Even with internet bubble spaces whining endlessly about her and the music and whatever, this has been such a better release day than the original album. I just love the new material, it's really all I needed and I'm happy to close out the Showgirl era with a single campaign for a song I love the video and alternate versions will be the perfect way to wrap everything up and prepare for, hopefully, Debut TV, Reputation vault, and finally TS13 in the next year and a half or so

Ok now that I had some time with these tracks, let me get into it.

Patient Zero - Love it, my favorite for sure. Love the chorus and verses, production is cute but Hack would have ate this up ngl. The bridge is so anti-climatic though.

Cleveland! - I actually really like the chorus. The verses and bridge are mostly atrocious though. It's giving London Boy-levels of cringe.

Pink Cloud - Cute. Best bridge out of these. Lyrics are fine, melody is fine, production is fine. I wouldn't skip it, but I don't love it either.

Babylon - Nice chorus. Also nothing crazy good or bad about it.

Overall, I feel like these tracks don't do much to elevate the album like I was hoping. PZ, PC and Babylon are very different from everything from the standard album in terms of lyrics and production but even PZ is top 5 on the album at best, definitely nowhere near Ophelia. PC and Babylon are ET-tier I'd say and Cleveland! is right next to Wi$h Li$t towards the bottom, right ahead of ED. The bridges are the biggest disappointment here. I think my takeaway is that Taylor needs to go back to having more than two producers per album. Imagine if we got some 3AM-level tracks from Aaron instead of songs like ED, Wi$h Li$t or AR.

It's a shame this will be her farewell to pop, which gave us 4 of her weakest albums but just gave her one her very best songs. Looking back, so many of her worst songs were pop and there weren't as many career highlights (y'all will never convince me songs like Style and Cruel Summer even come close to some middle-tier country songs like TOSOTD, CBBH or Mean). I just hope her return to country is much better than IKIIKY. She needs to reheat rwylm's nachos

1 hour ago, wehavetostan said:

What is everyone's favorite song of Taylor addressing the criticism about herself? I know Blank Space is an easy choice, but I can't stop coming back to this classic

The more time passes the more it becomes clear than Anti-hero is a songwriting highlight in her career. That song - especially the main hook of the chorus - is the kind of almost stupidly obvious that it is crazy that nobody came up with it 30, 40, 50 years ago. It's absolutely genius.

Also, I can't believe some people genuinely believe her "muses" have anything to do with the quality of her music. Joe was the most nothingburger of a person ever. Everything people seem to like about him is based on a character Taylor built, which we all know was exaggerated, see Gorgeous, End Game. Cleveland! is just London Boy for Travis and dare I say Ophelia is better than any song about Joe or Ratty.

It's just crazy to me that some people grew attached to these two because of some songs.

me, @DevilsRollTheDice @IBeMe trying to face this hate storm.

14 minutes ago, By the Water said:

Patient Zero - Love it, my favorite for sure. Love the chorus and verses, production is cute but Hack would have ate this up ngl. The bridge is so anti-climatic though.

Patient Zero is such an earworm for me when I'm not listening to it. But once I go to listen to it and it gets to the bridge... I fear its the most jarring bridge I can think of in her discography. It's not enough to turn me off to the song, I still really enjoy it, but it is enough for me not to place it among my absolute favorite tracks. I'm imagining a world where Patient Zero has a similar bridge from Eldest Daughter and wow.

3 minutes ago, Calvin said:

me, @DevilsRollTheDice @IBeMe trying to face this hate storm.

Nnnnn no but it legit feels like thaf every time I think the hate wave can't get worse an OTH / THOT goes the next level…I gotta say I'm impressed with their tenacity

That said….Who's the Michelle cuz honeyyyyy

I truly have no idea what to expect from Spotify tomorrow (the way the OTHs will attempt to lash when she doesn't break the all-time record), but this seems very promising?

I'm hoping for 15 million for Patient Zero.

Kinda need the album to do more than 45.3 million

Hmmm no Spotify tweet yet, there's still a little bit over an hour of tracking left tho

Just now, YellowRibbon said:

Hmmm no Spotify tweet yet, there's still a little bit over an hour of tracking left tho

Would we expect anything other than Patient Zero possibly getting the biggest debut of the year? Is that BTS currently?

