#i am in a romantic relationship with taylor swift’s the eras tour | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rattyshipss · 1 year ago

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Agggtm and Chucky crossover headcanons:

Stanley Forbes x reader (Romantic) Jake, Devon, Cara x reader (Platonic) Detective Hawkins x reader (Hatred😂)

Spoilers for both Agggtm and Chucky, and in this Jake and Devon are aged up and I'm in the place of Lexy and I've had to tweak some stuff to make it fit

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Ok so as we know Chucky fucks up lives (Jake, Devon, and Lexy know that the best) he fucks everything up and there's nothing you can do about it unless you wanna end up in a mental hospital

#FuckChuck2024 none of this Chucky in the whitehouse bullshit

So of course he's gonna fuck up relationships, specifically my relationship with Stanley

I feel like with all the suspicious activity and secrecy he'd only be able to think either cheating or something like what happened with his last romantic interest, Becca Bell

And I feel like Detective Hawkins would get in his head about it too, being suspicious of me himself and warning Stanley

I'd be on their watch list for suspicious activity AND for being around Jake and Devon so often

The relationship issues would probably end up a big topic of conversation between Pip and the others, Cara most likely to make jokes about how awkward it would be when Pip goes to interrogate us and Pip just exasperated at the thought of having to hear about it all or potentially be involved

I feel like me and Stanley would either take "breaks" or just fully break up all the time, it would be a constant on again off again relationship

Constant fights, side comments and interruptions during interactions with eachother or others, lots of emotional nights avoiding eachother in the apartment, a lot of the time ending up in failing to hide our emotions and comforting eachother, still angry but needing eachother

I actually ordered a letter about this all from a wonderful seller on Etsy who always indulged my strange orders (LetterWriteTreasures)

I feel like this letter I got from her depicts it all so well I had to include it here

My irl friend can't go to the eras tour movie for awhile so pretending she couldn't go and I feel like I'd end up really close to Cara and take her instead and anytime any song specifically about relationship issues she'd look over at me and be like "Does this remind you of you and Stanley?😌"

When I first meet Cara her looking over at Stanley all like "Damn, now I understand why you can't stay away"

I've officially decided mine and Stanley's Taylor swift song is Our Song 1000% and me and him would sing and dance to it all the time AND do the Our Song car trend and I feel like that fits these headcanons perfectly

Stanley would fucking hate Jake and Devon, he'd relate them to the cheating possibility, especially with how much if be around them constantly, the reason being chucky unbeknownst to Stanley

There would be so many fucking fights about them

I can also fully picture one of those scenes where you have to decide to go with them and help out with Chucky or stay with Stanley and there's kinda an unspoken ultimatum until he has to watch me leave watching me go pissed and upset

I can also fully picture one of those scenes either direction like Detective Hawkins having to restrain me, Jake, and Devon, like that scene of them in the police car in season 1 or the opposite of us having to get away from them to go after Chucky

I can ALSO fully picture Detective Hawkins and Stanley having a heart to heart and Stanley being like "Well she was out until 4 AM with them" and Detective Hawkins just giving him a look

When it DOES get revealed the reasons for all the secrecy and suspicious activity you bet your ass I'm giving those two hell (Stanley not as much but still mf isn't getting off that easy, it's gonna take a lot of flowers and shit to fix this)

I can totally picture them just watching everything unravel

"Yeah, some psycho told a little ginger doll to murder me"

Stanley finding out Jake and Devon are litterally gay so casually too

"Relax Jake, I'm sure your boyfriend will grace us with his presense"

"😳👀"

I can totally picture me and Stanley just being so in love with eachother after everything settles down after they find out like all the problems are just gone and Stanley realizes how much I love him and how much he loves me

"Yeah I love you you fucking idiot and your weird fucking name"

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Lil extra thing, I already posted this but I wanted to include it in here also because👀👉👈💖

Idk if there's something wrong with me but I LOVE thinking about me and Stanley's relationship issues in the Chucky au like before everything with Chucky is revealed and Stanley doesn't know what's going on and thinks I'm being shady or potentially cheating and we're just bitching at eachother 24/7 in a constant back and forth making eachother jealous acting like we hate eachother but it's actually tearing us apart because we love eachother more than anything and there's tears and fire and passion and I- AWNRKWKFKWKFKAK

Like I could talk about this FOREVER like I have so much lore behind this it's like my favorite thing to think about it's basically all I can think about and like Cara, Pip, and the others all seeing the tension between us and sometimes making jokes about our relationship issues or rolling their eyes at it and Detective Hawkins getting involved and getting in Stanley's head and making it worse and the fact that Stanley's ex that he went on two dates with ended up being the one who killed her sister and I just sit here and listen to Taylor Swift songs about toxic relationships and then the ones about true love and tear my heart apart just like me and Stanley are being torn apart by Chucky AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I could go on forever like I will die on this hill idk why it brings me so much joy to think about all the angst and passion and desperate kisses pouring all of our emotions into them and I just realized I'm wearing a shirt that kinda matches one Stanley is wearing in a pic so now I'm thinking about still wearing his clothes even when we're having relationship issues because it makes me still feel close to him and maybe others pointing it out and us hurting eachother and loving eachother at the same timeeeeeeeeee

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Idk why idk what's wrong with me but this is like my favorite lore of the au I-😭👉👈💖 I could talk about this forever💖

#chucky #agggtm #stanley forbes #ggbb #a good girls guide to murder #good girl bad blood #detective hawkins #cara ward #pippa fitz amobi #jake wheeler #devon evans #writing #headcanons

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itsbansheebitch · 1 year ago

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I think it's only more wild that I'm being 100% serious lmao.

Here's a SUPER shabby timeline (The exact order of events could be a bit off, but it's not TOO bad. Living with someone who's been a Taylor Swift fan for over a decade helps A LOT with understanding wtf is going on)

Taylor Swift makes HUGE gains in popularity (especially over the course of the first peak of the pandemic, the rise of tiktok, and her Eras Tour)

Taylor Swift breaks up with with long time boyfriend that everyone was REALLY hoping was going to be who she married. (A lot of her songs relate to her romantic relationships, a lot of which have been EXTREMELY toxic, leading to fans feeling like they know her through her music and wanting the best for her and her relationships)

Taylor Swift is spotted going to football games

Taylor Swift is always watching the same team

New theories speculate Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are together or dating or something.

A new wave a Taylor Swift fans floods Travis' team's games and buys TONS of merch.

The NFL encourages this behavior leading to a "will they, won't they" narrative.

NFL fans boo Taylor Swift at one of the games when she ends up on the huge screen.

It's confirmed that they're together

NFL fans split on whether Taylor Swift fans are ruining football or are starting a new football boom.

Clips of Taylor Swift being outspoken against Trump resurface.

People remember that Taylor encouraged her young fan base to vote a few months ago which led to republicans throwing a hissy fit on national TV for several weeks. People combine this with the new clips and decide that Taylor Swift is a communist demon trying to take over the children of America (they don't literally think that, but close enough).

Your stance on Taylor Swift and the NFL becomes extremely political all of a sudden.

Conspiracies start to get cooked up

Explicit AI images of Taylor Swift (relating to the NFL) flood Twitter/X

Today

I think I was being to vague with my first post and should have just gotten to the point. I should have given a timeline, not tried to teach the history of American radicalization and American football in a single post.

I don't know everything about the conspiracy(ies), but I think it has something to do with Biden rigging football so Travis' team wins and Taylor Swift endorses Biden and all her fans vote for him or something?

In conclusion, our politicians can barely speak in straight sentences let alone keep the country's lights on and living here feels like being in a circus. Whether your a paying (the metaphorical tickets here are expensive, holy shit) audience member or jumping through rings of fire really depends on if you're on your day off or not.

Hope this explanation was more concise and easier to understand. It's 4:00 AM right now and I'm feeling ravenous for some toasted bread with butter and strawberry jelly. Have a great day/night. I hope to move out of the circus one day, so seeing people have no clue wtf is going on with shit like this really makes me look forward to not having to think about any of this lmao

I know it's very European of me, but I consider certain elements of American life total nonsense. And I'm not talking about the lack of gun control or calling a sport football where players hold the ball in their hands and run with it and throw it. I'm talking about issues where I read something, watch something, and probably I just don't have the context and I just can't figure out WTF is going on.

This is the latest example:

Taylor Swift dating Travis Kelce

...

It's a conspiracy against Republicans and they are losing their shit.

Can someone please fill in the blanks?

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ifuckinglovestvincent · 4 years ago

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THE FORTY-FIVE: ST. VINCENT

Sleazy, gritty, grimy – these are the words used to describe the latest iteration of St. Vincent, Annie Clark’s alter ego. As she teases the release of her upcoming new album, ‘Daddy’s Home’, Eve Barlow finds out who’s wearing the trousers now.

Photos: Zackery Michael

Yellow may be the colour of gold, the hue of a perfect blonde or the shade of the sun, but when it’s too garish, yellow denotes the stain of sickness and the luridness of sleaze. On ‘Pay Your Way In Pain’ – the first single from St. Vincent’s forthcoming sixth album ‘Daddy’s Home’ – Annie Clark basks in the palette of cheap 1970s yellows; a dirty, salacious yellow that even the most prudish of individuals find difficult to avert their gaze from. It’s a yellow that recalls the smell of cigarettes on fingers, the tape across tomorrow’s crime scene or the dull ache of bad penetration.

The video for the single, which dropped last Thursday, features Clark in a blonde wig and suit, channeling a John Cassavetes anti-heroine (think Gena Rowlands in Gloria) and ‘Fame’-era Bowie. She twists in front of too-bright disco lights. She roughs up her voice. She sings about the price we pay for searching for acceptance while being outcast from society. “So I went to the park just to watch the little children/ The mothers saw my heels and they said I wasn’t welcome,” she coos, and you immediately recognise the scene of a free woman threatening the post-nuclear families aspiring to innocence. Clark is here to pervert them.

She laughs. “That’s how I feel!” From her studio in Los Angeles, she begins quoting lyrics from Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Red House’. “It’s a blues song for 2021.” LA is a city Clark reluctantly only half calls home, and one that is opposed to her vastly preferred New York. “I don’t feel any romantic attachment to Los Angeles,” she says of the place she coined the song ‘Los Ageless’ about on 2017’s ‘Masseduction’ (“The Los Ageless hang out by the bar/ Burn the pages of unwritten memoirs”).“The best that could be said of LA is, ‘Yeah it’s nice.’ And it is! LA is easy and pleasant. But if you were a person the last thing you’d want someone to say about you is: ‘She’s nice!’”

On ‘Daddy’s Home’, Clark writes about a past derelict New York; a place Los Angeles would suffocate in. “The idea of New York, the art that came out of it, and my living there,” she says. “I’ve not given up my card. I don’t feel in any way ready to renounce my New York citizenship. I bought an apartment so I didn’t have to.” Her down-and-out New York is one a true masochist would love, and it’s sleazy in excess. Sleaze is usually the thing men flaunt at a woman’s expense. In 2021, the proverbial Daddy in the title is Clark. But there’s also a literal Daddy. He came home in the winter of 2019.

On the title track, Clark sings about “inmate 502”: her father. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his involvement in a $43m stock fraud scheme. He went away in May 2010. Clark reacted by writing her third breakthrough album ‘Strange Mercy’ in 2011; inspired not just by her father’s imprisonment but the effects it had on her life.“I mean it was rough stuff,” she says. “It was a fuck show. Absolutely terrible. Gut-wrenching. Like so many times in life, music saved me from all kinds of personal peril. I was angry. I was devastated. There’s a sort of dullness to incarceration where you don’t have any control. It’s like a thud at the basement of your being. So I wrote all about it,” she says.

Back then, she was aloof about meaning. In an interview we did that year, she called from a hotel rooftop in Phoenix and was fried from analytical questions. She excused her lack of desire to talk about ‘Strange Mercy’ as a means of protecting fans who could interpret it at will. Really she was protecting an audience closer to home. It’s clear now that the title track is about her father’s imprisonment (“Our father in exile/ For God only knows how many years”). Clark’s parents divorced when she was a child, and they have eight children in their mixed family, some of whom were very young when ‘Strange Mercy’ came out. She explains this discretion now as her method of sheltering them.

