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

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The whole friendship bracelet thing, every thirty something in my life has armfuls of them and it kinda looks stupid and very high school. I just can't with her phoniness. She screams fake.

I seriously do not understand people my age (in their 30s) being obsessed with her.

Teenagers are one thing, but a 38 year old woman being fixated on her is just weird.

Taylor Swift is 34. I think she actually means more to people in their 30s now than she does to teenagers because women in their 30s have grown up with her.

+1
And many of us are older (50s) because our own daughters grew up listening to her - so we listened along with them.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Gen X women think hating Taylor Swift is a personality and I will never understand

One of the Gen X PPs here to clarify that I only am neutral/meh about Taylor. Now her fans…

+1

I have not posted much in the thread but I don't actually have strong feelings about Swift as a person. Like others I have tried to get into her music because she seems to be the biggest thing going, but it just never clicks with me. I do like singer-songwriters like Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo so I don't think it's purely a generational thing.

But reading through the thread I am reminded that I find diehard Swifties really annoying. They take any critique of Swift so personally. I don't get it. I think there is a lot of over identification with her as a personal avatar and it's not healthy. She's just an artist and celeb.

Actually, I don’t really care whether people like her or not. I understand she is not everyone’s cup of tea. I think people mainly take issue with the criticisms that come from generalizations or ignorance, or even a dismissal of her themes as unimportant because they appeal to young women as though that is a bad thing. There’s a deeper body of work there underneath the radio hits. I understand not everyone has the time or willingness to listen to them. But many people still speak before they know.

Then give me an example of something I should listen to and appreciate.

There's this masterpiece about her sweater

https://youtu.be/K-a8s8OLBSE?feature=shared

I tried and felt like I’ve heard versions of that song from her before. Dreamy whisper pop. Got bored half way through and turned it off. Not doing it for me. Sorry.

That’s my issue with her latest albums. I listened to the first song and liked it. Then I kept listening and realized they all sound the same.

If I listen to a Beatles or Radiohead album, I’ll get variety from song to song. I don’t feel like I get that sort of rhythmic and sonic variety from her albums, especially lately.

It's interesting. I hear a lot of variety in the songs on TTPD and some of them evoke a lot of emotion, most especially Robin. Maybe we just have different definitions of variety and pick up the sounds/themes differently because of the different music we appreciate. I like Radiohead just fine but they don't resonate with me like they did in the 90s. The Beatles are mainly meh to me and always have been.

+1
Robin is a truly beautiful song and makes me tear up thinking of my (now adult) kids when they were little. I believe she and Aaron Dessner wrote that together since it’s about his son.

I find the pacing odd. And the line "but now we'll curtail your curiosity" is one of the clunkier lines I've heard. To me, this is an example of insisting on overlaying lyrics that don't fit.

They are protecting him from future pain and hurt. It’s a beautiful concept.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The whole friendship bracelet thing, every thirty something in my life has armfuls of them and it kinda looks stupid and very high school. I just can't with her phoniness. She screams fake.

I seriously do not understand people my age (in their 30s) being obsessed with her.

Teenagers are one thing, but a 38 year old woman being fixated on her is just weird.

Taylor Swift is 34. I think she actually means more to people in their 30s now than she does to teenagers because women in their 30s have grown up with her.

We didn’t grow up with her. I don’t know anyone my age who paid attention to her until the last 2 years.

I meant people who are her fans.

Yeah and I honestly didn’t know anyone my age who cared about her until Evermore came out.

DP. Still here? Too funny.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Gen X women think hating Taylor Swift is a personality and I will never understand

One of the Gen X PPs here to clarify that I only am neutral/meh about Taylor. Now her fans…

+1

I have not posted much in the thread but I don't actually have strong feelings about Swift as a person. Like others I have tried to get into her music because she seems to be the biggest thing going, but it just never clicks with me. I do like singer-songwriters like Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo so I don't think it's purely a generational thing.

But reading through the thread I am reminded that I find diehard Swifties really annoying. They take any critique of Swift so personally. I don't get it. I think there is a lot of over identification with her as a personal avatar and it's not healthy. She's just an artist and celeb.

Actually, I don’t really care whether people like her or not. I understand she is not everyone’s cup of tea. I think people mainly take issue with the criticisms that come from generalizations or ignorance, or even a dismissal of her themes as unimportant because they appeal to young women as though that is a bad thing. There’s a deeper body of work there underneath the radio hits. I understand not everyone has the time or willingness to listen to them. But many people still speak before they know.

Yep. It’s the obvious misogyny and impossible standards Taylor is held to that get some of us riled up.

Please stop with this nonsense. Critics have listed plenty of other female artists that they adore.

None them have touched Taylor’s success and impact. Or they’ve stayed in their lane and so they are acceptable.

I’m not accusing you or everyone as misogynistic but there is a lot of misogyny in some of the criticisms. And people respond to that and are accused as rabid and hysterical.

I'm not sure how you can say Beyonce and Rihanna can't touch her success. Rihanna was a billionaire 1st.

Didn’t you know? Taylor is unprecedented in every way.

Nobody is saying that and you sound crazy.

“None them have touched Taylor’s success and impact.”

