Gen Xers - Do you find Taylor Swift’s music bland?

[Anonymous]

Very bland. But I am not the target audience, LOL. I find Adele super bland, too. I don't understand my female peers who love her music, either. I was blasting Twenty One Pilots and the White Stripes over the weekend, and I'm 56. Rock on!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.”

But millions of her fans DO care who she is voting for. She has that much influence. Did you see the number of registrations after her endorsement?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.”

But millions of her fans DO care who she is voting for. She has that much influence. Did you see the number of registrations after her endorsement?

I saw number of site visits, not actual registrations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Her songs do not all sound the same, people. She has more variety in her music than most other artists.

I wouldn't say Taylor Swift has more variety than most. That's an exaggeration.

Hmm. Maybe the problem with the lack of variety is the whole pop scene. We're in a period of young female singers with talky/yell-y singing and synth backbeats. Or a lower, talky confessional sound.

And the whispery voices! So much tremblng air.

Taylor wouldn't be knocked for lack of variety if more artists were bringing strong offerings to the table. In that world, Taylor could stay in her lane writing lyrics about First Love for the next 20 years. No one would care. But we need some palette cleansers!

So maybe we can catch a break on the male pop scene? It's a WASTELAND there. Even less interest.

Not a ton of artists have a range of country/pop/folk albums and songs. And again, the (willful, IMO) ignorance about her range of songwriting themes abound, although love and lost love is probably the biggest inspiration for most songwriting in general.

As a fan of Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, and Merle Haggard, I just wouldn't call anything that Taylor Swift has ever done as "country." Though I'd say the same about Jelly Roll.

You're identifying “country” as 4 artists born on average about 100 years ago. The fanbase has changed.

Her first album was considered country and she won multiple Country Music Awards. About four years into her career, her mother went onstage at a country music awards show and thanked the country music community for "taking care" of Taylor. It was a goodbye message to country music and the beginning of her entry to pop.

Taylor came up in country at a time when it had greatly distanced itself from it's origins -- most of the top country acts at the time had very little twang and eschewed a lot of the traditional country instrumentations. It was a smoother and more mainstream version of country music. What made it country was the storytelling aspect of the music and lyrics and some references to classic country music in the melodies and compositions. And the fact that it came out of Nashville. A song like Romeo & Juliet is pretty quintessentially country of that era even though to my ear it doesn't sound like "country music." It's what a lot of artists out of Nashville were doing at the time.

That's part of what helped Taylor make the leap to mainstream pop so easily -- she was already essentially making pop music and she decided to just liberate herself of the requirements of the Nashville market (including especially in how she marketed her persona -- the country music scene can be incredibly limiting for women).

In 2024 that first album still sounds country to me but I think the scene has shifted enough that I'm not sure that's where she'd be categorized now. I think she might have ended up in indie rock which is a really expansive category that can include acts like Waxahatchee as well as people like Father John misty or Lana Del Ray. It's just super broad. But there is a lot of classical country and bluegrass influence in a lot of it. The reason I think she'd wind up there now is because of her emphasis on lyrics which make her unusual in the pop world (most major pop acts like Charlie XCX or Dua Lipa have much more simplistic lyrics and the focus is on hooks and dance beats). It's actually sort of anomalous that Taylor wound up a pop act and I think the result of (1) her look which had pop producers excited because she was so appealing to key pop demographics and (2) her and her family's ambitions which I think would have viewed a more indie rock type of career as too low level and not lucrative enough. Indie rock bands generally make most of their money off of touring as opposed to album sales unless they hit a level of fame where they can license their music which can be lucrative. Taylor of course now makes a ton of music off touring but early in her career her success was based off of studio albums and especially because of her age an inexperience on stage that was pretty essential for her -- it allowed her to cultivate a stage presence more slowly while relying on her songwriting and studio ability. And take a ton of music and dance lessons (she's never been a virtuosic musician or singer and she's well known to be a mediocre dancer). Turning Taylor Swift into Taylor Swift took a lot of work and she wasn't like some of these Disney pop grads who are ready to hop on an arena stage and wow a crowd at age 15 because she did not have that kind of performance ability at that age. She was still sitting down at the piano or with her guitar and tenderly singing songs from her journal at that age (even if she was writing at a high level and selling a ton of music for someone that age -- her songwriting skill was virtuosic but that doesn't mean she was performance ready).