“I am protective of my family,” she says. “It didn’t feel safe to me. I disliked the fact that it was taken as malicious obfuscations. No.” Clark wanted to deal with the family drama in art but not in press. She managed to remain tight-lipped until she became the subject of a different intrusion. As St. Vincent’s star continued to rocket, Clark found herself in a relationship with British model Cara Delevingne from 2014 to 2016, and attracted celebrity tabloid attention. Details of her family’s past were exposed. The Daily Mail came knocking on her sister’s door in Texas, where Clark is from.

“Luckily I’m super tight with my family and the Daily Mail didn’t find anybody who was gonna sell me out,” she says. “They were looking for it. Clark girls are a fucking impenetrable force. We will cut a bitch.”

Four years later, Clark gets to own the narrative herself in the medium that’s most apt: music. “The story has evolved. I’ve evolved. People have grown up. I would rather be the one to tell my story,” she says, ruminating on the misfortune that this was robbed from her: a story that writes itself. “My father’s release from prison is a great starting point, right?” Between tours and whenever she could manage, Clark would go and visit him in prison and would be signing autographs in the visitation room for the inmates, who all followed her success with every album release, press clipping and late night TV spot. She joked to her sisters that she’d become the belle of the ball there. “I don’t have to make that up,” she says.

There’s an ease to Clark’s interview manner that hasn’t existed before. She seems ready not just to discuss her father’s story, but to own certain elements of herself. “Hell where can you run when the outlaw’s inside you,” she sings on the title track, alluding to her common traits with her father. “I’ve always had a relationship with my dad and a good one. We’re very similar,” she says. “The movies we like, the books, he liked fashion. He’s really funny, he’s a good time.” Her father’s release gave Clark and her brothers and sisters permission to joke. “The title, ‘Daddy’s Home’ makes me laugh. It sounds fucking pervy as hell. But it’s about a real father ten years later. I’m Daddy now!”

The question of who’s fathering who is a serious one, but it’s also not serious. Clark wears the idea of Daddy as a costume. She likes to play. She joins today’s Zoom in a pair of sunglasses wider than her face and a silk scarf framing her head. The sunglasses come off, and the scarf is a tool for distraction. She ties it above her forehead, attempts a neckerchief, eventually tosses it aside. Clark can only be earnest for so long before she seeks some mischief. She doesn’t like to stay in reality for extensive periods. “I like to create a world and then I get to live in it and be somebody new every two or three years,” she says. “Who wants to be themselves all the time?”

‘Daddy’s Home‘ began in New York at Electric Lady studios before COVID hit and was finished in her studio in LA. She worked on it with “my friend Jack” [Jack Antonoff, producer for Lana Del Rey, Lorde, Taylor Swift]. Antonoff and Clark worked on ‘Masseduction’ and found a winning formula, pushing Clark’s guitar-orientated electronic universe to its poppiest maximum, without compromising her idiosyncrasies. “We’re simpatico. He’s a dream,” she says. “He played the hell outta instruments on this record. He’s crushing it on drums, crushing it on Wurlitzer.” The pair let loose. They began with ‘The Holiday Party’, one of the warmest tracks Clark’s ever written. It’s as inviting as a winter fireplace, stoked by soulful horns, acoustic guitar and backing singers. “Every time they sang something I’d say, ‘Yeah but can you do it sleazier? Make your voice sound like you’ve been up for three days.” Clark speaks of an unspoken understanding with Antonoff as regards the vibe: “Familiar sounds. The opposite of my hands coming out of the speaker to choke you till you like it. This is not submission. Just inviting. I can tell a story in a different way.”

The entire record is familiar, giving the listener the satisfaction that they’ve heard the songs before but can’t quite place them. It’s a satisfying accompaniment to a pandemic that encouraged nostalgic listening. Clark was nostalgic too. She reverted to records she enjoyed with her father: Stevie Wonder’s catalogue from the 1970s (‘Songs In The Key Of Life’, ‘Innervisions’, ‘Talking Book’) and Steely Dan. “Not to be the dude at the record store but it’s specifically post-flower child idealism of the ’60s,” she explains. “It’s when it flipped into nihilism, which I much prefer. Pre disco, pre punk. That music is in me in a deep way. It’s in my ears.”

On ‘The Melting Of The Sun’ she has a delicious time creating a psychedelic Pink Floyd odyssey while exploring the path tread by her heroes Marilyn Monroe, Joni Mitchell, Joan Didion and Nina Simone. It’s a series of beautiful vignettes of brilliant women who were met with a hostile environment. Clark considers what they did to overcome that. “I’m thanking all these women for making it easier for me to do it. I hope I didn’t totally let them down.” Clark is often the only woman sharing a stage with rock luminaries such as Dave Grohl, Damon Albarn and David Byrne, and has appeared to have shattered a male-centric glass ceiling. She’s unsure she’s doing enough to redress the imbalance. “There are little things I can do and control,” she says of hiring women on her team. “God! Now I feel like I should do more. What should I do? It’s a big question. You know what I have seen a lot more from when I started to now? Girls playing guitar.”

If one woman reinvented the guitar in the past decade, it’s Clark. Behind her is a rack of them. The pandemic has taken her out of the wild in which she’s accustomed to tantalising audiences at night with her displays of riffing and heel-balancing. Instead, she’s chained to her desk. Her obsession with heels in the lyrics of ‘Daddy’s Home’ she reckons may be a reflection of her nights performing ‘Masseduction’ in thigh highs. “I made sure that nothing I wore was comfortable,” she recalls. “Everything was about stricture and structure and latex. I had to train all the time to make sure I could handle it.” Is she taking the heels off when live shows return? “Absofuckinglutely not.”

Clark is interested in the new generation. She’s recently tweeted about Arlo Parks and has become a big fan of Russian singer-songwriter Kate NV. “I’m obsessed with Russia,” she says. In a recent LA Times profile, she professed to a pandemic intellectual fixation on Stalin. “Yeah! I mean right now my computer is propped up on stuff. You are sitting on The Gulag Archipelago, The Best Short Stories Of Dostoyevsky andThe Plays Of Chekhov. I’m kinda in it.” The pop world interests Clark, too. She was credited with a co-write on Swift’s 2019 album ‘Lover’. At last year’s Grammys she performed a duet with Dua Lipa. It was one of the queerest performances the Grammys has ever aired. Clark interrupts.

“What about it seemed queer?!”

You know… The lip bite, for one!

“Wait. Did she bite her lip?”

No, you bit your lip.

“I did?!”

Everyone was talking about it. Come on, Annie.

“Serious? I…”

You both waltzed around each other with matching hairdos, making eyes…

“I have no memory of it.”

Frustrating as it may be in a world of too much information, Clark’s lack of willingness to overanalyse every creative decision she makes or participates in is something to treasure. “I want to be a writer who can write great songs,” she says. “I’m so glad I can play guitar and fuck around in the studio to my heart’s desire but it’s about what you can say. What’s a great song? What lyric is gonna rip your guts open. Just make great shit! That’s where I was with this record. That’s all I wanna do with my life.”

More than a decade into St. Vincent, Clark doesn’t reflect. She looks strictly forward. “I’m like a horse with blinders,” she says. She did make an exception to take stock lately when the phone rang. “I saw a +44 and that gets me excited,” she says. “Who could this be?” Well, who was it? “Paul McCartney,” she says, in disbelief. “Anything I’ve done, any mistake I’ve made, somehow it’s forgiven, assuaged. I did something right in my life if a fucking Beatle called me.”

Now there’s a get out of jail free card if ever she needed one.

Daddy’s Home by St. Vincent is out May 14, 2021.

#‘I HAVE NO MEMORY OF IT’#LOOOOOL #WHY ARE U LIKE THIS #st vincent #full of shit #annie clark #Annie Clark on beds #yellow is the color for dull ache of bad penetration?

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felicia-cat-hardy · 3 years ago

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Olivia Rodrigo's Music Style: Pop-Punk Rockers Who Influenced Her

Olivia Rodrigo’s debut album Sour comes out on May 21, and by now, you certainly know that the 18-year-old singer-songwriter counts the queen of vulnerable love-lorn melodies, Taylor Swift, as one of her most prominent influences. But after topping the charts for eight weeks with “drivers license,” it looks like Rodrigo is rearing into the rock lane, giving us the teenage angst and pop-punk petulance we deserve with the fiery “good 4 u” and impressive live performances.

Trust us, we know we don’t have to compare and contrast every female singer that’s ever made music that isn’t strictly pop, but why not salute the plaid-wearing, Doc Martens-donning foremothers of pop-punk, because as the Saturday Night Live skit on that very topic clarifies, yes she’s wearing her influences on her sleeve, “but it’s also pure Olivia, man.”

Plus, as Rodrigo shared in an interview with The Face on the sound of her upcoming album, “I feel like music is becoming increasingly genreless. I suppose I’m considered a pop artist, but I’ve never felt like one. This album is full of stuff that I like, which is so diverse. There are elements of alternative rock in there, alt-pop, some country, and definitely a lot of folk. I think anyone can find something they like hidden in one of the songs.”

So if you, like us, need something to hold you over while you wait for Rodrigo’s debut, here are 7 pop-punk rock purveyors to press play on.

1. Hayley Williams

It’s hard to think of anyone more capable of creating pure unadulterated pop-punk ballads with unparalleled vocals than Hayley Williams of Paramore, or as she was referred to by NPR, “The 21st Century's Pop-Punk Prophet.” However, with her latest single “good 4 u” Rodrigo is giving her a run for her money. In the track, Rodrigo shows off her vocal versatility, oscillating from singing to talking over electric guitars and a staccato bass line, much like Williams in Paramore’s “Misery Business.” In fact, this mashup of both tracks makes the reference and reverence to Paramore clear, plus it’s an absolute banger.

Williams put emotional fragility, powerhouse vocals, and punk rock authenticity front and center at a time when female-fronted bands were few and far between, giving a generation of young women, like Rodrigo not only someone to emulate but something to look up to.

2. Avril Lavigne

The week Olivia Rodrigo was born in 2003, Avril Lavigne was in the Top 10 with “I’m With You,” according to Rolling Stone. Coincidence? We think not. If that doesn’t tie the influenced to the influencer, just look at Lavigne’s legacy as one of the first songwriters of complicated relationship-themed pop-punk hits, like in her chant-along track “Girlfriend,” the formidable “Sk8er Boi,” and of course, the direct embodiment of that sentiment, “Complicated.” Rodrigo has not only been embodying Avril’s angsty sing-along-worthy lyrics but also replicating her wardrobe, recently rocking combat boots and a plaid corset with matching wide-leg pants (pictured above) and a chain belt you’d find at the checkout counter of any Hot Topic in the early aughts during her Saturday Night Live debut.

So, would the lyrics “It’s like we never even happened Baby / what the f*ck is up with that” in Rodrigo’s “good 4 u” exist without Lavigne singing “And hell yeah, I’m the motherf*cking princess” in “Girlfriend” first? Lucky for us, we’ll never have to find out.

3. Fefe Dobson

Fefe Dobson, is rarely mentioned in the pop-punk canon, but the singer made her mark as one of the few Black pop-punk singers of the early aughts, creating space for artists like Rodrigo who don’t fit into the predominately white male makeup of the genre.

Dobson was just 17 when she entered the pop-punk scene with tracks like “Everything” and “Take Me Away” on her debut album, one that saw her leaning into the same teenage love sentiments of falling hard and questioning it all we see in tracks like “drivers license.” Speaking to Nylon, Dobson discussed how much the scene has changed and made space for diverse artists: “I definitely think there’s no such thing as genre these days. When I was coming out in 2003, I remember people saying to my manager, like “Do you really think this Black girl’s going to do this rock-pop stuff and this is going to work?” I don‘t think that would be even said today. I think that’s a big difference.”

4. Gwen Stefani

Is it dramatic to say that without the anthemic, feminist, pop-punk rock track “Just A Girl” released way back in 1995, none of the new school punk-pop girls would be making visceral “girls to the front” vulnerable hits right now? Maybe, but it’s hard to say. With her pension for performance, fashion, candid lyricism, and devil-may-care attitude, Gwen Stefani has not only made space for herself but artists who want to replicate that same energy.

