Can someone explain the Taylor Swift phenomenon to me?

Cafe Society
942

There’s a little one-off magazine about Taylor Swift out right now, looking at her career, themed of Eras.
It talks about how Taylor’s music has grown and adapted.

She has collaborated with other artists, like John Rich of “Lonestar” and “Big and Rich” fame, and video director Trey Fanjoy. She’s worked with noted pop songwriters like Max Martin, Shellback, Dan Wilson, and Jackknife Lee. And Jack Antonoff. Ryan Tedder and Imogen Heap. Joel Little (frequent Lorde collaborator).

Of you don’t know these names, you can look them up. They are pretty big in pop music.

The difference I see is that Bowie is Prog Rock. Prog rock is characterized by pushing certain creative boundaries and framing albums a whole experiences. Like The Who (Tommy), Led Zeppelin, and Rush, Bowie’s work is a different style of work than dance pop.

943

Wait, so your complaint is that Swift wants to continue making music and isn’t ready for a family yet?

Sure, if she wanted to, she could. But she’s at the top of her career, and isn’t ready to take a creative hiatus.

944

In fact, if she does decide to have kids, I’m sure she can manage to keep making music. Other pop stars are doing it.

945

How many Superbowl ads this year will not be Taylor Swift themed?
Here’s the first one that isn’t not.

946

Kindly point out to me where I expressed ANYTHING resembling a complaint? Or being critical? I asked what people thought her motivation was. And in my initial post, among some possible explanations I said:

I know very little about TS or her music, and asked to be informed by persons with greater knowledge than I. To dispel my ignorance, as it were. Simply asking for opinions is not necessarily critical or complaining.

947

Your tastes seem to beg explanation more than the Swift phenomenon.

Other things being equal (if a good writer is also a good performer) why is that worse?

I’d be hard pressed to tell you if I would more readily live without Milstein playing the Sonatas and Partitas or Swift singing folklore. But if something has words, how can not matter to you whether the words are good?

Then I guess we have to address the elephant in the room, the Shakespeare acrimony.

948

I can’t even imagine asking what you asked about a male star. Why the focus only on TS?

You stating you weren’t being critical does not make it so, no matter how many times you make that claim.

949

I could. Easily. Maybe you need a better imagination.

And maybe I’m “focussing” on TS, for the simple reason that she’s probably the biggest celeb in the world at the moment, and there’s been a big ongoing thread about her on the Dope, if you haven’t noticed.

Your criticism of my posts suggests more about your personal biases and agenda than anything I’ve said in this thread.

950

Under the conditions you list, it’s not necessarily worse. But it’s cheaper to sign unknown bands who had their own material and could be coerced to sign over their IP rights than to pay established professional songwriters. IMO this sometimes led to some slackening of the quality of songwriting, in favor of short-term profits.

There are of course exceptions. But bands like the Beatles made writing your own stuff look easier than it was to generations of rock (and subsequent musicians).

IMO the sound of Kurt Cobain’s voice was more moving than his lyrics. Great melody/harmony/chord progressions with mediocre lyrics win me over the converse. But I know that I’m in the minority. This may stem from listening to records in my childhood selected by my immigrant father, who preferred instrumental music because he couldn’t really understand American singers. It’s telling that my brother (whose musical tastes are as different from mine as could be) feels the same way about music/lyrics.

951

And of course one of her best songs (and for me her best video) is also about the bad side of fame. The story here is about falling in love (presumably with Alwyn, who disliked media attention) when the internet was all #TaylorSwiftIsOverParty. The conceit of the video is that she magically becomes invisible, which prompts a goofy dance (well, Hollywood-goofy) through a hotel lobby and across town because nobody can see her.

The goofiness and self-questioning throughout the song is quintessential Swift - is it, is it, is it? Endearing if you love her, probably incredibly annoying if you don’t. But forget the backstory, it’s just a beautifully crafted song.

952

To be fair, this is the Taylor Swift thread.

953

Deleting also, since this isn’t the Dinsdale phenomenon thread.

954

On further reflection, I’m deleting my response.

955

The part about whether you’d ask the same question about a man is an assumption. But she’s right that what you said still comes off as critical despite the disclaimers. She already quoted one section that comes off as critical. And I will quote another:

All but the last suggested explanation are intensely negative, and the last one is at best neutral, and can become negative in context. If you do not wish to communicate criticism, you would do better to ask questions differently. Ask assuming the positive, and you are less likely to come off as critical when you do not intend to.

