SONG VS. SONG: "Flowers" by Miley Cyrus vs. "Vampire" by Olivia Rodrigo
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- Опубліковано 25 лип 2023
- Wanna know what Todd thinks about some current songs? Todd has a podcast where he talks about this stuff!
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I never realized before that this channel's acronym is, indeed, T.I.T.S.
Oh! I’ve been calling him TITS for years now! 😂
You’re late but no less welcome to the party 😂
It's also the acronym for Logic's second album, LOLOL!
I'm also late to this party. Didn't notice that either. Given how young and immature Todd was when he started, I'm guessing that was intentional. And I'm guessing he wouldn't have done that today.
That’s not what I was searching for when I found this channel
Honestly
And the same goes for Bob’s Opinions On British Songs
Todd conveniently taking a vacation so he doesn’t have to talk about "Try That in a Small Town"
Impeccable timing, hahahahaha!
I think there's no avoiding he'll have to talk about it once he returns, though. I can easily see him choosing to tear the song a new one from a different angle: where he points out all these other examples of country songs that talk about small town pride and community he loved growing up and didn't spend the majority of their runtime cynically pandering to culture wars but, rather, having a palpable gratitude and inspiring the listener in a way that could also resonate to those beyond rural communities. I think that would be a great angle to approach the review.
I doubt he'd review the new Aldeen. It'd be too much of an "Am I the Only One" redux
@@MACMAMII write songs ‘bout the people who do, jobs in the towns that I’d never move to!
Fits this one so well
@@cfredricsHonestly Try That in a Small Town is a much better song than “Am I the Only One”. Small Town is much more about “don’t try that shit our we will knock ya teeth out” while “Am I the Only One” is much more whining about liberals and how people are “brainwashed”. It’s much more pathetic and whiny.
@@MACMAMIIDK. I really don’t see any major problem in the song itself. It’s about how a small town is a tight knit community and when you mess with one, you mess with all. Is it a bit too much Vigilante behavior? Probably, but it gets the point across that they stand against people who cause harm to their tight knit community.
The music video, on the other hand, was a little tone deaf. Going to a court where there was a historical lynching is not the brightest idea. Aldean did not choose that location. That is solely the fault of the producers.
Personally, I don’t find this song inherently “racist”. Aaron Lewis’ song is racist. Complaining about Confederate statues getting taken down is racist. Standing up to people who sucker punch others isn’t.
Look maybe I’m wrong but I just having a hard time understanding why people are so outraged about this song.
Olivia is able to emote which is refreshing. But Miley can enunciate which is valuable.
you don’t think ORod enunciates her words on Vampire? Personally, I can hear her very clearly
@@teamkockroach4080 when she goes fast she sounds cluttered
Olivia > Miley by a mile
I think Olivia has more talent. Miley has more experience.
Olivia's songs are naïve and dramatic. Miley is mature and confident. I can see why Zoomers like Olivia.
Flowers just sounds like the most watered-down disco song ever
Good song for the treadmill, not sure I'd bother with it otherwise.
wait for it.... the 70s are making a comeback
personally, i prefer vampire because it hasnt been the number 1 song in my area's main radio for 18 months... I work retail... HELP...
That’s rough buddy ❤
I think flowers is the better song but overplay is so brutal
Heartfelt condolences for future endeavors
No way it came out 18 months ago????
@@dysmissme7343 SHIT PLAYS 3 TIMES PER SHIFT I JSUT AJFHBALKJVBVAAODV
Q: Would you rather work retail or have a nail driven into your head?
A: What kind of nail?
My only gripe here is with Crash saying “as an English major I was taught Always Avoid Alliteration,” because, as someone getting their PhD in English, I’ve really only heard that rule apply to writing prose (and that was while writing essays in high school), and songs are closer to poetry.
As an author, I really think Neil Gaiman has the best take on this sort of thing. Which is just that it's a writing tool, and they all have to be used with care and attention, but you would never chuck one from your toolbox. Sometimes alliteration works well, sometimes it doesn't.
Personally I actually like "fame fucker" 😂 I think using "star" has more of a connotation to me that the guy just gets with stars, which could be seen as a compliment. Whereas "fame" contains that implication that he doesn't really have fame and he's just chasing it all the time through his partners.
I'm definitely showing how far my finger is from the pulse here, but Maynard James Keenan from Tool uses alliteration all the time and he's one of the greatest rock lyricists of our time.
Melanie Martinez's Alphabet Boy is full of alliteration in the verses and they're excellent imo.
Yeah I'm also an English major and I was taught exactly the opposite philosophy: alliteration is a wonderful tool to add lyricism and rhythm to one's writing. Obviously don't overdo it, but that goes for all writing techniques.
Years ago, I got into an argument with Crash on one of his Weezer videos because he didn't understand the subtext behind "Do You Wanna Get High" (that being that it was a tragic song about drug reliance) and he got very pissy because I corrected him. Point being, hearing him bring up his English degree as a qualification to comment on alliteration is pretty rich.
