#dancing on my own is his most played song of 2011

[likeadevils]

2014 Lover Diaries Transcripts

Jan 6, 2014- Los Angeles, CA

So I’ve decided I want to look at places in New York. I know I went through this phase months ago, but it has to mean something that I’ve circled back to it, right? You know what they say, if you love something let it go and if it comes back … blah blah blah. So I’m leaving the day after tomorrow. Dating is awful. Love is fiction/ a myth. I’m over it all.

Jan 25, 2014- Los Angeles, CA

It’s the middle of the night and I was at the Clive Davis party tonight which means … the Grammys are tomorrow. Never have I felt so good about our chances. Never have I wanted something as badly as I want to hear them say “Red” is the Album of the Year.

Feb 22, 2014- Los Angeles, CA

This week I’ve been in the studio with Max and Johan every day and it has been the most creatively successful and fulfilling time. The first day, Johan just made a really up tempo drum beat because we decided we needed something UP and light. We worked at it for a few hours before I just started singing “shake it off, shake it off.” And then the best way I know how to describe it is that the chorus just fell out of the sky. It ended up being this song about doing your own thing even though haters are gonna hate, and you just have to dance to your own beat. We all went home and I wrote the first and second verses and brought them in the next day. We wrote this chanty cheer leader bridge that I absolutely LOVE. We spent all day doing vocals and the next day recording background vocals. I think it’ll end up being the first single and Max said it’s his favorite song he’s ever been a part of.

Mar 24, 2014- New York City, NY

So in the last few weeks, I’ve completely moved into my apartment in Tribeca. That’s right, I’m writing this from my new bed in my new place, watching Law and Order with Meredith. Strangely, I’ve never felt more busy.

May 30, 2014- Shanghai

So we got to China at around 2pm and I knew it would completely ruin me if I slept when I got to the hotel, so I decided to work out. WHY IS THIS PEN RUNNING OUT?! Just went to my purse and got my own pen. So a crazy story unfolded in the last 24 hours. Last night, I had this vivid dream where the photo I’d chosen for the album cover wasn’t good enough, intriguing enough, artful enough. It woke me up. I couldn’t shake it and it stayed with me all day. Because that nagging feeling I’d been pushing back for weeks was now confirmed in my gut … It wasn’t good enough. I went to the venue, mind racing, wondering if I’d have to do an entirely new photo shoot … I got to my dressing room with newer versions of the “cover.” I looked at it and felt nothing. The team pulled up this new scanned file of the Polaroids we had taken during the shoot. I saw within 10 seconds. The shot. The cover. It’s a Polaroid of me sitting against a beige wall with a blue seagull swear shirt on. You can see my red lips, but the photo cuts off my eyes. From some reason unknown to me, it’s the most intriguing photo I’ve seen. I think it’s the mystery of not seeing my eyes. Maybe it just looks effortlessly cool. The craziest moment came when something caught my eye. The cover photo is photo 13. I kid you not. I played a sold out show in Shanghai tonight and the crowd was amazing. Tomorrow we go to Tokyo, where they’ll have the whole ticker tape parade at the airport. Smile and wave … Taylor

(2003 • 2004 • 2005 • 2006 • 2007 & 2008 • 2009 • 2010 • 2011 • 2012 • 2013 • 2014 • 2015 • 2016 & 2017)

#lover diaries* #note: dates and place names are from my notation not taylors #and i didnt transcribe the specific lyrics bc the formatting was giving me a headache #so go to taylorpictures.net if you want those

[use-your-telescope]

It’s only fair that I ask for your top five music albums! Go!

Ahahahaha FACK I should have known that was coming... picking ONLY FIVE is gonna be a struggle. All of these will have songs featured in the Trickster (I haven't even finalized my list and I already know that's true). I'm going to stick to one album per artist to help narrow this ish down. Okay, let's give this a whirl: (These are in no order)

Everything in Transit - Jack's Mannequin This album - holy shit. It's iconic. This was one of the very first albums I ever fell in LOVE with, and the story behind it is fucking incredible. Andrew McMahon wrote the whole damn thing about his (now) wife that he was on a break with, right as he was leaving his band Something Corporate and (unbeknownst to him) about to be diagnosed with cancer (which he ultimately beat!). Rescued is my most played song of all time (between itunes plays and Spotify plays), and that was before I choreographed my senior year of college dance piece to it, nine years ago. The entire album is the personification of TSwift's "yeah, we're happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time - it's miserable and magical" - brilliant piano pop that you want to scream aloud in a bar next ot strangers and bond over. Honorable mentions to Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness (Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, aka Self-titled album) and The Glass Passenger (Jack's Mannequin)

Red (Taylor's Version) - Taylor Swift Okay, no secret, I love me some Tay. This was already my top album of Taylor's before she released the re-recorded version, because I think this hits the ultimate sweet spot for Taylor - balancing folk-style songwriting and pop sensibilities, with just enough country to keep it fresh - and it's so fucking relatable. And then when Taylor's version came along? I was even more in love. Nothing New still makes my chest ache (and I love Phoebe Bridgers), and don't get me started on the ten minute version of All Too Well. This is *the* breakup album, which hit at just the right moment of my college years and it STILL fucking SLAPS. (Low-key heartbroken I couldn't get Eras tour tickets, tbh) Honorable mentions (in order) are evermore and folklore (tolerate it. gets a spotlight in the trickster! fun fact. Because fiction is cool and I can retcon history, the creation of both albums are in The Trickster.)

American Candy - The Maine Okay, this was the HARDEST artist to narrow down just ONE album - I have seen the Maine FIFTEEN TIMES since I started listening to them in 2011. Pioneer, Forever Halloween, American Candy, Lovely Little Lonely, You Are Okay, and Love & Anxiety in Real Time all have distinctly special places in my heart for different stages in my life. Lovely Little Lonely has the song that was the first dance at my wedding. Pioneer was when I fell in love with the Maine. Forever Halloween was when I processed recovering from a toxic relationship and struggled with my own happiness. You Are Okay was when the world felt unsteady and COVID hit and I needed that reassurance, and Love & Anxiety in Real Time was grappling with the ability to find happiness while allowing inner demons to co-exist. Fun Fact: my original foray into fanfic was connected to this band (now I wouldn't do RPF for the life of me because I have a different understanding of things, but I was 20 and creating fictional characters based on idealized verisons of celebrity crushes in my mind). But, I chose American Candy because I think it has this balance of fun, upbeat music, heartfelt storytelling, candid moments, and delightful irreverence that is absolutely worth a listen. The last track (Another Night on Mars) was the last song of the night at our wedding and the memory of all my friends in a huddle chanting out "this one goes out to my closest friends, the ones who make me feel less alien, I do not think I would be here if not for them" still makes me warm and fuzzy five years later.

Ever After - Marianas Trench Trying to pick one Marianas Trench album is also a challenge - Josh Ramsay is a fucking lyrical GENIUS (with fucking INSANE vocals) and he really embraces creating albums; the most recent album (Phantoms) takes heavy influence from the work of Edgar Allen Poe, the album before that (Astoria) drew inspo from 80's movies like the Goonies, but the one that has my heart is Ever After, which has so many delightful references to fairytales and toys and childhood - it's full of absolute pop BANGERS and you CANNOT help but dance to the whole damn thing. Fun fact: Josh Ramsay is Grammy nominated for co-writing Call Me Maybe!

PEP - Lights This was a post-pandemic album that addresses cynicism, feminism, and girl-power in a fucking ICONIC manner. Salt and Vinegar is a fucking MOOD, and Jaws is my new theme song. Easy Money is my low-key Lo & Theo ship song. Beside Myself is so soft and vulnerable, and Okay Okay is an absolute delight. Lights just released 'ded', which is a slowed down/if synth could be called acoustic version of PEP, and the ded versions of Grip and Beside Myself have made me feel my feels. Lights does acoustic versions of every album she has released; I was so close to putting Skin & Earth Acoustic or Midnight Machines (the acoustic version of Little Machines) because they are so emotive and delightful! Other than Taylor Swift, I tried to stick to lesser-known artists; honorable mentions go to Florence + the Machine, PVRIS, the Midnight, Lydia, Hozier, The Wonder Years, Paramore/Hayley Williams, The Civil Wars, Queen, Annika Bennett, Neck Deep, Lorde, and James Taylor...

#ask game #top five asks #music recommendations

[sithprincex]

i hope ur having a good day! im trying to expand my music taste so what albums would you recommend i listen to. im open to all genres <3

ahhh thank you sweet anon.

well you came to the right fucking person because my music taste is a little expansive i'm not being too bold. most of my paternal family is musically inclined, including myself. so let's hop to it! i'll be listing a favorite album with a song connected to it. Hozier - Self Titled (2013) This album was been stuck with me since I was in college, and is 10 years old this year. It's been my yearning soundtrack for just as long lol

My Chemical Romance - I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought me Your Love (2002)

This album was like a little late to my ears, I didn't even know it existed til 2005. This album is very early MCR and has more punk vibes, and is never a bad listen imo. Especially when you're needing to feel your rage. Kinda mind blowing that it's fucking 21 years old now, seems illegal AND fake lmao.

Kehlani - It Was Good Until It Wasn't (2020)

I have a lot of emotions about Kehlani, considering they're a nonbinary lesbian too, and also Honey reminds me of someone special. However, while this album is very sexyyyy it also has a lot to do with grieving. However, it just hits so good no matter what you're feeling. Definitely one I am smoking bowls to.

Megan Thee Stallion - Good News (2020)

Now listen, if you don't like hip hop and a lot of music about fucking and being nasty, this ain't it for you lol. But if you're like me, and you just need to feel a lil sexy sometimes, this album is the one for you. It's actually stupidly hard for me to choose an album for Hot Girl Meg because she consistently is dropping bangers. However, this song is the song to listen to to hype yourself up to leave the damn house. Maybe go dancing? Maybe go shopping at target bc you're feeling petty. Who knows! Just vibe!

Aaliyah - I Care 4 U (2002) Let's throw it back again. Aaliyah was THEEEEE cultural reset. She changed the r&b and hip-hop game, and I will never believe in g-d for taking her away from the world far too young. This album is still so incredible, 21 years later. And if you know any of the new girlies in hip-hop and r&b, then you better thank Aaliyah for paving the way for her. Forever my favorite Capricorn Baddie!!

Stone Temple Pilots - Core (1992) CW: SUICIDE MENTION BELOW

Okay, so I know this is taking a sharp left turn lol. But here me out. If you like any rock nowadays, anything grungy? This band (as well as Nirvana cuz duh?) is the reason why it fucking exists. This is an album I grew up listening to constantly, so it's definitely an album that will stick with me my whole life. My bio dad and I also saw them perform this before the lead singer Scott Weiland tragically ended his own life in 2013. I was probably the youngest person there, and the older people around me were loving it because I knew every word and was standing on my chair so I could enjoy it. I think I was 18 at the time lol.

Incubus - Morning View (2001)

Okay so staying in a rock leaning direction, i'm bringing Incubus into this because it's another one of those bands that have been playing at some point or another in my childhood. I was lucky to see them in 2011 with my mom, whomst is my favorite concert buddy. She still wants to see them again. A runner up to the song I was gonna choose can be found here, but because i'm a mushy person and this song reminds me of someone, I'll list that instead. They're also a very big writing inspiration for me.

My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade (2006)

"Now, Luna!" you're probably thinking, "You're a cheating bastard and you know it! Why would you list two albums from the same band?!" And WELL, dear anon, my answer is simply this: two different sounds, and I can do what I want! This was the first album I ever bought with my own hard earned and saved money. I was in middle school. It was almost all change. I think the girl at Hot Topic hated me for it, but she forgave me when I started to cry when I had the album in my hand and saw my grandma's confused reaction. I hope she's doing good lol.

Paramore - Self Titled (2013)

Okay I have seen Paramore perform 3 separate times, all with my mom lol. I am a huge Paramore slut and hipe if they ever do Parahoy! again I'll be able to go on it, because it sounds like a fucking dream to me. And choosing this album was so difficult because I love all their albums for so many different reasons. This album felt like I had reached a certain point in my life, and I was starting to understand that life isn't always fair and we go through hard bullshit. But g-d, if it didn't completely make me realize that there's always hope for change. Choosing a song was equally as hard, but we're here. I'm gonna add a song from a soundtrack that some people may or may not know about and let you know it's my actual favorite Paramore song lol.

Orville Peck - Pony (2019)

Last. but certainly not least in this very fun ask list of music, because it's what I geek out on, is another whiplash moment, of....COUNTRY! Now don't freak out just yet. If you've never heard of Orville Peck, you've been living under a rock but that's okay! It happens to the best of us. He's a gay masked cowboy who's like besties with one of my favorite drag queen (and they've even done a song together!). His music will make you yearn for the big open road and a lot of leather. If you're like me, you grew up in the country, and listened to a lot of country growing up. And so when I finally heard gay country music, I fell in love immediately. He's also miiighty incredible live, and has an amazing live band he tours with. Please give him a chance. I want to slow dance to this song with my future partner. I hope she knows she's stuck doing it, too.

I hope you've gotten to the bottom of this obscenely long list! Music is a major love of mine, and always has been. It's the only thing that makes my chest ache in the best and worst possible ways. I hope you enjoy my commentary on this. I took my Ritalin today so I was in the zone lol.

If anyone else is interested in music recs, please give me some more parameters to give you a different vibe hehe.

#ask 🌙 #anonymous #sith music reccs #audio #added the link for that extra orville/trixie song #also if anyone is impressed by this please tip me i #am not work rn lmao

[boonesfarmsangria]

He took to the stage sober – and decided to rethink his rock’n’roll life

Taking to the stage sober has been a revelatory experience for Foals’ guitarist Jimmy Smith.

Mid-tour, from Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain, he says he’s reassessed his relationship to the rock star lifestyle, avoiding the boozing, smoking and revelry … with exceptions.

“I’m basically done with partying every day, that’s the difference. I’ll wait for a good party then I’ll really go for it. The trouble with partying every day is that you just get so tired and so jaded, really quickly. I started hating absolutely everything – I was like ‘oh god, we’ve got to play a show’ … but that’s the reason you’re here! It just gets perverted and horrible, so it’s nice to put that in the rear-view mirror.”

There’s a romantic resignation in the lyrics of the British rock band’s seventh album Life is Yours, typified by the line on 2AM: “all my life I’ve been looking for a light/ that I can’t reignite again”.

That song is a homage to the wicked time zone between polite partying and self-destructive, habitual cycles, a precarious zone that each of the band members has navigated in their own way – lead singer and guitarist Yannis Philippakis most publicly, along with drummer Jack Bevan and guitarist Jimmy Smith.

“We’re all in our mid-30s now, and we can’t bounce back the way we used to,” Smith admits. “When I was locked down on my own in London [in 2021], I made a decision to have no alcohol in the house. I started feeling really good, and I didn’t want to feel bad again … The relationship with alcohol and performing is a rocky road. I have a rule that the first show [in each city], the most nerve-racking show, I’ll do sober and, in fact, I’m doing basically every show sober.”

Life is Yours is a tightly syncopated, disco-tinged rallying call to the dance floor. It’s a departure from Foals’ glib, glum 2019 albums Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 and Part 2, though the beautifully melancholic latter was their first album to top the UK album chart. The new album feels like the glamorous sister to their energetic 2006 debut Antidotes. Since then, the departure of founders and bandmates Walter Gervers in 2018 and Edwin Congreave in 2021 honed them to a tightly-knit trio. Did Smith question whether he’d stay?

“Yeah, definitely,” he concedes with a laugh. “I ask myself that every day. It was OK in a sense, because the three of us that are left are the core three, musically speaking, so we knew the music wasn’t under any sort of threat … it’s just sad. You spend every single day with these people and Walter is my best friend. I went to school with him. I used to say it was my absolute worst nightmare if he decided to leave the band, then he said, ‘I’m leaving’.”

In 2011, just before the band headed to Australia to record demos, they lived and worked together like a family – but circumstances have changed with maturity.

