This week, LR features a guest post with my friend Ash Taylor. Earlier this year, Ash invited me to participate in a “draft” of Taylor Swift’s albums. I feel distracted today, squeezing this massive project in between co-hosting an open mic tonight (see you there) and other commitments (IYKYK). In my “absence,” Ash has outlined the entire process, reflected on each of her drafted eras, and published a personal essay about her and Taylor for her own newsletter. Meanwhile, I’ve made one playlist and included zero written reflection. The reciprocity!
I hope you enjoy. You can read more of her writing & thinking by subscribing to her newsletter, exohexohexoh.
The Draft
“Process”
Ash and I swap the first pick for each album. We worked backwards from Midnights, where Ash earned the first pick (I forget how? rock paper scissors?), so she had the superior draft order with the first pick for five albums compared to my four. The Tortured Poets Department is excluded from the draft, because we mutually agreed we had not yet had enough time with the album to perform a draft (info?). If there were an uneven number of tracks, we left the last pick out (the bench).
“Rules”
Any song with multiple versions (remixes or whatever) on an album still only counts for one song, though we are allowed to select the version we want. All Too Well is an exception (I forget why? and misremembered that it was exempt? but Ash says it is and she takes better notes than I do). Ash has some songs that she won’t let go of the original (stolen) version for / I won’t familiarize myself with Debut until the Taylor’s Version is released, so we skipped Debut for now. Ash treats folklore / evermore as one album in the redesign, especially since she merged the sets on the eras tour. We did draft each album separately.
“Strategy”
Ash / found it tempting to pick my favorite(s) first, but the #1s below don’t necessarily mean they would be my “favorite” track if you asked me that, because I was trying to anticipate what Kelsey might select early as well as consider what kind of album I’d be left with if I didn’t try to balance it out a bit as I went.
Kelsey / really went with my gut; as the one in control of the music in the room, I would skip around each album and play whatever song I was thinking about; the process was intense, felt definitive, there were many shrieks.
On Narrative / Storytelling
Ash / I found myself struggling more than I expected to reconstruct the narrative of each album as a standalone story. I have countless playlists where I mix eras and pull themes, feelings, and storylines like I described above, but doing that just within one album felt like more of a betrayal, especially without all of the songs there to play with. I think the only albums that truly felt reconstructed narratively for me were 1989 and maybe reputation? The rest felt like staying true to the album’s concept, just telling it in a different way.
Ash’s Playlists
The linked playlists are reshuffled into a new album for each of us: if we had to work within the confines of these tracks only, what would the new album be like? Is there a new narrative arc that emerges, or are there too many holes to have one? Taylor has always created an incredible amount of content; earlier in her career, she had more cooks in the kitchen placing parameters on what she could do and how she could do it. She also had experienced editors and co-writers working with her to pare things down and strive for cohesion. As she’s gained her freedom, she frees her tracks up as well, releasing old material from “the vault” and (most recently) doubling the length of an already substantial album for a total of 31 tracks. It is now often possible to play “editor” and redesign the story or the theme over and over within one album to see what emerges thematically. Taylor’s work has also become increasingly self-referential, not only during the concert surprise song sets where she mashes up songs across eras, but also within her newer albums -- especially The Tortured Poets Department. This leaves an incredible amount of room to create thematic playlists across eras and explore one issue, such as fame or heartbreak, through a more longitudinal lens.
So, playlists are a chance to play both editor and music producer, especially when making a Taylor playlist! What story are you going to tell? What theme are you going to draw out? What sonic landscape are you going to paint?
Fearless was pretty easy to stay true to, even with some of the more youthful losses. My particular set just required a bit of an “every other” tracklist: falling in love, heartbreak, falling in love again, another heartbreak, crying to my mom. In that way, it still retains just as much of its youthful idealism, especially since love and heartbreak often have quick rebounds and turnarounds in adolescence.
Biggest Losses: Fifteen, You Belong With Me, The Way I Loved You
Although I don’t find the title track on Speak Now necessary, this one probably had the most losses besides reputation, not only to prevent the album from dragging, but also because Taylor accomplishes the concept (even without the title track) by saying so.many.things. She covers various heartbreaks: two different boyfriends and, for the first time, fame. I still found all of those heartbreaks represented on my reconstruction, but the vault tracks I got mostly distracted from the concept or made the album sag a bit in spots. I found myself understanding why they were left off the original, but I also felt that I was just barely able to maintain the concept.
