Gaylor Fall 2025
Introduction
Dear Friends,
After ambient september, I like to dive into a discography. First it was Cocteau Twins, then it was Drake. I am excited to announce that I will be embarking on a third challenge, and this time it will be the taylor swift discography. Instead of it being limited to one month, like other challenges, The challenge will take place through december, with about five days per album. My goal, besides getting a greater scope of taylor swift's body of work, is to hear each song, and interface with an artist that I hated as a child, found comfort in as an adolescent, and have been wanting more from these last few years.
Two of my friends, friends who are featured on the summer music challenge are embarking on this journey with me. Wish them luck as well.
P.S I am not a gaylor, I think it is a funny group though.
Schedule
Fearless (2008)
Singer-Songwriter, Soft Rock, Teen Pop, Power Pop
october sixth - october tenth
Guys, I got a cold. To the new reader, this seems unremarkable. To someone who knows me in real life, or someone who has been keeping track of my rym listener journals over the past few years, you know how this feels. A day of denialism and self loathing, a day of resting and skipping all my obligations, and then I feel decent enough to emerge from my cocoon. Lengthy preamble, only vaguely related? Why of course!
Suffice to say, I did not listen to as much of my regular dose of taylor swift this week. I had a great overcast walk, the summer temperatures with a light breeze, for my first listen of the week, but my second is coming in at the buzzer of October 10th. Fearless, despite this, is unbelievable. Some of the best pop music ever penned. I was blown away both in its consistency and its emotional impact.
The first six songs harness a really touching youth of romance that she sells so well. Whether it be the theatrics of ”Love Story” or the balancing of truth and daydreams in ”Fifteen”. I think this takes a lot of the elements the debut had in terms of melodic and anthemic songwriting and she really begins to create this persona, a persona that feels so based in reality, of the complicated emotions of teenage romance. “The Way I Loved You” is kinda the obvious one, the one about unstable romance. The country twang all over this thing mixed with power pop inspired choruses are so beautiful. Such a sing-along. Easy to put yourself in her shoes, because we were all fifteen, and we all wanted that person that wanted someone else. Her appeal to these universal feelings and desires will make her huge.
Favorite Songs: You Belong With Me, Fifteen, The Best Day
Taylor Swift (2006)
Singer-Songwriter, Contemporary Country
october first - october fifth
And we're off! Here we meet sixteen year old Taylor Swift, plucked from Pennsylvania right into Nashville. Her wide eyed dreams at becoming a country star despite the greater country music publishing scene being against her. It’s a sweet album to look back on, mostly through the lens of where she has arrived today: famous in a way that nobody else is, her reach wide and far. Her egoism (at times positive, at times negative) compared to the very straightforward concepts here. But that is enough comparison. We are going to pretend, here on out, that it is 2006, and all I know about Taylor swift comes from my adoration of up-and-coming country music at the turn of the century.
Such a touching and emotional album. At times on the nose, but if you ask me that is one of the things I adore about country music. Rather than loop you in metaphor (not a negative, but, still) it tries to convey the emotion that is being felt immediately, using the tools at one's disposal. Picture to Burn has been stuck in my head for days, and despite that one somewhat questionable line (“I’ll tell mine that you’re gay”) It has a hook beyond description. The hooks on here are the strongest part by far, I feel like this songwriting knack she has for anthemic choruses should be brought out even more (foreshadowing).
It also holds so much warmth in its words. As I was driving from my girlfriends apartment, about to embark on what would become a 9 hour front desk shift, the lyrics of our song caught me off guard, that idea of memories as a placeholder for songs with deeper meanings. Instead of a song built from the memories, we see the memories head on. There is back and forth, an undertone of lost love to the whole thing, an “I remember everything’’ to the sound of the creaking screen door, the low voice on the telephone.
I had a good time with this album. My first listen was a little bit unfair (I was half asleep for the back half after a morning shift, laying in the grass, occasionally opening my eyes to see the leaves above me) but I still found time before and during that nap to pick out the special moments.
Favorite Songs: The Outside, Our Song, Picture to Burn