Look, you like your favorite music. Great.
These people are allowed to like their favorites whether you agree or not, it’s their choice.
My Daddy liked Big Band music. It was his favorite.
No one can force you to like what you don’t like.
It’s ok. We are are our own people. Many stars in the sky. Many people listening to tunes.
It really is ok to have so much to choose from.
I assume that by that point she’ll be some sort of goddess that our primitive post-atomic descendents will sacrifice geese to in exchange for a bountiful harvest.
To follow up on that point;
According to Wikipedia, Elton John’s “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” tour is the highest-grossing of all time in real dollars, bringing in $939 million over 330 shows, with U2’s “360” tour from 2009-2011 at a slightly-higher inflation-adjusted $958 million across 110 shows.
The Eras Tour is #2 at $780 mil and 66 shows thus far, with another 83 scheduled and dates still being added.
“by that point”?
I doubt anyone will. Mozart came from a time when the population of Europe was about 125 million and the global population was around one billion. Today it’s 750mil and 8+ billion. Technology means that K-Pop bands can affect the musical landscape in the Americas. The arts & entertainment landscape is just too vast, in both people and new genres, and open (forget blahblah Top 40 radio; try needing a royal patron) for someone to stand out as some luminary and gain that sort of lasting cultural status.
On the other hand, so what? Taylor Swift still has an infinitely better chance of being remembered in 400 years than any of the acts cited in this thread as sooo much more deserving of our time.
I’m sure that Swift’s fans will smile to learn that in order to diminish her stature, a comparison must be made to a classical legend.
Never underestimate the vital importance of Having The Last Word against Someone Being Wrong On The Internet.
…
(But really, geez, people… so she is the Current Big Thing. What need is there for a debate on the philosophical justification of the validity thereof?)
But she also sought out Bon Iver and Aaron Dessner (of The National) to work with, suggesting she has an ear in the indie world herself. She’s a musical omnivore. (As am I. A few other shows I’ve seen and loved this year aside from the Eras Tour: Billy Strings, Parliament/Funkadelic, Wet Leg, Godspeed You! Black Emperor.)
That whole “indie-er than thou” thing mostly died in the 90s and early 00s. Most music nerds I know nowadays can find gems in the Top 40 as easily as they can in the reviews at Pitchfork (or it’s modern equivalents). You still see the 90s record store “you haven’t heard it” types, but it’s kind of like seeing a ska band.
If one doesn’t like Taylor’s music just because they’ve heard it and don’t like it, that’s cool. I don’t get a lot of popular artists. If one wants to reject her just because she’s popular, I’m sure there’s a place somewhere that needs someone prattling on about Guided By Voices.
I can’t find the clip, but I remember from one of the documentaries a young Dylan being asked moronic questions by a pseudo-intellectual reporter, and Dylan taking the piss deadpan insisting that he believed he had a way better singing voice than [legendary opera singer, I forget which one]. I don’t think the opined on whether he was more famous than Jesus.
My older son (early 20s) was telling me a story the other week about working with someone on a school project at college and the guy was playing a song. Son said “Hey, I like that, who is it?” and the guy said something like “So, music is personal to me and I don’t feel right just sharing this with anyone; I don’t think you’d enjoy it like I do”
At which point my son just hit the Shazam app on his phone, got the artist/song and saw that they had 2mil+ listeners on Spotify so it wasn’t even some tiny local scene indie thing.
Music people are weird.
I mean, has Mozart even HAD a platinum selling album? Huh? Huh?
(fyi I edited my post, thinking about it as I recall it was specifically about his singing voice, which the reporter had said something kind of rude about, comparing him to an opera singer)
Well, I bet THAT guy doesn’t have any platinum selling albums either!
He was never a billionaire either.
I’m trying to understand what you’re saying here and I’m not sure I understand.
You seem to be saying that Mozart’s reputation as a genius is not because he was all that exceptional, but because the cultural/technological circumstances of his era allowed him to establish a reputation as a genius which has then stuck. Whereas somebody of equal genius today would be so swamped by other talents that they could never establish a similar reputation?
This. Not that Mozart wasn’t a genius, but that he was a genius in an era of fewer people to compete against and an arts scene dominated by an upper class system that makes “It’s hard to break into radio” sound quaint. It’s not a knock on Mozart, it’s a statement about how arts & entertainment culture has dramatically changed in the last 230 years.
To reverse the question: Would Mozart be known in the year 2423 if he was just getting started today? I’d guess probably not. I don’t think anyone getting started now is likely to be widely known in 400 years regardless of artistic talent.
It comes back to the title of the thread. I don’t get it either. She doesn’t have anyway near the talent of a lot of musicians then and now. If she were a wine she would be a well marketed brightly packaged box of white zinfandel. Popular to the masses but cultured wine drinkers don’t understand the popularity beyond something ordered with a pizza at a bar. She has captured the boy-band lightening in a bottle.
I agree that her followers would smile at those who don’t get it. Music is one of the true gifts in life so I hope they enjoy her concerts and buy her music for many years to come.
This is such a dumb take. But there’s not much that can be said that hasn’t been said many times already in this thread, so I’ll leave it at that.
I think I feel like it’s more a function of the kind of music. Mozart’s music (or at least what he’s known for now) is abstract, cerebral, highbrow. I think it’s music that’s likely to be “understood” (for what it is) across a very broad range of cultural contexts, even if it is not popularly favored as the most compelling form of music for the majority in any of those cultures.
Whereas the genius of a Dylan or a Swift is to speak to a vast number of people in a hugely compelling way within a specific cultural context. I don’t think Dylan or Swift are “lesser” geniuses than Mozart, it’s silly to make such quantitative comparisons. But I think it’s more that the art they produce is much more attuned to the culture of a specific time and place. That’s why Mozart is more likely to have his current reputation in 500 years time, while Dylan and Swift probably will not.
That’s a good point. But, on the other hand, having Mozart’s classic composing talents these days is mainly good for a career in cinema or video game soundtrack composition. Getting in when he did matters.
Yes, I think I’m starting to come around to this also. The kind of music that Mozart was good at just doesn’t have the same profile in the modern world, and no man (whatever their genius) is an island.