#I haven’t processed folklore Taylor

[bettyshoweduptotheparty]

Midnights vs Daylight

Thoughts on TS Midnights title and promotion (This will tie into my ‘Thoughts on the Eras tour’ theories)

I think we can all agree that folklore and evermore were pandemic products. If there had been no pandemic, it stands to reason that Lover would have led directly into Midnights (especially with the way the re-recording process has inspired this album). And that’s interesting because Lover was originally meant to be titled Daylight.

So instead of getting an album called Daylight, we now have an album called Midnights, the polar opposite. Could that be because daylight never came after all and she’s stuck in an eternal night?  

Midnights announcement and visuals

In the midnights announcement on socials, we got two images: the cover of Taylor holding the lighter, and the image under the announcement text from the promo photo shoot. Immediately, these two do not look like they are front and back of the same album. The cover image on white background has a modern classy but glamourous tone to it, and the announcement photo has a depressed 70s vibe. So the duality here is not hidden, and that confused me at first, but I do think this is deliberate and once we got the Anti Hero mv, it became clear why:

Midnights is about hiding your true self in favour of protecting a beloved public image and Taylor has perfected this to such a degree that her public and private personas have become two separate entities battling each other until they finally learn to co-exist, as we see in the two Taylors in the mv. One is the quiet contemplative one, the other is the loud party girl. One writes the songs, the other is the performer. One is the trusting people pleaser, the other knows that everyone will betray her. These two Taylors and their differences are the overarching theme of the video, and that theme carries over into the dichotomy of the midnights album style: Private vs public

Front: She’s wearing her glittery stage make up here so while we can’t see her outfit, I do think this is meant to be the performer Taylor. She’s holding the lighter open and looking at the flame, which to me feels a bit threatening, like she’s poured the fuel and is about to drop a match into it. And what did performance Taylor do this year on tour? Ah yes…burn the Lover house. (More on that HERE if you haven’t read my lover house theory). We should have seen it coming 😊

Back: The second image has even more to unpack, both in the photo and the text. I wasn’t a gaylor on the internet back in 2022 so forgive me if I’m repeating what other people have already pointed out. Taylor is inside with the curtains drawn, blocking out the outside world, looking hopeless with her head in her hand and phone in the other. The old phone could be a reference to the one she uses in the Anti Hero mv to call for help, so maybe she’s trying to call for help here and no one is answering. Or it could be a nod to the red phone from MMWM which many have pointed out could be a reference to the ‘red telephone’ Moscow-Washington hotline during Soviet times, which was used to deliver encoded messages. I like this interpretation, because the way she’s holding the receiver looking so devastated really gives me the vibe of someone who’s been on the phone with a person for ages who is just not getting the message. Almost like someone whose constant flags and encoded messages are falling on deaf ears (to a large majority)… I’ve also noticed that there is a framed photo of two people on the table in this house where she supposedly paces the floors alone at night, but can’t really make out enough to say anything more than that.

Now for the text: I’m by no means the first person to point out that the ‘lanterns lit… out searching’ is from one of Emily Dickinson’s letters to her lover Sue which seems a fitting comparison for Taylor, the writer of many lyrical love letters to her muse and lover. But what really gets me is the sentence

‘Just maybe, when the clock strikes twelve … we’ll meet ourselves.’ Why the ellipse? The sentence would have made perfect sense without this, so why add that deliberate suspense?  What happens when the clock strikes 12? In the following months we also got the ‘it’s a clock’ video announcing that the four midnights vinyl covers together make a clock, and then the Eras tour literally starts with a countdown to midnight. Clocks ticking down to 12 are also in both the Bejewelled and Karma mv, so safe to say this means something. The obvious one is the Cinderella connection, which was probably an Easter egg for the Bejewelled mv, but if that’s all it was then it could have stopped after the video was out. Notably also, Cinderella’s party ends at midnight, whereas Taylor’s starts both in the mv and on tour. Midnight is the first minute of a new day, so this seems a lot more about new beginnings for me, than eternal darkness. I’ve pointed out in a previous post that Taylor references the song ‘Naughty’ from Matilda the musical in her Eras tour performance of Anti Hero. That song not only references Cinderella heavily, it also includes the lyrics ‘Every day starts with a tick of a clock/ All escapes start with the click of a lock.’ So… interesting that the announcement post mentions both ticking clocks and cages. Is she escaping from her self-made cage at the strike of midnight? Which brings us to the final, but very loaded, sentence of the announcement.

Meet ME! At Midnight

Before you come at me, yes I know, that’s not how it’s written. It’s meet me, not ME!, but that would be first and foremost, way too obvious, wouldn’t it. I still think that this is where she is taking us with this sentence, back to the beginning of the Lover era, the dawn of daylight, if you will. If you need a reminder, ME! was the first single off of Lover and kickstarted the sunshine and rainbows parade that was meant to be her coming out with the glorious ME! OUT NOW post on Lesbian Visibility Day in April 2019. This whole summer has felt strangely similar to that, with cruel summer becoming a single and playing endlessly on the radio, Taylor being unashamedly queer in public and surrounding herself with other queer artists, gaylor discourse in mainstream media outlets, and then of course, Karlie Kloss of all people showing up to the last LA show. The congratulatory comments under GLAAD’s instagram post from the VMAs felt much the same to me as the ones under TN’s post of the ‘proud’ bracelet back in 2019. The people that get it, get it. We are officially in the soft launch period.

So, is there going to be a hard launch? Maybe. With all this open queerness I could totally see her just gradually turning it up until she gets photographed kissing a woman in public one day and it’ll just be a case of ‘deadass thought I made it obvious’… But the lesson from the 2019 (not so soft) soft launch was that a lot of people would still rather default to accusations of queerbaiting than assume that she is queer herself (as shown by what happened to Kit Connor last year), and I’m sure she wouldn’t want that again. For that reason, and the fact that she did have a plan to explicitly come out in the past, I think she may have another go in the future, whatever form that may take. One thing I will say, as it ties into this midnights to daylight theme, is this:

With all this clock/countdown imagery, it is notable that the three different versions we have so far of the midnights album are all chronological on a clock. Starting at the top, we have midnights, then the 3am edition, then ‘dawn’ which is around 6am, so to complete the circle we’d need a 9am (or near enough) version. I know that seems unlikely, as 9am is definitely morning and not night anymore, but maybe that’s the point, that at the end of midnights we have a daylight version. ‘You’re loosing me’ is still not officially out on streaming so there is a glimmer of hope that maybe one more version is coming.

What era are we actually in…?

It’s hard to remember that we are actually still in the midnights era with all the re-releases stealing the show and the throwback to lover with cruel summer. But given that the masters heist foiled her plans to come out and made Daylight into Lover, it makes total sense that the 'midnights to daylight' era is the one that includes those important re-releases to further this journey.

She has made so many positive changes and additions to these ‘Taylor’s versions’ that I think it’s just as much about owning her work, as it is about owning the narrative she puts out there. And on that note, it may not be a coincidence that the titles that Taylor has left to reclaim now are her birth year, her name and her reputation, all things that are intrinsically linked to her, and she has arguably never been more authentically queer out in the open. I’m not saying these next three re-releases are suddenly going to have she/her pronouns, but they may have vault tracks that would never have made the cut back in the day. And if we thought the 2017 version of rep was already unbelievably gay… I won’t make any predictions for the tv, but I have high hopes.😊 And I still think that if we end with debut (tv) in June 2024 (Pride month), then ‘TAYLOR SWIFT OUT NOW’ isn’t looking too far-fetched.  And I recon if I was putting out something called MY version of MY name, I'd want to make sure that it absolutely reflects who I am. It did surprise me initially that debut wasn't the first album to be re-released and it's in fact now looking likely to be the last one, but it makes sense if she is using it as an opportunity to go back to the beginning and re-write the story. What a boss move that would be: ‘My version of ME, OUT NOW’ and maybe she really means it this time.

My prediction is, that the end of the midnights era will also be the end of the re-releases (some time next year) and with the final one we end the night and step into the daylight. ☀🌈

[dani-the-goblin]

For the fic writer asks!

4, 9, 10, 14, 23, 27

Plz (⁠ʘ⁠ᴗ⁠ʘ⁠✿⁠)

Questions here ♥️

4. a story idea you haven’t written yet

The Tower ending if VJ actually went through Phantom Liberty. She is absolutely flying to the trailer park and trying to hunt down River. Twiggy is absolutely still present. In fact, he's the only one there when she shows back up. Well, him and the…nevermind 😉

9. start to finish, how long did it take you to write the last fic you posted?

Just under 4 months. Started writing Jan 4, last chapter posted April 29.

10. what is the longest amount of time you’ve let a draft rest before you finished it?

Currently the oldest draft I have resting was started on December 3, 2023. That's a rarity. I usually didn't make it longer than a week before going “fuck it! post it!” 😅

14. where do you get your inspiration?

Music, professional wrestling, and the people around me. Twiggy is a great example of all three, actually. He's Taylor Swift’s folklore album, AEW wrestler Adam Page, late WWE wrestler Bray Wyatt, three of my best friends, my boyfriend, and my stepdad all shoved into one pair of cowboy boots.

23. pick three keywords that describe your writing

This is always really hard.

3 individual words - sensory, expansive, ever-improving. That might not make sense to anyone else but it does to me 😂

A good three word sentence is actually something @elvenbeard commented that I am very proud of and still carry with me: “easy to read”

27. your favorite part of the writing process

E D I T I N G. Mmmm delicious. I love running it through different filters and polishing it all. Especially when my editing program tells me something and I get to go “no I'll be wrong on purpose”

[mercuryonparklane]

Some quick thoughts on SNTV:

“I Can See You” is Tayliz

“Electric Touch” is either Tayliz v Taymily (requited v unrequited) or Swiftgron v Tayliz (more likely the first option considering the clear references to “Breathe”)

“When Emma Falls In Love”, “Foolish One”, and “Enchanted” could be about her unrequited crush on Emma S.

I’m very happy that she brought Liz (and Caitlin) back for this one, but I expected she would since she had already brought her back for Red TV. I still wish we could get an actual feature, though (“Better Man” was so close), their voices sound amazing together (maybe even more so now than they did when Liz was in the band).

I do not believe in late stage anything, including Tayliz. I think the rerecording process (which probably began to some extent before the pandemic in 2020) had her reflecting a lot on the past and previous relationships/situationships. That’s why there seems to be a lot of reminiscing about and references to older songs and past relationships on folklore, evermore, and Midnights.

I haven’t felt like posting as much about Tayliz, hence why this blog has become essentially inactive, because I noticed Liz seemed like the type who would manage to stumble across the theories (not this blog in particular, just all the Twitter and TikTok stuff) and I didn’t feel like adding much more to that discussion. And, in fact, I deleted and archived some of my previous posts for that reason.

I have seen tweets the last couple days about Liz watching Tayliz stuff, so I’m not super comfortable with that (that’s just a personal thing, not an admonishing or strong judgment on anyone who feels comfortable doing so). I’ll stick to my once in a blue moon tumblr posts, where I actively avoid using last names haha.

I do think they may have had something in the past and that Taylor has possibly written songs about her and vice versa, but neither one of them have made a clear statement on their sexuality and Liz seems to be currently dating one of her longtime close friends.

I think Taylor and Liz, for whatever reason, had a little bit of a falling out around fall 2012, but are on good terms now and likely have been for many years. Liz is one Taylor’s oldest friends at this point and she (and Caitlin) was there to see first hand the transition from playing small shows in bars to selling out arenas. She’s one of her few “industry” friends who knew her and admired/supported her before she blew up, so I do hope they are at least friends at this point.

I still think Tayliz is way more likely Taylor/Martin or any of the alleged public boyfriends, slightly less likely than Taylianne, and moderately less likely than Swiftgron and Kaylor.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m like 90% convinced that they had a situationship, and at the bare minimum had a very strong romantic friendship, it’s just that I am always skeptical about everything, so unless one of them confirms it, I can’t be fully on board. At this moment, I do believe they had a situationship and that both have written multiple songs about the other and have referenced each other in music videos. I am not convinced that they ever had any kind of defined, serious, committed relationship. I definitely find Tayliz far more convincing than any of the men we are meant to believe Taylor has been attracted to.

[youshouldseemyotherusername]

Not a question more of a far fetched theory based on your post about Daylight. Midnight as a parallel to Lover makes sense if you look at the last few albums as one continuous story.

We start off with Reputation. An album about blossoming love that is believed to be end game. The start of that relationship is fragile and you want to do everything to protect it. Even though you haven’t been together long you want that person forever but you’re terrified of what will happen if someone finds out (specifically if you’re looking at it through a queer perspective. I mean why would it matter if someone found out about a low profile hetero relationship? Make it queer and now we’ve got a juicy story).

Moving onto Lover (where our story starts), the relationship has been established but the fear of losing the person you love so deeply has only deepened. This album is dripping with anxiety and the fear of losing them. Cracks are forming and you’re terrified (Cruel Summer, Cornelia Street, The Archer, Daylight, etc.). After searching for the person you believe to be the one losing them would be detrimental. Truly the duality of love and melancholy.

