HELLO ALL!
Today I am sharing something that I have never attempted to do for my blog – nor have I ever attempted to do, ever. I’m sharing a YouTube video of myself! My good friend Nic and I had a little chat over the weekend analyzing Taylor Swift’s 7th studio album, Lover and had some wine to go along with the banter.
As many of you know, I have been a huge Taylor Swift fan for the past 11 years – starting when I was just 12 years old. I have seen Taylor Swift perform seven times and will be seeing her for the eighth time at B96’s Jingle Bash on December 7. I was lucky enough to meet her at her 1989 World Tour stop in Chicago at Soldier Field – click here to read about it.
While I have been extremely anxious about what her 6th album is going to bring, it has brought me a ridiculous amount of desire to write about the music she has been releasing.
This piece has been a work in progress – the content has been stirring in my head since the release of her first single back in August – and I sit here typing just two weeks out from the official release of the album.
45 months is a long time for an artist to disappear in between their album cycles. It took 45 months (or approximately 1325 days) for Lorde to return to the world, to grace our presence with the release of her second album, Melodrama, following the massively successful debut of Pure Heroine. Any artist taking that long of a break in between albums brings the uncertainty of the sound or direction of an album, and many people wondered how and if Lorde (real name Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor) would be able to deliver a another album as massively powerful as her debut.
There are albums that you enjoy, that you listen to multiple times immediately after they are released and encourage your friends to listen to. There are albums created by musicians that you’ll support on tour and see the live show, you’ll post a tweet or a boomerang of the show and that’ll be that. But there are also albums that you feel are so poignant in your life in the specific moment that they are released that will become staples in your music library for the rest of your life.
September 20, 2010 was an important day for pop culture – even if you don’t know it.
Just over 7.5 years ago, Harry Styles – previously known as one fifth of the massively successful, brilliantly devised boy band otherwise known as One Direction – auditioned for the British television show The X Factor. At just sixteen years old, Styles is hardly recognizable to the multidimensional superstar that he has become – appearing onstage with a mop of brown curly hair, wearing a taupe cardigan and matching scarf, quietly sharing his college plans – (he was going to study sociology, law and business in University) – and that he developed his passion for music after becoming the singer of his high school band, “White Eskimo.”
Lady Gaga seems to spend her off seasons reinventing herself. It’s her time to take on side projects and activism roles while quietly calculating her next personality switcheroo.
Although the success of her debut album, “The Fame,” received positive reviews for club anthems like “Just Dance” and “PokerFace,” fans and critics alike were still left wondering who Lady Gaga was, and where she came from, and what she came to do.
Whenever a band with a successful debut album releases their sophomore LP, they’re taking a risk. The risk that they are potentially releasing a second version of their debut: similar vibe, title, and aesthetic, or the risk that comes with completely changing their sound. What if the new sound turns off fans of the initial release? What if staying the same is a disappointment? Well, ladies and gentlemen, I’d say that the 1975 took a risk in completely changing their sound, yet still delivered a disappointing album with a few solid songs woven in the mix.
If you’re a huge The 1975 fan and you’re not suddenly interested in ripping my head off, keep reading to see what I think of the second album.
