Yessss ocean blue eyes was a beautiful line. "You should take it as a compliment that I'm talking to everyone here but you" is how I act 100% haha so relateable.
Ooo good point, AYHTDWS slipped my mind for some reason! Quality song for sure.
What do you make of ...RFI getting a video this week?
I was pretty surprised, was definitely not expecting it. Interesting that it's gone from being a promo single, then Gorgeous gets released and
then it gets upgraded to being a full-fledged single. I wonder why she's made that decision, quite unexpected imo.
I do like the preview we've seen. Saw a screenshot (edit: dunno why it isn't appearing. It's
here)
"They're burning all the witches" ooofff I like the way this is going ahaha she's going all out again
Warning: lots of words, kind of goes off on a tangent about her career at large, only kind of answers your question lol
I'm surprised about the RFI video, but in retrospect, it's not
quite as surprising as it seems. ...Ready For It? was released
really early on compared to the lead, and from the outset it started to eat into the success of its predecessor. The production value of the video makes it seem like it's been planned as a full single for a long time, too - perhaps they're simply releasing it early so that they don't have two songs cannibalizing each other. LWYMMD has been dropping like a ball of lead on radio, literally setting records with its drops - that seems to indicate to me that Big Machine knew it wasn't palatable (it has terrible callout scores from radio listeners), and decided to push it to #1 on Pop as they would do with a Country single (old habits die hard) before letting it tank so RFI could grow. It literally seems like either they said to radio "stop playing it," or like radio stations decided by themselves to drop it and make room for her next hit.
Now, they could have waited for another song from the album to do really well and chosen that as the second single, but with Look tanking so hard right now, they probably want to have something doing well on radio and streaming when the album drops to maximize exposure.
I guarantee they don't actually care about getting five big hits again, like 1989. If we recall, Red only had two big hits and Speak Now had none outside of country formats. They're millions of times more interested in hitting the 1 million pure sales first week mark for the fourth time in a row, and selling the album in the long run. I think that's why they're pulling Look and releasing a video for RFI just two weeks before the album - make sure at least one song makes as many waves as possible, as close to the album release as possible, so people preorder or buy.
I think the rollout of the singles and promo single(s) is really weird and confusing, but it makes a lot more sense when you look at it that way - don't bother too much with hit singles since she can get a couple on name alone, just focus on the album's first week and long term sales.
In keeping with that more long term perspective, I think what Big Machine are really going for is legacy, and what Taylor is going for is speaking her mind. Now, Reputation - as far as its prerelease marketing and the songs we've heard so far - is decidedly
not a legacy-supporting album. It's a little petty, it's snarky, RFI sort of clings to radio trends - what we've seen so far isn't "third AOTY Grammy" kind of material. Of course, the rest of the album might be far, far more critically appealing; I don't think anyone would've expected AOTY if the first three songs we got from 1989 were Shake It Off, Style, and Welcome to New York. But either way, my point is that she's releasing this album because she can. She doesn't need acclaim, she doesn't need sales - she has more of both than basically anyone else in the last two or three generations of music stars, and at a younger age. Instead, she has something to say, so she's going to say it, have fun, and give her fans something they'll like.
Big Machine, on the other hand, wants to say that this album was another notch in her belt with 1 million opening sales and good long term numbers, so she can get it out of her system and move on. If she signs with them again - and I bet she will - we're going to see more of the artist in her that fans and critics tend to love. We're going to see music that's sort of halfway between 1989 and Red, maybe a return to some country ventures. As I think Big Machine knows, and as I think Taylor understands because she's ridiculously perceptive and intelligent, this is her peak pop moment. Oversaturation has begun to occur, controversy is being generated, the tabloid-style "who will she talk about next" angle is being overplayed. This is the last album we're getting from Taylor Swift as a traditional pop star - she'll move away from it in the next few years, and her career will be better off for it.
Don't get me wrong - I absolutely love this era and the 1989 era. But beyond that, I've been a Swiftie for quite a while now, and I know that she understands how perception of her has soured a little bit.
... and that's my exceptionally unnecessary over-analysis of what it means to be getting a ...Ready For It? video tomorrow night, which I'm super excited to see! {XD}