*While folklore and evermore are described as fictional albums, folklores intro states the speculation over time becomes fact so bare with me*

Folklore explores the ending of that relationship you were so terrified to lose. It exposes the hurt and sorrow over having lost the one. Changing everything about yourself to fit in is heartbreaking and in the end wasn’t enough. It didn’t matter how much you tried, what you did, or how badly you wanted them to be the one that relationship is now over. Very much an album processing the grief of a relationship ending.

Evermore is the other stage of that grief. You’ve finally processed what happened and you’re trying your best to accept it (happiness fully embodies this sentiment). In evermore you’re still not okay but better. The other person is moving on wanting closure that you don’t accept.

Now this last part is even more speculation than the rest since we have yet to hear midnight. This album can be seen as a parallel to Lover, specifically Daylight. From the little blurb we got it it’s pretty safe to assume this album will be devastating lyrically. At the end of Daylight we hear Taylor saying that she doesn’t want to be defined by the things she hates or fears but by what she loves. I’m taking a wild guess that that didn’t end well and these 13 songs are going to define that fear, anger, and anxiety. No longer does she feel the warmth of daylight. The darkness that midnight brings has taken over.

Excuse me while I take my tin hat a hide in a corner.

COME OFF ANON AND LET ME JOIN YOU WITH YOUR TIN HAT!!!

There's so much of this I LOVE. Especially the dynamic between Folklore being fresher grief and Evermore being the stage past that, I think that sums up the feel of those albums together perfectly.

The thing about the "fictional" Folklore and Evermore, I think it was said how she was using fictional characters to explore herself through (I would need to find and confirm that again) which gives those albums that emotional connection.

I'm really happy you shared your thoughts with me, feel free to do so again any time x

[swifttosaturn]

Listening to folklore in full feels like I’m unlocking memories and emotions I haven’t fully processed yet…in conclusion Taylor Swift is my therapist

[smallcatwoman]

Oof

honestly I had no idea Taylor was releasing anything until I happened to look at instagram this morning when I woke up. I certainly don’t pay as much attention to her anymore. Her albums are so lyric intense that it takes a while for me to process it enough to analyze it. I listened to the whole thing but only really was able to process tracks 1-7 before everything just turned into mush. give me a month or two and I’ll have significantly more insight. It took me literal years to get the gist of some evermore tracks and I still haven’t listened to most of them. I mean her songs are good but I like analyzing the ones about her actual life and not the “story” songs.. I guess?

To me it seems like a lot of the songs are about her mental health, about fame, about some of her dating experiences after getting over a devastating miserable breakup and feeling up to meeting new people. Like I said, it really all just turned into mush after a few songs. some songs are about karlie but they’re pretty mild compared to the absolutely devastating “never gonna love again, standing on a cliffside saying give me a reason” type of breakup songs on folklore/evermore. I mean irl I had a really devastating breakup in 2020 it took me 5000 years to get over (it feels like) and those songs/the whole thing with karlie really spoke to me. 

I feel better most of the time and I’m capable of at least being attracted to other people again even if I haven’t met anyone that I have mutual feelings for.. but I’m glad she seems to be feeling better?? Focusing on her mental health and possibly meeting new people. I guess I’ve seen people speculating about her and Zoe Kravitz but I think she’s being extremely low key if she’s dating new people. Obviously kissgate and public scrutiny affected her and Karlie a lot so I think she’s really trying to avoid “being the problem” and repeating mistakes. 

I guess she’s feeling a lot of pressure to have a lavender marriage, from like.. fans and public opinion, from her publicity team, maybe from toe himself? Idk. I mean she would have one hell of a prenup I would think. I also gathered from snooping around she released some kind of very hetero excuse for the song Lavender Haze a while ago since people were reading into the name. I didn’t realize that until after I’d listened to it and a couple of other songs.. I couldn’t believe she was singing so blatantly about a lavender marriage. Like not trying to disguise it at all. No wonder she had to pre empt it like that. I guess. Like.. her plan seems to be glass closeting and keeping her actual relationships extremely private. At least she and Joe seem to be good friends and not hate each other like Calvin. I’ll probably have more thoughts once I’m able to listen to more of the album without the words turning into mush in the early hours of the morning. 

[macgras]

I just want it to be 10 pm so I can disassociate and listen to Taylor Swift. AKA my favorite pass time

[alldayangst]

gold rush (Tom Holland)

All of my fics are LGBT and PoC friendly. Inspired by gold rush by Taylor Swift. Everybody wants Tom, but you don’t like a gold rush. WC: 2.7K words. 

“Y/N, I just wanted to say again, thank you for coming in today and doing this for us.” Tom’s dad, Dominic, said as he displaced papers across desks, earl grey swaying like an angry lake in his mug. Approaching footsteps hinted that the star of the show was soon to be hold. In other words, Tom was running behind.

The door creaked and light from the corridor crept through like Sun peeping through curtains of the Night. It refusing to shut after Tom budged and pushed was maybe divine punishment for him being so late, and maybe provided the bit of laughter you needed after rolling out of bed at 6am for this, for him. When the door eventually did close, Tom turned around and saw you in all your glory; much taller than he remembered, more assured than he’d imagined, and more gorgeous than drowned out and half forgotten memories of you could ever fabricate.

You and Tom ran in the same social circles, but hadn’t seen each other since Tom’s career imploded when you were both nineteen. As much as Tom felt he owed his heart and soul to the UK, he maintained an almost permanent fixture on the States. It started to feel like his trips back to England were in fact actual holiday. At one point, you were in love with Tom, but meeting became a constant battle of ‘here, not there’ and your heart grew tired of the duck and goose chase. The gravity of the situation was too much for you, whom hadn’t even tasted their twenties yet. 

“Y/N!” Tom launched at you and held you in tight embrace. You let go of the hug, but he didn’t. And his dad watched on in momentary awe as you wrapped your arms around Tom once again, who breathed in every part of you with unwavering adoration.

“Tom!” You rubbed along his back as he hummed. “When I was told we were gonna have a ghost writer, I had no idea it was gonna be you.”

Tom and his dad (being an author) were collaborating on a book, a million dollar idea that’d been years in the making. Tom had stalled it, his dad told you out of simple insecurity. Now that the world was a stage, he was worried people would criticise his dyslexia with every line he wrote, that every stroke of his pen would reveal him as a rare type of monster that lacked intellect, he pondered that he wasn’t insightful enough in some way. His dad may have written a book about Tom outfaming him, but Tom felt like he’d always live in Dom’s shadow in this respect. Fresh from Oxford with an English Bachelor’s degree, Dom employed you to get grease on the gears to commence writing. Tom had always come out of his shell when you were around.

Your writing session lasted from 8 til noon, when Tom had promo with LadBible or Entertainment Weekly or whoever had bid the highest from his presence that day.

The door swung open and three men in all black and mics saddled around their waists called for and led Tom out of the room.

“Tom, session’s over. We need to get you to your BBC promo in 30 and we’re already running behind schedule.’ One cloaked Tom in a jacket you were sure was more expensive than your own home and another whispered something into a walkie talkie: “Holland is on the move. Check the back entrance is clear.” With that, Tom rose to his feet and left completely opposite of the way you came in. Without a word, no goodbye.

You and Dom left the building together around ten minutes later, where ten men with large cameras stood, lenses focused on you, glaring at you, not sure what to make of you. One of the men screams “Hey! You dating Tom Holland” and after that all you hear is clicks and all you see is bright flashing lights and Dom clenches your hand and leads you to your taxi cab.

The next time you see Tom is sooner than expected. The Hollands were hosting a last minute dinner party and you found yourself sitting opposite Tom, feeling his hard, hot and heavy gaze on you. The tension in the room was so thick not even a chainsaw cut through.

“Next topic,” You picked up a card from the deck and read it aloud. “Politics!” You said devilishly as you sip on what was left of the white wine in your cup, and now that your thought process is blurred; Tom’s longing gaze puts you at dismay.

“Fuck!” Harry exploded, and you hear their mother hiss. “Fuck I hate politics, there’s no making it out alive!” he remarked as he drummed on the table cloth, drunken excitement brewing a new energy in the room.

You go on like this for hours until dinner party is dinner party no more. And while Dom, Nikki and all of Tom’s siblings have chosen to exit stage left, it’s 1am and you and Tom have yet to leave the scene.

Tom sets down your deck of debate cards in favour of a genuine moment.

“What are you doing these days, Y/N?” Tom’s not looking at you, he’s looking at your knee as he rubs circles on it. You want to look down there too, see what he finds so intriguing; but you decide against it in fear you might spontaneously combust. You don’t know if this moment’s supposed to be intimate or innocent and you’re not sure if you want to find out.

So you put up a wall.

“I should be asking you the same thing, Holland.” You say sarcastically. “What have you been doing these days? I haven’t seen you around.” Your eyebrows scrunched up together but you’ve got a big, idiot grin on your face that’s more than telling. Tom giggles at your facetiousness.

Tom scratches his head in mock thought. He never clocks out, always putting on a show. “I don’t know - uh.” You’re laughing before Tom has even told the punchline, ‘cause I guess anything’s funny when it’s said by the one you love.”I’m kind of -” He snatches an old Spiderman comic off the floor. “I’m kinda doing this acting thing at the moment. Playing, y’know, this guy.”

“Well I wish you better luck in the future.” Tom has stopped rubbing circles but instead places his two hands on your knees as you rock back in laughter.

“I’m serious, Y/N. What do you do now?”

“Um.” You suddenly forgot your entire career as Tom, with no shade of subtlety, stares right into your soul. “I got my degree. I write like little stories, y’know? Have you ever heard of folklore?”

Tom shook his head.

“They’re like these little, old beautiful myths. And I write them for a living. And if I’m lucky, they get published in The Times. If I’m even luckier, I get to work with my old best friend - ” You feel your world stop temporarily as you call Tom your ‘best friend’ and you pause for all of 0.3 seconds to register Tom’s reaction but his face doesn’t flinch. “-Writing a book with him and his dad.” And that makes Tom smile. So he doesn’t have to tell you he missed you, you just know.

‘Undivided appearance’ and ‘undivided attention’ don’t necessarily mean the same thing in Hollywood as they do in real life, and you learn that the hard way in your writing session.

Tom may have been sat right next to you, but he was miles away. He was doing press with Cosmo, who hadn’t stopped tagging him with blue hearts on his Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat stories, causing his phone to go off every two seconds. You looked at the phone and then at him who then got the hint and put it on silent. Then there was a knock on the door. Tom rushed to open it, expecting that Dom had sent down a food delivery to egg you on finishing this chapter. You rehashed his childhood like a million times - in fact, you were part of it - so when it came to writing the parts that hurt, where you took a more supporting role in his life, you needed his help. The fact is, the knock at the door had come from one of Tom’s men (Tom liked to call him Man In Black no. 3) who hadn’t said as much as a ‘hi’ before he made his announcement. “Tom, you’re on the line with Cosmo in 10.” The man stepped back and pulled out his walkie talkie, “Holland knows he’s on the line with Cosmo at 10.” And then continued to pace around the hallway.

Cosmo called as he said they would and you almost felt for. second like tom might enjoy an entertainment magazine’s company more than yours. The interviewer made glaring comments and passive flirts at Tom who just blushed and chuckled and sipped his water like the woman on the phone calling him ‘hot’ was just too much to handle. At one point, she says: “What must it be like to grow up that beautiful, Tom? With your hair falling into place like dominoes.” You’re not expecting it when Tom tilts the phone so you’re in view. “Well I’m with the most beautiful being on Earth right now so..” Tom looks at you as if to ask ‘is this okay?” and you know it’s too late for these kind of questions, because that moment is headline fodder, so you smile not to make him feel bad for opening Pandora’s box. But Tom is merciless and likes to rub salt in the wound. “This is Y/N! Y/N’s helping me write the book with my Dad! We go way back.” He covers his mouth as soon as he says it. “Shit! They’re not supposed to know about the book yet.”

This is the moment, you think, where you believe when they say your first love is the one you never let go.

And you can’t think of anything purer than the love you have for him.

Tom thinks being on land is boring. He likes being strung from chords 30 feet in the air, and drowning in despair through scenes of emotional turmoil. You want to tell him you’re an arrow from Cupid’s bow about to reach him, but you couldn’t recover from the splinters if Tom shut you down. After all, Tom was a gold rush. A treasure that everyone had discovered but nobody owned. How precious is a jewel that anybody could take home with them?

Tom had invited you to a visit to Brighton with him, a city near the coast, for some inspiration on writing his section of the book. 

You accepted. And because you did, you found yourself at the beginning of the end, on Tom’s boat in Brighton. “We don’t have to talk about the book right now.” Tom throws a stack of blue tinted paper on the floor. His dyslexia meant that spelling and reading was so much easier when done on blue pages, and you could only guess that was the reason the body of water around you brought him so much peace. So when you saw that something might compromise your best boy’s happiness, you point it out. To give Tom a little bit of time to exit before things got ugly.

“Tom, I see someone in the bushes.”

“Yeah. It’s a pap.” Tom mumbled nonchalantly. 

“They’re here to get pictures of me,” He turned to face you. “and you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, the fans ship us. Think we’d be a good couple after that Cosmo stunt. We would have been a good couple when we were like, 18.” He laughs.

“Huh, yeah.” You look down.

“The best one around.” And you can’t tell if he’s serious.

You rip off one of his blue sheets. “I’m coming. I got hit with inspo.” And you trail to a different section of the boat. A very obvious click of the camera from a shrub nearby coaxes your pen to write without a second thought, How is he so accustomed to this? Fake private moments, protected by sheer glass curtains?

