I don’t even know what to say about this… I relate to this song so much. I nearly cried to this song first listen. But cried the second time. I have been feeling very lonely lately and it reminds me of when I had bfs and I waited for that moment I was waiting for to happen but never did. I’ve always tried to be the greatest for them. But it never worked. So this was the turning point of the album for me (in a good way). I’m a Billie Stan now. I defend Billie and I hope she’s ok after listening to this album. 11/10.

7. L’AMOUR DE MA VIE

This song also hits hard, that disco part at the end was a weird choice at first but was actually really good and cheered me up a bit after balling my eyes out from THE GREATEST. 10/10.

8. THE DINER

Not the best song on this album. But I’m not going to call it the weakest or worst song on this record. It’s still great. It’s just the lowest rating out of all of these songs. I just prefer songs like CHIHIRO and THE GREATEST. 8.5/10.

9. BITTERSUITE

This song is so beautiful. I love it so much. There’s not a whole lot for me to say. I’m not really good at expressing what I think is good or bad in a song. If it sounds good to my ears, I’m going to like it or love it. 9/10.

10. BLUE

If I’m right, this song was leaked a long time ago when Billie first came up with it, I think? And the whole Billie community was waiting for the day True Blue (original title) to drop. And it did as BLUE. And this is the perfect closing track to this masterpiece of an album by one of the greatest artists of our time. 11/10.

Overall: this is Billie’s magnum opus. This is in my top 5 favourite albums now. I’m going to have to listen to this like five more times. Because I can’t get this out of my mind. I actually prefer this over Taylor Swift’s new album The Tortured Poets Department. This album is a masterpiece. 10.5/10.

[edwinspaynes]

i can't think properly or i'd do it all myself but

taylor swift (debut) album as tlh characters. welcome to do it incompletely and i'll collab i got stuck at tim mcgraw so

also yes or no is cold as you thomas when he's mad at alastair, a mix of that cog-coi gap and academy conflicted emotions? and teardrops on my guitar is his admiration from a distance while alastair's with charles. the outside is alastair's pov

iomwiwy is gracetopher. mary's song is jordelia. and invisible is cordelia @ james and grace in cog.

agree or disagree i don't mind just keen to hear what you think!

OKAY SO here are my takes:

Tim McGraw: Matthew to Cordelia at the end of the series, ngl. Like, yeah, the love is lost now, but it was something and he hopes she thinks of him sometimes and what they shared in Paris.

Picture to Burn: Thomas at Alastair after Chain of Gold. "Coming back around here would be bad for your health" has the same vibes as "I'll chuck you in the Thames if you talk to me again."

Teardrops on My Guitar: Academy Thomas to Academy Alastair for SURE but yes, also Thomas to Alastair when he's with Charles. Like, "he's the song in the car I keep singing? don't know why I do?" Yes. Yes yes yes. Also, THE ONLY THING THAT KEEPS ME WISHIN' ON A WISHING STAR? Kill me dead you're so right

A Place in This World: This might be controversial but lowkey Ari? She feels a little lost and is trying to find her place in the world and I love her.

Cold as You: Yes, once again, Thomas to Alastair after Chain of Gold. Filled with conflicted emotions, you're so incredibly right.

The Outside: Has been on my Alastair playlist since Day One for obvious reasons. I absolutely adore this song for him like "how can I ever try to be better? Nobody ever lets me in" literally something he says in period-typical terms in Chain of Iron. Also in the Letter Game. And he's right! He's the best!

Tied Together With a Smile: Matthew. I don't even feel like I need to explain this. He cries but doesn't tell anyone that he might not be the golden one? He's tied together with a smile but he's coming undone? Yes. That's all there is

Stay Beautiful: Thomas to Alastair. Like he thinks he is so beautiful and hopes that life leads him back to his front door! He is waxing poetic about his eyes (like petals of a flower, not the jungle, but still!) Idk 100% see this, but also could be Alastair to Thomas too he also finds him beautiful I wish we got more of his PoVs :')

Should've Said No: I'm going to say maybe Cordelia @ both James and Matthew after Paris, lol. They should both indeed be begging for forgiveness at her feet. (I'm kidding, mostly).

