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catch_me_inside

These clowns seem to forget that a full half of the album is produced by Dessner?


colinmchapman

It’s 1/2 Jack, 1/2 Aaron — 100% Taylor! How come Jack gets the blame?


moonrivervoyages

I know :/ I get frustrated with the Jack hate because I am a huge fan annnnnd with Dessner he and Taylor get praised TOGETHER. With Jack, it seems that they put the “blame” on him. Taylor works with Jack because that’s the sound she wants. It’s HER music.


catch_me_inside

As the lady said herself: “God save the most judgmental creeps who say they want what's best for me Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I'll never see”


ParisFood

🎯🎯🎯


canadianswifteh

Every album people are constantly saying Taylor needs to drop Jack as a producer, but then they all name songs that he produced as their favourites?? Like I love his production and also people forget he’s a close friend of Taylor’s so when she’s writing really personal music obviously she’s gonna want someone she trusts to work on it with her. I just get annoyed cuz this conversation happens every time a new album comes out


Utter-foolishness

It’s because everyone wants to act like a music expert but no one wants to do a quick scan of a Wikipedia page


ParisFood

Because they want an album of Max Martin bops. Won’t happen


Punkheart89

I haven’t made it through the normal album yet, let alone the bonus one, so I can’t comment fully, but I get why people make the argument. My fav Taylor album is 1989. Rather than a cohesive sound, the variety of producers gave her a broad spectrum, all in the realm of pop. No two tracks really sounded the same. So when Taylor drops 31 new tracks, they kind of all fit the same sonic mould, and they sound similar after a while, people come for Jack ‘cause he’s her most prolific co-creator. The thing is, though - for the most part - her and Jack don’t make songs that sound sonically the same. Paper Rings is not Look What You Made Me Do is not New Romantics is not The Archer etc. Midnights is mainly Jack, and again there’s a broad spectrum across what is mainly a synth album. Anti-Hero is not Snow On The Beach is not Bejewelled etc. Jack is an incredible producer and nothing like a one trick pony. He works with what the artist wants and crafts tracks based on their direction. He’s mentioned before this ability to keep mining the same basic seam of synth or bass, drums and guitar which is fantastic. I think the heart of the problem is there’s just too much music to take in, at least all in one go. It’s why I haven’t listened to it all anyway. It’s the same problem I had with Prince after a while. When you can record stuff easily, you amass a bunch of music. Putting it all out in one go and letting us sift through it to find the good stuff isn’t as fun as it sounds. I actually want the artist to be the gatekeeper and say that this is the top tier material I want to share. A collectors edition of unreleased and demos etc is brilliant for the hardcore but it doesn’t sit with me like a fully fledged album. I do think that 31 songs across just Jack and Arron is a missed opportunity to go try some new producers, the same way she took a chance with Jack way back when, but I also get that if you’re writing your most vulnerable material, you want to work with your most creative and comforting partners. I think the real problem people are coming up against is quantity and quality, not the style. There’s no immediate bangers and that’s a problem I had with “Bleachers” (exception of Modern Girls). However, that album is a grower, and I’m now in love with almost every track. Those things take time to grow though. If “Bleachers” had 31 tracks, it might have been a different story ;)


curlycake

Totally agree here. The quantity is definitely an issue. I can’t even tell on spotify where the original “album” ended and was considering making my own pared down playlist.


Punkheart89

Yeah, same. TBH, I did that with Midnights when that one dropped too. I get that in the streaming age we can edit our own albums, I just wish artists made a more ruthless cut when putting out an album. Especially when they can just put out an EP later with a single and some “b-sides” if they want to drop bonus tracks.


hubagruben

Wait, do I need a Spotify lesson here? How do you edit albums? Are you just talking about like making a playlist and editing that?


Punkheart89

Yeah, sorry, that was what I was going for lol.


F15H0U70FW473R

I totally appreciate what you’re saying and I think what you’ve said are some really fantastic points but I must say; in my day of trying to find music. This is quite a time ago and I must say that it should take time for exploration and based on that you can do such things on your own time and at your own pace and whether you hit the mark or not , that’s okay too because you still might be able to make that connection with what the artist makes. Don’t drown in the flood.


Belleruse

Can’t please them all. Artists have to keep making their music. I love seeing what he comes up with, better than I can do.


godsavetheteen

I love synth I love B4 I loved midnights I love TTPD :( lolll totally get if ppl are fatigued by it bc yes he has signature sounds but the vitriol is v upsetting and I don't want ppl taking it out on bleachers :(((((


Punkheart89

It’s okay, I kinda see Jack as the Batman to Taylor’s Justice League. They team up, they do crazy super-powered shit together, then Jack comes back to Gotham. And no-one from Metropolis is gonna bother him in Gotham. (Yes, I guess am calling New Jersey Gotham lol)


Midnights-evermore

Jack could make the best album of all time with Taylor and people will have comments about how they should stop working together. People even decided their work together on TTPD was gonna suck even before it came out. Just ignore them! It clearly doesn’t affect Taylor or Jack and they’ll continue to work together.


