bluebirdsforever

Long overdue and incredibly well-deserved

Love ridden, I've looked at you With the focus I gave to my birthday candles I've wished on the lidded blue flames under your brow And, baby, I wished for you

I will know peace.

I genuinely can’t think of a more heinous back-and-forth game for this site to play than whatever the hell is happening in this thread. Not-so-fun-fact: every single one of the mega rich people we idolise - and the even richer organisations they’re associated with - are complicit in this genocide one way or another. Instead of using that to score points against whatever pop star you don’t like that day (or to defend the one you do), let it fuel you into making meaningful change in your own lives that none of these people can be bothered to outside of reposting an Instagram story when they feel like it.

It's the best sing on the album to me some days but lemme not start a war

Tell me I'm despicable, say it's unforgivable What a crash, what a rush, f**k me up, Florida!!!

The way this is very clearly not a diss but the people who want very desperately for it to be will then go on to wonder why women in pop culture just can't seem to get along says it all really (And the fact we're even trying this hard to link it to this person or that person in the first place, but I digress)

Thank you, I genuinely appreciate that. However, while I can appreciate the steps she took to keep those around her safe / aware, it's worth noting that people are going to have complex (and valid) perspectives on her announcing it like this publicly for the exact reasons I've laid out: anything that contributes to the idea that the pandemic is not something we still need to be actively cautious about - or is something we can simply overcome because we love our fans - can do real harm. Experts still aren't all in agreement if the pandemic is "over" in 2024 (we don't even know what that actually means considering the disease is still actively being transmitted in huge numbers). The "rhetoric" I'm talking about is not even Gaga's, but the rhetoric and misinformation I'm seeing being spread by multiple people in this thread: 1) Even if you're vaccinated, your life can still be at risk if you contract COVID-19. Being vaccinated also does not stop you from potentially spreading the disease to other people. 2) It's not "a flu" or even "like a flu" - if you're lucky enough that it manifests as mild flu-like symptoms for you, that does not mean the disease is still not actively harmful to many other people (and there is no guarantee that a new strain - because, yes, there are still new strains - won't manifest much worse for you in the future if you are infected by it). 3) Having COVID isn't simply "feeling unwell" - as soon as you're in public while actively contagious, you're putting people around you at risk of chronic illness or death to varying degrees of likelihood depending on how cautious you're being (but that likelihood is never zero). Full stop.

Again, I really don’t care what Gaga did or didn’t do (and what I’m saying ultimately has little to do with it), but this is blatantly dangerous rhetoric to share about a pandemic that is still actively killing people. These measures help mitigate the harms of COVID on a broad scale, but in no way have erased them into being “not an issue anymore” to this day. People not remaining as vigilant about it as they should be is the reason why many people in my life are still suffering.

Renaissance is definitely more consistent, but my highs on Cowboy Carter are probably a little higher than my Renaissance highs.

Referring to Billie as a "newcomer" when she has three albums (and an EP that was a massive era within itself), a massively successful career and two Oscars already under her belt is almost a slight tbh. She's a veteran in her own right despite her age. To put it into perspective, this many years into her own career, Taylor was just about to release 1989. A cold war between pop stars that starts with one of them inviting a man who just lambasted her peer as a fake songwriter to perform with her followed by some vague nonsense about vinyl variants culminating in a chart battle that consists of both teams exclusively battling it out by releasing increasingly inane album variants is literal child's play compared to the legitimately ugly pop culture battles this site was founded on. The objective fact of the matter is that some of you are treating the situation with more grave seriousness than even Billie herself is, who is laughing about the idea of fans buying (or not buying) multiple variants on online radio shows with her brother. I personally think spending massive amounts of my time feeling sorry for incredibly successful people with massive amounts of money who aren't even feeling sorry for themselves over something as benign as a chart placement is a waste of time. It is genuinely not that serious.

I really don't care about what Gaga did or didn't do but the way some of y'all talk about COVID is genuinely appalling tbh If you're lucky enough to not know anyone who is immunocompromised and still suffering massively from the pandemic (or not be immunocompromised yourself) then there's really no need to broadcast how little you give a crap (No, it's not a "flu" - not then and not now)

Some of y'all take life way too serious Can we not just enjoy watching two people with more money and success than any of us will ever have in our lifetimes "fight" over the most inane thing imaginable instead of losing our minds over it? Just get your popcorn and settle in for the kiis, there's no need for the personality analysis and dissertations about morality over a #1 position on the Billboard 200 chart my lord gjfjfjjf

What all of the (really great) think pieces being posted in here are underscoring for me is that, in spite of (or maybe because of) all its flaws, this album is more interesting to unpack than a Taylor album has been since... maybe pre-1989? If ever? It's convoluted and actively hostile in a way that those who are reading it uncharitably are assuming is an accidental byproduct of being bad but everyone who's spent even a little time thinking critically about Taylor Swift (and I've spent far too much) can see clear as day is mostly very intentional in a way that - not to use the same word again - is just plain interesting. If I had to answer right now, I'd probably rank it no higher than #6 or maybe #5 on an all-time Taylor album ranking, but I'm also spending more time thinking about it than I have pretty much any of those other albums. There's so much to chew on and interrogate if you're willing to look past your misgivings about who produced what or what music you'd rather her be making instead. In many ways, this album is her unequivocal f you to that entire conversation in the first place.

The way the bridge of Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? is playing out on this forum as we speak Cassandra.mp3 indeed