Mary's Song: Yeah, unfortunately Jordelia. But, since I love this song, Thomastair too. "Said you'd beat me up you were bigger than me, you never did." Kind of a stretch but I don't want to think about James/Jordelia every time I hear it LOL

Our Song: OKAY LOWKEY GHOSTWRITER Because like. They're sneaking out and tapping on each other's window? They're in that little glow of first love? Idk I really like this association and am down with it LOL

A Perfectly Good Heart: Alastair to Charles please. A precursor to him going all-out and singing "I'll Bet You Think About Me" from Red TV at Charles because Charles sucks. I love the idea of Alastair blasting Taylor's angry country bops at Charles. It cleanses my soul.

Invisible: I actually want to go with Matthew to Cordelia here ngl

I'm Only Me When I'm With You: Yes I fully agree that it's either Grace to Christopher OR Alastair to Thomas also really works for it.

[septembersghost]

I hate how some people are making jokes or telling us we can't be sad or that feeling heartache listening to five albums worth of her music right now is hard and we're connecting to her art "wrong" like jfc it's been one day and this is a devastating shock we can be sad for a minute!

absolutely cannot stress enough how completely and entirely NORMAL it is for people to be sad and shaken right now, and it doesn't mean we're interacting with her music incorrectly or too invested or confused and think she's our best friend or something, none of that is true, and people dismissing it as that are the ones seemingly missing the point. when someone you care about is hurt, you hurt for them, it's human. it doesn't matter that we don't know her directly, an inherent bond is in fact formed between us and her music, and there is no getting around the fact that her music is deeply personal and autobiographical, and that a significant portion has been shaped by and written about this relationship - which also isn't a bad thing, it's beautiful! that love was so real and so transformative and such an important lifeline, and we can be grateful forever that she met joe when she did and that he helped her through those terribly dark times and that they supported and loved one another the way they did, when they did. all of that is still true. it's not undone - it was rare, it was there! (to borrow from a different tune) - and they needed it and it served them in lovely ways for as long as it could. the "these songs were about my life, now they're about yours" mentality is all well and good, but sometimes a bit impossible, and that is okay to acknowledge! the idea that you must take context away and only relate them to yourself or your blorbos is a bit silly, they're still taylor's art and diary and life (and you can and should do both!). also i'm gonna be honest here, many of us do not have a love like that to apply them to, so of course the original meaning sticks a bit. fandom acting like it's a sin right now to be thinking of her within her own music and aching for that is ridiculous. that WILL fade with time, but there hasn't been time yet! everyone's just sort of reeling and trying to process. this is collective mourning for many different aspects of things, it's in fact going to be a different bit of sadness for each person even though we're sharing it together, and that's also normal! her music being intensely personal and lyrically poignant gives us that sense of connection and empathy for what she's experienced and what she's shared, and this is the only time when we've experienced her writing about this type of love, the amount of time it's lasted (we are by extension very used to joe having been a constant! six years is a lot! there are many newer fans who've never known taylor without him being a significant factor), and tbh i could go into further detail here about why it's hitting hard and the little griefs everyone has been sorting through today. you can be grateful something happened and grieve its ending, and the ending of any potential future that might've happened, you can hurt for another person simply because you care for them and wish them the best and want them to be happy. it's not invasive when we are fully aware of the boundaries there too. it's okay for the music to sting and be difficult right now because it's about a life that no longer exists - we will all go back to it and reclaim it and feel the warmth and love in it again, we will hold onto that gratitude (i will never not be thankful that joe was in her life exactly when she needed him and helped her the way he did, that she flourished so much personally and creatively in that time, she didn't have to do that work or find that strength alone and that's a wonderful thing too). it's all about understanding those emotions and giving them space and compassion. we need to give grace to taylor and joe, to each other, and to ourselves for anything we're feeling right now.

[sexybabystevie]

i saw someone else do this and IM DYING to know so... if you had to assign each mutual a taylor album what would they all be assigned?

i already know i'm gonna forget people because i still, unfortunately, do not have all of my mutuals on my list (ugh i keep forgetting :") ) but here we go!! if i don't tag you i'm sorry, and if you reply i'd love to add you!! <333

starting with ally since she sent this in :)

ally @yoalchumly - red tv. not only because you listened to atw10 for HOURS upon hours in a single week lol, but also because a lot of how we met and the things we talked about remind me of the topics of this album. also, you have the very sincere, heartfelt and emotional (not at all in a bad way) nature to you, and to me that's what encapsulates the red album <3

lily @my-my-only-angel - (first of all i am SO sorry we hardly ever interact, but ily!! my tumblr feed sucks these days and i rarely ever see your posts but i still very much appreciate you!!) to me, you are SO cool it's not even funny. and you have the best bad bitch energy (a lot of people here a going to be hearing this btw so be prepared) so ultimately i'm bestowing upon you reputation!! you give off the vibes of someone who is unapologetically and confidently themselves, and i really admire that in you! that energy is absolutely present and rep and there is why i associate it with you!! <3