“It’s important to allow yourself more space, certainly the older you get and the longer you do this,” says Smith. “I’ve realised it’s important to not be around people all the time, and post pandemic I’m finding that fairly exhausting. I love my bandmates to bits, they’re like my brothers, but my god, can they be annoying … the family thing is still true though, we’re getting closer and closer, really.”

That closeness has translated into joyful, triumphantly hopeful music. The upbeat party vibe is also thanks to the pop-rock veteran producers the band worked with, including Dan Carey (Tame Impala, Fontaines D.C.) and John Hill (Florence + the Machine).

There is a sense of having moved on from Foals’ stage show antics, replete with Philippakis’ proclivity for diving into crowds, climbing onto speakers and getting into brawls with security.

At Glastonbury last weekend, the lead singer promised the crowd a “f---ing mad one”. But their music reflects the glow after the madness: as the track Looking High suggests, “I’ve already skipped the town/ I’ve packed my bags/ I’ve found new ground

SMH.au || Interview || Cat Woods

#foals #jimmy smith #life is yours #jimmys seeing

[yesthatssadirichardslove]

Bruce Springsteen returns to the stage in Phoenix after health issues postponed his 2023 world tour

PHOENIX

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band returned to the stage Tuesday evening at the Footprint Center in Phoenix in a triumphant reboot of the Boss’ postponed 2023 world tour.

In September Springsteen, 74, announced his tour would be delayed until 2024, citing doctor’s advice as he recovered from peptic ulcer disease.

“The Boss” arrived on stage to an audience chorus of “Bruuuuce!” Wearing dark jeans and a rolled up red plaid flannel shirt, he had the energy of a man half his age. His signature “One, two, three, four” was the only thing that separated most songs, showing no signs of his illness from the previous year. Once he shouted, “Good evening, Arizona” the show was off and running.

Springsteen spoke to the crowd briefly about his illness prior to playing his final song “I’ll See You In My Dreams” solo on stage. “Phoenix, first I want to apologize if there was any discomfort because we had to move the show last time. . . . I hope we didn’t inconvenience you too much.”

The 29-song show came in just under three hours, but “The Boss” hardly broke a sweat while showing off a strong voice, all the while dancing, tearing into guitar solos, playing the harmonica and even ripping his shirt open near the end of the show.

On stage with Springsteen was the legendary E Street Band which features drummer Max Weinberg, bassist Garry Tallent, keyboardists Roy Bittan and Charlie Giordano, guitarists Stevie Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren, saxophonist Jake Clemons — nephew of original and still missed sax man Clarence Clemons who died in 2011 — guitarist and violin player Soozie Tyrell, a full horn and brass section and four backup vocalists. The only missing member of the band was Springsteen’s wife, singer and guitarist Patti Scialfa.

Springsteen performed most of the hits in his vast collection, minus “Born In The U.S.A.,” but he added covers “Nightshift” by the Commodores, “Because The Night” by Patti Smith Group, and a surprise: ��Twist and Shout” by The Beatles. Fans went wild for “No Surrender,” “Born To Run,” “Rosalita,” “Dancing In The Dark,” “Glory Days” and “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" that left the rocker grinning from ear-to-ear as he conducted fans singing along like his own chorus.

This year has been particularly challenging for Springsteen. In addition to his health issues, in January his mother, Adele Ann Springsteen, a fan favorite who could frequently be seen dancing at his shows, died. She was 98.

Two days after her death, Springsteen performed at the 2024 MusiCares Person of the Year event, which honored Jon Bon Jovi for his musical achievements and philanthropic efforts.

The 2024 edition of the tour kicked off in Phoenix and ends Nov. 22 in Vancouver, Canada. It hits 17 countries across 52 dates, including a special performance on Sept. 15 where Springsteen will headline the Sea.Hear.Now Festival in his hometown of Asbury Park, New Jersey.

#yesthatssadirichardslove

[transcend-and-evolve-with-renzo]

Drake and the Modern Music Listener

Modern music is exceptional. Thanks to advancements in technology, the way music sounds has never been better. Better, in this instance, means louder and clearer. Though technology has been able to make music sound better, does that mean modern music actually IS better than music from the past? Take for example Ed Sheeran's smash hit titled "Shape of You". This song, at the time of this writing, is THE MOST STREAMED SONG OF ALL TIME! But what does that mean? Stream? The music landscape has dramatically changed over the last 30 years. In order to answer the question of what "stream" means, allow me to take you on a journey down memory lane.

Preface: For this blog, I am looking to discuss how the music landscape has changed for the genre of hip hop. In doing so, I will mostly be discussing topics related to hip hop throughout this blog. The subjects and ideas I bring up here will be relevant to other music genres. Let's continue!

In the words of Eothen Alapatt, professionally known as Egon, "[Even though hip hop is perceived] to be an old thing because it's been around since the early '70s, it's actually just in its infancy." For those who don't know, Egon is a legendary figure in the hip hop community. He was the former General Manager for Stones Throw Records from 2000 until 2011, and he is the current founder and President of his own label called "Now-Again Records", as well as the Creative Director for the J Dilla Foundation. Stones Throw Records is an underground, independent record label founded by Christopher Manak, professionally known as Peanut Butter Wolf, and his label rose to prominence due to the underground success of artists such as Madlib, MF DOOM, and J Dilla. These 3 artists have subtly changed what hip hop is and sounds like. I will get into that later on. For now, let's continue with what Egon said.

Hip hop formally began in 1979 with the release of "Rapper's Delight" by The Sugarhill Gang (The Sugarhill Gang - Rapper's Delight (Official Video) - YouTube). Up to this point, hip hop was an evolution from jazz to funk to disco. Literally in the year(s) prior to The Sugarhill Gang's 1979 release, Rick James was a huge funk music star with songs such as "Mary Jane" (Rick James - Mary Jane - YouTube). "Mary Jane" created a fun atmosphere to sing and dance to, and in the following year, The Sugarhill Gang created a new groove, inspired by the funk sound, called "hip hop". Hip hop came off the heels of disco and funk, and these 2 genres were descendants of jazz, which included "scatting", otherwise known as saying random words that fit the groove of instruments playing near the singer. At the beginning of "Rapper's Delight", Wonder Mic scats and acknowledges that his words and phrases follow the groove of the song: "I said a hip hop, the hippie, the hippie to the hip hip hop and you don't stop the rockin' to the bang bang boogie say up jump the boogie to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat. Now what you hear is not a test, I'm rappin' to the beat, and me, the groove, and my friends are gonna try to move your feet". This song practically invented hip hop and has since propelled the genre to heights I'm sure The Sugarhill trio never imagined back then.

Vinyl records have been around since 1948, and in the years after hip hop began in 1979, hip hop listeners began to use these records in unseen and unheard of ways. Disc Jockeys is what they were called, people who played and sometimes remixed recorded music on vinyl (and yes, the plural of vinyl is vinyl).

#music #drake #hip hop #hiphop #pop #pop culture #ovo #toronto #canada #certified lover boy #tiktok #instagran #twitter #social media

[postamsterdam]

#dancing on my own is his most played song of 2011 #teen wolf

[imnotrevealingmyname]

Open Letter to Tom Hiddleston and Whoever Else Wants To Read This

A/N: Ok, long post, lots of nostalgia below, some Loki series criticism, so please click away if you can't stomach that or be nice. I don't know if this counts as an open letter but I was extremely emotional while writing this. I cried a bit, too. Anyway.

Sylki, lokius, Loki series fans, Thor: Ragnarok and beyond fans please don't interact with this post. And if you still read it, that is on you, please don't make your presence known at the very least.

~•~

I'm going through my old, old bookmarks and reading lists of Tom Hiddleston fics (I'm not super into RPF but these were the masterpieces that could've been novels in their own right) and I feel so damn nostalgic. Most of these were written in/based around 2011-2014, and they have a totally different feel from recent fanfics. Not in a good or bad way, but in terms of vibes. The whole Thor 1- Thor 2 feel going on, and baby Tom, it's just ;-; I can't explain it. I haven't read a single TH fic in years (especially after the series came out, I just haven't been able to read TH fics written even by the authors here that I love dearly.) It might just be that I miss the Old Tom™ who cared about Loki and that reflects in these fics, and maybe it's me chasing after a mirage (even though I'm definitely old enough and mature enough to not ever have the delusion of thinking I'm ever gonna date him lol) but like. I just miss him. Which isn't my place to say or anyone else's place to say for that matter because he doesn't belong to us, but it would be so nice to go back to 2013 and experience Hall H (idc if it's virtually or whatever, but that was GOOD) and everything else and just. Tom caring about Loki and feeling so deeply about the character. I miss that so much. My mom asks me frequently why I don't gush over Tom anymore and says she wishes I showed her pics and vids of Tom again (she has a weird fascination with Tom dancing compilations and that song from the pirate Tinkerbell movie he did.) I never know what to tell her and I've spent a year dodging her questions because it really fucking Hurts, you know? It hurts to look up Loki content on youtube or tumblr or wherever and be blasted with content from the series. It hurts to open up Tumblr and the first post on my dash is a GIFset from the series. It hurts to see a character I've known and loved for so long but to not recognize him. It hurts to see the man playing him, the man I used to respect and admire and look up to so much, so flippantly throwing around words about the character that just aren't true in any sense. It hurts to know that Old Tom™ would most definitely throw a punch at Present Tom, regardless of how nice and peaceful he is, for the things he's said. When did it all change? I can't imagine how this came to be. I'm looking through my old reading lists and I'm reading 10 year old beautifully crafted fanfics (that are till date some of the best fics I've ever read) about the character dancing with Old Tom™ in his living room, wearing his shirt and talking about Loki and his dreams for the character in hushed whispers, and I'm crying because we could've had so much more and it was taken so ruthlessly from us. It was all so much easier in 2014. I want to go back to 2014.

#inrmn.txt #tom hiddleston #loki #tw loki series #anti loki series #loki series criticism #loki series critical #loki series fans dni #lokius shippers dni #sylki dni #sylki shippers dni #anti loki x sylvie #tw sylvie #anti lokius #anti loki show #2014 #good old days

[1ddotdhq]

🎤Wed 9 Dec ‘20❄️

LOUIS!!!!!! I am posting this from beyond the dead because Louis’ trailer KILLED MY MIND! But THEN, it brought my body back to life because I HAVE to be around on Saturday to see this show go down. NEW LOUIS SONGS!!!! I AM NOT READY!!! First Eleanor kicked off promo for the livestream day by modeling Louis' purple Balenciaga windbreaker for us with a caption about her “BF”. I mean, it’s a look! No dogs today tho :(. Oddly though after posting herself in the outfit and saying that she was going to go out in the get up, she didn’t! Changed right back into her own clothes after all. Just like how Louis liking her post a few weeks ago was the first sign of action, this too was an indication NEW THINGS COMING! And boy, did they come! After Louis this posted his fifteen (15) second long clip, which included at least one full second each of an as of yet untitled song, KMM, Too Young, Walls, and a badass unidentified riff by Michael Blackwell (POP OFF, dude)! Louis was NOT done there though; fans were wondering what the unfamiliar songs in the trailer were. In what seemed to be a hint, Louis tweeted “copy of a copy of a copy”, which, when googled, turned up with two musical results. The only one that matters is the song ‘Copy of A..’ by Nine Inch Nails (“I am little pieces. Pieces that were picked up on the way, invented with a purpose, a purpose that's become quite clear today”). According to the band, this song is about breaking out of an image that no longer fits you: “How dare you have the audacity to not perform in the role you have been placed in”. Nine Inch Nails has also been really vocal about the importance of artistic freedom and the struggle to maintain it in the face of label interference, which I’m sure Louis can relate to. But! It turned out the untitled song that fans were wondering about isn’t ANY of these, it is, instead a “New song. Not a cover!” according to Louis himself! Let’s be clear: this does not mean that he WASN'T tweeting that lyric about doing a Nine Inch Nails cover, just that the snip in the teaser ISN’T ‘A Copy of A…’. Okay guys, I didn’t say this when the show came up, but now I will: I am IN LOVE with 12/12!! Last year, we got Fine Line on the 12th, and THIS year, we get BRAND! NEW! LOUIS! SONGS!!!!!!! This is one trend that is welcome to keep continuing!

And, for the TRUE piece de resistance: LOUIS’ HAIR! It is long long long, and slightly curly at the ends, and “HIS HAIR” (in all caps) was trending under “Beauty” immediately after the trailer was released. As it SHOULD! It’s BEAUTIFUL! And, in the middle of all of this, we got pictures of Louis from outside his rehearsal studio two weeks ago - OP said he said not to tell anyone about his hair, so they posted them the second after the trailer went up like “well if HE'S showing everyone..' They also scribbled out his hand. People asked does he have a new tattoo?? A ring?? Nope! It seems that he was probably holding a beer, which was edited out because yes certainly fans should jump in to take on the role of 1D management circa 2011 and preserve Louis' squeaky clean teen idol image! If Louis didn't want to be photographed with something he wouldn't come out to do fanservice holding it, give me a break, you really think he's sharing actual secrets with you? Grow up! Anyways, while on twitter Louis followed Isabella Signs, who he met through the charity work that she does for her younger brother. She has a YouTube channel by the same name and does A LOT of really cool SSE (Sign [language] Supported English) covers of all the boys plus 1D, check her out!

The Naughty List music video is OUT! It is a #quarantinevideo made with the green screen that Liam talked the other day about having had set up in his living room for days and how much he disliked that. It features Liam in a Snow Globe and Dixie and her friends dancing in a photobooth in colorful outfits (Liam in a red sequin vest with nothing underneath anyone?), pastel and glittery backgrounds, and lots of Christmas cheer! More than Liam had today, that’s for sure! Dixie loves Christmas, but Liam said that if it wasn’t for his son “pfft, Christmas can pass me by” in the joint live Liam/Dixie did to introduce the video. Steve the Manager (who made Liam’s naughty list for “making him work today”) spent most of the time feeding Liam questions for Dixie and trying to keep him on track. Liam and Dixie shared stories of Christmas presents (Dixie’s best Christmas was when she got a four wheeler), who made their Naughty List this year (Dixie: No one, Liam: “NIALLLL” - no he did not say why), and if they’d ever been kissed under the mistletoe (Dixie was when she was 12, Liam has not yet because he’s “a loonneeelyyyy boyyyy”, but then went on to say, “Mayaaaa you gotta kiss me under the mistletoe!!” so I guess that’s that).  Steve the Manager kept cutting Liam off before he could even TRY to do his Harry voice, so we didn’t get any of that, but we did get a nice solo Liam alarm to wake up to this morning, where he did a meditative bit and reminded people that it’s almost Friday!! And he's added some signed Naughty List single CDs to his store and merch! Really cute hoodies-- I'm not personally sure I want my chest to say Naughty List all over it but Liam can work it and it is a cute design. He also went on a radio show (not Roman’s) to promote Naughty List and revealed that he had NOT done any Christmas shopping yet, which IMMEDIATELY put him on their naughty list. Not to worry Liam, I think you’re still pretty nice!

And my favorite larrie is BACK: we got a sneak peek of Harry’s Jingle Ball set and, surprise, surprise, it’s the pre-recorded set with the Free Nationals! The description is, “Harry Styles and the Free National light up an LA backyard celebration with a hit-stacked set”. So, uh, I guess he’s not going to be playing in front of a blank wall - it’ll be a garden with a camper van, little blue flags, and fairy lights strung up. His shirt matches the small flags in being That Color Blue, and my one and only prediction for the set is that he’ll be covering Blue Christmas. I gotta say that I have NEVER seen anyone as dedicated to that - or ANY color - as Harry is. He still hasn’t popped up anywhere, but this is EXCITING! A new Fine Line set!!

Zayn made Martyre’s Instagram story again, and though you STILL can’t see his face, it’s his neck this time instead of his hands! I think that he’s meant to be modeling the necklace he’s got on, but the picture is too blurry for me to make it out. Alas. Anyways, I’d love to see some pictures of his FACE if Martyre has those? Please? Meanwhile, Niall promoted  a beloved Doncaster native musician... no it was Yungblud! On Instagram, of course: he did tell us he wasn't going to be on twitter for a while! 