You scrunched your paper, well his paper, into a ball. 

Your mind had turned his life into folklore. You weren’t sure if that was crossing a line, so you just put the ball into your bag and hide it until he hits you with the spark again.

“Let me see it.” Tom says.

“No.”

“You ran off to write it and won’t let me see it?” 

You held your bag at your hip in defence. “No, Tom. Drop it.” 

Tom’s face drops a little bit, but then he reaches into his own bag and reveals a deck of your debate cards. “I know what will cheer you up, good ol’ Y/N.” He sets a card on the wooden table between you two. 

“Do you believe in a higher power?”

You toyed with the pendant around your neck which revealed your faith. “Do you?”

“I don’t. But I believe in soulmates.”

You look to the left to really ponder on what Tom is saying, and a paparazzis captures another photo of you in the corner of your eye.

“And you don’t think there’s a higher power that manufactures our souls to make our soulmates?”

Tom feigns a scowl. “That’s ridiculous.”

You scoffed. “How very contrarian of you.”

“What the fuck does that mean.”

“It means you contradict yourself, Thomas.” You laugh as he holds his chest in fake hurt.

“Are you implying I’m anything less than perfect?”

“Never.”

Never. Because you didn’t believe that to be true. 

“Good. Cause you’d have to be punished.” Tom picks you up and throws you in the water below before jumping in with you.

On your way home you stop at the yours and Tom’s writing booth, scavenging through your bag to drop off Tom’s notepad, some scrunched up blue and white papers you and Tom thought could still help you write his book. You’d made an addition to your love-hazed scribblings about Tom and reckon you’d die if he found it. You managed to throw the other in the water, excusing yourself with “It’s utterly awful.”, to which you and Tom agreed you wouldn’t throw any more paper in the ocean cause the poor fish already had it hard enough.

You and Tom had a session the next day. Tom was excited for the day, and you could tell because he’d given his phone to one of his big babysitters for the time he had you.

“I think that’s all of yours.” You and Tom made a business out of unscrunching your paper balls to see if they had any useful ideas. You were certain you reached the end of Tom’s. All of his notes had ‘T.H’ written on the back in big and were scribed on blue paper. When it came to your little ‘secret admirer’ notes you weren’t worried - you had an English degree and were quick to think on your feet and was ready to make something up when it came to opening it. 

“No, this one’s mine.” He’s confident, so you let him have it. He goes to pick up your tea and then realises it’s nowhere near warm, and was the one you made for yourself when you crept in yesterday evening. Tom has a smile on his face, and then he doesn’t. Before he goes to read it aloud, his eyes tell you he’s reading it again and again and again. “At dinner parties, I’ll call you out on your contrarian shit, and the coastal towns we wondered round will never see a love as pure as it.”

The look on Tom’s face gives you the splinters. He tries to look at you but you know he can’t. You don’t blame him. You can’t look at him either. “I really thought this was a good friendship.”

You hum and nod your head in agreement, pull your lips into a thin straight line as streaks of tears abandon your eyes. This was worse than Tom rubbing salt in your wounds. He’s rubbing dirt in your painful fucking gashes and you are reminded of why this didn’t work before, why it will never be.

And you wouldn’t dare to dream about him anymore.

Masterlist

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[taetaespeaches]

“You think I’d leave you if you falter?”

jungkook x reader (or oc) genre: angst word count: 2.1K

a/n: Hi lovelies!!! Here is Jungkook and Holly’s first big fight that Jin and Poopsie later help Jungkook with in, “Did we just give relationship advice?” Our little babies just don’t even know how to handle a fight and when things escalate some pent up frustrations come out. Loosely based on ‘exile’ and ‘mirrorball’ off of Taylor Swift’s folklore. I hope you all enjoy and thanks for reading! :))

TYPING away on your laptop, you took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as you tried to calm the anxiousness that just kept building up. Your essay was due in just a few hours, and though you were getting close to wrapping it up, you had intended to finish it over three hours ago. To say you were panicking was putting it lightly.

Looking through an article you managed to find last minute during your scouring of the online library database, you felt the sudden urge to throw something as you struggled to find a quote that would support your thesis.

As you read through the paragraphs, the words blending together despite your efforts to focus, your front door opened. Your eyes darted to the intrusion, a sigh leaving your lips at the appearance of your boyfriend stepping inside with a loud groan as he dropped his bag to the floor.

“Practice was ridiculous today,” he complained immediately, you humming in response as you went back to trying to sort through the article.

In the corner of your eye, you noticed Jungkook stumble over one of your shoes you discarded in the entry way haphazardly, letting out an annoyed grunt. Your eyebrows raised just slightly at the sound.

Highlighting a section, you set the stapled papers down on the couch cushion beside you and went back to typing, working the quote into your writing.

“We’re switching up so much of the choreography, it’s like starting completely over,” Jungkook huffed, walking to the kitchen. “And then after hours of dance practice I had to go record a verse for one of the new songs,” he continued, you giving small hums of acknowledgement, not wanting to get distracted from your assignment.

“I don’t think my voice was in the best condition,” he complained further, you nodding slowly. Jungkook grabbed a water bottle from the fridge, turning to look at you, his eyebrows pulled together. Your eyes were glued to the computer screen as you paused to form your thought before typing it out on the keypad.

“Yeah, and then they had Jin record a rap verse to switch it up,” he told you, his tone more forward and direct than the earlier mumbled complaints.

You turned to Jungkook, confusion in your features as you met his wide eye, eyebrows raised, looking quite perturbed.

“Jin’s rapping?” You asked, Jungkook opening his mouth in a fake gasp.

“Oh, so you were listening,” he commented, his tone laced with irritation.

“What?” You asked, your annoyance with the man bubbling.

“You’re just giving me nothing, hi, I’m here,” he waved, furthering his point that he was there to see you and you weren’t acknowledging him.

You nodded once, noting his complaint. “Yeah, hi, I see you. I just have this essay to finish,” you told him, Jungkook nodding slowly in response. You stared at each other for a moment before you turned away, focusing back on your laptop.

You heard some clanking from inside the kitchen, recognizing the sound as dishes being moved around in the sink. A scoff left your boyfriend’s lips, which you pretended you didn’t hear, not wanting to give in to his attention seeking antics.

However, when he went to retrieve his bag from the doorway, tripping over your shoe once again, he let out a grunt of complaint that you couldn’t ignore, turning to shoot daggers at him.

“You can’t set your shoes aside with all the other ones?” He asked pointedly, your rage boiling from the single sentence.

“Really?” You asked him, staring at the man with your jaw clenched.

“Your shoes are everywhere, your dishes are dirty all over the kitchen-” he started jabbing at you, you cutting him off.

“I have like five unwashed dishes from breakfast and lunch,” you defended, “that’s hardly dirty dishes all over the kitchen.” He opened his mouth to speak again but you talked over-top of him. “And who the fuck are you to come into my apartment and start picking out how shitty I am at upkeep? Have you lost your fucking mind?”

He looked at you in surprise, but you continued on. “I’ve been working on this essay, along with keeping up with all my other courses, I don’t need you to come in here and start nagging me about my fucking shoes.”

“Whoah, calm down,” he told you holding his arms up in defense, the action enraging you more.

“Don’t tell me to calm down,” you said crossly.

“Why are you so angry?” he asked, you rolling your eyes as you looked back to your essay. “You’ve been acting shitty all week,” he added, you looking up at him, your eyebrows pulled together in fury.

“Maybe I’m just moody, maybe I’m stressed, maybe I’m exhausted, maybe I’m tired of having to be chill and laid back all the fucking time,” you ranted, Jungkook looking at you in confusion.

Giving you a shrug, he stared at you with his eyes pulled together, a small crease forming at the top of the bridge of his nose. “What are you even talking about? No one said you have to be chill all the time.”

“Jungkook, I don’t have time for this conversation right now, I need to get this done and I’m already having enough trouble focusing,” you told him, trying to turn your attention back to your laptop.

“I thought you were working on the essay all day, how is it not done yet?” He asked, with a noticeable shift in his tone. He wasn’t asking in a patronizing way, but more just out of confusion. However, you were too worked up to note his tone, only listening to the poorly worded question.

“I’m a fuck up, Jungkook,” you snapped, your boyfriend’s eyes widening at the words.

“You’re not a fuck up, that’s not what I meant,” he insisted sincerely, though you were too pissed and emotional to hear him out. “I just meant, like, what happened?”

“No, I am a fuck up, I try to hide it from you, but this is me,” you gestured around the apartment. “Unwashed dishes, shoes thrown everywhere, unfinished essays that are due in three hours. If you check out my room, you’ll see I haven’t even put away my laundry from Sunday. This is me, dude, take it in.”

“Why- what do you mean you hide it from me? What do you hide?” He asked, chewing on his bottom lip as he awaited your answer.

“Imperfection,” you said simply, Jungkook’s eyebrows pulling further together as he stared at you. “It just feels like I have to be perfect sometimes,” you said with less anger, realizing that the words you were speaking would not be able to be taken back.

“For what?” He asked, shaking his head dumbfoundedly.

“For you,” you whined out. “You’re always saying how you love how laid back I am and how I never get too stressed or that I’m always on top of things, or that you love how independent and strong I am,” you ranted, Jungkook holding his arms out in question. “That’s just not always me,” you told him.

“I don’t ask you to be those things, do you not want me to compliment you? I don’t understand what the fuck you’re saying,” he complained, lost by the suddenness of your comments.

“It’s not just compliments though, it’s praising me for all these great things that aren’t always a reality for me,” you pointed out, Jungkook sighing. “And then you sometimes nag, like pointing out when I haven’t done the fucking dishes, I just feel like I can’t slip up.”

“Why am I just now hearing about all this?” He asked, you simply staring at him as he questioned you. “I mean this is insane, you’re throwing this shit at me and I didn’t even know there was an issue.” The irritation was etched into his features, and the anxiety from your essay was building in your stomach, though this time it was triggered by your unintentional fight with Jungkook.

“I didn’t say anything because I’m afraid of losing you,” you yelled out in frustration.

“Afraid of losing me?” He asked, the hurt evident in his tone. “You think I’d leave you if you falter?”

“I don’t know,” you admitted, giving a faint shrug. “It’s not even just me faltering, it’s you always being ok. Jungkook, you’re never not the epitome of strength, you’re always excelling, you’re-”

“Golden,” he cut you off, rolling his eyes.  

You sighed. “Well?” Jungkook pushed his tongue to the inside of his cheek, shaking his head lightly. “What if you don’t like me when I’m not this image of perfection?”  

“God, I-” he sighed sharply. “I don’t expect you to be perfect, that’s not what I want from you, that’s never been what I want from you,” he insisted. “I didn’t even know you felt this way until two minutes ago.”

“I don’t always feel this way, but when I’m struggling, I feel like I’m not able to express that to you in the way I want to because I’m on this pedestal,” you said, Jungkook’s eyes widening. “But it’s not me up there, it’s me reflecting what you want to see and if I fall, I’m going to shatter this image, and I just, I don’t want to disappoint you.”

“A pedestal?” He whispered. “Do you think I don’t know about pedestals? That I don’t understand the image of perfection people perceive you as? And how that compares to who you feel you are? Did you really think you couldn’t talk to me about this stuff?” He asked, tears brimming his eyes.  

“I don’t want you to think less of me, Jungkook,” you told him sadly, Jungkook looking away from you as he blinked back his tears.

“You actually think I would think less of you if you let me know when you’re having a hard time?” He asked, his eyes still averted. When you didn’t answer, he took a deep breath, letting it out slowly before looking back to you. “Maybe I have unintentionally put you on a pedestal, but you have me on one too.” The comment felt like it stabbed your heart. As you processed the words, and what they meant in regards to how you had been making him feel, Jungkook shifted on his feet, watching you closely. “What do you want me to do?” he asked, his eyes wide, full of worry.

“What do you want to do?” You questioned back.

“I don’t want to fight,” he told you, a look of frustration overtaking his features. Neither did you.

“We’re already fighting,” you reminded him with an edge of regret in your tone. The last thing you wanted was the situation you were in now, but you were in it.  

“Well, let’s just stop,” he said, as if it was easy to take back all the words spoken and forget about them.

“We can’t just do that,” you told him, tears bubbling up in your orbs. His eyes were big and scared as they stared at you, Jungkook chewing on the inside of his lower lip once again. “This seems sudden but we both obviously had some shit we needed to let out.”

“It’s out now though,” he pointed out, you shrugging.

“Yeah so now we’re both frustrated and hurt,” you told him, your voice nearly breaking. “I don’t know, maybe we just need to give it some time and think things over.

“What does that mean?” He asked, panic seeping into his voice.

“It means I’m tired, Jungkook, and I have an essay I have to finish, and I don’t-” you paused, collecting your emotions. “I can’t keep doing this right now.”

“Are you asking me to leave?” He asked, and his expression of heartbreak shattered you.

“I’m asking if we can talk later,” you told him, Jungkook slowly nodding.

“Right,” he began backing away. “I’m sorry,” he apologized, turning around to go toward the door. “Good luck with the essay,” he whispered before opening the door and exiting quickly.

The moment he walked out you were in tears, frustrated and mad at yourself and for letting things get so twisted up. Looking at the time at the top right corner of your laptop screen, you noted that you had two hours and forty-five minutes left to get your essay turned in.