Is that a reasonable statement in your mind?

Yes? It’s pretty unprecedented what she’s done in terms of her success. This is just objectively a fact.

Someone upthread mentioned rhianna and Beyoncé as comparisons in terms of success which I would agree with but they have also experienced ridiculous amounts of misogyny. I remember as soon as the news came out that Chris Brown had abused Rihanna, immediately someone on DCUM posted a thread that we should boycott all of Rihanna’s products and companies because she stayed with an abuser. And how awful of her. No mention, of course that we should boycott Brown, the actual abuser.

But yes, I guess it’s ridiculous to think that there’s any misogyny with any female artist ever. How silly of me!

To your first argument that it's fair to say no one else has "touched" Taylor's success and impact, please explain what it is about Taylor that is more successful and impactful than previous megastars. Other than sheer dollars earned-- it is the nature of the economy that new stars will always top the earnings of the last. There will be another artist whose tour makes more than Eras just like Eras topped previous tours.

But what is it about Taylor that makes you say that, for instance, Beyonce or Rhianna or Madonna or Britney or Mariah or even Cher or Tina Turner or Aretha Franklin, cannot "touch" her success and impact? Why does Taylor belong in a separate class, other than you simply liking her music more than theirs (there are going to be lots of people who prefer the music of one of those artists to Taylor as well).

Yes all female artists experience misogyny. Taylor is not the first and she also doesn't get it the worst-- much of what she's done owes a lot to paths cut by others on that list, or lessons Taylor learned from because of how other artists suffered.

Honestly, it’s like people can’t use the Google. Check out where she is as a best selling artist relative to the time she’s actually been in the business, or even alive.

But she’s not even close to the best selling artist alive.

Can you even google? DP

https://www.statista.com/chart/31803/best-selling-global-recording-artists/

Top streaming artist doesn’t mean best selling. We’ve been over this.

Rihanna has the most certified sales. The Beatles have the most overall sales.

JFC. You are insufferable. No one cares about your weird obsession with comparing these artists.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’m curious as to what TS has done that’s unprecedented. This seems to be a claim by a lot of Swifties. There’s this notion that she is uniquely successful, influential, etc.

It’s not record sales. Among artists that started in the 2000s, Rihanna beats her. If you take Eminem (1999 start), he does too.

It’s not cultural impact. Madonna and MJ were enormous in their heyday.

It’s not impact on the music industry. The Beatles arguably began the notion of the rock band, had the first concept album, first major merchandising contracts, first stadium tour.

So what is it?

OMG. You are the very definition of pedantic. Look - people are going to like what they like. You may not approve, but luckily no one is looking to you for approval.

So you have no counter. Got it.

You have been countered over and over. Now you’re simply a tiresome troll who wants to argue. No thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When it comes down to it, I just really like her lyrics in her songs. The rest is super fun, but the lyrics are what really make her who she is to me.

+1
Love her lyrics. But also, her melodies.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’m curious as to what TS has done that’s unprecedented. This seems to be a claim by a lot of Swifties. There’s this notion that she is uniquely successful, influential, etc.

It’s not record sales. Among artists that started in the 2000s, Rihanna beats her. If you take Eminem (1999 start), he does too.

It’s not cultural impact. Madonna and MJ were enormous in their heyday.

It’s not impact on the music industry. The Beatles arguably began the notion of the rock band, had the first concept album, first major merchandising contracts, first stadium tour.

So what is it?

Who knows... maybe it's because she's the least offensive? It's probably hard work to be that dull, but it sure has made her rich.

I know, right? Why can’t she have multiple kids with different baby daddies? Why doesn’t she do drugs? Why doesn’t she dress in super revealing clothes? Why doesn’t she f-bomb her way through conversations? Why doesn’t she date rappers or abusive boyfriends? Why is she so inoffensive? What’s wrong with her.

Again, you all just don’t get it.

She’s bland. She barely ever expresses her opinion.

Pink is awesome. She’s outspoken. That’s the kind of person I admire in music.

Great! Start a thread about Pink.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Gen X women think hating Taylor Swift is a personality and I will never understand

One of the Gen X PPs here to clarify that I only am neutral/meh about Taylor. Now her fans…

+1

I have not posted much in the thread but I don't actually have strong feelings about Swift as a person. Like others I have tried to get into her music because she seems to be the biggest thing going, but it just never clicks with me. I do like singer-songwriters like Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo so I don't think it's purely a generational thing.

But reading through the thread I am reminded that I find diehard Swifties really annoying. They take any critique of Swift so personally. I don't get it. I think there is a lot of over identification with her as a personal avatar and it's not healthy. She's just an artist and celeb.

Actually, I don’t really care whether people like her or not. I understand she is not everyone’s cup of tea. I think people mainly take issue with the criticisms that come from generalizations or ignorance, or even a dismissal of her themes as unimportant because they appeal to young women as though that is a bad thing. There’s a deeper body of work there underneath the radio hits. I understand not everyone has the time or willingness to listen to them. But many people still speak before they know.

Yep. It’s the obvious misogyny and impossible standards Taylor is held to that get some of us riled up.