Rodrigo has never shied away from her love of No Doubt’s leading lady. On multiple occasions she’s discussed finding Stefani’s fearless ability to share personal stories and details about her innermost thoughts and desires as inspiring (and if that’s not punk rock, what is?). In an interview with Elle, it was even revealed that Stefani’s portrait was tapped to Rodrigo’s bedroom wall in a sort of shrine, dedicated to songwriters she admires. In a full-circle moment, Stefani wrote about Rodrigo for Time magazine’s 2021 TIME100 Next list, sharing, that “by pouring her heart out with so much courage and total command of her talent, Olivia made magic.” We agree.

5. Lindsay Lohan

There can be a lot said about the ins and outs, ups and downs, of Lindsay Lohan’s career. However, the platinum-certified album Speak was unquestionably a success for the then-Disney-star-turned-pop-singer who was one of the first stars of the channel to make that career pivot. She never toured for the Billboard charting album, but she did make the path from Disney star to pop-punk artists seem viable.

Rodrigo, who currently stars in the meta High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, discussed embracing her Disney start with Interview Magazine, sharing, “It’s been something I’ve given a lot of thought to, that Disney-girl archetype. I feel like there’s such a clear trajectory for what that is, and there’s so many amazing artists who have done it before me. I did grow up on Disney Channel. I am sort of this goody two-shoes. And I think shying away from that would do my art an injustice too. I just try to be as real as I possibly can.”

6. Liz Phair

Liz Phair’s fourth studio album was a masterclass in how to write a pop-punk romantic ballad while adding expletives to the climax of the track, like in her hit single “Why Can’t I?” It’s easy to see that same strategy playing out as Rodrigo sings, “I still f*cking love you, baby” in “drivers license.” Phair’s eponymous album also features the self-love ballad “Extraordinary,” which embraces her light and dark sides, something we’ve seen in Rodrigo’s first few singles and are sure to see in her debut. At the time of the album’s release, Phair was critically panned for selling out with Pitchfork claiming she’d reduced herself to “teen-pop.” But, as well all know nearly two decades on, there’s no truth to teen-pop being reductive, and Phair’s self-titled album has stood the test of time.

7. Ashlee Simpson

Back in 2004, Ashlee Simpson released her debut album Autobiography, an intimate pop-punk telling of her life. She also documented the entire process of creating the album on her series The Ashlee Simpson Show, something that was unprecedented at the time, but something current stars like Rodrigo who are used to being on camera and giving fans behind-the-scene looks at their creative process are now used to doing.

Simpson also deserves credit for pushing the boundaries of what was “allowed” for pop stars at the time, going her own way by dying her blonde hair black, and pushing back on her label who wanted her to make bubblegum pop. She ushered in an era of sad girl teen pop ballads with tracks like “Pieces Of Me” that artists like Rodrigo are still emulating today.

Olivia Rodrigo

We’ve got to end this story with Rodrigo herself, setting a bedroom on fire in “good 4 u,” and subsequently igniting another phase of her ever-evolving career. She’s got a sound all her own, and we can’t wait to see where she takes it to next. We know she’s here to stay.

Olivia Rodrigo’s debut album SOUR is due out May 21 via Geffen Records.

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elirabbit · 5 years ago

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Lover Music Video - Queer Interpretation

Below is my queer interpretation of the Lover Music Video. I know it’s a long posting but I think it is worth a read. Due to the length, it will be posted in two parts.

Topics covered in the first posting:

1. Yellow Clothing Symbolism in the Rooms

2. Yellow Clothing Symbolism in Her Closet

3. Snow Globe Symbolism

4. New Year’s Day and Daylight Songs

5. Cruel Summer and After Glow Songs

Topics covered in the second posting:

6. Lover Room

7. 1989 Room

8. Reputation Room

9. Red Room

10. Yellow Room

11. Marriage Symbolism

12. Celebration Cake Symbolism

Music Video Theme for Each Room: Room / Album / MV Theme: Green/Taylor Swift /Age of Innocence Yellow/Fearless/Deep Love Turned Her World Upside Down

Purple/Speak Now /Gay Hopes & Self-Expression

Red/ Red/Madly Truly Deeply Blue/1989/Fish Bowl

Black/Reputation/Isolation, Self-Reflection, & Healimg Pink/Lover/Future Love

Note: For those who have read my first two postings of this topic, please know I am including my original interpretations with additional commentary. The new & revised interpretations were derived from a more structured, thorough data collection and analysis process than the original postings.

1) Yellow Clothing Symbolism in the Rooms

In each room, Taylor and her partner wore the same colored outfits as the room color except for the Fearless and Red rooms. In those 2 rooms, they wore yellow outfits. IMO, the yellow outfit symbolizes a "golden love" and represents two people who are deeply in love with each other. Also, the more a person wears yellow, the more she is deeply in love.

Fearless Room: Taylor wears white shorts with yellow/blue plaid checkered lines and a yellow shirt with white sleeve trim. Because she is wearing a balanced amount of white and yellow, her “golden love” rating is “deeply in love”.

Red Room: Taylor wears the most amount of yellow clothing (solid yellow hairband, big solid yellow earrings, solid yellow dress, reddish-brown heels). Because almost everything she wears is yellow and has so much accessories, her “golden love” rating is “madly truly deeply in love”.

1989 Room: Taylor wears blue - yellow dress. Because half is yellow, her “golden love” rating is “deeply in love”.

My MV interpretation is Taylor was deeply in love with Emily Poe during Fearless era, madly deeply truly in love with Dianna Agron during Red era and to a lesser degree, still deeply in love with Dianna during part of 1989 era. Those partners who were dressed in yellow means Taylor believed they were also deeply in love with her. Since Emily Poe wore the same balanced amount of yellow/white, she was equally deeply in love. Dianna (in Red room) wore yellow pants only so she was deeply in love, not madly deeply truly in love as Taylor. It makes sense that Taylor perceived her commitment issues as a barrier from loving her equally in return.

I know Kaylors will be upset but I am gonna say it anyways. I don't think Taylor was deeply in love with Karlie Kloss (represented as the partner in the 1989 room). She did love her. I think she wanted a long-lasting relationship with her. Their love just wasn't on the same level as her previous ones.

2) Yellow Clothing Symbolism in Her Closet

All her clothes and accessories in closet are solid yellow which symbolizes she wants to fall deeply in love again and is ready for “golden love” based on the abundance of yellow clothing. A yellow outfit for every occasion. Reminds me of the Daylight song lyric “Like Daylight, It’s Golden Like Daylight”. She wants to “step into the daylight and let it go”. In essence, I believe she wants to be happy and find a deeply in love type happiness with someone again like she did before with Dianna.

3) Snow Globe Symbolism

Snow Globe scenes recount her love journey as already described by Jennyboom21. The MV scenes in the Snow Globe will reflect on her key queer experiences to date). The scenes start in the hallway of the house, shift to the different rooms inside the house or cross section view of the house, and ends in the hallway.

Hallway scenes show the couple embracing each other while standing inside a red hallway. This hallway has a series of doors on both walls. It reminds me of the 1989 tour’s set design for I Know Places. I think the hallway scenes symbolizes how her three serious relationships began (first hallway scene) and ended (last hallway scene) in secret i.e. in “places we can hide”. Assumption here is Kaylor ended before she wrote the Lover song.

The many scenes inside different rooms or of the entire house recount key moments from her 3 relationships (Emily, Dianna and Karlie) or expresses her queer hopes and desires with a future lover.

4) Happy New Year’s and Daylight Songs

In the Red room, the couple is throwing a party. Room is filled with people, drinks, and party paraphernalias. Hanging on the back wall are the words “Happy New Year”. I believe this is the backdrop for New Year’s Day song on the Rep Album. This means song is about Dianna. MV scene reenactment of the sign, glitter on the floor, and party trash plus the lyrics referencing “Please don’t ever become a stranger whose laugh I can recognize anywhere” seals it for me. In an interview, Taylor explained New Year’s Day song is about permanence. This idea of permanence is a common theme associated with Dianna-centric songs.

Notice that New Year’s Day is the last song on the Rep album. This is important because I am seeing a pattern with her albums starting with Red. Last song on Red is Begin Again which is about her experiencing new love with Dianna. Last song on 1989 is Clean which is about moving on from Dianna after their last breakup. Now the last song on Rep, New Year’s Day, is about wanting to continue her relationship with Dianna. Does this mean her last song Daylight on the Lover album is also about Dianna? Based on this pattern, golden love symbolism expressed in yellow clothing for Dianna, and the Daylight lyrics “Maybe you ran with the wolves and refused to settle down”, “I’ll tell you the truth but never goodbye”, and “like daylight, it’s golden”, my answer is yes. Side note: The wolves reference represents Dianna’s commitment issues. “Never goodbye” was already expressed in New Year’s Day and other Dianna-centric songs about how Taylor doesn’t want her romantic relationship with Dianna to ever truly end. Golden love symbolism repeats in the Daylight song.

5) Cruel Summer and After Glow Songs

3 board games appear in quick successive flashes in the MV. First board game appears in its unopened box. Printed on the box are the board game name “Devil Rolls The Dice, Angel Rolls There Eyes”, a marketing slogan “The only game that questions your answers!”, and the distribution statement. The game’s name is in the Cruel Summer song lyric. The distribution statement has a manufacturing location (Los Angeles California) and a number (0527) appears above Los Angeles which I interpret to be a date (05/27). My interpretation is Taylor’s Cruel Summer experience started May 27th in Los Angeles.

I will skip over the 2nd game for now.

Third board game is also an unopened box. Printed on the box is the board game name “Breakable Heaven”, slogan “The Game for Two Players”, and a distribution statement. “Breakable Heaven” is also in the Cruel Summer lyric. My interpretation is Taylor’s Cruel Summer experience ended on July 19th in Los Angeles.

Second board game Scrabble is in progress. Printed at the base of board game is “King of Hearts” and two-word tiles are already laid out on the board. Words are “After” and “Glow”. This one is open to multiple interpretations. I’ll share two.

First one is Taylor is apologizing to Karlie. Why? Most agree the song King of My Heart is about her new budding relationship with Karlie. Throw in the After Glow song to the mix. The combination acknowledges her role in the demise of the Kaylor relationship and mourns the loss of love. Assumption here is Kaylor ended before Afterglow and Cruel Summer was written. The piece I cannot reconcile with this interpretation is the order placement of this game. It takes place during Taylor’s Cruel Summer experience. And Cruel Summer is about someone new. Someone who is different than her last relationship (Kaylor) based on the lyric “And it’s new, the shape of your body”. Maybe my 2nd interpretation fits better.

Second one is Taylor’s acknowledging her role in damaging a new relationship (the new King of My Heart who is the object of Taylor’s affection in her Cruel Summer experience). Taylor’s new love interest is either someone new or an ex-lover (Dianna).

Sometime later this week, I’ll post the second half of my queer interpretation.

#gaylor swift #kaylor #swiftgron #taylor x dianna #queer interpretation of Lover #queer analysis #just my opinion #so take it or leave it #not a Kaylor hater #I basically collect data and then follow it wherever it takes me

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miraculousmidnightreviews · 5 years ago

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There will definitely be an explanation for my review of reputation

Album: reputation

Artist: Taylor Swift Rating: 5/5 stars

I would first like to preface this review with one fact: reputation is my favorite album by Taylor Swift. It should be noted that I did not rate this album based on the average of each individual song rating. (If I did, the actual album rating would be 4.5 stars.) But I felt that this album deserved more. So much more.

What I admire most about reputation is its honest introspectiveness. I think it’s safe to say that no one predicted this album to be The Next Taylor Swift Album. The lead single is distinctly not like previous Swift singles, providing an unexpectedly darker side to Swift. And the album cover is devoid of Swift’s usual bright or pastel colors. Yet what people brushed off as a risky and failed move designed to turn around Swift’s career, her reputation, became the most truthful album of her discography.

At this point, whether you’re a fan of Swift or not, you can’t doubt her abilities. She knows how to create chart-topping hits; she knows how to pen heart-wrenching ballads; she’s done it before. And she’ll continue to do so for the rest of her career. But reputation was never meant to be the next 1989, the next record-breaking financial success (although it was to some extent). This album was meant to be something else entirely: an admittedly risky exploration that only Swift could pull off.

