#my favourites are the Clean one the Wonderland one and the HYGTG one

[asunayuukixox-archive]

“What can be said of all the moments in between our birth and our death? The moments when we are reborn...”

Sword Art Online X 1989

[hitchfender]

@wishforwishes and i were discussing this ages ago, and i’ve finally worked up the courage to do my official ranking of 1989 (deluxe). without further ado:

1. out of the woods 2. style 3. you are in love 4. welcome to new york 5. shake it off 6. blank space 7. wonderland 8. wildest dreams 9. this love 10. how you get the girl 11. i wish you would 12. i know places 13. all you had to do was stay 14. new romantics 15. clean 16. bad blood

to complete this list, i listened to the album in order and wrote a paragraph with my impressions of each track; then i went back and ranked them. i worked very hard on it, and it turned out very long, so it’s all under a read more! please send opinions and reactions ❤️ love u

welcome to new york - honestly, this song is just so fun. the beat drops smooth and satisfying, and when she yells “new york!” just before the bridge it feels like a shout of freedom. the track is lyrically thin, but that doesn’t mean the lyrics are bad, and i think taylor communicated everything she wanted to with them; this first song invites us into the album, and sets us up for a pop-flavoured story of “real love that drives you crazy.”

blank space - this is taylor at her most sardonic and self-aware, tongue firmly planted in her cheek as she sings about bad boys and loving the game. some of her imagery falls flat, and that repetitive drumbeat grates after a few verses, but man, that tongue click was a stroke of genius: bringing the listeners into her world with insolence and irony.

style - this guitar knocks me off my feet every time. here’s where she makes her 80s influences most keenly felt, and where she brings that imagery she’s so famous for to the foreground. she paints her experience with a combination of broad strokes and achingly specific detail, and when it’s over you feel drained and renewed, like at the end of a long drive through beautiful, dangerous terrain.

out of the woods - i don’t know what to say about this one that i haven’t already said, so here it is again. reading the lyrics this song feels almost manic, the chorus losing its meaning and becoming a frenetic howl, the stories she’s telling disassociated and too-sharp, like shards of memories. once you get to the bridge, it starts to sound that way, too - she switches from the more complicitous “we” to an accusatory “you,” and she starts making demands - yet even in this moment of fear and anger there’s tenderness: a sunrise and shared tears. when she seizes her agency with that “oh, i remember” i feel some primal emotion lodge itself like a bullet in my chest.

all you had to do was stay - although i like the way she transitions from vindictive to tender and back again (“you were all i wanted / but not like this / not like this”), the lyrics feel a bit repetitive and the upbeat mood detracts from the meaning she’s trying to express.

shake it off - RIGHTS for these trumpets. and the giggle. some of the vocabulary feels a little forced (hella good hair?), and the production is oddly gapped - there are breaks in the ambient sound that force you to focus on her singing, but this isn’t her best vocal work... but, like, i think i’m concentrating on the wrong thing here. this is a song about letting go of the hate, literally intended for you to lose your mind to in your room at 3 am. i can’t fault the concept.

i wish you would - this start sounds a lot like the opening of style, actually, and these spaced-out electronic drums are straight off ootw. fascinating. moving on: this sounds like a diary entry, which is extremely taylor, but it makes the song come off a bit disconnected. love that line about “a crooked love in a straight line down,” but by the end i’m left with no distinct emotional impression. also literally forgot about it when i was trying to rank the songs.

bad blood - (i know it’s not on the album but i can’t not critique the kendrick verses. “pov of you and me, similar iraq”: L. i like the nod to backstreet freestyle tho.) anyway i feel like i would be more fuck-feminism about this whole thing if it slapped harder, but as it is i’m falling asleep a bit. album version especially. sorry ms swift!

wildest dreams - that’s more fucking like it. this is probably in my top 10 of her songs, from any album. every line of this! the imagery! the dreamy vibes! the way the bridge hits and she lets loose all of that fierceness she’s been holding back (”burn it down”)! i love how the sunset line parallels her own red and rosy makeup, and the dreamy feeling that conveys. also one time i had sex to this song and it was exactly as transcendent as you’d imagine, so.

how you get the girl - i’ll admit i’m not a massive fan of taylor’s favoured “ah” exclamations, but i’ll let em slide because this song goes off. hygtg accomplishes what ayhtdws set out to do: contrasting message and tone with just the right amount of attitude. i love the narrative in this one, too - she tells a clear story with subtle changes to the verses and the chorus. also the sudden vulnerability in her voice when she sings “i don’t want you to go” is like a shock of cold water. masterful.

this love - i can never decide how i feel about this track. the chorus looks almost ridiculous on paper - “this love is good / this love is bad”, seriously? - but god, she sells it, and just like in ootw the ohhs help to create that dreamlike atmosphere. the water metaphors mirror the seagulls on the album cover, by the way, which: mind.