Please stop with this nonsense. Critics have listed plenty of other female artists that they adore.

None them have touched Taylor’s success and impact. Or they’ve stayed in their lane and so they are acceptable.

I’m not accusing you or everyone as misogynistic but there is a lot of misogyny in some of the criticisms. And people respond to that and are accused as rabid and hysterical.

I'm not sure how you can say Beyonce and Rihanna can't touch her success. Rihanna was a billionaire 1st.

Didn’t you know? Taylor is unprecedented in every way.

Nobody is saying that and you sound crazy.

“None them have touched Taylor’s success and impact.”

Is that a reasonable statement in your mind?

Yes? It’s pretty unprecedented what she’s done in terms of her success. This is just objectively a fact.

Someone upthread mentioned rhianna and Beyoncé as comparisons in terms of success which I would agree with but they have also experienced ridiculous amounts of misogyny. I remember as soon as the news came out that Chris Brown had abused Rihanna, immediately someone on DCUM posted a thread that we should boycott all of Rihanna’s products and companies because she stayed with an abuser. And how awful of her. No mention, of course that we should boycott Brown, the actual abuser.

But yes, I guess it’s ridiculous to think that there’s any misogyny with any female artist ever. How silly of me!

To your first argument that it's fair to say no one else has "touched" Taylor's success and impact, please explain what it is about Taylor that is more successful and impactful than previous megastars. Other than sheer dollars earned-- it is the nature of the economy that new stars will always top the earnings of the last. There will be another artist whose tour makes more than Eras just like Eras topped previous tours.

But what is it about Taylor that makes you say that, for instance, Beyonce or Rhianna or Madonna or Britney or Mariah or even Cher or Tina Turner or Aretha Franklin, cannot "touch" her success and impact? Why does Taylor belong in a separate class, other than you simply liking her music more than theirs (there are going to be lots of people who prefer the music of one of those artists to Taylor as well).

Yes all female artists experience misogyny. Taylor is not the first and she also doesn't get it the worst-- much of what she's done owes a lot to paths cut by others on that list, or lessons Taylor learned from because of how other artists suffered.

Honestly, it’s like people can’t use the Google. Check out where she is as a best selling artist relative to the time she’s actually been in the business, or even alive.

But she’s not even close to the best selling artist alive.

Can you even google? DP

https://www.statista.com/chart/31803/best-selling-global-recording-artists/

Top streaming artist doesn’t mean best selling. We’ve been over this.

Rihanna has the most certified sales. The Beatles have the most overall sales.

JFC. You are insufferable. No one cares about your weird obsession with comparing these artists.

I’m not the one who called her the best selling artist alive.

But I guess the swifties can just tell lies about their dear leader.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’m curious as to what TS has done that’s unprecedented. This seems to be a claim by a lot of Swifties. There’s this notion that she is uniquely successful, influential, etc.

It’s not record sales. Among artists that started in the 2000s, Rihanna beats her. If you take Eminem (1999 start), he does too.

It’s not cultural impact. Madonna and MJ were enormous in their heyday.

It’s not impact on the music industry. The Beatles arguably began the notion of the rock band, had the first concept album, first major merchandising contracts, first stadium tour.

So what is it?

I disagree on cultural impact. A couple of months ago my husband and I who are both in our late 40s were telling our daughters about the night Michael Jackson first performed the moonwalk. And what a different time it was because the next day all of our classmates and teachers were talking about it.

It’s just so much harder in today’s pop cultural landscape, with kids maybe looking at TikTok and having their own streaming profile, and parents being on a totally different social media platform and a totally different streaming profile. We are all watching different shows, listening to different music more on our own little devices.

You can get on a plane and watch whatever you want, versus years ago it was one movie being shown. So I think it’s not just Taylor but the general landscape, it’s kind of crazy all the generations seem to know her and how much attention she gets.

Taylor’s vinyl album sales are also pretty insane for this day and age. Yes 30 years ago you would not have blinked, but the fact that there are so many young kids actually buying vinyl records because of her is pretty impressive.

Clearly there’s lots of other artists and pop culture figures who’ve had a huge impact and maybe even the same or similar or more, but she is definitely up there with them.

Vinyl sales went up before she started to really hit it big. Yes, she has had good vinyl sales, but part of that is because she puts out so many editions of her albums.

I think of her as a contemporary version of Madonna or another diva. I simply don’t see where she’s breaking new ground.

I love Madonna, and have been to some of her concerts. I just don’t see people talking about or reacting to Madonna concerts the same way they react to Taylor’s. The Eras tour seems a little unprecedented to me. Of course other artists have had hugely successful tours, I’m not trying to say they haven’t, but I guess I just don’t understand what we’re arguing about. Taylor is big and popular. I don’t understand why that’s controversial or even subjective.

Madonna was bigger vs TS back in the day.

