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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Born in 1977, and I did not like her music until Folklore/Evermore. But TTPD is one of the greatest breakup rock albums of our time. Seriously. You cannot credibly say that she is not a singer-songwriter - and she plays two instruments. It is what I choose to listen to every day? Is she Liz Phair? Rivers Cuomo? No. She is not jaded enough (or sarcastic enough) to be GenX - but she is talented and prolific - and so much of the criticism of her has a JDVance-esque sexism to it that cannot be ignored.

Yes she is a songwriter.

But she gets an enormous amount of help from her songwriter/producers.

And please stop calling me sexist for saying it.

I have dealt with so much crap as a female rock musician. I am not in the least bit sexist towards her.

She is the first to say this. And you are certainly minimizing her.

+1
When has she ever *not* said this? The PP seems to just want to argue. TS is known as a hugely generous person who always gives credit when it’s due and always builds up other people. Having producers doesn’t take away from the fact that she is, indeed, a songwriter.

Oh come on. She’s no more generous than she legally needs to be. She’d be stupid to give up money.

This is my problem. You all act like she’s mother Theresa.

Not in the least. We just know when someone is making assumptions.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/taylor-swifts-secret-police

[Anonymous]

There’s nothing there musically, very mundane. I guess it’s about the lyrics, but I don’t listen to lyrics, just the voice as an instrument. It seems to be the same with a lot of artists. I don’t get Billy Eilish either, same reason. I like musicianship mostly, but there’s not much to be had with these types of artists. It seems to be largely about angst.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Born in 1977, and I did not like her music until Folklore/Evermore. But TTPD is one of the greatest breakup rock albums of our time. Seriously. You cannot credibly say that she is not a singer-songwriter - and she plays two instruments. It is what I choose to listen to every day? Is she Liz Phair? Rivers Cuomo? No. She is not jaded enough (or sarcastic enough) to be GenX - but she is talented and prolific - and so much of the criticism of her has a JDVance-esque sexism to it that cannot be ignored.

Yes she is a songwriter.

But she gets an enormous amount of help from her songwriter/producers.

And please stop calling me sexist for saying it.

I have dealt with so much crap as a female rock musician. I am not in the least bit sexist towards her.

So she gets help. Big whoop. Still made 2 billion on the Eras tour. And you?

Seems to me it’s a big whoop, considering you’re all calling me sexist for pointing it out — which I only did to correct posters who said she writes her songs on her own.

DP. You are really tiresome. She does indeed write her own songs - the vast majority are written JUST by her, and the rest are co-written. You are the one who is incorrect here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Born in 1977, and I did not like her music until Folklore/Evermore. But TTPD is one of the greatest breakup rock albums of our time. Seriously. You cannot credibly say that she is not a singer-songwriter - and she plays two instruments. It is what I choose to listen to every day? Is she Liz Phair? Rivers Cuomo? No. She is not jaded enough (or sarcastic enough) to be GenX - but she is talented and prolific - and so much of the criticism of her has a JDVance-esque sexism to it that cannot be ignored.

Yes she is a songwriter.

But she gets an enormous amount of help from her songwriter/producers.

And please stop calling me sexist for saying it.

I have dealt with so much crap as a female rock musician. I am not in the least bit sexist towards her.

She is the first to say this. And you are certainly minimizing her.

+1
When has she ever *not* said this? The PP seems to just want to argue. TS is known as a hugely generous person who always gives credit when it’s due and always builds up other people. Having producers doesn’t take away from the fact that she is, indeed, a songwriter.

Oh come on. She’s no more generous than she legally needs to be. She’d be stupid to give up money.

This is my problem. You all act like she’s mother Theresa.

Yes, agreed, it’s your problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Born in 1977, and I did not like her music until Folklore/Evermore. But TTPD is one of the greatest breakup rock albums of our time. Seriously. You cannot credibly say that she is not a singer-songwriter - and she plays two instruments. It is what I choose to listen to every day? Is she Liz Phair? Rivers Cuomo? No. She is not jaded enough (or sarcastic enough) to be GenX - but she is talented and prolific - and so much of the criticism of her has a JDVance-esque sexism to it that cannot be ignored.

Yes she is a songwriter.

But she gets an enormous amount of help from her songwriter/producers.

And please stop calling me sexist for saying it.

I have dealt with so much crap as a female rock musician. I am not in the least bit sexist towards her.

She is the first to say this. And you are certainly minimizing her.

