#which also does make more sense as to taylor releasing it

[jakeperalta]

seeing people get preemptively mad at the fact that the possible taylor book is $45, so it feels worth mentioning that (as emily henry pointed out) that's standard coffee table book price. as in it would be a collection of photos/lyrics/essays etc as opposed to a regular memoir!

#like obviously that's expensive regardless which is why I've never bought one #but it's most likely not just a regular print book #which also does make more sense as to taylor releasing it #because i think a standard memoir at a time when she's so in the middle of career stuff would be an odd choice #but more of a collectible memento of her career co #*so far makes sense #talking #taylor swift

[youremyheaven]

Rahu & Ketu: Abuse & Addiction

TW: drug overdose, death, suicide, abuse, childhood abuse

Nodal influence can be very destabilising and intoxicating. They're opposites but as they say the extremes of anything is a meeting point for it's opposite, so Rahu & Ketu share many similarities.

Rahu & Ketu are both shadow planets, Rahu is the head whereas Ketu is the tail. This in itself reveals much about the nature of the two. Rahu is over immersed in the world whereas Ketu is completely cut off from it.

When I say Rahu is over immersed/over stimulated, I don't mean they're profoundly connected to reality, I mean the opposite, they're deeply immersed in Maya/illusion that they often have no sense of reality. Rahu is the head, imagine if you lived in your head all the time? You'd be in your own la la land, disconnected from what is actually happening around you. This is Rahu energy. Without your body, you cannot use your senses, you cannot fully feel alive or experience reality. Rahu being the head means you're cut off from what is "real". You only live in your head and what happens in your head is very subjective and completely illusory.

They are so deeply immersed in an illusory world. This can manifest as substance addiction, video gaming, fame, material success, internet addiction, overly obsessed with "binging" content, maladaptive daydreaming etc, any experience that disconnects you from what is "real" and immerses you in something that feels very real but isn't real. Both Rahu and Ketu people suffer from addiction, Claire had mentioned that Nodal influence can make someone prone to addiction but why Rahu and Ketu are addicted tend to be very different. Rahu is overstimulated, they always need more of everything. There are people who spend 10 hours a day just watching YouTube videos or IG reels or whatever, that's because they need that much stimulation, since they live in their heads. Their minds need that kind of fodder to thrive off of. Once you start using any kind of substance, your brain builds a tolerance for it and you have to start using higher and higher doses to get the same high. When a Rahu native accumulates wealth, they start indulging in it but nothing is ever enough. They never feel "full", they don't have that fuse in their brain that flares up and says "this is enough". Basically they never know when to stop, they just keep going and going and going with anything they immerse themselves in. People play video games for 3-4 days straight without leaving their game set up. They don't ever feel satisfied. This is scary because "feeling full" is our brain's way of asking us to stop. Without that mechanism, we would overindulge and overdo everything which is what these natives do.

This is also why relationships are so tricky for Nodal people. They give too much and immerse themselves to the point where it's detrimental to the relationship. You either feel like you're losing part of yourself to it or the other person feels like you're consuming their energy too much (which makes them feel drained). Moderation does not exist for Nodal people either they're completely detached or they're completely obsessed.

Its similar to Jupiter energy in the sense that Jupiter is also very expansive and has the ability to immerse itself in everything and give so much but Jupiter has other principles that firmly ground it in reality as it is not a shadow planet like Rahu. It is not suspended in an illusion, Jupiter natives give so much or do so much because they have the internal space to do so, not out of a tendency to immerse themselves in Maya/illusion. Jupiter is the opposite, they see through Maya and find it hard to consciously part take in it.

Taylor Swift- Ardra Moon

She works harder than anybody in the biz. Her concerts are like 3 hours long and she does like 40-50 shows on average. She's ALWAYS doing THE most. She releases a new album every 2 years or so, has other projects etc this is a positive manifestation of Rahu energy because it allows you to be deeply immersed in your craft and your world but it also means you live in a bubble and you are cut off from "real life".

Ketu is the tail, it is cut off from reality and feels profoundly disconnected to reality. It is hard for these natives to feel like they relate to anything. This is why Ketuvians struggle with addiction. They use substances because they want to feel something, want to feel tethered, want to feel connected. They have to use higher doses because it helps them feel heightened emotions when they usually don't feel anything at all.

Ketu is connected to spirituality because natives who feel disconnected from the real world to this extent find it easier to immerse themselves in the occult and in esoterica. It is more abstract and requires you to think non-logically, i.e, experientially, but this is something Ketuvians have a hard time with, they themselves feel very "abstract" or like they aren't real or don't exist, so while they're intrinsically drawn to the esoteric, they feel untethered/ungrounded by immersing themselves in it too much. They need something they can cling to, they need something solid that they can attach themselves to.

All Rahuvian nakshatras belong to the Shudra caste, specifically the Butcher caste, this is very interesting because Shudra is the lowest caste (Mleccha is "outcaste" which means it exists outside the system entirely), to be Rahuvian means to operate on the lowest level. Butchers have to slaughter meat to make a living, that is unpleasant and brutal work, and only if they are disconnected from it can they keep doing it. They cannot be too focused on what they actually do because then it will be hard for them to do their tasks. They're not repulsed by it because they're disconnected from it.

2/3 Ketuvian naks are also Shudra caste whereas Ashwini is the only Ketu nak that is upper caste as it is a Vaishya nak.

(table by me hehe)

Rahuvian naks are found in all 3 ganas (Swati is deva gana, Ardra is manushya gana, Shatabhisha is rakshasa gana)

2/3 Ketuvian naks are Rakshasa gana (Mula, Magha) with only Ashwini being a Deva gana nak

I feel like Ketuvians are always made to feel like the bad guy / people villainize them a lot. They're the "ugly ducklings" who have to "win" approval as they're never accepted for who they are.

Rahu needs to immerse itself in something because its sensory perception is limited and they need to really indulge to grasp what is "real". Its very common for people with heavy Rahuvian or Rahu in a malefic placement to experience hallucinations or feel like their grip on reality is very thin.

Ketu has nothing perceive with at all. Its like being completely lost in the shadows or the dark. There's no perception taking place at all, it makes the natives inwardly drawn because its truly hard for them to absorb from their surroundings unlike Rahu which absorbs easily and fully. Rahu is over immersed whereas Ketu lacks immersion at all.

Lets look at the yoni animals of Rahu & Ketu naks respectively

Rahu: Ardra -dog yoni, Shatabhisha- horse yoni, Swati-buffalo yoni

Ketu: Magha-rat yoni, Mula- dog yoni, Ashwini-horse yoni

one common theme is that all these animals are abused, mistreated and exploited

(rats are the go to animal for lab testing, dogs are valued for their loyalty and are at the mercy of their owners, horses are made to endure so much labour, buffalos are farm animals)

all of these animals are also associated with dirt/filth in some way or another which is perhaps why people with Nodal influence often have a dishevelled appearance. They're bad at taking care of themselves.

Both horse yoni & dog yoni are divided among Rahu & Ketu naks whereas the yoni consort for Swati is Hasta (Moon ruled) and Magha is Purvaphalguni (Venus ruled).

Horses are very strong but very fragile animals. They start walking almost immediately after birth, they sleep standing up but they require a lot of attention and care as their health tends to be very fragile. Even though horses are associated with working hard, its not exactly innately part of their nature, it's just that they've been domesticated into being that way. It represents a very powerful active energy, as horses can be highly temperamental and unpredictable.

Dog yoni on the other hand, makes a person very needy and eager to please others. Dogs depend on the affection of their owners and without it they feel unhappy. Both these nakshatras have obsessive tendencies and a people pleasing nature. They're also two nakshatras who endure abuse the most.

I've noticed that a lot of people tend to have both nodes in their chart and I wonder what its like to house such contradictions. On one hand you're extremely involved, on the other, you're supremely detached.

The entertainment industry is one where people with Nodal influence really thrive but also often, self-destruct themselves. Its immensely hard to balance these energies since Rahu heightens whatever is in it, the way Jupiter expands whatever it touches. Both planets make you feel manic but in different ways.

Addiction is the result of an overactive nervous system and a coping mechanism. Ketu feels cut off from society/life/the world so in order to feel connected, it over indulges. Rahu needs something that will help them fully lose themselves, idk if I'm explaining it properly but you know how the best movies you've watched are the ones where you feel like you were in them experiencing those things with the characters? Its like that

There is an unhappy pattern of Rahu & Ketu influenced people being abused, I have especially noted this among child actors but also others.

Taylor Momsen- Swati Moon

Her parents signed her up with Ford Modeling when she was just 2 years old. "No 2-year-old wants to be working, but I had no choice. My whole life, I was in and out of school. I didn't have friends. I was working constantly and I didn't have a real life."

This theme of not experiencing "real life" or reality is very prominent in the lives of Rahuvian and Ketuvian people. It can be interpreted in many ways according to the context but there is always a sense of being deprived of what was "normal" or "real" as a result of which these natives had to live in their imagination or indulge in other things.

Like the child star who worked their whole life playing other people (acting is very Rahuvian) or the loner kid who spends all their time immersed in movies or video games because that feels more "real" to them.

Fame is also an inherently Rahuvian experience bc it's an illusion & a prison.

Judy Garland- Ardra Rising, Mula Moon

She was emotionally abused and controlled by her mother who got her addicted to drugs by the time she was a teenager. She was also sexually abused by the studio executives she worked with. Judy had a very tough life.

Aaron Carter, Ardra Moon, Mula Rising

Aaron Carter claimed that as a teen musician, his family spent $500 million of his money on 15 houses and 30 cars. He claimed that when his parents sold the houses, he didn't get a cut of the profits. He also alleged that his dad shot a .44 magnum near his ear — which resulted in him going 70% deaf in one ear — to force him into signing a $256,000 check.

Being heavily tattooed (more examples at the end of this post) is also a very Nodal thing to do.

He unfortunately passed away in 2022 from an accidental drug overdose. This is also a very unfortunate pattern among Nodal celebrities.

Macaulay Culkin- Shatabhisha Moon, Magha Sun & Mercury

 Macaulay Culkin's father Kit managed him during his childhood career. Macaulay has shared that his father was controlling and had him on a very busy filming schedule in the early '90s. He added his father made him stay up every night to study the lines he would have to say the next day. Macaulay asserted that his father was "such a crazy person" that he forced him to do SNL without cue cards when he hosted the show at 11 years old. Macaulay has explained that he felt his father was jealous of him because “everything he tried to do in his life I excelled at before I was 10 years old.”When Macaulay stopped acting after his 1994 movie Richie Rich, he told his parents, “I’m done, guys — hope you all made your money because there is no more coming from me.”His parents were never married and after he stopped acting, his mother filed for custody. Macaulay ended up taking his parents to court to stop them from controlling his $17 million in earnings. Since then, he and his father have been estranged.

I feel like the "child star gone wild" is a trope meant specifically for Nodal people

Keke Palmer, Magha Sun & Mercury, Mula Moon

Palmer shared on IG:

"Due to traveling and scheduling both of my parents had to stop working to support my career and be present for my three siblings, leaving me with the financial responsibility around age 12. Which I took great pride in because I knew what it would do for generations to come and a huge blessing that I could even help out. However it caused me a lot of pain because I essentially had to abandon my childhood feelings and desires, becoming like a parentalized child, which is something some of you can probably relate to in your own way. This was something that I have had to continuously work through because I am grateful but often feel like.. I missed “IT”. Life can be such a tragic comedy because how funny is it.. that now becoming an actual parent, and the responsibility I’ve always carried being more valid now than ever, has in fact given me the chance to feel what it’s like to be a kid again, I get a chance to explore a lot of the things I missed out on with my son, His freedom is like, the most priceless gift to me. He is already teaching me so much, it’s like he awakened the little me inside that I thought was long gone."

