BIG POP GIRLS 2024

bad karma

bad karma

he/him
Gracie would have cracked the top 100 with Close To You.

giphy.gif
 
Solenciennes

Solenciennes

Staff member
I think the thing with Gracie Abrams is that "Ab Aeterno" is the ninth television episode of the American Broadcasting Company's sixth season of the serial drama television series Lost and 112th episode overall. The episode aired on March 23, 2010.

In an extended flashback, after the death of his wife, Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell) arrives on the island as a slave on the Black Rock in the 19th century. He then encounters the Man in Black (Titus Welliver) and Jacob (Mark Pellegrino), both of whom offer him different deals in exchange for his allegiance.

The title is Latin for "from eternity", a phrase used to mean "since the beginning" or "for long ages" (very loosely translated as "your life now will be either heaven or hell throughout eternity"); this references the agelessness granted to Richard by Jacob as a reward for his service. "Ab Aeterno" was watched by 9 million American viewers and received critical acclaim by critics and audiences alike.

Prior to her arrival on the island in 2007, Ilana (Zuleikha Robinson) is visited by Jacob in a Russian hospital, where he tells her to protect his remaining candidates (continuing from her flashback in "The Incident"). Following the events of "Dr. Linus", Ilana explains to the survivors that Jack Shephard(Matthew Fox), Sun Kwon (Yunjin Kim) and Hugo "Hurley" Reyes (Jorge Garcia) are candidates to replace Jaco-


anyway
 
Alchemy Jones v2.0

Alchemy Jones v2.0

BTG said:
After listening through Tortured Poets in its entirety for the first time in a while, I’d say there’s a solid album there that would make the top half of Taylor’s discography even if it lacks less moments of genuine greatness but it really is surrounded by bloat.
Click to expand...

The most egregious thing about the excessiveness of The Masochistic Fan Insistence is its shameless amplifying of a criticism that plagues just about the entirety of Taylor's discography. Barring 1989--which at its worst is ambiguously agreeable but relatively concise--and the 2020 albums--which prove that more is more only if the songwriting is there--all of her albums are rife with filler. ("No they aren't!" holler a group of Swifties at a single whiff of something remotely critical. "Imagine calling this filler!" they cry, embedding a link to Stay Stay Stay, some track from the back half of Reputation, or literally anything from Lover, thinking they're doing anything but proving my point.)

Part of why the 2020 albums are so successful is due to their showcasing of growth, not just sonically, but in their ability to transcend a criticism easily lobbed at her body of work prior. (That criticism being that the songwriting is indulgently self-centered and require an obsessive amount of external context to grasp. I'm sure that some of you will disagree or even enjoy it because of this and that's fine, to each their own, but it's an honest and fair criticism all the same.) But she sheds a longstanding criticism effortlessly on that pair of albums and shuts it right up with her mostly successful explorations into fiction. Whether I like her or not, it's thrilling to see an artist showcase that sort growth a decade and a half into their career. A similar comparison might be Madonna spending a decade exhausting a general public with ceaseless sexual provocations only to Kabballah-quote her way back into their good graces with Ray of Light with such ease as to say, "Of course I could have been doing this the whole time."

So to the original point, even beyond the self-indulgent writing (or perhaps just another exhibit of it), the most frustrating thing about her discography is the sheer volume of tracks that just don't need to be there. It's a completely self-inflicted pitfall that's easily remedied by just taking a step back and having the wherewithal to say "No, these ones aren't up to snuff." Is Red the best Taylor Swift album? Yes, even I know this. But it's a bit of a chore to listen to when its high highs are brought crashing down into the valleys of... The Lucky One? A duet with a Muppet? (Some of you will chime in to throw The Last Time into this pile and I'm here to tell you to get over your disdain for male voices already. The Last Time is a girl who briefly contemplated getting a Set Yourself On Fire tattoo. The Last Time is a girl who, ironically, has a solid collection of indie rock records. The Last Time remains one of Taylor Swift's very best songs, and it's time for you to accept that.) And even then, a bit of mess is easier to forgive earlier in a career on a youthful album supposedly lost in the throes of passion. But it's an issue that comes up again and again and again after that, from the misguided Reputation tracks to the objectively lousy duds on Lover to the autopiloted by-the-numbers middling moments scattered throughout Midnights's twenty-two original songs.