I agree with most of what you said, except about her songwriting skills.

She isn’t a virtuoso at all at songwriting, and the evidence of that is that she very rarely writes her melodies or instrumentation.

She does producer-led music. Her producer—whether it’s Jack Antonoff, Max Martin, or Aaron Dessner—sends her backing tracks with the instrumentation and sometimes the melody already done. She adds lyrics.

That’s why she has so many songwriting credits on her songs. It’s also why she’s able to tour and make albums almost at the same time. Other people do most of the work.

Rick Beato (a producer and expert on the music industry) discusses this. The video about it is also about the Beatles, so if you don’t care about that part, skip to 2:30.

https://youtu.be/DxrwjJHXPlQ?si=kGYdhegizkkLebHj

It’s true Dessner sent her the music for his folklore/evermore tracks and she wrote the melody and lyrics. Taylor and Dessner have spoken about their process for those albums. And she of course doesn’t play every instrument on her master recordings.

However she does write the music for many songs (alone or with a producer). There are videos and demo tracks proving this. In those cases, the producer fleshes out the music. I think the songs on TTPD are good lyrically but the production is meh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Her songs do not all sound the same, people. She has more variety in her music than most other artists.

I wouldn't say Taylor Swift has more variety than most. That's an exaggeration.

Hmm. Maybe the problem with the lack of variety is the whole pop scene. We're in a period of young female singers with talky/yell-y singing and synth backbeats. Or a lower, talky confessional sound.

And the whispery voices! So much tremblng air.

Taylor wouldn't be knocked for lack of variety if more artists were bringing strong offerings to the table. In that world, Taylor could stay in her lane writing lyrics about First Love for the next 20 years. No one would care. But we need some palette cleansers!

So maybe we can catch a break on the male pop scene? It's a WASTELAND there. Even less interest.

Not a ton of artists have a range of country/pop/folk albums and songs. And again, the (willful, IMO) ignorance about her range of songwriting themes abound, although love and lost love is probably the biggest inspiration for most songwriting in general.

As a fan of Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, and Merle Haggard, I just wouldn't call anything that Taylor Swift has ever done as "country." Though I'd say the same about Jelly Roll.

You're identifying “country” as 4 artists born on average about 100 years ago. The fanbase has changed.

Her first album was considered country and she won multiple Country Music Awards. About four years into her career, her mother went onstage at a country music awards show and thanked the country music community for "taking care" of Taylor. It was a goodbye message to country music and the beginning of her entry to pop.

Taylor came up in country at a time when it had greatly distanced itself from it's origins -- most of the top country acts at the time had very little twang and eschewed a lot of the traditional country instrumentations. It was a smoother and more mainstream version of country music. What made it country was the storytelling aspect of the music and lyrics and some references to classic country music in the melodies and compositions. And the fact that it came out of Nashville. A song like Romeo & Juliet is pretty quintessentially country of that era even though to my ear it doesn't sound like "country music." It's what a lot of artists out of Nashville were doing at the time.

That's part of what helped Taylor make the leap to mainstream pop so easily -- she was already essentially making pop music and she decided to just liberate herself of the requirements of the Nashville market (including especially in how she marketed her persona -- the country music scene can be incredibly limiting for women).