Ketu dominance = being your own parent, being neglected by your family or having to be your parent's parent.

Michael Jackson, Magha Sun & Mercury, Shatabhisha Rising

From a young age Jackson was physically and mentally abused by his father, enduring incessant rehearsals, whippings and name-calling. Jackson's abuse as a child affected him throughout his grown life. reading about the lives of the Jackson siblings and how severely they were all abused is very perspective altering and sad

Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen, Magha Moon, Ashlesha Rising (inc the ashlesha placement bc its another nak often subject to control and abuse)

“With what we were doing in business when we were younger, I don’t think it ever felt like we were actresses,” Mary-Kate “Because we spend so much more of our time not in front of the cameras, building a brand. Ashley agreed, saying: “I always looked at myself, even as a kid, as a business woman.” Mary-Kate said she wouldn't wish her childhood on anyone, and said she felt like a "monkey performer." 

they quit acting in the mid 2000s and rarely make public appearances and god only knows what they endured in the business bc neither of them will talk about it.

Sarah Michelle Geller, Ashwini Sun conjunct Ketu, Shatabhisha Moon

Sarah herself enjoyed the path she'd ended up on, she has rules in place for her own daughter. Recalling the "industry abuses" she experienced as a teenager in Hollywood, she said she hoped she'd "set up a safety net for these actors that I didn't have," but that she and husband Freddie Prinze Jr. have "rules in place" that mean daughter Charlotte "can't be in front of a camera until she graduates high school."

Kylie Jenner, Swati Moon

Kylie started appearing on her family's reality show when she was 10

In 2016, she told her sister Kim in an episode of the show: "I feel like I've had anxiety for too long. I feel too much, I care too much, I read too much. Some people are born for this life and some people aren’t. I just know I’m not supposed to be famous.” in an old IG post she said: "I’m proud of myself, my heart, and my strength. Growing up in the light with a million eyes on you just isn’t normal. I’ve lost friends along the way and I’ve lost myself too sometimes. My first tattoo was 'sanity' to remind myself everyday to keep it. I’ve struggled with anxiety my whole young adult life." "I know I don't want to be famous forever. There's gonna be a time where I feel comfortable, I'm at a good place in my life, and I just stop."

Natalie Wood, Ashwini Moon

The late Natalie Wood was forced into acting by her mother, Maria, who missed her chance to become a performer and instead focussed her efforts on pushing her daughters to stardom.

While young Natalie had a natural talent for performing, it seemed that her reason for going to movie sets was more to please her mother than to quench any desire of her own. 

Bella Thorne, Mula Moon

"I was sexually abused and physically growing up from the day I can remember till I was 14. When I finally had the courage to lock my door at night and sit by it. All damn night." She has also stated that she only started acting as a child to support her family.

Drew Barrymore, Shatabhisha Sun

 Drew's mother took her to clubs and allowed her access to drugs and alcohol, ultimately leading to her institutionalization at the age of 13, and emancipating herself at 14. Drew described fame at such a young age as "a recipe for disaster."

Edith Piaf, Mula Sun & Mercury, Magha Mars

Born in Paris practically on the streets, she struggled from day one, the daughter of street performers. The mother, a singer, eventually abandoned both Edith and her father for a solo career. Piaf spent her youth entertaining passers-by, receiving little formal education in the process. She often accompanied her father's acrobat street act with her singing and at various times was forced to live with various relatives, in alleys or in cheap hotels. An aborted love affair left her with a baby girl at age 17, but little Marcelle died of meningitis at 2 years old. Devastated, Piaf returned to the streets she knew, now performing solo. Her fortunes finally changed when an impresario, Louis Leplee, mesmerized by what he heard, offered the starving but talented urchin a contract. He alone was responsible for taking her off the streets at age 20 and changing her name from Edith Gassion to "La Mome Piaf" (or "Kid Sparrow"). Piaf grew in status entertaining in elegant cafés and cabarets and became a singing sensation amid the chic French society with her throbbing vocals and raw, emotional power. From 1936, Piaf recorded many albums and eventually became one of the highest paid stars in the world.

Later in life she became an addict and died in poverty at the age of 47.

Brittany Murphy, Swati Moon & Venus

she was a child star who was managed by her controlling mom. she battled with eating disorders and drug addiction. rip britt.

Justin Bieber, Shatabhisha Sun conjunct Saturn

Justin shot to fame at a very young age and was severely exploited by his management/everybody around him

Now here are some heavily tatted celebs and their placements

L to R

Rihanna- Shatabhisha Sun

Paris Jackson- Ardra Moon

Cheryl Cole- Ardra Sun & Mars, Shatabhisha Moon

Demi Lovato- Magha Sun

Jungkook- Magha Moon, Mula Rising

Ruby Rose- Swati Rising

Machine Gun Kelly- Ashwini Sun

The 27 club refers to a phenomenon where several musicians have died by age 27, many from an overdose. Unfortunately many of them have Nodal influence.

Brian Jones- Shatabhisha Sun

Jimi Hendrix- Mula Rising

Amy Winehouse- Mula Moon

Kurt Cobain- Shatabhisha Sun, Ardra Moon,

Janis Joplin- Ardra Moon, Mula Mars, Asc conjunct Ketu (in Dhanishta)

Jim Morrison- Ketu conjunct Rising (in Shravana)

several other celebrities who have died from overdoses also tend to have prominent Nodal influence

John Belushi- Mula Rising

Phillip Seymour Hoffman- Mercury in Ardra 2h, Mars conjunct Ketu in Swati

Prince- Shatabhisha Moon, Ketu in Ashwini

Whitney Houston- Shatabhisha Rising

River Phoenix- Magha Sun conjunct Ketu, Swati Ascendant conjunct Jupiter

Elvis Presley- Shatabhisha Moon

Margaux Hemingway- Ashwini Rising

Nodal planets are shadow planets and it can be very difficult for these natives to manage this energy as it is energy without a source, Rahu & Ketu don't have physical form or existence, that is a lot of uncontrolled energy to possess within yourself. Many people turn to spirituality and other esoteric sources and good Rahu & Ketu influence is vital and necessary to study or gain access to gnosis, study astrology or other occult matters but when this energy is imbalanced in their chart, these natives are more prone to self-destruction than any other planetary dominance simply because the unbridled energy is impossible to contain and requires some kind of coping mechanism. I have dated several Nodal men and they all dealt with varying degrees of addiction to varying substances and they all spoke about "wanting to feel more real" or how "nothing feels solid". I will try to focus on the positive manifestations of the Nodes on a future post.

thanks for reading<333

#astrology notes #astrology observations #vedic astro notes #nakshatras #astrology #astroblr #astro notes #astro observations #vedic astrology #sidereal astrology #jyotish #rahu #ketu #ashwini #shatabhisha #mula #magha #swati #ardra

[whiskeyswifty]

Sometimes I can’t tell what is genius and what is accident with Taylor, genuinely like I’m not diminishing what she does. For instance, the recent album phenomenon where almost right away, every single person, critics included, made their own “TTPD Edit” if you will. A trimmed down selection of the 31 songs that either they think made a tighter album, fit into a narrative they liked, created a new narrative, or whatever compelled them. Obviously I don’t think Taylor wants anyone to cut any of her songs off an album she herself made, of course. So here is where I err on the side of accident. But then… I think about how the number one thing all artists, even Taylor sized ones, are tasked with is creating engagement around a product. Taylor for this album tried to start the “fortnight challenge” which went absolutely nowhere. However, the fact that everyone, haters and lovers of ttpd alike, have made their own edits, which is an incredibly active form of engagement and stream booster, is an astoundingly brilliant stroke of….. luck? Genius? I can’t tell. I can’t fucking tell!!! Maybe it wasn’t accidental and she was intentionally clever to drop an obscene amount of songs that resemble more of a sketchbook than a solid story or even sonic cohesion (again not a knock just a pretty objective observation compared to previously more cohesive works of hers and others). An album almost… stay with me here, almost too messy that it begs you to finish it up, clean it up. Engagement that was so compulsive and universally experienced by everyone that its unreal to me how that’s unintentional. And she’s especially intuitive in this arena, finger on the pulse, mirrorball woman that she is. The data dump release format feels almost like a strategy in that way. But I can’t quite believe she would ask of us to pluck our own apples from her abundant but still carefully cultivated tree and make our own pies. She encourages us to incorporate the songs into our lives yes but don’t tell her how to do her job, surely not! So I guess even if it was accidental, I suppose that’s still somehow a form of genius to me, that even her impulses are in tune with how to best engage a modern audience. Having been in this business, and on this end of it, for so long that she can just sense when to drip feed us and when to stuff us like foie gras geese. Does she fundamentally understand that audiences hate being told what to do, as she feels the same way herself, and knows how to guide engagement without forcing it? Is that also insane? Giving her TOO much credit? Idk I can’t decide but it’s a stone I turn over and over in my brain. She figured out that the house always wins and so she became the house. Astounding.

#idk what this is I’m just musing on main here after my afternoon coffee #and before you come in here and say BLAH BLAH I NEVER MADE MY OWN EDIT IS PERFFCT YOU JUST DONT GET IT PEA BRAIN IDIOT #Know you’re in the very very small minority and nobody cares #do what you want but your evangelizing will fall on deaf ears #it’s ok to love an album and also engage with it in a critical way I promise. two thoughts can exist in one brain #my silly little essays

[9w1ft]

Hi 9, can I ask you something DNPy?

I am a baby kaylor so I am still gathering and processing info and lore; my question is, during 2017, do we know for sure kaylor were still together? I mean, is there any lore or coincidences that support this?

🤍 thanks

nothing dnp-y about this ☺️ there’s plenty of lore and coincidences. here are some things for you to consider:

karlie put out a celebratory valentine’s day vlog in 2/2017 where she does obvious visual copying of the vogue best best friend video, and taylor recorded the reputation at&t now promo sometime before rep release in 11/2017 which also copies parts of the vogue best best friends video.

reputation promo photography shows taylor wearing both the evil eye ring and the vsfs angel wing ring, which are both kaylor rings. here is one example but you can look up more, like the ups promo video or other at&t promo photos. because promo would have been done months before release date, this implies she was more than fine wearing kaylor symbols in the middle of 2017.

yes. vsfs angel wing ring is a kaylor ring through and through. go actually read the masterpost if you haven’t. i’ve put a lot of work into it!

taylor wears the vsfs angel wing ring and the evil eye ring when recording several rep songs, which can be seen in the behind the scenes making of a song clips (check youtube) and footage from miss americana

the J necklace made its first public appearance dec 26, 2016, and can be assumed that we’re supposed to assume it was a birthday or christmas present. and she’s wearing it during the filming of the recording of call it what you want, which also references the necklace. so assuming you don’t believe toe is real, her happily recording call it what you want after dec 13 2016, and then performing it with a huge smile on her face on SNL in nov 2017 are both hints

call it what you want is a song that is obviously meant to sound like she says karlie in several different ways. karlie what you want / call it what you want karlie / karlie would you want to?

there’s the whole business of the clip of taylor singing call it what you want acoustic while playing guitar, the idea that she’s debuting the song to karlie in this clip. it makes sense because as i mention above, the song is sung in a way that sneaks in ways for her to sing “karlie” and taylor is wearing the vsfs ring in the clip.

there’s also the point about how a lot of us who really know what karlie’s voice sounds like (since we have watched so much of her content) can hear karlie singing along to the song, when taylor points to the filmer for the line “i did one thing right” as well as the “yes” part

karlie posted from london in december 2016 and december 2017. and in between we also know she was in london throughout 2017 because she went to london fashion week, british fashion awards, several other events. just search the internet for “karlie kloss 2017 london” etc. this pokes holes in any argument that puts taylor running away to london as some sort of kaylor disqualifier. karlie was seen in london too. she was also posting from nice france over the summer in 2017, which is just a chunnel away from london if you think about it. she was plenty close more than several times to where people like to say taylor was.

derek tweeted what is basically an easter egg to call it what you want being about karlie, just about a week before it was released

also another big group of things is just how there’s an obvious reason for taylor and karlie not being seen together throughout 2017:

taylor and karlie disappeared only as the election results came in. they were literally seen together on the eve of the general election in 11/2016. its at this point, literally from this day, that taylor begins wearing the vsfs angel wing ring (read the masterpost linked above). by process of deduction you can prove she’s wearing it in the pic of her and karlie kissing lorde’s cheeks, because she was papped wearing it to the party. i just mean this to say that it makes sense that they stopped being seen for 2017, because they had a reason. the election results.

the glitch 2190 days of our love blackout line represents the amount of time between when they went dark in 2016 til midnights release

in the lavender haze explainer video taylor describe how she and her lover had to combat weird rumors for the past six years. this also neatly fits the time between when they went dark after the election and the release of midnights

miss americana and the heartbreak prince, which is about the 2016 election, includes the line “it’s you and me that’s my whole world”

call it what you want, again, is a song about running away with someone and nobody hearing about you for months, which fits the rep social media hiatus where taylor was not seen

this is more of an opinion i guess but i happen to think that taylor’s “darkest night” was sometime between 2016 and 2017 and i think that call it what you want’s “starry eyes sparking up my darkest night” connects to renegade’s “i tapped on your window on your darkest night” and the lover album prologue and this continued theming of karlie having been there for taylor when taylor was at her lowest.

i could go on and on with the lyric parallels that show the narrative post-election but it’s kind of never ending so anyways.. i’ll keep my list of things to everything right here. hope this all helps!