Looking at the open document, the cursor blinking mid-sentence, you suddenly could not care less about the essay. Did you just fuck everything up?

[taylorswifthongkong]

Taylor Swift broke all her rules with Folklore — and gave herself a much-needed escape The pop star, one of EW's 2020 Entertainers of the Year, delves deep into her surprise eighth album, Rebekah Harkness, and a Joe Biden presidency. By Alex Suskind

“He is my co-writer on ‛Betty’ and ‛Exile,’” replies Taylor Swift with deadpan precision. The question Who is William Bowery? was, at the time we spoke, one of 2020’s great mysteries, right up there with the existence of Joe Exotic and the sudden arrival of murder hornets. An unknown writer credited on the year’s biggest album? It must be an alias.

Is he your brother?

“He’s William Bowery,” says Swift with a smile.

It's early November, after Election Day but before Swift eventually revealed Bowery's true identity to the world (the leading theory, that he was boyfriend Joe Alwyn, proved prescient). But, like all Swiftian riddles, it was fun to puzzle over for months, particularly in this hot mess of a year, when brief distractions are as comforting as a well-worn cardigan. Thankfully, the Bowery... erhm, Alwyn-assisted Folklore — a Swift project filled with muted pianos and whisper-quiet snares, recorded in secret with Jack Antonoff and the National’s Aaron Dessner — delivered.

“The only people who knew were the people I was making it with, my boyfriend, my family, and a small management team,” Swift, 30, tells EW of the album's hush-hush recording sessions. That gave the intimate Folklore a mystique all its own: the first surprise Taylor Swift album, one that prioritized fantastical tales over personal confessions.

“Early in quarantine, I started watching lots of films,” she explains. “Consuming other people’s storytelling opened this portal in my imagination and made me feel like, Why have I never created characters and intersecting storylines?” That’s how she ended up with three songs about an imagined love triangle (“Cardigan,” “Betty,” “August”), one about a clandestine romance (“Illicit Affairs”), and another chronicling a doomed relationship (“Exile”). Others tell of sumptuous real-life figures like Rebekah Harkness, a divorcee who married the heir to Standard Oil — and whose home Swift purchased 31 years after her death. The result, “The Last Great American Dynasty,” hones in on Harkness’ story, until Swift cleverly injects herself.

And yet, it wouldn’t be a Swift album without a few barbed postmortems over her own history. Notably, “My Tears Ricochet” and “Mad Woman," which touch on her former label head Scott Borchetta selling the masters to Swift’s catalog to her known nemesis Scooter Braun. Mere hours after our interview, the lyrics’ real-life origins took a surprising twist, when news broke that Swift’s music had once again been sold, to another private equity firm, for a reported $300 million. Though Swift ignored repeated requests for comment on the transaction, she did tweet a statement, hitting back at Braun while noting that she had begun re-recording her old albums — something she first promised in 2019 as a way of retaining agency over her creative legacy. (Later, she would tease a snippet of that reimagined work, with a new version of her hit 2008 single "Love Story.")

Like surprise-dropping Folklore, like pissing off the president by endorsing his opponents, like shooing away haters, Swift does what suits her. “I don’t think we often hear about women who did whatever the hell they wanted,” she says of Harkness — something Swift is clearly intent on changing. For her, that means basking in the world of, and favorable response to, Folklore. As she says in our interview, “I have this weird thing where, in order to create the next thing, I attack the previous thing. I don’t love that I do that, but it is the thing that has kept me pivoting to another world every time I make an album. But with this one, I still love it.”

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: We’ve spent the year quarantined in our houses, trying to stay healthy and avoiding friends and family. Were you surprised by your ability to create and release a full album in the middle of a pandemic?

TAYLOR SWIFT: I was. I wasn't expecting to make an album. Early on in quarantine, I started watching lots of films. We would watch a different movie every night. I'm ashamed to say I hadn't seen Pan's Labyrinth before. One night I'd watch that, then I'd watch L.A. Confidential, then we'd watch Rear Window, then we'd watch Jane Eyre. I feel like consuming other people's art and storytelling sort of opened this portal in my imagination and made me feel like, "Well, why have I never done this before? Why have I never created characters and intersecting storylines? And why haven't I ever sort of freed myself up to do that from a narrative standpoint?" There is something a little heavy about knowing when you put out an album, people are going to take it so literally that everything you say could be clickbait. It was really, really freeing to be able to just be inspired by worlds created by the films you watch or books you've read or places you've dreamed of or people that you've wondered about, not just being inspired by your own experience.

In that vain, what's it like to sit down and write something like “Betty,” which is told from the perspective of a 17-year-old boy?

That was huge for me. And I think it came from the fact that my co-writer, William Bowery [Joe Alwyn], is male — and he was the one who originally thought of the chorus melody. And hearing him sing it, I thought, "That sounds really cool." Obviously, I don't have a male voice, but I thought, "I could have a male perspective." Patty Griffin wrote this song, “Top of the World.” It's one of my favorite songs of all time, and it's from the perspective of this older man who has lived a life full of regret, and he's kind of taking stock of that regret. So, I thought, "This is something that people I am a huge fan of have done. This would be fun to kind of take this for a spin."

What are your favorite William Bowery conspiracies?

I love them all individually and equally. I love all the conspiracy theories around this album. [With] "Betty," Jack Antonoff would text me these articles and think pieces and in-depth Tumblr posts on what this love triangle meant to the person who had listened to it. And that's exactly what I was hoping would happen with this album. I wrote these stories for a specific reason and from a specific place about specific people that I imagined, but I wanted that to all change given who was listening to it. And I wanted it to start out as mine and become other people's. It's been really fun to watch.

One of the other unique things about Folklore — the parameters around it were completely different from anything you'd done. There was no long roll out, no stadium-sized pop anthems, no aiming for the radio-friendly single. How fearful were you in avoiding what had worked in the past?

I didn't think about any of that for the very first time. And a lot of this album was kind of distilled down to the purest version of what the story is. Songwriting on this album is exactly the way that I would write if I considered nothing else other than, "What words do I want to write? What stories do I want to tell? What melodies do I want to sing? What production is essential to tell those stories?" It was a very do-it-yourself experience. My management team, we created absolutely everything in advance — every lyric video, every individual album package. And then we called our label a week in advance and said, "Here's what we have.” The photo shoot was me and the photographer walking out into a field. I'd done my hair and makeup and brought some nightgowns. These experiences I was used to having with 100 people on set, commanding alongside other people in a very committee fashion — all of a sudden it was me and a photographer, or me and my DP. It was a new challenge, because I love collaboration. But there's something really fun about knowing what you can do if it's just you doing it.

Did you find it freeing?

I did. Every project involves different levels of collaboration, because on other albums there are things that my stylist will think of that I never would've thought of. But if I had all those people on the photo shoot, I would've had to have them quarantine away from their families for weeks on end, and I would've had to ask things of them that I didn't think were fair if I could figure out a way to do it [myself]. I had this idea for the [Folklore album cover] that it would be this girl sleepwalking through the forest in a nightgown in 1830 [laughs]. Very specific. A pioneer woman sleepwalking at night. I made a moodboard and sent it to Beth [Garrabrant], who I had never worked with before, who shoots only on film. We were just carrying bags across a field and putting the bags of film down, and then taking pictures. It was a blast.

Folklore includes plenty of intimate acoustic echoes to what you've done in the past. But there are also a lot of new sonics here, too — these quiet, powerful, intricately layered harmonics. What was it like to receive the music from Aaron and try to write lyrics on top of it? 

Well, Aaron is one of the most effortlessly prolific creators I've ever worked with. It's really mind-blowing. And every time I've spoken to an artist since this whole process [began], I said, "You need to work with him. It'll change the way you create." He would send me these — he calls them sketches, but it's basically an instrumental track. the second day — the day after I texted him and said, "Hey, would you ever want to work together?" — he sent me this file of probably 30 of these instrumentals and every single one of them was one of the most interesting, exciting things I had ever heard. Music can be beautiful, but it can be lacking that evocative nature. There was something about everything he created that is an immediate image in my head or melody that I came up with. So much so that I'd start writing as soon as I heard a new one. And oftentimes what I would send back would inspire him to make more instrumentals and then send me that one. And then I wrote the song and it started to shape the project, form-fitted and customized to what we wanted to do.

It was weird because I had never made an album and not played it for my girlfriends or told my friends. The only people who knew were the people that I was making it with, my boyfriend, my family, and then my management team. So that's the smallest number of people I've ever had know about something. I'm usually playing it for everyone that I'm friends with. So I had a lot of friends texting me things like, "Why didn't you say on our everyday FaceTimes you were making a record?"

Was it nice to be able to keep it a secret?

Well, it felt like it was only my thing. It felt like such an inner world I was escaping to every day that it almost didn't feel like an album. Because I wasn't making a song and finishing it and going, "Oh my God, that is catchy.” I wasn't making these things with any purpose in mind. And so it was almost like having it just be mine was this really sweet, nice, pure part of the world as everything else in the world was burning and crashing and feeling this sickness and sadness. I almost didn't process it as an album. This was just my daydream space.

Does it still feel like that?

Yeah, because I love it so much. I have this weird thing that I do when I create something where in order to create the next thing I kind of, in my head, attack the previous thing. I don't love that I do that but it is the thing that has kept me pivoting to another world every time I make an album. But with this one, I just still love it. I'm so proud of it. And so that feels very foreign to me. That doesn't feel like a normal experience that I've had with releasing albums.

When did you first learn about Rebekah Harkness?

Oh, I learned about her as soon as I was being walked through [her former Rhode Island] home. I got the house when I was in my early twenties as a place for my family to congregate and be together. I was told about her, I think, by the real estate agent who was walking us through the property. And as soon as I found out about her, I wanted to know everything I could. So I started reading. I found her so interesting. And then as more parallels began to develop between our two lives — being the lady that lives in that house on the hill that everybody gets to gossip about — I was always looking for an opportunity to write about her. And I finally found it.

I love that you break the fourth wall in the song. Did you go in thinking you’d include yourself in the story?

I think that in my head, I always wanted to do a country music, standard narrative device, which is: the first verse you sing about someone else, the second verse you sing about someone else who's even closer to you, and then in the third verse, you go, "Surprise! It was me.” You bring it personal for the last verse. And I'd always thought that if I were to tell that story, I would want to include the similarities — our lives or our reputations or our scandals.

How often did you regale friends about the history of Rebekah and Holiday House while hanging out at Holiday House? 

Anyone who's been there before knows that I do “The Tour,” in quotes, where I show everyone through the house. And I tell them different anecdotes about each room, because I've done that much research on this house and this woman. So in every single room, there's a different anecdote about Rebekah Harkness. If you have a mixed group of people who've been there before and people who haven't, [the people who’ve been there] are like, "Oh, she's going to do the tour. She's got to tell you the story about how the ballerinas used to practice on the lawn.” And they'll go get a drink and skip it because it's the same every time. But for me, I'm telling the story with the same electric enthusiasm, because it's just endlessly entertaining to me that this fabulous woman lived there. She just did whatever she wanted.

There are a handful of songs on Folklore that feel like pretty clear nods to your personal life over the last year, including your relationships with Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun. How long did it take to crystallize the feelings you had around both of them into “My Tears Ricochet” or “Mad Woman”?

I found myself being very triggered by any stories, movies, or narratives revolving around divorce, which felt weird because I haven't experienced it directly. There’s no reason it should cause me so much pain, but all of a sudden it felt like something I had been through. I think that happens any time you've been in a 15-year relationship and it ends in a messy, upsetting way. So I wrote “My Tears Ricochet” and I was using a lot of imagery that I had conjured up while comparing a relationship ending to when people end an actual marriage. All of a sudden this person that you trusted more than anyone in the world is the person that can hurt you the worst. Then all of a sudden the things that you have been through together, hurt. All of a sudden, the person who was your best friend is now your biggest nemesis, etc. etc. etc. I think I wrote some of the first lyrics to that song after watching Marriage Story and hearing about when marriages go wrong and end in such a catastrophic way. So these songs are in some ways imaginary, in some ways not, and in some ways both.

How did it feel to drop an F-bomb on "Mad Woman"?

F---ing fantastic.

And that’s the first time you ever recorded one on a record, right?

Yeah. Every rule book was thrown out. I always had these rules in my head and one of them was, You haven't done this before, so you can't ever do this. “Well, you've never had an explicit sticker, so you can't ever have an explicit sticker.” But that was one of the times where I felt like you need to follow the language and you need to follow the storyline. And if the storyline and the language match up and you end up saying the F-word, just go for it. I wasn't adhering to any of the guidelines that I had placed on myself. I decided to just make what I wanted to make. And I'm really happy that the fans were stoked about that because I think they could feel that. I'm not blaming anyone else for me restricting myself in the past. That was all, I guess, making what I want to make. I think my fans could feel that I opened the gate and ran out of the pasture for the first time, which I'm glad they picked up on because they're very intuitive.

Let’s talk about “Epiphany.” The first verse is a nod to your grandfather, Dean, who fought in World War II. What does his story mean to you personally? 