i know places - right off the bat this piano and the way the drums come in late remind me of kanye’s “runaway” - a mirrored version of it, maybe. "runaway” is a warning - he’s laying himself bare, telling his lover he doesn’t plan on changing, exhorting her to run while she can. taylor’s version is a statement of fierce intent: it’s about isolating yourself from the world, making the almost violent choice to remain with your lover despite everything else. they’re songs about escape, but not escapism. anyway i like this song because it’s about harry styles.

clean - this one is boring somehow. like i get it, water metaphors, but the ah-ahs are getting on my nerves again and “hung my head as i lost the war” seems a bit self-consciously understated. maybe i just haven’t felt the specific feeling she’s writing about yet, but until i do this one will remain low on my list.

wonderland - she’s trying to get across this fierce “us against the world” thing, but there’s not enough of taylor’s specialty: those razor-sharp details that make her music feel both universal and infinitely personal. wonderland is all vague allusions to green eyes and getting lost together, full of sound and fury but not signifying much. i am into the i-am-a-woman-and-i-am-fucking-crazy thing, but i need a bit more from her.

you are in love - am i strong enough for this? we’ll see. this track’s got it all -lyrics clean as anything from her earlier discography, backed by those synths that are 80s without feeling like pastiche. i’m obsessed with the dynamics; her choice to use or remove the backing vocals emphasises her own voice, brings out its flaws and makes the song (though it’s quite production-heavy) feel raw. she makes use of her favourite trick, little snatches of memories creating a pointillist picture, but the most affecting line comes (as with so many of her best songs) in the bridge: “you understand now ... why i’ve spent my whole life trying to put it into words.” it’s the only time she mentions herself on this self-effacing track, and the effect is immediate and startling - suddenly we’re in taylor’s shoes, watching a beautiful relationship unfold from the outside, and after a full album of songs about a fragile, doomed love affair, that line lends “you are in love” new depth.

new romantics - i have whiplash but WE’RE ALL BORED! taylor once again proves she’s never read the scarlet letter. come to think of it, a whole lot of these lyrics don’t make sense, so... yup, just googled and max martin and shellback cowrote this one. side effect: it sounds great, and the words are secondary. the old taylor pops out on the bridge to remind us of her broken-heart fantasies (“please leave me stranded”), but it sounds more like parody than ever - maybe that’s growth? a bit like blank space, this track is glaringly self-aware, like she’s daring her critics to condemn her for the foibles she already knows about, and delights in. i don’t hold it against her. god knows she’s earned a little indulgence.

tagging @roseringharrie @complicatedbabyhoneyfreak @faithmp3 @carefisher @dyketaylorswift @harrysdimples @rainbowfragrance13 (hi and welcome!) @harrystylesep @winoharry @archer-wilde @haaaaaaarrry because at some point we’ve liked each other’s taylor swift posts and/or you’ve been very nice while i yelled incoherently about her. love you all more than words and stream lover xoxoxo

[thisselflovecamebacktome]

mosaicbrckenhearts: I agree except that i for the most part love the production in 1989, not everywhere but OOTW and Clean i find amazing (i like most of it but these two stand out to me)

personally Clean was a little too cluttered for me. Like this could be said for the whole album for me but personally I imagine it more piano based. Like I’m not sure if you’ve heard Ingrid Michaelson’s cover of Clean but that is exactly what I feel like it should sound and feel like. I will say this though, I definitely liked Taylor’s version a lot more than Ryan Adams’.

Out Of The Woods is definitely one of the best production wise on 1989 in my opinion. Like it took me a bit to get into, but the production definitely does emulate the sound of being in a highly stressful situation for me. But I feel the piano version she did also fit it well and is personally my favourite of the versions. 

In saying all of this personally I do lean more towards acoustic based sounds (so guitars, pianos, orchestras etc) so that could be one of my main issues with 1989. Like on a personal level, I would probably change the production for nearly every song (so make WTNY a broadway type piece, IKP as more dark piano based, Wonderland a orchestra based song etc), but the main songs I find the production was somewhat unbearable were IWYW (I literally thought I hated this song until Ryan Adams’ version came out) which was just cluttered and happy despite it being a sad song, AYHTDWS which had the same issues and HYGTG which I just personally thought works a lot better acoustically like what she did at the grammy sessions.

So yeah, all up I think it’s partially it just not being my thing, but also I guess just the expectation from past albums (specifically RED and Speak Now) because I feel Taylor definitely had stronger connections with the production and general feels of the songs in those albums that lead to the disappointment. But either way, like I said, I feel as if even if it’s not the strongest of songs, Look What You Made Me Do is a step forward in getting that connection back.