#just gonna tag this #masterpost #so i can look it up later 🤣

[whatiwillsay]

Taylor's Book?

So a friend of the pod dropped an email from a publisher off in the discord a couple weeks ago and we've been privately speculating that it's a Taylor project since then.

Details of the email include:

A book is coming. It will be released on July 9th and announced officially on June 13th. The hardcover will cost $45 and they think it'll sell a million copies quickly and then will print more. It's 544 pages (5+4+4=13).

It is a "fun, celebratory memoir for a younger millennial and gen z audience with global appeal. It will have massive publicity."

They compare it to Matthew Perry's memoir and Spare by Prince Harry in terms of how much they think it'll sell.

Last night Taylor announced Speak Now which of course is SELF WRITTEN and in the announcement said DEAR READER and mentioned July 9th.

It's also worth mentioning that July 9th is a Sunday and it's VERY unusual for books to come out on anything other than a Tuesday. From the friend of the pod:

1. it's weird like it never ever happens. I think HP on the weekends for midnight release parties is the last time I remember books launching outside of a Tuesday 2. this is because the NYT bestseller list reporting closes each week on Tuesday. launching something not on a Tuesday means they think it will sell enough copies to hit the NYT Bestseller list before even being out for a whole week

But of course, Taylor is such a weirdo about dates and July 9th is one of "her dates" so the release could make sense. And of course, Taylor knows she will wreck the bestseller list and doesn't have to worry about needing any cushioning for that.

You guys know I'm not one for clowning but I am in full makeup and clown shoes right now. I am not always the one to make bold predictions and who's to say for sure if this mystery book is a Taylor memoir and that her Speak Now announcement included hints about it but that is where I'm at right now.

No idea if she'll come out in it or not I'm not getting my hopes up for that but like we said after Toe broke up... all bets are OFF. (She does mention the word pride in her announcement...)

#taylor's book #gaylor swift #kaylor #swiftgron #gaylor

[allamericansbitch]

so i think i finally figured out what exactly put me off taylor, and it wasn't the politics (or lack of it) or generally how she's been since midnights released. i think it's the basic fact that she's stopped being/feeling like she is a musician. like i know she's doing the tour, obviously, but nothing about her including the tour has felt like it's about her work.

for instance i see artists of her generation and even newer ones do your staple few things after they've released new music: you do SNL maybe, maybe a tiny desk concert, maybe BBC live radio, maybe some smaller/closed door live gigs and live performance videos on your YouTube, maybe you speak with Genius or Apple Music like Hozier did about your process. just tiny things that speak about your music and what is after all your day job.

instead what i recall and what i've seen taylor do since midnights came out (or arguably since the red re-recording came out) is simply her go to jimmy fallon or whatever and basically rehash the same lines about the album, or release a hundred combinations and versions of the same thing for people to buy. and this isn't even half the reason why we see her face plastered everywhere: a bulk of it is pap walks, tabloid-y speculation which generally makes me go what even are you now

and i just feel like this is such a wasted opportunity to do more with her music. the last bit of creativity in this sense that i can think of is the folklore long pond studio sessions: they gave her a chance to talk about making the album, and they also added a different texture to the songs themselves.

wow this is actually such a good observation. she really doesnt promote her music anymore, but she does promote her personal life. (and i know shes on tour, but she has the week off in between, she can do an interview over the phone during lunch one of those days off you know) the TIME interview was the perfect example, i would have loved to know what the re-recording process was like from the beginning, if it changes with each album, what she approaches first, how tour affects the re-recordings, etc... but instead we got a good chunk of her and her current partner. i would have loved to see it focus in on her as an artists rather than her personal life.

and if we take the only artist i can think of that doesnt really do promo but is currently releasing music, that's beyonce (not comparing them as artist dont worry), but beyonce is so different from taylor. they both are selling entirely different things. taylor sells relatability, writes about human emotion for the everyday person. she built a good percentage of her career off of relating to people and building a community of people feeling like they personally can relate to her and she can relate to them. beyonce doesnt offer any of that, she sells the fantasy, an escape. her releasing an album and never really promoting it makes sense, her art doesnt thrive off of relatability and feeling like the everyday person. taylors does.

nothing about taylor is about the music anymore. and when it is, it's 'fans' asking for more of it, then getting it, then wanting more. and when we get it- the longest, most intense discussions are about the person they're supposedly about and people creating an entire story surrounding it... not once admiring the song itself and her work. and thats probably why it feels so exhausting, every conversation is stale and tasteless if you're someone who doesnt care about her personal life. it's just the same gossip over and over again and a lot of its been being discussed for over a decade.

#answered #anonymous

[blythelyunaware]

On the "terrible lyrics" discourse...

It's always interesting to me when, right before an album rollout, we have a subsect of swifties and/or simply bad-faith haters who immediately pan a new album by plucking out lyrics out of context. It seems that the curse of folkevermore will forever loom over any new album rollout because most people aren't...that bright? Folkevermore is brilliant for many reasons, not least of all because it was perfectly timed to fit the tone of the socio-cultural time it was released in. People ate it up because a). those albums were pandemic albums and b). they were written mostly in the "quill pen" style. For some reason, and perhaps this is due to a lack of wider reading, people associate "good lyrics" with flowery prose that is reliant heavily on lots of figurative language and "bad lyrics" as simple statements. And so anything that has been released post-folkevermore has been panned as a "step down" because people think Taylor Swift is only worth listening to when she releases music that people perceive, through stereotypes or general insufferableness, as artsier and therefore of more value.

I don't know if it's just a universally bad education system or maybe we don't read contemporary literature enough, but that's just not true. I love folklore so very much, and its most Keats-style 19th-century poet song, "The Lakes," is perhaps one of its weakest because it's trying too hard and some of it, frankly, makes no sense ("Tell me what are my Wordsworth" ???? Like we know that clunky-ass lyric was only put in there for a dumb ass poet reference). And then we have The Last Great American Dynasty, which contains fairly simple/ slightly kooky statements such as: "And in a feud with her neighbour, she stole his dog and dyed it key lime green." Which is way better at characterising the person in that story!!!

It was the same with the "sexy baby" lyric in Anti-Hero (IMO a very interesting lyric!). It's not about how many metaphors she can pack in or the number of stars or 2 AM dancing-in-the-rain or running-down-a-field-to-her-prince, or other fairytale motifs that makes her songs so good. It's her ability to tie a concept together or create a thread of shared ideas within an album. People are clowning on the whole "Charlie Puth being a bigger artist" because Charlie Puth isn't typically considered "high brow" and has released some pretty cringey stuff. But if you look deeper into the reason for why she included that in her song: it fits into the album conceit. The album visuals are very much dark academia, college prep, intellectuals etc. etc. This lyric is not so much about Charlie Puth as it is about her relationship dynamic with the person she is singing about. It's about how they had shared intellectual values around music. And that is the genius of Taylor Swift. She does not need to point a gigantic neon sign at a lyric saying "LOOK! LOOK! THIS IS A METAPHOR AND I AM VERY CLEVER AND YOU CAN FEEL CLEVER FOR GETTING IT!".

To end it all I would urge swifties to please read more and read widely. (I also realise just how pretentious and obnoxious I sound but hey, if we're gonna play into the aesthetic, why not?)

#taylor swift #the tortured poets department #swifties #the eras tour #ttpd #matty healy #joe alwyn #personal rant #mini rant #sorry for the rant #folklore #evermore #taylor swift eras

[sageistrii]

https://www.tumblr.com/sageistrii/749080074375086080/i-am-not-gonna-lie-i-find-it-a-tad-bit-funny-that?source=share

But do you think that because of jk's songs like seven, snty and 3D which were like gp friendly jk's popularity in sk might have increased? See i know that the sk industry or gp does challenges that fit the tiktok kinda vibes and even jisoo's flower was done by many many ppl (it actually reached my country too where i didn't just see the kpop fans doing the trend but even some celebs who never does anything related kpop doing the challenge or using the song) and jk's all these three songs were are actually pretty popular in sk. alot of idols has mentioned him as their fav/role model and even has recommended other songs from his album too. isn't it like being popular and having strong fb a different case? So do you think jk is more popular?? I'm just talking about it based on how much ppl i have seen doing his challenge/mention his songs/mention him as their fav etc. If there's other criteria through which this get's calculated then I'm not well aware. I actually saw someone asking this question so i was wondering too.

Seven did well in SK because it did well all over the world. 3d and snty not so much, like crazy did better than both those songs in all major aspects. If a song's acclaim and chart placement lies on how many people joined it's challenges, then I luv it by Kamila cabello would be number 1 on the hot 100 right now. Some people just join these challenges for fun, doesn't mean they're listening to the song. Like we can all see the chart placements of both songs

Also this man has been everywhere since 2022, Hybe made sure of that and you're surprised he's being name dropped by every kpop idol. That's literally how idols move, they name drop songs or artists that are trending at that particular moment. If this year some other soloist that isn't jk gets the same coverage and success that jk got in 2023, they're going to ignore him and talk about that person. You think none of those idols listen to other BTS members especially jimin? Or have y'all deluded yourself into thinking jk's album was the only one these idols listened to and liked? I guarantee you that they're also tons of idols who listen to rapline and love their music.

But they're going to mention the one member that was being shoved down their throat because that's how they also get publicity for themselves. And it's one reason why unlike some pjms I will never hype these random name droppings from idols because I know how it goes. Next year they're going to focus on the next trending idol or group and not even acknowledge your fave. It's like how idols jump on TikTok trends, it's not because they like the song or the singer, it's for visibility.

Let me use le sserafim as an example (no shade to them), during their promotions last year they danced to flowers by Miley because it was popular when they probably don't even listen to it but what they got in return was publicity because Miley posted them on her Instagram. They mentioned Taylor repeatedly during the time when her name was all over the media for the release of her re-recordings, they've name-dropped Beyonce in a song they teased in Coachella which makes sense because she's been the most talked about person on social media this year and has one of the most popular songs of the year so far, now they've also been linked to Sabrina carpenter in Light of her new found chart success. That's how the industry works. Name dropping or joining challenges doesn't necessarily mean they're listening because those idols could drop their 2023 Spotify wrapped, and you probably wouldn't find any Jungkook song.