In 2024 that first album still sounds country to me but I think the scene has shifted enough that I'm not sure that's where she'd be categorized now. I think she might have ended up in indie rock which is a really expansive category that can include acts like Waxahatchee as well as people like Father John misty or Lana Del Ray. It's just super broad. But there is a lot of classical country and bluegrass influence in a lot of it. The reason I think she'd wind up there now is because of her emphasis on lyrics which make her unusual in the pop world (most major pop acts like Charlie XCX or Dua Lipa have much more simplistic lyrics and the focus is on hooks and dance beats). It's actually sort of anomalous that Taylor wound up a pop act and I think the result of (1) her look which had pop producers excited because she was so appealing to key pop demographics and (2) her and her family's ambitions which I think would have viewed a more indie rock type of career as too low level and not lucrative enough. Indie rock bands generally make most of their money off of touring as opposed to album sales unless they hit a level of fame where they can license their music which can be lucrative. Taylor of course now makes a ton of music off touring but early in her career her success was based off of studio albums and especially because of her age an inexperience on stage that was pretty essential for her -- it allowed her to cultivate a stage presence more slowly while relying on her songwriting and studio ability. And take a ton of music and dance lessons (she's never been a virtuosic musician or singer and she's well known to be a mediocre dancer). Turning Taylor Swift into Taylor Swift took a lot of work and she wasn't like some of these Disney pop grads who are ready to hop on an arena stage and wow a crowd at age 15 because she did not have that kind of performance ability at that age. She was still sitting down at the piano or with her guitar and tenderly singing songs from her journal at that age (even if she was writing at a high level and selling a ton of music for someone that age -- her songwriting skill was virtuosic but that doesn't mean she was performance ready).

I agree with most of what you said, except about her songwriting skills.

She isn’t a virtuoso at all at songwriting, and the evidence of that is that she very rarely writes her melodies or instrumentation.

She does producer-led music. Her producer—whether it’s Jack Antonoff, Max Martin, or Aaron Dessner—sends her backing tracks with the instrumentation and sometimes the melody already done. She adds lyrics.

That’s why she has so many songwriting credits on her songs. It’s also why she’s able to tour and make albums almost at the same time. Other people do most of the work.

Rick Beato (a producer and expert on the music industry) discusses this. The video about it is also about the Beatles, so if you don’t care about that part, skip to 2:30.

https://youtu.be/DxrwjJHXPlQ?si=kGYdhegizkkLebHj

It’s true Dessner sent her the music for his folklore/evermore tracks and she wrote the melody and lyrics. Taylor and Dessner have spoken about their process for those albums. And she of course doesn’t play every instrument on her master recordings.

However she does write the music for many songs (alone or with a producer). There are videos and demo tracks proving this. In those cases, the producer fleshes out the music. I think the songs on TTPD are good lyrically but the production is meh.

She has very few songs that are credited to only her. Look at the breakdown in terms of who actually does most of the work.

As Rick Beato points out, her 12 number one hits have something like 20 different songwriting credits.

[Anonymous]

I’ll give you all an example: we are never getting back together.

It’s credited to Taylor Swift, Max Martin, and Shellback. Max Martin wrote the boy band songs in the 90s. These guys aren’t just producers; they’re songwriter-producers.

If you look at the personnel breakdown, you’ll see Taylor did the vocals, but those 2 guys did everything else.

She does not write her guitar parts, with very very few exceptions. She does essentially none of the arranging.

This isn’t unique to her. This is how most pop is done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ll give you all an example: we are never getting back together.

It’s credited to Taylor Swift, Max Martin, and Shellback. Max Martin wrote the boy band songs in the 90s. These guys aren’t just producers; they’re songwriter-producers.

If you look at the personnel breakdown, you’ll see Taylor did the vocals, but those 2 guys did everything else.

She does not write her guitar parts, with very very few exceptions. She does essentially none of the arranging.

This isn’t unique to her. This is how most pop is done.

To be fair, that is one of her worst songs IMO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Her songs do not all sound the same, people. She has more variety in her music than most other artists.

I wouldn't say Taylor Swift has more variety than most. That's an exaggeration.

Hmm. Maybe the problem with the lack of variety is the whole pop scene. We're in a period of young female singers with talky/yell-y singing and synth backbeats. Or a lower, talky confessional sound.

And the whispery voices! So much tremblng air.

Taylor wouldn't be knocked for lack of variety if more artists were bringing strong offerings to the table. In that world, Taylor could stay in her lane writing lyrics about First Love for the next 20 years. No one would care. But we need some palette cleansers!