Outside of that, I sincerely hope he's grown as a critic, because he has a good platform and I enjoy good rock criticism.
Like, for Olivia it makes perfect sense for why she doesnt want to say who it is about. It is literally in the cringey lyrics "famefucker", if you say who it is about you are just giving him exactly what he wants.
Idk how to describe it Olivia's lyrics have a sense of awkwardness that makes them feel more real. A kind of authentic inarticulatness that makes me connect with it more
That's why I don't like it. Sure it feels real, but it's so awkward and feels like a 9th grader wrote it. I wrote better lyrics in high school.
Surprised nobody mentions Hayley Williams when talking about Olivia's lyrics because they remind me a lot of early Paramore in that sense. You listen to that's what you get or playing god and see it's all over the place lyrically
@@Nakia11798 Mm pretty sure you did not write better lyrics in high school
Either way, Flowers isn't exactly better lyrically imo. Sure it's not as "awkward" but it's just so damn generic. I'm pretty sure there isn't a lyric in that song that I haven't heard in another song. For the love of god, the chorus is built on cliches, and not in a creative or good way. It's the kind of song that's made to be as vague as possible so as to "be relatable" to as many people as possible, which means in the end that no one can actually relate to it. I might not be the target audience, but good song lyrics should at least make you feel *something*, like with a good book they should allow you to connect to the writers thoughts or emotions.
In that regard, I certainly prefer Olivias lyrics. They may be awkward at times, but at least they are honest. She's describing real feelings, and I can certainly respect that more than what Flowers is doing.
It's typical teen-girl-scribbled-emo poetry in a diary she calls a journal to be "cool."
I like it for the same reason!
To me its because her post Disney image is less about proving she's an adult and more so about being very young and wanting to keep that as long as possible because you can feel it slipping away fast. And that's a very relatable experience that many remember and are going through
Vampire is a better and somewhat more original song. I can't get over the interpolation of Bruno Mars aspect of Flowers. It is not an awful song by any means. I just feel like I have trouble recognizing it as its own work.
Lol "Vampire" is NOT original. At least as far as its theme goes. My god, Olivia, half your last album and the first 4 singles ("Drivers Licence", "Deja Vu", "Good 4 U", "Traitor") were the SAME DAMN THING. Please release something that ISN'T about your d-bag ex-boyfriend for a change.
@@JonathanLedbetter They really aren't the same at all. They are about different guys and Vampire is more about abuse, manipulation and using dating as a status symbol to get ahead. Whereas Sour is more about a break-up in which the guy dated a similar girl after and her going through all those emotions. Sour has a coming to terms feel. Whereas Vampire is a straight up call out. You just missed the point and that's alright.
@@JetWindTV Disagree. When you boil all those songs down, they all reduce to "my ex is an asshole". It really doesn't matter why they're assholes in the end -- they're all still assholes. It gets tiresome.
(Edit: And clearly I'm not the only one who thinks this way. 1:03:21 FunFawn21 thinks that she needs a new topic to sing about. I was going to mention Taylor Swift here but thought it didn't fit because she did release other stuff in between _her_ "my ex sucks" songs, but FunFawn21 did and they're 100% correct.)
Do we even know for sure it's different guys? Has she confirmed it since this episode came out?
@@JonathanLedbetter Not really. Lots of the songs on Sour reflect on her own insecurities and the different emotions of the break-up. Notice how Vampire is not really about that. I think you need to listen to Sour again as a full project then listen to Vampire. You'll see how if you put Vampire on Sour, it'd be so different in tone and even in vocal range. It couldn't have been another song from that album. Again, you missed the point. You are not a big picture thinker and that's okay. The bigger picture reveals the difference here though.
@@JonathanLedbetter Also it is very obvious it's about different boys as Joshua Bassett is only 2 years older and Vampire is about an older guy. It is allegedly about her ex that was 4 years older than her named Adam Fraze. If it was about Josh that definitely would've been a theme touched on in Sour.
I would have preferred “soul sucker, fame fucker” actually for the double alliteration. Guess this is why I’m not an English major!
Alliteration is totally fine in a poetry/lyric context. It can get a bit awkward in prose, but even then it can be effective if used well. Writing rules are just guides for beginners.
Some of the critiques here of Vampire, particularly the “fame fucker” line, are a little weird for me. Asking as a published poet-where do they teach that you’re supposed to never use use alliteration? It’s like any other literary device. It’s a tool in your box that you strategically deploy to create impact. “Fame fucker” comes right at the crescendo of the chorus, and it’s a great place to put an attention grabbing phrase. The alliterative f’s make it sound like she’s spitting with anger.
It’s also a totally valid device to switch words in a common phrase to give it a new texture, so that the ear doesn’t gloss it over. It’s not precisely synonymous with “star fucker.” In that phrase, the object being fucked is a star; a person. The object in Olivia’s phrasing is the fame-not her, even as a star, but only her fame, stripped of her personhood.