ela @lovelyela - (i know you're still kind of inactive but that's totally okay! i've been a mess about my blog recently so it's not biggie, but i wanna include you anyway so i hope that's okay!!) every time i've spoken to you, you have been absolutely so kind and sweet! you were one of my first even stranger things related mutuals, and i'll never forget that!! for that reason, i'm giving you debut album taylor swift!! you have the very kind, shy kind of vibe that that lbum has as a whole to me!! <3

natti @natti-ice - okay. you are literally so cool i'm not even kidding. like i am SO honored that you're one of my mutuals/friends and i LOVE always seeing you in my feed! so i'm also giving you reputation because, again, you have amazing energy that's very confident and you're just SO cool <3

vic @royalmaybank - we haven't interacted in like. a REALLY long time and i am so sorry!! i absolutely need to catch up on what you've written recently!! to me, you give off both the vibes of lover and folklore, but if i had to ultimately pick one then i think i'd go with folklore! the softness and calmness of it all, combined with the way that to me, every song on that album feels so made with love reminds me of you!! <3

anna @keeryshouse - anna!! we haven't talked in SO long but i'll literally never forget the first time we talked!! i always looked up to you a lot and that was just so so special to me! (and also when that anon said they thought we were the same person. literally one of the highest compliments i have ever received 😭) i'm giving you evermore!! for a lot of reasons haha. your writing is absolutely amazing - you write scenes and characters and just EVERYTHING so well - and to me you have the steve harrington fanfic equivalent of evermore's amazing lyrical genius. also!! your writing also makes me SO emotional, no matter the genre or what's happening in the story, and i think that's another thing that evermore does amazingly and so do you!! <3

ava @lxvecakes - you are so absolutely lover. from your theme to your love of pink and the overall softness of your personality!! you have such amazing and sincere lover vibes, and you were absolutely the easiest person for me to choose an album for, honestly!! not only are you absolutely enamored with love and being in love, but you're also such a lover yourself and i think that's absolutely amazing and beautiful!! <3

anna @steddiesandwich - a little unrelated but i absolutely miss talking to and interacting with you!! i still see you on my dash on occasion but i do miss some of the little convos we used to have because they were so fun! if i chose an albm for you, i'd choose midnights! i feel as though your blog is very organized, but you also have such a wide variety of ships and characters from stranger things that is so refreshing to see, and it reminds me of the ways in which midnights is basically bits and pieces of all of her other albums, a gian variety that is tied together beautifully, and that so reminds me of you and your blog! <3

lo @noirgoths - lo!!! i adore you and talking to you so much, and you've been so kind and have been there for me so much in the past few months, and i am so so grateful for that! :) you're someone who's very honest and genuine, but you're also so so cool too!! you're very strong and independent in ways that i wish i could be, and that reminds me a lot of midnights and how the songs there are both very open and sincere and are also self-aware and uplifting at times!! <3

bee @sunflowerharrington - we haven't interacted in a while or very much, but i still look up to you a lot and wish we did talk a little more!! but no worries because honestly i'm a little shy lmao; anyway! from what i've seen of you and how we've interacted together, you remind me most of midnights as well! (sorry 😭 a lot of midnights album recipients in a row but it's simply my opinion :") ) you have a lot of the qualities that i identified with lo; unapologetic sincerity regarding yourself and who you are, etc, and i know that we don't talk that much so i could be totally wrong, and that's my bad if so! (also i hope this isn't awkward because i'm cursed with not knowing how to talk to people :") ) <3

brooke @circesstars - oh my gosh. you are SO so kind and considerate and helpful, and i'm so glad that you're always open to helping me with things when needed!! i love when we randomly talk late at night (lmao) and discuss the absolute most random things :) for that reason, and a few others, you most remind me of 1989! a lot of songs on 1989 are about friendship and how important being with friends is, and that along with your general vibes really reminds me of 1989! (i genuinely hae no idea how to describe the vibes thing, so my apologies lmao. you just very much remind me of moving/visiting new york with all your closest friends and having the time of your life while there :) ) <3

athena @puppy-coded - i'm so glad that we became mutuals a little while ago!! your energy and vibes are, as your url says lol, very puppy coded and i love that! you have such an energetic and fun vibe and i love it, and thus you remind me of 1989 in that way (that's totally different from brooke's 1989 vibes?? idk how my brain works, oops-) anyway :") <3