I wanted to write about him for awhile. He died when I was very young, but my dad would always tell this story that the only thing that his dad would ever say about the war was when somebody would ask him, "Why do you have such a positive outlook on life?" My grandfather would reply, "Well, I'm not supposed to be here. I shouldn't be here." My dad and his brothers always kind of imagined that what he had experienced was really awful and traumatic and that he'd seen a lot of terrible things. So when they did research, they learned that he had fought at the Battles of Guadalcanal, at Cape Gloucester, at Talasea, at Okinawa. He had seen a lot of heavy fire and casualties — all of the things that nightmares are made of. He was one of the first people to sign up for the war. But you know, these are things that you can only imagine that a lot of people in that generation didn't speak about because, a) they didn't want people that they came home to to worry about them, and b) it just was so bad that it was the actual definition of unspeakable.

That theme continues in the next verse, which is a pretty overt nod to what’s been happening during COVID. As someone who lives in Nashville, how difficult has it been to see folks on Lower Broadway crowding the bars without masks?

I mean, you just immediately think of the health workers who are putting their lives on the line — and oftentimes losing their lives. If they make it out of this, if they see the other side of it, there's going to be a lot of trauma that comes with that; there's going to be things that they witnessed that they will never be able to un-see. And that was the connection that I drew. I did a lot of research on my grandfather in the beginning of quarantine, and it hit me very quickly that we've got a version of that trauma happening right now in our hospitals. God, you hope people would respect it and would understand that going out for a night isn't worth the ripple effect that it causes. But obviously we're seeing that a lot of people don't seem to have their eyes open to that — or if they do, a lot of people don't care, which is upsetting.

You had the Lover Fest East and West scheduled this year. How hard has it been to both not perform for your fans this year, and see the music industry at large go through such a brutal change?

It's confusing. It's hard to watch. I think that maybe me wanting to make as much music as possible during this time was a way for me to feel like I could reach out my hand and touch my fans, even if I couldn't physically reach out or take a picture with them. We've had a lot of different, amazing, fun, sort of underground traditions we've built over the years that involve a lot of human interaction, and so I have no idea what's going to happen with touring; none of us do. And that's a scary thing. You can't look to somebody in the music industry who's been around a long time, or an expert touring manager or promoter and [ask] what's going to happen and have them give you an answer. I think we're all just trying to keep our eyes on the horizon and see what it looks like. So we're just kind of sitting tight and trying to take care of whatever creative spark might exist and trying to figure out how to reach our fans in other ways, because we just can't do that right now.

When you are able to perform again, do you have plans on resurfacing a Lover Fest-type event?

I don't know what incarnation it'll take and I really would need to sit down and think about it for a good solid couple of months before I figured out the answer. Because whatever we do, I want it to be something that is thoughtful and will make the fans happy and I hope I can achieve that. I'm going to try really hard to.

In addition to recording an album, you spent this year supporting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the election. Where were you when it was called in their favor? 

Well, when the results were coming in, I was actually at the property where we shot the Entertainment Weekly cover. I was hanging out with my photographer friend, Beth, and the wonderful couple that owned the farm where we [were]. And we realized really early into the night that we weren't going to get an accurate picture of the results. Then, a couple of days later, I was on a video shoot, but I was directing, and I was standing there with my face shield and mask on next to my director of photography, Rodrigo Prieto. And I just remember a news alert coming up on my phone that said, "Biden is our next president. He's won the election." And I showed it to Rodrigo and he said, "I'm always going to remember the moment that we learned this." And I looked around, and people's face shields were starting to fog up because a lot of people were really misty-eyed and emotional, and it was not loud. It wasn't popping bottles of champagne. It was this moment of quiet, cautious elation and relief.

Do you ever think about what Folklore would have sounded like if you, Aaron, and Jack had been in the same room?

I think about it all the time. I think that a lot of what has happened with the album has to do with us all being in a collective emotional place. Obviously everybody's lives have different complexities and whatnot, but I think most of us were feeling really shaken up and really out of place and confused and in need of something comforting all at the same time. And for me, that thing that was comforting was making music that felt sort of like I was trying to hug my fans through the speakers. That was truly my intent. Just trying to hug them when I can't hug them.

I wanted to talk about some of the lyrics on Folklore. One of my favorite pieces of wordplay is in “August”: that flip of "sipped away like a bottle of wine/slipped away like a moment in time.” Was there an "aha moment" for you while writing that?

I was really excited about "August slipped away into a moment of time/August sipped away like a bottle of wine." That was a song where Jack sent me the instrumental and I wrote the song pretty much on the spot; it just was an intuitive thing. And that was actually the first song that I wrote of the "Betty" triangle. So the Betty songs are "August," "Cardigan," and "Betty." "August" was actually the first one, which is strange because it's the song from the other girl's perspective.

Yeah, I assumed you wrote "Cardigan" first.

It would be safe to assume that "Cardigan" would be first, but it wasn't. It was very strange how it happened, but it kind of pieced together one song at a time, starting with "August," where I kind of wanted to explore the element of This is from the perspective of a girl who was having her first brush with love. And then all of a sudden she's treated like she's the other girl, because there was another situation that had already been in place, but "August" girl thought she was really falling in love. It kind of explores the idea of the undefined relationship. As humans, we're all encouraged to just be cool and just let it happen, and don't ask what the relationship is — Are we exclusive? But if you are chill about it, especially when you're young, you learn the very hard lesson that if you don't define something, oftentimes they can gaslight you into thinking it was nothing at all, and that it never happened. And how do you mourn the loss of something once it ends, if you're being made to believe that it never happened at all?

"I almost didn't process it as an album," says Taylor Swift of making Folklore. "And it's still hard for me to process as an entity or a commodity, because [it] was just my daydream space."

On the flip side, "Peace" is bit more defined in terms of how one approaches a relationship. There's this really striking line, "The devil's in the details, but you got a friend in me/Would it be enough if I can never give you peace?" How did that line come to you?

I'm really proud of that one too. I heard the track immediately. Aaron sent it to me, and it had this immediate sense of serenity running through it. The first word that popped into my head was peace, but I thought that it would be too on-the-nose to sing about being calm, or to sing about serenity, or to sing about finding peace with someone. Because you have this very conflicted, very dramatic conflict-written lyric paired with this very, very calming sound of the instrumental. But, "The devil's in the details," is one of those phrases that I've written down over the years. That's a common phrase that is used in the English language every day. And I just thought it sounded really cool because of the D, D sound. And I thought, "I'll hang onto those in a list, and then, I'll finally find the right place for them in a story." I think that's how a lot of people feel where it's like, "Yeah, the devil's in the details. Everybody's complex when you look under the hood of the car." But basically saying, "I'm there for you if you want that, if this complexity is what you want."

There's another clever turn-of-phrase on "This is Me Trying." "I didn't know if you'd care if I came back/I have a lot of regrets about that." That feels like a nod toward your fans, and some of the feelings you had about retreating from the public sphere.

Absolutely. I think I was writing from three different characters' perspectives, one who's going through that; I was channeling the emotions I was feeling in 2016, 2017, where I just felt like I was worth absolutely nothing. And then, the second verse is about dealing with addiction and issues with struggling every day. And every second of the day, you're trying not to fall into old patterns, and nobody around you can see that, and no one gives you credit for it. And then, the third verse, I was thinking, what would the National do? What lyric would Matt Berninger write? What chords would the National play? And it's funny because I've since played this song for Aaron, and he's like, "That's not what we would've done at all." He's like, "I love that song, but that's totally different than what we would've done with it."

When we last spoke, in April 2019, we were talking about albums we were listening to at the time and you professed your love for the National and I Am Easy to Find. Two months later, you met up with Aaron at their concert, and now, we're here talking about the National again.

Yeah, I was at the show where they were playing through I Am Easy to Find. What I loved about [that album] was they had female vocalists singing from female perspectives, and that triggered and fired something in me where I thought, "I've got to play with different perspectives because that is so intriguing when you hear a female perspective come in from a band where you're used to only hearing a male perspective." It just sparked something in me. And obviously, you mentioning the National is the reason why Folklore came to be. So, thank you for that, Alex.

I'm here for all of your songwriting muse needs in the future.

I can't wait to see what comes out of this interview.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

For more on our Entertainers of the Year and Best & Worst of 2020, order the January issue of Entertainment Weekly or find it on newsstands beginning Dec. 18. (You can also pick up the full set of six covers here.) Don’t forget to subscribe for more exclusive interviews and photos, only in EW.

[bettyshoweduptotheparty]

More thoughts on TTPD and the track list

I keep seeing people saying the colour scheme is black and white. I do think white is going to be the associated colour but the cover is much more sepia. Like an old photograph. Goes with the evidence file/academia aesthetic. Rep was much more black and white to go with the newspaper visuals. And grey is obviously folklore. I think the colours being similar is for a reason. I could see it being thematically between folklore and rep. Sweet tortured love, but also sass and vengeance.

I like the fact that we’re getting a title track. Haven’t had one since evermore.

A lot of gaylors seem unhappy about the track titles and amount of male pronouns. If Lavender Haze has taught me anything it’s to WAIT FOR THE ACTUAL SONGS before making a snap judgement on the titles. I’m not excusing Lavender gate but all was in fact fine when the song came out. I trust the process with the music until we have whole songs. Not interested in judging titles.

However, I did find it interesting and totally unexpected that she dropped the whole track list two months in advance. No mystery or slow unveiling. Seems odd. Almost like the quick judgement on the breakup album branding is intentional….

Track 5 is So Long London. So it’s a sad song. Gaylors seem disappointed, and all the swifties collectively decided it’s a Joe breakup song. Could be. Maybe in an ironic way(like London Boy). But in British use of the phrase ‘so long’ it means ‘until I see you next’. Is that what you’d say to someone you’re breaking up with? 🤔 My mind immediately went to leaving a place you love and have good memories with until you can go there next. That’s what I felt when I moved from London to the countryside. Taylor lived in London for a year to recover from everything that was 2016 and to start the love blackout, just her and her lover away from the world. She’s often described that as her happiest year. I’m doing better than I ever was. So I could see it being a goodbye to the city that helped her recover from all of that, until I see you next. I’d love a homage to London song but that’s just me :)

And one more thought on the bait and switch that we all fell victim to 😉 I too totally thought rep tv was coming. But every day that album lives another day in its current form I’m honestly relieved. There’s so much at stake with rep and I don’t think we’re there yet. The rep vault tracks are what could be the karma album. And we all remember that the reputation album we know and love is the version that had its wings clipped. I really don’t think that, having got the chance to revisit this, Taylor would want to make another half truth version. If she’s gonna put her name to it, she’ll make it fly this time. And I don’t think we’re quite there yet. So I’m looking at this new album with a very open mind, because I know rep tv and/or karma are waiting for us when the time comes.

[path-of-my-childhood]

Aaron Dessner on the 'Weird Avalanche' That Resulted in Taylor Swift's “Evermore”

By: Lyndsey Havens for Billboard Date: December 18th 2020

One day this fall, Taylor Swift walked into Aaron Dessner’s home to wish his daughter a happy 9th birthday - but that wasn't the only reason Swift was there.

She was mostly there to film the Disney+ special, Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, in which she was meeting up with her primary Folklore collaborators - The National’s Dessner and Jack Antonoff. They had all gathered for the first time at Dessner’s upstate New York studio to play her record-breaking album live.

On the last night of filming the special (a process that was done while following CDC guidelines, with a limited crew and COVID-19 testing), Dessner recalls how he, Antonoff and Swift stayed up until 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. - drinking and celebrating the more-than-warm embrace Folklore had received. But in the days that followed, Swift ended up staying, and she and Dessner unexpectedly continued working. Eventually, they had 17 more songs, all of which became the sister album, Evermore, released on Dec. 11.

“Folklore almost immediately was treated as a classic or a masterpiece,” says Dessner. “It was elevated fairly quickly and had been commercially really successful, so obviously it’s hard to follow something like that up. But one of the things I love about Evermore is the ways in which Taylor was jumping off different cliffs. The ability she has to tell these stories, but also push what she’s doing musically, is really kind of astonishing. It’s like I went to some crash course, some masters program, for six months.”

Below, Dessner tells Billboard all about the work that went into his second album in five months with one of the world's biggest pop stars.

With Folklore a lot of the production and arrangements came from a folder you had sent Taylor. Did you continue to pull from there, or was Evermore made from scratch?

A lot more of it was made from scratch. After Folklore came out, I think Taylor had written two songs early on that we both thought were for Big Red Machine, “Closure” and “Dorothea.” But the more I listened to them, not that they couldn’t be Big Red Machine songs, but they felt like interesting, exciting Taylor songs. “Closure” is very experimental and in this weird time signature, but still lyrically felt like some evolution of Folklore, and “Dorothea” definitely felt like it was reflecting on some character.

And I, sort of in celebration of Folklore, had written a piece of music that I titled “Westerly,” that’s where she has the house that she wrote “Last Great American Dynasty” about. I’ll do that sometimes, just make things for friends or write music just to write it, but I didn’t at all think it would become a song. And she, like an hour later, sent back “Willow” written to that song, and that sort of set [things in motion] and we just started filling this Dropbox again. It was kind of like, “What’s happening?”

And then it just kept going. She wrote "Gold Rush” with Jack [Antonoff] and by the end there were 17 songs, and it was only a couple months after Folklore came out, so it’s pretty wild. Each time we would just be in disbelief and kind of like, “How is this possible?” Especially because we didn’t need to talk much about structure or ideas or anything - it was just this weird avalanche.