“Fame fucker,” coming after Olivia desperately searches through various body horror metaphors, trying to find a way to describe her experience, lands like a disgusted exhausted surrender, where she finally says stripped of figurative language exactly what he is and what he did. It also keeps a little of the body horror associations, because of how the fame is this disembodied quality that this dude is fucking. It’s creepy and unsettling.
Anyway I thought this was a striking song, and it has much more in common with “Dear John” if we’re gonna compare it to t swift breakup song. Like it’s about power dynamics and being taken advantage of, having your head fucked with, and ending the relationship disillusioned and feeling much older. Just because it’s song about a breakup doesn’t mean it’s more of the same, or that it has nothing to say outside of “boy left me, I’m sad:(“ The lines about how he manipulated her, how she regrets calling his old girlfriends crazy, the thrill of doing something that feels fucked up… those are all solidly written and give it more of a thematic richness
It is clunky, but I think the occasional awkwardness and the rawness of it gives it a feeling of authenticity that works
rant concluded lol
I just feel the whole lyrical conceit of the song feels clunky and second draft-y to my ears. Like there were still one too many run-on sentences that needed to be refined, while the whole vampire simile wasn't very well-conveyed in my opinion.
Yea I thought the fame fucker line was good. You can make up terms that's okay! And it's well performed
I do hate the sell me for parts line, that's a good criticism.
Thanks for writing this so I didn't have to. I think "fame fucker" not only fits that slot perfectly, "star fucker," to my ear, would've disrupted the line a little bit. It still would've been fine, but I like the way "fame fucker" lands there better just as a sound, in addition to the further detail you went into.
Separate note: The "sell me for parts" bit's a little weirder. I could see it as the aftermath of the vampire incident-you kill her with the bloodsucking and sell the remains afterward, sure-but even for that the timing is weird ("sold me for parts *as* you sunk your teeth into me"? He's selling you off at the same time that he's feeding on you? How does that work?). It's figurative so it doesn't need to literally make sense, but it's...odd.
Love this breakdown, totally agree!
I'll add in, too, that my interpretation of "sold me for parts" was more separated from the vampire analogy: he sold parts of her to other people, using her money for his own gain or her celebrity status for his own clout
Like the immediate connection I had was that he could have had a level of power over her, ie a managerial position
I can see how it comes across as a mixed metaphor, but there was something about it that doesn't bother me at all when I think of it that way
It's just anti-viking racism.
I find Olivia’s earnestness, and raw emotion, to be her one of her strong points. All in all, I think what makes her hit the most for me is that I was a teenage girl in the not too distant past. I’m excited to see how she evolves, because the lyrics are super clunky, and definitely a bit cringy (but again that harkens back to my own teenage girlhood).
Olivia is a young Taylor Swift who curses. Their lyrics remind me of opening your notebook and writing teenage angst. Olivia is edgier though and arguably sings better than Taylor.
I don't even like vampire but the "fame fucker" line made sense to me. Like a star fucker is someone who wants to be adjacent to celebrities, a fame fucker is someone who's just horny for clout; two different things imo.
Well, if you did an 80s versus then I'd like to see "like a virgin" vs "billie jean."
Sorry to Madonna but that would be a slaughter
@@EmpireAnts42I was gonna say MJ would eat her alive in that one lol
MJ sweeps that one. Maybe another Madonna song but you going against one of MJs best
That's not a competition. You'd want Billie Jean & When Doves Cry for an actual challenge
@@thatbloodypanda6989 was gonna post that or Purple Rain; right on! When Doves Cry is the better pick though
Nothing has signaled just how weird and loopy this year has been in popular music than the meteoric rise of Ice Spice - a charismatic yet fairly one-note rapper whose career primarily blew up through ironic stanning and terminally online kids. This would be like if, in 2011, Rebecca Black became an actual charting popstar.
I mean ice spice is actually good
No cause ice spice acc has some good bars that sound good unlike Rebecca black
@ahhhhyes Rebecca can actually sing though.
To clarify, both Ice Spice and Rebecca are both artists with some great qualities. But it’s how they got popular that is far more interesting to me. If you look at the comments and tweets relating to Ice Spice earlier this year, it was all either hate or excessive and self-aware stanning.
it absolutely is not because Ice Spice can rap sing and dance
The "garlic butter" clean lyric should be for the Weird Al parody of "Vampire".
And it can interpolate "Truffle Butter" in the breakdown as well, hahahahaha!
Holy shit, that thumbnail looked straight outta 2009.
I genuinely thought it was the algorithm pushing an old video of his I hadn’t seen yet.
@@jimrustle270same
UA-cam really did scramble those pixels.
I really dont think "the term she was looking for is star-fucker". The two are not analogous. Also, alliteration is fine in a lyrical/poetic setting.
Country music takeover is dangerous for the music industry
It's dangerous for America.
I feel especially shitty that it's that Jason Aldean song to see such great heights. It's absolutely poisoning the well for other ACTUALLY great Country music to make the leap into the Pop-sphere.
I LOVE country music, I HATE the Aldean song.