Just looked and Swim did 14.5 million streams. I'll be real, I'd be a little underwhelmed if she couldn't reach that threshold. Didn't IKI,IKY do 10?

With that said, I think deluxe tracks are just a different animal.

Edited 6 hours ago6 hr by DevilsRollTheDice

10 minutes ago, DevilsRollTheDice said:

I truly have no idea what to expect from Spotify tomorrow (the way the OTHs will attempt to lash when she doesn't break the all-time record), but this seems very promising?

I'm hoping for 15 million for Patient Zero.

Atleast Taylor doesn't have to worry about first week sales or streaming numbers because all of her haters are tuned in. And that's enough for her to outsell others combined

2 minutes ago, DevilsRollTheDice said:

Would we expect anything other than Patient Zero possibly getting the biggest debut of the year? Is that BTS currently?

Just looked and Swim did 14.5 million streams. I'll be real, I'd be a little underwhelmed if she couldn't reach that threshold. Didn't IKI,IKY do 10?

With that said, I think deluxe tracks are just a different animal.

I've honestly been expecting a super low debut for her standards exactly because it's "just" a deluxe. But it works out either way - we all knew there was no way to build on Showgirl so a modest debut now either prepares us for the natural decline we should obviously expect after an unprecedented peak, or serves as a launch pad to brag about how much bigger the TS13 lead's debut is than this song's

1. Ruin The Friendship

2. Opalite

3. The Fate of Ophelia

4. Cleveland!

5. Father Figure

6. Patient Zero

7. Pink Clouding

8. CANCELLED!

9. Elizabeth Taylor

10. Babylon

11. Wood

12. Wi$h Li$t

13. Actually Romantic

14. The Life of a Showgirl

15. Honey

16. Eldest Daughter

Not ready for the mass gaggings for the video on Sunday. It might elevate an already perfect song even more.

1989 vs TLOAS track by track

1. The Fate of Ophelia

2. Blank Space

3. Opalite

4. Father Figure

5. All You Had To Do Was Stay

6. Ruin The Friendship

7. I Wish You Would

8. Bad Blood

9. Wildest Dreams

10. CANCELLED!

11. Honey

12. I Know Places

13. Patient Zero

14. Cleveland!

15. Pink Clouding

16. New Romantics

Edited 6 hours ago6 hr by Timeless

Came in to say "Pink clouding" is an earworm and such a good song to workout to.

Babylon is excellent lyricism

I miss this base!

54 minutes ago, Cole said:

Patient Zero is such an earworm for me when I'm not listening to it. But once I go to listen to it and it gets to the bridge... I fear its the most jarring bridge I can think of in her discography. It's not enough to turn me off to the song, I still really enjoy it, but it is enough for me not to place it among my absolute favorite tracks. I'm imagining a world where Patient Zero has a similar bridge from Eldest Daughter and wow.

Yeh the bridge does ruin it a bit. Same thing with ruin the friendship. A breathtaking beautiful tune with a lovely message ruined by "don't make it awkward in second period"

Pink Clouding is such a dazzling song. Love it the most here I think.

IKTR!

There it is! So far over Drop Dead and below BTS. Interesting

4 minutes ago, YellowRibbon said:

There it is! So far over Drop Dead and below BTS. Interesting

End that Hermione Granger traitor for me, Taylor!

9 minutes ago, YellowRibbon said:

There it is! So far over Drop Dead and below BTS. Interesting

ATRL and Twitter are such echo chambers

1 minute ago, Dear Reader said:

ATRL and Twitter are such echo chambers

Mind you, this was announced like 3 days ago meanwhile the standard album had like 2 months to farm presaves... This debut just proves what I expected, people stay invested in her regardless of what the current online uproar is

1 minute ago, YellowRibbon said:

Mind you, this was announced like 3 days ago meanwhile the standard album had like 2 months to farm presaves... This debut just proves what I expected, people stay invested in her regardless of what the current online uproar is

See when you’re the most famous Popstar in the World