Agreed. It’s never strange to me when someone says they don’t like the thing I like, but it’s always strange to me when someone says the thing I like sucks somehow.
Yeah, my Spotify Iceberg is almost entirely underwater, and descends to the deepest depths, but I wouldn’t call Swift any of those things. She’s a powerful songwriter/performer with a lot of catchy numbers and some rather introspective songs that don’t get the same airplay and a stellar ability to connect with her audience. She just isn’t in my personal wheelhouse.
Sorry. Paris Hilton? Nobody I ever even think about when I think of music.
Yeah, @Jophiel . I’m not a fan. She’s o.k. I don’t see why anyone else cares. I’m never impressed by just numbers. Everybody else can lurve her.
Re: bland, vanilla, etc. I think it is mostly just that she knows her musical wheelhouse and doesn’t venture much beyond it, but unarguably dominates the market within it. While she would potentially appeal to me more if she strayed from her comfort zone and took risks (e.g. Miley Cyrus, PJ Harvey, Madonna) I can’t deny her talent and dominance at what she does. It’s kind of like criticizing AC/DC for not releasing cross-over jazz albums or duets with Celine Dion.
She went from being a country star to going full pop to releasing an indie rock album. She isn’t doing really wild things, but she has definitely strayed from her comfort zone.
I assume most people leveling accusations of never trying new things are people who (reasonably) don’t buy/stream her albums and only ever hear her biggest hit Top 40 stuff. And right now a lot of her Top 40 stuff has been re-recordings of her older stuff which further drives the illusion.
Fans are White suburban left leaning according to a recent poll. Aka vanilla bland boring 
The opiate of the masses.
“Some talent” is an understatement. She won a nationwide poetry contest when she was ten.
…and yet…
That’s pretty interesting, really.
Swift’s fans are 53% suburban, 26% urban and 21% rural
US population is 52% suburban, 27% urban and 21% rural
I’m wondering about their racial split. I wouldn’t be surprised if Swift fans were whiter than the national average but that chart doesn’t even list Hispanic/Latino which I’m guessing is either a bad sample (356 people) or them lumping those categories into “White”. I’m very skeptical that 13% of Swift’s fans are Black but <4% are Hispanic. See also the Urban/Suburban/Rural breakdown – that’d be some weird over-representation in urban whites to keep those numbers up while having essentially no Hispanic fan base.
Given that her fan base skews younger (56% Gen Z or Millennial), it’s no surprise that they’re 55% Democratic and I’m a little surprised it’s not higher. Must be that 23% Baby Boomer fan contingent holding it back 
I’m reminded of this:
Hah, I was actually thinking that she seemed like a cross-demographic star – basically an Every American type. I suppose that might make her “vanilla” to some detractors but it’s probably more impressive than only appealing to small niche audiences.
Not for nothing that “Miss Americana” is one of her nicknames.
In the US census, Hispanic/non-Hispanic is an ethnicity subquestion, versus white, black, etc as race. I’m assuming that followed the same demographic approach.
I would love an AC/DC Celine duet!
You’ll have to settle for this.
Come on, don’t be one of those people who feels the need to crap on young people’s music. I’m Gen X and I thought Madonna was straight up pop trash for the basics. If you liked her, that’s cool, but don’t pretend it was anything more than what the Monkees accomplished.
Swift seems to speak to a generation of young women, that’s a nice change from decades of bro culture bullshit.
I’ll admit that she’s better than the interchangeable boy bands she seems to have supplanted. If teenage girls are going to listen to overproduced pop music, then at least they can listen to it from a woman.
Right. She’s not the worst. She just doesn’t appeal to me. I doubt she cares. She’s making money by the bucketload without me.