Jimin has spent a long time at the top of Spotify Korea and like crazy got almost 200k unique listeners on melon, just a 100k+ below seven, you think none of those listens came from idols? But why would they name drop him after all the shit that happened with his debut and also when bang and scooter made sure all jk's achievements stifled his?

[this-daydream-is-dangerous-13]

May 20th - date of significance? Yes.

Harry released Harry’s House on May 20, 2022. After waiting many months to release Fine Line on Blondie’s 30th birthday, and after writing the bulk of this album in mid 2020, we can assume he chose this date for a reason. Here’s my proposed reason why.

But first - this requires acknowledging that the official, public Haylor origin story of 2012 is incomplete. Yes, they met in late March, eventually took a break, and picked up again in the fall. But based on Harry’s random flights, their mutual habit of vanishing simultaneously (no photos, fan or otherwise) and the lyrical information they’ve disclosed over the years - there is way more to the story.

Let’s call May, June, and very July of that year the Cruel Summer of 2012.

A bunch of stuff likely seemed to have happened in early May (that’ll be a future post about how the Sweeran origin story is also contradictory). But here we are, mid May.

Taylor is living in LA and mostly in the studio. There’s a stretch mid-month where she seems to disappear. Recall - this is the summer where she rents the house in Hyannis Port for many months.

On May 20th, 5 boys and their crew are spotted at the airport in London, flying to Boston Logan to embark on a couple months touring/doing promo in North America. Take a look at young H:

He is CARRYING ON an acoustic guitar, which he can barely play, rather than sending it ahead with all their other instruments and luggage.

The band lands in Boston; 4 guys head to the Mohegan Sun in CT (where they will play a concert soon) and are photographed by fans. And this guy? Vanishes.

Recall the secret message for Everything Has Changed, which Taylor brought to Ed almost totally done for recording on May 27, 2012:

This song, if you’ll recall, talks of a green-eyed smiling man whose eyes “look like coming home”.

Red was finalized at the very beginning of June; Taylor met the Kennedy grandsons on July 4th weekend. The timing does not work, especially since it was recorded in late May (with pap photos of Taylor and Ed outside the Santa Monica studio that day).

But MORE that that, something else occurs that day. It’s described in a 2014 song by Alex and Sierra written by Harry, and outlined in greater detail by Taylor on folklore. It’s a day described in august:

And…ah…perhaps this was also the date for some of the other events described in august?

And lest you think the whole thing wasn’t significant to Harry…by May 27 or 28, the boy gets his second tattoo. It’s a small capital A on the inside of his left elbow, seen for the first time here:

In an interview given by the boys in early July, Harry is asked about the tattoo (which had been drawn by Zayn, our OG Haylor). I cannot link directly to the interview - search for One Direction Granada TV interview on YT. And at 2:30, Harry is asked the significance of the tattoo.

Harry: oh, it’s for my….ah…ah..it’s for me mum.

Boys: laugh heartily at him

Louis: No it’s not! No, it’s not! It’s for a mystery blond!!

Reader, recall that Blondie publishes all of her songs as Taylor A. Swift.

Ten years later, on May 20, 2022, Harry’s House is released.

And on May 20, 2023, during a rain show at Boston’s Gillette stadium, Taylor Swift tells the crowd “I’ve never been so happy in my life in all aspects of my life…my life finally feels like it makes sense.” And that she will play them “this song, which brings me a lot of happy memories”: Question…?

ETA: Want to know what his next two tattoos are? He has them in this late June photo

- the word “Hi” (“all I know is we said hello, and your eyes looks like coming home)

- the (misquoted) lyrics from Temper Trap’s Sweet Disposition, which happen to be the line which follows *the secret message for Treacherous*. Which he starts kissing while singing love songs starting the day after he gets the tattoo.

[meraki-yao]

RWRB Deleted Scenes: The Extend Paris Café Scene

The current café scene works in the movie, and damn it’s cute (I can never listen to “He is” without laughing) but as a scene, it has significantly less of a feeling of conclusion compared to other scenes. It works as it is, but it can also easily continue

Again we have no idea about this scene and we wouldn’t even know that there’s more if it weren’t for Matthew posting this photo

Observation and comparison: in the scene in the movie, they just have two cups of coffee on their table; in the photo, they have glasses of I think red wine (which, by the way, is in the book) and they each have a meal. Henry/Nick’s shaking hands with an older lady who looks like the cook, but in the photo they’re clearly discussing the scene and not in character: Nick’s looking at Matthew. So this is strictly a behind the scene photo unlike a “shooting” photo, such as the kissing tree photo Matthew posted, where the boys were kissing so they were clearly shooting already

This was apparently their first day of shooting and I want to scream at how amazing their chemistry is

Then there’s this photo that I presume they took just after shooting outside of the café

According to Matthew, the red mark on the corner of Henry/Nick’s forehead is not a bruise but a lipstick mark

Taylor/Alex is probably not wearing lipstick or at least not this shade of red, and given the point in their relationship it also doesn’t make sense for Alex to leave a mark somewhere so visible and for Henry to allow it

I read this speculation/theory on Weibo (yes I check the fandom over there out occasionally, no I don’t have the link, the Weibo system is complicated and I can’t be bothered to learn it) where they suspected that the old lady recognized Henry and kissed him on the forehead as a sign of respect or adoration or something, which might echo Henry talking about everyone recognizing him in the next scene

I didn’t really agree because, what the hell, straight-up kissing the prince like that has got to be against either etiquette or protocols, but then a few days later I saw a video of the actual Prince William visiting a café during one of his projects, and an ex-football star who was there and greeted him and kissed him on the cheek, so… eh I guess that question’s out of the way

I also questioned why would a cook in Paris show such affection to Henry, the prince of the UK, but then I think this could be explained by Henry’s popularity in universe. He is after all, “the Prince of England’s Hearts”, which isn’t something explored in the book: in the movie, Henry isn’t only a prince, he’s also a popular public figure in general. This point was not established in the book. So maybe it’s that.

But also, it’s possible that Henry knows this café and the owner, and they’re familiar, hence the affection? That would go against the point of “strangers knowing his name” but social logic wise seems to make more sense

Where is Alex in all of this? Obviously, he’s still there, sitting opposite Henry, but in the photo Taylor’s facing away from the camera and just looking at his dish so there’s nothing we can get from that. Is he just watching all of this unfold?  

Where does this scene end? I’m guessing, and this is just me guessing with barely any evidence to support myself: their dishes are served -> whatever happens with the cook -> maybe Alex and Henry talk about what just happened –> they start eating -> cut to walk in the garden

This is all speculation, we literally have no context for the scene and everything I’ve just written is quite possible over-analysing tiny clues, but we won’t know anything until PRIME RELEASES THE DAMN FULL PARIS SCENE

#rwrb #red white and royal blue #rwrb movie #firstprince #nicholas galitzine #taylor zakhar perez #henry fox mountchristen windsor #henry hanover stuart fox #alex claremont diaz #rwrb thoughts #rwrb deleted scenes #rwrb paris #i need the entire paris scene #so much was cut #how long was it was supposed to be???? #and yes I'm writing the other one about Paris that I said I would write about #my rwrb list #matthew michael lopez

[a-man-for-hire-and-his-archives]

‘Our Flag Means Death’ Sneak Peek: Inside Blackbeard & Crew’s New Season 2 Looks

Breakups aren’t easy, but that’s especially true for the new and improved — depending on how you look at it — crew of the Revenge in Our Flag Means Death Season 2 premiering Thursday, October 5th on Max, as Blackbeard, a.k.a. Ed (Taika Waititi) continues to unravel after Gentleman pirate Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) abandoned him in Season 1.

As with the end of Season 1, Blackbeard recedes even further into the persona of himself painted by various wanted posters. He’s sporting the same black eye makeup as he did in the first season’s finale and also influencing the way his crew looks while serving him aboard the vessel previously helmed by Stede. Above and below, we’re delving into some of those details with exclusive photos, exclusive interviews, and a brand-new clip teasing the dynamic aboard the Revenge.

In the sneak peek, below, times are tense for Frenchie (Joel Fry), Jim (Vico Ortiz), Fang (David Fane), and the newest member of the team, Archie (Madeleine Sami), as they observe Blackbeard’s second in command, Izzy Hands (Con O’Neill). As seen in the minute-and-a-half exchange, Izzy’s getting testy with the shipmates when they question orders to throw treasure overboard. “It is not your place to tell me what does or does not make sense. It is your job to follow my f**king orders,” Izzy spits, emotion welling in his makeup-darkened eyes.

Fang is the first to note that Izzy doesn’t seem to be doing fine, and Jim steps forward to add, “Yeah, we think you’re in an unhealthy relationship with Blackbeard.” Additional tidbits from the crew include the fact that Blackbeard does “a lot of rhino horn” and he’s cut off more of Izzy’s toes.

In other words, Ed’s downward spiral is wreaking havoc on Izzy and the rest of the gang. But depending on how you feel about certain pirate looks, their exterior makeovers are sure to excite, regardless of the reasoning behind them.

“[Blackbeard] sort of has this Mad Max thing that we already established in Season 1, that’s so gorgeous and so unique to [him]. So I just wanted to up that ante,” costume designer Gypsy Taylor tells TV Insider. “We started with that Mad Max black leather violent side of him, and he’s sort of infiltrated this crew now. So they’ve taken it upon themselves to become Beard’s crew in whatever circumstance they’re in.”

“They’ve all taken to that color palette of the black leather and filth, which makes ’em look mean,” Taylor adds with a laugh, but makes it clear, “individually, I wanted to give [them each] a really unique look.” Teaming up with Taylor to accomplish that look is hair and makeup designer Nancy Hennah, who enhances the fantastic clothing ensembles viewers will see onscreen.

“We spent a lot of time working out what we were going to do for the raid makeups,” Hennah says of the Revenge crew. “Blackbeard in particular has lost it a bit and is really going off on a tangent, and the rest of the crew have kind of been pulled into that. We spent a lot of time working out what products were going to be good to emulate [something like the] grease found on the boat and they’ve smeared it on their faces.”

“Blackbeard is really struggling with having lost Stede and is leaning into that dark side, which is frightening for everybody else, but they’re sort of trying to play along,” Hennah continues. While fans may have already seen previously-released photos of the crew, Taylor and Hennah dug into their personal archives to share exclusive sketches and behind-the-scenes photos to provide a closer look at their process and each individual character’s look aboard the Revenge. Check them out below.

Our Flag Means Death, Season 2 Premiere, Thursday, October 5, Max

“With Jim, that’s a huge transformation,” Taylor says about star Ortiz’s onscreen evolution. “It was a really exciting one. We talked about it a lot with Vico, and I wanted to bring in a whole lot of ropes and things that they would’ve found on the ship to make an outfit out of and a giant fishhook that we made a belt out of.”

When it comes to the Revenge crew’s ensembles, there’s a focus on found materials doubling as clothing, “so sort of scrounging and finding elements around pirate ships that they could make a costume out of,” Taylor elaborates, noting that the pirates are being resourceful in “almost the same way that drag queens do.”

When it came to styling Ortiz in their costume alongside the other crew members, Hennah says, “Vico had a great new hairstyle, which we were really excited about, and we cut that early on in our testing phase. Then they had to hide [it].

Everywhere they went, they were wearing a hat.” It was all about “getting the right balance between the amount of hair on top and the amount of hair that we took [off] on the side,” she adds of Jim’s mohawk sported by Ortiz, which can be seen in the sketch and behind-the-scenes test photos.

Similar to Jim’s found fashion, Frenchie’s sporting an edgier look this season that is supposed to look like stolen wares from another pirate. “Because pirates steal a lot,” Taylor says, “they’ve quite often got cool things that they’ve stolen off of other pirates. And that’s where the inspiration for Frenchie’s jacket came.” As fans may recall, Frenchie found cats particularly terrifying in Season 1, so it makes sense that he’d emulate the feline, which has a motif on the back of his coat according to Taylor.

