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koganbotTaylor Taylor Taylor Taylor Taylor Taylor. Fearless re-released in a Platinum Edition with six bonus tracks, the least good one ("Jump Then Fall") being the single, but all six chart.
Lady GaGa "Bad Romance": Have already written about this twice in the last four days; so let's analyze the lyrics this time. Ga ga, oo-la-la, want your ugly, want your love. Want your disease, want your revenge, want bad romance, don't wanna be friends. Coy and dumb on the page, the words have pang and beauty when you hear them through the music, as if the sound is trying to take care of barely alluded-to hurt. But my imagination is doing too much of the work that GaGa should be doing. Fascinating music, though, and the singing puts out emotionally. TICK.
Taylor Swift "Jump Then Fall": Taylor sounds in her mid-teens, breathlessly in love, cherishing even the speckles on his face, though the lyrics fall back on too many homilies about sharing risks, so fail to deliver the fear that the homilies are meant to confront. BORDERLINE TICK.
Taylor Swift "Untouchable": He's like stars and sun, but the first are distant and the heat of the second can undo you. Taylor is rich with quavers, hanging between timorousness and resolve. Beautiful. TICK.
Taylor Swift "The Other Side Of The Door": Rote country plink that isn't up to the lyrics, which work complexity with great ease, Taylor walking out the door but yearning for the guy she shut the door on; she's screaming out the window desiring nothing more than to hear him tossing pebbles against her pane to get her attention - wanting the pursuit she didn't know enough to explicitly ask for and that he didn't know enough to know she wanted. BORDERLINE TICK.
Taylor Swift "Superstar": Same title as the Carpenters' great groupie lament, though I think most listeners, me included, will take this song to be real-life Taylor in love with a fellow star but identifying with all his fangirls, wondering whether he will or won't disappear into the dark spotlight. "I'm no one special, just another wide-eyed girl who's desperately in love with you." Don't you remember you told me you loved me, baby. You said you'd be coming back this way again, baby. Baby baby baby baby oh baby. TICK.
Taylor Swift "Come In With The Rain": An old demo that's been floating around the 'Net for several years, now out officially, in good fidelity, finally. Pure deep emotion, warm guitar strum, weeping steel, a familiar predicament ("I know your heart, and you don't even know where I start"): she's been going so far for him, it's time for him to come to her, while she's open, clouds, rain, and all. One of her very best. TICK TICK TICK.
50 Cent f. Ne-Yo "Baby By Me": Have a baby by me, baby, be a millionaire. I think that's an invitation, not a complaint, 50 talking slow, sounding full and sexy. Ne-Yo decorates this nicely, but to my surprise 50 generates enough warmth to carry it. TICK.
Taylor Swift "Forever & Always (Piano Version)": One of the best tracks on Fearless, redone accompanied only by piano; Taylor sounds conversational this time, like she's explaining the shock and numbness - "were you just kidding?" - trying to push away the hurt that she continually relives (forever and always). By the way, coincidentally (I assume), the three chords right after she sings "You didn't mean it, baby" remind me of the three chords at the end of Lou Reed's "Ocean," the waves of water that are supposed to act like balm upon the sad ghosts of Manhattan. TICK.
Justin Bieber "Love Me": Massed synths, quickly broken by a jaunty boogie beat. The chorus swipes the words but not the chords from the Cardigans' "Lovefool" but sounds breezy and warm (rather than like the Cardigans' chill wind). Doesn't do this boy's talent justice, but it's a BORDERLINE TICK.
Lady GaGa "Bad Romance": Have already written about this twice in the last four days; so let's analyze the lyrics this time. Ga ga, oo-la-la, want your ugly, want your love. Want your disease, want your revenge, want bad romance, don't wanna be friends. Coy and dumb on the page, the words have pang and beauty when you hear them through the music, as if the sound is trying to take care of barely alluded-to hurt. But my imagination is doing too much of the work that GaGa should be doing. Fascinating music, though, and the singing puts out emotionally. TICK.
Taylor Swift "Jump Then Fall": Taylor sounds in her mid-teens, breathlessly in love, cherishing even the speckles on his face, though the lyrics fall back on too many homilies about sharing risks, so fail to deliver the fear that the homilies are meant to confront. BORDERLINE TICK.
Taylor Swift "Untouchable": He's like stars and sun, but the first are distant and the heat of the second can undo you. Taylor is rich with quavers, hanging between timorousness and resolve. Beautiful. TICK.
Taylor Swift "The Other Side Of The Door": Rote country plink that isn't up to the lyrics, which work complexity with great ease, Taylor walking out the door but yearning for the guy she shut the door on; she's screaming out the window desiring nothing more than to hear him tossing pebbles against her pane to get her attention - wanting the pursuit she didn't know enough to explicitly ask for and that he didn't know enough to know she wanted. BORDERLINE TICK.
Taylor Swift "Superstar": Same title as the Carpenters' great groupie lament, though I think most listeners, me included, will take this song to be real-life Taylor in love with a fellow star but identifying with all his fangirls, wondering whether he will or won't disappear into the dark spotlight. "I'm no one special, just another wide-eyed girl who's desperately in love with you." Don't you remember you told me you loved me, baby. You said you'd be coming back this way again, baby. Baby baby baby baby oh baby. TICK.
Taylor Swift "Come In With The Rain": An old demo that's been floating around the 'Net for several years, now out officially, in good fidelity, finally. Pure deep emotion, warm guitar strum, weeping steel, a familiar predicament ("I know your heart, and you don't even know where I start"): she's been going so far for him, it's time for him to come to her, while she's open, clouds, rain, and all. One of her very best. TICK TICK TICK.
50 Cent f. Ne-Yo "Baby By Me": Have a baby by me, baby, be a millionaire. I think that's an invitation, not a complaint, 50 talking slow, sounding full and sexy. Ne-Yo decorates this nicely, but to my surprise 50 generates enough warmth to carry it. TICK.
Taylor Swift "Forever & Always (Piano Version)": One of the best tracks on Fearless, redone accompanied only by piano; Taylor sounds conversational this time, like she's explaining the shock and numbness - "were you just kidding?" - trying to push away the hurt that she continually relives (forever and always). By the way, coincidentally (I assume), the three chords right after she sings "You didn't mean it, baby" remind me of the three chords at the end of Lou Reed's "Ocean," the waves of water that are supposed to act like balm upon the sad ghosts of Manhattan. TICK.
Justin Bieber "Love Me": Massed synths, quickly broken by a jaunty boogie beat. The chorus swipes the words but not the chords from the Cardigans' "Lovefool" but sounds breezy and warm (rather than like the Cardigans' chill wind). Doesn't do this boy's talent justice, but it's a BORDERLINE TICK.
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Date: 2009-11-06 02:34 pm (UTC)The people who post messages along the lines of "I do not own this" in a pre-emptive bid to not get in trouble with the media companies remind me of this stanza from The Pop Group's song "Thief of Fire":
"We do not have anything
We have not learned anything
We do not know anything
Do not understand
We do not sell anything
We do not help
But we will betray
And we will not forget"
(But I feel as though I had read that somewhere before this song, in an Eastern European context, possibly, but I couldn't find it online. It would not surprise me if Mark Stewart lifted it...)
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Taylor Swift will host and do musical performances on "Saturday Night Live" tomorrow night. The Pop Group will not.