#home video era

[drunkondesign]

Usher ‘Risk It All’

[nicoscheer]

chris_bloodfilms Met my hero on a train.

This story is long so scroll if you cba reading.

It's 2005, a band explodes on MySpace. They're dressed like you and their lyrics are a mirror to your life.

Bleeding heck, who the fuck are the Arctic Monkeys?

After 19 years on repeat it's now 2024. Myself and @conor_bloodfilms are travelling back from Paris.

We arrive at Gare Du Nord and Duffy stops in his tracks. He whispers to me "I think that's Alex Turner."

"F**k off!" | immediately reply. I gaze over at a guy wearing a leather jacket with long brown hair, his face adorned with aviators. We should probably stop staring as it's getting weird, sexually and aggressively weird.

Turns out it is bloody Alex Turner, the man who's provided the soundtrack to my life! He strolls past and disappears into the Parisian platform crowd. A missed opportunity.

We board our train back to London. We look to our left and there's Alex. Sitting in his seat accompanied by a notepad. He's probably writing the next Arctic Monkeys hit "Two gawping pricks on a train". We really need to stop staring.

I tell Duffers I'm going in, he stops me. Reminds me that I'm a fully functioning adult and not to create a scene. Christ, he's right! I feel like I'm 15 years old again, someone get me a Strongbow and whack Dancing Shoes on, kin hell lad!

Eventually myself and Con engage, it's a surreal experience. Alex is polite and returns conversation in a soft friendly manner. The whole situation is just bloody lovely.

I awkwardly ask if I can take his portrait, fully aware that it could result in an awkward exchange and destroy this wonderful moment. He smiles and obliges, he's effortlessly cool, asks for direction and I take a few snaps.

We disembark the train, I felt quite emotional and that's embarrassing to admit. Maybe it was the jet lag, the caffeine and croissant overload? Or maybe it was just the rekindling of my youth.

This all might sound trivial, however, for me these portraits are deeply personal serving a reminder that life is a series of fortunate events and when fully appreciated can conjure up some pretty awesome memories.

[starscelly]

????? hello?????

[davemustaine]

megadeth, 1988

[evermorre]

speak now (taylor's version) at the eras tour headers

a few different header variants from the Kansas City (night 1) speak now performance at the eras tour! please reblog if you use one! each are 640x360 and the variants include different borders.

[novelconcepts]

Van as storyteller. Van, with a miserable home life, a place where she has to raise herself. Van, who’s probably been telling herself stories to ward off the loneliness for years. Van, who sees stories as escape.

Van, who lands in the woods and starts telling stories aloud. Van, who has all these movies living inside her head, who lets them out to make everyone else feel less alone. Van, who takes a campfire dynamic and turns the dial to eleven, because stories are comfort, stories are safety, stories are home.

Van, who understands more than anyone expects expressly because of stories. Van, who sees the situation through the lens of a narrative arc. Beginning. Middle. End. Van, who watches the plot unfold, watches the twists and turns, and can’t stop telling the story aloud. Van, who knows all too well what kind of story they’ve landed in.

Van, who can’t stop telling the story now. Van, who sees the truth behind the tale. Van, who is finally done regurgitating the narratives that bring her comfort, who turns instead to the ones that will keep them alive. Van, who understands stories are sometimes the only way out, the only way to escape.

[pseudophan]

i'm supposed to go out to eat at a restaurant two days in a row and i'm so scared dnp are gonna upload early because i WILL be a little bitch baby about it

[sincericida]

"Would not be upset if Andrew Garfield spit in my mouth"

