BPG 2019 - THE END
- Thread starter RJF
- Start date
Japanese BBQ or Paper Rings to go next, thanks.
Paper Rings is one of the best Avril Lavigne tracks of the past decade. Am afraid she really got me with that one. I liked it instantly. A 9 it is!
He/Him
@DJHazey I'm counting on you to take this one in A. Ramona Lavigne's name. /kthxbai
This is the biggest Avril drag I've seen on PJ. How dare you.
Doesn't make it untrue though ddd
Head Above Water (album) is trash and I know that albums #4 and #5 are not on the same level of her first three but... no mama no
I also gave Paper Rings a decent score because I appreciate any time Taylor fully leans into her obsessive tendencies.
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I feel like I am in alternate universe when it comes to You Need To Calm Down. When hearing it in gay clubs the song goes off! Gay pandering perhaps. But a moment nonetheless. It is so weird that the PJ gays are so against it and the real life are not. Then again I know not to trust the real life gays too much. They completely embraced both Calum Scott and Lewis Capaldi.
We've seen your ME! and Senorita scores ddd. Sorry, couldn't help it.
Lover doesn’t exist grow upppppppp
You Need To Calm Down is just vile in its pandering bullshit that completely brushes over sapphic love entirely hmmmmt
It's like a visual summarization of some timeline from a bot on twitter that was forced to watch Drag Race post season 6 for a month straight.
It's like a visual summarization of some timeline from a bot on twitter that was forced to watch Drag Race post season 6 for a month straight.
He/Him/His
There are definitely many worse songs on Lover than Paper Rings.
he/him
Born To Die was really Lana's best era songwriting-wise
63
SCORE: 4.009
HIGHEST SCORE: 11 x 1 (@Bolton), 10 x 1 (@Conan)
LOWEST SCORE: 0 x 19 (@Sanctuary, @eccentricsimply, @2014, @Music Is Life, @ohnostalgia, @Jwentz, @Petty Mayonnaise, @Verandi, @Mushroom, @Mirwais Ahmadzaï, @inevitable, @Bangers&Bops, @Solenciennes, @Phonetics Boy, @BTG, @Diet Pop!, @Guy, @Beautiful Child 2, @japanbonustrack)
It's an age-old adage that the best way to make an angry person completely lose their shit is to tell them to calm down, so of COURSE Taylor Swift thinks it's a reasonable response to homophobia or what have you. I'd say I'm surprised, but I know who she is. I've seen it up close and personal. (Okay, I haven't, unless you count the foggy lens through which Taylor allows us to "intimately" view her life).
I do think Taylor's intentions were good, if slightly cynical, with this song, but the issue - as is often the case with her - is in the framing and packaging. Homosexuality is presented as frilly Lisa Frank vomit, almost exclusively white, and all about having a kii, and if those toothless in-bred hillbillies would just butt out, the gerls put on their body glitter and get their hair done in peace! It's the exact same type of allyship that white girls think they're displaying when they say they hope their son is gay; an implicit association of homosexuality with a specific kind of femininity, and the wish to put your kid through years of complicated self-reflection so that you can have someone to go shopping with.
And of course, I'll admit this is looking deeply into a three-minute big-budget pop video that is just meant to be fun, but Taylor hammered this message and clearly wanted us to talk about it, so talk about it we will. It's great to be an ally, and it's great to give money to causes that need it, and it's great to actually take it to Capitol Hill and use your terrifying cultural influence to try and affect change. No issues there! It's just that doing all of that with this song feels simultaneously counter-productive and toothless. Cast the net wider. It's a rainbow for a reason. Not to mention, Taylor seems to lump in her own personal experiences, creating what is frankly a breathtaking equivalency: that gays being systemically oppressed for loving who they love is the same as Taylor Swift - who by some accounts is worth half a billion dollars - having to read mean things about herself on Twitter.
I'm probably saying this all horribly clumsily, but I hope you all know what I mean. So let's talk about the song, because if you remove the video and performances from the song and just take it at face value, it is........at best okay. The production somewhat slaps, I'll give it that. And the pre-chorus hook? An earworm! Yas! But those lyrics. Girl, the lyrics! The first time I heard it I thought she was saying "shame never made anybody less gay," which is like a thousand times more effective than what she actually says. Shade? Being homophobic is not throwing shade, Taylor. Christ.