And I respect that immensely. This album is honest, and it’s brave. It might not be her most sonically cohesive or lyrically complex album, but it wins anyways. I love that the songs are in chronological order as they pertain to Swift’s life, and while that means it can be hard to listen to the songs without skipping around, the album itself is a journey through Swift’s year of solitude, through her mind space and blossoming relationship, through her life away from the eyes of the public and the media. To me, it’s clear Swift wrote reputation not because she needed to stick to her schedule of releasing an album every other year, but because she just needed to cope with events in her life. I appreciate that maybe even more than the honesty: that Swift wrote this album because she needed it; she wrote it for herself and no one else.

In anticipation of Lover coming out on Aug. 23, I will be reviewing each of Swift’s albums up until the forthcoming album’s release. I can’t wait to listen to new TS music, and I hope these reviews will provide a wistful and refreshing glance at past eras as we look forward to a brand new one.

Continue reading below for my review of each individual song.

1) ...Ready For it?

Rating: 4/5 stars

*clears throat*

At first listen, I was unsure of the mix of rap and singing. But it’s now one of the songs from this album that I play when I’m in That Mood™.

Did I mention Taylor raps?!?

The pre-chorus is so “Wildest Dreams”-esque that I can’t. I just can’t. (Also, sexy!)

That Elizabeth Taylor reference!!! I love it when artists make pop culture references in their works. It gives me a dopamine rush.

As always, it’s nice to hear Swift play with the perception of herself. She’s just so great at turning her reputation as portrayed by the media into a clever and witty line or song.

i’M So vERy TAme nOW (Sarcasm on point. She did that.)

2) End Game (feat. Future & Ed Sheeran)

4/5 stars

Taylor raps! Pt. 2

BIG REPUTATION

I love the features on this one, and I’m very surprised by Future. But that’s Taylor Swift, keeping us on our toes.

This song includes the first of many references to alcohol from this album. A first for Swift, but all those who are surprised need to grow the fuck up. Because Swift certainly did.

Also, notice “End Game” has the first mention of gold, a motif that will continue throughout the album.

3) I Did Something Bad

Rating: 5/5 stars

Probably my favorite song from this album. The live performance was also my favorite of hers.

badass vibes all the way

IF A MAN TALKS SHIT THEN I OWE HIM NOTHING

I am absolutely in love with the feminist-y witch metaphor in the bridge. Iconic.

Also cool that Swift was inspired by Game of Thrones for this and other songs from this album.

4) Don’t Blame Me

Rating: 5/5 stars

All the gospel feels

TAKE ME TO CHURCH, TAYLOR!!!

THAT high note

Once again, the honesty

5) Delicate

Rating: 5/5 stars

When the album first came out, this was the song that I immediately played the most and connected to. I just adore how she was able to take these universal feelings and put them into a song that anyone just starting a relationship can relate to.

The music video is so underrated. It’s so cute and happy and I just love it and her so much.

1 2 3, LET’S GO BITCH!!!!!!

The repetition of “isn’t it?” to reflect anxiety is, once again, an example of Swift’s lyrical genius.

6) Look What You Made Me Do

Rating: 4/5 stars

YOU’LL ALL GET YOURS

A lot of people did not like this song when it first came out and some still don’t. I happen to like it a lot. While the chorus is not my favorite, the verses bite with amazing zingers and that’s what hooks me.

I think when everyone first heard this song, we assumed the rest of the album would sound similarly: dark and filled with vengeance. But with the exception of a few songs, I would consider reputation to be one of Swift’s happiest albums. There are certainly dark overtones, but at its heart, reputation is an album about love and acceptance in the aftermath of Swift’s metaphorical death. If you consider 1989 for comparison, the composition of its songs (and even the album cover) present a romantic and hopeful facade, when actually, many songs have depressing lyrics about the fate of romantic relationships.

The bridge is so reminiscent of the bridge from Blank Space in a way. They give me similar vibes, except LWYMMD’s is the follow-up to that of Blank Space.

This song has one of my favorite music videos ever. I love when artists tell stories through their music videos, and Swift never fails at storytelling. (Also, a fantastic lyric video!)

7) So It Goes…

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

I feel like this song embodies what everyone expected from this album at first glance: dark, techno pop.

This one doesn’t really do much for me, but I enjoy the extended metaphor of the magician.

Too much techno, in my opinion.

But sexyyy—“scratches down your back”

8) Gorgeous

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

This song gives me old Taylor vibes, just with a new production.

“Gorgeous” does such an excellent job at conveying the thoughts and feelings surrounding first attraction between two people.

“I guess I’ll just stumble on home to my cats.” Relatable.

Give the original lyrics a listen from Swift’s the making of a song video. They’re heartbreaking.

9) Getaway Car

Rating: 5/5 stars

Now this bitch is DEFINITELY old Taylor storytelling at its finest.

That Tale of Two Cities reference!

THat BRidGE!!!

“And a circus ain’t a love story. And now we’re both sorry.”

Just the complexity of feelings portrayed in this song is utter perfection.

Bonnie & Clyde!!!

This is one of those classic Taylor songs that you turn all the way up while driving down the highway at 70 miles per hour, screaming at the top of your lungs. GO GO GO!!

(not that I’ve ever done that. I follow all speed limits :))

10) King of My Heart

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

The only reason this song doesn’t get 5 stars is because I could have done without the added production (less techno plz).

The beginning always gets me. This and “Call it What You Want” have the saddest beginning lines on the album.

Overall, this is just cute af. Pure fluff.

“jAguARs”

The drums on tour were a wonderful bonus.

Also, the bridge. Swift writes some damn good bridges on this album and just in general.

11) Dancing With Our Hands Tied

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

This song, like “So it Goes…,” doesn’t really do much for me, even though it seems to be a fan favorite. I really preferred the acoustic version of this that she played on tour.

But I appreciate the versatility of her song topics as well as her voice.

12) Dress

Rating: 5/5 stars

First reaction while listening to this song: OMG TAYLOR!!! sexyyyyyy

Her voice *heart eyes*

The pre-chorus is so much fun to sing!!!

“I’m spilling wine in the bathtub” gives me high school party vibes for some reason lol

13) This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

Rating: 4/5 stars

I really love everything about this song, except for the chorus. It just wasn’t as fun to sing along to as the rest of the song. (Although purposefully making it sound childish was an effective way to get her point across).

That Gatsby reference!

love Love LOVE the tongue-in-cheek attitude

She missed the parties :(

14) Call It What You Want

Rating: 5/5 stars

so soft & pure

A recovery song is what we really deserve. I love that Taylot took this time for herself.

My heart just bursts when I hear this song.

That feminist bridge tho—a mature and fulfilling continuation of “Love Story” in a way

15) New Year’s Day

5/5 stars

Bittersweet—the perfect closing song to this album

This song perfectly showcases Swift’s heartachingly beautiful songwriting talent.

“please don’t ever become stranger whose laugh I recognize anywhere” really gets me.

With this conclusive song, I can say that Taylor Swift is truly happy and okay. And I’m so proud.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this review! Check out other reviews here!

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dontblamemebrucemademecrazy · 5 years ago

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L💘VER

Good morning Swifties! No one asked for my track by track thoughts on Lover but I want to share them anyway so here we go!

I Forgot That You Existed - what. a. great. opener. I love this song, it feels like Taylor shook off her reputation snakeskin and is ready to rock her Lover wings. I can feel the happiness in Taylor’s voice singing this.

Cruel Summer - A WHOLE BOP. I cannot wait to scream at the top of my lungs .~*HE LOOKS UP GRINNING LIKE A DEVIL AND ITS NEWWWWWWW*~. on tour with all my fellow Swifties. One of my absolute favorites on the album (it’s so hard to pick just one favorite so we just won’t go there). This bridge feels like the love child of out of the woods’ bridge and blank space.

Lover - another one of my favorites. This song is just so completely stunning. The only way to describe this song is romantic and timeless. Stunning visuals on the music video. We’ve spent years loving Taylor’s love songs but this song feels like the first song about being truly in love and I think it’s one of the best songs she’s ever written.

The Man - the production on this is fantastic. I would love to see a music video for this, I think the visuals could make such a statement. Love the Leo reference. As a woman who has experience with being treated differently than men in my career, this is 100% being added to my girl power playlist. It almost reminds me of the song in A Star is Born - Why Did You Do That? Which is iconic.

The Archer - this woman’s lyricism is on a different level than anyone else out there. The way she captures anxiety and imposter syndrome so perfectly combined with the instrumental build up makes this song such an emotional trip.

I Think He Knows - love this one! I want to do a flash mob to this song in the middle of Central Park. Can I make cheesy choreography to this and perform it in public and call it a flash mob? No? Ok I still love everything about this song. Fave line - he’s so obsessed with me and Boyyy I understanddddd 😉

Miss Americana and The Heartbreak Prince - this has rep vibes with a dash of I Knew You Were Trouble spice? I feel like such a moody queen breaking it down while singing “miss amer-i-can-a and the heart-break prince (OKAY)”. Love how different this sounds than the first set of songs.

Paper Rings - ok Taylor???? Take my money, my soul and dignity with this song. This one is soooooooo fun! I love the instruments (especially the drums) in this one. Stay Stay Stay’s older cooler pop punk sister is alive and well in this song.

Cornelia Street - wow, I feel like I am sitting in the back of the car with Taylor and experiencing the flash forwards of this relationship when I listen to this one. My heart aches when I listen to this song. The chorus makes me want to emotionally sway and scream the lyrics with my bestie while wine drunk. Love the reference to love being her religion (hi don’t blame me)

Death By A Thousand Cuts - brb spending the rest of my life trying to learn how to play this on guitar. Another one of my favorites, the lyricism is outstanding, production is beautiful. Fave lyric in this one - I ask the traffic lights if it’ll be alright, they say I.. don’t... know. Also love the “my”s echoing in the background of the bridge. Love love love this one.

London Boy - this one gives me big end game / king of my heart vibes for some reason. I just took a trip to London a few weeks ago and I feel like I can sing this song with so much more passion now that I know the places she’s referencing 😂 it’s a cute bop. Taylor if you ever wanna day drink in the afternoon in Soho, let me know!

Soon You’ll Get Better - this is going to be one of the Taylor songs that I can’t listen to often. The lyrics hit too close to home, I can only imagine how hard this was to write and record. Taylor, this song is so beautiful. Sending all my love to you and your family.

False God - ok, so this song is SEXY sexy. That sax. The accent voice (idk what this is called?). Dress is found rolled up in a ball in the back of Taylor’s closet. Phew, this song is such a mood.

You Need To Calm Down - a bop since it first came out. Music video is legendary. Big Swift Evergy in this song. I blame this song for me telling everyone who exists that they need to calm down.

Afterglow - I think this song really ties into the theme that Taylor is going for on Lover. This song is so important, there are moments like this in relationships and the lyrics really hit home. Love isn’t always the “Lover” and “I Think He Knows” moments. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a song from any other artist that’s captured this aspect of relationships so perfectly. Fave line - why’d I have to break what I love so much?

Me! - again another bop since day one. Love how it fits in with the rest of the album. Self love is so important everyone!!!! You have to love yourself and see your worth in a relationship! Catch me trying to hit the high heee heeee heeeeee notes for the rest of my life.

It’s Nice To Have A Friend - probably the most interesting song on the whole album. The way she maintains the same emotion while singing the entire song is very non-Taylor esque if that makes sense? I feel like we’re so used to hearing her pour emotion into her delivery. I would love to hear more on the background and songwriting process for this one. I can’t stop listening to this track.

Daylight - wow what a breath of fresh air. This feels so airy and I can feel the weight being lifted off of Taylor shoulders. Perfect song to walk to watch the sunrise in the morning with good headphones. Feels like a new beginning but it’s the closing track which is so cool. I love the way she sings “it’s brighter now”. Love the reference back to Red. Perfect closing track.

@taylorswift this record is an absolute masterpiece and I am SO proud to be your fan. This is some of your best work and you should be extremely proud of yourself - this is YOURS. No one can take that away from you. You deserve all the success in the world, can’t wait to watch how the rest of this era unfolds. I’ll be by your side until the very end 💘

Thanks for coming to my Taylor Talk. @taylornation

#lover #lover review #taylurking #taylornation

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itsinvisiblelocket91 · 5 years ago

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13 years of Taylor. (This is long. I’m sorry)

So I’ve decided to tell my story on how I found Taylor and the Impact she’s had one me, and what she’s helped me through the past 13 years. I figure it’s appropriate to do this during the Lover era and 13 years of Taylor!!

