Better Late Than Never

April 9, 2021

I’ve never been one to spot the coming trends in anything – music, movies, you name it.  I’m usually behind the times and playing catch up to what’s popular.  I can only think of a few shows that I was in on early that turned out great (The West Wing and Seinfeld come to mind), but there were far more bands, shows and movies that I thought would be great and successful, but fizzled out quickly. 

By the time I started listening to most of my favorite bands, the bandwagons were very full before I jumped on board.  The Beatles broke up two years before I was born and Springsteen’s first album came out when I was an infant, so we’ll excuse those two.  My favorite band came to me from my sister Chris in the Fall of 2000, six years after their debut album.  “You have to listen to them.  You’ll love their music.  Trust me.”  When I responded that I couldn’t stand the lead singer’s voice, her response was, “Just try their first two albums and if you don’t like them, so be it.”  Once I was in on the catalogue of Dave Matthews Band, there was no looking back.  Twenty years later, fandom turned into some sort of (un)healthy obsession, but I’m so glad I took her advice way back then and gave them a chance.

An Evolving Music Taste

Even back to my days in high-school and college, when I was exposed to the hot emerging bands, I still found myself coming back to established bands who already had a track record of success.  I became a U2 fan with their fourth album, The Unforgettable Fire.  I didn’t seriously listen to R.E.M. until Document, their fifth album, was released.  So, while everyone around me knew their catalogue backwards and forwards, I was way behind the times.  Of course, the upside to this was a ton of new music to listen to from this artist I just learned about.  Well, “new” to me.  That’s ok, though.  While others might be pining for the next album, I was going back in time to discover U2’s War, or R.E.M.’s Murmur and Life’s Rich Pageant.  It was also a wonderful way to immediately see how an artist evolved over a period of 5-10 years.  I could listen to the kernels of greatness buried inside of R.E.M.’s debut album, which would continue in the ensuing years since it was released.  I could instantly listen to how Michael Stipe’s singing style moved from a quiet mumble (or murmur, as it was) to a confident expansion of his vocal talents on Document.

When I did find a band’s debut album that I loved, it was usually short-lived.  I previously wrote about the Boston-based rock band Letters to Cleo, whose debut album got a lot of play on my CD player in the early 1990s.  I continued to follow them, scoop up their releases when they came out, but they never gained any sort of notoriety outside New England.  Like most people my age, I jumped onto the Counting Crows bandwagon, with their 1993 release August and Everything After.  Their second album was also pretty good, then they fizzled quickly in my mind.  I recently saw them open for Matchbox Twenty and let me tell you a few things about that show.  First, Matchbox Twenty is fantastic in concert.  Say what you will about their albums being a little too much “pop” and not enough “rock”, I don’t care – I still like them.  They had a tremendous amount of energy throughout the show, and played a fantastic version of (Don’t You) Forget About Me in the encore.  Another cool thing about MB20?  They offer recordings of their concerts for sale.  Like the show you just saw?  Cool, go to their website and order it up and you’ll have it within a week.  Counting Crows?  Ugh, not so much.  Very lazy set by a band that was clearly mailing it in.  It made me really appreciate the dedication it takes from a band like U2, who continue to push themselves in not only creating new music, but the energy they bring to a live performance. 

What Goes Around Comes Around

Funny story.  Sophomore year at UMass.  Some friends in our dorm were headed to see a band on campus in the Student Union Ballroom, which holds a few hundred people.  Naturally, I didn’t have any interest in going – I had never heard of the band, and probably had other stuff going on.  A few months later, we were all listening to the band’s debut album, which was insanely popular.  A little album named Ten.  Yup, that was Pearl Jam. 

After hearing that debut album, I was all-in on Pearl Jam, devouring their first few albums when they came out.  I even bought their third album, Vitalogy, twice.  It was in the CD player of my car when I totaled it, so I had to go buy another copy.  Why do I remember that?  I can’t explain how my brain works.  Anyway, somewhere around their fourth album, I lost interest.  I have no recollection of what I was listening to at the time, but I decided I was out on Pearl Jam.  Then a funny little thing happened during the holiday season of 2003. 

My wife’s extended family does a grab bag for Christmas.  Each person makes a list of ideas for gifts they want, and we do a “Secret Santa” style gift exchange.  That year, I got my wife’s cousin Mike in the draw, and on his list was the Pearl Jam bootleg of their show in Las Vegas from that Summer.  “Wait a minute,” I thought.  “What is going on here?”  After doing a little research online, I learned that Pearl Jam had been releasing their live concerts on CD since 2000, as I previously wrote about.  It was at this time that I was immersing myself into live concert recordings, trying to get my hands on whatever I could.  Now I discovered that another band was not only allowing fans to record their shows, but offering professional recordings for sale to their fans.  Needless to say, I quickly dove back into Pearl Jam, made up for lost time (and a few missed albums), and devoured whatever live recordings I could find.  So, I was in on Pearl Jam from the beginning, took a little break, and came back to my original love for them.

