Taylor Swift: 1989

I'm 6 days late to the party which is pretty bizarre considering I've been on the look out for this album since her first announcement. But now that I do have a copy, I strongly feel that 1989 deserves a blog post because a Taylor Swift album is always chock full of surprises. Although she's completely put her country trademark behind, 1989 certainly does not disappoint.

I was kind of hesitant to listen to the tracks because I was afraid that I may not like the new direction she's taken as an artist, especially after the release of her single "Shake It Off" that's unquestionably catchy and all but doesn't really sound like Taylor Swift to me. But I quickly got over it because her transition from country to pop is intriguing enough to keep me along for the ride. And looking at the tracks in my iTunes library, there was this smallest hint of doubt in me that maybe she couldn't pull this one off.

BUT luckily, I was wrong. It's a new musical territory that she's exploring, but her transition is so smooth and graceful that it wouldn't even cause "shock" to a long-time fan, if that even makes any sense. Now, I wouldn't go into the technical aspects of the music, I'll leave that up to Gary Trust or some guy from Billboard, but I will speak as a fan.

There is a glaring absence of banjos and raw acoustic guitars and in its places are beats and electronic rhythms that pretty much scream "pop". And hypothetically, if someone didn't know any better, it would be silly to think that Teardrops from My Guitar and Shake It Off were written and sung by the same artist. The distinction between 1989 and her prior albums is really prominent, and that's not such a bad thing.

I was always a fan of her slow ballad songs that I could belt out in the shower like Enchanted, All Too Well, I Almost Do, Back to December, and The Way I Loved You (all-time personal favorite) so even if I knew it was a long shot, I expected to hear at least one slow ballad. It's kind of disappointing, especially since she writes the best lyrics that accompany the most passionate melodies. Nevertheless, I'm growing to love her new sound.

1989 is a breath of fresh air. Not exactly a contender for the best among all of her albums, but still, it's the type of music that only gets better the more you listen to it.

And another thing that I absolutely love about this album is that the physical copies come with different sets of Polaroids that have hand-written lyrics on them which is reaaaally lovely. Leave it up to Taylor Swift to add such a creative, personal touch to her albums. Here are some of the Polaroids that I loved:

These came from a digital booklet and aren't scans of the actual thing because I don't think record stores here have started selling physical copies of the album.

Once you've gone through a Taylor Swift CD booklet, it is a protocol and I mean a protocol to snoop around in the lyrics and decode messages from each song. If you don't, it's like leaving the cinema during a Marvel movie without staying for the credits. So do it.

Basically, all of the lyrics were in capital letters with some lower-cased ones sprinkled here and there. The trick is to combine the lower-cased letters in order to form sentences. I have terrible eyesight so my decoding took longer, but hazaar!

1. Welcome to New York
- "We begin our story in New York."

2. Blank Space
- "There once was a girl known by everyone and no one."

3. Style
- "Her heart belonged to someone who couldn't stay."

4. Out of the Woods
-"They loved each other recklessly."

5. All You Had to do Was Stay
- "They paid the price."

6. Shake it Off
 - "She danced to forget him."

7. I Wish You Would
- "He drove past her street each night."

8. Bad Blood
- "She made friends and enemies."

9. Wildest Dreams
 - "He only saw her in his dreams."

10. How You Get the Girl
 - "Then one day he came back."

11. This Love
- "Timing is a funny thing."

12. I Know Places
- "And everyone was watching."

13. Clean
 - "She lost him but she found herself and somehow that was everything." (Personal favorite!!)

I like how it's basically a story that you have to earn by decoding it (unless of course you Google them which sucks out the fun in the whole concept). It has such a whole new different feel and the unfamiliarity is exciting and most certainly welcome.

Palo Alto

A couple of weekends ago, I finally got to get a hold of a decent Torrent copy (oops) of Palo Alto. The film is directed by Gia Coppola who happens to be Francis Ford Coppola's granddaughter (of course the skills run in the family). And long story short, this is one of those films that one could easily label as "pretentious" or "unoriginal" because it does stomp around well-worn territory, and it's basically the been-there-done-that kind of plot, but there is just something about this film that draws me in. The cynicism is not at all romanticized which I highly appreciate. I guess I just a have a knack for moody themes and elegiac nihilism (Adult World and The Art of Getting By are the two films I'm currently thinking about, which also coincidentally stars Emma Roberts) but whatever it is, it's enough to get me to watch it more than five times in a week.

The film attempts to capture the truth of the slippery slopes of adolescence and what it is like to be hopelessly trapped between being a kid and being an adult. It is a simplistic take on the angst-riddled teens and their forlorn struggling with the harsh realities of life. I find the film’s laconic script is the film’s essence; the majority of the film is spent in contemplative silence. I also especially enjoy the film’s atmosphere and mood which relies heavily on its excellent cinematography. Its moody and misty shots show the dissociation of the characters in a purely visual way. 

The shots are often awash in a dreamy haze; cloudy and occasionally out-of-focus that conveys the characters’ aimlessness and confusion. Its beautifully eccentric soft lighting proves to be the film’s crowning gem– its color palette consisting of pale hues of whites, grays, blues, and greens. The artistic use of banded shadows and silhouettes, often on the characters, added a touch of melancholy to the film. It also uses several shots of sunbeams peeking through windows and trees. Repeated lingering shots of peripheral details inside a character’s room – such as childhood toys, dead plants, and clothes lying around – are aesthetically pleasing and highly symbolic which I absolutely love. Most of the scene’s compositions are often minimalistic, with interesting perspectives, using angles that put the characters in odd places within the shot. The unbalanced views make the film all the more ambiguous. 

Another aspect of the film that I absolutely love is Robert Schwartzman’s hazy musical scores that lull the viewers into a sense of wooziness, with almost a hypnotic demeanor. It adds to the palpable sense of darkness and languor, a presence that is hard to shake off as the film goes on. 

"You're crazy."

"No I'm not."

"Yeah you are."

"Why would you say that?"

"Because... you just don't care about anything."

"I wish I didn't care about anything, but I do. I care about everything too much. I think it's you who doesn't care, not me."

"What do you mean, I care about you."

Palo Alto is the kind of film that prioritizes mood over message. Most of the scenes are long stretches because of the characters’ lack of motivation for specific goals, nor are there clear reasons behind their actions and behaviour. The film dwells on ambiguity, on the unpredictability and unstableness of the characters’ futures. At first glance, one may instantly label the film as a superficial attempt to dissect modern unthinking, passive-aggressive teens; however, Coppola does not provide any diagnoses of what is societally wrong. She merely shows us what these characters do – mundane and aimless acts, indulging on the “now” and setting aside the “later”. The protagonists have little concern for the future, leading them to make impulsive decisions with total abandon. 

The film tiptoes around conventional teenage issues, but does not confront in a way that the director provides solutions. However, the characters are given a shot at redemption by making pivotal choices that somehow allow them to grow. Because the film is all about the well-worn territory of teenagers and coming-of-age, it is easy to regard the film as banal, but its beauty is that it goes through a range of emotions. April, Teddy, and Fred, no matter how indifferent they are presented, hide behind smokescreens to cover emotional damage. The film may be a been-there-done-that feature; however, it does inject a welcome dose of sympathy for the unaided teens. What I appreciate is that Coppola does not romanticize their cynic behaviour, however one can’t help but see its poignant demeanor. More importantly, the film is paradoxically blithe and intense, with the characters constantly torn between feeling everything at once and feeling nothing at all.