I’ll start with when I was 16 (almost 17) and sitting in the dark on my couch with a blanket wrapped around me. I was just skimming through the channels and landed on the ACM Awards. There was a tiny, tall, kinky ,curly, blonde headed girl in a black jacket and denim jeans and a guitar, sitting on a stool. All the sudden she tears it off and goes into dramatics of why this boy should have said no. Soon to go into a rain shower of “no’s”. I absolutely got chills and could not take my eyes off her. She sang in the rain, just drenched, soak and wet but singing her heart out about the boy who did her wrong. She ended the song and I was stunned! She was so happy after her performance. There was a standing ovation and she was so giddy and couldn’t believe the reaction she was getting. So genuine and honest. I replayed and watched it a couple times but at some point I HAD to stop and go to bed. I remember walking up the stairs to my room and decided that I was never gonna forget this girl and I needed to look her stuff up and soon.

Later on I had discovered her debut album “Taylor Swift” but didn’t go into a whole spiral of obsession like I am currently. I had her music on my laptop. I remember me and my friends making horrible remakes of “our song”, “tryin to find a place in this world”, and “Tim McGraw “ if only those video still existed. I started finding posters in magazines of her to hang up on my wall.

One day, my mom came home with the new “fearless” album for me only days after my birthday. I didn’t ask for it, she just got it but I’m so glad she did. The rest of that year, we played that CD to school and back in my moms Jeep. My school was 45 mins away so you can imagine I learned this album QUICK. I was 100% a hopeless romantic in high school and had crazy amount of crushes happening but also learning that they don’t have to like you or they can break up with you through a piece of paper at lunch. I remember wishing the song “15” came sooner for me, but greatful it was there cause even at 17-18 I didn’t know who I was. I felt Taylor was there to help me find that in myself. I was supper shy and definitely made fun of/ bullied in school. It was nice to know someone knew all about it and could let me know how to maybe handle it and all the other things high school came with.

January 13th 2010, my grandpa died of cancer. He had, had it for years at this point. I suddenly couldn’t listen to breathe anymore and still can’t to this day. For some reason it just hits different sense then. He was a father figure to me sense me, my brother and mom lived with my grandma and grandpa after her divorce. Not that my dad wasn’t around. It’s just he was always there to protect me and care for me as much as my mom was.

Soon it was time for me to graduate high school (I graduated early) and I remember being in like a limbo of “what now”. I watched the VMAS that year....2009. I remember watching it live. I burst into my moms room while she was sleeping to tell her what just happened to you. I was so angry. How dare he? You WORKED SO HARD! I laid in bed to mad that I couldn’t do anything. But what else could I do.

Speak Now was then released and I downloaded the album that night. Idky, but I listened to “last kiss” on repeat tell I fell asleep. (Weird I know). At the time I was talking to a certain someone that I never thought would have ever batted an eye in my direction from my high school. I had dated him for a week but it just wasn’t the right time for either of us. Clearly Speak Now said something to me. That night I was in the dark on the phone with him while the moonlight blazed through my blinds. He told me “I would always be of high importance to him and that he wanted to take me out on my birthday” At that moment, I new I needed to jump. I didn’t jump before because I was scared and with other boys I did the same thing before. Nothing.

Speak now told me to do this before you keep regretting not jumping.

I jumped.

I absolutely didn’t have my drivers licenses.

My mom was absolutely out of town

And I absolutely took my car that I would get when legal to drive to go see this boy who gave me a romantic conversation over the phone.

I felt like I was gonna throw up. 100% scared and blaring sparks fly in what was technically my car.

I met him at the park and we went to eat from there in his car.

I couldn’t believe what I was doing. This was jumping.

After that night, that was it. He was it.

I was 19 and 100% sure that this was it.

(Good thing I was right 🥰)

My mom was furious. I even moved out.

I listened to speak now that entire time. It was a huge part of my life. I would cry every time I left him and put on speak now and it would comfort me and I would be ok.

Years go by and then low and be hold RED is debuting

(19 year old jumping from house to house just to be with him. I slept on peoples floors)

My mom had gotten married and moved to Kentucky so I went to visit her. Engaged and sitting in my moms car, my mom comes out of Walgreens with a RED T-shirt, and album for me cause I was begging. I remember hear IKYWT and thinking oh hell, we’re going into something new? I sat in my moms guest room and listened to RED and loved it. I remember thinking how sad I was for Taylor. That this is what love has become for her. Red. Something that will probably end at some point.

That was about the time that the honeymoon phase was fading out for me and my fiancé. It’s funny how that’s like a light switch and you don’t realize what kinda care you have to give and put into your love life until one day, reality hits and you want certain things. Maybe things you both don’t agree on. You start having to grow up and dealing with actual life problems you didn’t see when you were blinded by the infatuation you have for each other. That’s when RED started making sense to me. Fighting and hurting each other cause we’re 20-21 and have no idea what we’re doing. Engaged and love each other but have no clue about life and doing it. That year was my first Taylor Concert with nose bleed seats of course cause I made $7.25 an hour and a friend of mine paid for them. I screamed every word with my poster board and almost broke into tears during the entire thing. I had only wished I could get closer because I wanted to see her face to face for once. I still had the time of my life screaming and jumping around to 22!

(My sign for the red tour)

The RED era started to come to an end and me and my fiancé FINALLY got out first place together. A home that was falling apart, and illegally made into a duplex. No central a/c or heat. Insulation was probably 0% as well. This was the hardest year for us. It was Texas and Texas is brutal with heat. Shake it off debuted and I desperately tried, I promise. I was so excited for this step in Taylor’s Career and was so excited to see what the next step in my life would need to get through it. Another album to help me deal with unknowing in life and my relationship with my fiancé.

One night at midnight, I had no internet to buy an album not any money for album, let alone food in the house. I stayed up all night waiting for the album to download on YouTube that someone posted. I would buy the album which I did and still have but that night I just needed to hear it. I was up tell 5am. I didn’t know that a week later I was going to need this album more than anything.

We had a fight

The fight.

It was horrible. I sat in the dark in our broken home thinking “this can’t be it” I left to my grandmas house the next day in tears and for a week me and him argued, trying to work it out. I couldn’t understand it. I listened to All you had to do was stay like there wasn’t another song to exist. There was a night that I finally got angry. I formed my entire life around this man. How dare you give up on us so easily? I drove down scared and angry and ready to get my stuff while listening to 1989, trying to calm down but the adrenaline was crazy. I get there and that night we both break down and try to ACTUALLY work things out. I listened to Taylor so much that year. 1989 ended up being a staple. I finally got a job and we found a new apartment together. One where our electricity wasn’t $20 a day and I didn’t have to share my trash can with the neighbors. A completely new beginning and trying to heal after such a hard year. Still engaged after 3 years. We finally are getting on track. I even met some amazing people and finally a swiftie who GET ME! Shake it off came on and work and we looked at each other and I’ll never forget it. I made some great friends that I really needed that year. It’s amazing what can happen in 1 year. They ended up being a bridesmaid in my wedding and makeup artist.

YES I SAID MY WEDDING

06/25/16 we finally made it. I walked down the aisle to your in love.

I couldn’t breathe and the a/c in the church was broken in the summer. He was sweating, my dress hit a lantern twice, we joked at the alter with the crowd. It was personal and real and small. Hectic and stressful too.

You disappeared for awhile after this. I couldn’t believe the existent the media, and some reality stars/ rap singers were taking. I was very angry. I was a little confused even and wasn’t sure of what to think. I knew of all the battles at this point that you already were fighting and then this happened. Another limbo without you happened. I had all your music but you were gone. I’m thankful knowing what I do now and that you ended up ok. Better than ok.

You vented your feeling and brought out reputation!!! Naturally this ended up being the year I had to get rid of any toxic friends that I had. I had some actual good friends and I started to see the difference in what I deserved. It also could also do with my age and growing up but still. On top of that, things still ended up being hard for me and my husband that year. We were seeing each other a lot cause of work and we were becoming distant. There was a temptation I had that I didn’t give in to but it hurt. We ended up deciding that we needed to go. Get out of town and leave. We picked up our important belongings and left in 2 weeks tops.

We moved to Kentucky which made me closer to my mom and helped a lot. My husband moved for us away from his family for us and that was everything in itself. I listened to all of her albums on my 14 hour drive from Texas to Kentucky. I was scared beyond belief and with some bumps in the road. We finally made it.

Fast forward to know and it’s been a year in Kentucky and Lover is out.

Me and my husband have decided to try and start a family. That’s how good this move has been for us. We have a 2 bedroom apartment and 2 fur babies. I love the fall here, and Lover has a special place in my heart just like the others. This year has been very good for me and my husband. I was putting up fall decorations a couple days ago and I teared up at the line “this is our place we make the call” I looked around and it WAS ours. I was decorating while he was laughing at his xbox game. We did it. This era is different. I can’t wait to see what this era will show me.

@taylorswift @taylornation

#taylor swift #RED #taylor nation #reputation #lover #taylorswift #iftye #dbatc #taylornation #speak now #1989

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abnerpory · 6 years ago

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YNTCD & Brave: kaleidoscope heart---of memories ( a novel)

First and foremost as a disclaimer, I am a firm believer in Kaylor/Gaylor. If you are not a believer you best unfollow me right now because we are diving DEEP into the pits of speculation.

Dexter Mayfield was a featured dancer in YNTCD.

This same Dexter Mayfield was a featured dancer in Sara Bareilles’ 2013 video for “Brave”—a song that was written by Sara and Jack Antonoff.

Brave came out April 23, 2013. Sara was inspired from the struggles that a close friend dealt with in regard to coming out as an adult. The lyric video features a bunch of young girls (very 22 vibe) making music and taking POLAROIDS. Who do we know that likes to make music and take polaroids???--NONE OTHER THAN MISS TAYLOR MUTHA FUCKIN SWIFT

The lyrics are really interesting:

You can be amazing

You can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug

Taylor creates phrases with her lyrics that are often the constant discussion of debate. Could this also be future potential inspiration for the Don’t Blame Me lyric: My drug is my baby

You can be the outcast

Or be the backlash of somebody’s lack of love

Taylor is constantly facing backlash for her relationships ending badly.

Nothing’s gonna hurt you the way that words do

And they settle ‘neath your skin

The media and the GP mock Taylor and we know that Taylor is known to be sensitive (according to Todrick), which is why she doesn’t google herself.

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Kept on the inside and no sunlight

Sometimes a shadow wins

Taylor is too afraid to be her true self with the public, which is why she is constantly surrounding herself with men. Shadows referring to her doubts about coming out. If we want to go REAL EXTRA DEEP and predict the future: daisies need sunlight and remember to “step into the daylight and let it go”

Everybody’s been there, everybody’s been stared down

By the enemy

Fallen for the fear and done some disappearing

I see this as Taylor who in the past ignored the possibility of disappearing, but eventually during Rep came to the realization that disappearing is something she has to do. Everybody who's ever came out has had to do some soul searching. She planned her next step to being BRAVE enough to come out and disappeared before Reputation came out based on this advice from Sara.

Maybe there’s a way out of the cage where you live

Maybe one of these days you can let the light in

I don’t think this foreshadowing and inspiration needs to be explained further...

Innocence, your history of silence

Won’t do you any good

Did you think it would?

Let your words be anything but empty

Why don’t you tell them the truth?

Taylor, as we know in her early days, was not vocal about her views and was very much portrayed as “America’s Sweetheart”-- innocent. Eventually she was scrutinized for it. Obviously, keeping her silence is something she can no longer do. Taylor can’t keep the act up...so, now we have this whole Lover Era where she is anything but silent. Let your words be anything but empty is definitely a reference to her songs that are about women that she masks as songs about boys.

Taylor sang Brave with Sara during the Red tour on August 19, 2013 at the Staples Center in LA. The performance is quite awkward. Taylor acts like an adorable fan girl.

In her May 9, 2019 Entertainment Weekly interview Taylor says:

“This time around I feel more comfortable being brave enough to be vulnerable, because my fans are brave enough to be vulnerable with me. Once people delve into the album, it’ll become pretty clear that that’s more of the fingerprint of this — that it’s much more of a singer-songwriter, personal journey than the last one.”