As a package, it just needed more work, and fewer yes-men. Taylor needs collaborators who challenge her, and I feel like she seeks out exactly the opposite - or maybe this particular collaboration just didn't click, which happens, because to see Joel Little go from Green Light and Supercut to this and fucking ME!... I'm depressed! But like I said, production isn't bad. So there's that.
Also, there's Bolton! "I’m gonna get dragged so much for this but I don’t care. This song just made me so happy last year for a while and encapsulated summer for me. Yes it’s basic but is it a bop? Absolutely. Sometimes its nice to have a bright happy pop song to lift our spirits right guys? No yeah you all disagree and think I’m basic. Ok cool."
SCORE: 4.009
HIGHEST SCORE: 11 x 1 (@Bolton), 10 x 1 (@Conan)
LOWEST SCORE: 0 x 19 (@Sanctuary, @eccentricsimply, @2014, @Music Is Life, @ohnostalgia, @Jwentz, @Petty Mayonnaise, @Verandi, @Mushroom, @Mirwais Ahmadzaï, @inevitable, @Bangers&Bops, @Solenciennes, @Phonetics Boy, @BTG, @Diet Pop!, @Guy, @Beautiful Child 2, @japanbonustrack)
It's an age-old adage that the best way to make an angry person completely lose their shit is to tell them to calm down, so of COURSE Taylor Swift thinks it's a reasonable response to homophobia or what have you. I'd say I'm surprised, but I know who she is. I've seen it up close and personal. (Okay, I haven't, unless you count the foggy lens through which Taylor allows us to "intimately" view her life).
I do think Taylor's intentions were good, if slightly cynical, with this song, but the issue - as is often the case with her - is in the framing and packaging. Homosexuality is presented as frilly Lisa Frank vomit, almost exclusively white, and all about having a kii, and if those toothless in-bred hillbillies would just butt out, the gerls put on their body glitter and get their hair done in peace! It's the exact same type of allyship that white girls think they're displaying when they say they hope their son is gay; an implicit association of homosexuality with a specific kind of femininity, and the wish to put your kid through years of complicated self-reflection so that you can have someone to go shopping with.
And of course, I'll admit this is looking deeply into a three-minute big-budget pop video that is just meant to be fun, but Taylor hammered this message and clearly wanted us to talk about it, so talk about it we will. It's great to be an ally, and it's great to give money to causes that need it, and it's great to actually take it to Capitol Hill and use your terrifying cultural influence to try and affect change. No issues there! It's just that doing all of that with this song feels simultaneously counter-productive and toothless. Cast the net wider. It's a rainbow for a reason. Not to mention, Taylor seems to lump in her own personal experiences, creating what is frankly a breathtaking equivalency: that gays being systemically oppressed for loving who they love is the same as Taylor Swift - who by some accounts is worth half a billion dollars - having to read mean things about herself on Twitter.
I'm probably saying this all horribly clumsily, but I hope you all know what I mean. So let's talk about the song, because if you remove the video and performances from the song and just take it at face value, it is........at best okay. The production somewhat slaps, I'll give it that. And the pre-chorus hook? An earworm! Yas! But those lyrics. Girl, the lyrics! The first time I heard it I thought she was saying "shame never made anybody less gay," which is like a thousand times more effective than what she actually says. Shade? Being homophobic is not throwing shade, Taylor. Christ.
As a package, it just needed more work, and fewer yes-men. Taylor needs collaborators who challenge her, and I feel like she seeks out exactly the opposite - or maybe this particular collaboration just didn't click, which happens, because to see Joel Little go from Green Light and Supercut to this and fucking ME!... I'm depressed! But like I said, production isn't bad. So there's that.
Also, there's Bolton! "I’m gonna get dragged so much for this but I don’t care. This song just made me so happy last year for a while and encapsulated summer for me. Yes it’s basic but is it a bop? Absolutely. Sometimes its nice to have a bright happy pop song to lift our spirits right guys? No yeah you all disagree and think I’m basic. Ok cool."
