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Listen to taylor swift red9/11/2023 It’s not just us, the listeners, and Swift, the artist, who have grown and changed during the nine years since “Red” first was released. I wasn’t one of those girls, so I wasn’t about to become a Swiftie. The only way to distance ourselves from an ideal we felt certain we could never fulfill was to reject the women who embodied it. (They were, after all, great pop music.) Swift had all the markers of a specific feminine ideal, one that had been relentlessly shoved down the throats of women of my generation by the music industry during the late ‘90s and early aughts. When Swift first got big, I turned my nose down at her persona even as I enjoyed her songs. Swift has aged: Her voice is deeper and richer, more emotive, less bouncy in all the best ways her barbs pierce a little deeper, emblematic of her deeper well of lived experiences. The Swift singing “I Knew You Were Trouble” and “All Too Well” in 2021 is not the same Swift from 2012, and the album is all the better for it. There is something powerful about listening to “Red (Taylor’s Version)” in all its catchy, pop-perfect glory and knowing these are Swift’s songs, owned by the artist and heard the way she wanted them to be heard. Braun, she claimed, had bullied her for years through his current and former clients: “Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.” “Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy,” Swift wrote in a Tumblr post in response to the news of Big Machine’s sale. (For any music neophytes, that means Braun gained ownership over the recordings from which all copies must be made, as well as the rights to make, distribute and sell those copies.) In the wake of the acquisition, Swift spoke out against Braun and Big Machine and claimed she had been trying to buy her masters from Big Machine for years but was never offered good terms to do so. That deal included ownership of the master recordings of Swift’s first six albums. For those who aren’t: In June 2019, talent manager and investor Scooter Braun acquired Big Machine, the independent record label with which Swift had a contract until 2018. Red (my version) is out /Ji26KdOlWQ- Taylor Swift November 12, 2021Īnyone who is loosely familiar with Swift’s career likely knows why she is in the process of re-recording her first six studio albums. Red is about to be mine again, but it has always been ours. “That was nice.It never would have been possible to go back & remake my previous work, uncovering lost art & forgotten gems along the way if you hadn’t emboldened me. It was like going through a photo album,’” she said. “He was like, ‘I just listened to the album, and that was a really bittersweet experience for me. ![]() Speaking in 2013, she said that whoever the subject of the songs gave her a welcome response to the record. Swift has never officially confirmed that Gyllenhaal was her muse during this time, but fans have long felt that “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “All Too Well” and others are about the actor. Later in the song, she also makes references to his “ cool indie music concerts” and his “ organic shoes” and “million dollar couch.” All these allusions seem to suggest that Swift and Gyllenhaal didn’t exactly see eye to eye when it comes to lifestyle-though Swift’s references to being raised on a “farm” don’t exactly capture the fact that her father was a stockbroker and her mother was a marketing executive. “ You grew up in a silver spoon gated community/ Glamorous shiny bright Beverly Hills/ I was raised on a farm, no it wasn’t a mansion/ Just living room dancing and kitchen table bills,” Swift sings, seemingly taking subtle swings at Gyllenhaal, who she dated for around three months in 2010. Re-recorded in 2021 with harmonies from Chris Stapleton, the Taylor’s Version arrangement sticks the landing effortlessly… and the lyrics tell a pretty fascinating story too, considering that it’s rumored that most of the songs written during this period are about Swift’s one-time lover, Jake Gyllenhaal. Written in the early 2010s-with one of the names on the by-line being Lori McKenna-the candid breakup tune perfectly encapsulates the country-meets-2000s-pop-meets-solid-songwriting style Swift was forging at the time.
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