Biggest Losses: Dear John, Mine, The Story of Us, Back to December
Red was probably the second easiest besides Midnights for me. Despite its criticism for lacking sonic cohesion, the concept of the album was incredibly cohesive, and I have always believed that the many different sounds on Red mirrored the chaos of falling in love that she describes in the prologue. So, there was a significant gift of breadth and variety in Red (especially with the vault tracks) to work with in reconstructing it yet still remaining in the original concept.
Biggest Losses: The Last Time and Holy Ground
1989 was Taylor’s response to industry critics taking issue with Red’s “lack of sonic cohesion.” She increased her partnership with Max Martin, hiring him to executive produce the entire album, and she also partnered with Jack Antonoff for the first time. The team was meticulous about cohesion on this album, and I felt that keenly as we chopped it up. Luckily, the vault tracks helped get it across the finish line more than reputation, but it also skewed the initial intention of 1989 (carefree, don’t need a man, move to the big city) and aligned it more with Taylor’s earlier works, full of a more confusing mix of youthful freedom and heartbreak. I ended up being unable to break the original 3-track run that opens the album, and I also couldn’t imagine “Clean” or “New Romantics” anywhere but the end as they are in the standard and deluxe editions respectively.
Biggest Losses: Out of the Woods, Wildest Dreams, Shake It Off
As a late enjoyer of reputation, I have a harder time selecting track favorites rather than appreciating the album as a whole cohesive piece. No matter what gets cut, some nuance of her attitude at the time, of the essence of reputation, is missing. There was a complexity to the events that unfolded leading up to this album that becomes severely weakened when only half the tracks are there. I found myself struggling to figure out any way to patch it up and make something out of what was left. My best attempt was to pickup where she left off in her life story after 1989 by placing “Getaway Car” at the front and then posing a question for her new lover + for the public (are you ready for this version of Taylor to be back out in the world?) at the end. (Credit to the Swiftologist for inspiring those “bookend” choices on his own reshuffle of reputation!)
Biggest Losses: EVERYTHING!
I made this difficult on myself by refusing to take “ME!” over SYGB. I knew it made more cohesive sense, but my personal feelings got in the way. SYGB is just such a heartbreakingly vulnerable track, I couldn’t leave it in the leftovers to give ME! a spot. So, I went for a stretch at the end and transitioned from “we made up after a fight / are settling down from some initial relationship anxieties” to “I’m also anxious and scared because my mom is sick” and then to “Daylight,” which I always experienced as more of an aspirational mantra to herself than somewhere she actually believed she had arrived.
Biggest Losses: Death by a Thousand Cuts + Lover
My combined “team” for folk-more ended up feeling like an A side and a B side of an album that is mostly true rather than mostly fictional, yet still rather metaphorical and less directly autobiographical than her previous work. In that way, it felt more obviously like a prequel to Midnights. If Midnights is a dream diary, this version of folk-more is a daydream walk in the woods, where Taylor first ponders what it means to be successful in the music industry and the heartbreak of a working partnership (A side)-- then turns down a different path to consider whether she is heartbroken in her romantic partnership as well (B side).
Biggest Losses: exile + right where you left me
Midnights was one of the strongest reconstructions I got to put together. Credit probably goes to Taylor for the concept of the original album being so malleable: staying up late thinking about relationship patterns and your own narrative as a person while you contemplate a breakup is rife with possibilities for reshuffling into a redesigned arc. One of my favorite things about Midnights has always been that it can be turned inside out or upside down and still stay true to the “nights I lay awake overthinking” concept. In particular, “Dear Reader” always has a lot of potential to me as both a prologue and an epilogue because it can serve to warn the listener up front to go into this with skepticism about the narrator’s point of view or to second-guess the narrator in hindsight after experiencing her pieces of these stories.
I also just got lucky for getting first draft pick on this one; You’re Losing Me deserves to be a track 5!
Biggest Losses: Midnight Rain + Karma
Here ya go!