This thread has me thinking hard about Madonna in a way I haven't in a while. I absolutely think she was at least as big back in the early 90s as Swift is now. Potentially more because the culture was less splintered then. I do think they are both highly impactful artists who will leave lasting legacies (Swift is operating within Madonna's legacy now just as Madonna operated within a legacy paved by people like Cher and Donna Summer before her). I do think their legacies will be different though and I don't think either of their legacies will be primarily about the music. Both are and were performers on another level where their lives are a form of performance art that is tied inextricably to their onstage personas and their music. Both also embraced commercialism to a high degree while also kind of claiming to be above it or doing something beyond marketing. The parallels are really strong. I do think Madonna's Blond Ambition tour was pretty on par with the Eras tour in terms of cultural impact and global success. If you weren't alive at that time you can't understand how influential and ever present Madonna felt at the time. Though culture and media have changed a lot since then the cultural obsession with Taylor now feels similar to how Madonna was viewed then.

There are difference though. The most obvious to me is that Madonna unlike Taylor was NOT a musical act embraced across generational and cultural divides. Older people and more conservative people HATED Madonna. She was everything that was wrong with the culture. She used Catholic iconography in songs and videos featuring masturbation and teen sex and pregnancy. She released a book about fetishism including bondage and doms and threesomes. And worst of all: teens and preteens loved her music. Yup you had little 10 and 11 year old girls (including me) bopping around to Like a Virgin and Papa Don't Preach. And their parents absolutely hated it.

Today moms take their daughters to Taylor's concerts and dad's talk about what a great role model she is. Even though many of her costumes actually do reference classic Madonna costumes (in particular the bustiers which are derivative of several costumes madonna wore on both her Blonde Ambition and Girlie Show tours) they are intentionally pretty chaste and inoffensive. While she sings about relationships and breakups and occasionally swears in her lyrics it's all well within cultural propriety and you'd have to be an extreme prude and just a killjoy to argue that she's pushing the envelope with pretty much any of her music. She never sings about sex. And while per offstage persona is a bit less perfectly curated for a wide audience she's still careful -- the most scandalous thing you'll ever catch her doing is enjoying an alcoholic beverage with friends or posing for an excessive number of selfies at her birthday party.

I think it's very cool that Swift is something kids and parents can bond over without it being complicated. I also don't think you need shock value and offensiveness to make good art. I also think parents today are on average more willing to meet their kids where they are at when it comes to art and culture though I think sometimes the kids don't like that and want something that is just theirs. And I do wonder if that will mitigate how much of a change agent Taylor winds up being. I think it's hard to break new ground if you never offend anyone. I guess she offends Donald Trump by endorsing Harris and there are people in the GOP who don't like her political views. But there's nothing in her *music* for them to object to. She's pretty apolitical as a musician.

That might be why she feels bland to those of us who grew up in the 80s and 90s. Taylor's music is pretty intentionally broadly appealing. But when I was young even if you were the most successful pop star on the planet and starring in Pepsi ads and winning awards and turning ever album double platinum you were still sort of supposed to be thumbing your nose at The Man. And Taylor is The Man (and yes I am familiar with her song "If I was a Man").

I think Taylor is even more impressive BECAUSE she has blown past the splintered culture in a way that artist in the past have not had to.

Everyone talked about Madonna because that is what MTV was playing. That’s just not the case anymore and yet even people who adamantly dislike her start millions of thread about her.

Right you think that's impressive. Other people think that in order to do that she had to make herself so broadly palatable as to be bland. It's an open debate -- not everyone agrees with you and that's okay.

Also if you don't think that today's media doesn't tell people to like Taylor Swift in much the same way that mtv dictated tastes in the 80s and 90s then you are not paying attention. Pop music is and has always been a product. Taylor Swift is no less of one than any other pop star in the past. She's just being sold via algorithms and AI instead of television commercials and Top 40 radio programming.

And yet all of these artists have the same access to algorithms and AI. And aren’t nearly as successful as Taylor.

In that email her dad sent (part of a lawsuit) that was circulating a few months back he said he made her a web page at age 12 and no other young pop star had one. She and her parents were ahead of the game on social media stuff.
It definitely set her apart and contributed to her success.

Do you not want to claim that for her and her family?
Is that shameful or does it make her less than in your eyes?
It was brilliant marketing and her dad knew it.

Ah yes this again. Every successful celebrity who got started young of course had the help and support and know how of their parents. That explains Taylor’s early days but doesn’t explain or negate her prolific songwriting and ability to put out, 20 plus years after that web page, hit albums that people across many generations love.

Well, I would say it was because they continued in that same manner. Taylor’s mom pulling fans out of the audience to meet her specially. The secret parties Taylor would give, the Easter eggs. It kept the buzz around her growing. They were all brilliant at it. Taylor says her company is the family business- are you saying she is lying?
Again, is this bad? They are amazing at this!

They are! The marketing is great. I also think she’s insanely talented. I think people wouldn’t care about the Easter eggs and the joy of meeting her if they didn’t love her music and her songs but that’s just me.

I think you would be exposed to her music without all the marketing. I just can’t see the extraordinary talent when I she her range of notes or her lyrics and how she combines the two. She is a mixture of both marketing and musicality.

Once buzz hits, it can be hard for people to be objective. This buzz around fandom is why trump, despite his level of craziness is so popular.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The whole friendship bracelet thing, every thirty something in my life has armfuls of them and it kinda looks stupid and very high school. I just can't with her phoniness. She screams fake.