I 100% agree with the talk of Flowers being a total letdown after Plastic Hearts. I absolutely loved the 80s rock sound with Miley’s voice, and I don’t even like 80s rock very much. Flowers is just…boring. I didn’t know how I felt about Vampire when I first heard it, but it’s grown on me significantly. Her lyrics are very young-sounding, and I’m 40, so not a whole lot to relate to there for me. BUT…I am and have always been a melody girl. The lyrics will always come second in a song for me. If we are purely comparing the melodies of both songs, Vampire wins all day every day. The lyrics in Flowers are super basic imho, so it’s not winning any points there for me either. 🤷🏼♀️
For the record, alliterations in songs work great, so I think changing "fame fucker" to "star fucker" would ruin that line. I mean, try singing "fame fucker" and then try singing "star fucker", I just think it flows better and it's more poetic. I don't wanna be mean, but sometimes you just gotta say "English majors be damned, this works great!" and that's what I'm saying right now. Love y'all lol
Weirdly enough I preferred the lyric from the censored version, "dream crusher". But I definitely see what you mean about the alliteration lol
There's also already a song called star fucker
@Sammy-S I like "dream crusher" way more than "fame fucker". Isn't Olivia a former Disney/Nickelodeon star? Obviously I'm not her demographic.
First time I heard the explicit version I swear I thought she said "vein" instead of "fame," which would at least fit the title, but is one of the few forms of Rule 34 that I have not seen yet. (And I would like to keep it that way, A03.)
I actually think "starfucker" sings a lot better because it has that nice open "aaahhre" instead of slamming into that M. If you wanna hear someone belt out "star fucker" to great effect, Masterpiece Theatre III by Mariana's Trench really hits hard with it
Without even watching the video, I can immediately say with 1000% certainty that Vampire is a better song than Flowers in every single humanly possible way.
Lyrically? You can't be serious.
@@Nakia11798 at least olivia wrote her own lyrics instead of just copying bruno mars
@@noelle6235it’s response song…
@@noelle6235are u slow?
@@MoMo-rx4zryeah it might work conceptually but it isnt a well written song. the chorus of flowers is the verse of when i was your man. from a melodic standpoint the highest point of that song is the lowest point of the other.
It's so true about different audiences for different songs - in my case, I'm 31, so yes, I'm a little outside Olivia's target audience - but I like that she *is* speaking to her girls that are her age - "Hey, some guys are total fame fuckers, they'll steal your light, and listen to your friends if they warn you about someone" - these are all things I wish I'd taken to heart when I was 20!
You should do Nothing Compares 2 U by Sinéad O'Connor vs Linger by The Cranberries
RIP to Sinead and Dolores, both gone too soon
Vampire is a far better song imo, at least it goes somewhere. Flowers just drones on for 3 minutes, it's one of the dreariest songs I've heard recently. It's not like a bad song per se, but there's just nothing to it. It's just generic lyrics over a generic instrumental, and I can't believe it's the lead single for an album called "Endless Summer Vacation" cause it sounds more like the music that destroys your soul as it plays from the speakers at a super market as your standing in a particularly long line.
Endless Summer Song
From what I heard Miley had a lot different idea of musical arrangement so its possible that this song is butchered masterpiece to please the mob. And it worked from $$$ perspective.
@@Mavczers this is true, I can't fault it in that regard. I just find it unbelieveably uninteresting. At some point you really have to ask, how many times can someone write basically the same instrumental before they come up with something new
Yeah, the melody of flowers directly samples I will survive, and honestly that’s a far better and dynamic song
@@ambriaashley3383 oh of course, I've heard the comparisons between those to songs and yeah it's not really even close. I'd rather listen to I will survive for 10 hours than flowers for 10 minutes
It's interesting bc for me the comparison I can't get over for Vampire is Billie Elish's 'Happier Than Ever' which is such a good song that it really drags Vampire down to me
The first time I heard "Vampire", I literally thought it was Billie Eilish, until the chorus suddenly got way more energetic and I was like "Oh wait, no, Billie is never this wide awake."
I really want to see Billie Eilish explore her higher registers more from here on out. I get it's something that should be holstered and not overdone artistically, but the low-key FINNEAS status quo sound has gotten long in the tooth at this point and I hope her next album decidedly breaks that mold.
I couldn’t even get through Flowers while I really loved the buildup and the rawness of Vampire so to me there’s no competition.
if the love interest in vampire is a “fame fucker” why would olivia broadcast who it’s about? i’m not too fond of the song but i do think that criticism is a bit funny. also i think the super fans have already figured out and blasted the dude
The chill vibes from Flowers sounded better to me than Vampire's teenie rage.
What's the problem with famef*@r? It makes complete sense and I like the alliteration. The idea that starf*@r (a term I havent heard either) is better? It sounds old-fashioned, calling someone famous a 'star' is pretty cheesy, and we don't refer to internet famous people as 'stars'. But the main point is that it's meant to be depersonalising. Someone who's a famef*@r doesnt care who the person is, they just want to feel kind of important by being close to fame as a concept. Whereas a starf*@r wants the star specifically.