Andrew: *processing it*

[pennybunce4ever]

does anyone else ever just

i'm not tired yet we still got a lot to figure out like what was the end of the movie about anyways you're yawning on your couch i wonder if i overstayed my welcome until you asked me if I'd like to take a walk we’re going to the five and dime the only open place at this time of night you're dancing in the aisle cause the radio is singing you a song you know ad the kid at the counter is gawking at your grace i can tell what he's thinking by the look on his face it’s not his fault i’m sure i look the same it’s what you do but it's not you i blame your mama read my palm she wouldn't tell me what it was she saw but after that you weren't allowed to spend the night i’m staring at my hands red ruddy skin i don't understand how did they betray me what did i do i never touched you how i wanted to what can i say to your mom to let you come outside you know i'll be seeking if you run and hide if the door were to open would you walk through the frame if you're too afraid it won't be you i blame you passed a note in class told me to meet you at the overpass your lip was trembling when you said that we are cursed you're trying not to cry when you tell me you're afraid that we may die i said so what everybody's scared of that i want you to tell me that you miss me want you to hold and hurt and kiss me i wanna run away and live on your family's boat it's a triple dog dare you're a chicken if you don't i can fish for our food and you know how to start a flame if you don't get out now you'll only have yourself to blame you said you'll have me there if it's a triple dog dare a triple dog dare a triple dog dare a triple dog dare a triple dog dare a triple dog dare a triple dog dare a triple dog dare a triple dog dare a triple dog dare a triple dog dare a triple dog dare a triple dog dare a triple dog dare a triple dog dare a triple dog dare they put our faces on the milk jugs missing children 'til they gave up your mama was right and through the grief can't fight the feeling of relief nothing worse could happen now nothing worse could happen now nothing worse could happen now

[drunkondesign]

‘Risk It All’ music video screencaps.

[dylanconrique]

thinking about tim surprising lucy AND tamara with eras tour tickets all so he can fill his camera roll with pictures and videos of his girls looking all bejeweled while singing and danceing at the show.

[plainsimpletaylor]

Taylor Swift’s single era on Midnights, a lyric analysis

Here’s the thing: I think Taylor Swift has been in her single era for the past few months and she’s already told us about it on Midnights. Here’s an exploration of this theme on the album. (This is a long post but worth it.)

Dear Reader

Let’s start with Dear Reader because the outro is screaming that she’s single. The way Taylor Swift uses her own motifs that she’s been building across her entire career to really hammer this message home that she is alone just destroys me.

To Taylor, going home is going home to a lover. It’s the physical act of making a house a home. It is this gentle, comforting, cozy kind of love. Her specifying that she’s going a house instead of a home underlines that she’s alone. She is physically in a house, but she is not emotionally at home. And no one would take her word for it because her being alone is counter to the public narrative of her six-year relationship.

And just in case she wasn’t clear enough already, she emphasizes that she’s alone yet again by bringing in another of her motifs: that love is a game.

She is no longer playing a two-player game. She’s playing solitaire, which says in the name of the game itself how solitary it is. And then, to underscore this even further, absolutely no one is watching and seeing her play this game. (I have so many more thoughts on this lyric alone, but to avoid tangents here, I’ll write a different post to discuss that further at some point.)

So, with these two lyrics, she has established and emphasized several different ways that she’s alone. She’s single.

Now, let’s look at the lyric in between the two above. This is describing her feeling trapped in her own house. Here’s where Eras Tour visuals come in to align with this song.

‼️ Spoiler warning for eras tour visuals

Going “home” to Taylor has a specific meaning but so does a “house” because of the Lover House that represents her entire body of work so far. The Lover House is the house that Taylor built (or bought with the songs she wrote as she says in the Miss Americana documentary). It’s very significant that she is literally burning down the Lover House every single night at tour, and this lyric in Dear Reader gives more context to this visual.

In Dear Reader, the house is trapping her. Across all her work, Taylor has written over and over about cages and fences and boxes to evoke the feeling of being trapped. I find the use of the word “pen” here to be a very specific choice. "Pen” both means a physical pen locking something away as well as a writing instrument. She feels trapped inside this house that she built with her own writing.

I don’t think she resents her past work — but the narrative the public has created for her from it. Her early work is characterized by fairytale romances and idealizing the idea of marriage as a happy ending. And now, so many people keep expecting her to get married and have kids and retire so she can live out that narrative in real life. But as seen in other songs on Midnights like Lavender Haze, she’s decided that life isn’t for her.

So, she is burning down the Lover House, which represents the pen she feels trapped in, in order to be freed of the expectations the public has for her and have more control of her own public image and narrative.

