Taylor Swift - 1989*

I just posted that to my Facebook page

 

Good point; the water imagery definitely does have a Kate Bush feel. I had not noticed the lyrical connection to Undertow, but you are right, both songs do share similar lyrical themes.

Obviously, Taylor has a unique vocal style, so any comparisons can only go so far, but I do think that the song has a mid 80's Bush/Gabriel sound, which is a very good thing IMO. Clean is definitely my favourite song from the album so far.

I also really like the Human League-esque synths at the beginning of Welcome To New York, and I am very keen on the chorus of Wildest Dreams, although I cannot put my finger on the 80's song or group that it is reminding me of.

When I first listened to the album, one of the songs sounded like a Prince song, but I didn't check what song it was when I heard it, and now I can't find which song it was. Do any of the songs sound like Prince to you?

 

People are saying "Wildest Dreams" sounds like Lana Del Rey, which is sort of true, but it's also like the Platonic Ideal of a Taylor Swift song. The chorus melody is great, but it's the bridge that stands out as one of her best bridges ever, and she's been kind of the last lonely practitioner of the art of the middle eight in pop for a while now.

Not really. Maybe the intro to "Style" in some faint way, although if I had to say it "sounds like" something else, to me it sounds like Nile Rodgers playing guitar over a "Heart of Glass" era pulsing disco synth bass line.

 

Well i don't if i could say the same after that million being sold but anyways i would say because this is Taylor not Pink Floyd. Most of her audience are teens who definitely don't play vinyls at home.

 

An Elvis level figure? Really? Someone is pushing it. Ms. Swift will never reach his level. She would laugh if she heard that. Let's not be delusional.

 

She's already like him in that she's a teenage outsider who shook Nashville to its foundations, left it behind, and has crossed over to even bigger success as a global pop icon.

 

Well she writes her songs

 

1989 has topped the charts in many countries, but she still has yet to make a lot of impact around the world. Taylor Swift is still very much a local artist. Elvis had worldwide impact. I think we should see how the 1989 era goes before we make comparisons. She hasn't even made as much impact as Rihanna and Beyonce have.

True.

 

Well, maybe not "local" and not even national anymore, I think, but she has been most popular in english speaking countries. I hope she tours more widely this time. It's not much of a world world tour if you only play six arena shows in Europe (5 in London, 1 in Berlin) like she did on Red tour.

 

Elvis of course never played a show outside of the continental U.S. or Hawaii.

And, in addition to London and Berlin, on the Red tour she also played arena dates in China, Japan, Singapore, the Phillippines, Singapore, Malayasia, and stadium dates in Australia and New Zealand, as well as dates in Italy, France, Spain, and other European countries on the Speak Now[/i[ tour.

 

Yes, her last album, Red, certainly didn't make much impact around the world: it only hit #1 in Australia, Canada, the U.K., Ireland, and Taiwan, and only went Top Five in Austria, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Italy, Mexico, Norway, and Spain.

Beyoncé took three weeks to sell 1.3 million copies of her last album in the U.S. Taylor is currently projected to sell 1.2 million copies of 1989 in the U.S. in week one. They are playing in the same ballpark.

 

I agree. I take back what I said in that post. She actually is bigger than both Beyonce and Rihanna at the moment. Rihanna is still preparing for her upcoming album, and 1989 will probably sell more than Beyonce's latest release in the next few months. Taylor is becoming global.

 

Yeah, I just noticed that. Also, Red outsold both 4 and Talk That Talk, which were both released in 2011. She's bigger than the both of them at the moment,

 

In fairness, while her success has been happening in plain sight, I suspect it's also flown right under the noses of a lot of adults who haven't really been paying attention, much like my Dad didn't hate the Beatles, because they simply didn't even register on his radar screen when they were happening.

 

I only mention this because you've brought up Stockholm a few times. Chrissie Hynde is a favourite of mine going back to the first singles, but I find her solo album a little soft. She wantes to make a Europop type album, but it's just to halfway for me.

 

But he probably would have been massively successful if he had. And I read somewhere that at least in the seventies it was he's drug addiction (fear of being busted) that prevented him from touring abroad. I don't think Taylor has that problem, yet

Yes, "Speak Now" tour was much more world tour than the "Red" tour. I checked wikipedia and she played in nine different European countries on that tour. She even played in Oslo, Norway. If she ever comes to Stockholm (the city in Sweden, not the Chrissie Hynde album ), I'll be there. It would have been logical to tour even more places the next time around. Don't know what happened? "Red" must have sold more than "Speak Now". Maybe her bean counters thought that playing to ~8000 people in Oslo or in Rotterdam wasn't economical anymore? But if Miley Cyrus can play an arena show in Finland (no, I didn't go ) you'd think Taylor could do the same. Then again Miley had her own TV show for years.

