I’ll admit, though, that that’s pretty good. She’s talented - no denying it.
Rebellion for the sake of rebellion, or offense for the sake of offense, is booooring.
Also, the only thing my kids could play that would anger me is stuff like Michael Jackson or Kanye West, and it isn’t because of the musical content. When I’ve got both My Neck, My Back and Raping a Slave on the shuffle list, they’d have to be playing Prussian Blue to get a rise out of me.
That’s a Boomer/Gen-X mindset though. Deliberately angering your parents is pretty cringe.
Yup. We don’t need to mistake vapid antagonism for quality anymore.
I agree, but it’s also a normal part of kids growing up and asserting their independence.
Which proves my point - there is nothing going on today that can match the stuff we had when we were younger. There are no rough edges left in popular culture.
My high school senior just told me that she doesn’t see offending me as a goal in life. Most things I do that annoy or embarrass her she recognizes are just differences in style.
I’m torn between disappointment, relief and pride.
“I don’t know what I want, but I know how to get it…”
Is it?
You’re disappointed that your kid is intelligent and mature? Isn’t this progress in how we’re raising out kids?
When the previous generations have destroyed the planet and democracy, one rebels by being quietly decent.
Bits and snatches. Nothing that grabbed me. I fully admit maybe I saw a bad performance and a bad song!
Bear in mind that the Beatles first appeared in America on the Ed Sullivan show less than 3 months after the Kennedy assassination. There was an intense craving for some national joy.
Swift is talented, writes her own songs, is creative, very pretty, and loyal to her fans. Me? I’d rather be one of Gaga’s monsters, but Swift is one happening frood (is that what the kids say?)
I’m going to jump in here and give my opinion because I’ve been a fan since the first album. I don’t listen to country music so the first song I heard of hers was Teardrops on My Guitar becaue it got pop play. I would in no way consider myself a Swiftie. First of all, I haven’t listened to every song on every album. Second, I’m not in her demographic (too old). Finally, I do have some quibbles with her songwriting. Her earliest songs had a bad habit of repeating the first line at the end and too many of them are structured verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus. I would never go to a concert of hers because I have no desire to listen to thosands of fans screaming her lyrics in a stadium so large you can neither hear or see her well. I’m too old for concerts anyway, the only ones I’ve been to in the last decase or so was Pink and that is because she puts on a heck of a show. But here is why I think Taylor Swift has such appeal.
I want to start with the music. First of all, she knows how to write a killer hook. Her songs are catchy as hell and hummable. Many are absolute earworms. Blank Space and Style keep embedding themselves in my brain.
Second, her songs are relatable. I do think that people overestimate how many of them are about her relationships. It’s just that when she trashes an ex (All Too Well, Dear John) she really goes all out. However, she does also write about issues that resonate with women. One of my current favorites is one of the vault tracks (songs that didn’t make the album originally that she is now releasing) called Nothing New. While it is ostensibly about her worrying that the industry will tire of her when someone younger and fresher comes along it also speaks to everyone’s fear of aging in a culture that worships youth.
Third, she is constantly reinventing her music. She went from pure country to country pop to pure pop to more indie. I would argue that the industry appreciates her talent since out of her 10 albums she has won three Grammys for Album of the Year (one for a purely country album, one a pure pop album and one for a more indie album). Personally, I love the way she can convey a mood with her songs. Style was mentioned above. The opening of that song immediately brings me back to high school, driving the California freeways late at night with the windows open. The song August on Folklore also has a very evocative feel. The song 22 reminds me of when I was 22. Is she the best musician or the best vocalist? Absolutely not. However, her vocals have clearly improved over time. Her lyrics are sharp and I find them a little deeper than most of the lyrics from current songs. She references Hemingway and Fitzgerald among others.
Next there is Taylor Swift the person. She manages to portray herself as sweet and unassuming but she is clearly smart as hell and driven as hell. She has taken more than a few stands. Back in 2015, Apple was giving streaming users a 3 month free trial and not paying artists royalties during that time and she pulled her music until they agreed to pay royalties for that three months. She also pulled her music from Spotify to protest low payouts. While she clearly has plenty of money she is also a tough businesswoman. The posts above discuss the lawsuit from the radio host who grabbed her rear and then sued her when she made it public and he got fired. As noted, she won the case and a token dollar. And most people know that she signed a contract with Big Machine Records at 15 that gave them complete control of her masters made during the 13 year term. She basically made the record label and when the contract expired, they turned around and sold her catalogue for $300 million. But since she still owns the songs themselves (if not the recordings) she decided to go back and rerecord every one of her first 6 albums so that she will own them. In order to encourage fans to listen to them, she has included the vault tracks as noted. Initially,she did not speak up much politically but she is now being more open about her political views and the position of women in the industry and in society in general. She released a documentary that showed her thought processes as she decided to go more public. At the same time that she plays hardball in the business world she also lets her fans see her more awkward and dorky side. She isn’t afraid to look silly in her videos. And speaking of the videos, she has been directing all of them lately and according to the industry they are pretty good.
