She was holding the matches
Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts
14/07/23 : Speak Now (Taylor's Version) - Taylor Swift
.png)
Our sixth visit with Taylor and if she keeps re-recording them then she's going to find her way to top of the most-reviewed list - only four more to do and I'll have done them all. This is her third album from way back in 2010 - apparently this version is pretty different to the original one, but I'm sure I'll still find it bearable.
And yeah, they're pleasant enough songs although I'd have to say I don't really see what's here that makes the Swifties love her so much. I liked the title track and "Haunted" and I particularly liked "Castles Crumbling" - it felt she was showing some proper emotion on that as opposed to her usual "is he going to stay/why did he leave?" nonsense. However, the whole thing went on far, far too long - 20 tracks weighing in at 104 minutes, plenty of which sounded very similar. I think the original version with 14 tracks over 67 minutes would have been more my cup of tea - although then I wouldn't have got "Castles Crumbling", so I guess she can't win.
We are, unsurprisingly, at #1 with a new entry this week - I suspect she'll be around for a bit. This week's Taylor count is nine, with three in top ten and six in the top thirty. The rest of the top five are a Wham! best-of (apparently the Netflix documentary is lovely, but I have yet to check it), Gabriels (the charts have this as a re-entry, but it's a very expanded re-issue with six additional tracks), The Weeknd best-of and PJ Harvey (another new entry) and we have one more new entry in the top ten with D-Block Europe (#6). Last week, I guessed that Nothing But Thieves would drop to #76 and they've wildly exceeded my expectations by hanging in there at #49 - my initial guess was #50, but I talked myself out it! For next week, I'm going to make the wild prediction that Taylor will hang in there at #1.
Wikipedia has less than you might expect (242 milliPeppers) - but that's before you look at the 463 milliPeppers on the original version. Most of it can safely be skipped over, but there's an interesting section which drew my attention - Piracy! Which is a bizarre local new story - a temporary worker in a French warehouse stole ten copies before the release date and tried to flog them on the internet. He managed to make a massive 50 Euros by selling two of them before they caught up with him - in court it was revealed that he had 24 previous convictions, which you suspect might have revealed his unsuitability for the job. Wikipedia also refers to the massive controversy around the "Better Than Revenge" lyric rewrite - it's been discussed at length in our house, I can assure you (if you're not aware, then believe me it's not worth the effort investigating). The critics mostly like the differences with the original though and, unsurprisingly, it's done OK commercially.
"Customers also listened to" Olivia Rodrigo, Zachary Davis and Gracie Abrams - I know Gracie has been opening for Taylor on her latest tour, but that's all I got on her. Taylor continues to somewhat mystify me as to why everyone loves her quite so much - this album has a lot going for it, but it's not going to inspire me to devotional heights. I'm sure Taylor can live without my adoration though.
Comments
Post a Comment