I also dislike pedantry though so there we go haha. (And what kind of english education teaches you to not use alliteration in poetry?? Sounds like a teacher with a bone to pick to me.)
I also thought the point of that part in the song is to be sort of self-deprecating. She's angry and saying stupid stuff, it felt very authentic to me, even if real-life tone clashes dont always translate to songs.
You're overthinking it. It ain't like that.
This is exactly how I felt. Fame f**ker is 100% a better lyric choice for this song.
Starfucker was the most popular term for people like that for a super long time, showing up all over pop culture. One example is Nine Inch Nail's "Starfuckers Inc". I get why people over 25 would be like "wtf is a fame fucker?", its like when yoga pants were renamed flared leggings lol
Flowers is incredible when paired with the music video. The feeling of being free and moving past something after considerable work at healing. It was infectious. It felt real and she was glowing with it.The song without the vibes though is not melodically interesting to me but I feel like people are picking up on that magic. People seemed to love it more than just a generic empowering break up song.
Requiring visual media to properly convey a song's message and feeling is kinda cheating.
@@xX_MC_OvU_PvP_YT_XxI mean, gucci gang isn't a good song. But have you seen the video? It's got a tiger! Who doesn't like tigers? To me that makes it a classic
Enjoy your vacation Todd, you've earned it & then some!
I've never heard either song but I'm invested in this drama.
Don’t, It’s not worth it. Flowers is mediocre and boring. And Vampire is a Awful song about Olivia complaining about her ex who turned out to be gay. Not worth it at all. Trust me
What about the drama seems compelling lmao. It's celebrity and teen shit
@@goatdeer8403 Exactly, nothing is worth noting, so why should I care?
Flowers gives me the same vibe as Victoria's secret by Jax. I know so few women who value flowers. Flowers are the cliché "I know nothing about a woman and have put no thought Into this gift" gift at this point. So talking about buying herself flowers feels downright dated
well i guess i have another reason to hate flowers. it has the same vibe as arguably my most despised song and artist of last year (or even of this decade).
I think bringing flowers on a first date is making a comeback though
as a 34 year old woman who has never been given flowers i respectfully disagree lol
Right there with you queen
Flowers used to be more meaningful but they’ve become very overpriced and cheapened at the same time.
They’re also fleeting. A potted plant seems more pleasant. My husband has never given me flowers; his first gift to me when we were dating was a dozen bottles of lime salt because he knew I loved it. THAT was thoughtful and romantic! For a while he did Edible Arrangements, now we’re 15 years in and lazy.
The only people I know these days who buy flowers are wealthy people who fill their home with fresh flower arrangements in every room every week.
Wow I feel like such an outlier in these comments. After listening to both of them back to back, I 100% prefer Flowers. I can see why the vulnerability of Vampire is appealing, but Miley is just hands down a better vocalist, the song is catchier, and I like the vibe. It feels like she's a grown-ass woman who is just setting the record straight that it wasn't the flowers, the dancing, the holding hands, or whatever. It's more relaxed and less focused on the angst of a breakup.
Olivia sounds like a 20 year old girl who's had her first run in with a real sleazeball. It's a true to life experience, but not anymore original. Listening to it feels like reading college student poetry, which isn't inherently bad, but it's not especially interesting when you're past that point in your life.
Thank you for saying what I feel too
"Starfucker" is about the specific person, adoring someone who is famous and wanting to fuck them. Vs her phrase "famefucker" which isnt about the person at all; they are a tool to climb the social ladder, a resource to be drained and discarded. It works far better with the vampire metaphor and even though "starfucker" sounds less awkward, "famefucker" seems to have a much more specific meaning within the context of the song
What Shatner would do to flowers is treat each line like a dramatic reveal.
I will buy MYSELF flowers.
I will hold......MY OWN HAAAAAAND.
Apparently, Olivia's fans have generally settled that her song is about 1 of 2 people and most likely an amalgamation of them. I don't know who. I like her as a singer, but I'm way too old to follow the love lives of teenagers. I really don't care who it is about.
it's rumoured to be about Taylor Swift, which honestly feels like a more interesting concept.
@@yuri2604makes no sense
Those who are big Crash fans know how big it is for him to collaborate with Todd in any capacity. Congratulations King 🎉🎉🎉🎉
Why would you ignore illiteration? That's such a bland take☠️
I'm just happy you put the crossover episode with Crash on UA-cam.
I heard that there were multiple ways Olivia Rodrigo tried to substitute a family friendly version of “fame fucker” in the radio cut of her song and some of the choices were “fame lover”, “fame hunter”, and “whale blubber”
It should've been "fame sucker", as in someone who leeches off a famous person.
@@JonathanLedbetterbut she says blood sucker right before that, so it would be weird to rhyme sucker with sucker
I think knowing who vampire was about would help the dudes here seeing as it's Pretty much explicitly about a dude who is in the position he is in by sucking up to famous people. like maybe you guys just aren't In touch with the Olivia fandom but everybody knows who the song is about except some insane people who have convinced themselves it's about Taylor swift
It’s definitely about Taylor Swift.