I seriously do not understand people my age (in their 30s) being obsessed with her.

Teenagers are one thing, but a 38 year old woman being fixated on her is just weird.

I know a lot of women my age in their 40s who like Taylor. I guess I don’t understand why liking her music or going to see a show means people are obsessed with her? I know a lot of people and I don’t know anyone making life decisions based on Taylor Swift. If you do, agree that is weird, but I don’t think that is common.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Gen X women think hating Taylor Swift is a personality and I will never understand

One of the Gen X PPs here to clarify that I only am neutral/meh about Taylor. Now her fans…

+1

I have not posted much in the thread but I don't actually have strong feelings about Swift as a person. Like others I have tried to get into her music because she seems to be the biggest thing going, but it just never clicks with me. I do like singer-songwriters like Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo so I don't think it's purely a generational thing.

But reading through the thread I am reminded that I find diehard Swifties really annoying. They take any critique of Swift so personally. I don't get it. I think there is a lot of over identification with her as a personal avatar and it's not healthy. She's just an artist and celeb.

Actually, I don’t really care whether people like her or not. I understand she is not everyone’s cup of tea. I think people mainly take issue with the criticisms that come from generalizations or ignorance, or even a dismissal of her themes as unimportant because they appeal to young women as though that is a bad thing. There’s a deeper body of work there underneath the radio hits. I understand not everyone has the time or willingness to listen to them. But many people still speak before they know.

Yep. It’s the obvious misogyny and impossible standards Taylor is held to that get some of us riled up.

The problem is when you cast any criticism of her as misogyny.

Not any. But certainly some. And anytime it’s brought up it’s cast as rabid crazy hysterical women defending her.

No one has said it’s rabid hysterical women.

But you all seemed to take a huge amount of offense at the notion that TS writing lyrics and basically not music means that her winning songwriting awards is a bit weird. At the very least, she should be winning them with Max Martin, Shellback, and the others who write the instrumentation.

DP. It has been explained to you over and over that she does, indeed, write the melodies to her songs. They are created on the piano or guitar - by her - and then she works with her collaborators and/or producers to fill them out with more instrumentation. I’m not sure what about this is confusing to you?

No she doesn’t. She is given what are called bed tracks by her producers and then she writes lyrics on top of them.

This may be true for some of her songs, but the vast majority are written by her with the melody first laid out on guitar or piano. By her. If you’d ever bothered to watch one of the documentaries that was mentioned earlier, you would know this.

There is a ton of information online about this. It is a mix. There is tons of video of her composing the melodies on her piano and guitar. She does this a lot.

Jack Antonoff has also said that he laid down the track for out of the woods, sent it to her, and a half an hour later she had put all the lyrics on it and sent it back to him. So sometimes that happens.

With Aaron Dessner, they worked collaboratively during the pandemic and he would send her some melodies that he had started, and she would do the lyrics. So both things are true. She writes some of her own music and she collaborates with others and they write.

I feel like thus is similar to a lot of artists. Inevitably someone will come on and say, how would I know this, I don’t spend time looking up Taylor Swift online and that is fine, but why these people spend time responding and posting a bunch of threads about her makes no sense.

What is funny is that Taylor is a lot more transparent about this than probably in the artist because she has so many documentaries and videos out there. But for some reason, some posters on this thread want to be willfully ignorant, and just post a bunch of crap that is easily disproven.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The whole friendship bracelet thing, every thirty something in my life has armfuls of them and it kinda looks stupid and very high school. I just can't with her phoniness. She screams fake.

I seriously do not understand people my age (in their 30s) being obsessed with her.

Teenagers are one thing, but a 38 year old woman being fixated on her is just weird.

I know a lot of women my age in their 40s who like Taylor. I guess I don’t understand why liking her music or going to see a show means people are obsessed with her? I know a lot of people and I don’t know anyone making life decisions based on Taylor Swift. If you do, agree that is weird, but I don’t think that is common.

I said I find it weird that some are obsessed. And I stand by that.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’m curious as to what TS has done that’s unprecedented. This seems to be a claim by a lot of Swifties. There’s this notion that she is uniquely successful, influential, etc.

It’s not record sales. Among artists that started in the 2000s, Rihanna beats her. If you take Eminem (1999 start), he does too.

It’s not cultural impact. Madonna and MJ were enormous in their heyday.

It’s not impact on the music industry. The Beatles arguably began the notion of the rock band, had the first concept album, first major merchandising contracts, first stadium tour.

So what is it?

I disagree on cultural impact. A couple of months ago my husband and I who are both in our late 40s were telling our daughters about the night Michael Jackson first performed the moonwalk. And what a different time it was because the next day all of our classmates and teachers were talking about it.

It’s just so much harder in today’s pop cultural landscape, with kids maybe looking at TikTok and having their own streaming profile, and parents being on a totally different social media platform and a totally different streaming profile. We are all watching different shows, listening to different music more on our own little devices.

You can get on a plane and watch whatever you want, versus years ago it was one movie being shown. So I think it’s not just Taylor but the general landscape, it’s kind of crazy all the generations seem to know her and how much attention she gets.

