Forum Index
»
Entertainment and Pop Culture
Gen Xers - Do you find Taylor Swift’s music bland?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
DP. Me too! Oh how I miss it. You can get a little of the vibe with Linda Holmes on Pop Culture Happy Hour. Here's a nice retrospective from her form 2014: https://www.npr.org/2014/03/31/297338377/10-absolutely-true-stories-about-writing-for-television-without-pity |
Anonymous
I think you mean GenX, not Z. |
Anonymous
No shade to Britney Spears, who I believe is a very talented and hard-working singer, dancer, and performer, but the reason Taylor Swift seems normal is because she was not raised to be her family's meal ticket, her parents have her best interests at heart, and she is very intelligent and had the opportunity to be exposed to very normal upper middle class things. Spears did not. |
Anonymous
I thought the target of that show was millennials not gen x- gen x was already knee deep in babies and careers by the early oughts. Maybe I’m just showing my age! |
Anonymous
It had got to be over 50% of her catalog at least. All the ex lover songs plus all the i hate scooter songs plus all the Kim/kanye hate songs add up. Her ex lover songs alone are a third of her catalog. There are top ten/top 20 charts of her vengeful songs which goes to show you it is a big part of her music. How you reconcile that quote: If you're horrible to me, I'm going to write a song about it, and you won't like it. That's how I operate.” ― Taylor Swift with generous and kind? The argument that it isn’t everything she writes is weak to me because I have plotted to be mean to someone like that. I see it as mean girl lack of empathy and lashing out rather than understanding the others point of view and working it out either with distance or with talking. Likewise the argument that it is internalized misogyny to suggest a woman can be angry and draw boundaries without being mean is ridiculous. Expressing anger and your opinion without lashing out is a cornerstone of civilization and democracy. That is the skill I want to pass on to my kids of both genders, not the gift of seeking to make others feel bad because they hurt you. |
Anonymous
Ha- never plotted to be mean to someone like that. |
Anonymous
|
I think the lyrics to “Nothing New” describe many of the posters here. The more successful she is, the better she looks, the more fans she has - all of this just drives her haters crazy. And yet those are probably also the people telling their own daughters to reach for the moon.
They tell you while you're young "Girls, go out and have your fun" Then they hunt and slay the ones who actually do it Criticize the way you fly when you're soaring through the sky Shoots you down and then they sigh, and say "She looks like she's been through it" |
Anonymous
| Taylor sings about being young, having crushes and dating up through college age. That's 95% of her music. It's the same for other artists, but none has the number of songs and large fanbase that Taylor does. She has a very narrow wheelhouse, but it's currently a really popular wheelhouse. |
Anonymous
| Some of her songs are fun and enjoyable. She has become overexposed. And I don’t give a rat’s posterior who she’s voting for. She’s a self-important “feminist.” |
Anonymous
Yeah, her age group is people who were 15-16 in 2004 and could relate to her songs about her crush on Tim McGraw and the guys in high school. She is too young for Gen X to be really attached to that because we were 28-36 when she started and would not have gotten into the schoolgirl vibe. She's also too young to relate now because she's still singing about her ex boyfriends like she's 25. |
Anonymous
GenZ is people born from 1997-2012. TWOP closed for good in 2014 when the oldest GenZers would have been 17. So maybe some of them were there, but it was started in 1998 and was most in its heyday in the late '90's to mid-aughts. One of its signature moments was when Aaron Sorkin based an episode of The West Wing on his experience posting the the TWOP forums. The founders and writers were all GenX. Wow, this is super off-topic. Maybe we need a TWOP thread. |
Anonymous
So you think she should say, if you’re terrible to me, I’ll treat you with love and kindness? No doubt that would be a a nice thing to do. And more people should it real life. But it doesn’t make for great music and we don’t ask for it from anyone else but Taylor. Alanis Morissette, you know we loved you oughtra know and no one told her she should take a breath and send him a card and flowers and wish him the best. Stevie Nicks wrote Silver Springs where she full on puts a hex on her ex LB and it’s a classic and you won’t convince me it’s not one of the top 10 rock songs of all time. Yet Taylor writes about being wronged and we are like what a shame in this political climate do better Taylor! No thanks. |
Anonymous
She does come off as petty, not just in her music but also in her behavior and some of the things she's said publicly about others. On the other hand, I am also super petty sometimes, so I find this very relatable. On the other other hand, she is very wealthy and successful so her ability to be petty sometimes successfully far exceeds mine, which makes me resentful/envious and brings me around to "someone at her level should be more gracious." You can decide for yourself if that makes me a hypocrite-- it doesn't matter because I'm not selling you anything so there are no consequences for me either way. |
Anonymous
See somebody else just said that most of her music is about revenge. Turns out you’re both wrong and probably neither of you have listened to most of her catalog which is fine. But maybe you shouldn’t be saying what she writes about if you don’t know. |
Anonymous
|
She's not my very favorite artist, but it's well-written and very listenable. I like some of her songs.
What's very impressive about her and about her shows is the professionalism she shows. Most other artist who have a huge moment like her can't sustain it, whereas she has the right team and the right work/life balance, not to mention killer social media and other marketing, to keep the Taylor show going at an extremely intense level. US pop music has really never seen such consistent professionalism or long term success. |