@@daviebananas1735do you also believe in the conspiracy that she’s a closeted lesbian whose music is laden with queer subtext? lmao
Overall I like Flowers much better, but I'd love Vampire with better lyrics and singing. But I'm with Todd in that neither of the songs are all that.
My goodness, Smoke on the Water vs. Iron Man is going to be friggin' awesome! Absolutely tailored to my tastes, and I've been listening to both Purple and Sabbath a lot recently. Really hard choice between those two, as well.
Love Crash being invited on this episode. Love that dude and all of the Rock Coliseum guys.
I don't like Vampire at all and I'm really trying 😭the "sold me for parts" line is so bad and it's impossible to ignore since it's in the chorus. I am not a "lyric person", like I always value everything else about a song above the lyrics and most of the time I don't even process what the lyrics are saying on the first dozen listens of a song, but with Olivia's songs they just jump out at me in the worst ways.
a lot of people are being very protective of her, which I get because she's a young female artist that is basically a target for critique, but I genuinely think she's very talented and I wish people would stop assuming that everyone criticizing her music is out to get her. I think driver's license was successful BECAUSE of her young perspective - who else can write a song about getting their driver's license in the context of a relationship, but a high schooler? I just want her to progress a little bit lyrically and subject-wise - I would really like to hear a song that, at the very least, is coming from a different angle if it's going to be about a relationship. Taylor Swift also wrote songs mostly about relationships at the beginning of her career, but they were varied in perspective. anyway, I also don't like Vampire musically, but we already know from her first album that she can write catchy songs. I'll be listening to her new album with great interest.
To your point that it's a weird time for music, Vampire illustrates a point about contemporary music that continues to baffle me. Musical genres which once seemed antithetical to one another now seem interchangeable. Pop and alternative are virtually indistinguishable, hip hop and country are one and the same, and a lot of metal sounds like dance music. There seem to be no lines anymore, but as someone born in the mid 80s, I miss those lines. For my generation, one's identity was closely tied in with what genres of music we were into.
I speak for everyone who likes cool UA-cam videos when I say *OH MY GOD CRASH IS IN THIS VIDEO*
😊
Thanks for plugging this man cause genuinely I thought song v song was just a video series you did, will definitely check out the pod
I had never heard of the term star fucker before this song used fame fucker, maybe that's just me maybe that's indicative of a lot of younger people not knowing that term. I wouldn't know. But I do like fame fucker better anyway after hearing so much discussion about it. There is a connotation that differentiates them to me. star fucker meaning you are fucking the actual person, verses fame fucker, you are "fucking" the concept of fame. Like it's even more disconnected from giving a shit about the real person you're hurting than the original term. Which also fits with the song Vampire thematically. A star fucker might find that specific star genuinely attractive or hold some admiration toward them, but the fame fucker only wants the fame and will use anyone they can to that end. Not unlike a Vampire sucking someone's blood, without regard for who they get it from.
I also don't totally agree with the impression that it's a retread of topics. I guess I can see how people who don't know who it's about or don't pay attention to her music might think so. But I feel like the difference between a first love teen heartbreak vs your first forays into the adult world of dating and getting preyed on by an older guy can not be overstated. It comes across as a genuine maturation of what she did with Sour, musically and lyrically. Maybe similar on first glance, but darker and coming from an older perspective when you look beyond that. Though obviously 19-20 is still very young, the leap you take in growing up from 16 and getting your drivers license is pretty huge and is definitely heard in this song.
Maybe I’m in the minority here, but I hear ya’ll talking about how vampire “takes bold risks” and I was struck by how deeply I feel the exact opposite. If anything, I prefer Flowers because I at least felt that Miley had a vision and a novel concept for a song, whereas Olivia was following the drivers license + good 4 u playbook exactly and landing on a slightly lyrically clunky combination of the two.
The chords for Flowers suggest that the process was
"It's a breakup song let's rip off the 8 bar loop from I will Survive"
"Isn't that a bit obvious? people are going to notice that"
"OK lets just rip off the first 4 of those 8"
"Good thinking!, Hit record!"
I'm shocked flowers got a pass for having better lyrics? It's such a clunky weird response to when I was your man which isn't even a particularly memorable song. It just feels like a weird bit, the lyrics are the worst part about flowers!
Vampire is realllly not that strange
Todd, I’ve been subbed for a few years and honestly didn’t know about the pod. I listen to podcasts all day at work and today has gone by so much quicker listening to it
Thriller vs Purple Rain.
I saw it elsewhere alluded to in the comments, but I’ve been wanting this for a while. It’s Prince vs the King of Pop. Both are strongly tied to the videos associated with them. Both blew up in 1984. Anyway please please please- Purple Rain vs Thriller.
Dude, Olivia's ex received so many death threats and so much harassment he was hospitalised (he literally almost died and he is still getting harassed 3 years later) I understand why she doesnt want to feed into the drama (though the 'you only come out at night' is a reference to her ex that iykyk, and a lot of people know)
What? The songs about vampires. Like Dracula.