Considering how industry-shaking Folklore was, what pressure did that introduce this time around?

I think because of how we made it, it really wasn’t like producing some giant record or something, it still had this very homespun feeling to it. There may have been a moment or two when I think Taylor was wondering when and how to put out Evermore, but I think the stronger it became, and as each song came together, it just started to feel like, "This is a sister record - it’s part of the same current of creativity and collaboration and the stories feel inter-related."

And aesthetically, to me, Evermore is wilder and has more of a band dynamic at times. You can feel her songwriting sharpen even more on it, in terms of storytelling, and also just this freedom to make the kinds of songs that were coming. When she started to write in a less diaristic way and tell these stories, I think she found she had this incredible wealth of experience and depth to her storytelling that was quite natural. She could easily make these songs more reflective or blur the lines of what’s autobiographical and what's not in interesting ways. It felt like the most natural thing in the world.

Folklore was made entirely remotely, how did that process change for Evermore?

This was both. Some of it was remote, but then after the Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, Taylor stayed for quite a while and we recorded a lot. She actually wrote “‘Tis the Damn Season” when she arrived for the first day of rehearsal. We played all night and drank a lot of wine after the fireside chat - and we were all pretty drunk, to be honest - and then I thought she went to bed. But the next morning, at 9:00 a.m. or something, she showed up and was like, “I have to sing you this song,” and she had written it in the middle of the night. That was definitely another moment [where] my brain exploded, because she sang it to me in my kitchen, and it was just surreal.

That music is actually older - it’s something I wrote many years ago, and hid away because I loved it so much. It meant something to me, and it felt like the perfect song finally found it. There was a feeling in it, and she identified that feeling: That feeling of... “The ache in you, put there by the ache in me.” I think everyone can relate to that. It’s one of my favorites.

Did you watch the Disney+ special?

I’m not a big fan of watching myself - but I did watch it, and I thought it was beautiful. It’s funny, because it was very DIY in a sense; a tight little small crew was there to do it, nobody was styling us or fixing our hair or anything like that, it’s very authentic. I rehearsed a little bit before, but both of us - Jack and I - were pretty much figuring it out as we went.

And I think the nice thing is that all of the songs could work like that, and that’s partly a testament to the strength of the album. Without big production tricks or backing vocals or anything like that, the songs stand up, and Taylor just sang the crap out of them. And hanging out with them was so much fun. They’re kind of like siblings almost; they’ve known each other a long time, there’s this quick humor between them.

Would you like to do something like that again with Evermore?

I don’t know if you can recreate exactly what we did with Folklore. I haven’t actually talked to anyone about that. But to me, the songs of Evermore would be even more fun to play, because more of them feel like band songs. But, that being said, I won’t be disappointed if we don’t - there is no plan afoot right now to do that.

During an interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Jimmy asked Taylor about the rumors behind Woodvale and if there’s a third album coming, to which she said she’s exhausted. How are you feeling energy wise?

I think we both feel like it was Mission: Impossible - and we pulled it off. I imagine that we’ll make music together in some ways forever, because it was that sort of chemistry, and I’m so thankful and grateful for what happened, but I think there’s a lot there. It’s not just the two albums, there’s also bonus tracks, and two of my favorite songs aren’t even on this record. We’re not pouring into another one now.

I’m going to finish the Big Red Machine album - I was really very close to finishing it when all of a sudden the Folklore and Evermore vortex opened up, and actually Taylor has been really helpful and involved with that as well - and The National is starting to talk about making music, and I think she’ll probably take a break. But I’m so excited for any future things we might do -- it’s definitely a lifelong relationship. And I’d say the same for all the people who worked on these records, including my brother and everybody who contributed. It’s a really special legacy.

[hiscyarika]

Some Things You Just Can’t Speak About

Word Count: 2.5k

Pairing: Javier Peña x Reader

Summary: Reader and Javier work through the emotional baggage that comes with their jobs in Colombia. (Unofficial Prequel to When It’s Finally Over)

Warning(s): Heavy Angst, Hopelessness, Grieving, Mentions of Death, Blood, Mentions of Violence/Terrorism

A/N: So like a lot of people, I’ve fallen in love with Taylor Swift’s new album folklore. And when I heard the song “epiphany” (which I highly recommend you listen to while you read. I would link it but I’m afraid the post wouldn’t show up in the tags. The hellsite has been weird about that lately), it immediately sparked the idea for this oneshot. I just hope that this hasn’t been done yet, because I’ve already seen that a couple of authors have used songs on the album as inspiration. I really hope you guys enjoy this. It’s taken a couple of days to get it just the way that I want it. And a special thanks to @bestintheparsec​ for beta reading this for me! I love you Lauren! ❤️

Masterlist

Tag Lists (Open!)

Gif by @pascvl​, originally from this post. Please let me know if you’d rather me not use the gif! I’ll take it down immediately with no questions asked.

The thing about Colombia is that even after the smoke clears, the blood remains. It’s a crimson river that runs through the streets of Bogotá, then dries as a deep, lingering stain. The blood of men, women, and children. Guilty and innocent alike. And so long as Pablo Escobar lives, the stain will never wash away.

Even the sky burns scarlet with the dying sunset when you finally step out of the hospital. Ambulance sirens glow bright as paramedics attempt to bring more people into the already overwhelmed building.

Early in the afternoon, over two hundred pounds of C4 had been detonated outside of a crowded shopping center. Dozens were killed on impact and the death toll has continued to rise throughout the day. For hours, you haven’t stopped moving, trying desperately to save those who’d survived long enough to get to the hospital to be treated. Fortunately, recovery will be possible for some, but what weighs more heavily on your shoulders are the countless others that you could do nothing for.

Even now that you stand outside with a chance to breathe, your lungs can’t draw in enough air. The sharp stench of antiseptic still burns your nose, turning your stomach in violent knots. Every muscle is sore with a bone deep ache as you force one foot in front of the other in the direction of your car. But none of it compares to the stabbing pain in your soul, the helplessness and defeat that throbs more fiercely with every passing second.

You climb into your car, meeting your own eyes in the rearview mirror. You tear the nursing badge from your scrub shirt and toss it onto the passenger seat, not caring when it slides off the vinyl and onto the floor. Immediately, you have to close your eyes at the sight of the bloodstains on your clothes, a gruesome token of a day spent battling death.

All your years of schooling never prepared you to fight this war. You know how to read vitals. You know how to staunch bleeding and stitch wounds. You know how to intubate someone, to breathe for them. These are all things that can be taught. And you’ve learned them well.

But watching a woman die on the table, one close to your own age, is something entirely its own. You never get used to the shrill cry of the heart rate monitor as it flatlines. Nothing can prepare you for standing in front of an elderly woman, telling her that she’s outlived her daughter. They can’t teach you how to crouch down in front of a six-year-old boy and explain to him that he’ll never see his mother again. There’s no way to gently shatter someone’s world. As their reality crumbles, it takes a piece of you with it, and you only have so much of yourself to give.

The drive back to the apartment passes in a blurred haze, your mind on autopilot as you navigate your way in the growing darkness. You repress every emotion that threatens to bubble to the surface of your consciousness. Forcing numbness is far easier than letting your humanity tear you apart.

The last of the light dies from the sky as you pull into the parking lot, right next to Javier’s Jeep. You find your only solace in the fact that he’s home. In what little news you’d been able to hear, you’d learned that the DEA had been called to the scene. Escobar had never claimed responsibility for the attack, but a confession wasn’t necessary to know the truth, so you knew Javier would be part of the investigation.

Sucking in a deep breath, you try to prepare yourself for whatever state of mind he might be in. Javier brings work home in the form of endless files and a guilty conscience. Both he processes with whiskey and sleep deprivation. But you understand. You’re fighting with him on the front lines of this war. Losses are shared just the same as victories. Even the hard ones.

You drag yourself from the driver’s seat, locking the car up once the door is closed. The stairs to the apartment seem so much steeper as you stare at them now, and it takes what little remains of your perseverance to make it up.

The usual squeal of the front door grates on your nerves as you enter the apartment, more so than it normally does, anyway. You stop for a moment in the doorway, toeing off your shoes and listening carefully for any sign of Javier. From where you stand, you can see the soft yellow glow of the lamp in the living room and after a moment you realize that the voice you hear is coming from the television.

Padding quietly into the room, you feel your heart clench when you see what’s playing on the screen. It’s one of the local news stations, replaying footage from earlier in the day. You’re too tired to mentally translate the quick Spanish that the news anchor speaks, but when the numbers appear next to her to note the casualties, it’s not something that you can ignore. There are more than you thought.

You lose yourself in that news report, your mind running back through all of the trauma that you’ve seen. The shouting and screaming and crying becomes the soundtrack of your thoughts, all blended together in a somehow deafening cacophony despite the fact that it’s all in your head. You see that little boy again, the confused look he had given his grandmother as he asked her when his mother was going to come back from heaven. Oh, how her tear-filled eyes had pleaded with you to give some kind of an answer. And you’d tried. You really had.

You’re pulled from the violent reverie when the news report is replaced by a commercial. You pay it no mind, instead looking around the room for any sign of Javier. It doesn’t take you long to find him.

He’s passed out on the couch, sitting up with a glass of whiskey still in his hand. Even in sleep, his brow is furrowed, and worry lines cut deep into his forehead. Upon further inspection, you find the liquor bottle and a messy array of manila folders on the wooden coffee table in front of him, just as you expected.

You shake your head slightly, though he can’t see the action. The ache in your heart grows stronger as you watch him, his lips parted slightly as he breathes deeply and evenly. You suppose it’s the one thing that you have to be grateful for. As closely involved as he is with the hunt for Escobar, every night he comes home is a blessing. And for him to be sound asleep despite the day’s tragedies is truly invaluable.

You decide to leave him. Better for him to rest uninterrupted than to wake him. And though you know it’s better to work through the horrors you’ve been subjected to before you sleep, you don’t have the energy to face any of it right now. So you step closer to Javi, carefully prying the glass from his hand. Against your better judgement, you finish it off. You wince at the way it burns down your throat as you place the empty glass on the coffee table, but the warmth in your chest that follows is a welcome relief.

You scan the room then. It takes you a minute, but eventually you find the remote on the floor by his feet, probably dropped after he’d fallen asleep. You don’t hesitate to press the power button on the TV, and it brings you a bit of peace to watch the screen go black. Silence falls over the room, interrupted only by a soft snore from Javi.

You turn back to the coffee table, making sure that there’s a paperclip in each file to mark where he’d been. All the while, you try to avoid reading over any classified information, not that your brain could truly process a word of it in your current state of exhaustion. You then close the folders and stack them neatly on top of each other, letting out a heavy breath as you push yourself to stand upright again.

Your face falls in sympathy as you look at Javi once more. Even in sleep he looks exhausted. Your own emotional turmoil aside, it pains you to see the way that Colombia has worn him down. Every day he grows more desperate to find the man responsible for so much suffering, and with each day that passes, you know it only seems like he’s getting further and further away. You wish there was something more you could do to ease his mind.

After another moment, you take the blanket that’s draped over the back of the loveseat, unfolding it and gently covering Javi with it. Your movements are slow and cautious in an attempt to keep from waking him. Once you have the blanket situated, you cradle his cheek lightly in one hand, leaning down to press a tender kiss to his forehead.

You close your eyes at the contact, the first and only gentle interaction of your day. As your eyes flutter shut, you feel your chest begin to swell, and emotion wraps around your throat like barbed wire. Your lips linger for a few seconds longer than necessary as the dam inside you cracks, threatening to give way to a flood at a moment’s notice.

But as you pull away, you feel the feather light brush of eyelashes against your cheeks. You open your eyes, finding soft, tired brown eyes staring back at you. You’re frozen in place as he takes a moment to rouse himself, and once he’s more alert, his eyes trail down your body, catching sight of the blood on your scrubs. When he looks at you again, there’s a knowing glint in his eyes. You don’t have to tell him what you’ve seen, because he already knows. He’s seen it too.

Javier places his hands on your hips, gripping them gently as he tries to pull you closer to him. You brace yourself against his shoulders, resisting him while you’re still wearing your scrubs. Your chin falls to your chest in defeat. It only takes a moment to understand, and he carefully pulls the shirt up and over your head, making sure to keep the bloody fabric away from your face. Once it’s off, he tosses it carelessly to the floor.

You collapse into him as the dam breaks, and he takes it in stride, cradling the back of your head as you bury your face in his shoulder. Your knees land on either side of him, and with his free hand he guides you into a more comfortable position against him. In any other context, this arrangement with you straddling his lap would be carnal and passionate, but all Javier can feel now is the same pain that you force from your body with each gut-wrenching sob.

There are no words he can give you that will ease your pain. It’s something he knows from experience, repeated experience that he wishes you didn’t share with him. He knows what this constant fight against death and injustice can do to a person. He’s not blind to the ways that he’s changed in the years since he came to Colombia. Javier would do anything to make sure that you don’t suffer the same fate. You’re too good to have your gentle soul torn to shreds.

But he knows that all he can do for now is hold you. He can let you cry and mourn and release every emotion you’ve had to keep caged since you first stepped into the hospital this afternoon. And as you wrap your fists around the fabric of his shirt, he only holds you closer, clutching you tightly as his own pain begins to bubble back up into his chest. He’d tried so hard to drown it in booze and escape it in sleep, but Escobar had taken it too far this time. The saving grace is that the rest of the country agrees.

