I think there's a definite transition between Red and 1989—the former is still Old Taylor melodies with some Martin special effects, the latter and everything that follows (with Reputation a weird case) is Taylor After Max. It doesn't entirely pay off until the folk albums (esp. Evermore), by which time she's added something like an octave relative to her initial usable range and can reliably execute things like repeating a tune in a different octave or letting a chorus hit the floor instead of the ceiling. The reason I liked the TV "All Too Well" so much, despite not being as rewarding per minute as the original, is that it was both a return to and extension of Old Taylor writing: it never quite feels improvised (she's not someone who leaves anything in her music career up to chance) but it seems like she could keep essaying those little variations long enough to beat "The Devil Glitch"'s world record. Given how monomaniacal she can be about quantifiable achievements, I shouldn't put it past her.
Yes! I just called “All Too Well TV” her “Albuquerque” (the Weird Al song).
I’d go further and say that she went more textural — and open to something like melodic…ambiguity maybe? “Diaphanous” is the word that comes to mind but that’s not quite right — at the same time that her voice improved, which has served her well in the streaming Vibes Era but has also gotten me personally to mostly jump ship
I think there's a definite transition between Red and 1989—the former is still Old Taylor melodies with some Martin special effects, the latter and everything that follows (with Reputation a weird case) is Taylor After Max. It doesn't entirely pay off until the folk albums (esp. Evermore), by which time she's added something like an octave relative to her initial usable range and can reliably execute things like repeating a tune in a different octave or letting a chorus hit the floor instead of the ceiling. The reason I liked the TV "All Too Well" so much, despite not being as rewarding per minute as the original, is that it was both a return to and extension of Old Taylor writing: it never quite feels improvised (she's not someone who leaves anything in her music career up to chance) but it seems like she could keep essaying those little variations long enough to beat "The Devil Glitch"'s world record. Given how monomaniacal she can be about quantifiable achievements, I shouldn't put it past her.
Yes! I just called “All Too Well TV” her “Albuquerque” (the Weird Al song).
I’d go further and say that she went more textural — and open to something like melodic…ambiguity maybe? “Diaphanous” is the word that comes to mind but that’s not quite right — at the same time that her voice improved, which has served her well in the streaming Vibes Era but has also gotten me personally to mostly jump ship
This nails exactly why I've never gotten that excited about Taylor Swift. Her see-saw minimalist modal melodies are so boring!