“Maybe he stole it from another pirate ship, and then he made it his own by putting this sort of ode to Desperately Seeking Susan on the back of his jacket with this rearing cat, which in the first season, the cat was very innocent lightly licking his paw, and now we’ve gone really manic and bad,” says Taylor.

Meanwhile, Blackbeard’s soft-spoken, but brutish when-needed crew member is enhancing his look from last season with some ornamental additions. “We didn’t want to change Fang too much, but I incorporated a whole lot of new elements to his costume,” Taylor teases. “So he’s got the teeth of sperm whales all around his necklace, and then he’s got walrus teeth coming out of his jacket. So he’s sort of made a new look based on animals that he might’ve found out in the open seas, like dead carcasses and things like that.”

This behind-the-scenes shot from Hennah offers a closer look at Fane’s Fang on set.

An exciting aspect of the season for Taylor and Hennah was the addition of Archie to the crew, giving them something new to craft. “Archie’s now part of the gang, and she’s just a badass,” Taylor gushes. “We figured she was sort of deep from the dark alleyways of New York in her sort of street punk aesthetic.”

One piece of Archie’s ensemble is an homage to one of Taylor’s favorite films, The Warriors. “She’s wearing a little Warriors red leather gang jacket,” Taylor shares, adding, “Her t-shirt is a really cool, very subtle print of Blackbeard’s wanted poster.” Why? “She’s a bit of a fan girl,” Taylor notes. “She really looks up to Blackbeard and how bad he is.”

When it comes to tattoos, Hennah says, “I try to talk about their personal heritage and where they’ve come from and if there’s anything that they want in terms of tattoos.”

For Sami, Hennah sought out designs with Fijian and Indian influence to reflect the actor’s personal heritage. “I approached a Henna artist, and we just got her to do a drawing of some designs,” Hennah reveals. “And then Madeline and a few of the other makeup team [members] and I spent about four or five hours just turning those little puzzle pieces into the tattoos.”

Sami loved her tattoos so much that Hennah says she was told Sami “is thinking about getting one of the tattoos for real.”

And when it comes to Izzy, he’s not changing things too much. “He’s just a man of his own. He wouldn’t really listen to Blackbeard,” Taylor says. “So there were very subtle things [that we were going to do], like adding studs to his gloves so that when he beat up people, it was a little bit more violent.

But in the end, we took it away. He’s enough of a badass on his own.” Ultimately, the only real change people will see on Izzy went the show returns is, “He got a bit dirtier from being at sea. We broke him down more, added a bit more sort of salt and all those crusty sort of overlays.”

When it comes to the crew’s man in charge, Blackbeard’s transformation has evolved a bit since viewers last saw him in Season 1. “I wanted to keep his leathers because pirates, as you see in Season 1, are at sea for a really long time. They don’t have a closet, unlike the Gentleman pirate Stede. So they’re always just wearing the same thing and getting dirtier and dirtier and dirtier.”

When a pirate dons a new garment though, it’s usually stolen. Such is the case for Blackbeard, according to Taylor: “We figured he’d stolen this black leather jacket in a raid, but he’d sort of made it his own in his own manic way, much [like] he’s done with the ship where [things are torn down and burned].”

Wanting to reflect the season’s production design in Blackbeard’s coat, Taylor says, “We burned it, and we ripped it, and we added six different belts to the sides that are holding it together, which would be like he murdered six pirates and stole their belts. And he’s started to collect a little bit more jewelry. So you’ll start to see some new rings and a little lovely pearl necklace that he’s stolen off of someone at the wedding party [seen in the teaser trailer] perhaps.”

As for Blackbeard’s makeup and hair, Hennah says, “We stuck mostly around his eyes. It just looked more sinister, and he was a lot more disheveled. He spends a lot of time this season wet, which is a bit of a nightmare when you’ve got beards and wigs and drying and getting back to dry. He has always had two wigs, and we got an extra one made this season as well because we were having to swap between wet and dry a lot.”

Apart from the extra wig, it was the tattoos that made up Blackbeard’s biggest makeup change. “We added quite a few tattoos,” shares Hennah. “I think in Season 1, he had around 24 tattoos, but at times this season, we were up to 30, and three of them were the big chest tattoo and then a brand new back tattoo. I worked with Dean Sacred at Sacred Tattoo for the big back tattoo design. He did a beautiful drawing for us of the skull with the snake coming out, the skull’s eyes with the snake crying.” As fans can see, the snake and skull sit above another tattoo with the words “Trust No One.”

Will he ever trust again after Stede left? Only time will tell.

Source: TV Insider

#our flag means death #ofmd #ofmd s2 #ofmd s2 spoilers #taika waititi #vico ortiz #david fane #con o'neill #joel fry #madeleine sami #Youtube

[whiskeyswifty]

What’s your favorite thing about folklore?

oh my god what a question. I'm just gonna riff off the dome here because if i try to go at this in any kind of organized way, i'll write a deranged thesis paper. (this is about the album proper, sorry to the lakes. too bad she never released it and we'll never know what it sounded like)

Gut reaction to this question is just how complete it is. It's an idea and concept, a writing prompt if you will, compiled neatly and cohesively in a way that's the perfect digestible length for it's form (music/an album) and also all killer, no filler. All the vignettes are not a "story" (save for the love triangle which i largely ignore because it's shoehorned) but come off like an anthology; that is to say that they're a series of emotional vignettes across a range of life experiences, but explored through the motifs and styles of one writer. I cannot jump around with folklore, i must press play on the 1, which has never happened before with a taylor album. It has no skips, every single one flowing smoothly but efficiently with the ebb and flow pacing of a babbling brook. (i do skip mad woman occasionally cuz its not what i wanna hear at the moment or epiphany cuz it's too heavy and too soon to go back to that mental place, but they're both excellent and fit perfectly within the album when i'm casually listening)

The sound is also just so perfectly aligned with my tastes. I contain multitudes, but unfortunately one of those is being a sad indie white girl lol. I love soft rubber bridge guitars, and whining violins and piano and minimal but expertly layered textures. atmospheric ones that carry the mood and the fill the space like fog but let you feel close to the artist, as i've said once before, as if she were sitting next to you and talking directly to you. There's a lushness to live instruments played softly and as pieces of a whole, and it makes any additions from a moog softened and supplementary. It just, for me anyway, really helps to hear the tactile nature of the instruments and mistakes and the breaths and the pedals on the piano and all the rest. it's the perfect mix of what i love musically from that genre, akin to Sujfan or Lucy/Phoebe or imogen heap or the xx or lana at times. even as way back and like dashboard, which shows my age a bit. you know the vibes. And i love how jack leaned into his more orchestral side, which he doesn't often do with taylor, still to this day. august in particular is just outstanding and he's great at stuff like that and i wish they would do more like that together!

I think its the PERFECT use of her voice. it's not blasphemous to say of all her artistic talents, she does not have a voice that can stack up against her peers vocally. But, as i've also said a million times before so sorry to bring it up again, she has a very emotive voice when it comes to the tiniest and most nuanced of emotions. maybe because she's less focused on vocal runs or hitting notes, but this album has her voice really shine. it's textured and rough and soft and smooth at the same time, fully bringing you whatever raw emotion is on the page. its the voice of a scribbled journal entry if that makes sense, off the cuff, unpracticed (even though i'm sure it is), and so intimate. you can hear her smile and hear when her throat is thick, it's just a showcase of her voice like nothing else. the pared down sound really lets all those tiny moments rise to the surface.

visually, i mean what can i say. her second best album cover ever. Fully removing herself from the center of it, diminishing herself with the trees for scale. Trees that have existed before her and will outlive her, as if to say this, the act of making art and ultimately the art itself, is so much bigger than me. my life and my problems. but everything is bigger than me, and it's important to not lose sight of that. which, if you were an adult at that time, particularly of a similar age to her at least, you commiserate with that sentiment. the black and white isn't actually black, but more of a warm gray, which i also love. i also know it was mainly out of necessity, but embracing how dressed down and simple her styling was. wrinkled dresses and limp, unruly hair. really suited the look of someone who's going to spin you a tale. NO TEXT TOO LIKE YEAHHHHHHHH god it's perfect and so well designed.

rapid fire now, lets see. i love that peace was done in one take, and you can tell, in a good way! and it's her HEARTBEAT???? i'm a sucker for that, no matter how played out that trick is, and imo it's justified because they disguise it with a dissonant tone of sorts. i love the PERFECT knee jerk answer opening of "i'm doing good" and then proceeding to delve into some of her darkest emotions she'd explored thus far (and in some ways since). i love that illicit affairs is missing it's final chorus, a song that is structurally unfinished and just peters out, the way doomed affairs always do. the way she never mentions the location or even the event, but the soundscape and the lyrics of my tears ricochet paint a perfectly clear church and funeral in your mind!! i love the word ricochet and i love how easy it is to spew it with vitriol. as corny as it is in the context of the rest of this more subtle album lyrically, i love the swiftian turn in the bridge of tlgad like.... damnit it's always so delicious. that harmonica in betty is just like a glass of sweet tea on a muggy summer night, it's SO bright and fun and puts a smile on my face every time!

But all that to say I think my favorite thing is seven. seven is a perfect song. her best song. the best version of a taylor swift song. a song so emotionally poignant and transcendent it wins over, however begrudgingly, even the biggest haters of her and indie music as it pokes at that one spot that will always be soft, and it's blank space's spiritual successor and therefore foil in that way. incredible feat to use the motif of your childhood self and not come off trite, like most other attempts by other artists can be. the most opaque she's ever been lyrically, which is a huge risk to take. small in scale but massive in it's implications and intentions. a song where the meaning and gravity exist in your reaction to it and not the song itself. perfect art. an opus of a song on an opus of an album.

#it's after midnight so my brain is turning into a pumpkin so sorry if this got mushy and nonsensical but #don't ask me about folklore and expect brevity #it's just EXCEPTIONAL #my silly little essays

[taste-in-music]

My Top 30 Songs of 2023

Hello everyone! Welcome back to my annual countdown of my 30 favorite songs of the year. 2023 had a lot of great music releases, and I’m so excited to recount the songs I returned to this year. And now, let us commence with the list!

Here are 10 additional honorable mentions: "Wide Eyes" by Loviet, "I Cry When You Sleep" by Pearly Drops, "Dreamgirl" by Father Koi, "My Love Mine All Mine" by Mitski, "Batman Song" by Cat Missal, "The Neighborhood" by Grace Enger, "I Been Young" by George Clanton, "Bright Red" by Ryan Beatty, "Dumbest Girl Alive" by 100 Gecs, and "The Narcissist" by Blur.

30. Angora Hills by Doja Cat: “Angora Hills,” a hit off Doja Cat's latest album Scarlet, is airy yet effortlessly self-assured, trading between quick-spit rap verses and a chorus of kitteny coos. But don’t get too lost in the sparkling keys and cutesy voicemails. There’s a spark, an edge, a darkness lurking in the murky bass and ominous synths which lends the song a greater intensity. “'Cause love is pain but I need this shit,” Doja Cat raps on the second verse, playing out cleverly rhymes romantic fantasies with an exhibitionist spin. “I wanna show you off,” she suggests on the song’s chorus, the red-hot desire roiling just beneath the surface.

29. Slut! by Taylor Swift: I think everyone was a little surprised hearing “Slut!,” the first vault track on 1989 (Taylor’s Version). When I first saw that title, I thought I was in for a catchy package of sassy one-lines and circa-2014 pop feminism. Instead, we got a tenderhearted ballad of wispy synths and Swift’s insightful musings on love in the limelight. Commentary does creep in (“Everyone wants him, that was my crime,”) but Swift focuses more on choice imagery of a love worth risking it all for: aquamarine swimming pools, thorny roses, and lovedrunk confessions. Sometimes, the most defiant thing is knowing that no matter how people might try to strip you of dignity, they’ll never be able to take your love away from you.

