Feel free to add propositions that could be true of the April 19 album The Tortured Poets Department!
If any of them are ambiguous, feel free to ask for clarifications. For user-submitted answers, I will defer to the person who submitted the answer.
I will also use genius.com, r/TaylorSwift, and a trustworthy council of local swifties as sources if things are disputed.
I will N/A redundant propositions.
See also:
General policy for my markets: In the rare event of a conflict between my resolution criteria and the agreed-upon common-sense spirit of the market, I may resolve it according to the market's spirit or N/A, probably after discussion.
1,000
3.00@Panfilo What is your definition of a verse? I think Taylor sings harmony for Post on like the first half of the outro, but it's unclear to me whether that counts - or whether there's another part of the song that I missed
Ok, I'm finally getting to these resolutions because their creators didn't tell me how to do them...I'm seeing this Vulture article (dated Apr. 23, within the week) which interprets But Daddy I Love Him as a country song? Emphasis mine
Swift sells conciliatory reproval of white conservative culture in “But Daddy I Love Him,” denouncing the kind of woman her opponents and some fans fret about her becoming — the wealthy Northeast Protestant brandishing faith like a blade against anyone outside their ethno-geographic siloes: “Sarahs and Hannahs in their Sunday best / Clutching their pearls, sighing, ‘What a mess’ / I just learned these people try and save you / ’Cause they hate you.” It is brilliant, a breathtaking deflection in a country song that jabs the listener with the old TayTay sound and then seethes in perfect elocution as it builds toward the hushed assertiveness of a guest of honor inviting you to leave a soirée: “God save the most judgmental creeps / Who say they want what’s best for me.”
@Conflux Oh wait nevermind the market says "by major country artists". I guess it makes sense that it's low then, resolves NO
@Conflux just to flag other comments, for @Haven 's 5th edition, i assume "The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology" should count—it wasn't previously listed, but now it's listed (where the other 4 specified in the answer were listed on wikipedia).
below i link an example where it's called "orchestral", up to you whether that's convincing
i didn't hear a spoken word sequence, but maybe i missed it
"Sweeps the Hot 100 top 10 in its first week." should resolve YES (see similar markets elsewhere)
"All songs debut 1-16 on the Billboard Hot 100" is NO (only the top 14).
"First single dropped simultaneous with album release" imo that's a yes, Fortnight was released with the album but known as a single, although i was confused by the wording there so i didn't bet (didn't bet on the last few objective ones fwiw just adding notes)
"Taylor sings backup/harmony for another lead vocalist for one or more verses on the album" that'd have to be fortnight or florida, tbh i don't think she's doing harmony on either but maybe i'm missing it (didn't bet on that bc i wasn't confident in definition)
@Joshua Ready to resolve this one now? The worst burn I could find was when Taylor calls him a coward in loml:
"Oh, what a valiant roar
What a bland goodbye
The coward claimed he was a lion"
Every Reference Taylor Swift Makes to Joe Alwyn on "The Tortured Poets Department" (harpersbazaar.com)
@TimothyJohnson5c16 Yeah i keep trying to listen to the album and find some but haven't noticed any good ones, and I don't think that's very sick. Seems like a no to me.
https://www.albumoftheyear.org/user/grave/album/867088-the-tortured-poets-department/
This album is comprised of the same mid-tempo synth arrangements, grand !orchestral! strings, and vaguely ethereal keys... Now that’s not to say all of it was bad, there were points where the !orchestral! instrumentations and the moody synths would come together in a decent way
Obviously somewhat subjective, but I'd argue this is a YES.
"So Highschool" is explicitly about Kelce. Example detail: "Are you gonna marry, kiss or kill me?" references Travis being asked to marry/kiss/kill celebs including Taylor (in all these i'm just citing Genius.com).
"The Alchemy" is also about Kelce, so Genius.com notes lots of references. E.g. KC chief's "winning streak" in the midst of taylor attending the games, "Where's the trophy? He just comes runnin' over to me" referring to the super bowl, etc etc.
"Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus" is not focused on Kelce, but the line "And you saw my bones out with somebody new, Who seemed like he would've bullied you in school" is a pretty clear/specific reference to Kelce.