persephone @very-offkey-kazoo - i love love LOVE talking to you so much!! the little dad jokes everyday and just talking to you about anything in general - including, ofc, cat pics <3 - makes me so happy and i always love hearing from you each day!! i value your friendship so so much!! the album i'm giving you is speak now, which makes more sense to me personally than it probably will vibes or content wise. speak now is the taylor album that i largely associate with the best parts of my childhood, and even though we haven't been talking for this long, talking to you is so easy that it feels almost like i'm talking to someone i've known since i was that little :) maybe that's weird - idk :") - but!! that's the album that i most associate with you <3

OKAY i'm done!! as i said if i forgot anyone i am SOOO sorry, please let me know and i'd love to write you one!! <333

[cowboy-like-moony]

Okay but 33 year old taylor singing never grow up? And then her singing 32 and still growing up now in innocent and in general her being older than the assholes that fucked with her life when she was 19 and singing about them knowing she survived all that and more and is still strong, stronger even then she was before and her singing about Joe Jonas now that their friends. Does anyone remember when the jonas brothers (well mostly nick) where teasing a ts collab like their life depended on it? I mean I think it was a joke, but you never know. (I also don't believe the rumours about Taylor Lautner being involved, but that would be so fucking iconic) Also WILL HER BREATHING IN LAST KISS LIVE UP TO ALL OF OUR EXPECTATIONS? (and is she now thinking about a different joe singing it?) And will she change the lyrics in better than revenge? (probably not right?) And if she doesn't will there be backlash (this seems like a bit of a losing game for her because either way someone might be upset). ALSO HER SINING LONG LIVE I'm going to cry everything I said about her being stronger now, but now it doesn't relate back to some stupid guy, but instead is about her fans and about her being afraid that her career wouldn't last, but oh how it lasted and now she is one of the biggest stars in the world, if not THE biggest and has millions of fans who love her just as passionately like they did back then and are just as crazy and look for Easter eggs and make the most beautiful costumes for her show and who cry to her songs (even sometimes the ones that aren't sad). She came so far since she wrote this album, but it remains one of her best ones being written all by her and having many absolutely incredible songs, seriously I would die for every single song on this album, she better finally give it the respect it deserves and then she'll ad more speak now songs to the set list and everything will be great!! I mean she has to add more songs right? It would be great promo and miss swift is a business woman. Also VAULT TRACKS? They're going to hit so hard I'm telling you!! Speaking of hitting, battle better be one of them. Oh my god and we might get new music videos and she'll probably make enchanted a single and it will have it's own video and will be number one and win a Grammy and an Oscar (I'm not sure yet how the last part will work, but it will happen!!) Also we've got to a speak now (tv) album cover?! OH MY GOD I'M FREAKING OUT, speak now is one of my favourite albums of all time and it might finally get the appreciation it deserves! (outside of the swiftie world, swifties already have great taste) ILYDDYLYSGZKGYDLHG I'M SO EXITED!! OH MY GOD SPEAK NOW WORLD DOMINATION hdhldlydkgdxkgkgzugiuc I'm not ready for this, like I know we all seen it coming, but we're any of us prepared for her actually announcing it? Anyway JULY 7 here we come, I can't wait💜

[cleoselene]

the vinyl albums I desperately want

but will never ever be able to fucking afford lol

and btw these are all presses that only exist in expensive form. I am fine with buying a non-elite version of a record in order to HAVE it so while I'd love one of the colored copies of Lana's NFR! or the orange version of Taylor's reputation, these albums have affordable versions available. the ones in this post do not :(

Tori Amos - From the Choirgirl Hotel this is my #1 desire when it comes to vinyl. But alas, it usually goes for about $400 which is a stupid price. there's a bootleg out there now (that includes b-sides! which the real deal does not!) that my local record store has in stock and I am considering picking it up to scratch an itch affordably, because I've heard the sound quality is good but as a rule I'm not into buying bootlegs. Fan theory seems to think there's something wrong with the masters of this album (either that they have degraded or outright destroyed/lost) and that's why it's never been pressed again, but there's no hard evidence of that being true.

