BPG 2019 - THE END

Jonathan27

Jonathan27

dodoriazarbon said:
I said bitch where.

I don’t disagree with your other points really - but she truly lost me here. Lover isn’t strong, it’s full of backtracking and weak ass retreads. Everything about the era has been thin. She’s saying “remember my strengths?!” while presenting none of them on record.

Give me sonic diversion over regression any day.

Maybe the future releases will be better. I don’t think so. She can do the bare minimum and have praise heaped upon her so...
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I mean I’d point to Cruel Summer, False God, Soon You’ll Get Better, Death by a Thousand Cuts, It’s Nice to Have a Friend, Afterglow and Daylight in terms of more introspective writing that weighs her own personal involvement/flaws against the specificity she’s been known for. I would say to a lesser extent Cornelia Street and The Archer favor the same sonic templates she’s used before but are overall lyrically superior to their counterparts.

This is what confuses me about your particular qualms with the album because you were a stan pre-Red. In terms of sonic variation I absolutely agree that she needs to switch it up, but the sonic landscape was only ever the draw for me on 1989/Reputation: I don’t think it’s coincidental that she stopped taking any creative risks when she went full pop and decided to hone in on what she can do successfully. Now that Taylor as a Popstar has seemed to run its course we’re getting songs like False God which hopefully point toward more experimentation moving forward. I’ve never thought Lover was a perfect album, it’s my lowest average here. I just perceive the course correction as largely positive because I want her to continue improving and there’s more here that endears me to Taylor than anything on Reputation. I get that the cynicism towards the album from a lot of people stems from not being particularly invested in Taylor the artist and more so Taylor the popstar, but that’s why I find your dismissal of it at large to be perplexing.
 
dodoriazarbon

dodoriazarbon

Jonathan27 said:
I mean I’d point to Cruel Summer, False God, Soon You’ll Get Better, Death by a Thousand Cuts, It’s Nice to Have a Friend, Afterglow and Daylight in terms of more introspective writing that weighs her own personal involvement/flaws against the specificity she’s been known for. I would say to a lesser extent Cornelia Street and The Archer favor the same sonic templates she’s used before but are overall lyrically superior to their counterparts.

This is what confuses me about your particular qualms with the album because you were a stan pre-Red. In terms of sonic variation I absolutely agree that she needs to switch it up, but the sonic landscape was only ever the draw for me on 1989/Reputation: I don’t think it’s coincidental that she stopped taking any creative risks when she went full pop and decided to hone in on what she can do successfully. Now that Taylor as a Popstar has seemed to run its course we’re getting songs like False God which hopefully point toward more experimentation moving forward. I’ve never thought Lover was a perfect album, it’s my lowest average here. I just perceive the course correction as largely positive because I want her to continue improving and there’s more here that endears me to Taylor than anything on Reputation. I get that the cynicism towards the album from a lot of people stems from not being particularly invested in Taylor the artist and more so Taylor the popstar, but that’s why I find your dismissal of it at large to be perplexing.
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I really appreciate your posts on this - it’s so funny because your last point...I’m the exact opposite! I’ve stanned from very near the beginning and a return to a more singer-songwriter sonic palette was never the issue for me with Lover of course. But (again, opposite feeling to you!) NOTHING here touches the songwriting on 1989, nor the introspective moments of Rep. There’s something neat about her maybe reflecting on herself a bit but it’s like pulling teeth to get her to that point - as the great write ups here point out, Archer et al are major offenders; what should sound effortless just reads like a laundry list. I roll my eyes, where not too long ago her thoughtful writing was breathtaking. New Years Day. Delicate. Even your So It Goes, Dancing With Our Hands Tied etc made me feel something and felt like they spilled from the same pen as before.

I’m firmly camp “False God sounds like progression” and the rest is just a sad echo of what she used to be capable of, with some of it being boppable (a bit?).

Interesting to have such opposite takes.
 
RJF

RJF

39

04-all-the-good-girls.jpg


Billie Eilish - all the good girls go to hell

SCORE: 7.168

11 x 1 (@eccentricsimply)

HIGHEST SCORE: 10 x 1 (@soratami)
LOWEST SCORE: 3 x 1 (@theelusivechanteuse)
MY SCORE: 7/10

Billie falls from heaven to bring an end to the Lover massacre. I like this one! The album is well-paced in the sense that it sometimes needs a bit of levity to break up the ballads and the doom bangers and this more than goes that job. The vocal is so sardonic, the lyrics are whip-crack-smart, and generally it's a deeply needed part of the album. Maybe a little underwhelming on its own, but still, a score above 7/10 is nothing to sneeze at. Apparently it's about climate change? I just thought it was about how dumb Christianity is, but a quick Google tells me that it's both! Billificent herself had this to say about the song:

"This song is from the perspective of the devil. Basically, no matter how good you are, amazing you are, incredible you are, desperate measures will turn you bad eventually, at one point in your life."

UPLIFTING.

The song was actually the choice for Billie's first ever awards show performance at the AMAs near the end of the last year. It also received a particularly cheery video where Billie is an angel who plummets to Earth, breaking every fragile bone in her wings in the process when she lands in a puddle of... oil, which soon becomes a lake of fire. It's generally quite apocalyptic. An allegory for Lucifer's fall to Hell perhaps? Who knows? Who cares? It's out and we're done with it now.