Maybe I'm being cynical but I feel like anyone who might take standom to the extent of harassing her ex will know exactly who she's talking about, so she is feeding into that drama and she knows she's doing it, and that the refusal to talk about who the song is about is another PR tactic, in part to give her plausible deniability.
The song is not about Josh. It’s about another ex. The world has fuckin moved on lol
personally i really love vampire and i enjoy the "fame-fucker" line quite a lot (i especially like her delivery of it). i will admit i am definitely more in olivia's target/typical audience though (many songs from guts have made it into my daily commute playlist and i do not see them leaving particularly soon).
Thank you Todd have fun you will be missed.
Took me a little while to warm up to Vampire, but I really like it now. Is it her best song? No. Are some of the lyrics a little clunky and awkward? Yeah. But it's good, it's fine. Honestly I saw a lot of Olivia stans on Twitter hyping up the vampire metaphor and some of the lyrics pre-release and that's maybe why it took me a couple weeks to warm up to the song. Because the lyrics in isolation look incredibly cliche and generic, but they work pretty well in the actual context of the song IMO.
Agreed on all of this!
...but when the world needed him most to make sense of Jason Aldean's culture war cry, he vanished.
After seeing/listening to this I listened to every other Song VS Song episode and now I have finally come full circle and I'm listening to this again🤓
I also think a point was missed. She’s calling this dude a Vampire, basically a leech who was older than her. SHES IN TURN TRASHING MEN WHO DATE YOUNGER WOMEN. AND PEOPLE WHO LEECH ON TO SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE AND THEN THINK THEYRE THE SHIT
Spotify has stopped notifying me as soon as these podcasts are available to listen to. This isn't the only podcast on Spotify where I have this problem, but I get unwanted push notifications for Spotify exclusive podcasts. Very frustrating
Only todd could get away with using a thumbnail that's the wrong aspect ratio and a total of 20 pixels
So after thinking about this more extensively than I would have ever I've come to some conclusions.
1) Vampire is definitely better. At first I thought it was my bias because I like her much better than Miley but moreso I like her approach to post Disney imaging of herself. Miley and those alike all went for an oversexualized "debut" saying "I'm not a child, let me grow up" while Olivia's approach is more "I grew up too fast, let me be a kid again" which kind of reverse psychology us into seeing her as a young adult. And for that reason I disagree about her being bad at cursing, I feel like it's more deliberate that she sounds like someone bitterly trying to get their childhood back.
2) the reason Flowers doesn't work is because you feel no emotion from it. When I first heard the song I didn't think of Bruno Mars, I thought of Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive. That's kind of why I think the beat is very intentional. The issue is she 1) doesn't have Gloria's vocals, but more importantly 2) you don't ever feel like he hurt her to begin with so her doing better without him doesn't have an impact. With Gloria you felt every bit of pain she started with and every bit of agitation she felt when he came back once she was finally over him. I get none of that in flowers. Flowers is just a pop song to bop along to without much more going on.
See, as an English major I never had a problem with fame f*cker. What really bothered me was the last line of the chorus. 'Bleed' and 'Bled' would've been much stronger notes to leave on than 'Bleeding'. In the same way that (I think) Todd said Flowers should've ended with "but I can't love me better than you", I feel like both "Bleed me dry..." and "Bled me dry..." are much stronger endings, y'know? It's less passive, because it implies she made a choice about what to do with vampire, and I think that makes more sense with the tone of the song.
so many todd uploads we are thriving
If you're hearing Flowers 3-4 times a day at a supermarket, you're at the supermarket for too long.
Luckily nobody works in supermarkets.
@@daviebananas1735 my statement still stands.
I think fame is for the alliteration but also the fact that it half rhymes with vain which lends itself to the vampire imagery.
Lina is 100% right on “Vampire” being the better song. Todd sounded like he was one foot out the door to go on vacation and hated everything. The guest was super nit-picky about Olivia.
Either way, a fun conversation!
yeah, the "starf*cker" vs "famef*cker" was wierd. why would you advice to avoid allitteration in a song?
@@dariosilvestri473 tbh it took me out of the song too because why wouldn't you just say star fucker? It's a small detail but it's so obvious and repeated it damages the song imo
@@ajpoopfucker as a non native speaker I think I have never heard the word starf*cker enough times to make me automatically be weirded out by another word in its place.
Is it a word that people commonly use?
@@dariosilvestri473 I'm also a non native speaker but as far as I can tell it's a relatively common slang term, I've heard it quite a lot when people discuss groupies. The first time I remember hearing it was a nin song in starfuckers, inc. And ik other bands like rolling stones have used it. It's kind of like if you made a song about a bimbo type and instated of saying airhead you said airbrain... The term is right there and already associated with what you're talking about, plus rolls off the tongue better, why would you make a new term that's exactly the other one but sounds worse??? It's very confusing and clunky
@@dariosilvestri473I'm a British English speaker and didn't know it was a common term. So it might be more American or a slightly older term?