Taylor Swift - Lover Live in Paris ugh, why hasn't she repressed this? I don't even need it in the cute heart shaped colored vinyl (though that's not to say I don't WANT it like this, haha, LOOK AT THEM THEY'RE ADORABLE). I just really love this performance, it's acoustic Taylor, which is my favorite version of live Taylor, but I don't love it enough to spend $500 on it. Hopefully she'll press another run for Valentine's Day this year. Not like Taylor to leave money on the table but then again she hasn't pressed all of Midnights on vinyl and that's insane to me too

Delerium - Karma not many albums defined the ages of 18-20 for me quite like this album. It is immensely beautiful and it has been pressed ONCE, in 2015, a very limited run in coke bottle clear. It's expensive because it's too niche to have a big press but cries. $200? C'mon, this one could definitely use another pressing.

Lady Gaga - The Fame + The Fame Monster I want TFM much more than I want anything of Gaga's, and it's got two presses: this one that goes for like, $300-$400 and a picture disk (ew) that is censored (double ew). TFM is Gaga's absolute best, what a perfect EP. I will say that of all the records in this post I do think this one is the most likely to get another affordable pressing so I am more patient to wait

Tool - Aenima and while Gaga is likely to press TFM again, I am not at all optimistic about another pressing of Aenima. This is my favorite Tool album, was OBSESSED with it as a senior in high school. But this is probably the most expensive vinyl on this list ($700 is the lower range!!) and so I am 100% positive I will never own it. Which makes me sad. Because I bet it sounds fucking IMMACULATE

[plastic-summer]

my thoughts on taylor's grammy nominations

i still think midnights is criminally underrated in the fandom, so it would be amazing to see her getting the awards she deserves! absolutely taylor's most cohesive album to date and you can just see how proud she is of it. the lyrics, the production, the visuals, the narratives, everything, just pure pop perfection. i'd expect nothing less from the legend that is miss taylor swift.

1. record of the year - anti hero.

anti hero is a fantastic song, i will never understand why people hate it all the time. it showcases something i think taylor is super good at and that stands her out from other artists - pumping endorphins into the most heart wrenching lyrics. this award is mostly for sound and production however - i'll come back to lyrics later. i think anti hero separates itself production-wise from the rest of midnights (which has a dreamier vibe to it) which i love because it's more raw and personal and honest than the other songs, which are more narrative or experience based. i wouldn't suggest it's the best song on the album, but it's absolutely a deserving single and winner of this award.

it has some super tough competition for this award - it's been an amazing year for music - especially sza's "kill bill" and victoria monét's "on my mama" (both of which i'd be equally happy with as winners). i would say myself that anti hero shines far more in its lyrics than its production, which might hurt it in competition, so if she loses out on any awards, it may well be this one.

2. album of the year - midnights.

in my eyes, midnights won album of the year as soon as it was released. it's just stunning in every possible way. again, there's lots of tough competition from all different genres, but midnights is in a league of its own. the production is gorgeous and (unpopular opinion probably) very different from what she's released in the past, with this amazing dreamy and nostalgic quality to it that brings to life the album concept without it being ostentatious. it follows a clear but not garish or derivative narrative path, again subtly and tastefully presenting its concept. the lyrics are consistently reflective but present differing emotions, which again is indispensable in this particular concept. it's absolutely a 10/10 album in my books, and clearly one of her best, if not her best overall.

3. song of the year - anti hero.

okay, this one is for songwriting, which we know is what taylor swift came to do, and what she will always dominate in. i said about the record of the year nomination that anti hero will be known for its gut wrenching honesty and not necessarily for its sound, and i stand by that here. for me, taylor's selling point is her ability to write music that is obviously deeply personal to her, but also general enough that any of us can relate to it and feel heard and seen. anti hero is a masterclass in this - every word is perfectly crafted in such a way that you can see yourself and your own struggles in it, even if they're nothing to do with hers, without a scrap of taylor's personal feelings being lost in it. it combines beautiful poetic lyrics with a punchy hook that somehow remains perfectly tasteful and never cheap or lazy, and every second of it is dripping with genuine emotion. this is one of the songs of hers that will outlast us, and deserves to be recognised as such.

4. best pop duo/group performance - karma (ft. ice spice)

i will be one to say this song is WAY overhated. it's a grower for sure, but i love it. ice spice is just so excellent with wordplay and rhyming, it's great to see them on a track together. karma is a brilliant song anyway, it's so tongue in cheek it regularly crosses into comedic in an artful way. i don't expect it will win, if i'm honest, not because it's not a good song, which it is, but because it has too much competition for it to live up to standards. most likely it will go (deservedly) to "candy necklace" or "ghost in the machine".

( her other nominations are for best pop solo performance for anti hero and best pop vocal album for midnights - not much more i can say there )