Decker

She waved to her fans as she left Sofi in the clip literally posted directly above that one. This was one of her trips to the studio to record, something Jeff didn't even think was possible for her during her US Tour. She wants to work a little, not get mobbed, nor encourage bands of Swifties to camp of all day at Electric Lady just in case she showed up.

Why So Blu?

I saw that - hey, she was multitasking, with a drink in her hand. Works for me!

LurkerDan

Her cheapest ticket prices, of which there were literally thousands and thousands at every stadium, were some of the most affordable for a major act I can recall. $49 was the face value of the tickets I purchased, $66 after BS ticketmaster fees. That is incredibly cheap, and again, there were thousands and thousands of these tickets at every show. "Her tickets" didn't price anyone out, the secondary market did.

Not criticisms about her appearance, criticisms of her or her fans or comments about her appearance. RIF. Criticizing her ticket prices is an example in this very post. But since you asked (I made my comment after reading your last couple of posts ITT and then looking at your posting history):

Very few posts come across as a fan, most of your posts come across as someone who resents her and wants to fuck her.

Why So Blu?

At least you sort of clarified that I was not criticizing what she looks like. Sorry I'm not a "Swiftie" or whatever you call yourselves. Apparently she can do no wrong and grown ass men will come to her defense. Cult of personality, it is a bitch.

DJariya

My sister isn't rich, but she was able to get tickets to one of her shows at Sofi last week and took my niece and her husband. Buying tickets for any major act like Taylor is just a matter of timing. Of course waiting until the last minute, you're going to be priced out by 3rd party sellers.

ntnon

Not "timing" - luck. Ticketmaster's requiring people sign up some time in advance (which hopefully folk get to find out about in time), of which SOME get given a code to try to use at a set time to MAYBE get access to possibly purchasing tickets.

Nevermind all those hoops, Ticketmaster is also arbitrarily labelling some people as bots and locking them out of the website.

I genuinely don't know what a better system might look like - if millions of people are fighting for thousands of tickets, some kind of filtering is essentially necessary - but this one is.. harsh.

LurkerDan

TM's system sucked ass. And there was a lot of luck to it. But a lot of it was also perseverance combined with the ability to either take the day off work or make tickets a higher priority than work throughout the day. Or have a lot of money (to buy the high priced tickets or on the secondary market).

Decker

My daughter got us Philly tickets by being bumped up in priority (she had bought Midnights in Vinyl in Taylor's store). She got selected, then spent 5 hours (!) in queue and eventually got floor seats.
I wasn't selected for the Vegas Pre-Sale, but got field-level tickets through my PSL Pre-Sale as a Raiders Season Ticket holder.

It's a rigged system for sure.

JeffTheAlpaca

She has reached a new level of fame and she probably had to go somewhere and not stick around but people envy famous people but always being the center of attention and people wanting something from you has to get tiresome sometimes.

JeffTheAlpaca

I listened to the original 1989 album and her voice sounded young so maybe the new version her voice will probably sound different then it did it in 2014.

These songs could have been singles too if she released them

JeffTheAlpaca

I know people like the new versions but if U2 lost the masters to the Joshua Tree and released a new version in 2023 I doubt people would abandon the original 1987 release and just listen to the 2023 version.

Kdogg

Luck is the best way to describe it. I got a presale code for Nashville night one. Like everyone else I spent half a day in the queue. I was using the phone so I got home by the time they opened things up. It was still futile. Add tickets, try to checkout, the tickets were gone. Rinse and repeat until it sold out. This isn’t actually unusual for presales on TM. I’ve had it happen a lot. Usually I’m quick enough to get tickets but not this time. Same exact thing for the Capital One presale the next day except for the all day queue. As a rule I don’t buy scalped tickets unless it’s at the venue, near concert time and at or near face. I moved on. Then in February I got an email from Ticketmaster. They said they knew that I had problems with the first go around and that a limited number of tickets would be made available. Would I like the chance to buy two? At first I thought it was a scam but after checking all the links were legit. So why not try? I can add the rejection email to the folder with my Masters ticket request rejections. The link lead to a site where you selected your tickets based on price band (VIP, Floor,
1st Level Bowel, etc). You could select as many areas as you wanted but could only get two tickets and were obligated to buy the tickets. I selected everything but the VIP price range. A few days later I got a follow up email that I got two tickets on the floor (row 11). It was all luck. I suspected this was from the Capital One presale but never found out for sure. I also will never know if these were intentional hold backs or new seats that they found after they physically mocked up the stage.

