Taylor can cut contact and hold a grudge when she wants to. I think she just is most outspoken about things that effect her directly and unless they try to buy her masters or call her a boring Barbie idk that she'll care much. I imagine it's akin to a coworker you have an acquaintanceship with but don't get into political convos. Tho with the wealth and power and influence her circle has, I feel like it'd be an elephant in the room. It's cool to see other celebs like Olivia who do speak up tho. Wish Taylor would more often. I'm more surprised when she does speak out than when she doesn't.
Obviously Taylor doesn't need career advice from me, but sometimes I am like dang girl the interesting choice was right there Like I love Phoebe but having Olivia on Nothing New would've made it more iconic Or working it out on the remix with Charli like Lorde did or even an insightful Sympathy is a Knife response song about how women are expected to compete and compare and that can so easily tie into the life of being a showgirl theme even tho the album lyrically didn't rly end up being about that
So check this out, a friend and co-worker of mine was shopping at Goodwill and he's really into vinyl. He saw a Taylor Swift vinyl and picked it up and was thinking of reselling it. He knows that I do like Taylor Swift unlike himself, so he asked me about the variant. I took a look at it and it seems like it is an unreleased variant or a bootleg. I went to Reddit with it which is always a bad idea, but half of them are pretty certain it's a bootleg, but we're pretty certain it's not a bootleg and something different. The UPC is definitely a Universal UPC and doesn't match anything on discogs, but it sequentially is after the released variants that are already out. My current best guess whether true or not is that it isn't variant that is unreleased or a canceled variant that somehow made its way to Goodwill. You can read all my details and conversation on Reddit if interested in following the saga https://www.reddit.com/r/SwiftieMerch/s/zvvjDfrmqI
Signs it could be real: - art it's high res - art includes sparkle treatment, which is basically unheard of for bootlegs - an actual UPC that isn't used for anything, but IS an official Universal UPC that is numerically after the other variants - shrink wrap has official manufacturing stamp from Mexico Signs it's fake: - Zero evidence at all online - same art as the standard version, unlike other variants - most don't have a sticker - could be the standard vinyl with added stickers to confuse We'll see
this is interesting. my guess is that they maybe manufactured a few copies with this cover and that variant name, but using the vinyl that was eventually sold on her webstore, and changed plans somewhere along the way and made that pressing the webstore exclusive one with its specific cover. reminds me of when someone claimed to have found a lyric sheet in the 1989 TV vinyl with early lyrics for a 1975 feature on Slut. but again, who knows for sure?
don't think she or her team ever commented on it. i heard multiple people supposedly found the misprinted sleeve, but not enough to where it got a Discogs listing. and of course the audio never saw the light of day
I love that the majority of the comments in that Reddit thread seemed to be sour grapes people upset they didn't have access to it and immediately calling it fake.
Christmas is obviously capitalism gone wild, but I think the explosion of not just holiday merch, which has happened forever, but entire lines of holiday merch and clothing for artists beyond the Christmas sweater and knickknacks. Like, why in the world does there need to be a line of holiday variants for this album that has nothing to do with the holidays? At least put “Christmas Tree Farm” on there or pretend like it’s something new.
with all of her masters under her control, i was expecting she'd probably give her Christmas EP a vinyl release with Christmas Tree Farm in tow as well
As much as I criticize Taylor, I would definitely buy that. CTF is a great Christmas song. It’s weird that they don’t at least use their greed in a way that makes sense for this.
Bigger artists of this size who release constant merch drops of poor quality and just contribute towards overconsumption need to be called out for not only the greed but the landfill trash over consumption they create and perpetuate I'm not that critical towards smaller artists who rely on these drops to make any sort of living of course
i really only enjoy the old-timey version, so i'd probably pick up that version if it had a widely-available vinyl release. the regular version sounds sonically derivative of most Christmas music released in the past 2 decades. not really an easy way to innovate on that other than working with regular instrumentation paired with Christmas-centric lyrics or dipping into a different flavor of Christmas music (i.e. "old-timey")
i'd say she could even take initiative by recycling unused merch, but it's such poor quality idk if it'd work out well
I may be in the minority but I would absolutely support an artist recycling merch or doing what the foo fighters did recently where they put their logo on thrifted shirts. Then you get the bonus of them being one of a kind. Which I'm sure many artists wouldn't do because it would be hard to do that on a large scale so it reduces profts
I dig both. Some of those vocals on the old timey version are almost gratingly flat. I enjoy the polish of the pop version, but I get what you’re saying.