Well, I understand being unhappy about business dealing with partners who you think did you wrong. Who wouldn't be. But that doesn't make re-recorded soundalike versions of old material something that, if one were thinking outwardly about the fans, or even inwardly about expressive intent, a very aesthetically interesting project. Does it have any expressive motivation and intent at all, or is it purely functional and financial.
I thought Folklore was good I wish she could get the rights to her older material back, no artist should have to give that up ever just a personal belief of mine. saying that im not a fan of bands re-recording older material unless they put some new spin or whatever.
I mean it's 2020. What ISN'T exclusive to some streaming service or another? The days of a major artist throwing up an expensive documentary on broadcast TV to watch for "free" are completely gone. If anything, it's far cheaper to watch a show on Disney+ ($6.99 a month) versus "network TV" (which requires a $70/month cable sub or a corresponding service like Philo or YouTube TV).
Maybe at some point, she was bluffing about re-recording her hits in hopes of it working to her advantage in negotiations. At this point though, the fans are clearly excited about this project. Swift managed to stay immediately relevant earlier this year due mainly to speculation about the re-recordings (and hopes of a Cruel Summer single that never came to pass.) Even if folklore came as a total surprise, it's not like she wasn't already among the top talked about stars of 2020. But enough about all that. I hope to watch the new doc very soon.
why is she rerecording her old material? is that normal for artists to do that? is she not allowed to perform those songs or is she not getting the royalties?
I'm surprised she's actually going through with this. I remember Prince threatened to rerecord all his Warner material in the late 90s but outside of a "new" 1999 in the year the song was named for, it never actually happened
It's not like she's claiming she's unhappy about her life or career as a whole... Just about this particular situation. I don't see anything wrong with that. I'm not sure what the exact extent of the benefits to re-recording will be, either to the fans or to her. I do think a lot of it is of an unquantifiable personal nature, people like to have control over the things that are near and dear to them. Just like a lot of people would rather raise their kids if they had the time instead of sending them to daycare, or they'd rather own their house then rent, etc... she wants to be able to control her music which is her life's work and includes some rather personal experiences. And I'm not sure we'll ever know the full detail of what went down between her and Scooter but clearly she doesn't want to see him profit from her work. She would be able to have full control over whether her songs (at least the re-recordings of them) get licensed for movies and other visual media. It remains to be seen if she will be able to get radio stations to switch to playing her re-recordings and whether streaming services like Spotify will replace the originals with the re-recordings on their featured playlists. We'll also see how many of her fans voluntarily switch to buying/streaming her re-recordings. It seems like there's at least some nostalgic value to her by doing this, revisiting the old studios where the magic and important moments of her career happened. I'm not sure how much she's being limited by covid but it could be fun to meet up with some of her old producers, engineers and session musicians that she hasn't seen in a while if they're available to join her in this project. As for the actual value to fans, she seems to think her new vocals will be better, at least for her earliest albums (she mentioned "Love Story" specially on her GMA interview today), since she's a better singer now. It seems like she'll keep the production largely the same but maybe there will be some bonus content, like previously unreleased songs, or a second version of some songs with different production. She'll have to redo the visual materials including album covers so I suppose fans will get some new photoshoots or previously unseen pictures? Or maybe she'll just re-use pictures that Big Machine doesn't own but that fans already saw, we'll see. Personally, I hadn't gotten around to buying her first two albums when the Big Machine issues and talk of re-recording started, and decided to hold off and wait and see what the re-recordings are like. When they're released, I'll listen to them digitally and decide which one I like best and buy that.
I have the EU ‘In the Weeds’ and I imagine the parts will be the same. Pretty quiet after an ultrasonic clean but seems to be mastered loud. Particularly noticeable with vocal distortion. Increased tracking force seemed to subdue it but I’ve no idea why they felt the need to do that. The CD sounds great on my system. When I heard EU copies were via GZ, my concern was about pressing quality but the issues are elsewhere.
Seems like a huge waste of energy. Maybe her fans, at least some of them, would enjoy this but I'm trying to picture a major star of the past, say Elton John, re-recording all of his 70s material a decade or two later and how that would have gone over. I'm sure you're right though that she'd use bonus material, etc. as a selling point.
Thank you for the feedback @troggy. I was on the fence about the vinyl but as you said, I am quite happy with the limited edition CD and only a stellar quality would convince me to go for the vinyl as well.
Agreed. If I see it on offer for the price I bought Lover for (£9.99) I’ll get it, but this album really does need a well cut LP. I want to hear Betty sing from the turntable, not simply be reproduced from it.