Umm...yeah, she said BRAVE

Both Sara and Taylor performed at Stonewall Inn on June 14, 2019. Sara sang Brave and Taylor sang Shake it Off.

Stonewall Inn is shown in the YNTCD music video and now we have come full circle.

After this Brave revelation I started digging deeper into other potential influences by Sara Bareilles on Taylor.

Taylor’s album RED came out October 22, 2012. Considering that Brave came out April 23, 2013 I think it’s safe to say the empty words Sara was referring to in Brave could be lyrics from RED.

Speaking of RED, did you know that Sara has a song called RED?????

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“Red is a chapter about my year abroad living in Italy. I spent my junior year at UCLA abroad… living in Bologna, Italy. It was an incredible year but also a very emotional and isolating year. And it was going through those difficult things for the first time that actually solidified my relationship to music as a songwriter. So it was me discovering Joni Mitchell and discovering my own voice as a songwriter.”

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“For me the song Red, as soon as I wrote that, that was the turning point for the record. That was when I realized this could be something different, this could be something unique. This is a song that makes me open up all of my ideas of the possibilities of where this album could go. It’s a song about a relationship that was wrong and difficult and complicated and hard and impossible; but you can’t forget about it, because it was Red... and it was passionate and in a lot of ways. It touched you in a more real way than you had ever experienced before and I think that kind of relationship really inspired a lot of the songs on this record.”

youtube

“The Lucky One is a song that I wrote while I was in Australia; and it kind of talks about some of my fears, through telling the story of other people I was inspired by. But, more than their stories being told I’m pretty much singing what I’m scared of in that song...Ending up kinda caught up in this whole thing and lonely and feeling misunderstood and feeling that when people think you’re lucky you’re really not. So, it kind of expresses my greatest fear of having this not end up being fun anymore of having this end up being a scary place. And some people get there. Some people end up there. So, it’s a story song and it’s something I’m really proud of because it kind of goes to a place that I’m terrified of. “

Both Sara and Taylor share feeling of loneliness. Is Taylor lonely and feeling misunderstood as a gay woman in a straight world?? We also need to remember that eventually Taylor did go off the grid so she could see what her life would be like if everything was gone.

Taylor, like Sara, is a fan of Joni Mitchell:

youtube

Even as a child.. (for some reason I can’t insert the video but follow the link to watch Taylor sing River as a child)

It's coming on Christmas,

They're cutting down trees.

She grew up on a god damn Christmas tree farm!

I'm gonna make a lot of money

Gonna quit this crazy scene.

She’s going to be a successful singer and leave her small (christmas tree farm) town life.

She tried hard to help me,

She put me at ease.

She loved me so naughty,

made me weak in the knees.

I'm so hard to handle,

I'm selfish and I'm sad.

Now I've gone and lost the best baby

That I've ever had.

Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on

The song is about the breakup of a romantic relationship and longing to escape her emotional bonds as they are painful to her. She tried hard to help me, She put me at ease could, for Taylor, refer to her mother... but She loved me so naughty, made me weak in the knees could very well be a first girl crush that broke Taylor’s heart.

Are you still here?? Ok, next you have Joni’s song Blue (losing him was blue like I’d never known)

Songs are like tattoos

You know I've been to sea before

Crown and anchor me

Or let me sail away

I mean, COME ON, she’s going to sea...possibly drowning from her “anchor” and is wearing a BLUE dress.

Ink on a pin

Underneath the skin

An empty space to fill in

As we remember from Brave: Nothing’s gonna hurt you the way that words do, And they settle ‘neath your skin . Also doesn’t an empty space sound like a BLANK SPACE?

And how many times has Taylor referenced some sort of crown? A LOT!

Now my readers, if you are still with me (I know this is a lot), let’s discuss Sara’s album Kaleidoscope Heart because we all know how much Taylor loves her kaleidoscope references.

Walkin' through a crowd, the village is a glow

Kaleidoscope of loud heartbeats under coats

“I think when it's all over it just comes back in flashes, you know? It's like a kaleidoscope of memories; it just all comes back. But he never does."

Kaleidoscope Heart was released on September 7, 2010--plenty of time for Taylor to become influenced by it for RED, a little over 2 years later, and now ME!.

Sara says,

“I love the imagery of those words, and they’re really representative of how I envision my heart. It's a colorful but fragmented, ever-changing sum of all the bits and pieces that make it up. A kaleidoscope is the tool that helps make sense of the mess. Or at least makes it nice to look at."

Taylor’s mess is of course her relationships. The bits and pieces that she is trying to make sense of and make to look nice are her pubic dating persona (with men) and her private dating life (with women).

According to this article that got its information from Google:

A dream of a kaleidoscope "refers to a connection to your childhood". The kaleidoscope symbolizes a "release of blocked creativity and gives you the opportunity to see yourself in the bigger scope of life."

Going back to Taylor’s EW interview she shares her admiration for (very gay) King Princess...

nostalgic adjective

a : longing for or thinking fondly of a past time or condition

b : evocative of a longed-for past time or condition

King Princess sounds like a connection to childhood if you ask me. Taylor’s released block is obviously the fact that she has to write these straight songs when she’d rather be BRAVE and write about her truth.

IN CONCLUSION:

This is probably just a coincidence but Todrick just announced that he’s going to be in Waitress—a broadway musical composed and lyrics written by SARA BAREILLES

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makistar2018 · 6 years ago

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10 Years Later, Taylor Swift’s ‘Fearless’ Still Slaps

When it was released in 2008, Swift’s sophomore album launched a thousand takes. Today, it’s best remembered as a simple time capsule

By LAUREN M. JACKSON November 12, 2018

Taylor Swift during the "Fearless" tour at Madison Square Garden on August 27, 2009 in New York City.

Theo Wargo/WireImage for New York Post

Like Propel water, The Scarlet Letter and mechanical pencils, Taylor Swift’s Fearless pairs well with the sporadic squeak of team-issued sneakers, overpriced hot lunches and the kind of angst that defines comfortably suburb-bound teenage years. Sliding open the album on Spotify with my iPhone 8, I can still feel my limbs stretched in all directions, hear the snap-crackle-pop of a dozen adolescent girls’ joints going through the motions of yet another warm-up to what would become the soundtrack of my high school varsity dance team’s inner and outer lives, as well as leave poptimism forever changed.

I am 27 now, still anxious but inflexible, no longer clinging (as) tightly to singular albums to tell the emotional landscape of my life — but back then, Fearless was god. Swift was barely into legal teenagedom when compiling her sophomore album’s original 13 tracks, but more than the happenstance near-synonymy of our ages (I’m younger by 1 year, 6 months, 27 days), the four-walled, high school claustrophobia induced by the album is a matter of skilled musical mood setting. From the first downbeat of the inaugural title track to the last flippantly rebellious “hallelujah” on “Change,” Swift traps us in the mind of an ungainly teen as she was once trapped, as I was, as so many others wading the ambiguity between comportment and desire that doesn’t quite end when gowns come on and caps fly up.

Like so many notebook pages on the golden screen, Fearless is filled with boys. Stans and haters have their theories, but I like to think of each song as an archetype, less true stories of relationships gone sour than a young woman’s true to life hetero-ethnography. There are the boys who do good — the “Fearless,” “Love Story,” “Hey Stephen,” “The Best Day” boys (the last a tribute to Dad) — the boys who nurture and love intensely. They do all the usual country boy things, all the usual cinematic things: driving slow, kissing in the rain, flouting archaic inter-familial squabbles. They honor their promises and, most of all, leave the narrator better changed for her affection.

These boys who do good are short-lived. By Track 2, “Fifteen,” we’re already checking in to Heartbreak Hotel for the upteenth time with an account of that age generic enough to warrant a fan-made montage of clips from Degrassi: The Next Generation. The song tells an allegedly universal story of freshman year woes, complete with riding in cars with senior boys who also play football (because of course). It’s saccharine, sung in the vernacular of normative coupling that would become Swift’s enemy in the gossip pages. But the limited lexicon is not necessarily untruthful. “Fifteen” has aged about as well as anyone would expect, but some of those refrains make me yearn for arms long enough to slap all the powers that be responsible for belittling the whims of young girls. And according to the greater duration of Fearless — tracks like “White Horse,” “Breathe,” “Tell Me Why,” “You’re Not Sorry,” “The Way I Loved You,” and “Forever & Always” — the greatest threat to the happiness of teen girls are boys.

November 2008 looks rosy from here. America had just elected its first black president, the man who promised too much hope and change to possibly be true, but faith felt good back then. Men had committed just five mass shootings over the past year with one more on the way in December (2018 has 307 mass shootings to its name so far). The nation boasted just under 150 recognized active white supremacist groups (that number would climb to over 1,000 during Obama’s presidency). Global finance was in crisis but cable networks were still winning Emmys. Amy Winehouse was alive. Kanye still made sense and a bright-eyed, hair-tousled new country darling was exclusively concerned with dating, rather than local politics.

Like any celebrity who is also a woman, but also in a lane quite her own, Swift’s relation to mainstream feminism wanes and waxes with the season. A female artist beloved by the girls for whom her songs are written, Swift and her music are therefore more scrutinized, more rigorously excavated for signs of harmful messaging than her male singer-songwriter peers. Fearless frayed Swift’s reputation in a way that wouldn’t let up for years, if ever, largely because of its critical success. Swift took home four Grammys at the 2010 awards, including Album of the Year, beating the Dave Matthews Band’s Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, The Black Eyed Peas’ The E.N.D., Beyoncé’s I Am… Sasha Fierceand, most egregiously, Lady Gaga’s debut studio album, The Fame. The perceived slight invited robust inquiry into this supposed album of the year, and the aesthetic discrepancy between the two quickly turned to politics.

Autostraddle’s Riese called Swift “a feminist’s nightmare,” the enemy of “brave, creative, inventive, envelope-pushing little monsters” everywhere. An accompanying infographic, “a symbolic analysis” of Swift’s works to date, cataloged her most damning motifs, including “virginal” imagery, “the stars,” “crying,” and the 2AM hour. At Jezebel, Dodai Stewart agreed that Gaga was the rightful winner, speculating that in a race between “Gaga the liberal versus Taylor the conservative,” the latter “makes the Academy feel more comfortable.” One joy of pop culture is the revelation of how melodramatically things can change. Last month, Swift announced her endorsement of Tennessee Democrats Phil Bredesen and Jim Cooper for the midterm elections; meanwhile, Lady Gaga hews the path of glamorous respectability on her lengthy A Star Is Born Oscar campaign.

Feminist readings of Fearless weren’t wrong, exactly. Allies on the album come in strictly male form, while other girls are competition for Swift’s persecuted first person. Even the red-headed bestie Abigail becomes a lesson in chastity, losing her virginity — “everything”! —to the boy who broke her heart (the foil to Swift’s main character, whose dreams of living in a big ole city protect her from such a fate). The charting single “You Belong With Me” is a bouncy jaunt through the valley of me versus those other girls. The video that won Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards over Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” — to seismic effect — stars Swift as both the frizzy blonde, bespectacled weirdo in band and the sleek brunette cheerleader with the man (Lucas Till who now plays MacGyver on CBS). In true romantic comedy fashion, Good Swift, clothed in white, ends up with the guy in the end, defeating Bad Swift, whose only crimes it seems are great taste in footwear and not appreciating her high school boyfriend’s likely moronic sense of humor. Both the song and video became emblematic of a kind of Swiftian all-for-one girl power. Her 2017 video for “Look What You Made Me Do” resurrects and buries all sorts of Swiftisms, including the iconography of the uncool girl who features so heavily in the Fearless-era of her oeuvre.

Pop music exists not to elevate our souls or our politics, but to safely wade in the muck of our pettiest appetites, whether they come with trap drums or in serenades. Pop music deserves interrogation, but it will never exceed us. Fearless was a diary, sounding like the selfishness that bubbles up regardless of one’s intellectual or political guards against it. The debate it ignited wouldn’t happen were it released today, amidst all this. It’s a relic of a time when determining exactly what an album meant, culturally and aesthetically, was a crucial discussion to have in public, when nuance had stakes. Compared to the basic moral tenets we now expend so much of our energy defending, such communal acts of criticism feel small and regretfully scarce. Fearless was a moment, now relegated to a time capsule, no longer a prompt.