28. Nothing Matters by The Last Dinner Party: All-female British rock outlet The Last Dinner Party made a splash in 2023 with their confrontational yet exuberant debut single “Nothing Matters.” For a song with such a nihilistic title, it packs a punch of gravitas and a wry sense of humor. Lead vocalist Abigail Morris knows just when to heighten the melodrama, stretching the word “sailor” into “say-lahr” and belting the final refrain to the high heavens: “You can hold me like you held her / And I will fuck you like nothing matters.” In the music video, the group stomps around a gothic mansion in frilly petticoats and leather boots, tearing up feather mattresses and lip synching down to a camera positioned six feet deep in a grave. It all exhibits a keen ability to balance out the toughness with a cheeky wink, making it clear the group is only just getting started.

27. Running Out Of Time by Paramore: Much of Paramore’s sixth album This Is Why tears into the absurdity and stress of modern life. On “Running Out Of Time,” Hayley Williams captures the breakneck speed of life accelerated by packed schedules and the 24 hour news cycle, describing a self-destructive ouroboros of trying to catch up with the clock, doing her best to do good and always coming up short. “Intentions only get you so far,” she sings, “What if I’m just a selfish prick…?” It captures the stress and self-doubt, but also the conviction to keep moving forward despite it all. Williams provides a spirited performance as always, her vocals cutting through a pop rock groove that provides just enough energy to keep you from falling down the doom spiral completely.

26. Designated Driver by Taylor Janzen: Taylor Janzen’s debut album I Live In Patterns offered up several tracks which balanced heartfelt lyrics with propulsive pop flourishes, but it was “Designated Driver” that maintained the most momentum for me throughout this year. Atop a steady thrum of shimmering synths, Janzen unpacks her mixed feelings on being the "dependable friend," cracking under the pressure like a windshield. As the song builds, Janzen unveils the self-doubt eating away at her, where the raw emotions draw the other person in to detrimental effect: “you put your trust in a daydream / ’cause you love this dying part of me.” Janzen has the acute ability to put language to even the most obscure shades of anguish and giving them a more anthemic spin. “Designated Driver” is the song you can blast to get you through the grief, even as the toxicity shrinks away in the rearview.

25. One Of Your Girls by Troye Sivan: “One Of Your Girls” is a song so smooth that it’s easy to miss the melancholy which saturates its sparkling chords and clever lyrics. Troye Sivan taps into unrequited desire atop a lush, bassy thrum, describing a love interest who “everybody wants,” but who needs to keep their queerness covert. Sivan ushers in the song’s sing-along chorus with a languid sigh, glazing his voice in vocoder to keep the ache at bay: “Give me a call if you ever get desperate," he relents, "I'll be like one of your girls.” Pair it with a gender-bending music video, and you’ve got a song that delves into just how far a person might go obscure the hurt and save face.

24. I Need A New Boyfriend by Charly Bliss: It’s been four years since Charly Bliss’s last album Young Enough, and in 2023 they blasted back onto my radar with the scuzzy, snarky single “I Need A New Boyfriend.” This time, Charly Bliss sprinkle their anthemic rock sound with a touch of hyperpopping, bleep-blorping synths and churning electric guitars. Frontwoman Eva Hendricks laments her loser lover who grouches through parties and gives backhanded compliments, her observations both witty and scathing: “It took me three years but I finally figured it out / I’m just too fun for him,” “’Cause even though we had a five year plan / I couldn’t stay with him another minute.” By the song’s riotous end, you’ll also have the conviction to kick such soul suckers to the curb.

23. Feather by Sabrina Carpenter: It’s rare that a bonus track from a deluxe edition from an album is the source of a pop artist’s ascent to stardom. Rare, but not impossible. Case and point: “Feather,” the floaty bonus track from the deluxe edition of Sabrina Carpenter’s fifth album emails I can’t send. A downy kiss-off about leaving an ex in the past, Carpenter dreamily narrates the steps to her ghosting process over a softly strut beat of key glissandos and memorable ad-libs. It’s the humorous side of “Feather” that makes it a notable hit in Carpenter’s catalogue, the touches of sarcasm cut through the sweetness and showcase her multifaceted charisma as a performer. That little chuckle she lets out as she says “I’m so sorry for your loss” is the stuff superstars are made of.

22. LEFT RIGHT by XG: There was a handful of weeks back in the spring where every iota of my brain space was taken up by XG. The global girl group broke through with videos of the group’s rappers adding their own verses onto iconic modern beats, (group leader Jurin’s verse over ROSALÍA’s “SAOKO” is a bop and a half.) In a departure from the bombastic samples and in-your-face performances of those videos, XG takes a subtler approach on “LEFT RIGHT,” an ebullient blend of R&B and pop that goes down easy but has the same insidious ability to get stuck in my head. The lyrics are goofy yet earnest enough to make up for it. This boy has the narrator’s heart “Spinnin’ round and round / Just like my Pirellis, burning on the ground.” When a love is so strong it can pull you any direction, you’ve got no choice but to kick into gear and let the vibes carry you away.

21. Hummingbird by Metro Boomin ft. James Blake: When I took my seat in the theater to watch Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse, the second installment in Sony’s stunning animated superhero franchise, I knew the music was going to slap, (the needle drop for “What’s Up Danger” from the first movie is one of my all-time favorites.) While the soundtrack has many a banger, it was ultimately the tender hearted “Hummingbird” that I latched onto. James Blake lends his silky soft vocals to wistfully pine for a love that always remains just out of reach. Metro Boomin elevates the distance Blake describes with spacious and spacey production, dappled with piano and a chirpy sample of Patience & Prudence's "Tonight You Belong to Me." It’s a love song that spans time and space, across the Spider-Verse and well beyond.

20. Patty's Diner by Upstate: “Patty’s Diner” by Upstate came to me via a recommendation from a friend, (shoutout @bellamysgriffin) and I don’t know whether to thank or throttle her for it, because it’s one of the most potent tearjerkers I’ve heard in recent memory. Upon my first listen, I found the song to be starkly understated, nothing but a plucked guitar and traded verses from both lead vocalists. The central character is Patty, a diner owner who passed away from cancer. Now, her memory lives on in late-night radio commercials and fading recollections of her kindness, all recounted with a melancholy shrug. In its staggering simplicity, “Patty’s Diner” captures something potent about the grief we hold for loved ones: it can come with a smile as well as tears. Take a page from Patty’s book and keep pushing forward. What else are we supposed to do?

19. There It Goes by Maisie Peters: On her sophomore album The Good Witch, Maisie Peters writes a lot about the breakup experience. A whole number of spunky kiss-offs from that record could’ve landed on this list, but as the autumn chill locked in for the final months of the year, I found myself more and more drawn to the album’s penultimate moment of reprieve. “There It Goes” shows Peters letting go of the relationship by pivoting towards self-improvement. Atop a warm strummed guitar groove, she lists off the steps to reconnecting with her friends and herself: going to yoga class, reading novels, stumbling through the streets of Stockholm. Much of The Good Witch focuses on the thunder of emotions which come from heartbreak. “There It Goes” is the calm after the storm. It demonstrates the much harder to describe but no less essential development that happens after growing apart: growing up.

18. Only Love Can Save Us Now by Kesha: On her latest album Gag Order, Kesha pivoted from the party anthems that put her on the map in favor of a sparer, darker sound. Then halfway through the album, “Only Love Can Save Us Now” swings in to prove that Kesha can still serve up a barn-burning banger if she wants, and thank god she does. On “Only Love Can Save Us Now,” Kesha unloads a list of unapologetic declarations over a typewriter-clack beat, each line wry and searing: “Yeah, I'm possessive / Maybe I'm possessed, bitch / Fuck yeah, I'm selfish / Shut up, eat your breakfast.” The chorus kicks in with a rollicking guitar, gospel choir, stomping drums, and jangly pianos which all lend a folksy intensity. “I don’t got no shame left,” Kesha sings in the song’s final moments, “Baby, that’s my freedom.” It’s a moment of deft catharsis on an album so heavily defined by what it holds back, a defiant invitation to exorcise your regrets and then invite your demons to come and join the dance party.

17. Mother Nature by MGMT: It’s been five years since MGMT’s last album Little Dark Age, and it feels like I’ve lived a whole lifetime since then. “Mother Nature,” the lead single off their fifth album Loss of Life, shows that MGMT have seemingly grown as much as I have. The song is warm and welcoming, built from sunshiny strummed guitars I’d usually expect from Alex G or Big Thief. But the stargazing, larger-than-life scope of the group’s past work remains, merging the mundane with the magical. “I wrote the fairytale on the midnight drive,” Andrew VanWyngarden sings in the song’s opening moments, “Wanting to know if I'm more than alive.” The rest of the song walks this line between enchantment and ennui, alluding to a greater darkness looming just beyond the horizon. The bridge makes a swing for the anthemic, describing a castle siege over scuzzy wails of distorted synth, a last swipe for hope “before the fantasy is cast into the fire.” I can’t wait to hear how “Mother Nature” fits into Loss of Life, but it’s a song that is determined to live life to the fullest, even in the most barren of landscapes.

16. brrr by Kim Petras: Over the past few years, Kim Petras has become one of the pop landscape’s most audacious players, knowing when to wallop her listeners with unrestrained discussions of sexuality and when to play it coy. She finds a perfect balance between these realms on “brrr.” Built off a beat of squelchy synths and throbbing bass, “brrr” is equal parts daring and alluring. Petras addresses a love interest who puts up thick walls of ice around their heart and makes it clear that she sees right through the charade. “I’m not one to be afraid,” she lilts teasingly on the pre-chorus. Instead of being put off, she buys in, the implication clear as she delivers the title line with a wink and a smirk: “...you think you’re so cold, brrr.” Leave it up to Petras to make even the iciest of imagery steamy as hell.

15. labour by Paris Paloma: It starts with a low male voice, way back in the mix, counting her in on four. Then, the storm clouds roll in. On social media, “labour” by Paris Paloma has been deemed an anthem of female rage, but unlike the immediate, memetic quality of its viral peers, “labour” understands that rage needs time to simmer before it explodes. Paloma airs out every grievance of how this women’s work batters us in body, mind, and spirit, ruthlessly recounting bursting capillaries, cracked skin, every bullshit archetype and patriarchy-serving expectation thrown our way. Paloma knows that at the end of the day, no amount of spectacle could hit harder than the all-too-simple truth at the song’s core: “It’s not an act of love if you make her / you make me do too much labour.” Her vocals layer and layer until the final chorus slams into you like a tidal wave of anger, and by the song's final moments, Paloma has made the narratives made to hold us back into something wholly her own.

14. Nymphs Finding the Head of Orpheus by Nicole Dollanganger: Of all the tales Nicole Dollanganger spins on her album Married In Mount Airy, “Nymphs Finding the Head of Orpheus” is by far one of the most elusive. Dollanganger offers up a foreboding atmosphere of feather-light strings and dark ambient reverb. The imagery centers on rebirth, the baptismal potential of a tepid pool, bodies reclaimed by nature. It has little to do with the gory bacchanal of the mythical moment in the title, but the insinuation remains, seeping in at the seams to suggest violence and regeneration as potentially interconnected. On an album so concerned with all the evils of men, perhaps the most terrifying thing of all is what lies beyond our standard perception of human actions, of nature locked in shadow. On "Nymphs Finding the Head of Orpheus," Dollanganger offers a glimpse of this disembodied face in the darkness, one  we’ll never be able to truly know.