#louis tomlinson #liam payne #harry styles #zayn malik #niall horan #damn EVERYONE did something today huh #well i did some research about the copy of a .. thing so here's the second thing i found #The SECOND thing I turned up was an EP by a small indie rock band named Foxhole Stacks (which is RIGHT up Louis’ alley) #named “Copy of a Copy of a Copy of a Copy” - there were two songs on the EP the first being “Turntable Exiles” #lyrics: (“Where the skinny boys sing their songs the turntable exiles...and they wander and wander and wander around leave them headed for a #different sound”) #and the second is “The Law of Averages” (I’m tired sick and tired of letting it go/The law of every average I know”) #in case you wanted to know #theyre pop punk and DC based and GREAT and if anyone is lurking and wants to hear something AWESOME! #anyways on a seperate note im sending lots of love to liam today #anyways! #song of the day! #Turntable Exiles by Foxhole Stacks

[letterboxd]

Wigging Out.

Choreographer and director Jonathan Butterell tells Gemma Gracewood about stepping behind the camera for Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, his love for Sheffield, and making sure queer history is kept alive. Richard E. Grant weighs in on tolerance and Thatcher.

Of 2021’s many conundrums, one for musical lovers is why the narratively problematic Dear Evan Hansen gets a TIFF premiere and theatrical release this month, while the joyously awaited Everybody’s Talking About Jamie went straight to Amazon Prime.

And yet, as the show’s lyrics go, life keeps you guessing, along came a blessing. There’s something about the film streaming onto young people’s home screens, with its moments of fourth-wall breaking where Jamie speaks straight to the viewer, that feels so important, given the content: a gay teen whose drag-queen destiny sits at odds with the less ambitious expectations of his working-class town.

Director and choreographer Jonathan Butterell, who also helmed the stage production (itself inspired by Jenny Popplewell’s 2011 BBC documentary, Jamie: Drag Queen at 16) agrees that the worldwide Amazon release is a very good silver lining. “I made the film for the cinema but, in 250 territories across the world, this is going to have a reach that—don’t get me wrong, cinema, cinema, cinema, collective experience, collective experience, collective experience—but it will get to people that it might not have got to before.

Jonathan Butterell on set with star Max Harwood, as Jamie.

“It feels as niche a story as you could possibly be. But also for me, I wanted it to feel like a universal story, that it didn’t matter where on any spectrum you found yourself, you could understand a young person wanting to take their place in the world freely, openly and safely.”

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, with screenplay and lyrics by Tom MacRae and songs by Dan Gillespie Sells, sits neatly among a series of very specific feel-good British films about the working class experience, such as Billy Elliot, Kinky Boots and Pride. The film adds some historical weight to the story with a new song, ‘This Was Me’, which allows Jamie’s mentor, Hugo (played by Richard E. Grant), to take us into England’s recent past—the dark days of the discriminatory Section 28 laws, at a time when the HIV/AIDS epidemic was still ravaging the community.

Hugo’s drag persona Loco Chanelle (played in the flashback by the stage musical’s original Jamie—John McCrea from Cruella and God’s Own Country), sports a wig that looks suspiciously like the Iron Lady’s unmistakable head of hair. Grant confirms that was Hugo’s intention. “His heyday was in the 1980s, so as a ‘fuck you’ to Mrs Thatcher, what better than to be dressed up like that, at six-foot-eight, with a wig that could bring down the Taj Mahal!”

Richard E. Grant as Hugo, getting to work on Jamie’s contours.

In light of the current pandemic, and the fact that the 1967 legalization of homosexuality in Britain is only “an historical blink away”, Grant’s hope is for more tolerance in the world. “Maybe Covid gives people some sense of what that was like, but with Covid there’s not the prejudice against you, whereas AIDS, for the most part in my understanding, was [seen as] a ‘gay disease’, and there were many people across the globe who thought that this was, you know, whatever god they believe in, was their way of punishing something that they thought was unacceptable.

“The message of this movie is of inclusivity, diversity, and more than ever, tolerance. My god, we could do with a dose of that right now.”

Read on for our Q&A with Jonathan Butterell about the filmic influences behind Everybody’s Talking About Jamie.

Hugo in a reverie, surrounded by his drag menagerie.

Can we talk about the new song, ‘This Was Me’, and the way you directed it in the film? It’s a show-stopper, with Richard E. Grant singing in that beautiful high register, and then moving into Holly Johnson’s singing, as you go back in time to show that deeply devastating and important history. Jonathan Butterell: It felt inevitable, the shift, and necessary. Myself, Dan Gillespie Sells, the composer, and Tom MacRae, the screenwriter, we created this piece together, the three of us, and it’s a film by the three of us. We lived through that time, we went on those marches. Actually, in one of those marches [shown in flashback], Dan’s mum—actual mum—is in a wheelchair, by a young boy who was holding a plaque saying “my mum’s a lesbian and I love her”.

That is Dan with his mum back in the day, and it all speaks to our stories and it moves me, I can see it’s moving you. It moves me because I lived through that time, and it was a complex time for a young person. It was a time that you felt you had to be empowered in order to fight, and you felt very vulnerable because of the need to fight. And because of that disease, because HIV was prevalent and we lost people—we lost close people—it was a difficult time. I wanted to make sure that that story kept being told and was passed on to the next generation.

It’s so important isn’t it, to walk into the future facing backwards? It still exists, that need to fight still exists. The conversation, yes, has moved on, has changed, but not for all people and not in all communities.

What would be your go-to movie musical song at a karaoke night? My goodness. There’d be so many.

I mean, is it going to be a Cabaret, a Chicago showstopper, or something more Mary Poppins, something from Rent? I think what I would go to, which is what I remember as a little boy, is Curly singing ‘Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin’. It’s such a kind of perfect, beautiful, simple song. That, and ‘The Lonely Goatherd’, because I just want to yodel. It would be epic. Trust me.

What is the best film featuring posing and why is it Paris Is Burning? It’s always Paris Is Burning. Back in the day, I was obsessed with Paris Is Burning, I was obsessed with that world. In fact, at one moment I even met [director] Jennie Livingston in trying to make a theater piece inspired by that. I lived in New York for eleven years and I met Willi Ninja. I just adored everything about him, and he would tell me stories. And again, it was so removed from the boy from Sheffield, I mean so far. That New York ballroom scene was so removed from my world, but I got it. Those two boys at the top of the film, I just wanted to be one of those boys who just hung out outside the club.

Harwood and Butterell on set, with Lauren Patel (right) as Jamie’s bestie Pritti Pasha.

What films did you and Tom and Dan look at to get a feeling for how to present the musical numbers? Actually, a lot of pop videos, from present day to past. There’s an homage, in the black-and-white sequences, to a little ‘Vogue’ Madonna moment. Pop is very central to me in this story because pop is what a working-class kid from a working-class community will be listening to. That’s in his phone, that’s in his ears. Not that many young people listen to much radio at this moment in time, but that’s what will be on Margaret’s radio, that’s what’s coming into the kitchen. And that was central to the storytelling for me.

Bob Fosse also really influenced me, and particularly All That Jazz and where his flights of imagination take him. I felt that was so appropriate for Jamie, and again in a very, very different way, but I could see how Jamie’s imagination could spark something so fantastical that would lead him to dance, lead him to walk on the most amazing catwalk, lead into being in the most fabulous, fabulous nightclub with the most amazing creatures you’ve ever met in your life.

For me personally, the film that most inspired me was Ken Loach’s Kes, because that is my community. Both the world in which Jamie exists—Parsons Cross council estate, is my world, is my community—and the world of that young boy, finding his place in the world with his kestrel friend, I remember identifying with that boy so clearly. He was very different from me, very different. But I got him, and I felt like Ken Loach got me through him.

Ken Loach made a few films set in Sheffield, didn’t he? But also, Sheffield is a setting and an influence on The Full Monty, The History Boys, Funny Cow and that brilliant Pulp documentary. So Jamie feels like a natural successor. It absolutely does. Sheffield’s where I grew up, it’s my hometown. Although I moved away from it, I always return. To have a chance to celebrate my community, and particularly that community in Parsons Cross council estate. If you’re in Sheffield and you’re in a taxi and you said, “Take me to Parsons Cross,” they’d say, “Well, I’ll drop you there, but I’m not staying.” Because again there’s a blinkered view of that community. And I know that community to be proud, glorious and beautiful.

And yes, that community, particularly through the ’80s, really suffered because some of that community would serve the steelworks and had three generations of unemployment, so they became disenfranchised because of that. But the community I grew up in, my Auntie Joan, who lived on that road, literally on that road, was a proud, working class, glorious woman who served chips at school.

Aside from Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, what would be the most important queer British cinematic story to you? (And how do you choose between My Beautiful Laundrette and God’s Own Country?!) You can’t. My Beautiful Laundrette influenced me so much because, one, Daniel Day Lewis was extraordinary in that film, and two, because of the cross-cultural aspect of it. I went, “I know this world”, because again I grew up in that world. And it affirmed something in me, which is the power and the radicalness of who I could be and what I could be.

With God’s Own Country, when I saw that film—and that was Francis’ first film, which I thought was extraordinary for a first-time filmmaker—I knew he knew that world from the inside, from the absolute inside. And I know what that rural community was like. I read that script, because we share agents, and I was blown away by it—again, because of the two cultures coming together.

Jamie Campbell, the film’s real-life inspiration, with screen-Jamie Max Harwood.

Richard E. Grant’s character, Hugo, is such a pivotal mentor for Jamie. What did you need to hear from a mentor when you were sixteen? Don’t let yourself hold yourself back, because I think it was me who put some limitations on myself. And of course I came from a working-class community. I was a queer kid in a tough British comprehensive school. And did I experience tough times? Yes I did. And did I deal with those tough times? Yes I did. But the song that speaks to me mostly in this is ‘Wall in my Head’, in which Jamie takes some responsibility for the continuation of those thoughts, continuations of the sorts of shame, and that’s a sophisticated thing for a sixteen-year-old boy to tackle.

I also was lucky enough to have a mother like Margaret—and a dad like Margaret as well, just to be clear! And I remember my mum, at seventeen when I left home, just leaving a little note on my bed. It was quite a long letter. She said, Jonathan, you’ve probably chosen to walk a rocky path, but don’t stray from it, don’t steer away from it. That’s the path you've chosen, there may be rock-throwers along the way, but you’ll find your way through it. That stayed with me and I think that’s what resonates with me. And when I saw that documentary, Jamie: Drag Queen at 16, I felt that that sparked the need for me to tell that story.

Sarah Lancashire as Jamie’s mum, Margaret New.

We need more mums and dads like Margaret, don’t we? We do, we do. And the wonderful thing is, Margaret Campbell will say it and I think Margaret New in the film will say it: she’s not a Saint, she’s an ordinary mum. And she has to play catch up and she doesn’t understand in many ways, and she gets things wrong and she overprotects. But she comes from one place and that is a mum’s love of her child and wanting them to take their place safely in the world and to be fully and totally themselves.

Related content

Eternal Alien’s list of films Made in Sheffield

Letterboxd’s Camp Showdown

Persephon’s list of films recommended by drag queens

Passion’s list of films mentioned by Jaymes Mansfield in her Drag Herstory YouTube series

Follow Gemma on Letterboxd

‘Everybody’s Talking About Jamie’ is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video.

#everybody's talking about jamie #max harwood #john mccrae #richard e. grant #sharon horgan #jonathan butterell #musicals #drag queen #queer film #lgbtqia cinema #british cinema

[jelenamasterpost]

2011 pt.II

July 1st:

Selena's new film Monte Carlo is officially released in theatres and Justin tweets out his support:

Justin: "Everyone go see @/selenagomez movie #montecarlo in theatres NOW"

*tweet here (x)

July 11th:

Justin and Selena are spotted/joined by fans singing karaoke at Lucky Strike Lanes in LA - one fan tweeted he was partying with the couple.

The two took to the microphone for an impromptu duet of Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow’s “Picture” and shared a kiss after their performance.

Videos later surfaced (x)

July 13th:

Justin and Selena attend The ESPY Awards together held at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles.

July 17th:

Justin and Selena crash a wedding in Malibu, California

TMZ reports:

According to our sources at the wedding, Justin and Selena were strolling on the beach when they heard Justin's song "One Less Lonely Girl" playing at the reception -- inside the historic and shi shi Adamson House.

We're told Justin snuck up on some guests -- who predictably OMG'd and LOL'd -- and then hopped on the mic, saying: "We just crashed it. We heard a party so we decided to just come. So let's party."

They only stayed for about 10 minutes to pose for pics -- including some with the happy couple -- and then bolted.

July 20th:

Justin visits Selena at a Hollywood studio while she rehearses for her upcoming tour

July 22nd:

Justin and Selena are spotted together shopping on her birthday - he posted a photo of the two on Instagram and tweeted:

“Happy Birthday @SelenaGomez gonna be a special day.”

*tweet here (x)

July 24th:

Selena's We Own the Night World Tour begins tonight in Costa Mesa, California - Justin surprises her at the show and joins the stage to perform Justin Timberlake's Cry Me A River

He later tweets that night:

“@selenagomez u did great tonight. proud of u”

*full performance video here (x)

July 26th:

Justin and Selena are photographed out for lunch at Hooters in Burbank, California:

“Justin and Selena came in at about noon for lunch,”

“They were both really polite and signed a few autographs. They were both super-friendly and made the most adorable couple!”

July 28th:

Justin attends another one of Selena’s shows with friend Sean Kingston in Boca Raton Florida.

He posts a photo to his Instagram wearing her tour merch

*article here (x)

August 2nd:

Rumors began circulating that Justin and Selena may have broken up after a YouTube video went viral declaring that Selena found flirty texts Justin sent to his ex Jasmine - E!News later shot this down

Selena performs in Atlanta Georgia and Justin’s friends Alfredo and Carin attend the show. Justin tweets:

“ATL show @selenagomez love tonight! @alfredoflores and @carinmb are in the building i heard. #Beasts!”

*E! article here (x) / tweet here (x)

August 6th:

Alfredo posts a photo of him, Justin, Selena to Instagram captioned: “swimming with the boys :)” while Justin adds a photo of himself to Selena’s Instagram

August 7th:

Justin and Selena attend the 2011 Teen Choice Awards together and were super affectionate throughout the entire ceremony - Justin danced through Selena's performance of Love You Like A Love Song and cheered her on as she accepted her 5 awards

August 13th:

Justin and Selena are spotted in an Apple Store in Rosemont Illinois, while she's in town for tour

August 18th:

Justin and Selena attend a pool party and are photographed kissing - Justin also uploads a photo of the two on instagram captioned:

“my babbyyyy”

August 19th:

Justin and Selena are photographed as they picked up a smoothie from Smoothie King in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where she performs later that evening on tour

During Selena’s soundcheck performance in Philadelphia, a fan shouts out asking for her phone number, Selena replies:

“I don’t think my boyfriend would like that”

*full video here (x)

August 20th:

Selena had “JB” written on her right hand and “I love you” on her left wrist during her concert in New Jersey

August 21st:

Justin and Selena are spotted walking in Hershey Park theme park, in Pennsylvania

August 23rd:

Justin and Selena are photographed out and about with Alfredo, Ryan and Kenny in Toronto, Ontario

August 25th:

Justin announces that he would be releasing his first Christmas album and second studio album later in 2011 -

His manager Scooter Braun and vocal producer Kuk Harrell confirmed a week later that Justin had collaborated with Sean Kingston and Taylor Swift and had also worked with producers The Messengers.

August 28th:

Justin and Selena attend MTV Video Music Awards together where Selena was a co-host for the pre-show - Selena interviewed Justin in the arrivals hall at the awards ceremony where the two were very affectionate sharing kisses, Selena telling Justin:

'Thank you so much. Thank you for hanging out, babe.'

Justin also hugged Selena onstage as he accepted the award for Best Male Video

September 2nd:

Selena watches while Justin plays basketball and cheers in the background

*video here (x)

September 9th:

Justin talks with Women's Wear Daily for an interview and mentions that he's dating Selena:

WWD: You told one of the kids earlier that you’re still friendly with Selena.