Finally, she treats her fans, particularly the hardcore ones really really well. Before the pandemic, she had listening parties before the release of each new album. She stalked her fans on instagram, invited a select group of them them to her house, had her mother greet them and feed them homemade cookies and then played the album discussing the inspiration behind each track and getting feedback before each release. People who were there said she spent a couple of hours just chatting with them. In addition, the “ordinary people” seen in the Shake it Off video are all fans that she invited to be a part of the video. She doesn’t stop there, however. She has been known to randomly send Christmas presents to her fans. Again, she follows them on instagram, figures out their likes and dislikes and puts together a gift package for them. Essentially, she spent more time selecting gifts for her fans than I do for my family. As noted, she hides secret messages for the fans in the liner notes and the music videos. She makes it fun for them to search for the easter eggs. She also has a reputation of being extremely generous as the recent article about the bonuses she gave on her current tour indicates. I read an interview with one of the bus drivers who said most artists would give a bonus of $5-10K after a tour but the drivers received $100K which was life changing because he could now put a down payment on a house.
So, the reasons I am a fan is super catchy tunes with smart lyrics, along with the fact that I always admire an ambitious woman who can stand up for herself, and the fact that she treats her employees and fans well. The stories you hear about celebrities are often stories like how they came into a restaurant and the servers were instructed not to look them in the eyes or to address them directly. The stories you hear about Swift are of her stopping her car in the middle of the street because she saw a little girl with a Taylor Swift shirt on, and going over to take a picture with her, or one where someone was in the women’s bathroom and had to ask around for a tampon and Swift gave her one.
So in my opinion the reason for the phenomenon is that she creates catchy music with creative lyrics, she treats her fans well and she works very hard at her job.
Also there is the cat thing. Watch the behind the scenes of the ME video and you will see her fall in love with the kitten actor and decide to adopt him on the spot. Watch her show the kitten to her parents who are on set with her while she is filming (because of course they are) and tell them how cute he is then tell the kitten that she is taking him home ad that he will have two new sisters.
It’s unfortunate that there isn’t a more neutral term. It’s objectively true that many pop songs make heavy use of production effects. What’s subjective is whether that counts as “excessive”. Regardless, I view the term as being essentially neutral, even if I personally dislike the sound. Obviously, not everyone shares that view.
I’d say “highly produced” or maybe “hyperproduced” rather than “overproduced” to convey the neutral sense.
“Overproduced” gives a sense that there’s some objective measure of “enough production”, and the music so described exceeds that level. To me.
There’s plenty that matches the stuff I offended my parents with. I’m just not my parents. But even Taylor Swift offends parents. Not a majority, but a large fraction. But those parents are assholes.
W.A.P. and Montero seemed to grate plenty of people the wrong way. There’s still stuff to ruffle the straights, it’s just different stuff.
You do realize that we just came out of a pandemic, an attempted coup, the loss of abortion rights, and are currently experiencing the rise of fascism, climate change has passed the tipping point and young people will never be able to own their own home. I’d trade all that for one dead Kennedy in a Nantucket minute. Talk about needing some joy.
It’s a normal expectation for mature PARENTS that their kids aren’t simply inheriting all their beliefs and mores and by late teens they are questioning and challenging some of them. My parents challenged my grandparents’ beliefs and expectations. And I did the same with my parents. I’m self aware enough to know I didn’t perfect my worldview.
But then God didn’t reveal the Eternal Truth to me on what is right and good for all time, so YMMV.
You can challenge and question worldviews while dancing to heavily produced pop. And plenty of previous “challenging” music was actually produced by empty-headed poseurs or for the money, where those were the be-all and end-all of their worldview.
Give her Folklore album a try. It’such more bare bones and really highlights her talents as a writer and lyricist. Here’s one of the songs from it:
Oh my god. I would probably cut of a lesser used finger to see M. Gira locally. Two fingers if Jarboe were there too.
I’m curious if there is some kind of historical q-rating or something to measure how “big” some singer or group is in terms of fame/prominence/“it”-ness.
Because to my extremely uninformed and only-vaguely-curious 49-year-old eyes, I feel like she’s bigger in that dimension than anyone since Michael Jackson… bigger than Madonna, Gaga, Beyonce, any of the boy groups at their peak, etc.