+1
When has she ever *not* said this? The PP seems to just want to argue. TS is known as a hugely generous person who always gives credit when it’s due and always builds up other people. Having producers doesn’t take away from the fact that she is, indeed, a songwriter.

Oh come on. She’s no more generous than she legally needs to be. She’d be stupid to give up money.

This is my problem. You all act like she’s mother Theresa.

Not in the least. We just know when someone is making assumptions.

You literally told us she gives credit where it’s due because she’s SO generous.

No honey — it’s because she legally has to.

Wait a minute. She goes way beyond just giving them credit for legal reasons. Examples were posted in the last few pages.

I do agree you have a problem though.

[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:

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.

DP. Except she *does* write her own lyrics. She might have a co-writer on some songs, but she is the main lyric writer.

Yes. She writes her lyrics. She does not write the music.

She has 1-3 co-writers on 99% of her songs after she switched to pop.

Once again: she comes up with the melody herself, on either piano or guitar. Then her producers fill it out. She has talked at length about sitting at her piano while writing lyrics and then playing it for Jack or Aaron over the phone. So she is absolutely putting her lyrics to the melody that she is lately creating from scratch. I’m not sure why this triggers you so much. And then there are songs in which she is cowriting lyrics with one of them (or someone else).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Born in 1977, and I did not like her music until Folklore/Evermore. But TTPD is one of the greatest breakup rock albums of our time. Seriously. You cannot credibly say that she is not a singer-songwriter - and she plays two instruments. It is what I choose to listen to every day? Is she Liz Phair? Rivers Cuomo? No. She is not jaded enough (or sarcastic enough) to be GenX - but she is talented and prolific - and so much of the criticism of her has a JDVance-esque sexism to it that cannot be ignored.

Yes she is a songwriter.

But she gets an enormous amount of help from her songwriter/producers.

And please stop calling me sexist for saying it.

I have dealt with so much crap as a female rock musician. I am not in the least bit sexist towards her.

She is the first to say this. And you are certainly minimizing her.

+1
When has she ever *not* said this? The PP seems to just want to argue. TS is known as a hugely generous person who always gives credit when it’s due and always builds up other people. Having producers doesn’t take away from the fact that she is, indeed, a songwriter.

Oh come on. She’s no more generous than she legally needs to be. She’d be stupid to give up money.

This is my problem. You all act like she’s mother Theresa.

You’ve got to be a troll at this point. First you complain that she never credits her collaborators - and then when we prove what a flat-out liar you are, you sniffy insist that she only credits them because she has to. Goodbye, troll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There’s nothing there musically, very mundane. I guess it’s about the lyrics, but I don’t listen to lyrics, just the voice as an instrument. It seems to be the same with a lot of artists. I don’t get Billy Eilish either, same reason. I like musicianship mostly, but there’s not much to be had with these types of artists. It seems to be largely about angst.

This is a truly hilarious critique. Swift's lyrics are literally being taught in college level literary courses but you don't "listen to lyrics" yet believe she's "largely about angst".

[Anonymous]

I'm genX and like her a lot. My 15 year old plays her constantly and I'm ok with it. I think she is one of the best songwriters. I hate my son's rap though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Born in 1977, and I did not like her music until Folklore/Evermore. But TTPD is one of the greatest breakup rock albums of our time. Seriously. You cannot credibly say that she is not a singer-songwriter - and she plays two instruments. It is what I choose to listen to every day? Is she Liz Phair? Rivers Cuomo? No. She is not jaded enough (or sarcastic enough) to be GenX - but she is talented and prolific - and so much of the criticism of her has a JDVance-esque sexism to it that cannot be ignored.

Yes she is a songwriter.

But she gets an enormous amount of help from her songwriter/producers.

And please stop calling me sexist for saying it.

I have dealt with so much crap as a female rock musician. I am not in the least bit sexist towards her.

She is the first to say this. And you are certainly minimizing her.

+1
When has she ever *not* said this? The PP seems to just want to argue. TS is known as a hugely generous person who always gives credit when it’s due and always builds up other people. Having producers doesn’t take away from the fact that she is, indeed, a songwriter.

Oh come on. She’s no more generous than she legally needs to be. She’d be stupid to give up money.

This is my problem. You all act like she’s mother Theresa.

You’ve got to be a troll at this point. First you complain that she never credits her collaborators - and then when we prove what a flat-out liar you are, you sniffy insist that she only credits them because she has to. Goodbye, troll.

