1,250 post and a show girl

Well this week is officially the 1,250th post on this blog that goes back to time of early social media that made making connections easier, finding out about websites with fairly specific focusing when it came to what they were about  

Today such sites seem endangered - will there be an endangered sites listing  like we have with buildings? - but music was a focus of one and music is an interest of mine going right back to childhood.

This week (technically Friday) saw the release of the 12th Taylor Swift album from her 2006 debut that almost dates this blog really where country music is a given although she's embraced synth pop, hip hop beats, folk and more indie territory with here last release Tortured Poets Society.

It's a bit early to give definitive thoughts as it usually takes several plays before things really settle with me but overall I'd give it a solid 4/5, a little less deep lyrically than the last but having more infectious pop sensibilities and melody, nearer 1989 than subsequent albums.

The main inspiration seems to be a reflection on her life, specifically her career in music that shows in both titles and subject matter.

The opener, The Fate of Ophelia is a personal favourite. 

Midnights - some thoughts

 It's probably overdue from October but never mind.

With some artists a new release just comes out, ads here and there and that is it but one by Miss Taylor Swift it must be said  is more an Event with lots of little things all co-ordinated into massive multimedia campaign.

 

Midnights thematically is an album of some thirteen songs based upon as many sleepness nights across her life and has a rather different, more reflective feel than any of her previous albums which I found took a couple of more plays to "get" but does lodge its way into you.

The major hit from from the album Anti Hero, is a personal favourite of mine for talking about insecurities, the sense of never getting any the more older or wise and somehow to subconsciously stop yourself from really achieving what you long for apart from the recognition of the impact of intrusive thoughts on your functioning.

I suspect many people can relate to much of what she is talking about which to me is major property of being an effective song writer, communicating ideas and images in this modern age.

1989 round up

Just relaxing a bit today in the heat before the expected showers and may be a spot of thundered and lightning makes its appearance.

One thing that's been on my mind  is it's been a good while since Taylor Swift gave us 1989, the album inspired by the year of her birth, a year some of us may remember other bigger themes such as the end of the Iron Curtain and its connected Warsaw Pact, the beginning of the end of the Thatcher era in Great Britain and the breaching of the Berlin Wall.
It's hard to really convey just how it felt as all the old certainties just fell like a pack of dominoes.
When it is she feels she has enough material for a new album I for one will be looking forward to hearing it not least to see if there is more of a return to 'country pop'  as someone who got to know of her from the beginning and liking at the time people like The Band Perry.
I fell more into that more modern Country Pop after the effective demise of R&B artists who had a personal influence on me such as Destiny's Child and TLC who I adored, the sentiments of such songs as Unpretty and by coincidence have released their final album simply entitled TLC this last week which I bought.
Mr. Marmalade, he that hacks into my blog account posting his feline take on things hasn't been feeling too good for the last few days, being off his food -maybe he had a bad mouse kebab? but seems to have recovered.