JB: She’s amazing. She’s my girlfriend right now.

WWD: Where do you see yourself five years from now?

JB: [Visibly counting] Well, by 25 or 26, I want to see myself, like, married or start looking for a family. I want to be a young dad. I want to be able to have done what I wanted to do — to be successful, to do a movie or whatever. But if the time is right, I definitely want to be married by 25.

One thing — I’m not looking to get married now.

*full interview (x)

September 10th:

Justin and Selena spotted out for lunch in Las Vegas, where Selena performs that evening - they later attend the shows after-party with DJ Taf

September 14th:

Justin and Selena visit the old-set of Wizards of Waverly Place

September 15th:

Justin and Selena attend “The Abduction” premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles - Selena gets boo’d (?) by fans as she walks the red carpet.

September 16th:

Justin are Selena are photographed having lunch and doing a bit of shopping at a mall in Los Angeles

September 17th:

Justin and Selena are seen arriving to LAX Airport departing to Atlanta - later that evening, they attend Georgia Music Hall of Fame with Usher and Justin performs and was honored with the Horizon Award at the 33rd Annual Georgia Music Hall of Fame Awards.

*article here (x)

September 18th:

Justin and Selena went to watch the Atlanta Falcons play the Philadelphia Eagles at the Georgia Dome. Justin tweeted photos of themselves kissing on the way to the game.

While leaving the game, Selena is filmed slapping Justin, suggesting they may have been fighting

*full article here (x) full video here (x)

September 19th:

Selena attends The Jay Leno Show where she performs Love You Like A Love Song. Justin came to support Selena and was photographed with her backstage

Selena has a cute interview backstage with Bryan following her performance, Bryan points out that Selena brought Justin:

Selena: “I did. He’s sweet. Everybody’s taking pictures with him right now,”

After her interview, the camera flashes to Justin chatting with Simon Cowell. Before the couple say bye to Simon, Justin grabs Selena’s hip and tells Simon:

Justin: “I’ll look after her.”

*full article here (x)

September 20th:

Justin uploads a photo of him hugging Selena while deplaning a jet onto Instagram.

Justin and Selena are also spotted in the park taking staged photos with 6 babies (?) in which Justin also later uploads to his instagram captioned:

"Brangelina 2.0 hahahahahaha"

September 21st:

Justin and Selena attend LA Zoo together

September 23rd:

Selena and Justin are photographed on a PDA filled beach stroll in Malibu California

*Daily Mail article / photos (x)

September 23rd:

Selena and Justin attend Demi Lovato’s concert together held at the Nokia Centre in Los Angeles

After the show, Justin surprises Selena by renting out The Staples Centre arena for a private, exclusive dinner date and movie screening of Titanic:

"The teen supercouple arrived at the empty, 20,000-seat arena, where the lights had been dimmed; on the court floor was a table set for two with candles.

After the meal — steak and pasta, catered by the Lexus club — the couple enjoyed a private screening of Titanic. (The "Baby" singer apparently got the idea from the Adam Sandler flick Mr. Deeds, in which Sandler's character surprises his girlfriend, played by Winona Ryder, with a similar gesture at NYC's Madison Square Garden.)

And TMZ reports that Bieber paid nothing for the big date: The Staples Center comped the evening as thanks for Bieber's recent sold out concerts there."

*UsWeekly article here (x) *justin's tweet (x)

September 25th:

Justin’s best friend Alfredo posts instagram photo of him, Justin, Selena on private jet:

"BOOM BOOM POW! @/JustinBieber @/SelenaGomez -- see the creeper?"

*alfredo's tweet / photo (x)

September 28th:

Selena joins Justin in Franklin Tennessee on the set of his music video shoot for a song off his upcoming Chrismtas album, Under the Mistletoe.

Justin tweets:

“video shoot today for christmas album. #mistletoe”

September 30th:

Justin begins the Latin American leg of his My World Tour, beginning this evening in Monterrey Mexico and concluding October 19th in Caracas Venezuela.

Selena was judging a Disney Channel show with Sean Kingston when she met Ben Baller, the man who made Justin's grill. According to Ben, Selena wasn’t too stoked about meeting him originally, but then she concocted an idea to prank Justin, which he wrote about on his blog:

“Selena says ‘ohhhh I don’t like you! you’re the one who made Justin’s grill huh?’ I said yeah….. does he wear it?’ Selena said ‘YES! he definitely wears it! (stone face towards me) and I’m thinking to myself like damn…. she’s actually really sweet though, I can tell lol… so She says let’s play a prank on Justin…. and I agreed (why not right?) let’s take a pic and then send the guys the pic and under it say ‘guess who’s getting a grill?'”

“I didn’t say it was a joke or anything… a few hours later, I get a text from Justin saying ‘call me’ and I’m like…. damn, he’s gonna be mad or tell me to take it down….”

“He says ‘cmon bro. is she really getting a grill? (I’ve talked to him enough on the phone to know his voice and different sounds, from regular to really happy) and he was definitely concerned like ‘please say it’s a joke’…. so I’m thinking to myself, like damn, I know in the last 3 hours he’s had to have talked to his girl and he had to ask her…. I can’t believe she’s really stringing this little prank along for so long…. she’s really cool for playing the joke for real! haha”

*article here (x)

October 3rd:

Justin was seen looking for Selena in the airport in Rio de Janeiro because there was an issue with her visa.

Selena had some difficulty getting into Brazil because she didn’t have the correct visa

October 4th:

Justin and Selena take a helicopter ride while exploring Rio de Janeiro, Brazil before he takes the stage tomorrow.

An insider tells told Hollywood Life:

'Justin and Selena are staying at the Copacabana Palace in Rio de Janeiro, which is considered to be the most exclusive hotel in Rio.'

'They are staying in a Penthouse Suite which includes one bedroom with a king-sized bed, a living room, a mini bar and two marble bathrooms with a separate bathtub and shower.'

*Daily Mail article / photos (x)

October 5th:

Selena joins Justin backstage before he takes stage and poses for photos, while Justin tells a reporter he calls Selena “Mamacita” during an interview

After the concert, Justin and Selena were seen out for dinner, clubbing at Copa Club and kissing in the backseat of the car on their way back to the hotel

*DailyMail article here (x)

October 6th:

Selena and Justin are spotted by numerous fans around town before Justin’s second show this evening - that night, Selena joins Justin on stage and they perform Selena’s song Who Says together.

Justin tweeted earlier in the day:

"had a lil fun last night in RIO….show #2 in RIO is 2nite….got some very special guests with me 2nite #mistletoe"

*justin's tweet (x)

October 7th:

Justin and Selena are photographed boarding their plane as they leave Rio de Janeiro

October 9th:

Justin speaks with New! Magazine for an interview and admits he loves Selena but insists they have no plans to move in together because of their busy careers:

"I wouldn't be with somebody if I wasn't in love,"

"Everybody can see she is hot and that's great, but there is so much more to her than that. She makes me laugh and she puts up with my practical jokes. She has really strong family values as well. We were both raised by our moms in single-parent households, and that's given us a lot of the same family values in life."

"At the moment we're so busy, it's pretty much hotel rooms for me for most of the year. She could be in one part of the world and I could be in the other. We are just a young couple who are enjoying spending time with each other. But we both took time off last month and it was just really cool to be able to spend time together and just do normal things like go to the beach and have dinner together."

*full article here (x) and (x)

October 9th:

Justin gives a radio interview with 97.5 Fanatic Philadelphia:

Interviewer: What’s up with you and Selena man?

Justin: Well she’s on tour right now, so yeah.

Interviewer: Is this an official hookup?

Justin: Y‘know, I like to keep some of my private life to myself.

Interviewer: Well it’s already out there.

Justin: I know I mean it’s pretty obvious, but I don’t really like to talk about it.

Interviewer: I got you, you wanna keep it a private relationship - but how’d you swing that? It’s tough to get that break through line.

Justin: Yeah I know, I was pretty shocked myself. She’s very beautiful.

Interviewer: So how’d you make the approach? Did someone put you two together or what?

Justin: We started as friends like 2 years ago, so we were just friends for a long time - that’s how it happened.

October 12th:

Selena tweets a photo she added to instagram, of her eating Tim Hortons in Canada:

“Canada.. I missed you. But @justinbieber misses you more.”

*selena's tweet here (x)

October 17th:

Justin's song Mistletoe, the first single off his Christmas album, is officially released - Selena posted a photo of the song to her Instagram captioned:

“Finally it’s out.. Did y’all buy it?”

October 18th:

Justin performs the last show of his My World Tour this evening in Carasova Venezuela

October 20th:

Selena and Justin are spotted walking around The Forks shopping area in Winnipeg, Canada. Selena has the night off from her We Own the Night World Tour, but has a performance in the city tomorrow.

Insiders confirm that her and Justin are staying at the luxury boutique hotel Inn at the Forks in Winnipeg.

That evening, Justin again rents out an entire movie theatre for a date with Selena -he arranged for a screening room at the SilverCity Polo Park Cinemas to be kept empty so he and Selena could watch Real Steel' in private, and also rranged for pizzas to be delivered to the cinema for him and Selena to feast on during the movie.

A source at the venue said: "They made sure to keep everything really under wraps and private. He was really polite and they both thanked everyone before they left."

Justin uploads a photo of him and Selena in the theatre to Instagram captioned "me and my besty watching a movie"

*full article here (x)

October 21st:

Selena plays at the MTS Centre this evening in Winnipeg Manitoba, while on her We Own The Night World Tour.

Her and Justin stopped by Winnipeg's D'Arcy's Animal Rescue Centre for a visit and played with the dogs for over an hour - there were rumours that Selena took a pup with her

Justin and Selena are spotted by various fans throughout the day while out exploring Winnipeg, including Tim Hortons, and Speedworld Indoor Kart Track along with friend Ashley Cook

*full article here (x)

October 22nd:

Justin takes Selena to a hockey game to watch his favourite team, the Winnipeg Jets, from a private suite at the MTS Centre wearing matching jerseys with their names emblazoned across the backs. According to onlookers, they spent most of the game kissing and cuddling one another.

After the game, the two physically took to the ice both wearing Jets jerseys - after circling the ice a few times holding hands, Selena didn't skate much at all, preferring to watch Justin take shots at net.

*full article here (x)

October 24rd:

Selena is in London, Ontario for her We Own The Night World Tour and was seen carrying puppy Baylor around backstage before her concert wearing a Baylor University sweatshirt.

*photo here (x)

October 24th-October 29th(?):

Selena’s tour continues through October 30th in Canada and Justin remains with her for most of the dates - sometime throughout this period, they visited and spent time with Justin's family and are photographed together carving pumpkins and eating pie.

October 25th:

Its been reported that Selena and Justin have adopted a puppy together from D'Arcy's ARC while in Winnipeg, Canada:

“I was told that [Selena] was missing the dogs that she has at home,” the shelter’s CEO told People. “I wasn’t expecting her to adopt a dog while she was on tour.”

*full article here (x)

October 27th:

Justin sat down with Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush while promoting his new Christmas album, “Under the Mistletoe,” and chatted about Selena’s new puppy and their private movie theatre date

Baylor:

“She saw this dog, and she fell in love with it. She was like, ‘I need to have it!’ We just went to the shelter just to look around. Turns out, she brought one home. It was kind of like she just saw the dog, and it kept going to her, I don’t think the dog really likes me that much. I think he’s on tour with her right now,”

Movies:

“If I go into a movie theatre and everyone’s not looking at the movie and looking at us, it’s kind of like awkward, I’m looking at the movie and everyone’s looking at me. It’s like I’m the movie or something.”

*full article here (x)

October 28th:

Justin appears on Jay Leno and talks about Selena - she is in attendance and her and Justin pose for photos backstage

November 1st:

Justin’s Christmas album “Under The Mistletoe” is officially released today - he begins shooting the Fa La La Music video with Boys II Men and Selena joins him on set posing for photos together.

Later that evening, a tabloid story about Justin began circulating online:

A 20-year old woman named Mariah Yeater has filed a paternity suit against Justin on October 31st, alleging that he fathered her child after a brief backstage tryst at Justin’s October 2010 L.A Staples Centre concert. The paternity suit was reportedly filed on October 31st in a California court.

*Mariah Yeater article here (x)

November 2nd:

Justin on appears on On Air With Ryan Seacrest to promote his new Christmas album “Under The Mistletoe” and he mentions Selena's newly adopted dog Baylor

He also later appears on POWER106 FM during his “Under The Mistletoe” promo, rapping an Otis freestyle referencing Selena:

“my girl says I’m perfect she just loves an imperfect person perfectly, personally I think she is perfectly perfect"

Later that day Justin tweets alluding to the Mariah accusations:

“all the rumors...the gossip....Im gonna focus on the positives....the music."

*POWER106 video here (x) tweet here (x)

November 3rd: '

Selena was photographed arriving to LAX Airport in Los Angeles, heading to Belfast to meet Justin, and was all smiles.

Meanwhile, the Mariah Yeater rumours have not settled down whatsoever as the tabloids continue and Mariah continues to give interviews

*DailyMail article here (x) AnythingDiz photos here (x)

November 4th:

Justin gives an interview to Today Show to dismiss Mariah Yeater’s claims and says he's never even met her:

“I would just like to say that none of those allegations are true.”

“I know I’m going to be a target, but I’m never going to be a victim,” Justin added.

“It’s crazy, because every night after the show I’ve gone right from the stage right to my car. So it’s crazy that some people want to make up such false allegations.”

A statement released by Justin’s publicist on Wednesday said his lawyers had not seen the suit reportedly filed by Yeater, but said:

“it’s sad that someone would fabricate, malicious, defamatory and demonstrably false claims. We will vigorously pursue all available legal remedies to defend and protect Justin against these allegations.”

Rumors begin circulating that Selena and Justin have split in light of the Mariah Yeater allegations - late Friday afternoon, it was reported Selena had dumped Justin in the wake of the scandal.

*Today Show article here (x)

November 5th:

Justin and Selena have not split up, a rep for Selena told Access Hollywood and USWeekly on Friday night.

A source close to Justin also shot down rumors of the split on Friday night, telling Access that there was no truth to the rumors and the couple is still heading to Europe together this weekend for the MTV Europe Music Awards in Belfast where Justin will be performing at the show while Selena will be the host.

*AccessHollywood article here (x) UsWeekly article here (x)

November 5th:

Justin and Selena wave to fans as they arrive together at the Merchant Hotel in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Later that evening, Justin and Selena are later photographed together hand-in-hand arriving at the MTV Voices Dinner.

"Justin and Selena could not keep their eyes off each other for the whole night," a dinner source told Us. "They were very much in love and didn't show any signs of stress or strain in their relationship."

Justin, who was receiving an award for his charity work, tweeted after the event:

"I know what it is like to not have alot...so it feels great to be in a position to #giveback. thanks to everyone helping me"

*photos here (x) UsWeekly article here (x)

November 6th:

TMZ reports from sources directly connected with Justin that he will happily take a DNA test in two weeks when he returns to the United States to prove he is not Mariah Yeater's baby daddy -- and after that, him and his team are going after her in court.

Selena hosts the MTV Europe Music Awards in Belfast, North Ireland this evening while Justin is set to perform at the event. After the ceremony, they attend LMFAO'S after-party and are photographed together at the event

*TMZ article here (x) photos here (x) / tweets here (x) (x) (x)

November 7th:

Justin and Selena are photographed after their private tour of Chelsea FC’s football ground in London on Monday morning

It's been reported that Justin gifted Selena $27k diamond bracelet and surprised her with it just before she took the stage to present at last night’s MTV EMA’s

*full article here (x) photos here (x)

November 8th:

Justin and Selena stop by NRJ Radio station Paris, France for an interview while Justin is promoting his Christmas album

Later that afternoon, Justin and Selena are photographed together hand-in-hand after a lunch date at Paris's L'Avenue restaurant

And that evening they were photographed on a dinner date

*DailyMail article (x) dinner photo (x)

November 9th:

Selena and Justin are photographed shopping while in Paris

Justin posts a photo of him and Selena on Instagram at Disneyland Paris with the caption:

“thank god above for my very own christmas love”

November 11th:

Justin and Selena hold hands as they head back to their car after visiting a television studio in Madrid, Spain

Selena has been joining Justin on his European promo tour for Under The Mistletoe.