Rolling Stone

#taylor swift #fearless #rolling stone #2018.11.12

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tsdecoded · 7 years ago

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Burton to this Taylor

Before I begin, I need to specify that I am first and foremost a video analyst. I don’t really want to go into lyric analysis because I didn’t study anything related to that, but Ready For It just dropped and it kind of ties two music videos and three songs together. So, I’m going to give my analysis of what Taylor Swift is doing with this song!

Let’s begin shall we?

I was not a fan of Ready for It. *I need to specify this, because it’s the whole reason I got into the analysis part of this post!* I thought the verses made no sense and even though the chorus is one of my favourite TS choruses ever, I didn’t feel like it fit the song! It all felt out of place.

BUT I AM A STUBBORN GIRL! And I wasn’t going to give up on Tay Tay that easily, so I started dissecting the song. The verses still don’t really make sense to me, to be honest, but when I got to “Burton to this Taylor”, my interest peaked. Why? Well, because Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton are one of the most iconic couples in Hollywood’s history, but their love was problematic, to say the least!

Okay, this is where I put on my nerd glasses and take you for a Classic Hollywood history lesson!

Let’s begin!

*DISCLAIMER* I am over-simplifying this story… it’s such a complicated and intriguing story, and I am not a biographer! If you want to know more about the couple and this scandalous story, go read Furious Love or any of their biographies.

Anyways….

In 1954, a 28-year-old Richard Burton sees a 21-year-old Liz Taylor at a pool party and falls in love. She is gorgeous, famous, funny, and is completely ignoring him. In fact, Liz didn’t even talk to him at that party. Burton got hooked and it became a sort of personal challenge to get with her! Nine years later, in 1963, destiny would throw them together again on the set of Cleopatra, which by the way was the most scandalously expensive movie of its time. Burton was cast as Mark Anthony and Taylor was cast as Cleopatra. Now, this movie was an epic letdown, it was a mediocre biopic at best, but it is still an iconic film because it gave us Liz and Dick! Burton and Taylor fell in love while shooting this film. They were both married to other people, but it didn’t stop them from falling for each other. When the filming was over, they went back to their respective spouses, but they couldn’t stay away from each other and a little less than a year later, they both got divorced. In 1963, they tied the knot and thus began the fantastic story of one of the most turbulent and passionate love affairs of the Golden Age of Hollywood. They were married for 11 years, then they got divorced in 1974, just to get married again in 1975 and then divorced again in 1976.

Now, we can all agree that neither of them was a particularly stable adult. They were both alcoholics, suicidal at points, and extremely passionate. (It is said that Burton was an alcoholic as a way to drown his homosexuality, but I am not even going to go down that hole, because this analysis would never end!) Between the two of them, they had eleven spouses. Seven for Taylor and four for Burton.

This is perhaps the most extravagant, turbulent and craziest relationship imaginable! So, why is Taylor Swift so obsessed with it? I hadn’t realised this, but the Liz Taylor-Richard Burton imagery goes back to 1989! In fact, both Wildest Dreams and Blank Space hint to it.

Let’s start with the obvious one: Wildest Dreams.

Now, the music video for the song is very obviously a depiction of Liz and Dick’s relationship. -They’re both actors -They have an on-set romance -They’re in other relationships (at least he is) -They can’t stay away from each other (he runs out of the theatre after she leaves.)

Taylor even replaced her blonde signature look, for a black wig! Taylor is very clearly creating a parallel between herself and the actress.

I’ll come back to this video and this song later on, but for now, let’s focus on Blank Space.

Ahhhhh! Blank Space, my love…

I already did an analysis of this video, but here is another approach.

I was reading about Liz and Dick, and I came across this great article called “Why We Can’t Help Loving the Love Story of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton” in it, we get this great paragraph:

From the moment they fell for one another, they would entrance and enrage the invested public, not to mention the paparazzi, nearly as much as they’d be entranced and enraged by the many facets of one another. Fans and haters (before the concept of haters was even invented) were drawn in by their shameless over-the-top romance, its scandalous headlines blaring across the pages of the tabloids, and their irrepressible need to be together, despite it all. Adding further resonance to the saga were the roles Burton and Taylor played in films throughout their relationship, which frequently paralleled their lavish personal lives: full of travel and expensive jewellery and entourages and love-making and joy, but also alcoholism and brutal fights and deep despair, heartbreak, and pain.

As I was reading it, I couldn’t help but think of Blank Space. Tell me that last line doesn’t sound like a very accurate description of Blank Space’s video!! Even the structure of the phrase matches the structure of the music video. It starts magical and perfect and soon we realise there’s a darker side to everything. Now, I’m not saying Taylor read the article and made the video around that line, but if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense that if fits both of them.

This is where I get really interested in this whole deal! There is a clear parallel between the singer and the actress. It’s mostly a parallel between their reputations (lol.. see what I did there?). Both of them have had issues with the media focus on their personal lives rather than their talent. That’s what Blank Space is all about! In a way, Blank Space is a reminder that Taylor is first and foremost an artist, her media persona is something that was created to sell magazines!

Both Liz and Taylor have had to deal with a very unfair representation of their character. Liz had to go through years of being called every single name in the book. I mean, yeah, she did get married eight times and she did steal other women’s husbands, but that should not be what we remember about her. She was a Hollywood legend! She won two Academy Awards, she portrayed some of the most amazing characters on screen, she was an activist, an entrepreneur, a stage actor, a film megastar… but her reputation tainted her legend. People will never be able to separate her from her “man-eater” image. Taylor Swift is dealing with a similar situation. She has won eleven Grammys, and almost three-hundred other awards. She has broken countless records, written whole albums by herself, headlined sold-out arena tours, she has donated millions of dollars to different charities, she has lead a career worthy of respect and legend status, but a quick search will show you that all people care about is who her latest boyfriend is. Even worse, just as Liz was in her time, she is hated for her dating history.

Both women have fallen victim of a sexist system that demonises female sexuality. This tainted reputation problem never really affects the men. I mean, Richard Burton had countless affairs, sometimes with underaged girls (x), but he is not judged or hated for it. He is first of all, and actor, and his legacy is as an actor and then as Elizabeth Taylor’s tempestuous lover. People still watch Woody Allen movies, elected Donald Trump as president, watch Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix movies, listen to Chris Brown’s music… all these men (except for Trump) are regarded as artists, their every mistake excused, but we hate Liz and Taylor because they married/dated a few men?

Blank Space is basically Taylor’s way of showing the public how ridiculous this image that she has actually is. She reprises this idea in Look What You Made Me Do, but if I go there, I will never get out of there, and this post is already long enough!

So… WHAT DOES THIS ALL HAVE TO DO WITH READY FOR IT??????

Whoa.. chill! I’m about to get there! (I told you I was a nerd….)

Ready For It is the first time Taylor makes the connection between her and Elizabeth explicit. “Burton to my Taylor” - great play on words because it reinforces this connection. Both of them are Taylor. (DEEP)

After reading about their relationship, I was left wondering why Taylor Swift would ever want a relationship like that. She has always said she’s a hopeless romantic, and Liz and Dick’s relationship is more like an addiction than a relationship. Yes, it’s passionate and it’s epic, and it’s what movies are made of, but would anyone really want that? Maybe at first, but after a while you want stability, and loyalty, and companionship, and to feel at home. And that is what Taylor has been writing about all this time. So, why use Burton and Taylor?

Well, that article I mentioned before has the answer:

Thirty years later, “Liz and Dick” is part of our shared historical understanding of romance, the ultimate kind of celebrity affair, one that still dwarfs the fleeting, 72-day benders of the Kardashian era. They seduced and destroyed and seduced each another again and again, and the public could not look away, nearly as enthralled by this train-wreck of a beautiful couple as the two were with one another. As icons representing a star-crossed, all-consuming, fantastical kind of love—like Romeo and Juliet, or, better yet, Marc Antony and Cleopatra—they offer the mythology of the absolute, whether it’s good or bad, better or worse. We love them because it was difficult beyond all imagining, but they kept going back. We also love them because it didn’t have to be difficult: They were living lives most of us can only dream of, with yachts and international homes and movie deals and million-dollar diamonds and entire worlds at their feet.

It’s all for the public, it’s all for the tabloids that sell the story.

Now, there’s another interesting line in RFI: “No one has to know” it’s the last line before the chorus. This line reminded me of “I said no one has to know what we do” from Wildest Dreams.

So, in the same song, Taylor is singing about the most mediatic and publicised celebrity relationship, and about keeping it a secret. It doesn’t really make sense, unless you see it as a song about both Taylors (and I don’t mean Liz here. I mean both Taylor Swifts). Ready For It is the love-child of Wildest Dreams and Blank Space and that is why the song doesn’t really make much sense at first. We get the media Taylor singing the verses, dripping with sarcasm and reminiscing of Blank Space yore.. and then you have the real Taylor singing the chorus, hopeful, sweet and sexy, reminiscing of Wildest Dreams.

In fact, Taylor has been singing about the secret part of the relationship since she started. The hidden/forbidden relationship is one of her motifs! And I finally figured out why. The real Taylor lives in the secrets, and not on the tabloids. We can judge her all we want about the men she dates (or doesn’t date)… about what she says or doesn’t say, about the clothes she wears… but at the end of the day, Taylor will always kick us in the ass with some amazing lyrics and great storytelling! She’s the only one that knows her own story!

“There once was a girl known by everyone and no one”

So, to conclude, I think Ready For It is about both Taylors. The Taylor that feels like Liz, overshadowed by her reputation; and the real Taylor, the one that lives in the secrets, that has real feelings and real desires.

It might not be my favourite song in her repertoire, but I think Taylor is a masterful lyricist and storyteller and I am very excited about this new era!

BRING IT ON!

the end.

How did I do @taylorswift?

#taylor swift #analysis #ready for it #blank space #wildest dreams #reputation #elizabeth taylor #richard burton

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norskies · 7 years ago

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Every single thing I noticed and felt while watching Taylor’s LWYMMD music video

By now I think it’s a fair assumption to make that you have already seen @taylorswift ‘s new video for Look What You Made Me Do (it had over 39 million views in the first 24 hours). If you’re like me you may have rewatched it about 13 million times trying to decipher all the hidden meanings. If you’re not (cool) like me, you may have just watched it once and wondered: “what on earth did I just see??”.

Lucky for you I’ve decided to document my entire emotional journey through the 4:15 video. Disclaimer 1: many of these theories are my own opinions or theories I’ve read from other fans. I do not pretend to understand the entire genius of T-Swift. Disclaimer 2: I am a 100% biased Taylor Swift fan and therefore this analysis is 100% biased with my love for Tay.

HERE WE GO

Ok, opening scene. Spooky. Fits the soft but slightly creepy lullaby intro. Honestly thought we might be stepping into Hogwarts.

Here is one of the first of many “TS” we will see throughout the video.

For anyone who has been following Taylor the past year, this is a pretty clear reference to the online hate Taylor received after being “exposed” by Kim Kardashian (note: she was in no way exposed). Trolls began to fill social media with “RIP Taylor’s career” and “Taylor Swift Is Over Party”. It is a fitting place to begin the video.

Does that dress look familiar to anyone? It appears to be the same dress Taylor wore in the Out Of The Woods music video (the last video from the 1989 era...symbolic right?).

What is that on the tombstone behind Taylor? Nils Sjoberg. This was the alias name Taylor used when she helped write Calvin Harris’ “This Is What You Came For” (he later appeared to be less than happy once Taylor started receiving credit for the song).

We now see the old Taylor that Zombie Taylor is burying. This Taylor is dressed the same as when Taylor attended the Met Gala in 2014 (marking the beginning of the 1989 era). Here we literally see post-1989 Taylor burying pre-1989 Taylor. *tears*

Taylor transforms from the graveyard into this beautiful scene. Several things to point out here. Taylor is almost literally drowning in jewels. Perhaps alluding to the media’s perception of Taylor being money obsessed? If you look closely, we also see a single dollar bill lying in the bathtub with her. Most likely referencing the symbolic 1 dollar Taylor requested in her countersuit against a former radio DJ who sexually assaulted her (Taylor won this case). Finally, and this may be a stretch but notice on the floor to the left of the bathtub what looks like a heart shaped locket? It’s possible this is the same locket that Calvin Harris gave Taylor for their 1 year anniversary. Wow. Brilliant.