These albums can--nay, should--be whittled down, and given the consistently weak and seemingly not-quite-from-the-era quality of the recently unearthed vault tracks, it's not a wild conclusion to assume that most of the material from the recording sessions finds its way to the final album. It's okay to abandon things on a cutting room floor! But it's an error that continues to outdo itself, with The Tiresome Placating Defenders being the most steadfastly committed to the insistence of self-appointed ingenue. At its best, it feels like a sloppy missed step; a first draft neglecting that editing is equally important as writing. And at its worst, and the more likely scenario, it's a cynical ploy to exploit our lame dystopian streaming industry for maximum revenue, quality control be damned! In either case, it's demonstrative of the opposite of growth, a petulant insistence on repeating the same fault some 8 albums over, this time in an aggressive double (album) down. It muddies the water, it creates an image of an artist who can't recognize the difference between good ideas and bad, and, as we've seen in an extended discussion, it ultimately makes for an unpleasant listening experience with the worst kind of mistake: A completely avoidable one. Yes, I know you can whittle things down into a playlist that befits your needs. (And yes, I've made my own 16-track version of it to indulge my curiosities. No, I'm not sharing it, because nobody cares about yours either. And yes, it does start with How Did It End? because that's poetry.) To that end, I could solve my problems entirely by not listening to Taylor Swift at all. But that's missing the point. We're here to discuss the album an artist created with the vision they saw fit, and this is what it is. It's a disservice to discourse to wave it away with "Just ignore what you don't like :3".

And if 2 hours of interchangeable shades of beige is your thing, great! We're on the brink of some global collapse; Hail to Whatever You Found in the Absolute Misery That Surrounds You [sic]. I won't pretend to be above it. I shamelessly love everything Carly Rae Jepsen's ever done and I imagine you could reword most of this to be directed towards her. (Though why anyone would want to speak ill of such a little sweetie pie is beyond me. I imagine it would take an especially miserable, likely Scottish, sort of hag to harbor that sort of malintent.) But it's not unfair to desire tangible growth from an objectively talented artist at this stage in their career, to see them push themselves into something they've yet to do. We don't need another feature length exploration of middling taste levels. I want to see a concise, focused, all-killer-no-filler 9 track Taylor Swift album that says "Shut up, you long-winded fag."
 
Last edited:
Smooth Criminal

Smooth Criminal

Alchemy Jones v2.0 said:
The most egregious thing about the excessiveness of The Masochistic Fan Insistence is its shameless amplifying of a criticism that plagues just about the entirety of Taylor's discography. Barring 1989--which at its worst is ambiguously agreeable but relatively concise--and the 2020 albums--which prove that more is more only if the songwriting is there--all of her albums are rife with filler. ("No they aren't!" holler a group of Swifties at a single whiff of something remotely critical. "Imagine calling this filler!" they cry, embedding a link to Stay Stay Stay, some track from the back half of Reputation, or literally anything from Lover, thinking they're doing anything but proving my point.)

Part of why the 2020 albums are so successful is due to their showcasing of growth, not just sonically, but in their ability to transcend a criticism easily lobbed at her body of work prior. (That criticism being that the songwriting is indulgently self-centered and require an obsessive amount of external context to grasp. I'm sure that some of you will disagree or even enjoy it because of this and that's fine, to each their own, but it's an honest and fair criticism all the same.) But she sheds a longstanding criticism effortlessly on that pair of albums and shuts it right up with her mostly successful explorations into fiction and, whether I like her or not, it's thrilling to see an artist showcase that sort growth a decade and a half into their career. A similar comparison might Madonna spending a decade exhausting a general public with ceaseless sexual provocations only to Kabballah-quote her way back into their good graces with Ray of Light with such ease as to say, "Of course I could have been doing this the whole time."

