#its just taylors next music vid for 1989

[sophia-sol]

top 10 albums

I was fascinated to go through Rolling Stone's recent updated list of what they consider the top 500 music albums ever. Of those 500 albums, I have listened to..... all of 5 albums in their entirety. Rolling Stone and I have very different taste in music. (the albums I've listened to: Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon & Garfunkel, The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance, At Folsom Prison by Johnny Cash, 1989 by Taylor Swift, and Joshua Tree by U2) So I thought maybe I'd put together my own list of my top albums. Note that I am making my calls based on what I like best as an album experience rather than based on who my favourite musicians are, or which albums contain my favourite songs, or how much I like the musical/movie a soundtrack is from. Here's my current top ten! There's exactly one album on my list that also appears on Rolling Stone's top 500. 1. Hadestown, by Anais Mitchell A concept album telling the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. It sketches everything out strongly enough that you can get a sense for the story but lightly enough that there's....there's room in it. You have to put yourself into it to get things out of it. Fascinating, fabulous, and evocative. 2. The Prince of Egypt Soundtrack One of the few albums I can listen to basically endlessly without getting sick of it. One of the few albums where I love the instrumental music pieces instead of skipping over them for the singing. It's just really really good. 3. The Black Parade, by My Chemical Romance It's delightful, bombastic, intense, and emotional. An album written around the theme of death, but it's not at all a sad experience to listen to. It's fascinating and dramatic and wonderful. 4. Coal, by Kathy Mattea A lot of albums of traditional folk music are just like "here's a collection of neat songs!" This one is organized around a particular theme: the coal mining industry in the USA. Each song is great, and they work together to build a picture of what the industry was like to live as a part of, and Mattea's voice is great, and it's just. It's incredible. But it's hard to listen to too often because its material is pretty depressing! 5. Piece by Piece, by Maria Dunn This is an album of folk music where each piece is about someone who worked in a particular sewing factory in Canada, over the course of that factory's history. Maria Dunn did a bunch of research and interviews, and all the stories she tells are based in reality. Each song is great on its own, and the picture they build together of women's labour history is wonderful. I cry most times I listen to this album. 6. Play, by Great Big Sea When I was a teen this was the only Great Big Sea album I had and I listened to it endlessly and I am SUPREMELY familiar with it, to the point that when one song ends, I get the next song on the album stuck in my head because the album is so much a singular whole in my mind. Also it's upbeat and fun and I always find it energizing to listen to. 7. Splendor & Misery, by clipping. It's just. So cool???? A rap concept album about future and space and slavery and robots and running away and building connections, with a sound that is incredible and works together beautifully with what the album is saying. 8. Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, by OK Go The sound in this album is distinct from any of OK Go's other albums and it's just a good coherent and cohesive sound, even if the songs don't have any other connection to each other. And it's got some of my faves of OK Go's songs on it too. It's just a really satisfying experience to listen to. 9. Aims, by Vienna Teng Once upon a time when Aims was the new and exciting album in fandom, someone put together a project of having different vidders create one vid per song on the album to create a kind of vid album, and it was a really cool project and it was what introduced me to Vienna Teng as an artist! The vids make the album feel like a special thing in my mind, and the songs are incredible. And all these years later I still semi-regularly rewatch Landsailor by raven 10. Rebecca English Demo Usually musical demo albums are just a collection of songs, which depending on the musical can be kind of incoherent and hard to follow because the plot and character development happens between the songs. This demo album has little narrative sections between each song telling you what's going on! It is specifically designed to be listened to as an album, rather than a keepsake for a fan who already knows the musical. It's great! (It doesn't hurt that it is also a genuinely compelling musical)

[itspileofgoodthings]

what do you think of LWYMMD? i know a lot of ppl are indifferent, and i was one of those ppl until i watched the lyric video. the MV i always found a bit underwhelming, but the lyric vid is fierce and threatening (and CREEPY!) but in a very genuine way. i guess it recontextualized the song for me, bc suddenly i associated it w poison pen letters and high drama rather than mall music and fake diamonds. it’s scary but also sounds so clear and comforting? (sorry if you’ve covered this already!)