So maybe we can catch a break on the male pop scene? It's a WASTELAND there. Even less interest.

Not a ton of artists have a range of country/pop/folk albums and songs. And again, the (willful, IMO) ignorance about her range of songwriting themes abound, although love and lost love is probably the biggest inspiration for most songwriting in general.

As a fan of Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, and Merle Haggard, I just wouldn't call anything that Taylor Swift has ever done as "country." Though I'd say the same about Jelly Roll.

You're identifying “country” as 4 artists born on average about 100 years ago. The fanbase has changed.

Her first album was considered country and she won multiple Country Music Awards. About four years into her career, her mother went onstage at a country music awards show and thanked the country music community for "taking care" of Taylor. It was a goodbye message to country music and the beginning of her entry to pop.

Taylor came up in country at a time when it had greatly distanced itself from it's origins -- most of the top country acts at the time had very little twang and eschewed a lot of the traditional country instrumentations. It was a smoother and more mainstream version of country music. What made it country was the storytelling aspect of the music and lyrics and some references to classic country music in the melodies and compositions. And the fact that it came out of Nashville. A song like Romeo & Juliet is pretty quintessentially country of that era even though to my ear it doesn't sound like "country music." It's what a lot of artists out of Nashville were doing at the time.

That's part of what helped Taylor make the leap to mainstream pop so easily -- she was already essentially making pop music and she decided to just liberate herself of the requirements of the Nashville market (including especially in how she marketed her persona -- the country music scene can be incredibly limiting for women).

In 2024 that first album still sounds country to me but I think the scene has shifted enough that I'm not sure that's where she'd be categorized now. I think she might have ended up in indie rock which is a really expansive category that can include acts like Waxahatchee as well as people like Father John misty or Lana Del Ray. It's just super broad. But there is a lot of classical country and bluegrass influence in a lot of it. The reason I think she'd wind up there now is because of her emphasis on lyrics which make her unusual in the pop world (most major pop acts like Charlie XCX or Dua Lipa have much more simplistic lyrics and the focus is on hooks and dance beats). It's actually sort of anomalous that Taylor wound up a pop act and I think the result of (1) her look which had pop producers excited because she was so appealing to key pop demographics and (2) her and her family's ambitions which I think would have viewed a more indie rock type of career as too low level and not lucrative enough. Indie rock bands generally make most of their money off of touring as opposed to album sales unless they hit a level of fame where they can license their music which can be lucrative. Taylor of course now makes a ton of music off touring but early in her career her success was based off of studio albums and especially because of her age an inexperience on stage that was pretty essential for her -- it allowed her to cultivate a stage presence more slowly while relying on her songwriting and studio ability. And take a ton of music and dance lessons (she's never been a virtuosic musician or singer and she's well known to be a mediocre dancer). Turning Taylor Swift into Taylor Swift took a lot of work and she wasn't like some of these Disney pop grads who are ready to hop on an arena stage and wow a crowd at age 15 because she did not have that kind of performance ability at that age. She was still sitting down at the piano or with her guitar and tenderly singing songs from her journal at that age (even if she was writing at a high level and selling a ton of music for someone that age -- her songwriting skill was virtuosic but that doesn't mean she was performance ready).

I agree with most of what you said, except about her songwriting skills.

She isn’t a virtuoso at all at songwriting, and the evidence of that is that she very rarely writes her melodies or instrumentation.

She does producer-led music. Her producer—whether it’s Jack Antonoff, Max Martin, or Aaron Dessner—sends her backing tracks with the instrumentation and sometimes the melody already done. She adds lyrics.

That’s why she has so many songwriting credits on her songs. It’s also why she’s able to tour and make albums almost at the same time. Other people do most of the work.

Rick Beato (a producer and expert on the music industry) discusses this. The video about it is also about the Beatles, so if you don’t care about that part, skip to 2:30.

https://youtu.be/DxrwjJHXPlQ?si=kGYdhegizkkLebHj

It’s true Dessner sent her the music for his folklore/evermore tracks and she wrote the melody and lyrics. Taylor and Dessner have spoken about their process for those albums. And she of course doesn’t play every instrument on her master recordings.