Did....did they not know that flowers was a response to when I was your man? They sound exactly the same
I worked on part of the production of that song { along with the original version of Midnight Sky } and that's what Miley Cyrus was going for ( as reference , to her fans ) while being an original song . ♑️✍️🇸🇯🇦🇺
I don't remember these being so long/positive
Flowers is so obnoxious to me. It feels like a TikTok song and I hate it so much. At first it was just meh, but the overplay hit me like a goddamn truck. Vampire, I thought, was clumsy due to the lyrics, but it's really grown on me. I like to compare it to Maroon from Midnights, which I really disliked at first (not because of the lyrics but the point still stands) and has slowly become a quintessential Taylor Swift song for me.
I feel exactly the same about Flowers. I just don't get the hype. It's a very mid song at best, benefitting from clever marketing towards her past relationship with Liam.
I usually wait till the end of video to comment, but heck, Flowers is not a very happy song. It is about the mid point of post breakup, the realisation that you can be happy without the other person is not actually being happy without them. The music fits perfectly. I will survive (I made a life without you and you can piss off the song) it is not.
That said, please don't take this as me choosing Flowers. It never gripped me. I like Vampire. Didn't take breakup from the song at all.
EDIT: I guess I am commenting as it goes. Linguist here - let ppl make up new words. We need those for new concepts. Famefucker works to fill a gap - you can have fame or influence in your field without being a star. It's a levels game. You can't call someone who wants to fuck a professor famous in their field for bragging rights a star fucker or sleeping up. Fame fucker works. And not every rule about writing is worth following. Alliteration has its place too.
Also, as a person who is a lot into vampire lore - her metaphores are not that mixed. Vampires as a concept are not as simple as main stream pop culture makes them out to be.
I think your perception of the singers as Disney ppl is colouring your view of them. As a person who never watched one episode of a live action Disney show who heard Vampire on the radio randomly - there's nothing weird or silly about how Emilia swears. And there's nothing wrong in not relying on drama for promotion. What's wrong with letting the song stand on it's own merit?
i love this comment and i agree but her name is olivia not emilia haha
Long time follower of the podcast, recent patron (A-1 stuff)
Have a good vacation Todd!!
Hey Todd, your twitter was hacked. It's saying your selling macbooks and that your donating all profits to charity all while locking replies and quote tweets
Thanks for the Vampire Shat!
I love these videos so much! Will you do Watermelon Moonshine by Lainey Wilson vs Strawberry Wine by Deana Carter please?! I'm not musically articulate enough to express my thoughts on these two songs and I've love to see you do it!
Flowers would be an amazing Tom Jones song. For all of the same reasons why Todd hates it.
Holy shit I can hear it so clearly in his voice
Whoa, you’re completely right! Your mind is on some absolute next level shit my friend.
Y’all should do Sheena Easton’s Morning Train vs. Dolly Patron’s Nine to Five
They should, but LBR, Dolly Parton wins every time
With how static the Top 10 has been and if it keeps going that way, might as well get the year-end podcast out of the way now. 🎶
The Can't Be Tamed Erasure in this podcast.
I like the alliteration... what's wrong with alliteration?
Nothing wrong with it
Enjoy your vacation Todd!
33:51 what? Alliteration is a great tool as far as lyrics and poetry.
Enjoy your vacation Todd! 😄
I think the line that complete brings me out of vampire is, you can’t love anything cause that would mean you had a heart, it just screams I’m 12 and this is my first relationship and it ruins the song for me
Todd ur twitter got hacked, I tried to bait it into a deez nuts joke but it blocked me 😢
thank you todd
I'm glad that Desire and That! Feels Good! gets a mention here. By rights they should be the bigger hits this year.
Your Twitter got hijacked and it scamming folks and blocked me when I said as much
Finally Todd and Crash team up. I hope they do it again. My two faves teaming up. A dream come true.
Ok, so it took me moment but I relized that "Flowers" reminded me of Bruno Mars "When I was your man" with its chord progression(?, idk I'm not a music major. It just sounds similar to me) and even a few of the lyrics feel mirrored (buying herself flowers and holding her own hand?) and then I started laughing. Putting the two songs together makes for a great juxtaposition between a woman who takes charge of her own happiness after a breakup and a guy who's pining over it because he can't get past it.
Apparently Miley's ex-husband dedicated the song When I Was Your Man to Miley soooo....
@@shoujokadyan5502 And it looks like I'm far from alone in making this connection.
that's exactly what i was talking about. the song gives me eamon vs frankee flashbacks every time i hear it.
Gimme the "garlic butter" version of the song!
You know we want to see the Oliver Anthony song next. He may not always be a one hit wonder, but he is for now! So sieze the moment!
Hey. It’s a good podcast. It makes me very happy.
Did Todd's Twitter get hacked? Suddenly the only posts are selling New Macs at 1/5 the price (sounds like a scam) and replies are locked. (Totally sounds hacked.) While he's on vacation is the perfect time for that too. Anyone have his contact info? Let him know.
I've literally never heard the phrase star fucker, I think especially since we just don't really call famous people stars anymore
I've heard it, and I'm not old, only 26.