A Most Unlikely Find

Christmas 2012.  We decided to get our ten year old daughter tickets to see one of her favorite musicians for the following summer.  She was thrilled to discover on Christmas morning that my wife would be taking her and a friend to see Taylor Swift at Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots.  Fast forward to July of 2013 and my wife is not feeling well and can’t take them to the show.  For a millisecond, the idea of me taking them is considered, and quickly dismissed.  At the time, my reaction to this possibility was “Oh, God, no.  I can’t stand country music.”  Thankfully, the friend’s mother took them, and I dodged the experience of sitting in a football stadium –with 110,000 screaming girls – listening to country music.  Boy, was I naïve.

Sometime during the Fall of 2017, I decided to check out Swift’s new release, Reputation.  I can’t exactly remember why.  I was probably in the mood for something different, I read good things about it, the first few singles sounded catchy, and there was so much publicity surrounding her first new album in three years.  This was certainly unlike most of the music I was listening to at the time, and if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you understand.  Surely, someone who counts Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen among their favorite bands doesn’t listen to pop/country, right?  Nope, I listen to all sorts of music, and for some reason during this time in my life, this music scratched an itch.

Despite knowing some of Swift’s more popular songs, I never really “listened” to her music.  I found it ironic that my first album experience was with Reputation, which received probably the worst response (from critics and fans) of any of her previous albums.  It wasn’t a disaster – it just didn’t live up to the very strong response to previous albums, especially coming off the massive success of her previous album, the Grammy award winning 1989.   

Most people are familiar with her story – a young girl develops a love for music, her family moves to Nashville so she can pursue country music seriously, and she gains success shortly thereafter, landing a record deal.  Her success in the country music industry was remarkably quick, even for a genre that is known to make stars out of young artists.  Her second album, Fearless, would win Album of the Year at the Grammys and before you knew it, she was a 20-year old award winning superstar with endless opportunities ahead of her.  By the time 2013 rolled around and my daughter went to her concert, Taylor was in the midst of a world tour in support of her 2012 album Red, the album that began her crossover from country to pop.  It was the first indication that she was looking to branch beyond the typical country music style.  The introduction of more drums, guitars, and synthesizers, while de-emphasizing banjos and slide guitars sent a clear message – she would not be pigeon-holed into one genre. 

When Swift was nominated for Album of the Year for Red, she was convinced she would win.  The album had been celebrated and it seemed certain that she would become the first female artist to win the Grammy for Album of the Year twice.  When she lost, she later said that she decided that night that her next album would push her creativity even further than before.  She left the country sound behind, leaned hard into the pop sound, and created 1989, a celebration of the traditional pop sound of the 1980s.  After liking Reputation, I decided to move backward in her catalogue and check out 1989 and Red, two albums that I really enjoy.  As I made my way through these three albums, I found myself fascinated with Swift’s ability (superpower?) to create music that not only grows on you over time, but becomes addictive.  I think a big part of that is her ability to produce successful music across many genres, even exploring different kinds of music within the same album.  You can get some power hits (Blank Space, Style), silly breakup songs (We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together), and some of the most beautiful combinations of music and lyrics (Clean, Delicate, Call It What You Want).  While some of her fanatics will look for Easter eggs in her songs to determine which boyfriend a song is about, that stuff never really interested me.  I’m just looking for excellent songs.  Do I care that All Too Well was written about her breakup with Jake Gyllenhaal?  No, I just know that it’s a fucking brilliant love song. 

Shake It Off

In the Fall of 2017, right about the time I discovered what all the fuss was about with this brilliant musician, I was going through one of the more stressful times in my life.  I was working on a major project for work that, while exhilarating and exciting to be a part of, was incredibly stressful.  It helped that I worked with an amazing team of finance, legal and human resources colleagues, but it was pressure-packed every day, every night for a few months.  That might be why I loved having a voice in the background providing a wonderful combination of sweet melodies, energetic beats, and creative lyrics to help relieve the stress.  Yes, some of her songs can be silly and targeted towards teen girls, but when you’re stressed out at work, thinking things can’t get any worse, sometimes you need to just Shake It Off. 

One of my vivid memories during this time period was a phone call I received from one of the executives at our company.  It was late at night, I was still in the office, and when I saw the caller ID, I had a strong suspicion why I was getting the call, and that it would turn ugly.  I didn’t have to take the call – it wasn’t my boss or his boss – but I decided to take the high road and pick up the phone.  Well, as I suspected, the conversation started out fine, until the needling started and went on and on and on and on.  You know those people who just won’t give up on an argument?  Yeah, that was this kind of phone call.  At some point, when the conversation got heated, we ended it and I (stupidly) proceeded to not follow the advice my boss had always given me.  Instead of waiting 24 hours to cool off, I fired off an email to my boss updating him on the conversation to give him a heads up, and probably added more inflammatory comments than were warranted.  I decidedly did not Shake It Off.  Oh well, live and learn.

Hold My Beer

The 2014 release of 1989 (named after the year Swift was born) was a massive success, winning her the coveted second Grammy for Album of the Year.  After another world tour, her personal life went into a tailspin the next few years as spats with other celebrities went public, and the gossip continued about her personal relationships.  While Swift basically went into hiding to get away from the relentless attention and media, Adele matched her feat for winning Album of the Year twice, when she won for 25, the year after Swift won for 1989.