Selena tweets that her puppy Baylor is sick and needs surgery.

*full article here (x) tweet here (x)

November 12th:

Selena and Justin are spotted leaving KISS FM Radio station together in London

*DailyMail article (x)

November 16th:

Selena’s music video for Hit The Lights is officially released and premieres on VEVO

TMZ reports thatMariah Yeater officially dismisses paternity lawsuit:

"The suit was quietly dismissed late last week and Mariah Yeater's lawyers, Lance Rogers and Matt Pare, have withdrawn from the case.

As we first reported, Justin not only planned to take a DNA test when he returned to the U.S., he was going to sue Yeater and her lawyers for making a bogus claim. And, as we reported, Justin's lawyer, Howard Weitzman, called the attorneys and informed them a suit was looming.

The paternity lawsuit left Mariah Yeater open to a possible charge of statutory rape, because Justin was only 16 years old at the time of her claims."

*TMZ article here (x)

November 17th:

Justin does the radio interview circuit today while in New York City in promotion of his album Under The Mistletoe:

Justin sits down with 92.3 NY for a radio interview and was asked about Mariah Yeater's claims, getting serious with Selena, and what Usher thinks of them.

They first speak about Mariah Yeater and the texts she sent her friend begging him to erase evidence/text messages that admit her son's dad is someone else, promising to give him a cut of the action when she gets paid.

*full video interview here (x)

Justin sat down for an exclusive interview at the Elvis Duran Morning Show at Z100 Studio where they replayed him an interview he gave back in 2009 saying while he thought Selena was pretty, he didn't *like* her.

Justin, blushing, tells Elvis:

"My life is pretty good right now, and she's just another blessing”

*full video interview here (x)

Justin appears on The Breakfast Club Power 105.1 for an interview and talks about his Staples Centre date with Selena and how that came about

(the interviewers are pretty inappropriate to him the entire time tbh)

*full video interview here (x)

November 17th:

Mariah Yeater sent a text Wednesday to a friend, begging him to erase an incriminating text in which her mom says someone OTHER than Justin Bieber is the baby daddy, and then promising to give him a cut of the action when she scores a payday.

*TMZ article here (x)

November 20th:

Justin and Selena attend The AMA’s together in Los Angeles and walk the red carpet, arriving and departing to and from the event in a white vintage Packard Super 8.

UsWeekly reported Justin serenaded Selena during AMA rehearsals:

"At one point Justin even sang 'I Feel Good' a la James Brown. They were totally adorable. They were snuggling in between takes, and he was serenading her! They look as in love as ever."

Selena and Alfredo were filmed dancing during Justin's performance

*DailyMail article here (x)

November 21st:

Justin and Selena went out for breakfast at iHOP, the restaurant where they were first spotted holding hands last December, with their one year anniversary right around the corner — they smiled for the cameras as they walked hand-in-hand out of the restaurant in Los Angeles.

“Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez had breakfast here at about 11 a.m. They were here for about one hour. They both seemed very happy and hungry. Selena had the double blueberry pancakes and Justin had two fried eggs, two waffles, bacon and potatoes. They left a very generous tip that was double the amount of their bill and said Happy Thanksgiving before they left!”

*full article here (x)

November 22nd:

Justin is photographed in the audience of Taylor Swift’s concert in New York City where he watched Selena and Taylor performing “Who Says” together

*photo here (x)

November 23rd:

Justin appears on The View to promote his album and he talks about Selena

*full video here (x) timestamp 2:33

November 23rd:

Justin appears on The Late Show with David Letterman and talks about Selena

*full video here (x) timestamp 8:45

November 25th:

Justin plays “Who Says” on Sirius XM while he was DJing songs “he was grateful for in 2011” (aired on the 25th)

November 25th:

Justin and Selena spent Thanksgiving in Selena's home town, Dallas, Texas, with Selena's family.

They went to watch The Muppets at the Landmark Magnolia Pictures Theater, after spending Thanksgiving with Selena’s family.

“It was just the two of them, they watched the movie with the general public. They were both incredibly polite and low profile.”

“Not too many people realized they were there because they came into the screening while the trailers were running,” the insider explains. “It was dark and people didn’t see them. When they came to the theatre complex, they were both holding hands. They looked really down to earth and very happy!”

November 29th:

Fans spot and photograph Justin and Selena hugging and walking around in Utah with Jaden Smith.

The three of them were later photographed by fans ice skating at Park City Mountain Resort, which later a staff member confirmed the photo was taken there:

“Jaden was doing some crazy one-legged stuff, I guess he really thinks he is the Karate Kid. They were laughing and joking with each other. Justin joked with Selena and tried to do a doubles routine at one point. It was all very playful. Everyone was in super great moods.”

*full article / photos here (x)

November 30th:

Selena stops to take photos with fans while ice skating, where you can see Justin in the background - the fan later posts it to instagram

December 6th:

Justin and Selena were spotted leaving Los Angeles airport earlier today and landed in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

They were joined by Selena’s mom and stepfather Brian and on route to Selena’s friend Shannon Larossi’s beach side wedding ceremony.

*full article / photos here (x)

December 7th:

While waiting for Selena’s friend’s wedding, Justin and Selena hit up the beach in Cabo San Lucas Mexico and were spotted jet-skiing

*full article / photos here (x)

December 8th:

Selena and Justin attend and are photographed at Shannon’s wedding where Selena was one of the bridesmaids - she and Justin were photographed kissing on the beach

*full article / photos here (x)

December 9th:

Justin and Selena got in more tanning by the pool in Cabo before jetting off to D.C for Justin’s Christmas in Washington performance in Washington

*full article / photos here (x)

December 10th:

Justin and Selena are photographed arriving at Washington National Airport for Justin’s upcoming Christmas In Washington performance at The White House - the two stayed for 3 nights in the Presidential Suite at the Four Seasons Hotel

Justin and Selena visit and surprise the kids at Children's National Medical Center in D.C.Washington - Jacqueline Bowens, Executive VP of External Affairs of Children’s National Medical Center tells HollywoodLife.com exclusively:

“The kids loved them! It was a surprise for them. Justin spent quality time with all of the kids, talked to them, took pictures with them and sang to them. These are kids who are suffering from a range of illnesses such as cancer, blood disorders, orthopedic issues. None of them wants to be in the hospital…so they were beyond happy when Justin and the others arrived for their surprise visit!”

December 11th:

Justin and Selena are spotted out and about in Washington D.C before Justin is set to perform for the president.

Later that evening, Justin performs at the annual "Christmas in Washington" taping at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. - although Selena didn’t appear in any of the official event photos, she was spotted in the audience and took photos with fans

*full DailyMail article here (x) / full CBS article here (x)

December 12th:

Mariah Yeater’s ex-boyfriend speaks out, saying Mariah lied to seek $50k pay-day. In an exclusive jailhouse interview with RumorFix, Robert Powell says:

“She lied. We were both homeless and living in Oceanside [California] and Mariah was trying to make some quick money.”

So he says she made up the story and sold it to a tabloid for $50,000.

“She just picked him, because she thought he was famous and all and thought she could get a lot of money by telling the magazine Justin was the father. She just saw him as an opportunity to make a lot of money.”

*full article here (x)

December 14th:

Justin and Selena were seen leaving an event at L.A. Live with Ashley Tisdale in Downtown Los Angeles.

*photos here (x)

December 17th:

Justin and Selena attend Power 106 LA's Cali Christmas bash - Justin joined Drake on stage to perform "Trust Issues" during the show.

Selena abruptly left the venue and headed to be with her family after she received news of a family emergency.

*full article here (x)

December 18th:

Selena’s mom Mandy has tragically suffered a miscarriage - Selena has cancelled her concert after her mother sadly suffered a miscarriage. Citing a family emergency, Selena rushed to her mom, Mandy’s, side to comfort her.

*full article here (x)

December 20th:

Justin visits Selena and her mom Mandy in the hospital - the family are in mourning after Selena’s mother reportedly suffered a miscarriage the week prior

*DailyMail article here (x)

December 30th:

Justin and Selena are spotted at Hooters (not confirmed)

December 31st:

Justin and Selena are both in New York for each of their own work obligations where they are set to perform at - Justin performs in Times Square for 'New Year's Eve Rockin' Eve' and Selena joins Demi Lovato for MTV's live New Year's Eve special.

They meet up after each of their gigs for Justin's private NYE Party

*EW article here (x) / NYE party article here (x)

#jelena #selena gomez #justin bieber #jelena timeline #jelena masterpost #taylor swift #demi lovato #jaden smith #alfredo flores #scooter braun #Youtube #Instagram

[dailytomlinson]

A bathroom figures significantly in the origin stories of at least two classic One Direction songs. The first will be familiar to any fan: Songwriter and producer Savan Kotecha was sitting on the toilet in a London hotel room, when he heard his wife say, “I feel so ugly today.” The words that popped into his head would shape the chorus of One Direction’s unforgettable 2011 debut, “What Makes You Beautiful.”

The second takes place a few years later. Another hotel room in England — this one in Manchester — where songwriters and producers Julian Bunetta and John Ryan were throwing back Cucumber Collins cocktails and tinkering with a beat. Liam Payne was there, too. At one point, Liam got up to use the bathroom and when he re-emerged, he was singing a melody. They taped it immediately. Most of it was mumbled — a temporary placeholder — but there was one phrase: “Better than words…” A few hours later, on the bus to another city, another show — Bunetta and Ryan can’t remember where — Payne asked, maybe having a laugh, what if the rest of the song was just lyrics from other songs?

“Songs in general, you’re just sort of waiting for an idea to bonk you on the head,” Ryan says from a Los Angeles studio with Bunetta. “And if you’re sort of winking at it, laughing at it — we were probably joking, what if [the next line was] ‘More than a feeling’? Well, that would actually be tight!”

“Better Than Words,” closed One Direction’s third album, Midnight Memories. It was never a single, but became a fan-favorite live show staple. It’s a mid-tempo headbanger that captures the essence of what One Direction is, and always was: One of the great rock and roll bands of the 21st century.

July 23rd marks One Direction’s 10th anniversary, the day Simon Cowell told Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson that they would progress on The X Factor as a group. Between that date and their last live performance (so far, one can hope) on December 31st, 2015, they released five albums, toured the world four times — twice playing stadiums — and left a trove of Top 10 hits for a devoted global fan base that came to life at the moment social media was re-defining the contours of fandom.

It’d been a decade since the heyday of ‘N Sync and Backstreet Boys, and the churn of generations demanded a new boy band. One Direction’s songs were great and their charisma and chemistry undeniable, but what made them stick was a sound unlike anything else in pop — rooted in guitar rock at a time when that couldn’t have been more passé.

Kotecha, who met 1D on The X Factor and shepherded them through their first few years, is a devoted student of boy band history. He first witnessed their power back in the Eighties when New Kids on the Block helped his older sister through her teens. The common thread linking all great boy bands, from New Kids to BSB, he says, is, “When they’d break, they’d come out of nowhere, sounding like nothing that’s on the radio.”

In 2010, Kotecha remembers, “everybody was doing this sort of Rihanna dance pop.” But that just wasn’t a sound One Direction could pull off (the Wanted only did it once); and famously, they didn’t even dance. Instead, the reference points for 1D went all the way back to the source of contemporary boy bands.

“Me and Simon would talk about how [One Direction] was Beatles-esque, Monkees-esque,” Kotecha continues. “They had such big personalities. I felt like a kid again when I was around them. And I felt like the only music you could really do that with is fun, pop-y guitar songs. It would come out of left field and become something owned by the fans.”

“The guitar riff had to be so simple that my friend’s 15-year-old daughter could play it and put a cover to YouTube,” says Carl Falk

To craft that sound on 1D’s first two albums, Up All Night and Take Me Home, Kotecha worked mostly with Swedish songwriters-producers Carl Falk and Rami Yacoub. They’d all studied at the Max Martin/Cheiron Studios school of pop craftsmanship, and Falk says they were confident they could crack the boy band code once more with songs that recalled BSB and ‘N Sync, but replaced the dated synths and pianos with guitars.

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The greatest thing popular music can do is make someone else think, “I can do that,” and One Direction’s music was designed with that intent. “The guitar riff had to be so simple that my friend’s 15-year-old daughter could play it and put a cover to YouTube,” Falk says. “If you listen to ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ or ‘One Thing,’ they have two-finger guitar riffs that everyone who can play a bit of guitar can learn. That was all on purpose.”

One Direction famously finished third on The X Factor, but Cowell immediately signed them to his label, Syco Music. They’d gone through one round of artist development boot camp on the show, and another followed on an X Factor live tour in spring 2011. They’d developed an onstage confidence, but the studio presented a new challenge. “We had to create who should do what in One Direction,” Falk says. To solve the puzzle the band’s five voices presented, they chose the kitchen sink method and everyone tried everything.

“They were searching for themselves,” Falk adds. “It was like, Harry, let’s just record him; he’s not afraid of anything. Liam’s the perfect song starter, and then you put Zayn on top with this high falsetto. Louis found his voice when we did ‘Change Your Mind.’ It was a long trial for everyone to find their strengths and weaknesses, but that was also the fun part.” Falk also gave Niall some of his first real guitar lessons; there’s video of them performing “One Thing” together, still blessedly up on YouTube.

“What Makes You Beautiful” was released September 11th, 2011 in the U.K. and debuted at Number One on the singles chart there — though the video had dropped a month prior. While One Direction’s immediate success in the U.K. and other parts of Europe wasn’t guaranteed, the home field odds were favorable. European markets have historically been kinder to boy bands than the U.S.; ‘N Sync and Backstreet Boys found huge success abroad before they conquered home. To that end, neither Kotecha nor Falk were sure 1D would break in the U.S. Falk even says of conceiving the band’s sound, “We didn’t want it to sound too American, because this was not meant — for us, at least — to work in America. This was gonna work in the U.K. and maybe outside the U.K.”

Stoking anticipation for “What Makes You Beautiful” by releasing the video on YouTube before the single dropped, preceded the strategy Columbia Records (the band’s U.S. label) adopted for Up All Night. Between its November 2011 arrival in the U.K. and its U.S. release in March 2012, Columbia eschewed traditional radio strategies and built hype on social media. One Direction had been extremely online since their X Factor days, engaging with fans and spending their downtime making silly videos to share. One goofy tune, made with Kotecha, called “Vas Happenin’ Boys?” was an early viral hit.

“They instinctively had this — and it might just be a generational thing — they just knew how to speak to their fans,” Kotecha says. “And they did that by being themselves. That was a unique thing about these boys: When the cameras turned on, they didn’t change who they were.”

Social media was flooded with One Direction contests and petitions to bring the band to fans’ towns. Radio stations were inundated with calls to play “What Makes You Beautiful” long before it was even available. When it did finally arrive, Kotecha (who was in Sweden at the time) remembers staying up all night to watch it climb the iTunes chart with each refresh.

Take Me Home, was recorded primarily in Stockholm and London during and after their first world tour. The success of Up All Night had attracted an array of top songwriting talent — Ed Sheeran even penned two hopeless romantic sad lad tunes, “Little Things” and “Over Again” — but Kotecha, Falk and Yacoub grabbed the reins, collaborating on six of the album’s 13 tracks. In charting their course, Kotecha returned to his boy band history: “My theory was, you give them a similar sound on album two, and album three is when you start moving on.”

Still, there was the inherent pressure of the second album to contend with. The label wanted a “What Makes You Beautiful, Part 2,” and evidence that the 1D phenomenon wasn’t slowing down appeared outside the window of the Stockholm studio: so many fans, the street had to be shut down. Kotecha even remembers seeing police officers with missing person photos, combing through the girls camped outside, looking for teens to return to their parents.

At this pivotal moment, One Direction made it clear that they wanted a greater say in their artistic future. Kotecha admits he was wary at first, but the band was determined. To help manage the workload, Kotecha had brought in two young songwriters, Kristoffer Fogelmark and Albin Nedler, who’d arrived with a handful of ideas, including a chorus for a booming power ballad called “Last First Kiss.”