However she does write the music for many songs (alone or with a producer). There are videos and demo tracks proving this. In those cases, the producer fleshes out the music. I think the songs on TTPD are good lyrically but the production is meh.

She has very few songs that are credited to only her. Look at the breakdown in terms of who actually does most of the work.

As Rick Beato points out, her 12 number one hits have something like 20 different songwriting credits.

DP. Huh. I knew a lot of people were involved in the songwriting stage, but this level is surprising considering how the narrative goes for TS songs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Very bland. But I am not the target audience, LOL. I find Adele super bland, too. I don't understand my female peers who love her music, either. I was blasting Twenty One Pilots and the White Stripes over the weekend, and I'm 56. Rock on!

21 Pilots and White Stripes sounds about right for a 56 year old. How edgy. LOL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll give you all an example: we are never getting back together.

It’s credited to Taylor Swift, Max Martin, and Shellback. Max Martin wrote the boy band songs in the 90s. These guys aren’t just producers; they’re songwriter-producers.

If you look at the personnel breakdown, you’ll see Taylor did the vocals, but those 2 guys did everything else.

She does not write her guitar parts, with very very few exceptions. She does essentially none of the arranging.

This isn’t unique to her. This is how most pop is done.

To be fair, that is one of her worst songs IMO.

I picked it because it’s one of her number 1 hits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Her songs do not all sound the same, people. She has more variety in her music than most other artists.

I wouldn't say Taylor Swift has more variety than most. That's an exaggeration.

Hmm. Maybe the problem with the lack of variety is the whole pop scene. We're in a period of young female singers with talky/yell-y singing and synth backbeats. Or a lower, talky confessional sound.

And the whispery voices! So much tremblng air.

Taylor wouldn't be knocked for lack of variety if more artists were bringing strong offerings to the table. In that world, Taylor could stay in her lane writing lyrics about First Love for the next 20 years. No one would care. But we need some palette cleansers!

So maybe we can catch a break on the male pop scene? It's a WASTELAND there. Even less interest.

Not a ton of artists have a range of country/pop/folk albums and songs. And again, the (willful, IMO) ignorance about her range of songwriting themes abound, although love and lost love is probably the biggest inspiration for most songwriting in general.

As a fan of Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, and Merle Haggard, I just wouldn't call anything that Taylor Swift has ever done as "country." Though I'd say the same about Jelly Roll.

You're identifying “country” as 4 artists born on average about 100 years ago. The fanbase has changed.

Her first album was considered country and she won multiple Country Music Awards. About four years into her career, her mother went onstage at a country music awards show and thanked the country music community for "taking care" of Taylor. It was a goodbye message to country music and the beginning of her entry to pop.

Taylor came up in country at a time when it had greatly distanced itself from it's origins -- most of the top country acts at the time had very little twang and eschewed a lot of the traditional country instrumentations. It was a smoother and more mainstream version of country music. What made it country was the storytelling aspect of the music and lyrics and some references to classic country music in the melodies and compositions. And the fact that it came out of Nashville. A song like Romeo & Juliet is pretty quintessentially country of that era even though to my ear it doesn't sound like "country music." It's what a lot of artists out of Nashville were doing at the time.

That's part of what helped Taylor make the leap to mainstream pop so easily -- she was already essentially making pop music and she decided to just liberate herself of the requirements of the Nashville market (including especially in how she marketed her persona -- the country music scene can be incredibly limiting for women).