No. I took issue with you saying she credits them on the records out of her generosity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s nothing there musically, very mundane. I guess it’s about the lyrics, but I don’t listen to lyrics, just the voice as an instrument. It seems to be the same with a lot of artists. I don’t get Billy Eilish either, same reason. I like musicianship mostly, but there’s not much to be had with these types of artists. It seems to be largely about angst.

This is a truly hilarious critique. Swift's lyrics are literally being taught in college level literary courses but you don't "listen to lyrics" yet believe she's "largely about angst".

That’s bc professors need to offer classes kids will sign up for.

Trust me. My sister is a musicologist and teaches undergrads. It’s all about butts in seats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s nothing there musically, very mundane. I guess it’s about the lyrics, but I don’t listen to lyrics, just the voice as an instrument. It seems to be the same with a lot of artists. I don’t get Billy Eilish either, same reason. I like musicianship mostly, but there’s not much to be had with these types of artists. It seems to be largely about angst.

This is a truly hilarious critique. Swift's lyrics are literally being taught in college level literary courses but you don't "listen to lyrics" yet believe she's "largely about angst".

That’s bc professors need to offer classes kids will sign up for.

Trust me. My sister is a musicologist and teaches undergrads. It’s all about butts in seats.

Yes you said this already. Some of the classes are English and Lit too though, not music. But it is all fluff, I am sure, and kids get nothing from it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Born in 1977, and I did not like her music until Folklore/Evermore. But TTPD is one of the greatest breakup rock albums of our time. Seriously. You cannot credibly say that she is not a singer-songwriter - and she plays two instruments. It is what I choose to listen to every day? Is she Liz Phair? Rivers Cuomo? No. She is not jaded enough (or sarcastic enough) to be GenX - but she is talented and prolific - and so much of the criticism of her has a JDVance-esque sexism to it that cannot be ignored.

Yes she is a songwriter.

But she gets an enormous amount of help from her songwriter/producers.

And please stop calling me sexist for saying it.

I have dealt with so much crap as a female rock musician. I am not in the least bit sexist towards her.

She is the first to say this. And you are certainly minimizing her.

+1
When has she ever *not* said this? The PP seems to just want to argue. TS is known as a hugely generous person who always gives credit when it’s due and always builds up other people. Having producers doesn’t take away from the fact that she is, indeed, a songwriter.

Oh come on. She’s no more generous than she legally needs to be. She’d be stupid to give up money.

This is my problem. You all act like she’s mother Theresa.

You’ve got to be a troll at this point. First you complain that she never credits her collaborators - and then when we prove what a flat-out liar you are, you sniffy insist that she only credits them because she has to. Goodbye, troll.

No. I took issue with you saying she credits them on the records out of her generosity.

I am not that poster but it reads to me she was referring to credit in general, not just on her records.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s nothing there musically, very mundane. I guess it’s about the lyrics, but I don’t listen to lyrics, just the voice as an instrument. It seems to be the same with a lot of artists. I don’t get Billy Eilish either, same reason. I like musicianship mostly, but there’s not much to be had with these types of artists. It seems to be largely about angst.

This is a truly hilarious critique. Swift's lyrics are literally being taught in college level literary courses but you don't "listen to lyrics" yet believe she's "largely about angst".

That’s bc professors need to offer classes kids will sign up for.

Trust me. My sister is a musicologist and teaches undergrads. It’s all about butts in seats.

Yes you said this already. Some of the classes are English and Lit too though, not music. But it is all fluff, I am sure, and kids get nothing from it.

If you don’t realize humanities departments in general are worried about funding cuts and offer classes they think kids will sign up for, then you just don’t know anything about academia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s nothing there musically, very mundane. I guess it’s about the lyrics, but I don’t listen to lyrics, just the voice as an instrument. It seems to be the same with a lot of artists. I don’t get Billy Eilish either, same reason. I like musicianship mostly, but there’s not much to be had with these types of artists. It seems to be largely about angst.

This is a truly hilarious critique. Swift's lyrics are literally being taught in college level literary courses but you don't "listen to lyrics" yet believe she's "largely about angst".

That course is a "student initiated course" and not about teaching her lyrics. It was initiated by and co-taught by a college sophomore. It's about using literary analysis tools on Taylor's lyrics to gain insight. You could do the same with Dan Brown novels or the text of celebrity interviews in fashion magazines.