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Jonathan27

Jonathan27

dodoriazarbon said:
I really appreciate your posts on this - it’s so funny because your last point...I’m the exact opposite! I’ve stanned from very near the beginning and a return to a more singer-songwriter sonic palette was never the issue for me with Lover of course. But (again, opposite feeling to you!) NOTHING here touches the songwriting on 1989, nor the introspective moments of Rep. There’s something neat about her maybe reflecting on herself a bit but it’s like pulling teeth to get her to that point - as the great write ups here point out, Archer et al are major offenders; what should sound effortless just reads like a laundry list. I roll my eyes, where not too long ago her thoughtful writing was breathtaking. New Years Day. Delicate. Even your So It Goes, Dancing With Our Hands Tied etc made me feel something and felt like they spilled from the same pen as before.

I’m firmly camp “False God sounds like progression” and the rest is just a sad echo of what she used to be capable of, with some of it being boppable (a bit?).

Interesting to have such opposite takes.
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I think with Reputation for me those moments work but feel...cheapened by the surrounding songs, I guess? Like it’s fully the context of their parents albums that I find New Year’s Day completely hollow whereas Lover’s title track actually moves me: I can’t divorce my feelings about her during the Reputation era from even its likely genuine moments. 1989 for me was Taylor trying her hand at pop songwriting to great effect, but I’ve also realized it’s not something I needed her to expand upon, as any efforts to replicate that have been the aspects with the most diminishing returns in the two follow up albums. While I do get a few lyrical clunkers like on The Archer I also think that song houses some of her stronger lyrics too, resulting in inconsistencies at worst rather than a complete misfire (cue the first two singles for that one).

I guess I also chalk up my fondness for Lover to generally being a seemingly similar head space to Taylor on the album: the sad gay in me is finally rotted out for the most part and I find a lot of peace and catharsis in this album’s more lived in, introspective moments. So much of our consumption of music is down to perception and connection, and I’ve just been able to hold onto a lot more of Lover because it has a place in my life, whereas Reputation never did.
 
BTG

BTG

If Taylor could lean into the sound of It’s Nice to Have a Ten and run with it on the next album, I think it would stand her in good stead for her artistic growth.
 
RJF

RJF

...y'all bumpkins didn't think we were done, did you?

38

11-Death-By.jpg


SCORE: 7.212

11 x 1 (@aux)

HIGHEST SCORE: 10 x 12 (@CorgiCorgiCorgi @Music Is Life @ohnostalgia @GimmeWork @soratami @Petty Mayonnaise @pop3blow2 @myblood @Weslicious @Subwaykid @Diet Pop! @TéléDex)
LOWEST SCORE: 2 x 2 (@Solenciennes @Guy)
MY SCORE: 8/10

Ooft! Probably my highest scored loss so far. Maybe done a biT wrong by some of y'all to be honest. It's wonderfully weird from a structure perspective, just a little bit surreal in its imagery, and the line about asking traffic lights for advice is actually a perfect little slice of real life foolishness. Who hasn't been going about their regular day while their life is in flux, only to find themselves staring at some inanimate object, suddenly going over everything? That anxiety-inducing piano, the way it hysterically ratchets up and up and up only to collapse back down all over again, the way it actually manages to cover a decent range of emotions without falling back onto old motifs. It's a good, solid pop song. I'm not sure what it's doing with aggressively low scores.

Death by a thousand cuts is also the sentence I'll be carrying out to 90% of participants in the Lady Gaga Rate this week.

:)

Hennyway, this has actually been performed live a few times already.......... acoustically, because it seems Taylor is incapable of having more than one instrument on stage for any performance this era. She did it at that weird ass Paris show and her Tiny Desk session. Is everything from this album going to get performed sitting down? What did y'all LoverFesters buy tickets for exactly?







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Music Is Life & Death

Music Is Life & Death

He/Him
I gave all the good girls go to hell a 9. It's a great song and quite the bop, and perfect at breaking up the darker moments of the album. It just feels like a lot of fun and the lyrics are so good, I can't fathom how she was only like 16 or 17 when she wrote it. It's just taken a back seat to my other faves on the album. Taste though @eccentricsimply .

DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS TOO?! I don't fucking understand you people. Its literally one of the best songs on the album.
 
RJF

RJF

Okay fine I'll eliminate another right now just because I love mess. The bumpkins mighT be grabbing their torches and pitchforks tonight...

36

03-Lover.jpg


(Jesus this cover is even uglier now than when I made it.)

SCORE: 7.3

HIGHEST SCORE: 10 x 11 (@Dangerous Maknae @aux @sexercise @soratami @Conan @Bolton @Remorque @Subwaykid @reputation. @Rem @Diet Pop!)
LOWEST SCORE: 2 x 1 (@Lost Boy)
MY SCORE: 7.5/10

Hey, don't look at me, I actually ended up giving this a pretty decent score in the end. What can I say? It kind of wore me down. I like the warmth in her lower register in the verses, and the way she replicates human joy in the chorus is actually quite remarkable! Technology has come such a long way these past few years. I also eased off on it a little bit when Taylor pointed out rather obviously that the verses are meant to celebrate the mundane shit that everyone does rather than sound unique, which honestly never occurred to my own cyborg brain. Maybe technology hasn't come such a long way after all. I don't know why it took me so long to catch up considering it's the most obvious attempt at a wedding song since "Thinking Out Loud", but oh well. Another on the Lover scrapheap!

This has been Taylor's current single since August, so naturally she has performed it everywhere and will soon be heading to the moon to perform there too. It also got a Christmas-themed video set in a snowglobe at the end of the summer, because that makes complete sense.









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