Javier cries silently with you, and though the manifestation of his grief is much quieter than yours, it’s by no means trivial in comparison. This is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. And break he does, in the safest place that he possibly can. He knows that there’s no judgement here, and that there never will be. So he closes his eyes and presses himself closer to you, your proximity being the only thing that could possibly soothe him.

Time is rendered tangential as you mourn together, though eventually you both fall quiet again with no more tears left to shed. Only when you stir against him does Javier lift his head and open his eyes. He manages a halfhearted smile as you meet his gaze, gently wiping away the remnants of your tears with the pads of his thumbs. In turn, you do the same for him, and he turns his head just in time to press a kiss to the underside of your wrist before you pull away again.

He watches you intently, and for just a moment you seem to hesitate, but then you capture his lips with yours. Javier lets out a soft breath in surprise, but soon melts into your touch. You are the salve to his very being, soothing his soul in a way that no one and nothing else can. At the end of the day, when the smoke has cleared and it’s time to count the dead, he thanks whatever god looks down on him, because he has you. Never will he march into battle alone. And he’s grateful, because he knows that he would never survive the war without you by his side.

You pull away again, and the look in your eyes says far more than words ever could. Because in your eyes is the same reverence for him that he holds for you. It’s night like this where you question why you chose the life you did, why you endure more anguish than any one person ever should have to. But then you look at Javier, and you know that you’re fighting the good fight. You know that with him, you can keep going until you reach the end of it all.

Javier presses a quick, soft kiss to your forehead, then shifts again to turn out the lamp light. In the dark, he carefully maneuvers you with him to lie down on the couch. You’re both still in work clothes and the couch is far less comfortable than your shared bed, but that’s not important now. What matters is the feeling of his heartbeat under your cheek as your head rests on his sternum. In just a few hours, the sun will rise again and you’ll both be forced to return to the battlefield, but for now you can find just a glimpse of relief in each other’s embrace.

-

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[bisluthq]

Happiness is about folklore era/the music; a lyric analysis.

So I see the song happiness confusing a lot of fans and I feel like it’s actually more straightforward than most of the other evermore songs. In order to understand it, though, we have to keep two things in mind:

She wrote it last and only finished it about a week before the album’s release. 

She said this in EW well prior to the album’s release: have this weird thing that I do when I create something where in order to create the next thing I kind of, in my head, attack the previous thing. I don't love that I do that but it is the thing that has kept me pivoting to another world every time I make an album. But with this one, I just still love it. I'm so proud of it. And so that feels very foreign to me. That doesn't feel like a normal experience that I've had with releasing albums.

Taylor has said this was the final thing she made for evermore, and she has also said that usually she wants to “destroy” the previous thing she made. In this case, that previous thing was folklore right? Now let’s look at the lyrics of the song. 

Honey, when I'm above the trees

I see this for what it is

But now I'm right down in it, all the years I've given

Is just shit we're dividin' up

Showed you all of my hiding spots

“Above the trees” is a callback to seven (where she’s both in the trees and high in the sky) and therefore to folklore - and she’s twisting it because again it’s “becoming folklore”, right? Even the recent past songs are not exempt from the treatment. 

“But now I’m right down in it, all the years I’ve given is just shit we’re dividin’ up” sounds like her current re-records situation. So essentially she seems to be saying that now that she is in the midst of the masters drama - re-recording her old stuff and all that, she’s being dredged into past mistakes and problems but she sees things more clearly when she is in the folklore era. 

The “hiding spots” are both a reference to folklore (and again the song seven) and the way she has mixed fact and fiction in this era to create a new narrative, allowing her to share very real truths but in a way that’s obscured through fictional characters AND a continuation of the thought above, where she was more confessional. She’s kinda toying with what it means to hide and what it means to show her truth and kinda suggests folklore era is the better experience of that. 

Then it gets even more explicit:

I was dancing when the music stopped

And in the disbelief, I can't face reinvention

I haven't met the new me yet

So the first line is mirrorball/her cancelled tour and the way she has continued working through “the disbelief”. And she “can’t face reinvention” - can’t do what she has always done as per the EW quote, and “hasn’t met the new her” yet. This seems confirms evermore and folklore are sister albums, right, and that this is one era. And that it’s the first time that has happened to her - that one era spilled into “another”. 

Then she says:

There'll be happiness after you

But there was happiness because of you

Both of these things can be true

There is happiness

She is enjoying this right now (there is happiness, in the last line, so it’s not just a past tense thing), but it’s a little bittersweet because she knows there will eventually be an era after this. She will move on and find new sources of inspiration and new musical ideas and styles and thoughts. And she also knows this happiness was given to her folklore and now is in evermore. But she’ll move on from the whole era eventually as well. 

After that, Taylor writes:

Past the blood and bruise

Past the curses and cries

Beyond the terror in the nightfall

Haunted by the look in my eyes

That would've loved you for a lifetime

Leave it all behind

And there is happiness

She is moving through all of her past hurts and mistakes and regrets - that’s what she’s doing on these albums, we’ve been saying she’s processing a lot of very old hurts and mistakes and experiences and finding happiness. 

Next, we get this:

Tell me, when did your winning smile

Begin to look like a smirk?

When did all our lessons start to look like weapons

Pointed at my deepest hurt?

Firstly, she is working through a lot of stuff on these albums so these are reasonable things to ask even in a vague way. But more than that, she is hinting at bow the way she worked her “winning smile” was no longer sustainable. That’s what she speaks to in this interview. She couldn’t keep writing pure autobiography or primarily autobiography (I have said she mixes facts and fiction before folklore and I stand by that, but the point is she framed it as such). The “lessons” she had learned started pointing out her hurts. She needed a new modus operandi. 

And so what happens in the next bit? She embraces that new storytelling device:

I hope she'll be your beautiful fool

Who takes my spot next to you

No, I didn't mean that

Sorry, I can't see facts through all of my fury

You haven't met the new me yet

We get a reference to Fitzgerald/Great Gatsby to distance herself from this (extremely) personal song. And then she immediately backtracks - “I didn’t mean that, sorry I can’t see facts” - she is on the fence about what the narrative device means. She isn’t completely comfortable adding in this fictional character into her songwriting. Her emotions - her “fury” - are obscuring that. And so she says we, her listeners, haven’t met the new her yet. We are still in folklore era. 

We get another twist on this bittersweet chorus:

There'll be happiness after me

But there was happiness because of me

Both of these things, I believe

There is happiness

Once more, there is happiness right now. But there’ll be happiness after this era - and maybe even after she stops making music - but she made an impact in this era (and in the past before) and she created happiness for us, her listeners. 

She continues with that theme:

In our history, across our great divide

There is a glorious sunrise

Dappled with the flickers of light

From the dress I wore at midnight, leave it all behind

And there is happiness

This seems to reference 1989, Reputation and possibly even Lover - so her last three eras and… possibly more. That’s “our history”, right, the way she has recreated herself over her career. The “great divide” separates this new era from her past ones. And then we get Wildest Dreams but folklorized - sunrise instead of sunset. And possibly Daylight - but the light is flickering now, so maybe it’s also DBATC. The dress I wore at midnight could be Wildest Dream’s “nice dress”, the one she bought so “you could take it off”, or one of the princess gowns from early eras…  like the Love Story one, even. Or even the one in Dear John. It’s both extremely specific and vague, and I think is purposefully what she’s about to “leave behind” right. She’s leaving “the girl in the dress” behind. 

And when she does leave her behind, there is happiness. But it’s still bittersweet. 

We then get:

I can't make it go away by making you a villain

I guess it's the price I paid for seven years in Heaven

Well the first line is very obviously the Reputation era, but it also fits all her other diss tracks and the drags of all kinds (like just the “write a song about you” vibes she gave off for a long time). 

And then the line that broke y’all - “seven years”.... Well, there were seven “confessional” albums. Where she was making “you” a villain and letting people in and now she is stepping back from that. Everyone is still trying to “pin” songs on people and that’s the price she paid for that time. A time she really, genuinely enjoyed. But which she wants to move on from now. 

Then:

And I pulled your body into mine

Every goddamn night, now I get fake niceties

No one teaches you what to do

When a good man hurts you

And you know you hurt him, too

I think this is in part that fictional narrative she started with in the Gatsby thing. Remember, this is deeply deeply personal but she has said that this album is always mixing fact and fiction. So as much as it’s that fictional aspect, she is also saying she used her romances as inspiration - and no one teaches you what to do when you get hurt by that. She used to write songs. But she knows that’s not the only way and you hurt people on the way too. So this is in part the protagonist singing, but it’s also referencing her songwriting style and inspiration and process. 

Taylor then goes back to her early images in the song and twists them a bit:

Honey, when I'm above the trees

I see it for what it is

But now my eyes leak acid rain on the pillow where you used to lay your head

After giving you the best I had

Tell me what to give after that

All you want from me now is the green light of forgiveness

You haven't met the new me yet

And I think she'll give you that

When she is in the folklore era she can “see it for what it is”. The “acid rain” seems to hark back to early albums that had very many songs about meeting up in and reconciling in the rain. She gave us the best she had but what should she do after that? Then we get the Gatsby thing that recurs through this with the green light. I think she’s also toying with the idea that many of her fans kinda want that confessional thing. Many of us want to be let in and to get a window into her life but she can’t quite do it - she’s masking it in Gatsby and characters. 

We - her listeners - haven’t me the new her yet. 

But maybe we’ll like that new her even more, Tay says, in a bittersweet way. 

This is the ode to folklore era again: 

There'll be happiness after you

But there was happiness because of you, too

Both of these things can be true

There is happiness

And again there is happiness. 

This bit is similar to the previous one, but again in the way she usually does in this song and era twisted somewhat:

In our history, across our great divide

There is a glorious sunrise

Dappled with the flickers of light

From the dress I wore at midnight, leave it all behind

Oh, leave it all behind

Leave it all behind

And there is happiness

What’s the twist? Leave it all behind is repeated. She is really insisting that in leaving the history behind she is finding happiness. Now. It is. It exists. But it is, again, somewhat bittersweet because she finds her relationship with this era so confusing - especially, I think, given she is currently re-recording. 

In conclusion, this reading makes the most sense to me and I’m curious what y’all think. 

[taste-in-music]

taste-in-music’s Year End Wrap-Up

Hello everybody! We’ve finally reached the end of 2020. While I’m glad to leave this miserable year behind, one of things that undeniably got me through it was the vast amount of awesome music we got. In past years I’ve made favorite album and EP lists, but this time around I’m going to tackle them all in one go, giving reviews on the projects that had some significances to me over the course of the year. I’m going to make a post for my favorite songs too, so keep an eye out for that in coming days. Now, without further ado, let’s get started, shall we?

folklore by Taylor Swift: This was an incredible year of growth for Taylor Swift. As much as I’ve enjoyed her past music, the way she constantly felt the need to address what people thought of her always irked me, (though after watching her documentary, I do understand why she did it.) It wasn’t Taylor Swift the public persona that was most interesting, I thought. It was Taylor Swift the artist, the songwriter, the storyteller. What I wanted was an album focused on that. This year, I got one, (well... more on that later,) and it’s my favorite project she’s ever done. The tales Swift spins on folklore span across love triangles, heiresses, and battlefields, and she nails each and every one. While the chilly indie-folk influence from the likes of Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon is prominent, Swift’s warmth and charisma always cuts through the fog like a beam of sunlight. So yeah, this is my undeniable album of the year.

Fetch The Bolt Cutters by Fiona Apple: I only started listening to Fiona Apple last year and had thoroughly enjoyed her music, but this album cemented her as one of my favorite songwriters and performers of all time. Everything about Fetch The Bolt Cutters is so idiosyncratic yet fits together in just the right way, like watching an entire house being dropped from the sky and falling perfectly into place. It is a testament to the creative process, emotional honesty, and breaking free from all the cages you may find yourself in, whether they be societal, personal, or those of your own making. And in a year that was so isolating, it felt like Apple was whispering everything I needed to hear right into my ear, just when I needed it. In short, my boltcutters have been motherfucking fetched. 

Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers: When Punisher was announced, I had no clue how Phoebe Bridgers would match the quality of Stranger In The Alps. Upon first listen, I wasn’t sure she had. By the fifteenth time I was listening to this album and every lyric was hitting like Cupid’s arrow to the jugular, I knew she’d surpassed it. Punisher presents a sonic scope that both comforts and crushes all at once, like with the upbeat yet mournful horns on “Kyoto” or the cathartic swell on standout “I Know The End.” In my opinion, Bridgers is one of the greatest songwriters of our generation in the making, and I can’t wait to see what the future brings for her. She may know the end, but she’s far from it. 

SAWAYAMA by Rina Sawayama: This is the album I see becoming a new shorthand for the true potential of pop excellence, a cult hit that never got its time to shine but is beloved by pop music geeks to the ends of the earth, like EMOTION by Carly Rae Jepsen. SAWAYAMA so effortlessly blends diverse genres and influences like disco, nu metal, and arena rock, and it yet it remains cohesive due to Rina Sawayama’s sheer strength as a performer. She deserves a spot on the pop girlie hierarchy, and one near the top. 