In 2024 that first album still sounds country to me but I think the scene has shifted enough that I'm not sure that's where she'd be categorized now. I think she might have ended up in indie rock which is a really expansive category that can include acts like Waxahatchee as well as people like Father John misty or Lana Del Ray. It's just super broad. But there is a lot of classical country and bluegrass influence in a lot of it. The reason I think she'd wind up there now is because of her emphasis on lyrics which make her unusual in the pop world (most major pop acts like Charlie XCX or Dua Lipa have much more simplistic lyrics and the focus is on hooks and dance beats). It's actually sort of anomalous that Taylor wound up a pop act and I think the result of (1) her look which had pop producers excited because she was so appealing to key pop demographics and (2) her and her family's ambitions which I think would have viewed a more indie rock type of career as too low level and not lucrative enough. Indie rock bands generally make most of their money off of touring as opposed to album sales unless they hit a level of fame where they can license their music which can be lucrative. Taylor of course now makes a ton of music off touring but early in her career her success was based off of studio albums and especially because of her age an inexperience on stage that was pretty essential for her -- it allowed her to cultivate a stage presence more slowly while relying on her songwriting and studio ability. And take a ton of music and dance lessons (she's never been a virtuosic musician or singer and she's well known to be a mediocre dancer). Turning Taylor Swift into Taylor Swift took a lot of work and she wasn't like some of these Disney pop grads who are ready to hop on an arena stage and wow a crowd at age 15 because she did not have that kind of performance ability at that age. She was still sitting down at the piano or with her guitar and tenderly singing songs from her journal at that age (even if she was writing at a high level and selling a ton of music for someone that age -- her songwriting skill was virtuosic but that doesn't mean she was performance ready).

I agree with most of what you said, except about her songwriting skills.

She isn’t a virtuoso at all at songwriting, and the evidence of that is that she very rarely writes her melodies or instrumentation.

She does producer-led music. Her producer—whether it’s Jack Antonoff, Max Martin, or Aaron Dessner—sends her backing tracks with the instrumentation and sometimes the melody already done. She adds lyrics.

That’s why she has so many songwriting credits on her songs. It’s also why she’s able to tour and make albums almost at the same time. Other people do most of the work.

Rick Beato (a producer and expert on the music industry) discusses this. The video about it is also about the Beatles, so if you don’t care about that part, skip to 2:30.

https://youtu.be/DxrwjJHXPlQ?si=kGYdhegizkkLebHj

It’s true Dessner sent her the music for his folklore/evermore tracks and she wrote the melody and lyrics. Taylor and Dessner have spoken about their process for those albums. And she of course doesn’t play every instrument on her master recordings.

However she does write the music for many songs (alone or with a producer). There are videos and demo tracks proving this. In those cases, the producer fleshes out the music. I think the songs on TTPD are good lyrically but the production is meh.

She has very few songs that are credited to only her. Look at the breakdown in terms of who actually does most of the work.

As Rick Beato points out, her 12 number one hits have something like 20 different songwriting credits.

DP. Huh. I knew a lot of people were involved in the songwriting stage, but this level is surprising considering how the narrative goes for TS songs.

She crafts a narrative as a songwriter, but the term really barely applies.

Rick is very reliable and did a wonderful job breaking this down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ll give you all an example: we are never getting back together.

It’s credited to Taylor Swift, Max Martin, and Shellback. Max Martin wrote the boy band songs in the 90s. These guys aren’t just producers; they’re songwriter-producers.

If you look at the personnel breakdown, you’ll see Taylor did the vocals, but those 2 guys did everything else.

She does not write her guitar parts, with very very few exceptions. She does essentially none of the arranging.

This isn’t unique to her. This is how most pop is done.

NP. Agree that it's not unique to Taylor Swift--or even to pop music--but I disagree to the extent that it's somehow a knock against her. Stevie Nicks has said numerous times over the years that she would write the lyrics to her songs and rely on Lindsay Buckingham or the whole band to add the music. She occasionally wrote parts of the melodies but has admitted she has no knowledge of chords or what to do beyond coming up with a few notes that she'd pluck out on a piano or guitar. That doesn't detract from her being known as a prolific songwriter or from all of the Fleetwood Mac and solo hits she is credited for.

I am middle-of-the-road on Taylor Swift and her music, but I don't think these arguments about her songwriting process or limitations are a legit criticism. Musicians who truly do it all are rare (RIP Prince!).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Her songs do not all sound the same, people. She has more variety in her music than most other artists.