From my own experience, I find this as a better strategy than expressing anger at misinterpretations after the fact.

Now, here’s my answer to your question:

she’s been famous for a very long time. It happened gradually enough that she was able to adapt. She isn’t the type who shies away from it. Any negatives she experiences, she clearly thinks it’s worth it to have so many people listen to her music—and, yes, to make so much money from it.

And she’s most likely dating an NFL player for the same reason people in general date. She met him, and they hit it off. She enjoys spending time with him as a romantic partner. She goes to the games because she wants to support her boyfriend. People don’t (and can’t) calculate who they fall in love with.

I don’t actually see any signs she’s actively courting more fame. She’s just doing things she’d be doing either way.

No need for any cynical explanation.

956

Even the BBC is not above a ridculous Swift story.

Betteridge’s law applies to the subheadline.

957

She owns multiple properties which are both spacious and secured from public intrusion. But she’s also a woman in her early 30s and who has been in the pubic eye throughout her later teens and all of her 20s and perhaps a wealthy young woman in her 20s wants to do more than watch Netflix on her compound in Montana. So she heads out to where the people are, just like a bajillion other young women with money to spend and friends to meet.

958

Travis kind of publicly pursued her on his podcast with his brother, if I understand the situation correctly. I watched video of Travis telling his brother that he’d like her number and Jason teasing him about it.

Once Taylor knew he was interested, she agreed to meet him and the rest is history. I doubt she knew that people were going to lose their minds about her watching her new boyfriend do his job.

I don’t know why some people need to assume the worst about her motivations.

959

The negative is in the framing of the question itself.

You ask why she leads a high profile existence, and speculate that she could live a much lower profile and still be a successful pop star. You also suggest that choosing a 2 time Superbowl winner for a boyfriend was done to increase her profile, and that she could be dating a lower profile person.

Then you comment that you can’t imagine living such a high profile existence would be fun.

That right there is what most of us seem to be reacting to, the embedded assumption that there is something wrong with her lifestyle.

Maybe it’s just a misread on our part, but no matter how you caveat it, the nature of the question itself feels negative. And a big part of the current public atmosphere around Taylor right now is negative and judgmental and bizarrely conspiracist. People are losing their shit that she chooses to attend football games to support her boyfriend.

I think maybe that atmosphere is affecting how we are reading the question.

So to attempt to answer the question in a neutral manner, I would say there are a couple of factors.

First, she wants to write and share her music. That means a certain amount of self promotion to grow an audience.

Second, her writing is about her personal life and emotional experiences. This means her fans feel more linked to her as a person than to, say, Bob Dylan, who wrote emotional songs that weren’t about himself.

Third, her songs talk about common experiences, emotions, and themes that her generation are dealing with, so that creates a personal connection for the fans. The way Curt Cobain connected with his fans.

Fourth, sometimes fame snowballs outside the person’s control. Look at the fame around Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes when they were married, and how that attention focused on their daughter.

As for her choice in boyfriends, since she’s already a high profile celebrity, meeting other celebrities is a lot easier than for, say, me. And because she’s already inundated by fame, dating someone famous isn’t really a change that it would be for, say, me.

960

That’s fair. IMO Cobain’s lyrics are a mess. I mean, just as an example,

“A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido”

Or

“Forward yesterday – Makes me wanna stay.
What they said was real – Makes me wanna steal.
Livin’ under house – Guess I’m livin’, I’m a mouse.”

For me, I like a good musical section, but if there are lyrics, then the expression of words seems to be an essential part of the song.

But also, the way I connect with a song is to express vocally and physically. So I get a little dancy, or start air guitar, or beat out a rhythm. And I sing the lyrics, or try to. And if there aren’t lyrics, I sing the instruments.

So my personal connection to songs is very driven by lyrics, and why I sometimes am frustrated by songs where the words are garbled or muffled or otherwise unclear by the editing and blend with the music.

A lot of people connect to songs by lyrics because they are an integral part of the song, especially depending on the artist. Swift’s music is more about the lyrics than a fabulous guitar solo or impressive bass line.

961

That’s STP.