Lavender Haze

The idea of feeling boxed in or trapped by societal roles and the public’s expectations is exemplified in Lavender Haze.

Her history is the Lover House and her career and the muses people assign to all of those songs. This is also her history of having written about an idealized version of marriage as a picture perfect happy ending. That is the standard to which a lot of the public is holding her to well over a decade later.

And now, she’s telling the public that she no longer wants that idea of marriage or that kind of happy ending. The lyric above is a critique of the entire societal standard that still categorizes women into two distinct boxes: either you’re the femme fatale temptress or the doting housewife. And she’d rather talk about anything else than whether or not she’ll get married.

She’s damned, or trapped, if she cares about the public’s expectations. She’ll be shoved into one of those two boxes: the temptress that can’t ever hold down a man or a doting housewife that’s expected to retire from her highly successful career in order to have children and that perfect happy ending.

And she especially does not want to be the housewife type figure. She directly says that doesn’t want that 1950s shit. It’s clear to me from this song that she wants to be successful in her career and just be herself without having all these expectations and gender roles forced upon her.

Lavender Haze is all about rejecting the traditional idea of marriage and charting her own path in life that’s outside of the public’s expectations. And the music video’s visuals support this, especially when the last shot is of her alone and seemingly happy without a lover.

This theme of rejecting the narrative that the public wants for her exists throughout Midnights because the album is about nights across her life, and her entire life has been shaped by her relationship with fame.

Midnight Rain

Obviously, the song that most directly echoes Lavender Haze in terms of rejecting the idea of marriage is Midnight Rain.

I don’t think Midnight Rain is about a recent time in her life, but she still chose to include a song about this on the album to further contribute to this theme of taking her narrative into her own hands. Midnight Rain positions Taylor as a complete opposite to the lover in the song — and by extension her career as opposite to that idealized fairytale happy ending type of romance.

Bejeweled

The entirety of Bejeweled sounds like it’s reflecting on a break up and getting back out there afterward. But for being in her single era, this one lyric stands out. And if you change the punctuation in “I don’t remember,” it can have two different meanings.

“I don’t remember” = whether or not she has a man is so unimportant she doesn’t remember for sure if she does or not

“I don’t, remember?” = I don’t have a man, why don’t you remember that?

The Bejeweled music video is also directly countering the fairytale happy ending romance. It’s a retelling of Cinderella where she ends up happy and alone. She literally turns down a proposal from the prince so that she can have her castle she won with her talent all to herself with her dragons/cats. That’s very single era to me.

You’re On Your Own, Kid

YOYOK is basically a pep talk she’s giving to her self about how she’s always been alone and how she can still be okay being alone. (cw: ed mention)

This specific lyric gets me because it’s once again a rejection of that idealized fairytale happy ending. Romance isn’t going to suddenly heal her like in the stories because real life isn’t a fairytale. Perfect magical kisses don’t exist.

At the end of the song, she realizes she’s always been alone and that’s a source of comfort. She’s always had the tools to handle whatever life throws at her all on her own.

Taylor Swift is in her single era, and that’s okay!

I realize after writing all this out that it sounds like she’s sad in being single, but I don’t think she is. Every single one of these songs, aside from Dear Reader, has an upbeat note to it in the production and melody as well as some of the lyrics. Dear Reader can come back around to being upbeat with the Eras Tour visuals of her burning down the Lover House and being freed from everyone’s expectations.

Each and every piece of this is an example of her reclaiming her narrative for herself — and working to define her career not by any of her relationships or the public’s expectations, but by what she wants and her talent and her artistry. She wants to stand alone and proud on her own. That is definitely a happy thing.

[ladyinasong]

Perrie Edwards - In Conversation interview with NME (read here)

[wonderful101gecs]

begging speedrun youtubers on hand and knee to use to more than the same 3 synthwave artists that Summoning Salt's been using since 2016, dear god please

[evermoredeancas]

good morning i saw taylor swift live last night and will never be the same

[jrueships]

Did I miss demar's post for kyles birthday?

KYLE/DEMAR BESTIES!!! I AM PUTTING UP THE BAT SIGMAL!!!!!! WE MUST KNOW ‼️‼️