ENTER SNAKES. We now get all the snake references we could ever need (also clearing up the snake video clues Taylor teased just a few days before releasing LWYMMD). The snakes themselves are a reference to the hate Taylor received after the Kim/Kanye blow up. Haters filled her Instagram and Twitter with snake emojis implying that Taylor herself was a snake. Looks like the joke is on them now. Also notice the subtle, “et tu brute” on the chair? We see this several times in this scene, of course referring to the betrayal Taylor has felt from people she thought were her friends.

And Snakes! Check out Taylor sipping on her tea that she now gets to serve up. It’s her time to tell the story and she’s doing it with this BA Salazar Slytherin look.

The golden car crash. This is an interesting scene because it has many interpretations. My gut reaction was Katy Perry. The feud is well known and Katy added fuel to the fire by releasing her song “Swish Swish” that was meant to be a dig at Tay. I think she looks very much like Katy here with the sunglasses and the short blonde hair. Notice she is even holding a single Grammy (something that Katy Perry does not have). However, it’s also been pointed out that this may also be a Kim Kardashian reference (which I will discuss later).

A further analysis of the car crash shows the paparazzi taking pictures after Taylor crashes. Perhaps symbolically saying that the media loves to see Taylor suffer and fail?

Two things to note here. 1) Jaguar? Your guess is as good as mine. 2) The cute little guy is wearing a golden 13.

Next, we find Taylor in what looks like a giant bird cage. Wearing orange to perhaps symbolize that she feels like a prisoner at times? We also see a snake tattoo on her right leg.

At this point in the song, Taylor says “and threw a feast”. This could be a reference to KP’s song Bon Appetit. But it is unclear. Also, notice the rat on the table? Yeup just thought I’d point him out.

Now, this is a fun scene. Tay is robbing a currently undisclosed location. The cat masks could be a cute play at Taylor’s love for cats. Or could be another hit at Katy. Either way, it’s a great scene. Her sweatshirt reads “blind for love” as we know Taylor frequently referred to herself as a hopeless romantic.

We are now introduced to biker chick Taylor. It might seem a little out of place at first. But remember when Taylor got hate for her Bad Blood video apparently ripping off of Britney Spear’s Toxic? This very well may be alluding to that.

Absolutely love this part. We now see what Taylor was robbing. A streaming company. Of course. After the backlash, she got from leaving Spotify and writing her letter to Apple this scene makes perfect sense. Side note: absolutely adored Taylor’s letter to Apple. You go girl.

What is Taylor doing dictating what looks like an army of life size barbies? This is a reference to the “squad” and the comments Taylor received that her friendship circle was more like a cult of freakishly perfect looking women as opposed to a genuine group of friends.

Which of course leads us to the falling out of the squad the media claimed happened but didn’t.

Taylor enters the mansion. As soon as she enters the room the men immediately step up to do her bidding. As if Taylor is their commander and they must obey.

This is our first glimpse of the mysterious airplane Taylor. We only see short glimpses of her but she seems to serve an important role. She perhaps represents the real Taylor that neither the media nor the fans truly get to see or understand fully.

The boys are back. 8 of them all in line (apparently something only Beyonce is allowed to do if you ask Twitter). She could be representing her past relationships and the scorn she received for each one. Fun fact: it’s Taylor’s back up dancers from the 1989 world tour!

The I <3 TS shirt. Tom Hiddleston wore an I <3 TS shirt while dating Taylor. He got mocked and Taylor got called manipulative for “forcing him to wear it”. Taking a wild guess here, but pretty sure Tom makes his own wardrobe choices.

This is our first real glimpse at the “Reputation” era Taylor. She’s dark. Her hair is slicked back. And she looks like she is 100% done apologizing. She is standing on top of a mound of the “old Taylors”.

Shoutout to Fearless era Taylor with the iconic 13 on her hand. What a gem.

This is one of the best shots in the video. A look at the past decade of Taylor. How many Taylor’s can you spot?

More snakes. Side note: You can actually buy this snake ring on Taylor’s merch store. Taylor now reveals to us the most anticipated line of the song. “I’m sorry the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, cuz she’s dead.” This line brings the entire song together as well as the symbolism of Taylor wiping her social media a week prior to LWYMMD release. The old Taylor is dead. The haters have killed her.

Taylor breaks it down with her backup dancers to some pretty great choreography. I like to think of this as shade to all the people who made fun of Taylor’s dancing abilities. Our girl can dance.

Annnnnnnnd boom! Our Jaguar friend is back. Still unsure what he represents but he’s pretty cute.

SNAKES

Let’s pause to appreciate the adorable wink Tay gives us here. Reputation may be a darker album than we are used to but Taylor is still the light-hearted girl we’ve always known.

Wow, she’s like Super Woman.

This is one of the best views we get of the mysterious airplane Taylor. Who are you???

We finally come to the last and most important scene. 15 Taylors. 14 lined out in front and one back on the airplane. There just so happens to be 15 songs on the new album reputation...coincidence?? Also, notice TS6 written on the end of the plane? Subtle genius.

You Belong With Me Taylor is precious. She’s so happy and genuinely surprised that she has accomplished all that she has. But everyone hates her for that and will drag her down until she no longer will show that much genuine and pure happiness at an award show again. Also, recognize that shirt from the YBWM music video? Only now it’s slightly different. This time it has real names of Taylor’s real friends you might recognize. Like Selena, Ed, and Jack.

As the scene continues we see Shake It Off Taylor mock YBWM Taylor for being surprised all the time. Mansion Taylor calls Zombie Taylor/SIO Taylor a b**ch and Zombie Talyor responds with “don’t call me that!” Alluding to Kanye calling Taylor this in his song “Famous”. In real life, Taylor responded by making a very strong statement against Kanye’s words during her Album of the Year acceptance speech at the Grammys later that year.

A particularly heart-wrenching scene. Fearless Taylor tries to calm everyone down but gets shut down by We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together (Tour) Taylor, calling her a fake. We see the young innocent Taylor begin to cry. The young sweet girl who got stomped on by the world for making music about love. It is sure to elicit a few tears.

“There she goes playing the victim again”. Taylor is literally beating the haters to the punch.

Met Gala Taylor Asks Katy/Kim Taylor what she’s doing and she responds with “getting receipts...gonna edit this later.” This could be interpreted in two ways. If this is meant to be Katy, it could be referencing the song “Swish Swish” where Katy claims that “karma keeps receipts”. Or if it is Kim, it would be naturally referencing the snapchat videos Kim perhaps “edited” of Kanye and Taylor’s phone conversation. Side note: it is illegal to record people without their consent in certain states, Kim.

Finally, we see 2009 VMA Taylor who had been interrupted by Kanye West while she was accepting her award for Best Female Music Video of the Year. She quotes 2016 Taylor by saying “I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative”. Which all the other Taylor’s and symbolically the world respond with...

“SHUT UP”. Here Taylor is telling us that no matter what she does or doesn’t do, she will be judged. It isn’t fair but it is something she has accepted. She will no longer be providing any explanation. There will just be reputation.

#lwymmd #musicvideo #taylor swift #reputation

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girlsbtrs · 5 years ago

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Artist Interview - Best Ex

Best Ex, formerly known as Candy Hearts, is an American pop rock band from New Jersey and New York, formed in 2009. Back from their hiatus, they released a single in September titled “Bad Love” and debuted a music video for it on December 15th. Girls Behind the Rock Show sat down with lead vocalist Mariel Loveland to talk equality, touring, shooting music videos and the future of Best Ex.

What does representation and equality in the music industry mean to you?

I mean, I think it's the most important stuff. Like my dad sent me this list of the top 50 pop punk albums of the decade and it included three women out of 50. That is gutting to see, because it really makes people think that they can't do it. It's so often men who are the ones who are champions, especially in the rock scene. It seems like the worst out of all of them. I feel like rock is the worst.

I totally agree with you on that! Hardcore is probably I think near the top of rock.

Yeah, probably. Metal is pretty really bad too.

How has being a woman in the music industry changed your perspective on the industry?

Honestly, it’s made me kind of hate it. I can’t count on one hand that out of all of the tours I've been on, something bad has happened to me because I was a woman. Like - something bad always happens and when it’s someone who's on a tour with you, it's like, what are you supposed to do if they're the opening act? How much can you complain?

I remember even when I was on Warped Tour and the stuff that came out about me later, that was when I was finally like "I'm done. I have to talk about it." While I was on Warped Tour, my team was making me feel like a major inconvenience; like I should have never said anything to people who were in charge even though I was being threatened. That is really the attitude of everyone. It's like, “shut up and take what we give you and don't cause any problems.”

I am so sorry that you had to go through that.

Yeah, it’s awful.

How was the writing process for this new era been like, especially with the release of “Bad Love?”

I wrote these songs over the course of two years because I started right when my last one came out, and I’m really happy with that. I wrote the same way I write everything: playing guitar, taking a shower or a walk or a drive, and coming up with a melody I'll save for later. When I copy the lyrical idea, I'll sit down and I'll try and bring them all together.

A lot of the themes in the next music I'm releasing definitely have to do with my perspective on being a woman in the industry, because it has been just so difficult. It's one of the reasons why I haven't been on tour very much or played very much in the last two years, and that's something that's affecting me a lot. So, I've definitely written about that quite a bit, and also romantic relationships and stuff. So, yeah, I mean the writing process is the same as usual. I always love working with just one producer - I have these ideas and go in and kind of hash out the music together. Andy, who worked with me on this, did an amazing job. I couldn't imagine a person doing better.

On Twitter, you said that you had snuck into some places in London to film the music video for “Bad Love.” What was that like?

You know, it's funny because I feel like a lot - actually, 100% of our music videos except for, I think the first one we ever did - we snuck into places we weren't allowed to film. I remember when we did “I Miss You.” We were in. L.A. shooting our music video and we had no permit whatsoever. We were recording an album at the time and we just were like, “we’ll film and just hope we don't get kicked out.” We ended up filming in front of the Walk of Fame and all these tourist spots that you're definitely, definitely, definitely not supposed to film at.

As far as London goes, I mean, the place that we filmed at is some company that makes neon signs. It has this amazing showroom and you're allowed to take photos and videos on your phone but you're definitely not allowed to bring in a real camera or shoot extensive things there, so we kind of took our iPhone, and I had the music hidden in an earbud that you can't see in the footage. I just did it very covertly, not around anyone who was working. That part is [shot] on an iPhone but I think it looks fine. I mean, Selena Gomez just did her [music] video on an iPhone. [laughs]

I watched the video for Bad Love and I don’t think you could tell it was shot on an iPhone, so you did good with shooting.

I'm so stoked, because I feel like it captures the whole feeling of the song. It's really cold but sparkly when you're in a relationship that's bad.

Are there any artists that you have been listening to lately or that you want to give a shout out to?

I have been listening to The Menzingers' newest record about a year late, but I've been listening to that nonstop and I absolutely love it. The thing with The Menzingers is that all of their albums sound like The Menzingers. You know exactly what you're gonna get. I feel the same way about The Weakerthans, where it's like, they created a perfect song, and they just kept creating that perfect song over and over again. I feel like The Menzingers are exactly the same and out of those two bands, I just think that no one can copy lyrics those two bands. They have the best lyrics out of anybody I've ever listened to and any band I will ever listen to. I just love them.

What genre are they?

Alternative Punk. I'm really into the opposite of what I've been listening to lately.

What are you usually into?

Mostly pop like Taylor Swift, The 1975. I really like Better Living Community Center especially because Conor Oberst has been one my favorite musicians since I was a little kid.

What is next for Best Ex?

Well, we're releasing an EP, and I definitely have more than one of those up my sleeve, especially because I've been working for a long time and haven’t released any of the music that I've been working on. We're working on planning some shows right now, but we're kind of trying to figure out exactly when that EP is being released; actually, we're filming a music video, and I'm going to have to wake up at 3:00 in the morning to do it. We're sneaking into places hoping we don't get murdered running around New York at 3:00 in the morning, but you know! [laughs]

- interview by Aliyah English

#artist interview #industry spotlight #featured artist #aliyah english

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