!!! This is incredible!!!!

Do you know I’d never actually watched the lyric video but I rectified that after this ask!!!

YES!! It’s a great lyric video!! Look What You Made Me Do is so atmospheric and spooky-sounding and this lyric video heightens that in a great way! though I do love the music video too- mostly for that ending.

My thoughts on the song? I have talked about it a couple times on my blog at great length! As for my thoughts on it now- well they’ve evolved and for the better.

I think it’s aged very well. I had an actual meltdown when it dropped (like- the next day my sister took me on a drive and i literally cried in the car, it was a rough time okay) but so much of that was the timing of it, the exhaustion after the 1989 highs and lows, the worry that the album was just going to be This and she would be lost in petty drama and “feuds” forever. in light of reputation not being that album AT ALL Look takes on a different meaning and I think it’s fun and powerful and actually just really great.

The images are overblown but committed to the aesthetic, her delivery is incredible (she slithers when she sings “they” and breathes this incredible poison into the word) and it has a mean girls AND a Santa reference! How could I not love that?

But really I love it because of how the song builds. It gets louder as it goes on and the second verse breaks apart the flat and eerie tone she’s established. When she says “what???” in verse 2 I feel like she upends the song in a good way and suddenly we’re digging down into Taylor’s emotions. We see her pettiness yes, her rage but more than that a kind of trapped woundedness underneath her bravado. “maybe I got mine but you’ll all get yours” sounds to me like a wild animal that’s been cornered and is spitting and fighting its way out. The image that line conjured to me is so desperate, it’s this sudden injection of wild, humanity that contextualizes all her other cool, glib jibes and threats. She’s hurt. This is the Fighting Back Taylor, it’s the owning the villain narrative Taylor but you still see her hurting underneath it.

The bridge is also what makes it and tbh some of the most important lines she’s ever written. I don’t trust nobody and nobody trusts me. Again you can SEE the layers, you can SEE the isolation even though this is a power move and a threat- I’ll be the actress starring in your bad dreams. I just- chills I tell you.

In conclusion Taylor Swift is almost always right and I am almost always wrong about her, at least at first. Because she always comes through even if it’s not what I want. (And after 1989 I did NOT want a feud song, I did not want more negative press but you know what- her emotions, her processing, her right. The Taylor Swift is over party clearly crushed her and Kanye was two-faced, unfair, and unhinged even if Taylor was guarded and pedantic and just. in the end Taylor is better at being Taylor than I would be so I have to let her be.)

[mooosicaldreamz]

that fan vid for Looking too closely just like punched a hole in my heart, thanks for that. Also about the stn playlist: HELL YEAH PLEASE TALK ABOUT IT!!!

you are welcome. i love heart punching. since i had two people ask me about stn’s playlist, i’m going to take this opportunity to talk about how i think taylor swift’s album reputation is deeply relevant to stn and its contents because last night i lost my fucking mind

...ready for it is obvsly a sports song and is great for like video promos. imagine footage of kara being good at basketball as this song plays. but guess what, just like stn the fic u think its gonna be about basketball but all of a sudden its about SEX AND LOVE!!!!! “in the middle of the night, in my dreams, you should see the things we do” goddamn

end game “i wanna be your end game, i wanna be your first string, i wanna be your a-team” i think lena is explicitly concerned about her reputation in this fic, and i think she is also consumed with what she perceives as kara’s reputation (as a player) and REPUTATION is just a big thing for both of them. i love this fic so much i wish that i didn’t care so fucking much. “i don’t want to miss you like the other girls do” is a lena luthor lyric. get out of my house i’m crying

i did something bad remember when lena slept with kara and was like i probably shouldn’t have done that but u know what that shit was good

don’t blame me i love this song “lord save me my drug is my baby that i’ll be using for the rest of my life” shit!!! this song is a little more kara than lena, actually - you know, kara’s life is really interesting and you’ll learn more about her as lena does. but this song is very kara. its intensity and heaviness are just great. i used to think this album was bad

delicate i don’t even think i need to explain why this song is relevant, maybe but also i just want to give a shout out to this fic which also really reminds me of this song. “dark jeans in your nikes, look at you, never seen that color blue, just think of the fun things we could do” holy SHIT. its like taylor knew. she KNEW. because she’s gay. “stay here baby i don’t wanna share.” i think this song is so LONGING, which i think is where lena is working herself, unfortunately. i’m sure that will go really well for her.