Swift’s next two albums continued to push the pop sound, and explore different themes and life experiences as she approached turning 30.  Reputation, an attempt to eradicate her image as the girl next door is a bit of a schizophrenic piece of work.  On the one hand, there are some songs where she is directing her anger at her critics and those celebrities who took shots at her.  On the other hand, there were a few songs that reflected her new relationship, and could be categorized as love songs, not her traditional breakup songs.  The sound reflected a continuation of some of the pop/synth sounds from 1989, a trend that she would continue with Lover, released in 2019.  Pulling from how happy she is being in love, the songs on Lover feel like a bag of cotton candy – maybe it’s the pink album cover that makes me think of this.  Cotton candy is good, but too much of it?  Not so good.  I like some of the songs on the album a lot, but overall, it’s kind of average.

While the rest of the world hunkered down in quarantine in 2020, watching Netflix, baking (and eating) too much, and feeling a general sense of “What the hell is going to happen?” Taylor went into the studio and wrote and recorded, and wrote and recorded, and wrote and recorded.  Think you’ve heard the best I have to offer?  Country?  Pop?  Synth-driven anthems?  Love songs?  Angry breakup songs?  Adele also has two Grammys for Album of the Year?  Hold my beer.  I’m going to write and record an indie folk record and win my third, which is exactly what she did.  Folklore showed up unannounced in July 2020.  There was no advance press, no big marketing campaign.  It was just – “Hey, I’m going to release an album tomorrow.  Here is where you can find it.”

Folklore represented yet another change in direction, bringing us a quiet album with acoustic guitars, some strings, and beautiful melodies and lyrics.  When the pandemic began last year, there was talk about a potential explosion in creativity and amazing work from artists, filmmakers, and musicians.  Now, there have been some pretty bad movies and television shows made during the pandemic that were about the pandemic.  I don’t need to be reminded of this time in my life for the next twenty years.  I don’t need to see my characters in masks while they are in a scene.  And I don’t want to see another goddamn Zoom scene on my TV ever again.  An explosion in creativity?  Folklore is what I’m talking about – an artist bringing us songs about herself, her friends, boyfriend, and a cast of characters she created in her world of songwriting.  The mood of the album reflects the mood of quarantine, but it’s not LITERALLY about the quarantine – that’s artistry.  Oh, and then she did it again, releasing a sister album (that I think is even better), Evermore, in December 2020.  These two albums have been keeping me company during the many hours I have spent writing this blog.  Superpowers, indeed.

The Re-Releases

If all of that is not enough, she has another little project(s) on her hands.  Reputation saw the conclusion of Taylor’s original recording contract, with the rights to her first six albums owned by Big Machine records.  When the company was sold, she wasn’t able to get in on the sale, and another company now owns the masters to these recordings.  This means that she is missing out on profits from these recordings every time someone streams or buys one of the songs from her first six albums.  I can imagine the conversation that happened one day in a conference room among Taylor, her managers, lawyers and advisers.  “Well, they own the masters, they won’t let you buy them.  I mean, you’d have to re-record the albums to own them.”  Pause…..Taylor responds, ”Ok, let’s do that.”  That’s right – she’s decided to re-record her first six albums, with Fearless coming out today.  Why would someone buy another copy of an album they already have?  Well, her fans are insanely loyal, and she is including bonus tracks with the original songs.  The new version of Fearless has 26 songs!  Another genius move?  Every track title has the name of the song followed by “(Taylor’s version)”.  So, every person who goes to search for Love Story on iTunes or Spotify will have two choices – one with the words “Taylor’s version” and one without.  Which one do you think they will choose?  This move is a ton of work, but a brilliant move by an industry icon, setting a precedent that could shape the music industry for years to come. 

Before I wrap up, one more note.  If you are a fan of Taylor’s music, I highly recommend a podcast called “Every Single Album – Taylor Swift.”  You can find it on the “Ringer Dish” podcast feed and it is hosted by Nathan Hubbard, a musician and former CEO of Ticketmaster, and Nora Princiotti, a writer for The Ringer website.  Each episode breaks down one of Taylor’s albums and they go through all sorts of details.  While both hosts are huge fans, it’s not just a fawning lovefest.  There are really good insights on the making of the album, especially from Hubbard, who has credibility given his music background. 

Whew!  I’ve written way too many words about an artist that I only started listening to a few years ago (and if you’re still reading, thank you), but I have been fascinated to learn more about her journey through the music industry and the risks she has taken to stretch her creativity, and just had to share my thoughts.  It’s crazy to think that she is only 31 and we could have many more years of music ahead of us. 

That’s all for this week.  Thanks for reading and taking this crazy journey through my discovery of new musicians.  Next week, I’ll be returning to my movie roots with a preview of the Oscars.  So, time to bone up on some of the nominees before the ceremony on April 25^th.  See you next week and if you’d like to be notified of future posts, you can subscribe here.