"Southern Man"/"Sweet Home Alabama?"

"Smashing Young Man?"

^
That song was all over MTV and the radio thirty years ago. Never paid much attention to it. It was only a few years ago that I learned it was the band taking the piss out of Billy Corgan.

Well here's the diss track early, until it gets taken down. Pretty catchy, honestly.

Honestly, that's a good point to be made about lol. How many different colors does one need to be on vinyl or CD with one bonus song here and one bonus song there. She gets mad at Ticketmaster, but that is pretty shady as well.

New York Times review was published at 12am exactly! 🤣

I have tomorrow off and was going to go to a movie. Just checked the theater and Taylor Swift is on all the screens.

I assume they have had it for a few days to listen to it. I expected as much. Rolling Stone and Variety dropped Midnight reviews as well. from RS.

I listened once. Like it. Nice production. Catchy songs. Much less dance-y than I was expecting. I need to see the lyric videos or get a few more listens to fully appreciate the writing.

I think I'm going to try to catch this Taylor documentary tomorrow since it's a limited engagement. I can see it at a Regal near me for $12 unlike AMC, which is $17 for Dolby. Unlike the ERAS concert last year, I don't think this will be greatly enhanced with a premium screen.

Going to postpone seeing Smashing Machine for another time.

Just ordered the CD from Amazon. $13.97+tax and coming tomorrow.

Listening to it streaming on Taylor's channel on YouTube and I like it so far.

Edit: Finished it. Thought it was pretty good overall. Some catchy songs and some might take a little to grow on me. It's a very easy listen. Should be a nice listen in the car on the way to work.

I see Target has 3 different versions of the album. Is the only difference artwork and inserts?

This is the greatest album of my life.

The Guardian is not so kind. 2/5

https://www.theguardian.com/music/20...howgirl-review

Raves from Billboard, and Variety as well

Listened to it 4 times already... absolutely fantastic. Like Decker I was expecting more dance-y but this is better and not a repeat-ish of 1989.

Reviewer at Guardian is clueless.

Yeah, of course they have advanced copies, I was just laughing at the fact that they dropped it at 12:00:01am.

Listening to it now on YT. Very easy to listen to. Like you said, less dance-y then I was expecting based on the New Heights episode. But definitely has some boppy-ness. The sounds are pleasant, but of course with Taylor it's about the words and I haven't really listened to/digested those yet.

Hold onto your (insert 10 euphemisms for dick)!

I think you mean (slang synonyms for penis) because dick shows up plenty without a euphemism.

True; on that note, I bet George Michael would be rolling in his grave if he heard the song that’s partially credit to him.

From his socials

Besides the title, I really have no idea what George Michael has to do with that song. But sure, if I were in charge of his estate, I'd jump at the chance to make several hundreds of thousands of dollars for literally doing and contributing nothing to the song. Pretty generous of TS actually.

The man is dead. I don’t care what his estate thinks beyond how much of a royalty they get to rake in for the rest of their lives.

Didn't realize you were close with George and knew what he would want after death.

Let’s not be silly. I just think the song is outright bad (unlike the original) and my opinion is that it should have been cut and that his estate couldn’t care less either way, as long as they can maximize their wealth off of his art.
I apologize that I don’t think it’s perfect, and if my use of a popular figure of speech was interpreted as some kind of official statement from a rotting corpse.

It's one of my least favorite on the album, along with Wood. I still don't really hear what the interpolation of the GM song is -- maybe it's in there a bit with the rhythm at least. It feels about as reminiscent of Father Figure by George Michael as One More Night by Maroon 5 sounds like One More Night by Phil Collins. Far from my favorite, but I don't think it's bad enough to be cut, IMO.

BTW : Seeing Babygirl in a theater last Christmas, hearing the crystal clear surround mix in the theater, I was struck for the first time in years by how incredible the original Father Figure actually is. It's a breathtakingly beautiful song, exquisitely produced.

I’m no musician, but to me it’s pretty clear that the song relies on the original with the chorus’ vocal melody and rhythm. I just don’t see this song even existing without the original as a core part of it. I don’t think anyone would be able to say it was simply “inspired by” the GM song.

On a more positive note, I think the title song is excellent and makes up for a good number of other missteps. I don’t like the way the song ends, but I totally get what they were going for with that outro.

Fun fact: Spotify has a clean version of the album where dick is replaced with check. That may be the best word replacement I’ve seen since Black Eyed Peas replaced retarded with it started, and that clean version became a MASSIVE hit.

Oh, I do like Check better. good call.