So to the original point, even beyond the self-indulgent writing (or perhaps just another exhibit of it), the most frustrating thing about her discography is the sheer volume of tracks that just don't need to be there. It's a completely self-inflicted pitfall that's easily remedied by just taking a step back and having the wherewithal to say "No, these ones just aren't up to snuff." Is Red the best Taylor Swift album? Yes, even I know this. But it's a bit of a chore to listen to when its high highs are brought crashing down into the valleys of... The Lucky One? A duet with a Muppet? (Some of you will chime in to throw The Last Time into this pile and I'm here to tell you to get over your disdain for male voices already. The Last Time is a girl who briefly contemplated getting a Set Yourself On Fire tattoo. The Last Time is a girl who, ironically, has a solid collection of indie rock records. The Last Time remains one of Taylor Swift's very best songs, and it's time for you to accept that.) And even then, a bit of mess is easier to forgive earlier in a career on a youthful album supposedly lost in the throes of passion. But it's an issue that comes up again and again and again after that, from the misguided Reputation tracks to the objectively lousy duds on Lover to the autopiloted by-the-numbers middling moments scattered throughout Midnights's twenty-two original songs.

These albums can--nay, should--be whittled down, and given the consistently weak and seemingly not-quite-from-the-era quality of the recently unearthed vault tracks, it's not a wild conclusion to assume that most of the material from the recording sessions finds its way to the final album. It's okay to abandon things on a cutting room floor! But it's an error that continues to outdo itself, with The Tiresome Placating Defenders being the most steadfastly committed to the insistence of self-appointed ingenue. At its best, it feels like a sloppy missed step; a first draft neglecting that editing is equally important as writing. And at its worst, and the more likely scenario, it's a cynical ploy to exploit our lame dystopian streaming industry for maximum revenue, quality control be damned! In either case, it's demonstrative of the opposite of growth, a petulant insistence on repeating the same fault some 8 albums over, this time in an aggressive double (album) down. It muddies the water, it creates an image of an artist who can't recognize the difference between good ideas and bad, and, as we've seen in an extended discussion, it ultimately makes for an unpleasant listening experience with the worst kind of mistake: A completely avoidable one. Yes, I know you can whittle things down into a playlist that befits your needs. (And yes, I've made my own 16-track version of it to indulge my curiosities. No, I'm not sharing it, because nobody cares about yours either. And yes, it does start with How Did It End? because that's poetry.) To that end, I could solve my problems entirely by not listening to Taylor Swift at all. But that's missing the point. We're here to discuss the album an artist created with the vision they saw fit, and this is what it is. It's a disservice to discourse to wave it away with "Just ignore what you don't like :3".

And if 2 hours of interchangeable shades of beige is your thing, great! We're on the brink of some global collapse; Hail to Whatever You Found in the Absolute Misery That Surrounds You [sic]. I won't pretend to be above it. I shamelessly love everything Carly Rae Jepsen's ever done and I imagine you could reword most of this to be directed towards her. (Though why anyone would want to speak ill of such a little sweetie pie is beyond me. I imagine it would take an especially miserable, likely Scottish, sort of hag to harbor that sort of malintent.) But it's not unfair to desire tangible growth from an objectively talented artist at this stage in their career, to push themselves into something they've yet to do. We don't need another feature length exploration of middling taste levels. I want to see a concise, focused, all-killer-no-filler 9 track Taylor Swift album that says "Shut up, you long-winded fag."
Click to expand...

Not this post being longer than the album itself.
 
Mirwais Ahmadzaï

Mirwais Ahmadzaï

He/Him/His
Alchemy Jones v2.0 said:
The most egregious thing about the excessiveness of The Masochistic Fan Insistence is its shameless amplifying of a criticism that plagues just about the entirety of Taylor's discography. Barring 1989--which at its worst is ambiguously agreeable but relatively concise--and the 2020 albums--which prove that more is more only if the songwriting is there--all of her albums are rife with filler. ("No they aren't!" holler a group of Swifties at a single whiff of something remotely critical. "Imagine calling this filler!" they cry, embedding a link to Stay Stay Stay, some track from the back half of Reputation, or literally anything from Lover, thinking they're doing anything but proving my point.)