“We thought, while we’re busy recording vocals, whoever’s not busy can go write songs with these two guys, and then we’ll help shape them as much as we can,” Kotecha says. “And to our pleasant surprise, the songs were pretty damn good.”

At this pivotal moment, too, songwriters Julian Bunetta and John Ryan also met the band. Friends from the Berklee College of Music, Bunetta and Ryan had moved out to L.A. and cut a few tracks, but still had no hits to their name. They entered the Syco orbit after scoring work on the U.S. version of The X Factor, and were asked if they wanted to try writing a song for Take Me Home. “I was like, yeah definitely,” Bunetta says. “They sold five million albums? Hell yeah, I want to make some money.”

Working with Jamie Scott, who’d written two songs on Up All Night (“More Than This” and “Stole My Heart”), Bunetta and Ryan wrote “C’mon, C’mon” — a blinding hit of young love that rips down a dance pop speedway through a comically oversized wall of Marshall stacks. It earned them a trip to London. Bunetta admits to thinking the whole 1D thing was “a quick little fad” ahead of their first meeting with the band, but their charms were overwhelming. Everyone hit it off immediately.

“Niall showed me his ass,” Bunetta remembers of the day they recorded, “They Don’t Know About Us,” one of five songs they produced for Take Me Home (two are on the deluxe edition). “The first vocal take, he went in to sing, did a take, I was looking down at the computer screen and was like, ‘On this line, can you sing it this way?’ And I looked over and he was mooning me. I was like, ‘I love this guy!’”

Take Me Home dropped November 9th, just nine days short of Up All Night’s first anniversary. With only seven weeks left in 2012, it became the fourth best-selling album of the year globally, moving 4.4 million copies, per the IFPI; it fell short of Adele’s 21, Taylor Swift’s Red and 1D’s own Up All Night, which had several extra months to sell 4.5 million copies.

Kotecha, Falk and Yacoub’s tracks anchored the album. Songs like “Kiss You,” “Heart Attack” and “Live While We’re Young” were pristine pop rock that One Direction delivered with full delirium, vulnerability and possibility — the essence of the teen — in voices increasingly capable of navigating all the little nuances of that spectrum. And the songs 1D helped write (“Last First Kiss,” “Back for You” and “Summer Love”) remain among the LP’s best.

“You saw that they caught the bug and were really good at it,” Kotecha says of their songwriting. “And moving forward, you got the impression that that was the way for them.”

Like clockwork, the wheels began to churn for album three right after Take Me Home dropped. But unlike those first two records, carving out dedicated studio time for LP3 was going to be difficult — on February 23rd, 2013, One Direction would launch a world tour in London, the first of 123 concerts they’d play that year. They’d have to write and record on the road, and for Kotecha and Falk — both of whom had just had kids — that just wasn’t possible.

But it was also time for a creative shift. Even Kotecha knew that from his boy band history: album three is, after all, when you start moving on. One Direction was ready, too. Kotecha credits Louis, the oldest member of the group, for “shepherding them into adulthood, away from the very pop-y stuff of the first two albums. He was leading the charge to make sure that they had a more mature sound. And at the time, being in it, it was a little difficult for me, Rami and Carl to grasp — but hindsight, that was the right thing to do.”

“For three years, this was our schedule,” Bunetta says. “We did X Factor October, November, December. Took off January. February, flew to London. We’d gather ideas with the band, come up with sounds, hang out. Then back to L.A. for March, produce some stuff, then go out on the road with them in April. Get vocals, write a song or two, come back for May, work on the vocals, and produce the songs we wrote on the road. Back to London in June-ish. Back here for July, produce it up. Go back on tour in August, get last bits of vocals, mix in September, back to X Factor in October, album out in November, January off, start it all over again.”

That cycle began in early 2013 when Bunetta and Ryan flew to London for a session that lasted just over a week, but yielded the bulk of Midnight Memories. With songwriters Jamie Scott, Wayne Hector and Ed Drewett they wrote “Best Song Ever” and “You and I,” and, with One Direction, “Diana” and “Midnight Memories.” Bunetta and Ryan’s initial rapport with the band strengthened — they were a few years older, but as Bunetta jokes, “We act like we’re 19 all the time anyway.” Years ago, Bunetta posted an audio clip documenting the creation of “Midnight Memories” — the place-holder chorus was a full-throated, perfectly harmonized, “I love KFC!”

For the most part, Bunetta, Ryan and 1D doubled down on the rock sound their predecessors had forged, but there was one outlier from that week. A stunning bit of post-Mumford festival folk buoyed by a new kind of lyrical and vocal maturity called “Story of My Life.”

“This was a make or break moment for them,” Bunetta says. “They needed to grow up, or they were gonna go away — and they wanted to grow up. To get to the level they got to, you need more than just your fan base. That song extended far beyond their fan base and made people really pay attention.”

Production on Midnight Memories continued on the road, where, like so many bands before them, One Direction unlocked a new dimension to their music. Tour engineer Alex Oriet made it possible, Ryan says, building makeshift vocal booths in hotel rooms by flipping beds up against the walls. Writing and recording was crammed in whenever — 20 minutes before a show, or right after another two-hour performance.

“It preserved the excitement of the moment,” Bunetta says. “We were just there, doing it, marinating in it at all times. You’re capturing moments instead of trying to recreate them. A lot of times we’d write a song, sing it in the hotel, produce it, then fly back out to have them re-sing it — and so many times the demo vocals were better. They hadn’t memorized it yet. They were still in the mood. There was a performance there that you couldn’t recreate.”

Midnight Memories arrived, per usual, in November 2013. And, per usual, it was a smash. The following year, 1D brought their songs to the environment they always deserved — stadiums around the world — and amid the biggest shows of their career, they worked on their aptly-titled fourth album Four. The 123 concerts 1D had played the year before had strengthened their combined vocal prowess in a way that opened up an array of new possibilities.

“We could use their voices on Four to make something sound more exciting and bigger, rather than having to add too many guitars, synths or drums,” Ryan says.

“They were so much more dynamic and subtle, too,” Bunetta adds. “I don’t think they could’ve pulled off a song like ‘Night Changes’ two albums prior; or the nuance to sing soft and emotionally on ‘Fireproof.’ It takes a lot of experience to deliver a restrained vocal that way.”

“A lot of the songs were double,” Bunetta says, “like somebody might be singing about their girlfriend, but there was another meaning that applied to the group as well.”

Musically, Four was 1D’s most expansive album yet — from the sky-high piano rock of “Steal My Girl” to the tender, tasteful groove of “Fireproof” — and it had the emotional range to match. Now in their early twenties, songs like “Where Do Broken Hearts Go,” “No Control,” “Fool’s Gold” and “Clouds” redrew the dramas and euphorias of adolescence with the new weight, wit and wanton winks of impending adulthood. One Direction wasn’t growing up normally in any sense of the word, but they were becoming songwriters capable of drawing out the most relatable elements from their extraordinary circumstances — like on “Change Your Ticket,” where the turbulent love affairs of young jet-setters are distilled to the universal pang of a long goodbye. There were real relationships inspiring these stories, but now that One Direction was four years into being the biggest band on the planet, it was natural that the relationships within the band would make it into the music as well.

“I think that on Four,” Bunetta says with a slight pause, “there were some tensions going on. A lot of the songs were double — like somebody might be singing about their girlfriend, but there was another meaning that applied to the group as well.”

He continues: “It’s tough going through that age, having to spread your wings with so many eyeballs on you, so much money and no break. It was tough for them to carve out their individual manhood, space and point of view, while learning how to communicate with each other. Even more than relationship things that were going on, that was the bigger blanket that was in there every day, seeping into the songs.”

Bunetta remembers Zayn playing him “Pillowtalk” and a few other songs for the first time through a three a.m. fog of cigarette smoke in a hotel room in Japan.

“Fucking amazing,” he says. “They were fucking awesome. I know creatively he wasn’t getting what he needed from the way that the albums were being made on the road. He wanted to lock himself in the studio and take his time, be methodical. And that just wasn’t possible.”

A month or so later, and 16 shows into One Direction’s “On the Road Again” tour, Zayn left the band. Bunetta and Ryan agree it wasn’t out of the blue: “He was frustrated and wanted to do things outside of the band,” Bunetta says. “It’s a lot for a young kid, all those shows. We’d been with them for a bunch of years at this point — it was a matter of when. You just hoped that it would wait until the last album.”

Still, Bunetta compares the loss to having a finger lopped off, and he acknowledges that Harry, Niall, Liam and Louis struggled to find their bearings as One Direction continued with their stadium tour and next album, Made in the A.M. Just as band tensions bubbled beneath the songs on Four, Zayn’s departure left an imprint on Made in the A.M. Not with any overt malice, but a song like “Drag Me Down,” Bunetta says, reflects the effort to bounce back. Even Niall pushing his voice to the limits of his range on that song wouldn’t have been necessary if Zayn and his trusty falsetto were available.

But Made in the A.M. wasn’t beholden to this shake-up. Bunetta and Ryan cite “Olivia” as a defining track, one that captures just how far One Direction had come as songwriters: They’d written it in 45 minutes, after wasting a whole day trying to write something far worse.

“When you start as a songwriter, you write a bunch of shitty songs, you get better and you keep getting better,” Ryan says. “But then you can get finicky and you’re like, ‘Maybe I have to get smart with this lyric.’ By Made in the A.M. … they were coming into their own in the sense of picking up a guitar, messing around and feeling something, rather than being like, ‘How do I put this puzzle together?’”

After Zayn’s departure, Bunetta and Ryan said it became clear that Made in the A.M. would be One Direction’s last album before some break of indeterminate length. The album boasts the palpable tug of the end, but to One Direction’s credit, that finality is balanced by a strong sense of forever. It’s literally the last sentiment they leave their fans on album-closer “History,” singing, “Baby don’t you know, baby don’t you know/We can live forever.”

In a way, Made in the A.M. is about One Direction as an entity. Not one that belonged to the group, but to everyone they spent five years making music for. Four years since their hiatus and 10 years since their formation, the fans remain One Direction’s defining legacy. Even as all five members have settled into solo careers, Ryan notes that baseless rumors of any kind of reunion — even a meager Zoom call — can still set the internet on fire. The old songs remain potent, too: Carl Falk says his nine-year-old son has taken to making TikToks to 1D tracks.

“Most of them weren’t necessarily musicians before this happened, but they loved music, and they found a love of creating, writing and playing,” Kotecha says

There are plenty of metrics to quantify One Direction’s reach, success and influence. The hard numbers — album sales and concert stubs — are staggering on their own, but the ineffable is always more fun. One Direction was such a good band that a fan, half-jokingly, but then kinda seriously, started a GoFundMe to buy out their contract and grant them full artistic freedom. One Direction was such a good band that songwriters like Kotecha and Falk — who would go on to make hits with Ariana Grande, the Weeknd and Nicki Minaj — still think about the songs they could’ve made with them. One Direction was such a good band that Mitski covered “Fireproof.”

But maybe it all comes down to the most ineffable thing of all: Chance. Kotecha compares success on talent shows like The X Factor to waking up one morning and being super cut — but now, to keep that figure, you have to work out at a 10, without having done the gradual work to reach that level. That’s the downfall for so many acts, but One Direction was not only able, but willing, to put in the work.

“They’re one of the only acts from those types of shows that managed to do it for such a long time,” Kotecha says. “Five years is a long time for a massive pop star to go nonstop. I know it was tiring, but they were fantastic sports about it. They appreciated and understood the opportunity they had — and, as you can see, they haven’t really stopped since. Most of them weren’t necessarily musicians before this happened, but they loved music, and they found a love of creating, writing and playing. To have these boys — that had been sort of randomly picked — to also have that? It will never be repeated.”

#rolling stone #ROLLING STONE SAID ROCK BAN SO ITS A ROCK B AND PERIDOT #220720 #10years1d #one direction

[swiftgronmasterpost]

Late Stage Swiftgron Part 1

Update from November 2021 - I really don’t believe much of this is meaningful at all.  I don’t think they’re sitting around referencing one another on social media or anything but some of Dianna’s interactions with Karlie are interesting Dianna shows up explicitly in Taylor’s life a couple more times so I’m leaving these sections here.;

From here on out everything but the 2014 AMAs and Dianna’s somewhat shocking appearance at Taylor’s 2019 SNL performance are just odd social media shenanigans (or subtweets) between the two, and Taylor appearing to release at least one more song about Dianna (Babe in 2018) (and let’s be honest you can make a strong argument for The 1 being about Dianna as well other post 1989 songs.)

Some of this might be complete crack or coincidence but as you all know I want this to be the most thorough Swiftgron document possible.  

If anything it proves they both certainly still have similar interests and they really do seem to be in touch.

There are some interactions claimed by others to be Swiftgron related that I’m not going to include because they’re just a bit too reachy for me (though I completely support the theorizing!) but in general, if I personally can see the hint of a Swiftgron connection, I’m going to include it here. Draw your own conclusions and take everything, particularly the alleged subtweets/social media shenanigans, with a grain of salt.

And yes there’s tons of Kaylor and other Gaylor/Gaygron content that will be left out of this segment because this masterpost is focused on Swiftgron.  Someday it would be cool to make a giant masterpost/timeline that documents all of it, but for now it’s just going to be Swiftgron stuff. August 26, 2014 - Dianna tweets, and then deletes “Withdrawals, clearly…we had fun.” 

There’s no screen shot of this tweet but some retweets/responses of it remain:

If Dianna is indeed referencing the song Clean (in which their relationship is compared to an addiction hence, “withdrawals” from it) then Taylor would have had to give her advanced knowledge of the song since 1989 did not come out until October 2014.

Taylor did claim she ran 1989 by the muse that inspired it and they were both in LA in late August 2014. Maybe this is when.

November 1, 2014 - Taylor posts about Clean

November 19, 2014 - The 2014 AMAs Kaylorgron Explosion Extravaganza:

Taylor, Karlie, and Dianna are at the event.  Taylor and Karlie are clearly on a date and Dianna is there to present Sam Smith’s performance of I’m not the only one.  Dianna seems a bit out of her element/gloomy when interviewed on the red carpet and Taylor flexes Karlie hard, dancing with her throughout the night and even sitting on her lap during an interview.

Click here for photos, video, gifs, and a live L chat reaction to the night.

December 28, 2014 - The writer for the tv show The Originals, Carina Mackenzie, tweeted that 1989 was about Dianna:

It’s of course notable that someone in the industry is “confirming” Swiftgron on main (particularly before gaylor went mainstream with Kaylor being so obvious in 2015/2016) however what’s even more interesting and notable about this tweet is that an actor named Michael Trevino was on the show The Originals and he dated Jenna Ushkowitz from 2011-2014.

Not only that but Michael was at Dianna’s 26th birthday when Taylor was in attendance as well.

It’s possible that Michael witnessed Swiftgron in real life and spilled a bit to the writer of the TV show he was on.

January 5, 2015 - Taylor likes a Swiftgron related post on Tumblr of Dianna saying she’d go on the road with Taylor and carry her bags at the Giffoni Film Festival in 2012:

February 9, 2015 - Style is released as a single

February 13, 2015 - The Kaylor “Best Friends” on a road trip Vogue Spread comes out.  You’re probably familiar with it but if you aren’t google it.  It’s incredibly romantic and pda filled.

The Style music video is released on this day as well.

We don’t have to go through the whole video but one egg I just have to note is the cave pictured in the MV is in Morocco the same country Dianna seemed to flee to after Swiftgron was outed:

February 14, 2015 - Dianna tweets 143 remember those days (for some reason it has not been deleted) seemingly in response to the Kaylor vogue shoot:

143 is a code that means “I love you” that originated from Mister Rogers.  Both Taylor and Dianna have publicly shown that they are fans of his.  Taylor has even made certain songs 3 minutes and 41 seconds long seemingly referring to this number and wore a Mister Rogers pin on a jacket for a photoshoot once.