13. Sandrail Silhouette by Avalon Emerson: "Sandrail Silhouette" opens DJ Avalon Emerson's album & The Charm, reintroducing a new side of her craft. A departure from the electronic spin of her past work, the song feels organic yet gleaming, constructed of a move-and-shaker groove of rich strings, shuffleboard keys, and gloaming skids of bass. Emerson’s vocals waft over the landscape with the calming timbre of someone telling a bedtime story, stringing lyrics together like beads on a friendship bracelet. It’s an environment that’s easy to get lost in, so much so that it hit November before I even bothered to ask, what even is a "sandrail silhouette?" I have no clue, but it’s not so much about the words themselves as it is about the feelings they evoke, a wistful nostalgia that is aching yet hopeful. This feeling comes across in obtuse details (“Go ask a sequoia”) and stunning clarity alike (“Tell me I got more time / When all my friends are having daughters.”) Like the yearning for the past Emerson describes, my love for this song is hard to put into words. It’s easier to just sit back and let myself feel it.

12. WHAT A MAN by DEBBY FRIDAY: “WHAT A MAN” by DEBBY FRIDAY simply slams so fucking hard. I don’t know what else to say. From the very first listen I came to immediate conclusion that it slammed into oblivion and was one of my favorite songs of 2023. "WHAT A MAN" unfurls like an erotic noir thriller, all churning bass and musings on a love that’s slipped the narrator’s fingers. DEBBY FRIDAY’s lyrics are obtuse yet evocative, contributing to the seductive atmosphere: “I held a heart / It wasn’t mine / When he came looking / I wasn’t kind.” Stacks of escalating synths ratchet up the tension until all hell breaks loose on the back of a scorching electric guitar solo that’d make Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Phantom of the Opera jealous he didn’t come up with it first. It’s the kind of song that rips loose and is over all too fast, asking for forgiveness in the aftermath of ruin, and never, ever permission.

11. Top Dog by Magdalena Bay: Hands down the best pop song of the year to reference Laura Dern, a race that should by all means be a lot more competitive than it is. From its opening references to the actress, synth pop duo Magdalena Bay make it clear that this isn't a song where they're going to be taking themselves too seriously. Everything about "Top Dog" oozes lackadaisical confidence, all with a cheeky wink to the listener. Against a backdrop of strummed guitars, they pepper in samples of cameras snapping and, fittingly, dogs woofing. Not only that, but they also add in a healthy dose of aughts nostalgia with a synth palette that feels directly pulled from dial-up bleeps, Motorola ringtones, and 8-bit power-ups. Mica Tenenbaum’s vocals are a pitch-perfect balance of airy nonchalance and self-satisfaction, traversing through the goofy canine metaphors without once sounding like she’s forcing a punchline to land. It makes for a song that’s loopy, loping, and effortlessly fun.

10. Honey by Samia: It’s hard to pin down what makes the title track of Samia’s sophomore album so special. “Honey” is subtle yet anthemic, an ever-growing conviction coming into fruition over the song’s duration. “I’m not scared of sharks / I’m not scared to be naked / I’m not scared of anything,” Samia sings in the song’s opening moments, going on to narrate a continual climb towards self-confidence and determination. My favorite detail is the gradually growing backing chorus which appears and reappears with more intensity with each new iteration of the song’s main refrain. “It’s all honey,” Samia repeats, over and over at the song’s close. All the times I’ve listened to this song, and I still haven’t pinned down an exact meaning for that line, but maybe that’s the point. The nonchalance, the uncertainty, the acceptance that no matter where life takes us, it's sure to be sweet.

9. Welcome To My Island by Caroline Polachek: In the opening moment of Desire, I Want To Turn Into You, Caroline Polachek shows off the titanic potential of her voice, letting out a dexterous, breathtaking belt that warps and careens into the stratosphere. Even if the song was just comprised of its first thirty seconds, it’d probably still be on this list. But then, of course, there’s the rest of “Welcome To My Island,” a facetious introduction to the sonic space Caroline Polachek will go on to explore over the rest of the album. Over a glimmering, twitchy beat, Polachek half-raps, half-belts a series of pitches for her personal paradise of waving palm trees and placid oceans. On the song’s bridge, she gets more vulnerable, revealing the pathos amongst the phthalo blues: “I am my father’s daughter in the end,” she sings like she’s on the brink of tears, “no nothing’s gonna be the same again.” But when the groove snaps back over an outro of brassily tuned guitars and defiantly chanted “hey hey hey”s, it’s clear that Polachek’s island is worth booking an extended stay, self-doubt be damned.

8. bad idea right? by Olivia Rodrigo: “bad idea right?,” the second single on Olivia Rodrigo’s sophomore album GUTS, followed on the heels of operatic ballad “vampire” by not following it at all. Like the preceding sophomore single “deja vu,” it’s snarkier, wonkier, and (in my opinion,) way more engaging. While Rodrigo undeniably knows how to pen and pull off a dramatic power ballad, her comedic chops deserve recognition too. On “bad idea, right?” she chattily recounts a night of terrible decision making, tossing out hilarious, memorable one-liners at a dizzying rate: “…you're callin' my phone, you're all alone / And I'm sensing some undertones,” “I only see him as a friend / (The biggest lie I ever said,)” “I just tripped and fell into his bed.” The production ups the ante with a strutting bassline, ad-libs which drive every line home like Rodrigo’s inner monologue coming to life, and a squealing guitar solo in the song’s back end. " All in all, "bad idea right?" captures the tumultuous clownery that having a crush conjures up, self-aware embarrassment colliding with lovesick horniness that makes you look a wealth of poor choices the eye and brush it off with a “fuck it, it’s fine.”

7. Echolalia by Yves Tumor: Echolalia is baby babble, the sounds humans make when they don’t have a grasp on language, but still need to communicate some innate need. On their latest album Praise A Lord Who Chews, But Which Does Not Consume (Or, Simply, Hot Between World,) Yves Tumor taps into these primal urges, transmogrifying them to a cosmic level through the medium of phychedelic rock. Such is the case on slow burning second single “Echolalia,” a hazy whirlwind of devotion and desperation. “Looked up to god,” they sing in the first verse, “You looked so good.” Tumor’s voice stays in their husky lower register, gritted out with hushed intensity over an alluring blend of gleaming synths, burning bass, and heaving breaths. “The way I’m thinking, is this unnatural?” they inquire in the song’s final moments, then lay their hesitations to waste in the heat of the moment, “you look so magical." At its most intense, “Echoloalia” strips away the set dressing of pretty words and veneers, unveiling the desire, hunger, and everything that simmers just below the surface, begging to break free.

6. Casual by Chappell Roan: I’ve long bemoaned how many a great pop album has been brought to a screeching halt by a ballad haphazardly thrown in to make things more “emotional.” A pop artist holds genuine promise to me when they’re able to clear this hurdle and make an album’s slower moments just as compelling as the bops. I'm glad to announce that Chappell Roan pasts this test with “Casual,” a mid-album on her debut album The Rise and Fall Of A Midwest Princess. On "Casual," slower pace of the song provides space to let Roan's simmering frustrations with a one-sided situationship reach a breathtaking boiling point. Roan pines for something more official with a girl who insist on having “no connections,” pointing to front seat cunnilingus sessions and dinner dates with her maybe-belle’s parents as proof that they're much more than a casual fling. Eventually, Roan just can’t take it anymore. “I hate that I let this drag on so long,” she confesses at the top of her lungs, “you can go to hell.” It’s testament to Roan’s promise as an emergent pop force that she can establish compelling stakes which make the emotions of her ballads tangible, never skippable.

5. A&W by Lana Del Rey: I already gushed about “A&W” back in March for how it showcases Lana Del Rey’s versatility as a performer, her veracity as a lyricist, and her astuteness in curating her personal history. As the year progressed, “A&W” kept pulling me back into its tumultuous depths, trying to parse its meaning and always falling just a bit short. Over the course of the song’s two-part structure, Lana Del Rey deftly maps a trajectory from childhood innocence to reckoning with how the world will wolf women down without mercy, their physical bodies exploited as their humanity goes unseen. “It's not about havin' someone to love me anymore,” Del Rey states, “No, this is the experience of bein' an American whore.” Lana Del Rey has grappled with these themes of for her whole career, walking the line between nostalgic recollection and ironic deconstruction, but on “A&W” they sharpen into focus and hit both the heart and gut like never before. That switch up into the second half of the song still sends a chill down my spine every time it’s ushered in on the back of those skittering trap drums and roiling bass. “A&W” is everything that makes Lana Del Rey Lana Del Rey, it's alluring, eerie, it’s Venice, bitch, and it’s one of her best songs, period.

4. Boy's a Liar Pt. 2 by Pinkpantheress ft. Ice Spice: When I listen to “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2” by Pinkpantheress featuring Ice Spice, I feel the popular music landscape shifting beneath my feet. A strange thought to have about a song that’s so pointedly small in scope. Even with the Ice Spice verse extending the length of “Boy’s a Liar,” the song just barely exceeds two minutes. Given such restrictions, the amount of detail both artists manage to cram in is nothing short of impressive. Pinkpantheress jam-packs the beat with bouncy synths and a drum pad which races like a fluttering pulse. Ice Spice spends most of her verse telling off the useless titular liar, but adds in a one-two punch of vulnerability near the end with a heartened confession: “…I don't sleep enough without you / And I can't eat enough without you / If you don't speak, does that mean we're through?” “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2” is more than just a rare remix that exceeds the quality of the first installment. It’s the bona-fide hit of the TikTok generation that feels fully born of the app’s tendencies, it’s mile-a-minute pacing, nostalgic skew, casual intimacy, and brutal honesty all rolled up into an inescapable earworm. I’d take part three in a heartbeat.

3. Psychedelic Switch by Carly Rae Jepsen: Throughout her career, Canadian pop connoisseur Carly Rae Jepsen has captured love from all angles, rendered its scope of e•mo•tion in a slew of shades. “Psychedelic Switch” off her latest album The Loveliest Time shows her setting the disco ball to spin, covering the entire spectrum of light and color in one go. Over a pulsing, dance-floor ready beat, she swirls together metaphors with the precision of a gourmet mixologist, taking odds and ends of all things dreamy to capture the onset of a whirlwind romance. This love is like a psychedelic trip. It’s like lucid dreaming. It’s like meditating. It’s sunsets and paradise and coming home. It's the all-encompassing rush of euphoria that only pop music can capture. Jepsen finishes off the concoction with a dash of sighing violins, a twist of bass throbbing like a heartbeat, and a couple drops of reverb-washed ad-libs. Every one of Jepsen’s album cycles has the fan-favorite standout to add to her growing canon, and from the very first listen I knew “Psychedelic Switch” had cemented itself within her ranks of cult classics.

2. Not Strong Enough by boygenius: When Lucy Dacus, Phoebe Bridgers, and Julien Baker announced their first full-length project as the singer-songwriter supergroup boygenius, the record, (the record,) had the aura of something larger than life, a culmination of three generational talents celebrating their chemistry as collaborators. If there is any song on the album that captures this magic, it’s “Not Strong Enough,” a song which burst out of the gate sounding like an instant classic. “Not Strong Enough” chronicles the search for identity amidst uncertainty, the line “I don’t know why I am / The way I am” may just be its driving force. And boy does it drive, as the singers search for clues listening to The Cure while drag racing down canyon highways, skipping old exits, roving out in search of a meaning that may never materialize. This freedom and frustration culminate on the bridge, where Dacus’s mastery of vocal dynamics takes center stage. “Always an angel / Never a god,” she sings, starting off with a whiff of timidity before escalating to belt it up to the heavens, backed up with stunning harmonies from her peers. An angel may only ever be second-best, only ever identified through its relation to a higher power, but that just makes the journey towards self-actualization more transcendent.