 

Oh, no doubt, there is zero debate that Elvis could have filled arenas around the world in the 50s, 60s, or 70s. The common explanation for him not touring is that his manager, Col. Tom Parker, was an illegal immigrant to the U.S., and feared that that would be exposed if he tried to get a passport and leave the country.

Outside the U.S., The Red tour really focused on Southeast Asia and Australia/New Zealand, which I guess is where the money/action is these days. It will be interesting to see how big the 1989 tour can get. I've read rumors she will go stadium-only in the U.S., after doing a mix of arenas and stadiums last time. The big untapped market for her is Brazil and South America. She made a promo trip to Brazil to do TV and other promotion for the last album.

 

Was she still doing arenas on the RED tour in the U.S. ? I know we only got the football stadium shows anywhere near me , but i got to see her in small places on the 1st tour (as an opener) Fearless which the venue was in Uncasville ct. & only holds 7,000 so it was nice to see her in a smaller venue & then speak now Hartford ct . in about a 13,000 seater .........but she also did stadium shows on Fearless & speak now just outside of boston . ....... makes more sense she can sell out 2 nights with no problems , was surprised there was no show #3 last time , maybe this summer .

 

I dunno if Imogen Heap's post detailing her writing and recording session with Taylor for "Clean" has been posted to this thread but I think it's quite interesting if folks haven't seen it (and "Clean" is by far my favorite track from the album). Particularly, in the context of the earlier discussion about simple, repetitive harmony, I highlight this part:

"We still needed a middle section. I fancied really stripping it down, quite moody. So we tried a few things out. One of which had me going over to the keyboard to suggest a slightly 'odd' chord progression as I do like a bit of that on my own records. I played it to Taylor and she quite clearly said, 'I think we're going to lose them at this point' and I said...'wow...that['s] why you sell millions of records and I don't' She is Taylor Swift and she knows best, so we stuck to the chorus, I created a bit of tension in the music instead and then we could woosh into the final chorus from there. I learned that lesson again, keep it simple. I just never seem to remember it!"

Good read: http://imogenheap.com/?article=1321

 

That's funny, because the one Imogen Heap song I know is also I-V-vi-IV. Sing 'Clean' over it!

 

Yeah, I had seen that. The question becomes whether incorporating an "odd" chord progression into the middle eight would have automatically made the song better. I would argue that the lyrics themselves, as Alexis Petridis noted in his review, are fairly odd for a purported "teen pop" record, and that Taylor is probably very aware of the tension between what she wants to do and what it takes to be the only contemporary artist who can move a million units in one week. Back when Red came out, I read an interview with her where she said that "All Too Well" was originally an outpouring of lyrics that was 10 or 11 minutes long, but that she had to edit it down to the five-and-a-half-minute length of the final album version, because "you can't do that on an album" (i.e., put an 11- minute song on it). Well, you can do that, and "Dear John" on the previous record pushed seven minutes in length, but, again, you could certainly argue that she is willing to compromise her art in pursuit of commercial success, although you could also argue that "All Too Well" was still a powerful song at five-and-a-half-minutes.

 

that song freaks me out - I think it's a new level for her - for the first time I don't really know what "when I was drowning, that's when I could finally breathe" means - I mean, I get a strong sense from it but it doesn't have a literal translation to me. and on the other hand when she sings about being ten months sober, I take it to mean she's got ten months - not a metaphor at all, unlike all the reviewers.

 

"All Too Well" is one of her best numbers, and my guess is that it probably turned out better and more focused for the editing, which is often how it goes -- you know the old saw, "writing is re-writing."

We'll never know if "Clean" would have been a better or worse song with a "odd" bridge -- I suspect Heap put the word "odd" in quotes because the chords weren't all that odd -- and I don't think it matters. The song is what it is. It's just an interesting window on the very deliberate attention to keeping things harmonically simple; and to the kind of awareness of the audience and how the song is going to play (even maybe a second guessing of the audience) during the writing.

That latter type of approach is usually a bit of a double-edged sword. You can wind up doing really successful work that way, or you can wind up trapping yourself in a rut, underselling your audience, closing off creative avenues and even distancing yourself from your own expressiveness by trying to put yourself in your audience's shoes. It's a dilemma I think a lot of people working in really pop genres -- like pop music, or making a super hero movie or something -- face all the time. It's very different writing something alone for yourself or a small audience that's purely driven by your personal aesthetic or expressive choices than it is writing something for a big market and audience you know is out there for your big budget production.

 

Best lines on the whole album and by far I think the record's most striking and affecting song. I don't really care if any of its autobiography or all of it is metaphor and poetic contraction. It works as songwriting because it works as poetic writing and metaphor regardless of the origins.

 

agreed. it's the first time I've heard here delve into disturbing rather than heroic though. I really like "the lights are so bright that they never find me" too. I actually like WTNY a whole lot, unlike most people. it's a good record, and she's the most important voice we've got right now.