Picked up a signed copy of the vinyl last night from my local record store. Still kind of mad that I ordered one of the variants from her site, now knowing they're available everywhere. Wasted money on shipping. Oh well. I thought only the Moonstone would be in stores.
Now that it's been out for a week and I've given it a healthy amount of spins... this album is good at best in LP form with half the tracks taken out.
I think a case could be made for this being her best rollout since 1989. Both reputation and lover had singles that did more harm than good when it came to hype, and folklore/evermore only had a week to build momentum. Also most were assuming it was her return to pop, which peaked peoples interest more than normal.
Yeah, I would've gladly rather done the 1-2 punch of saving on shipping and supporting my local store (and have already had my vinyl)
Hate to point this out, but I think it depends on the demographic/socio-economics of your school. My middle schoolers are obsessed and many know every word, some know every single song she's done, guys and girls included. Who knows. Not really a super important argument after all lol.
All anecdotal but I feel like folklore/evermore drew in more gen z ppl I know but idk any young kids who like her. But to be fair all the kids I know want to listen to like minecraft and five nights at Freddy songs and random songs that were viral on tiktok 1.5 years ago that they're still playing into the ground so their opinion is obsolete
IT IS. When I drive kids for work I used to let them pick the music but I've been burned too many times now. And it messes up my spotify recommendations.
They don't care lol. Back when I taught preschool tho sometimes I'd bring my guitar and we'd put on more guitar driven music I liked while they got to pretend to play and they'd be into that. But I taught at the height of Frozen so it was the soundtrack or bust for them most of the time. Imagine Dragons is also a big hit among the kids here. If they're a bit older and going thru an angsty phase they tend to go towards 21 pilots. I try to keep up with pop culture enough to hold convos with my kids and pretend like I know more than I do. One day I'll have a swiftie on my caseload and I'll be ready to impress!
i also picked up the signed copy last night, I emailed the merch store to cancel my order as it’s now ten days into pre shipment. Hopefully it can get cancelled before it’s actually shipped out and I can get reimbursed lol
She has 8 of her 10 albums in the top 200 on Apple Music. The only ones not in are fearless and self titled
I feel like she shouldn’t be allowed to count any of the records that didn’t actually ship toward first-week sales? An operation this big should be able to get you preorders on release day, or at bare minimum within the first week. If you can’t do that, don’t offer a preorder.
My cousin is 17 and Taylor Swift is like literally all she talks about, and a lot of her friends too. My 4 year old niece also likes a handful of songs but that's probably more from me conditioning her lol
Pretty shady if they're counting preorders as there's a good chance not everyone will get their preorders based on a number of reasons like cancelling or maybe they've missed it and it has returned to sender (one case in this thread already).
Yeah ever since they changed the rule to “vinyl counts when it’s shipped” I’ve had tons of records give me a shipping notification even a month before they actually send it out
As annoying as it is to not receive it release week, there are probably a bunch of underpaid workers stuffing boxes and matching shipping sleeves. Preorders should 100% count for first week sales. I don’t know how much it affects music, but preorders determine an insane amount in the book industry.
I think the preorders should probably count either way, but I wish I'd had enough information to just make a regular first week sale from my local shop. It's just a lot better when artists/labels allow the stores to put up their own preorders the same time as the online stores.