(if this isn't enough i can supply with more, but these feel pretty clear—throughout i'm just following the annotations on genius fwiw, not really adding my own)
@Ziddletwix Looks like people also think The Albatross has fairly specific references to him (i.e. the backlash he faced from the publicity of their relationship), although that doesn't seem to be the focus of the genius annotations atm
@Ziddletwix Hmm, I’ll think about it. Certainly The Alchemy (you forgot to mention the touchdown lyric!) and probably So High School. The other two seem sketchier at first, but I’d have to investigate
(you forgot to mention the touchdown lyric!)
Oh yeah those songs are loaded with other references I was just quoting an easy example for reference.
The other two seem sketchier at first, but I’d have to investigate
Got it. If you count "touch down" as a potential specific reference to Kelce, I'm surprise a bit surprised—"somebody new, Who seemed like he would've bullied you in school" seems much more specific than that. "Touch down" is a general expression, that works as a pun due to Kelce's job, but it's also just a general metaphor. "someone who would've bullied you in highschool" is the sort of lyric that when you hear it, you immediately know it has to be specifically about Kelce. She hasn't dated anyone else who comes close to fitting that bill.
I think of "specific" in terms of whether there's ambiguity about the reference & lots of the other lyrics have at least a bit of ambiguity, whereas no one trying to figure this line out could possibly doubt who it was referring to (saying "bullied you in highschool" when she's now dating a famously broey giant NFL jock)
@Ziddletwix wait, it's generally thought that Kelce would've bullied her in high school? I didn't think people thought he was mean, just boring maybe
@Conflux no no i'm sure travis is a nice enough guy, the lyric doesn't say anything about that, it's a lot more straightforward, there's nothing super subtle to read into here. the exact wording:
And you saw my bones out with somebody new,
Who seemed like he would've bullied you in school
the "you" target is Matty Healy (not taylor swift), the subject of the song (e.g. references to drug use, "decade played us for fools" referencing their odd timeline, "kids with internet starlet", etc etc). matty healy is a classic skinny artist type. in the lyric, he sees her out with someone new, travis kelce, i.e. a giant football jock. the "seemed like he would've bullied you in highschool" is just drawing the contrast between them. it's not claiming travis is a jerk or anything lol, just that he is objectively a 250lb beer drinking sports jock, & very different than matty healy.
(it would be very odd if taylor randomly accused her boyfriend of being a bully, but that's why she says "seems like", which is a very different implication—no one can doubt that travis looks like a huge jock)
@Ziddletwix I think this is describing Matty Healy's perception of Travis, not what Taylor actually thinks of Travis. So I personally wouldn't count it as "specific details".
@TimothyJohnson5c16 hmm sorry i don't follow—def agreed this is about matty's perception of travis, but why wouldn't that mean it's a "specific detail"? how does the perspective of the person of the song come into play? if it's taylor's perception of kelce, it counts as a specific detail, if she's adopts someone else's perspective (i.e. standard songwriting stuff) it doesn't?
(if you just don't think the lyric is referring to kelce, that's different, but i don't think that's the claim?)
@Ziddletwix It's definitely talking about Kelce, but it's not giving specific details about him, just describing the way other people might perceive him.
Does that make sense? Or am I just splitting hairs?
@TimothyJohnson5c16 hmm i can't see why it'd be any different if taylor referred to how she herself perceives travis, surely the perspective she takes is irrelevant here, that's just songwriting.
if the claim is about how specific the detail has to be, sure, maybe the bar is much higher. but then "touch down" (which conflux cited) imo definitely wouldn't count. that's a general expression, that happens to work well as a pun referencing travis' job. but the lyric could still exist even if it wasn't about kelce (I mean, she wouldn't write it that way, but it's not solely a reference to travis). this lyric refers to a specific someone. if everyone agrees that someone is kelce, that seems pretty specific to me. if people think it's someone else, i'd be open to hear that argument, but i haven't heard it.
or, to put it another way, "this guy looks like a big jock" seems pretty specific to me. the other lyrics mentioned don't actually reveal many specific details about kelce either (that's a super high bar), they're just unambiguous references to him. so do any of the songs pass that bar?
(if the answer is "zero songs give specific details about kelce", fair, i misunderstood what the question was going for)
@Ziddletwix Yeah, I guess the touchdown thing isn't really a specific detail about Travis - more like circumstantial evidence.
I'll discuss this with the council of trustworthy swifties mentioned in the market description
@Ziddletwix Ok, we thought about this (and forgot about this) and while I think it's kind of sketchy, I did say I would tiebreak with Genius, and Genius includes at least three examples (The Alchemy, So High School, and Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus). So it's a YES