Taylor’s vinyl album sales are also pretty insane for this day and age. Yes 30 years ago you would not have blinked, but the fact that there are so many young kids actually buying vinyl records because of her is pretty impressive.

Clearly there’s lots of other artists and pop culture figures who’ve had a huge impact and maybe even the same or similar or more, but she is definitely up there with them.

Vinyl sales went up before she started to really hit it big. Yes, she has had good vinyl sales, but part of that is because she puts out so many editions of her albums.

I think of her as a contemporary version of Madonna or another diva. I simply don’t see where she’s breaking new ground.

I love Madonna, and have been to some of her concerts. I just don’t see people talking about or reacting to Madonna concerts the same way they react to Taylor’s. The Eras tour seems a little unprecedented to me. Of course other artists have had hugely successful tours, I’m not trying to say they haven’t, but I guess I just don’t understand what we’re arguing about. Taylor is big and popular. I don’t understand why that’s controversial or even subjective.

Madonna was bigger vs TS back in the day.

This thread has me thinking hard about Madonna in a way I haven't in a while. I absolutely think she was at least as big back in the early 90s as Swift is now. Potentially more because the culture was less splintered then. I do think they are both highly impactful artists who will leave lasting legacies (Swift is operating within Madonna's legacy now just as Madonna operated within a legacy paved by people like Cher and Donna Summer before her). I do think their legacies will be different though and I don't think either of their legacies will be primarily about the music. Both are and were performers on another level where their lives are a form of performance art that is tied inextricably to their onstage personas and their music. Both also embraced commercialism to a high degree while also kind of claiming to be above it or doing something beyond marketing. The parallels are really strong. I do think Madonna's Blond Ambition tour was pretty on par with the Eras tour in terms of cultural impact and global success. If you weren't alive at that time you can't understand how influential and ever present Madonna felt at the time. Though culture and media have changed a lot since then the cultural obsession with Taylor now feels similar to how Madonna was viewed then.

There are difference though. The most obvious to me is that Madonna unlike Taylor was NOT a musical act embraced across generational and cultural divides. Older people and more conservative people HATED Madonna. She was everything that was wrong with the culture. She used Catholic iconography in songs and videos featuring masturbation and teen sex and pregnancy. She released a book about fetishism including bondage and doms and threesomes. And worst of all: teens and preteens loved her music. Yup you had little 10 and 11 year old girls (including me) bopping around to Like a Virgin and Papa Don't Preach. And their parents absolutely hated it.

Today moms take their daughters to Taylor's concerts and dad's talk about what a great role model she is. Even though many of her costumes actually do reference classic Madonna costumes (in particular the bustiers which are derivative of several costumes madonna wore on both her Blonde Ambition and Girlie Show tours) they are intentionally pretty chaste and inoffensive. While she sings about relationships and breakups and occasionally swears in her lyrics it's all well within cultural propriety and you'd have to be an extreme prude and just a killjoy to argue that she's pushing the envelope with pretty much any of her music. She never sings about sex. And while per offstage persona is a bit less perfectly curated for a wide audience she's still careful -- the most scandalous thing you'll ever catch her doing is enjoying an alcoholic beverage with friends or posing for an excessive number of selfies at her birthday party.

I think it's very cool that Swift is something kids and parents can bond over without it being complicated. I also don't think you need shock value and offensiveness to make good art. I also think parents today are on average more willing to meet their kids where they are at when it comes to art and culture though I think sometimes the kids don't like that and want something that is just theirs. And I do wonder if that will mitigate how much of a change agent Taylor winds up being. I think it's hard to break new ground if you never offend anyone. I guess she offends Donald Trump by endorsing Harris and there are people in the GOP who don't like her political views. But there's nothing in her *music* for them to object to. She's pretty apolitical as a musician.

That might be why she feels bland to those of us who grew up in the 80s and 90s. Taylor's music is pretty intentionally broadly appealing. But when I was young even if you were the most successful pop star on the planet and starring in Pepsi ads and winning awards and turning ever album double platinum you were still sort of supposed to be thumbing your nose at The Man. And Taylor is The Man (and yes I am familiar with her song "If I was a Man").

I think Taylor is even more impressive BECAUSE she has blown past the splintered culture in a way that artist in the past have not had to.

Everyone talked about Madonna because that is what MTV was playing. That’s just not the case anymore and yet even people who adamantly dislike her start millions of thread about her.

Right you think that's impressive. Other people think that in order to do that she had to make herself so broadly palatable as to be bland. It's an open debate -- not everyone agrees with you and that's okay.

Also if you don't think that today's media doesn't tell people to like Taylor Swift in much the same way that mtv dictated tastes in the 80s and 90s then you are not paying attention. Pop music is and has always been a product. Taylor Swift is no less of one than any other pop star in the past. She's just being sold via algorithms and AI instead of television commercials and Top 40 radio programming.

And yet all of these artists have the same access to algorithms and AI. And aren’t nearly as successful as Taylor.

In that email her dad sent (part of a lawsuit) that was circulating a few months back he said he made her a web page at age 12 and no other young pop star had one. She and her parents were ahead of the game on social media stuff.
It definitely set her apart and contributed to her success.