Part of why the 2020 albums are so successful is due to their showcasing of growth, not just sonically, but in their ability to transcend a criticism easily lobbed at her body of work prior. (That criticism being that the songwriting is indulgently self-centered and require an obsessive amount of external context to grasp. I'm sure that some of you will disagree or even enjoy it because of this and that's fine, to each their own, but it's an honest and fair criticism all the same.) But she sheds a longstanding criticism effortlessly on that pair of albums and shuts it right up with her mostly successful explorations into fiction. Whether I like her or not, it's thrilling to see an artist showcase that sort growth a decade and a half into their career. A similar comparison might Madonna spending a decade exhausting a general public with ceaseless sexual provocations only to Kabballah-quote her way back into their good graces with Ray of Light with such ease as to say, "Of course I could have been doing this the whole time."

So to the original point, even beyond the self-indulgent writing (or perhaps just another exhibit of it), the most frustrating thing about her discography is the sheer volume of tracks that just don't need to be there. It's a completely self-inflicted pitfall that's easily remedied by just taking a step back and having the wherewithal to say "No, these ones aren't up to snuff." Is Red the best Taylor Swift album? Yes, even I know this. But it's a bit of a chore to listen to when its high highs are brought crashing down into the valleys of... The Lucky One? A duet with a Muppet? (Some of you will chime in to throw The Last Time into this pile and I'm here to tell you to get over your disdain for male voices already. The Last Time is a girl who briefly contemplated getting a Set Yourself On Fire tattoo. The Last Time is a girl who, ironically, has a solid collection of indie rock records. The Last Time remains one of Taylor Swift's very best songs, and it's time for you to accept that.) And even then, a bit of mess is easier to forgive earlier in a career on a youthful album supposedly lost in the throes of passion. But it's an issue that comes up again and again and again after that, from the misguided Reputation tracks to the objectively lousy duds on Lover to the autopiloted by-the-numbers middling moments scattered throughout Midnights's twenty-two original songs.

These albums can--nay, should--be whittled down, and given the consistently weak and seemingly not-quite-from-the-era quality of the recently unearthed vault tracks, it's not a wild conclusion to assume that most of the material from the recording sessions finds its way to the final album. It's okay to abandon things on a cutting room floor! But it's an error that continues to outdo itself, with The Tiresome Placating Defenders being the most steadfastly committed to the insistence of self-appointed ingenue. At its best, it feels like a sloppy missed step; a first draft neglecting that editing is equally important as writing. And at its worst, and the more likely scenario, it's a cynical ploy to exploit our lame dystopian streaming industry for maximum revenue, quality control be damned! In either case, it's demonstrative of the opposite of growth, a petulant insistence on repeating the same fault some 8 albums over, this time in an aggressive double (album) down. It muddies the water, it creates an image of an artist who can't recognize the difference between good ideas and bad, and, as we've seen in an extended discussion, it ultimately makes for an unpleasant listening experience with the worst kind of mistake: A completely avoidable one. Yes, I know you can whittle things down into a playlist that befits your needs. (And yes, I've made my own 16-track version of it to indulge my curiosities. No, I'm not sharing it, because nobody cares about yours either. And yes, it does start with How Did It End? because that's poetry.) To that end, I could solve my problems entirely by not listening to Taylor Swift at all. But that's missing the point. We're here to discuss the album an artist created with the vision they saw fit, and this is what it is. It's a disservice to discourse to wave it away with "Just ignore what you don't like :3".

And if 2 hours of interchangeable shades of beige is your thing, great! We're on the brink of some global collapse; Hail to Whatever You Found in the Absolute Misery That Surrounds You [sic].
Click to expand...
A Rilo Kiley reference? King.

 
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