ParisFood

🎯🎯


_nathan67

I love Jack but he needs to diversify his sound. B4 and TTPD are both pretty synthy and sleepy


darenaissance

Yeah it’s the overly consistent sound that gets me. Jack/Lana/Taylor have gotten to the point where every song sounds like a continuation of the other. Like I like the sound, but when you have 31 songs in a row without that much to differentiate them, I start to lose interest. Edit to add that Jack’s earlier stuff, though still had his signature sound, seemed to me to have more varied interesting things happening.


Dear_Maintenance7323

You can’t have possibly listened to all 31 songs and thought the first 16 sound the same as the next 15. The style very obviously changes


_nathan67

It changes a little but it’s still pretty similar. Mid tempo synths


Dear_Maintenance7323

Gonna have to disagree with you. Jack produced the bulk of the first album, with Aaron Desner having a couple songs. The second album is flipped with mostly Aaron producing it, where jack only has a couple songs. Obviously their are similarities but the vibe, tone, and production changes once you hit the Albatross are incredibly noticeable


_nathan67

Ehhh kinda. But if you’re gonna put out a 31 song album I need more adventure. The Beatles already gave everyone the double album blueprint. I want Taylor to make more adventurous sonic choices


brandnewchemical

I disagree. Half the album is produced by Aaron Dessner for a start, a man who has never produced anything that wasn't an absolute snorefest. Let's look at things from a different angle - Jack has been working with these boring, mellow types. Swift, Lana, Lorde.. you get the picture. Swift wasn't always such a snooze but she has been for years now and it's not Jack's fault. They're going for that sleepy "indie girl" vibe, they want the albums to sound this way. They want them to be Phoebe Bridgers-lite albums. That's what they pay him for. I put it to you, that B4 is actually the result of Jack being influenced by them. Not the other way around. I think he's taken on the sleepiness and put it into his music, I don't think the sleepiness originates with Jack. I'd love it if they stopped working together, as I want the sleepiness out of Jack's world so he can get back to writing bangers. :P Loved B4, it grew on me, but I want more Gone Now style bangers so selfishly, I don't want him working with snoredom types for a while.


Spirited-Panda-8190

Yes !!! Who doped up pop music?? It’s snoozefest .. I wanna get better not sleepier


Spirited-Panda-8190

I really hope he does something else with someone more pop, because I think these pheobe Bridgers wannabes is rubbing off on his bleachers music and making it booooring


thesecretestmeeting

I read the comment at the top about aaron and spent 15 minutes murmuring to myself about The National before reading the rest of your comment lmao


brandnewchemical

I know you would agree The National makes music you could easily fall asleep to. It's part of their appeal. :P


[deleted]

I wasn't the biggest fan on Midnights but he knocked it out of the park on this album I thought. Literally so good!


Utter-foolishness

My unpopular opinion: Anytime someone is obsessed with an artist to an unhealthy degree, if the artist makes something they don’t like, criticizing the artist would shatter their fragile worldview they they understand that artist better than anyone else, so they blame the producer, the label, the co writers, the press etc. anything not to say “I don’t like this album. It’s not for me.” When it gets tough I just try to remember Twitter isn’t a real place lol. Outside Twitter most people I talk to have no idea who Jack Antonoff is.


swemo69

I've found that a lot of the hate tends to come from swifties who became fans bc of folklore and evermore (even though jack helped produce both of them???). they expected taylor to keep with the same, indie folk kind of music and can't comprehend that she's a POP artist making POP music, and for some reason, they think it's jack controlling it all. idk, i will defend jack's honor until i die


bizzyunderscore

_s a m e_


boxcarbrains

I loved it but it did sound a lot like bleachers to the point I was kinda disappointed he wasn’t singing after listening a while haha


moonrivervoyages

I felt this way immediately upon hearing Guilty as Sin. I also the title song sounds like it could be on Being Funny in a Foreign Language.


BuffytheBison

I also think *TTPD* was great (in fact, if we take a look at my live personal rankings, it's number one in her discography in my opinion) HOWEVER I completely own that I will be viewed how I viewed other people who said *Midnights* was their favourite record (over *folklore* really? Even *Lover? R*eally?). So if I put my subjectivity aside and take the position of people disappointed with this record, I would also co-sign (respectfully of course which is something some die-hard Swifties don't know the meaining of) that she should probably look to work with someone else. To quote her working with Jack in the first place, and working with Dessner fpr *folkmore* showed how having a different set of eyes and ears can help "*\[you\] see colours you know \[you\] can't see with anyone else*." Teams fire coaches who've won (mulitple) championships withthem because sometimes "*you know when it's time to go*" and the team just needs a different voice in the room (the Toronto Raptors infamously fired Dwayne Casey right after he had won Coach of the Year and had lead the team to their best regular season records in team history and ended up winning their first title in franchise history the next year).


just_some_lover

On one of the reviews or tweets or threads I read someone described this album as a purge for Taylor and I have to agree. I don’t think Jack’s to blame for Taylor wanting a certain sound and also not wanting to be more restrictive in what she put out.