look what you made me do this song isn’t crazy relevant to the fic but i think it could be another Sporting song. almost reminds me of a young kara danvers. and honestly, a young lena luthor. 

so it goes... this song is about having sex. they have sex in this fic

gorgeous i LOVE this song and i think it is FOR SURE one of the most og taylor songs on this album (its almost like red and 1989 taylor had a baby god im sorry im talking so much about taylor swift) “you’re so cool i hate you so much” / “whiskey on ice, sunset and vine” / “i’m so furious at you for making me feel this way” come on. reads like ch1-ch2 of stn so hardcore to me that i think i could die. “you should think about the consequence of you touching my hand in a darkened room”

getaway car this song is AMAZING!!!! i mean its also about like taylor ditching calvin harris and immediately getting with her next dude but like whatever. its a good song. i love that its about a short love story like its all very sudden. “nothing good starts in a getaway car” u know

king of my heart despite the blatant heteronormativity, TAYLOR, this song is so good. “you move to me like i’m a motown beat, we rule the kingdom inside my room” i love how this album is, in this beautiful way, about finding control in very small spaces  when the whole world is attempting to control you and know you and own you. its a very consistent framework. and i love how sweet this song is. “your love is a secret i’m hoping, dreaming, dying to keep” u know. stn.

dancing with our hands tied “i loved you in secret” is the first lyric of this song! and this song is a kara danvers song. another reference to the bedroom and home being a “sacred oasis” because taylor is consumed with keeping secrets and maintaining some measure of control in the same way that i think kara and lena would be in this situation. this whole song. just read the lyrics. i love the image and sound of the chorus “dancing with our hands tied” which implies like, they’re being hampered metaphorically, but physically the image is like, they can’t touch. 

dress “they got no idea about me and you” “my hands are shaking from holding back from you” “carve your name into my bedpost, cause i don’t want you like a best friend” “everyone thinks that they know us” “only bought this dress so you could take it off”

this is why we can’t have nice things this song is irrelevant to stn. and i don’t like it.

call it what you want this song is fun but a bit boring. the mood in the music is on point but the lyrics are blah

new year’s day .......................last night i cried for about twenty minutes as i replayed this song over and over thinking about stn so like......

lol if you made it through all that thank you for putting up with this shit. 

[lilyvns]

Hi can you please explain to me what bad blood is and why there are so many goddesses in it?

well, bad blood itself is technically a surprisingly average song from the legendary album that is 1989, shocking everyone by becoming the next single from the greatest piece of music of the 21st century

more shocking is that it’s apparently going to be associated to the greatest project of video art the world has ever encountered, deminingly called a “music video”. the exact context and contents of the next academy award winner for best motion picture are yet to be revealed, but apparently include outstanding amounts of goddesses, as you put it, acting badass and wielding weapons in leather. we can only assume as to why taylor swift decided it would be wise to concentrate so much hotness in the same space and time, as it will probably provoke several dormant heart conditions to come to surface in people of all ages, but i assume she wanted to show the world how she is in fact living on an above human level where not only her physical appearance makes me want to cry, but her group of friends is made of the most incredibly amazing, inside and out, women of all around (and kendrick lamar). 

long story short, she was probably throwing an amazing dinner party looked at her god like friends and said “you know what would be fun - if we came up with lowkey psychopathic aliases, dressed in tight dark leather outfits and changed the world… anyone want another chai cookie? :)”