When Taylor Swift came out with Red in 2012, she became the reigning queen of autumn. The album has long served as the perennial soundtrack for contemplative trips upstate driving down windy country roads lined with foliage and having moody fireside chats with a new lover. The album is quite literally called Red and “autumn leaves falling down like pieces into place" is one but many lines that directly reference fall. The album has served me incredibly well for the past 12 years as I’ve gone through every iteration of fall possible: alone, not alone, deeply in love, confused, content. I’m especially grateful for Red (Taylor’s Version) with its ten-minute version of All Too Well, which may be the shortest ten minute song ever in that I know every single word and it always ends way sooner than I’d like. The song, but really the album as a whole, is a slow-burn account of sunsetting love, where every memory—like lost scarves and crying in a party bathroom—is mythologized into one’s own life lore that you may never really get over. It sets the perfect tone for the beginning of fall, a season where everyone wants to be nostalgic and cozy and it’s fun to even be a little sad.
So when Charli XCX decided to drop Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat, a surprise remix album of her world-dominating album Brat, at Storm King Art Center, the upstate NY destination come autumn, my mid-week trip upstate took a turn. I was meant to exclusively stream Red (Taylor’s Version) but suddenly I have a remix of Everything is romantic featuring Caroline Polachek and I’m now a little charged. In swapping out the club for a bucolic trip upstate, Charli said sad girl autumn is sooo out and I want to talk about it for a second.
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