Taylor’s intro to “my tears ricochet” in the movie basically confirms it’s about the Big Machine records dude
I watched the new folklore performance/documentary on Disney+ this evening (fortunately, this came out during the eight week period when we are subscribed to Disney+, for The Mandalorian). I enjoyed it very much and I thought it was a wonderful companion for this superb album. Some thoughts: - The best performances (for me) were in two groups. The first group were the songs in which Taylor, Jack and Aaron just seemed to be having an absolute blast. The Last Great American Dynasty and August both fit here. Smiles all around and amazing energy on both. The second group were the ones that were obviously very emotionally affecting for Taylor to perform. Highlights of this type were Peace, Mad Woman and Epiphany. - My least favorite of all the performances was, unfortunately, Seven (which is one of my favorites on the album). Taylor had the lyrics memorized for every song except for two: Seven and Hoax. On Hoax, she mostly just looked at her music stand for the bridge and it didn't affect the performance. For Seven, she read the lyrics for almost the whole song and it just felt a bit under-rehearsed. I also thought her comments on the song didn't really delve into the song. It's clearly not just about tantrums. There are references to child abuse in it. - Taylor's commentary throughout the movie was excellent. She is an articulate speaker who believes in her art and has a reason for every lyric that she writes and every decision she makes with her music. I thought her insights were especially interesting regarding the songs Mirrorball, This is Me Trying and Peace. - William Bowery is confirmed to be Joe Alwyn and he appears to have contributed quite a bit to the two songs he got co-writes on. - Justin Vernon appears from a distance at his own home studio to sing on Exile and he sounds great. The guy's got mystique. - Taylor's singing is fantastic all throughout. She plays some guitar but Jack and Aaron are doing most of the musical accompaniment and it is really Taylor's voice that is her biggest contribution to the performances. She has grown so much as a singer. It is for this reason that I'm actually interested to hear her re-recordings of old songs. She imbues the songs with amazing emotion and storytelling as well, really getting inside the characters of the songs. - This goes without saying, but the lyrics on this album are absolutely out of this world. I already knew this but seeing them performed live just brought my appreciation to another level. Taylor should be extremely proud of her writing. - Long Pond studio is gorgeous and the perfect setting for this performance. Taylor mentions how much natural imagery is woven throughout folklore and this beautiful setting in the Hudson Valley suits things extremely well. This is the National's studio, featured on the cover of their album Sleep Well Beast. - The arrangements mostly recreate the arrangements on the album, though slightly more stripped down and 'live' feeling. Nothing sounds radically different from the album versions, though it is wonderful to be able to see facial expressions and performance. - 'The Lakes' is performed at the end. I still think it's a little bit weaker than the album proper. I love the natural Lakes District imagery (and the Wordsworth / words worth play on words) but I don't like that it references tweets and such. It jars against the overall 'timeless' feel of the album. - Aaron Dessner was charmingly low-key and slightly awkward. I liked his one on one interviews with Taylor a lot and how they talked about their collaborations. He speaks about his own struggles with depression at one point, which I appreciated. Jack Antonoff worked less well for me. He seemed to be trying a little bit too hard in the speaking segments. Taylor would say exactly the right point, phrased in just the right way and then he would try to summarize it again in a sound-byte. He also seemed to slightly annoy her when he disagreed that James was foolish in 'Betty'! - There is adorable cat fight action in the closing credits, with Taylor's cats Olivia and Benjamin wrestling crazily on her bed as she was trying to record. As a cat owner, I relate. Overall, it's a really great movie and I definitely recommend it for all my fellow folklore fans. If you don't have Disney+, I do think it's worth subscribing for a bit to watch this and maybe some other content while you are subscribed. I remain a massive fan of this album, which is just stunning art, and a Taylor Swift fan for as long as she wants to make music.
It just cracks me up that so many cut the Cable to save $$$ and the way things are going to see a lot of the content you want we are slowly adding up the $$$ again , i have netflix & Prime + Cable tv with a few movie channels .................. i get it but we are slowly getting back to what people were trying to avoid . I'll get Disney early next year for a few months & there's Certainly more stuff i want to see with all the star wars stuff I listened to the full audio last night straight through & some of these version i liked even better over the Album versions , really well done on most of them
i guess Taylor was on GMA & says she looking forward to making her old songs more modern & a bit updated I'm in for sure ................. I just hope as mentioned earlier they are staggered releases OR a very inexpensive box of all of them . Taylor Swift on Which Old Song She's Most Excited to Re-Record | Billboard News
I think her rerecording everything and putting it out at once is a great strategy. Gone will be the days artists sneak out re-recordings. I wonder if there's a strategy where her letting out these new masters for super cheap to be used will devalue her old masters. Why pay for use of the old version when TT (that's what I call her) is giving them away for dirt cheap. Then again, I guess that could be too much TT (that's what I call her) for consumer's sake. Anyone else call her TT?