1. Sepsis by Blondshell: For the longest time, I was determined to put any other song but “Sepsis” at the number one spot on this list. Initially, my pick from Blondshell’s self-titled debut was “Kiss City,” an amazing song, but sadly not the one I played over and over, screaming along because the lyrics hit too damn close to home. Much of Blondshell grapples with addiction, and on “Sepsis,” Sabrina Teitelbaum explores how the validation one gets through situational flings is one hell of a drug. Atop the ebb and flow of electric guitar, she interrogates the tendency to keep returning to a man she should be avoiding, a dick with a front-facing cap who’s bad in bed. Still, she keeps coming back, pissed therapist be damned, because “if I’m in love, nothing hurts.” Teitelbaum hones these observations through the metaphor of curing ailments and fast-acting sickness, “he’s going to start infecting my life / it’ll hit all at once like sepsis.” It’s a metaphor which exposes how self-destructive these habits are. “What if I’m down to let this kills me?” she howls at the apex of the bridge before, the sentence slurring into a frustrated scream as the entire song tumbles back into a cavalcade of fiery chords. If there’s anything “Sepsis” and my relationship to it proves, it’s that confronting these unhealthy habits is difficult, but essential. Sometimes, you’ve got to recognize that these coping mechanisms aren’t a “cure” and are only “making it worse.” It’s only then that true healing can begin.

Thank you so much to anyone who has interacted with this blog over the past year. I hope you all are having a happy holiday season!. My top 10 albums list should be out soon. See you then!

#music #songs #song recommendation #mitski #doja cat #taylor swift #paramore #troye sivan #sabrina carpenter #maisie peters #samia #caroline polachek #olivia rodrigo #yves tumor #chappell roan #lana del rey #pinkpantheress #ice spice #carly rae jepsen #boygenius #blondshell #taste in music 2023 faves #taste in music

[mikelogan]

hello. i really enjoy your content, but i have to say i'm kinda disappointed on you still being a ts fan. this woman knows what disney does and yet she still gave them the rights, meaning she either doesn't care or actively supports the genocide. or maybe she decided to turn her morals off because money is more important. not to mention how she consistently associates herself with questionable people and how a person literally died in one of her shows on brazil and she gave zero fucks. this woman is not a good person and there are no excuses to being her fan anymore.

no, i fully understand what you're saying and where you're coming from. over the last like. idk year and a half? ive been pretty vocal about my disappointment, distaste, and disagreement with a multitude of the choices she's made lately. i 100% agree that her silence on the subject of palestinian genocide (as well as many other human rights/social causes) is at best a sign of apathy and at worst a sign of support. especially when miss americana was all about her wanting to be more outspoken and be an activist. that all feels so incredibly performative now -- and has for a while. a lot of things that she's said and done since midnights, which is when i became more active in the tumblr swiftie community, have left a bad taste in my mouth for her as a person.

like i said, i genuinely agree with what you're saying. the only thing i take issue with is that she didn't care that a fan died at her show. she donated money to the fan's family and took time to meet them. regardless of my many issues with her, i do think she can be an empathetic person and i don't think that she just straight up didn't care that someone died before her show. it's one of those things (of which there are many) where we'll never know her true thoughts bc she doesn't talk about things. which is frustrating in itself.

now that's not the point of your message, so feel free to write that off as a digression. i strongly disagree with her making yet another version of the eras tour movie and hosting it on disney+. I'm personally boycotting disney+ and have been for a while. I don't even intend on watching the new version and like the vast majority of everything I gif, that shit is pirated -- that's how I watched the original release of the movie. obviously my consumption/boycotting is just one person compared to blondie, who has influence over millions, who could make real change if she spoke out against genocide.

at this point, im not supporting her financially either apart from listening to her music. which i love. im sorry, but I do. if I didn't, we wouldn't be having this conversation. i think her constant churning out different exclusive versions of the same albums are a transparent money grab and maybe an effort to set more records as far as sales or streams or however that all works. and I'm not just saying that bc I literally couldn't even afford to buy a digital copy of an album right now.

so yeah. I appreciate that you enjoy my content and thank you for saying so, but if you need to unfollow or block, i understand. I've definitely toned down/completely stopped sharing posts about her as a person bc I'd much rather focus on just the music. and maybe that makes me a bad person for continuing to listen to and enjoy her music. im not saying i necessarily feel good about it, but i think the fact of the matter is that a lot of the celebrities, actors, musicians, etc. we like or whose content we enjoy hold views we disagree with and have different values or priorities. nuance exists. right now, im someone who is vocal about the palestinian genocide and I try to share resources/posts about it when they come across my dash and im also someone who is a fan of Taylor's music.

Idk, I hope what I'm saying makes sense at least on some level. I've done my best to word things coherently, but brain fog fucks w me a lot. and like. it's probably whatever, but I do plan on changing my url after ttpd releases. That probably upsets you more and I can see how people might think im a hypocrite or something and yeah, I get it. Idk, I just want to enjoy someone's music without endorsing them as a person, but that's extra difficult when the person in question is the biggest singer in the industry. but you'll never see me making excuses for her on things like this or the m*tty situation or numerous other things she's said and done that gross me out. im not so far up her ass that I think she's perfect or that I feel the need to defend her at every turn. like I said, nuance. anyway, if you feel the need to respond, i welcome you to do so as long as we both remain respectful, which I think we've done. this is a difficult topic, but that doesn't mean we can't discuss it. I appreciate your point of view and I'm sorry that I've disappointed you!

#answered #anonymous #sorry for the novel 😬 #i put a lot of thought into this and wanted to be thorough!

[spade-riddles]

Hi Spade;

I have been reviewing the 🎃 thread along with some other ideas, and here are my thoughts

-If we believe her Midnights album was her metaphorical transitioning from the closet/the idea of two personas of her (her public performance art and actual private life), starting with Lavender Haze speaks volumes. The album was still released when she and Joe were together and she was very private. She also hasn't finished acquiring her Master's back yet, which I believe is what she wants before considering fully coming out based on the Spades timeline and Lover release. Anyway....

I don't recall any songs previously talking about daughters or sons in law. She specifically references a daughter in law in Anti-Hero. This makes me think she is referencing a future daughter in law to a son that already exists (Karlie). Karlie also showed up to her last LA show, clearly intending to be seen in the general audience...what. weeks postpartum???? To someone she hasn't talked to in ages? Also.... Taylor was NOTABLY private during this time..to hide suspicion of her new family??? The rubies that 🎃 gave up?? Being recognized as a mother, being able to be public about her child? Very speculative but fascinating. It seems as though she did something drastic to protect them. "🎃's not a hero, but..." we all know Taylor as the type of person to fiercely protect those she loves. She describes herself as self conscious and terrified of her own shadow in AH, as 🎃 does in the Selfish Asshole narrative. But not when it comes to protecting the people she cares about. Her lover was ready to make the sacrifice, but 🎃 refused to let her as she had already been through enough (toxic relationship with Kushner?)

Connect this with the imagery of a safe home, literal buns in the oven from the 🎃 post-- (all shortly posted after Karlie's second pregnancy announcement); with the story of the person who essentially quit their job too soon (Joe) and threatening to out her (also possibly Joe). I've gotten the vibe ever since the relationship ended, before even discovering all of the 🎃 today that perhaps it was toxic and made her retreat into herself because she has been glowing post ending-of-Joe. If so, then spidey senses aligned. Perhaps it was toxic for them both to be in the situation, I don't know. Joe clearly never really spoke about her or referenced her in any of his public appearances. Maybe someone caught on.

It also makes the onset of Travis make more sense, especially because it started with him seeking her out and friendship bracelets ETC (seems like a savvy PR strategy..). Matty was damage control and it showed; but her relationship with Ice Spice has flourished and that is awesome.

I also come back to 🎃's comments in #4 and #5; with Travis (also similar behavior to 1989 TV, read some awesome theories on her using this as a similar time frame to prove a point about the media being ready to do it all over again). That we should roll these new ideas around in our head (Travis, 1989TV Prologue) but hang on to what feels right while the rest of her plan plays out and she is safe. My assumption is the full acquisition of her masters; my further assumption is that Scooter (the enemy, though could also have dual representation with Josh maybe?) has been threatening her with blackmail this entire time. Additionally, these later messages are timed around Halloween, the same time of her 1989 TV release (if you count Halloweekend).

It seems the end is for 🎃 to fully embrace herself; again, perhaps at the release of her last TV album - and end the dual version of herself, although this seems confusing for her. I imagine the pain 🎃 experiences with the doorknob is the fear people calling her a hypocrite all these years; to her losing a theoretical amount fans (would be catastrophic for her as we know in Miss Americana). But it sounds like the end reasoning is visibility is resolution.

Thanks for reading.

[9w1ft]

I really don't get the Gaylor/Kaylor drama-fest over Taylor bearding with Travis. Travis is a million times better as Karlie's understudy than Joe ever was, in fact Travis is probably the closest to a perfect understudy for Karlie that Taylor is ever going to find if we're being honest.

He's tall, he's handsome as hell, he obviously loves sports, he's polite, he's kind, he's talented and he's extremely successful in his own right, all traits that are perfect for a beard that is meant to mimic Karlie and that also means that he's a perfect backdrop for Taylor to project traits of Karlie's that he may not necessarily have on to, like with all these new tabloid fluff articles coming out in the last couple days about how Travis is a chivalrous gentleman who's extremely protective of Taylor's mental and physical health and that he's not intimidated by Taylor's fame in the slightest and is actually really proud of Taylor's success and is in fact planning on coming straight from Rome Missouri to Argentina to watch Taylor perform when her tour starts back up in November.

He's seriously as close to perfect as a beard that's meant to be a stand-in for Karlie is ever going to get and shouldn't that be the *only* thing that we should care about if we're here to support Taylor and/or Karlie? I thought Gaylor/Kaylor was supposed to be about being supportive to Taylor and/or Karlie whether they ever leave the closet or not, not about acting like Gaylor/Kaylor is an ideology and that Taylor and/or Karlie are betraying us by not doing exactly as we think they should because we have specific expectations on the way we think they should live their lives?

well i think that for a lot of people, it might be a mixture of fatigue and the juxtaposition of her bringing in travis whilst releasing 1989 tv, which is an album a lot of people associate with taylor’s single era (even though the back half was populated by tayvin and hiddleswift), so there’s this idea that taylor might have been able to go back to or improve upon / do better than she did the first time around. and then it can get a little philosophical or existential.. ‘why does taylor need to be with a man’ ‘she doesn’t have to do this, it sets a poor example’ ‘why can’t she just be single’ ‘she’s letting a man overshadow her work’ or any number of gender role issues, or maybe she stands or associates with people who are known for being problematic, and you’re left wondering why.

and separate from that, or sometimes in addition to it, i think that this line of thinking can hurt or impact you even more if you perceive travis as being in the way of your personal win condition. if your win condition is taylor coming out, a new beard is in the way of that. if your win condition is kaylor publicly reconciling or kaylor coming out, a new beard might make you apprehensive the longer it drags on.

but for myself, i agree with a lot of what you are saying and i think in some sense it could be taken as a glass half empty glass half full type situation. if you let go of an expectation and just take it for what it is, there’s a lot to appreciate about it. different people have their different ways of living and this way of thinking about things doesn’t really work for certain people.. i just tend to think that kaylor (and gaylor) becomes a lot harder of a pastime to have when making a lark of misery isn’t something one is able to do. a lot of people recognize that it’s not for them and move on and that’s important, i think. and i think that the process of people coming to that realization en masse is what the drama fest you mentioned is. tide comes in, bunch of people stick it out during low tide, some decide it’s not for them, go back out with the tide at some point, etc.. some people climb up on a rock and say they don’t like the beach but don’t want to go back out with the tide, some people find a nice tide pool to hang out in, some people come in and out again and again etc etc.. i just hope that over time people are able to incorporate things into their life that help them live their own lives better, instead of the opposite.

#i got a little wistful there my apologies