Future Nostalgia by Dua Lipa: I really enjoyed Dua Lipa’s debut album, but even I didn’t expect her to come through with such a fully realized, consistent, downright fantastic follow up. Future Nostalgia is a pop album that feels studied, like Lipa did her research of pop’s past as she made it. The result is an album that synthesizes several different sounds under her vision, one that is always trained ahead, and it simply slaps. In a perfect world, nearly every song on this album got spun off into a hit single. 

evermore by Taylor Swift: 2020 was already my year of listening to Taylor Swift, (I went through her whole discography, cultivated a favorites playlist, and at the end of the year I was in the top 2% of her yearly Spotify listeners.) evermore was a lovely cherry to top it all off. While folklore enchanted me with its stories, evermore captivated me with its melodies. I haven’t been able to get snippets of this album out. of. my. head. for weeks now. It’s a bit less consistent than it’s older sister, (and likely to live in its shadow,) but there is still so much to love. 

I’m Allergic to Dogs! by Remi Wolf: This EP is so much goddamn fun. It’s a blend of many different sounds, indie pop, electronic, maybe hip hop, I think reggae at points? It’s such a colorful, textured, quirky listen bristling with energy and undeniable hooks. “Woo!” conquered my Summer, and months later the bridge of “Photo ID” conquered TikTok. Keep your eye out for Remi Wolf in the coming year, she’s going to make a big splash. 

Good At Being Young by Charli Adams: Good At Being Young was the first EP this year that I could not get enough of. It drifts through dreamy indie-pop sounds, with melancholic guitars and cloudy synths, and Adams has a deep vocal timbre that delivers tales of adolescent tribulations with just the right amount of wistfulness. Overall, it builds the perfect soundscape for a late-night drive.

Cape God by Allie X: Allie X has been keeping us FED with content. It seems like only yesterday that Super Sunset came out, and yet her output remains impressively consistent. This album has impressive highs, some lower moments, but the danceability, duets, and enticing darkness under its shiny pop veneer make it a record you won’t want to skip. 

La vita nuova by Christine and The Queens: Perhaps the biggest flex of 2020 was Christine and The Queens dropping a fantastic EP and accompanying short film right out of the gate. The grooves on this are infectious, wiry, and air-tight, (the Caroline Polachek feature was another added bonus,) but that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of emotional weight too. 

Lighter by Donna Missal: This was one of my most anticipated albums of the year, and it’s hard to determine whether it disappointed or not. I think the only thing holding Lighter back is that This Time was such a formative album for me, (my favorite of 2018, to the uninitiated.) In fact, this album flows way better than This Time, more cohesive with its storytelling and more consistent in folk-rock sound. And, of course, Donna Missal’s vocals stun on both the bangers and the ballads. 

SURF by BLACKSTARKIDS: There was no record this year that was more instantly likeable than this one. The blend of low-fi indie pop and hip hop makes for a whirlwind of sunny fun and youthful malaise that would make the perfect soundtrack for a road trip to the beach. Standouts include the opening track “SOUNDS LIKE FUN,” the chill “WIGS,” and blissful title track “MUSIC TO SURF TO.”

The Baby by Samia: I’ve had my eye on Samia since “Milk” dropped years ago. Seeing her live sparked my belief that she was an indie darling in the making, and The Baby confirmed that she definitely was. The lyrics on this album mix quiet contemplation with just enough sardonic wit and raw emotion throughout a varied selection of sunny rock bops and gut wrenching ballads. If you enjoyed Punisher, then I can’t recommend this enough.

Season 2 by Nasty Cherry: Nasty Cherry is a group that I will not stop rooting for. Their EP from last year showed their potential for nailing monster hooks, but this sophomore effort shows just how versatile they can be. This EP covers everything from Dylan Brady produced hyperpop to early-2000s reminiscent pop rock to emotional balladry, and they pull it all off flawlessly. 

A Little Rhythm and a Wicked Feeling by Magdalena Bay: This album became a fast favorite way late in the year, there is such a sweetness to Magdalena Bay’s music that makes it stick in your brain like a piece of blue raspberry bubblegum. This EP is spacey, catchy, and filled with electronic synthpop mastery, with countless catchy hooks that’ll make you feel like drifting and dancing all at once.

Miss Anthropocene by Grimes: The bubblegum bombast of Art Angels fully redefined my taste in pop years ago, so I was fascinated to see how Grimes would follow it up. On Miss Anthropocene, she leans into darker, more industrial textures, but also anchors it back to Earth with acoustic touches and some of her most introspective lyrics to date. Grimes painted a version of a world on the brink of disaster on this album, a picture that was hypnotically beautiful. And in a year where the word was a certified disaster, that was strangely comforting.

Plastic Hearts by Miley Cyrus: I’ve been wanting Miley to go rock for so goddamn long, Plastic Hearts was bound to make this list by pure validation alone. But what can I say? This breed of glossy 80s rock suits Cyrus’s rougher voice so well! I hope she stays in this lane a bit longer, but as we know, she’s one of pop’s most chameleonic figures. Only time will tell. 

Where Does The Devil Hide by Zella Day: I have been patiently awaiting new Zella Day music ever since getting hooked on Kicker back in 2017, so this was one of my most anticipated releases of the year. This EP sounds nothing like Kicker, and I couldn’t be happier. It shows Day leaning even more into her influences from the past, (the 60s/70s vibes are intense with this one,) but also breathing a refreshing new life into them. 

SOUL LADY by Yukika: When I imagine the ideal of pop music, what it would sound like in a perfect world, this is what it sounds like. SOUL LADY is full of pristine, glossy production and catchy hooks that feel like they’ve come down from the clouds. I’ll admit that I can have trouble forming a connection with music when I don’t understand the lyrics, (it’s something I’m working on,) but this album cleared that hurdle with ease. If you’re curious about city pop or K-pop this is a great place to start. 

Heaven Is Without You by Love You Later: Give me lush pop production and heartbroken lyrics finished off with a heaping helping of nostalgia and I’ll eat it up with a spoon. Love You Later has been feeding my addiction to this genre for years, and this latest helping is particularly sweet. 

IN A DREAM by Troye Sivan: Troye Sivan has always supplied the bops, but it was about time that he started experimenting with his sound a little bit more. This EP offers some harder-hitting electronic textures, but also the addictive hooks that’ll keep you coming back for more.

Ungodly Hour by Chloe X Halle: These women are so TALENTED! If there is any word I’d use to describe this album it would be “effortless,” the harmonies, grooves, and chemistry between Chloe and Halle feels so natural and free-flowing. Charisma just rolls off of them in droves, I see full-blown stardom and several Grammys in their future.

Watching You by Robinson: This EP was one of the first on this list to arrive this year, and it still hits months later. Robinson’s confessional lyrics work wonders over the buoyant pop grooves, and “Don’t Say” remains one of the best pop songs of recent years. 

Manic by Halsey: I respect Halsey for dipping her toes into a myriad of different genres, (synth pop, rock, hip hop, and acoustic balladry,) but it does make for a jumbled listening experience. Still, I appreciate that this album features some of Halsey’s strongest tracks and writing to date, offering greater experimentation and emotional imtimacy than album’s past. 

We Don’t Stop by Aly & AJ: Should this count? It’s more a compilation of their past EP and singles... I don’t care, I’m counting it because there’s some new stuff too. This is an excellent display of Aly & AJ’s pop prowess in recent years, the hooks, vocal chemistry, and shimmery production are undeniable. 

Under My Influence by The Aces: The Aces returned in 2020 with a more laid-back, groovier record than their debut, exploring a wider variety of sounds. They’re as magnetic and likeable a group as ever, each member giving it their all, but I think I’ll return to the debut more often. 

Strangers/Lovers by Dagny: I’ve been anticipating a longer Dagny project, as she’s been drip-feeding us singles for a while now. This was a lot of fun, with Dagny pairing her upbeat earnestness with stories of romantic tribulation. While the hooks aren’t as memorable as her past offerings, there is still so much to enjoy. Lead single “Come Over” and “Let Me Cry” are my favorites.

DUALITY by Tatiana Hazel: I came across this via recommendation on Tik Tok and it’s a solid pop record! The music is swooning, synthy, and tinged with disco and Latin influence. The record doesn’t waste a second of its runtime, clocking in at less than half an hour and grooving the whole time.

After Hours by The Weeknd: The sonic palette of After Hours is so engaging, a neon-drenched blend of synthwave, electropop, and R&B. I’ve always felt lukewarm on The Weeknd’s musical persona of brooding, villainous party monster, so the strongest moments on this album tend to be when he subverts that in some way. Still, in full, this album is an undeniable force of smash hits, stadium-shaking ballads, and cinematic flair. I can’t wait for his Super Bowl performance. 

Petrol Bloom by LAUREL: It’s no secret that this year was chock-full of 80s revival albums (there’s what, five others on this list?) LAUREL wasn’t an artist I was expecting to go in that direction after the brooding folk pop of her debut album, but her deeper timbre works great alongside the synthy soundscapes. 

positions by Ariana Grande: I’ve just come to expect that nearly all of Ariana Grande’s albums are going to be growers to me. My first listen to positions was underwhelming, but the songs have grown on me more and more. This album feels like being let in on a giggly, fun slumber party with Grande and her friends. I wouldn’t call this her strongest album by far, and while I tend to prefer when she favors the more powerful parts of her range, (and her enunciations could still use some work,) there is a lot of good material here. 

THE ALBUM by BLACKPINK: We may just have to stan. I checked this out after watching their Netflix documentary, and while this breed of cacophonous, in-your-face electropop isn’t something I can listen to all the time, the hooks and charisma are undeniable. It certainly makes me feel like a bad bitch whenever I’m working out. 

Kid Krow by Conan Gray: Conan Gray burst onto my radar offering dreamy tracks rich with teen malaise and suburban restlessness, and a good amount of that initial appeal carries over onto this album. Kid Krow has both a larger instrumental scope and more stripped-back moments. In the end, it still feels like Gray is finding his voice as an artist, but he's giving up great bops to jam out to as he does.

Petals For Armor by Hayley Williams: Hayley Williams is one of my favorite vocalists, so seeing her venture out for a solo project was exciting. This album offers a mixed bag of danceable jams, emotive moments that showcase Williams’s powerful voice, and a few skips. But overall it showcases Williams’s strength as a performer as she tackles her past with vulnerability and versatility.

Apart by LÉON: Oh, man. This one was kind of disappointing. For context, LÉON’s self-titled debut was my favorite album of last year. This follow-up is by no means bad, but every song on her first album was instantly memorable. This one, not so much. LÉON’s vocals are beautiful, and there are some stand-out tracks, but I don’t see myself returning to this nearly as much. 

Blush by Maya Hawke: Maya Hawke’s Blush was to my 2020 what Tōth’s Practice Magic and Seek Professional Help When Necessary was to my 2019, (and that makes sense, as they’ve collaborated in the past.) This album is so blissful and nonchalant, and Maya Hawke has a gentle, soothing voice that feels wise beyond her years. While the writing isn’t as hard-hitting as, say, the Phoebe Bridgers album, sometimes I just want to listen to something that could rock me off into a dream world. If you like folksy, down-to-earth ballads, you’ve got a solid collection of them right here. 

Dedicated Side B by Carly Rae Jepsen: Of course Queen Carly would pull through with B-sides for Dedicated, did we expect anything less? Jepsen’s brand of controlled yet carefree shimmery poptimism drenched in 80s nostalgia that never fails to put me in a good mood. This album has some lusher, more tropical instrumentation than Dedicated proper, but works great alongside it.

Missing Person by Kelsy Karter: To the Plastic Hearts fans out there, your homework now is to give this record a listen. This rock album presents pop hooks, but a lot of reckless rock fun too. Kelsy Karter has so much irresistible swagger and carefree spirit as a performer, speeding through the emotional highs and lows like she’s burning rubber in a cherry red Cadillac. 

how i’m feeling now by Charli XCX: I’ll admit, this album was a bit abrasive to me on first listen. But tracks like “anthems” and “forever” made me return, and it’s a huge grower. If you listen closely, you’ll find the sugary-sweet hooks and relatable sentiments nestled deep in the crunchy hyperpop textures, begging to be discovered and eventually loved. 

Jaguar by Victoria Monét: If you enjoyed positions, then check out the debut from one of that album’s most prominent co-writers. Jaguar’s concise collection of silky R&B slow-burners show that Victoria Monet’s is a superstar in her own right. 

Some great albums I listened to that didn’t come out this year: Blue by Joni Mitchell, BLACKPINK IN YOUR AREA by BLACKPINK, I Need to Start a Garden by Haley Heynderickx, Plastic Beach by Gorillaz, Out in the Storm by Waxahatchee, 7 by Beach House, Dummy by Portishead, Lovers Fevers by Babygirl, and Red by Taylor Swift. 

Whether you liked, reblogged, or commented on a post, sent me an ask, or interacted with this blog in any way, thank you so much for all the support throughout the year! I can’t express how much I appreciate it. 

What were your favorite albums from this year? Did I miss anything? Send me an ask and let me know. I’ll tell you my thoughts, or put it on my to-listen-to list if I haven’t heard it. 

Here’s to 2021! May it clear the extremely low bar set by this year. 

[thegirlbornin1989]

how am i supposed to process the fact that we now get to listen to fearless (taylor’s version) when i haven’t gotten over folklore yet????