But, they do to me. Absolutely she has this pattern where there are some chords and she talk sings a line and then holds out the note and the end and will sometimes glide the note up at the end of the line. Or whisper sing at three lines in the same patterns and at ‘the same volume and bust out withI want to kill you.

It is to the point where I feel honestly browbeaten for having this opinion, but they sound the same to me.

I’m a fan and found the songs on the newest album to be similar. I think the issue is not with Taylor but with Antonoff’s production (and Dessner now, to a lesser extent). Red and Folklore are considered two of her best albums in part because she shifted sound. I thought Midnights was going to have a 70s vibe based on early promotional materials and was disappointed the album was more Antonoff.

I wasn’t a Taylor Swift fan before, but I loved the music that Jack Antonoff produced for her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll give you all an example: we are never getting back together.

It’s credited to Taylor Swift, Max Martin, and Shellback. Max Martin wrote the boy band songs in the 90s. These guys aren’t just producers; they’re songwriter-producers.

If you look at the personnel breakdown, you’ll see Taylor did the vocals, but those 2 guys did everything else.

She does not write her guitar parts, with very very few exceptions. She does essentially none of the arranging.

This isn’t unique to her. This is how most pop is done.

NP. Agree that it's not unique to Taylor Swift--or even to pop music--but I disagree to the extent that it's somehow a knock against her. Stevie Nicks has said numerous times over the years that she would write the lyrics to her songs and rely on Lindsay Buckingham or the whole band to add the music. She occasionally wrote parts of the melodies but has admitted she has no knowledge of chords or what to do beyond coming up with a few notes that she'd pluck out on a piano or guitar. That doesn't detract from her being known as a prolific songwriter or from all of the Fleetwood Mac and solo hits she is credited for.

I am middle-of-the-road on Taylor Swift and her music, but I don't think these arguments about her songwriting process or limitations are a legit criticism. Musicians who truly do it all are rare (RIP Prince!).

There’s a difference. Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham were in the band together. They were artistic collaborators.

I don’t see Taylor Swift acknowledging Max Martin or Shellback or Aaron Dessner as being artistic collaborators.

She claims to write her songs by herself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Her songs do not all sound the same, people. She has more variety in her music than most other artists.

I wouldn't say Taylor Swift has more variety than most. That's an exaggeration.

Hmm. Maybe the problem with the lack of variety is the whole pop scene. We're in a period of young female singers with talky/yell-y singing and synth backbeats. Or a lower, talky confessional sound.

And the whispery voices! So much tremblng air.

Taylor wouldn't be knocked for lack of variety if more artists were bringing strong offerings to the table. In that world, Taylor could stay in her lane writing lyrics about First Love for the next 20 years. No one would care. But we need some palette cleansers!

So maybe we can catch a break on the male pop scene? It's a WASTELAND there. Even less interest.

Not a ton of artists have a range of country/pop/folk albums and songs. And again, the (willful, IMO) ignorance about her range of songwriting themes abound, although love and lost love is probably the biggest inspiration for most songwriting in general.

As a fan of Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, and Merle Haggard, I just wouldn't call anything that Taylor Swift has ever done as "country." Though I'd say the same about Jelly Roll.

You're identifying “country” as 4 artists born on average about 100 years ago. The fanbase has changed.

Her first album was considered country and she won multiple Country Music Awards. About four years into her career, her mother went onstage at a country music awards show and thanked the country music community for "taking care" of Taylor. It was a goodbye message to country music and the beginning of her entry to pop.

Taylor came up in country at a time when it had greatly distanced itself from it's origins -- most of the top country acts at the time had very little twang and eschewed a lot of the traditional country instrumentations. It was a smoother and more mainstream version of country music. What made it country was the storytelling aspect of the music and lyrics and some references to classic country music in the melodies and compositions. And the fact that it came out of Nashville. A song like Romeo & Juliet is pretty quintessentially country of that era even though to my ear it doesn't sound like "country music." It's what a lot of artists out of Nashville were doing at the time.

That's part of what helped Taylor make the leap to mainstream pop so easily -- she was already essentially making pop music and she decided to just liberate herself of the requirements of the Nashville market (including especially in how she marketed her persona -- the country music scene can be incredibly limiting for women).