Here’s a bit more in depth analysis on the significance of the 143 post.

This tweet is how we know that it is 100% in Dianna’s character to occasionally subtweet Taylor and why a lot of this social media analysis has been done.  

February 16, 2015 - Just two days later Dianna attends a fashion show in which Karlie walks and is noted to “have kept a smirk on her face” during.  Dianna doesn’t clap at the end of the show and looks miserable in photos of the event:

February 17, 2015 - Taylor releases Wonderland

I’m going to pause here and discuss the song Wonderland for a brief moment because it is some of the most incredibly airtight evidence for Swiftgron available.

Dianna’s favorite book of all time is Alice in Wonderland.  She brought it up in interviews all the time, tweeted about it, auctioned off a signed copy of it for charity, her private Tumblr and instagram account are called whosirmesir which is a reference to it, her private Tumblr is filled with reblogs about Alice, and her public Tumblr was called fell down the rabbit hole.

So the fact that Taylor writes an entire song describing a relationship through the lens of and packing full of references to Alice in Wonderland is incredibly interesting.

Let’s take a look at some of these lyrics:

Flashing lights and we, took a wrong turn and we Fell down the rabbit hole (literally Dianna’s tumblr name and url)

Didn't you flash your green eyes at me (Dianna is famous for her beautiful almost hypnotic green eyes and yes they are green)

Haven't you heard what becomes of curious minds (queer coded)

Too in love to think straight (queer coded)

But there were strangers watching And whispers turned to talking And talking turned to screams (seems to reference when they were outed) You searched the world for something else (Dianna very publicly went travelling around the world right after April 2013 when they seem to break up)

Taylor literally put Dianna’s Tumblr URL in the song.  Frankly I’m kind of shocked she released this song at all it is so obviously and clearly about Dianna.  Truly a Swiftgron anthem!

Back to the timeline...

March 8, 2015 - Taylor posts Flamingos for her dad’s birthday:

The caption was “Happy Birthday, Dad. Thanks for all the unconditional love, sarcastic comments, and interesting Christmas presents.”

May 1, 2015 - Dianna posts a flamingo for her birthday (post is now deleted):

The caption was “This is 29. Spoiled rotten. Funny enough, at work they were painting the hallways white and the roses (hallway doors) red, then I actually went to Wonderland (@AliceUnderLdn) and came home to a surprise flamingo. Here we go. Another year around the sun…feeling lucky and loved and loved and lucky.”

Taylor also gave Emily, another rumored ex, a flamingo bandana for her birthday.  i also think it’s odd that Dianna mentions Wonderland specifically in the post.

January 15, 2016 - Dianna’s engagement to Winston is announced and Kaylors notice Taylor is liking sad posts on Tumblr including several posts related to Clean:

November 7, 2016 - Lorde’s birthday party where Kaylor is together in public for the last time for 20 months.

January 5, 2017 - Claire (who is still very close with Taylor) comments on one of Dianna’s Instagram posts):

March 2, 2017 - Dianna posts her James Dean inStyle UK photo to Instagram:

This is actually the second time she has posted this as a throwback photo.  She also posted it on February 4, 2016 with simply the caption “TBT” and did not include the “rebel without a clue” bit which is a reference to James Dean (Rebel Without a Cause). She’s never posted the same TBT photo twice before or after this (as of the writing of this post in October 2020).

It I may be permitted to go real far out on a limb here it’s almost as if she wanted people to connect that photo of her in the UK InStyle magazine to James Dean.  James Dean is of course the way Taylor describes her lover in the song Style.  

At any rate it’s very odd that it’s the only photo she’s posted twice whether it’s related to Taylor or not.

April 25, 2017 - Fans notice Dianna is having her script tattoo removed:

This is significant because a part of the tattoo was dedicated to Alice in Wonderland - it said “We’re all mad here” 

Tattoo removal is a years long process:

So it’s possible she started getting it removed around the time that Wonderland came out.

It’s also possible part of the tattoo was dedicated to Lea (the part that said “here I am”) so this whole removal situation is very interesting.

In 2019 she was still getting it removed and commented this at a Cafe Carlyle session:

"i was like i don't know i wanna explain all my tattoos or the one that i'm getting removed on my side...you know you're like...WHATEVER we're stopping we're moving on"

February 13, 2018 - Dianna attends the Carolina Herrera fashion show, so does Karlie. Dianna is introduced to Karlie by Derek Blasberg and very audibly calls Karlie “gorgeoouusss” as they meet. 

Kayda play “Gorgeous” by Taylor Swift.

Click here to keep reading!

[stylesnews]

A bathroom figures significantly in the origin stories of at least two classic One Direction songs. The first will be familiar to any fan: Songwriter and producer Savan Kotecha was sitting on the toilet in a London hotel room, when he heard his wife say, “I feel so ugly today.” The words that popped into his head would shape the chorus of One Direction’s unforgettable 2011 debut, “What Makes You Beautiful.”

The second takes place a few years later. Another hotel room in England — this one in Manchester — where songwriters and producers Julian Bunetta and John Ryan were throwing back Cucumber Collins cocktails and tinkering with a beat. Liam Payne was there, too. At one point, Liam got up to use the bathroom and when he re-emerged, he was singing a melody. They taped it immediately. Most of it was mumbled — a temporary placeholder — but there was one phrase: “Better than words…” A few hours later, on the bus to another city, another show — Bunetta and Ryan can’t remember where — Payne asked, maybe having a laugh, what if the rest of the song was just lyrics from other songs?

“Songs in general, you’re just sort of waiting for an idea to bonk you on the head,” Ryan says from a Los Angeles studio with Bunetta. “And if you’re sort of winking at it, laughing at it — we were probably joking, what if [the next line was] ‘More than a feeling’? Well, that would actually be tight!”

“Better Than Words,” closed One Direction’s third album, Midnight Memories. It was never a single, but became a fan-favorite live show staple. It’s a mid-tempo headbanger that captures the essence of what One Direction is, and always was: One of the great rock and roll bands of the 21st century.

July 23rd marks One Direction’s 10th anniversary, the day Simon Cowell told Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson that they would progress on The X Factor as a group. Between that date and their last live performance (so far, one can hope) on December 31st, 2015, they released five albums, toured the world four times — twice playing stadiums — and left a trove of Top 10 hits for a devoted global fan base that came to life at the moment social media was re-defining the contours of fandom.

It’d been a decade since the heyday of ‘N Sync and Backstreet Boys, and the churn of generations demanded a new boy band. One Direction’s songs were great and their charisma and chemistry undeniable, but what made them stick was a sound unlike anything else in pop — rooted in guitar rock at a time when that couldn’t have been more passé.

Kotecha, who met 1D on The X Factor and shepherded them through their first few years, is a devoted student of boy band history. He first witnessed their power back in the Eighties when New Kids on the Block helped his older sister through her teens. The common thread linking all great boy bands, from New Kids to BSB, he says, is, “When they’d break, they’d come out of nowhere, sounding like nothing that’s on the radio.”

In 2010, Kotecha remembers, “everybody was doing this sort of Rihanna dance pop.” But that just wasn’t a sound One Direction could pull off (the Wanted only did it once); and famously, they didn’t even dance. Instead, the reference points for 1D went all the way back to the source of contemporary boy bands.

“Me and Simon would talk about how [One Direction] was Beatles-esque, Monkees-esque,” Kotecha continues. “They had such big personalities. I felt like a kid again when I was around them. And I felt like the only music you could really do that with is fun, pop-y guitar songs. It would come out of left field and become something owned by the fans.”

“The guitar riff had to be so simple that my friend’s 15-year-old daughter could play it and put a cover to YouTube,” says Carl Falk

To craft that sound on 1D’s first two albums, Up All Night and Take Me Home, Kotecha worked mostly with Swedish songwriters-producers Carl Falk and Rami Yacoub. They’d all studied at the Max Martin/Cheiron Studios school of pop craftsmanship, and Falk says they were confident they could crack the boy band code once more with songs that recalled BSB and ‘N Sync, but replaced the dated synths and pianos with guitars.

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The greatest thing popular music can do is make someone else think, “I can do that,” and One Direction’s music was designed with that intent. “The guitar riff had to be so simple that my friend’s 15-year-old daughter could play it and put a cover to YouTube,” Falk says. “If you listen to ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ or ‘One Thing,’ they have two-finger guitar riffs that everyone who can play a bit of guitar can learn. That was all on purpose.”

One Direction famously finished third on The X Factor, but Cowell immediately signed them to his label, Syco Music. They’d gone through one round of artist development boot camp on the show, and another followed on an X Factor live tour in spring 2011. They’d developed an onstage confidence, but the studio presented a new challenge. “We had to create who should do what in One Direction,” Falk says. To solve the puzzle the band’s five voices presented, they chose the kitchen sink method and everyone tried everything.

“They were searching for themselves,” Falk adds. “It was like, Harry, let’s just record him; he’s not afraid of anything. Liam’s the perfect song starter, and then you put Zayn on top with this high falsetto. Louis found his voice when we did ‘Change Your Mind.’ It was a long trial for everyone to find their strengths and weaknesses, but that was also the fun part.” Falk also gave Niall some of his first real guitar lessons; there’s video of them performing “One Thing” together, still blessedly up on YouTube.

“What Makes You Beautiful” was released September 11th, 2011 in the U.K. and debuted at Number One on the singles chart there — though the video had dropped a month prior. While One Direction’s immediate success in the U.K. and other parts of Europe wasn’t guaranteed, the home field odds were favorable. European markets have historically been kinder to boy bands than the U.S.; ‘N Sync and Backstreet Boys found huge success abroad before they conquered home. To that end, neither Kotecha nor Falk were sure 1D would break in the U.S. Falk even says of conceiving the band’s sound, “We didn’t want it to sound too American, because this was not meant — for us, at least — to work in America. This was gonna work in the U.K. and maybe outside the U.K.”

Stoking anticipation for “What Makes You Beautiful” by releasing the video on YouTube before the single dropped, preceded the strategy Columbia Records (the band’s U.S. label) adopted for Up All Night. Between its November 2011 arrival in the U.K. and its U.S. release in March 2012, Columbia eschewed traditional radio strategies and built hype on social media. One Direction had been extremely online since their X Factor days, engaging with fans and spending their downtime making silly videos to share. One goofy tune, made with Kotecha, called “Vas Happenin’ Boys?” was an early viral hit.

“They instinctively had this — and it might just be a generational thing — they just knew how to speak to their fans,” Kotecha says. “And they did that by being themselves. That was a unique thing about these boys: When the cameras turned on, they didn’t change who they were.”

Social media was flooded with One Direction contests and petitions to bring the band to fans’ towns. Radio stations were inundated with calls to play “What Makes You Beautiful” long before it was even available. When it did finally arrive, Kotecha (who was in Sweden at the time) remembers staying up all night to watch it climb the iTunes chart with each refresh.

Take Me Home, was recorded primarily in Stockholm and London during and after their first world tour. The success of Up All Night had attracted an array of top songwriting talent — Ed Sheeran even penned two hopeless romantic sad lad tunes, “Little Things” and “Over Again” — but Kotecha, Falk and Yacoub grabbed the reins, collaborating on six of the album’s 13 tracks. In charting their course, Kotecha returned to his boy band history: “My theory was, you give them a similar sound on album two, and album three is when you start moving on.”

Still, there was the inherent pressure of the second album to contend with. The label wanted a “What Makes You Beautiful, Part 2,” and evidence that the 1D phenomenon wasn’t slowing down appeared outside the window of the Stockholm studio: so many fans, the street had to be shut down. Kotecha even remembers seeing police officers with missing person photos, combing through the girls camped outside, looking for teens to return to their parents.

At this pivotal moment, One Direction made it clear that they wanted a greater say in their artistic future. Kotecha admits he was wary at first, but the band was determined. To help manage the workload, Kotecha had brought in two young songwriters, Kristoffer Fogelmark and Albin Nedler, who’d arrived with a handful of ideas, including a chorus for a booming power ballad called “Last First Kiss.”

“We thought, while we’re busy recording vocals, whoever’s not busy can go write songs with these two guys, and then we’ll help shape them as much as we can,” Kotecha says. “And to our pleasant surprise, the songs were pretty damn good.”

At this pivotal moment, too, songwriters Julian Bunetta and John Ryan also met the band. Friends from the Berklee College of Music, Bunetta and Ryan had moved out to L.A. and cut a few tracks, but still had no hits to their name. They entered the Syco orbit after scoring work on the U.S. version of The X Factor, and were asked if they wanted to try writing a song for Take Me Home. “I was like, yeah definitely,” Bunetta says. “They sold five million albums? Hell yeah, I want to make some money.”

Working with Jamie Scott, who’d written two songs on Up All Night (“More Than This” and “Stole My Heart”), Bunetta and Ryan wrote “C’mon, C’mon” — a blinding hit of young love that rips down a dance pop speedway through a comically oversized wall of Marshall stacks. It earned them a trip to London. Bunetta admits to thinking the whole 1D thing was “a quick little fad” ahead of their first meeting with the band, but their charms were overwhelming. Everyone hit it off immediately.

“Niall showed me his ass,” Bunetta remembers of the day they recorded, “They Don’t Know About Us,” one of five songs they produced for Take Me Home (two are on the deluxe edition). “The first vocal take, he went in to sing, did a take, I was looking down at the computer screen and was like, ‘On this line, can you sing it this way?’ And I looked over and he was mooning me. I was like, ‘I love this guy!’”

Take Me Home dropped November 9th, just nine days short of Up All Night’s first anniversary. With only seven weeks left in 2012, it became the fourth best-selling album of the year globally, moving 4.4 million copies, per the IFPI; it fell short of Adele’s 21, Taylor Swift’s Red and 1D’s own Up All Night, which had several extra months to sell 4.5 million copies.

Kotecha, Falk and Yacoub’s tracks anchored the album. Songs like “Kiss You,” “Heart Attack” and “Live While We’re Young” were pristine pop rock that One Direction delivered with full delirium, vulnerability and possibility — the essence of the teen — in voices increasingly capable of navigating all the little nuances of that spectrum. And the songs 1D helped write (“Last First Kiss,” “Back for You” and “Summer Love”) remain among the LP’s best.

“You saw that they caught the bug and were really good at it,” Kotecha says of their songwriting. “And moving forward, you got the impression that that was the way for them.”

Like clockwork, the wheels began to churn for album three right after Take Me Home dropped. But unlike those first two records, carving out dedicated studio time for LP3 was going to be difficult — on February 23rd, 2013, One Direction would launch a world tour in London, the first of 123 concerts they’d play that year. They’d have to write and record on the road, and for Kotecha and Falk — both of whom had just had kids — that just wasn’t possible.

But it was also time for a creative shift. Even Kotecha knew that from his boy band history: album three is, after all, when you start moving on. One Direction was ready, too. Kotecha credits Louis, the oldest member of the group, for “shepherding them into adulthood, away from the very pop-y stuff of the first two albums. He was leading the charge to make sure that they had a more mature sound. And at the time, being in it, it was a little difficult for me, Rami and Carl to grasp — but hindsight, that was the right thing to do.”

“For three years, this was our schedule,” Bunetta says. “We did X Factor October, November, December. Took off January. February, flew to London. We’d gather ideas with the band, come up with sounds, hang out. Then back to L.A. for March, produce some stuff, then go out on the road with them in April. Get vocals, write a song or two, come back for May, work on the vocals, and produce the songs we wrote on the road. Back to London in June-ish. Back here for July, produce it up. Go back on tour in August, get last bits of vocals, mix in September, back to X Factor in October, album out in November, January off, start it all over again.”

That cycle began in early 2013 when Bunetta and Ryan flew to London for a session that lasted just over a week, but yielded the bulk of Midnight Memories. With songwriters Jamie Scott, Wayne Hector and Ed Drewett they wrote “Best Song Ever” and “You and I,” and, with One Direction, “Diana” and “Midnight Memories.” Bunetta and Ryan’s initial rapport with the band strengthened — they were a few years older, but as Bunetta jokes, “We act like we’re 19 all the time anyway.” Years ago, Bunetta posted an audio clip documenting the creation of “Midnight Memories” — the place-holder chorus was a full-throated, perfectly harmonized, “I love KFC!”