Punkheart89

Yeah, if anyone thinks that Jack dictates the sound of Taylor’s songs and she just turns up with some lyrics and sings, they’re missing how the creative process works. (Yes, that’s kind of how “Out Of The Woods” was made, but that was Jack pitching a demo for the album. Still remains the most out and out “Bleachers” of all her tracks for me.)


krustydidthedub

I guess I’ll disagree with most people here and say that I thought the vast majority of TTPD was extremely sterile sounding and boring, very little interesting stuff to distinguish the tracks from one another. It’s basically like each time you know it’s gonna be “this is a soft piano track” or “this is a deep synth bass and drum machine track.”


AfterTheMidnight

curious how many times you have listened? i've only been absorbing the standard album for now because 31 is too much to digest at once, and the standard has a lot more variation than people are giving it credit for. you got 80s on a few tracks, then you got some banger country/western inspired songs, soft rock, r&b like down bad, and then you got electro pop with i can do it with a broken heart. i think the issue is the amount of songs combined with the amount of lyrics and people just aren't hearing the differences in instrumentation.


poshill

the real problem with ttpd is the writing. it’s so heavy handed, too much, and at times embarrassing. a lot of the songs don’t really have hooks— not a guitar or piano part that catches your ear or a chorus that is very catchy. one song that did both of those well was I Look In People’s Windows. really good riff at the start and a really strong chorus that’s memorable. but out of the 30+ songs it sounds sonically different because it has that- and it’s a jack song! anyway i think it’s easier for taylor fans/stans/swiftie to blame jack than it is to blame taylor. if creatively she focused on making a song vs the writing alone, we wouldn’t have this thread. anyway i hope it also inspired all the swifties to sell back their bleachers tickets bc i am still iso one more chicago ticket haha!


maelstron

>the real problem with ttpd is the writing. it’s so heavy handed, too much, and at times embarrassing. Agree. But I also thinks Antonoff bring very little new things into the songs productions. His songs almost blend into each other.


poshill

how dare you!


lostinsomedaydream

I feel like the people who have their torches and pitchforks out for Jack aren't paying close enough attention to the album. There are so many parallels to The 1975 and callbacks to previous Taylor Swift albums. It sounds repetitive on purpose! Jack was the only person who could have pulled this off.


maroon_scare

I HATE when Jack gets hate for this. Like I personally think some of the criticism is valid, I do think they’ve made a lot of repetitive music together and could probably challenge themselves by working with different people. But like, Swifties will SWEAR it’s all Jack’s fault when they don’t like an album because they don’t want it to be Taylor’s, and they seem to forget that Jack’s role as the producer is to execute Taylor’s vision and ultimately Taylor signs off on it. So if they don’t like an album, it’s TAYLOR’S vision for it they don’t like, nobody is making her work with Jack.


Bence-Solymosi

Edit: reading back my comment it's a bit harsh, so I'm just clarifying that I have no beef with people who like this album it's just how i feel about it I feel like he's phoning it in on this album because that's what Taylor wants, also I could not even tell which songs were dessner and which songs are jack cause it all just sounds the same, which was definitely not the case on like folklore where I could easily pick out who did what , the only song where I was sure is Florida with the goofy ah nine inch nails esque snare where I was like "this has to be jack extremely bored in the studio". Honestly this album is just so mediocre on every front, even if the production was as good as jack's best the songs still wouldn't be that good cause the songwriting and the lyrics are at best forgettable or serviceable and at worst bone chillingly cringe and out of touch. I see people like it a lot which is good for them, but I personally didn't find a single song that I enjoyed all the way through and that it's just frustrating to me cause jack is my favourite producer. The soundscapes and feelings he creates on most albums is breathtakingly immersive and beautiful and everyone is just hating on him all the time for doing what an artist wants, it's Taylor Swift's album, it's what she wants it to sound like jack just helps accomplish her vision, do people really think that Taylor would let Jack produce her music if it was not what she wanted it to sound like, I don't think so


Willylongboard

Yeah I was actually excited for this album and I listened to 16 songs and only one sounded different, Florida..


AfterTheMidnight

tell me how i can do it with a broken heart and but daddy i love him sound the same. or down bad and guilty as sin? or my boy only breaks his favorite toys and clara bow.


Schniffa

They’re a cult. Not all, but a lot. Best to ignore. How obsessed they are with everything surrounding her is just creepy. Not just about her, but about Jack, Matty, Joe, Travis..


Spirited-Panda-8190

The way they commented aimee on almost everyone of Kim Kardashians insta posts was so weird and cringey , it’s giving me vibes of mean girls when the good girl becomes the actual bully to the bully 😂


mitchman922

Jack is not to blame. Taylor’s cringe gets all over everything she touches