In 2024 that first album still sounds country to me but I think the scene has shifted enough that I'm not sure that's where she'd be categorized now. I think she might have ended up in indie rock which is a really expansive category that can include acts like Waxahatchee as well as people like Father John misty or Lana Del Ray. It's just super broad. But there is a lot of classical country and bluegrass influence in a lot of it. The reason I think she'd wind up there now is because of her emphasis on lyrics which make her unusual in the pop world (most major pop acts like Charlie XCX or Dua Lipa have much more simplistic lyrics and the focus is on hooks and dance beats). It's actually sort of anomalous that Taylor wound up a pop act and I think the result of (1) her look which had pop producers excited because she was so appealing to key pop demographics and (2) her and her family's ambitions which I think would have viewed a more indie rock type of career as too low level and not lucrative enough. Indie rock bands generally make most of their money off of touring as opposed to album sales unless they hit a level of fame where they can license their music which can be lucrative. Taylor of course now makes a ton of music off touring but early in her career her success was based off of studio albums and especially because of her age an inexperience on stage that was pretty essential for her -- it allowed her to cultivate a stage presence more slowly while relying on her songwriting and studio ability. And take a ton of music and dance lessons (she's never been a virtuosic musician or singer and she's well known to be a mediocre dancer). Turning Taylor Swift into Taylor Swift took a lot of work and she wasn't like some of these Disney pop grads who are ready to hop on an arena stage and wow a crowd at age 15 because she did not have that kind of performance ability at that age. She was still sitting down at the piano or with her guitar and tenderly singing songs from her journal at that age (even if she was writing at a high level and selling a ton of music for someone that age -- her songwriting skill was virtuosic but that doesn't mean she was performance ready).

I agree with most of what you said, except about her songwriting skills.

She isn’t a virtuoso at all at songwriting, and the evidence of that is that she very rarely writes her melodies or instrumentation.

She does producer-led music. Her producer—whether it’s Jack Antonoff, Max Martin, or Aaron Dessner—sends her backing tracks with the instrumentation and sometimes the melody already done. She adds lyrics.

That’s why she has so many songwriting credits on her songs. It’s also why she’s able to tour and make albums almost at the same time. Other people do most of the work.

Rick Beato (a producer and expert on the music industry) discusses this. The video about it is also about the Beatles, so if you don’t care about that part, skip to 2:30.

https://youtu.be/DxrwjJHXPlQ?si=kGYdhegizkkLebHj

It’s true Dessner sent her the music for his folklore/evermore tracks and she wrote the melody and lyrics. Taylor and Dessner have spoken about their process for those albums. And she of course doesn’t play every instrument on her master recordings.

However she does write the music for many songs (alone or with a producer). There are videos and demo tracks proving this. In those cases, the producer fleshes out the music. I think the songs on TTPD are good lyrically but the production is meh.

She has very few songs that are credited to only her. Look at the breakdown in terms of who actually does most of the work.

As Rick Beato points out, her 12 number one hits have something like 20 different songwriting credits.

DP. Huh. I knew a lot of people were involved in the songwriting stage, but this level is surprising considering how the narrative goes for TS songs.

She crafts a narrative as a songwriter, but the term really barely applies.

Rick is very reliable and did a wonderful job breaking this down.

She is generous with credits too. When people talk about her songwriting they are talking about the way she puts together lyrics, her themes, her plays on words, etc. I don't know that most assume that her songwriting encapsulated all of the music production as well. She is pretty transparent about that process with her collaborators. She has written songs/lyrics with and for other artists as well. If it is just a narrative then she has pulled one over a on the industry.

https://www.billboard.com/music/country/taylor-swift-nashville-songwriter-awards-full-speech-1235142144/
https://www.billboard.com/music/awards/taylor-swift-songwriter-of-the-year-2024-bmi-pop-awards-1235701167/

As an aside, the comparisons to the Beatles is not apt, IMO. For one, they are a group. It is very different dynamic. And I don't think Taylor has ever said she is groundbreaking.