For the most part, Bunetta, Ryan and 1D doubled down on the rock sound their predecessors had forged, but there was one outlier from that week. A stunning bit of post-Mumford festival folk buoyed by a new kind of lyrical and vocal maturity called “Story of My Life.”

“This was a make or break moment for them,” Bunetta says. “They needed to grow up, or they were gonna go away — and they wanted to grow up. To get to the level they got to, you need more than just your fan base. That song extended far beyond their fan base and made people really pay attention.”

Production on Midnight Memories continued on the road, where, like so many bands before them, One Direction unlocked a new dimension to their music. Tour engineer Alex Oriet made it possible, Ryan says, building makeshift vocal booths in hotel rooms by flipping beds up against the walls. Writing and recording was crammed in whenever — 20 minutes before a show, or right after another two-hour performance.

“It preserved the excitement of the moment,” Bunetta says. “We were just there, doing it, marinating in it at all times. You’re capturing moments instead of trying to recreate them. A lot of times we’d write a song, sing it in the hotel, produce it, then fly back out to have them re-sing it — and so many times the demo vocals were better. They hadn’t memorized it yet. They were still in the mood. There was a performance there that you couldn’t recreate.”

Midnight Memories arrived, per usual, in November 2013. And, per usual, it was a smash. The following year, 1D brought their songs to the environment they always deserved — stadiums around the world — and amid the biggest shows of their career, they worked on their aptly-titled fourth album Four. The 123 concerts 1D had played the year before had strengthened their combined vocal prowess in a way that opened up an array of new possibilities.

“We could use their voices on Four to make something sound more exciting and bigger, rather than having to add too many guitars, synths or drums,” Ryan says.

“They were so much more dynamic and subtle, too,” Bunetta adds. “I don’t think they could’ve pulled off a song like ‘Night Changes’ two albums prior; or the nuance to sing soft and emotionally on ‘Fireproof.’ It takes a lot of experience to deliver a restrained vocal that way.”

“A lot of the songs were double,” Bunetta says, “like somebody might be singing about their girlfriend, but there was another meaning that applied to the group as well.”

Musically, Four was 1D’s most expansive album yet — from the sky-high piano rock of “Steal My Girl” to the tender, tasteful groove of “Fireproof” — and it had the emotional range to match. Now in their early twenties, songs like “Where Do Broken Hearts Go,” “No Control,” “Fool’s Gold” and “Clouds” redrew the dramas and euphorias of adolescence with the new weight, wit and wanton winks of impending adulthood. One Direction wasn’t growing up normally in any sense of the word, but they were becoming songwriters capable of drawing out the most relatable elements from their extraordinary circumstances — like on “Change Your Ticket,” where the turbulent love affairs of young jet-setters are distilled to the universal pang of a long goodbye. There were real relationships inspiring these stories, but now that One Direction was four years into being the biggest band on the planet, it was natural that the relationships within the band would make it into the music as well.

“I think that on Four,” Bunetta says with a slight pause, “there were some tensions going on. A lot of the songs were double — like somebody might be singing about their girlfriend, but there was another meaning that applied to the group as well.”

He continues: “It’s tough going through that age, having to spread your wings with so many eyeballs on you, so much money and no break. It was tough for them to carve out their individual manhood, space and point of view, while learning how to communicate with each other. Even more than relationship things that were going on, that was the bigger blanket that was in there every day, seeping into the songs.”

Bunetta remembers Zayn playing him “Pillowtalk” and a few other songs for the first time through a three a.m. fog of cigarette smoke in a hotel room in Japan.

“Fucking amazing,” he says. “They were fucking awesome. I know creatively he wasn’t getting what he needed from the way that the albums were being made on the road. He wanted to lock himself in the studio and take his time, be methodical. And that just wasn’t possible.”

A month or so later, and 16 shows into One Direction’s “On the Road Again” tour, Zayn left the band. Bunetta and Ryan agree it wasn’t out of the blue: “He was frustrated and wanted to do things outside of the band,” Bunetta says. “It’s a lot for a young kid, all those shows. We’d been with them for a bunch of years at this point — it was a matter of when. You just hoped that it would wait until the last album.”

Still, Bunetta compares the loss to having a finger lopped off, and he acknowledges that Harry, Niall, Liam and Louis struggled to find their bearings as One Direction continued with their stadium tour and next album, Made in the A.M. Just as band tensions bubbled beneath the songs on Four, Zayn’s departure left an imprint on Made in the A.M. Not with any overt malice, but a song like “Drag Me Down,” Bunetta says, reflects the effort to bounce back. Even Niall pushing his voice to the limits of his range on that song wouldn’t have been necessary if Zayn and his trusty falsetto were available.

But Made in the A.M. wasn’t beholden to this shake-up. Bunetta and Ryan cite “Olivia” as a defining track, one that captures just how far One Direction had come as songwriters: They’d written it in 45 minutes, after wasting a whole day trying to write something far worse.

“When you start as a songwriter, you write a bunch of shitty songs, you get better and you keep getting better,” Ryan says. “But then you can get finicky and you’re like, ‘Maybe I have to get smart with this lyric.’ By Made in the A.M. … they were coming into their own in the sense of picking up a guitar, messing around and feeling something, rather than being like, ‘How do I put this puzzle together?’”

After Zayn’s departure, Bunetta and Ryan said it became clear that Made in the A.M. would be One Direction’s last album before some break of indeterminate length. The album boasts the palpable tug of the end, but to One Direction’s credit, that finality is balanced by a strong sense of forever. It’s literally the last sentiment they leave their fans on album-closer “History,” singing, “Baby don’t you know, baby don’t you know/We can live forever.”

In a way, Made in the A.M. is about One Direction as an entity. Not one that belonged to the group, but to everyone they spent five years making music for. Four years since their hiatus and 10 years since their formation, the fans remain One Direction’s defining legacy. Even as all five members have settled into solo careers, Ryan notes that baseless rumors of any kind of reunion — even a meager Zoom call — can still set the internet on fire. The old songs remain potent, too: Carl Falk says his nine-year-old son has taken to making TikToks to 1D tracks.

“Most of them weren’t necessarily musicians before this happened, but they loved music, and they found a love of creating, writing and playing,” Kotecha says

There are plenty of metrics to quantify One Direction’s reach, success and influence. The hard numbers — album sales and concert stubs — are staggering on their own, but the ineffable is always more fun. One Direction was such a good band that a fan, half-jokingly, but then kinda seriously, started a GoFundMe to buy out their contract and grant them full artistic freedom. One Direction was such a good band that songwriters like Kotecha and Falk — who would go on to make hits with Ariana Grande, the Weeknd and Nicki Minaj — still think about the songs they could’ve made with them. One Direction was such a good band that Mitski covered “Fireproof.”

But maybe it all comes down to the most ineffable thing of all: Chance. Kotecha compares success on talent shows like The X Factor to waking up one morning and being super cut — but now, to keep that figure, you have to work out at a 10, without having done the gradual work to reach that level. That’s the downfall for so many acts, but One Direction was not only able, but willing, to put in the work.

“They’re one of the only acts from those types of shows that managed to do it for such a long time,” Kotecha says. “Five years is a long time for a massive pop star to go nonstop. I know it was tiring, but they were fantastic sports about it. They appreciated and understood the opportunity they had — and, as you can see, they haven’t really stopped since. Most of them weren’t necessarily musicians before this happened, but they loved music, and they found a love of creating, writing and playing. To have these boys — that had been sort of randomly picked — to also have that? It will never be repeated.”

#rollingstone #july20 #10years1d

[noviceaoiryusei]

FAN REPORT 「 GRATITUDE : a decade and a birthday」

My fifth event for this year and this time, it has nothing to do with AMUSE and/or Team Handsome. Today's event is a birthday event of Tawada Hideya. He is a stage actor that I have been silently following since November 2020. Disclaimer: this might be yet another long written one so, read at your own risk. Lol. 「 GRATITUDE : a decade and a birthday」 When this event was announced last month, I quote retweeted his staff's post that I would be in if it's something that would be accessible overseas. Fast forward to his birthday (5th of November), they announced about the guidelines of ticket selling and saw that it's available for overseas access. I was surprised and happy at the same time so I purchased two livestreaming tickets. (◍•ᴗ•◍) Without further ado, here it is... The show started off with the MC, Itahashi Renpei doing some introductions about the event. He called out to Hideyan about 4 times then Hideyan said that "Renpei-chan, for now I'm going to sing". He went to the main spot singing a song but in the end, he couldn't concentrate on singing because Renpei-san was fooling around A LOT so, he was also laughing as he sings. 😂😂 I was also laughing a lot and I don't even understand what he's singing anymore. 🤣🤣 The main event was about Tawada Hideya's humble beginnings as he also celebrate not only his 28th birthday but also this 10th year anniversary in the entertainment industry. As a new fan who doesn't know much about him, this part actually helped me in getting to know him well. Apart from briefly introducing the projects that he had since his debut stage play 10 years ago, they also showed pictures from those years as well. He also told about his experiences he had starting from his first stage play in 2011. Experience such as his mother coming from Osaka to watch his first stage play and that his mother cried a lot to which he thought that he needs to do his best to this new path that he'll take. They also had some of his friends from the entertainment industry give short video message about how they have met Hideyan and their greetings • Ogoe Yuki (Tennis no Ouji-sama musical) • Yashiba Toshihiro (Shuriken Sentai Ninninger series) • Torigoe Yuki (Bungo Stray Dogs stage play) • Suzuki Yuki (Umebou ; dance entertainment shudan) • Maeda Gouki • Kikuchi Shuji He also briefly introduced the projects lined up for next month and the first quarter of 2022. Also, the staff prepared a pokemon themed cupcakes for the birthday boy. Renpei-san sang happy birthday but the bgm isn't even a matched so it was a mess. 😂 There's also a handwritten letter from Nakayashiki Norihito that was read by Renpei-san. After that was a short message from Hideyan thanking his fans and also addressing about his fan's thoughts about his works too. After that, they showed a vtr, it was a slideshow of pictures from when Hideyan was born and there are messages or captions in between the pictures. The last slides says: "To all the fans who have given me the most energy to stand on the board so far. And to all the fans who are looking forward to seeing me in the future... I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude for the past 10 years". I'm only a new fan and what's more, a casual one but it actually made me teared up. I didn't even realized myself that I have been silently following him for a year now. Lastly, he heartfully sang "Fuku Warai". After the song, he bid good-bye and the live stream ended. P.S.: I mentioned that I bought two livestreaming tickets, right? It was because I also bought the ticket for the second show which is "多和田任益のはねやすめ　オンラインオフ会". The main topic that they've talked about is pokemon and tokusatsu. It was a fun one too! # End

#!! fan report #tawada hideya

[kellyvela]

The ones who know the ASOIAF ending

I’m not talking about D&D

ANNE GROELL George R.R. Martin Editor

Question: We know that the producers of the TV show Game of Thrones know in broad strokes the ending of the main character arcs of A Song of Ice and Fire. Without giving anything away, do you know the ending, too?

Anne Groell: No. George is a very secretive fellow, and guards his secrets well. I do know a few things from AWOW, but mainly because we had to shorten a few elements in the book as it was already getting too long, and he had to reveal a few secrets so I could help him redirect parts of the plot a bit. I do know the endpoint of Bran’s story line—and Daniel Abraham, who has been adapting the graphic novel of AGOT for me, knows where Tyrion ends up. (I am jealous of that!) But much in the way all of you have been keeping secrets from show watchers who have not yet read the books (and I continue to be impressed by how secret you all kept the Red Wedding), I also will never tell what I know. George has somehow managed to swear us all to this amazing conspiracy of silence, which I admire and appreciate and fully participate in! I had a very amusing lunch with Daniel in which we very pointedly did not tell each other what the other one knew. In short, like you, I Keep George’s Secrets.

—Q & A with George R.R. Martin Editor, Anne Groell - May 2014

***

DANIEL ABRAHAM  'A Game of Thrones' Graphic Novel Adaptor

Geek: What were some of the other challenges of bringing this work to the comic page?

DA: Prying spoilers out of George. There are times when I need to compress some bit of action or reduce the number of characters in a scene just so that the page isn’t confusing to look at, but in order for that to happen, I need to know what’s critical plot and what’s not. As a result, I know a few things about how the series ends and what some of the prophecies in the text mean that I would be shot for telling.

Geek: Who are some of the characters you’ve gravitated towards during the writing of the book?

DA: Hard call. I liked all the characters as a reader years before I started the adaptation. Who doesn’t like Jon or Dany or Tyrion? The thing that adapting the books has made me appreciate more is the smaller characters. Old Nan, for instance, is actually a fascinating and eerie character, but she’s a part of a huge tapestry. It’s easy to overlook her and folks like her.

—INTERVIEW: DANIEL ABRAHAM ON BRINGING 'GAME OF THRONES' TO COMICS - 08/01/2011

***

Question: Have you collaborated at all with George R.R. Martin in the process of adapting the novel to comics? If so, what's the creative process there?


Daniel Abraham: I've spoken to George a lot in the process.  The biggest issues we have are continuity questions.  There are things about this story that only he knows, and they aren't all obvious.  There was one scene I had to rework because there's a particular line of dialog -- and you wouldn't know it to look at -- that's important in the last scene of "A Dream of Spring." For that kind of issue, there's no substitute for just talking to the man himself. 

That said, it's very clear that George isn't writing the comic book. He's put a great deal of faith and trust in me on the actually working out of the scripts.  And God forbid I get in the way of his writing "The Winds of Winter."  If I get a reputation for holding that project up, I'd be hung from the trees.

—ABRAHAM PLAYS "A GAME OF THRONES" - September 2011

***

I know some details about A Dream of Spring because of the conversations we had about A Game of Thrones. I mean, there were things he was setting up in early chapters in A Game of Thrones that are references to the end of the series. He had a very clear view of what of those were negotiable and what weren't and he had something he was aiming for at the end.

—Episode 31- Daniel Abraham AGOT Interview - Ranking Thrones By James Kelly - September 2019

***

(...)

There are certainly long-running comic book series that have succeeded brilliantly without a strict continuity or foreshadowing that began years ahead. I’m thinking of ongoing serial (even soap-operatic) titles such as Batman or Spider-Man. But A Song of Ice and Fire isn’t open-ended. It does have a conclusion it moves toward, and in fact, the last sentence of the last book is already decided.

(...) 

Charting our best course depends on what A Game of Thrones in particular and A Song of Ice and Fire in the larger scheme is.

And we don’t know that yet.

For me, the single most important fact about A Song of Ice and Fire is that it will end. Daenerys Targaryen will have a last scene and a last word. Because of my participation in this project, I know the fate of several major characters, and have a good idea of the final plot arc. Even so, the details of where the many, many characters end—where, in fact, Westeros itself ends—aren’t all available to me. They may not even be available to George.

My experience writing my own novels suggests that even at this late stage in the project, the best writers are in an ongoing process of discovery. Even with the last scenes firmly in mind, the process of reaching that place is full of surprises. Some of the ideas and intentions for The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring will change in the telling of the tale, because that is the inevitable process of creation. Especially as we near the end, the events at the beginning will take on new significance. Prophecies will unfold in ways that may be as surprising to the author as they are to the reader. Things that are foreshadowed will come to be, or else they won’t. Until the ending comes, recreating Westeros—adding new characters, remaking old ones, taking action from perspectives different from those already in the books—isn’t an act of translation or adaptation. It’s just making things up.

—SAME SONG IN A DIFFERENT KEY - Adapting A Game of Thrones as a Graphic Novel - 
Daniel Abraham [In 'Beyond the Wall: Exploring George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, From A Game of Thrones to A Dance with Dragons' - James Lowder  (Editor) - June 2012]

***

So, it seems that everything is hidden in the pages of “A Game of Thrones” and as I said before: “the person who knows everything in ASOIAF” is Old Nan...

#asoiaf #grrm #bran stark #tyrion lannister #daenerys targaryen #old nan #anne groell #daniel abraham