Do you not want to claim that for her and her family?
Is that shameful or does it make her less than in your eyes?
It was brilliant marketing and her dad knew it.

Ah yes this again. Every successful celebrity who got started young of course had the help and support and know how of their parents. That explains Taylor’s early days but doesn’t explain or negate her prolific songwriting and ability to put out, 20 plus years after that web page, hit albums that people across many generations love.

Well, I would say it was because they continued in that same manner. Taylor’s mom pulling fans out of the audience to meet her specially. The secret parties Taylor would give, the Easter eggs. It kept the buzz around her growing. They were all brilliant at it. Taylor says her company is the family business- are you saying she is lying?
Again, is this bad? They are amazing at this!

They are! The marketing is great. I also think she’s insanely talented. I think people wouldn’t care about the Easter eggs and the joy of meeting her if they didn’t love her music and her songs but that’s just me.

I think you would be exposed to her music without all the marketing. I just can’t see the extraordinary talent when I she her range of notes or her lyrics and how she combines the two. She is a mixture of both marketing and musicality.

Once buzz hits, it can be hard for people to be objective. This buzz around fandom is why trump, despite his level of craziness is so popular.

Right, but every artist mentioned in this thread is heavily marketed. This is what gets annoying. The detractors always have to have a qualifier about Taylor that they don’t put on anyone else. “Sure she has some talent, but it’s marketing.” But they don’t make that qualification for any other.

As of Pink or any of the other artist mentioned don’t have a huge marketing machine behind them, and you are all just finding them authentically. Just ridiculous.

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Anonymous wrote:The whole friendship bracelet thing, every thirty something in my life has armfuls of them and it kinda looks stupid and very high school. I just can't with her phoniness. She screams fake.

I seriously do not understand people my age (in their 30s) being obsessed with her.

Teenagers are one thing, but a 38 year old woman being fixated on her is just weird.

I know a lot of women my age in their 40s who like Taylor. I guess I don’t understand why liking her music or going to see a show means people are obsessed with her? I know a lot of people and I don’t know anyone making life decisions based on Taylor Swift. If you do, agree that is weird, but I don’t think that is common.

I said I find it weird that some are obsessed. And I stand by that.

Cool.

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Anonymous wrote:I’m curious as to what TS has done that’s unprecedented. This seems to be a claim by a lot of Swifties. There’s this notion that she is uniquely successful, influential, etc.

It’s not record sales. Among artists that started in the 2000s, Rihanna beats her. If you take Eminem (1999 start), he does too.

It’s not cultural impact. Madonna and MJ were enormous in their heyday.

It’s not impact on the music industry. The Beatles arguably began the notion of the rock band, had the first concept album, first major merchandising contracts, first stadium tour.

So what is it?

I disagree on cultural impact. A couple of months ago my husband and I who are both in our late 40s were telling our daughters about the night Michael Jackson first performed the moonwalk. And what a different time it was because the next day all of our classmates and teachers were talking about it.

It’s just so much harder in today’s pop cultural landscape, with kids maybe looking at TikTok and having their own streaming profile, and parents being on a totally different social media platform and a totally different streaming profile. We are all watching different shows, listening to different music more on our own little devices.

You can get on a plane and watch whatever you want, versus years ago it was one movie being shown. So I think it’s not just Taylor but the general landscape, it’s kind of crazy all the generations seem to know her and how much attention she gets.

Taylor’s vinyl album sales are also pretty insane for this day and age. Yes 30 years ago you would not have blinked, but the fact that there are so many young kids actually buying vinyl records because of her is pretty impressive.

Clearly there’s lots of other artists and pop culture figures who’ve had a huge impact and maybe even the same or similar or more, but she is definitely up there with them.

Vinyl sales went up before she started to really hit it big. Yes, she has had good vinyl sales, but part of that is because she puts out so many editions of her albums.

I think of her as a contemporary version of Madonna or another diva. I simply don’t see where she’s breaking new ground.

I love Madonna, and have been to some of her concerts. I just don’t see people talking about or reacting to Madonna concerts the same way they react to Taylor’s. The Eras tour seems a little unprecedented to me. Of course other artists have had hugely successful tours, I’m not trying to say they haven’t, but I guess I just don’t understand what we’re arguing about. Taylor is big and popular. I don’t understand why that’s controversial or even subjective.

Madonna was bigger vs TS back in the day.

This thread has me thinking hard about Madonna in a way I haven't in a while. I absolutely think she was at least as big back in the early 90s as Swift is now. Potentially more because the culture was less splintered then. I do think they are both highly impactful artists who will leave lasting legacies (Swift is operating within Madonna's legacy now just as Madonna operated within a legacy paved by people like Cher and Donna Summer before her). I do think their legacies will be different though and I don't think either of their legacies will be primarily about the music. Both are and were performers on another level where their lives are a form of performance art that is tied inextricably to their onstage personas and their music. Both also embraced commercialism to a high degree while also kind of claiming to be above it or doing something beyond marketing. The parallels are really strong. I do think Madonna's Blond Ambition tour was pretty on par with the Eras tour in terms of cultural impact and global success. If you weren't alive at that time you can't understand how influential and ever present Madonna felt at the time. Though culture and media have changed a lot since then the cultural obsession with Taylor now feels similar to how Madonna was viewed then.

