Blogocentric Formulations

Is It Over Now?

"The Soundtrack of Your Life"  | Day 29
"Is It Over Now?" by Taylor Swift

It's only fitting that I end this year's "The Soundtrack of Your Life"  with a Taylor Swift song. After the year she's had and all the record's she's broken, it's only fair that she extend her record-setting run of being featured on (now) six consecutive "The Soundtrack of Your Life"  playlists of mine. Talk about real achievements...

I had a really hard time choosing just one song to feature this year. She released her album Midnights in late 2022 which has a ton of songs that I really love. I featured "Anti-Hero"  on last year's playlist but have really come to appreciate some of the other songs on that album even more, including "Maroon," "Midnight Rain," and "Bejewled," plus "Paris" off the 3am Edition extended album release. But the album was at least represented on a previously playlist.

But then I started thinking back to the Taylor Swift concert my wife and I attended over the summer, and how many phenomenal songs we were reminded of. "Long Live," "My Tears Ricochet," and "Dress" (the last of which was one of the songs from the acoustic set of our show) were all songs that I started listening to again in earnest since the concert, and all of which eventually ended up on my Spotify year-end playlist. But ultimately I decided not to go with any of those because...

... the real highlight of Taylor Swift's year, for me, was the release of 1989 (Taylor's Version), which was the self-produced re-release album that I was most looking forward to. Not only is it my favorite album of hers (although Lover and Reputation are very close), but the "From The Vault" bonus tracks are all amazing. This is the one that's been my favorite so far ("Now That We Don't Talk" is a close second), and I've been listening to it on repeat for a while now. The fact that it's near the top of my Spotify "most listened to songs of 2023" and it wasn't even released until the very end of October 2023 should give you an indication of just how much I've been listening to it over the past few months.

The final reason why I chose it is because the song title ("Is It Over Now?") is a perfect encapsulation of my feelings about this year's "The Soundtrack of Your Life" . I have mixed feelings about it being over. On the one hand, I'm sad that it's now over and done for another year, and we have the longest possible wait until it reopens again in February 2025. As usual, I didn't get to fit nearly all the songs I wanted to (I left off all the Contemporary Christian and worship music I've been listening to all year, even though it was the genre I listened to most!), and it felt like I was more rushed than usual this year. Which is why I'm also kind of glad it's over; I really had to power through over the past few days and get caught up on a lot of entries because I was stuck at six entries for about three weeks.

Still, I really love this activity and I'm looking forward to getting caught up on everyone else's playlists and starting to put together my own for next year!

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