Decker

There are so many stats to indicate how extraordinarily popular Taylor Swift is right now, but just consider this : "Cruel Summer", track 2 of 2019's Lover album -- that's 7 albums ago, counting the re-releases -- is poised to be the #1 song on Billboard's Hot 100 Chart this upcoming week. It was released as a single June 20, 2023 as it was the popular (essentially) opening number of the Eras tour. Insane!

Obi-Wanma

I HATE re-records. I'm sympathetic to Taylor's plight, but I have invested zero dollars in "Taylor's version", and refuse to do so, on principle. I'm also not an audiophile and don't buy remasters either.

I'm good with what I have.

Decker

Red TV has almost a whole album's worth of new material.

Obi-Wanma

Yeah, I'm good. I also hate when albums are re-released with new material that isn't available any other way.

Basically I hate everything about the way modern music works where they keep making you buy the same stuff over and over.

If you have new material, put a out a new album. Don't attach it to the old album and make me buy it again.

LurkerDan

I generally agree that new versions of the same thing, remastered or with new material, suck and I'm not interested.

I think these are different, I think they're being reissued for different reasons and the new material is included for the purpose of making people feel like they're doing more than just giving Taylor control over her catalog, they're getting something new too.

Kdogg

Nintendo's been doing that for three decades. The musicians where late to the part. The first time I bought a collection of songs that I already owned was U2's Best of 1980-1990 cause it had a second disc of unreleased stuff. At least when artists include added value I'm OK with it. Remasters are a different thing. It's got to sound better. Sometimes they do and sometime they are the same. The Beatles mono re-release was better than what was available.

rw2516

Remasters are a good thing. They are 100% identical to the original. They are just cleaned up with no alterations. Remixes are what you want to avoid. This is where they alter the recording. Move stuff from left to right, alter volume of different instruments, add and remove things, etc.

Obi-Wanma

I can't really tell the difference, nor do I care to try to listen hard enough so that I can.

Obi-Wanma

She can do what she wants to for control of her catalog. I'm still of the opinion that I bought it once, and I prefer the original sound, so I'm not buying it again.

Decker

While I certainly respect your right to have your own opinion about re-records, I did want to address just this point :
The “new” songs have historical significance as songs from that era that for one reason or another didn’t make the cut as an album track. They’re interesting and can demonstrate themes that she would later work into other better songs. But under no circumstance should they come out as new album tracks in another setting. I enjoyed songs like “Timeless” and “I Bet You Think About Me”, but they would seem incredibly out of place on Midnights. And give Taylor credit — she respects the concept of an album as a stand-alone entity (if anything is made clear during an Eras tour concert, it’s that). So these album rereleases give fans a cool insight to her songwriting process at the time of the original recordings. I think it’s pretty cool.

And the best thing : Nobody has to buy them. Or even stream them. They’re there for those who are curious, or those who want to more fully support Taylor as she wages her fight for her music. But the originals aren’t going anywhere. I will always prefer the original “I Knew You Were Trouble”, “22”, “We Are Never Getting Back Together”, “Mean” and “Dear John”. But other tracks like “Back To December”, “Mine” and especially “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)”, it’s the TV that I prefer. It’s great to have the choice if you want. And it’s even better that these TV’s are devaluing the continuing revenue of the original versions. Kind of like Twitter, seeing a beloved asset getting snatched up by someone with money, then dropping in value is kind of a good thing.

rw2516

For the most part that's true. Remastering is mostly noticable with 70s vinyl albums that sounded like crap in the first place. Especially some of the live albums. I have a flashdrive with just about every rock album from the 70s on it. I'll have it on random play and everything is pretty much the same quality, then a song will come on that sounds like crap because the original vinyl sounded like crap and it's never been remastered.
A drop in quality is more noticable than an increase in quality. If watching a double feature that is a DVD/BD mix, I always watch the DVD first. The quality difference is less noticable.

JeremyM

Eh, Garth Brooks has mastered the art, and Michael Jackson wasn't bad at it, either. I probably have the big 3 from Thriller on 7 or 8 discs now since I am an idiotic completist that will buy something for 1 or 2 new songs.

Josh-da-man

Not necessarily. A lot of remasters have been brickwalled.

Brickwalling is basically when the volume on a recording has been increased and kills the dynamic range of the music and introduces distortion.

When a recording has been remastered, that's one thing that is often done to it. But a lot of new recordings have also been brickwalled, one famous example being Metallica's "Death Magnetic."