There are difference though. The most obvious to me is that Madonna unlike Taylor was NOT a musical act embraced across generational and cultural divides. Older people and more conservative people HATED Madonna. She was everything that was wrong with the culture. She used Catholic iconography in songs and videos featuring masturbation and teen sex and pregnancy. She released a book about fetishism including bondage and doms and threesomes. And worst of all: teens and preteens loved her music. Yup you had little 10 and 11 year old girls (including me) bopping around to Like a Virgin and Papa Don't Preach. And their parents absolutely hated it.

Today moms take their daughters to Taylor's concerts and dad's talk about what a great role model she is. Even though many of her costumes actually do reference classic Madonna costumes (in particular the bustiers which are derivative of several costumes madonna wore on both her Blonde Ambition and Girlie Show tours) they are intentionally pretty chaste and inoffensive. While she sings about relationships and breakups and occasionally swears in her lyrics it's all well within cultural propriety and you'd have to be an extreme prude and just a killjoy to argue that she's pushing the envelope with pretty much any of her music. She never sings about sex. And while per offstage persona is a bit less perfectly curated for a wide audience she's still careful -- the most scandalous thing you'll ever catch her doing is enjoying an alcoholic beverage with friends or posing for an excessive number of selfies at her birthday party.

I think it's very cool that Swift is something kids and parents can bond over without it being complicated. I also don't think you need shock value and offensiveness to make good art. I also think parents today are on average more willing to meet their kids where they are at when it comes to art and culture though I think sometimes the kids don't like that and want something that is just theirs. And I do wonder if that will mitigate how much of a change agent Taylor winds up being. I think it's hard to break new ground if you never offend anyone. I guess she offends Donald Trump by endorsing Harris and there are people in the GOP who don't like her political views. But there's nothing in her *music* for them to object to. She's pretty apolitical as a musician.

That might be why she feels bland to those of us who grew up in the 80s and 90s. Taylor's music is pretty intentionally broadly appealing. But when I was young even if you were the most successful pop star on the planet and starring in Pepsi ads and winning awards and turning ever album double platinum you were still sort of supposed to be thumbing your nose at The Man. And Taylor is The Man (and yes I am familiar with her song "If I was a Man").

I think Taylor is even more impressive BECAUSE she has blown past the splintered culture in a way that artist in the past have not had to.

Everyone talked about Madonna because that is what MTV was playing. That’s just not the case anymore and yet even people who adamantly dislike her start millions of thread about her.

Right you think that's impressive. Other people think that in order to do that she had to make herself so broadly palatable as to be bland. It's an open debate -- not everyone agrees with you and that's okay.

Also if you don't think that today's media doesn't tell people to like Taylor Swift in much the same way that mtv dictated tastes in the 80s and 90s then you are not paying attention. Pop music is and has always been a product. Taylor Swift is no less of one than any other pop star in the past. She's just being sold via algorithms and AI instead of television commercials and Top 40 radio programming.

And yet all of these artists have the same access to algorithms and AI. And aren’t nearly as successful as Taylor.

In that email her dad sent (part of a lawsuit) that was circulating a few months back he said he made her a web page at age 12 and no other young pop star had one. She and her parents were ahead of the game on social media stuff.
It definitely set her apart and contributed to her success.

Do you not want to claim that for her and her family?
Is that shameful or does it make her less than in your eyes?
It was brilliant marketing and her dad knew it.

Ah yes this again. Every successful celebrity who got started young of course had the help and support and know how of their parents. That explains Taylor’s early days but doesn’t explain or negate her prolific songwriting and ability to put out, 20 plus years after that web page, hit albums that people across many generations love.

Well, I would say it was because they continued in that same manner. Taylor’s mom pulling fans out of the audience to meet her specially. The secret parties Taylor would give, the Easter eggs. It kept the buzz around her growing. They were all brilliant at it. Taylor says her company is the family business- are you saying she is lying?
Again, is this bad? They are amazing at this!

They are! The marketing is great. I also think she’s insanely talented. I think people wouldn’t care about the Easter eggs and the joy of meeting her if they didn’t love her music and her songs but that’s just me.

I think you would be exposed to her music without all the marketing. I just can’t see the extraordinary talent when I she her range of notes or her lyrics and how she combines the two. She is a mixture of both marketing and musicality.

Once buzz hits, it can be hard for people to be objective. This buzz around fandom is why trump, despite his level of craziness is so popular.

Right, but every artist mentioned in this thread is heavily marketed. This is what gets annoying. The detractors always have to have a qualifier about Taylor that they don’t put on anyone else. “Sure she has some talent, but it’s marketing.” But they don’t make that qualification for any other.

As of Pink or any of the other artist mentioned don’t have a huge marketing machine behind them, and you are all just finding them authentically. Just ridiculous.

You all consistently misconstrue what we’re saying. It’s so tiresome.

No one is saying we’re finding Pink authentically. I’m saying she is genuinely outspoken whereas TS barely ever says what she actually thinks.