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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Taylor swift is for tweens

This is kind of what I thought. I'm a millenial and I didn't realize Xers thought we were her main fanbase. My kids go to school with lots of Swifties (elementary and middle school). The only friends I have who went to the concert were taking their kids. Maybe they enjoyed it too but I doubt they would have gone as adults if they didn't have daughters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not a huge fan but I think she's very talented. I think she has some true gems and some iconic songs that will stand the test of time.

But like most artists, a lot of her songs are merely okay/boring. Most singers have albums that are mostly filler. I think she could do some editing. Like her last album-- instead of doing a double album she could have made one truly great album. But her fan base always will take more songs over high quality songs due to their parasocial relationship with her.

Someone mentioned The Beatles upthread-- they revolutionized popular music and pushed the envelope in every album they did post 1965. Taylor is very talented, but I don't see her music as breaking new ground. That's why a lot of Gen Xers see her as boring.

I think the bolded is her achilles heel. I think it's true of her albums and her songs -- I think sometimes she's self-indulgent in a way that doesn't serve her. She's such a talented songwriter but she (understandably but I think unfortunately) loves her own work too much.

I think her writing has gotten progressively better as her career goes on but her success has given her more freedom to do whatever she wants and in a way I think this is bad. I would love to see what she'd do with real constraints from a label or even her fan base -- I think that's often where the best art happens. But it wll never happen -- she's too successful and beloved to ever have to work for it in quite that way again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not a huge fan but I think she's very talented. I think she has some true gems and some iconic songs that will stand the test of time.

But like most artists, a lot of her songs are merely okay/boring. Most singers have albums that are mostly filler. I think she could do some editing. Like her last album-- instead of doing a double album she could have made one truly great album. But her fan base always will take more songs over high quality songs due to their parasocial relationship with her.

Someone mentioned The Beatles upthread-- they revolutionized popular music and pushed the envelope in every album they did post 1965. Taylor is very talented, but I don't see her music as breaking new ground. That's why a lot of Gen Xers see her as boring.

I think the bolded is her achilles heel. I think it's true of her albums and her songs -- I think sometimes she's self-indulgent in a way that doesn't serve her. She's such a talented songwriter but she (understandably but I think unfortunately) loves her own work too much.

I think her writing has gotten progressively better as her career goes on but her success has given her more freedom to do whatever she wants and in a way I think this is bad. I would love to see what she'd do with real constraints from a label or even her fan base -- I think that's often where the best art happens. But it wll never happen -- she's too successful and beloved to ever have to work for it in quite that way again.

I agree somewhat and have seen how constraints can yield amazing creativity. Like how the ten minute version of All too Well just doesn't hit as well as the shorter version for me.

But then I kind of think the opposite when thinking of the scenes in Ms Americana where she was working with Antanoff or whoever. Some of her early stripped down work seemed so much better than when it got overproduced and made to sound like everything else.

[Anonymous]

She’s got style like Cher and showmanship like Kiss? Not sure I don’t like either Cher or Kiss. I’m GenX and can’t imagine liking anything so insipid. It’s dentist office music. The outfits are tacky right?

[Anonymous]

Completely agree it’s bland. I don’t even like her voice. It’s not horrible but not stellar either.

[Anonymous]

I only like the songs from the red album and purple dress album. And the even older album with the kinky curls and old nose and blue dress is so endearingly twangy but bad.

I think she abandoned Gen X after the red album.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I find it bland, but it is catchy and not terrible. It is not hard too see why she is popular.

I don't understand Billie Eilish's success. Her songs are collections of noises.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Taylor swift is for tweens

This is kind of what I thought. I'm a millenial and I didn't realize Xers thought we were her main fanbase. My kids go to school with lots of Swifties (elementary and middle school). The only friends I have who went to the concert were taking their kids. Maybe they enjoyed it too but I doubt they would have gone as adults if they didn't have daughters.

Are you kidding? I’m a middle aged woman and would *love* to go to one of her concerts - with my middle aged friends who also love her and our college-aged daughters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I find it bland, but it is catchy and not terrible. It is not hard too see why she is popular.

I don't understand Billie Eilish's success. Her songs are collections of noises.

+ a million
I only like Ocean Eyes. That’s it.

[Anonymous]

Not GenX but close enough. I’m an elder millennial, ‘81, and I wasn’t a swiftie until very recently. I was just old enough to not be into the country/early years; I liked (and like!) some of the songs, but was never a fan. I think I was just past that cusp of same age group experiences and thus I wasn’t quite the right market.

Then she moved to pop. I didn’t love 1989. I missed all of Reputation (and still don’t love that album). At that point, knew many (younger) women at work who loved her, and I thought it was weird. I did not understand it at all. I also completely missed Lover when it came out. In hindsight it makes sense because I was busy having kids and life was a blur.

Folklore during Covid was amazing, I loved it and think a lot of fans were from that period. Remember how bored and stressed we all were? A new album as a surprise was a fun gift even for those of us who weren’t fans. I still have never listened to Evermore. I liked Midnights when it came out, and it was one of the few albums I’d listen to on planes etc that year.

Then some friends had extra tickets for the Eras tour and we all brought our daughters. They are little, 7 at the time, and liked her more famous songs (shake it off, etc). We had an amazing time. I was so surprised by all of her songs that I had never heard, especially the acoustic set. You could feel the love and attention she put into the whole thing. Then I watched Ms Americana for the first time and found myself surprised by how much I liked her? Same with the Apple special about folklore.

Cut to her newest album. The first time I heard it I felt it was meh, everything kind of sounded the same. But wow it really grew on me, and I love almost every song. Thoughtful, self aware (at least if you know enough about her to understand she is often in on the joke). and I think now I might have listened to it straight through more times than I have listened to Paul Simon’s Graceland, or Ben Harper’s Live From Mars, two of my all time favorite albums.

That is more words than I ever thought i would write about Taylor Swift, so I’ll stop. But I am a fan. Looking forward to the next album.

[Anonymous]

I can't think of a single Taylor Swift song that I have heard or can name. But maybe one has been on the radio as I'm driving and I didn't realize it was her.

However, I'm in my 50's, not exactly her target audience.

[Anonymous]

When my niece was a tween she won’t a summer living with me and played Taylor Swift on repeat. The songs were lyrics like we are never ever ever getting back together repeated multiple times. Another was about driving a maserati, another was how a boy was trouble. When I hear people talk about how they think she is a lyrical genius….they need to get out and listen to more musicians. There was nothing genius about the songs I heard and I heard a whole album many times over! It is pretty much pop music. Didn’t stand out to me at all.

[Anonymous]

Gen xer here. Yes!

[Anonymous]

How old is she? 1989? I was in my teens. Was she even born?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How old is she? 1989? I was in my teens. Was she even born?

She was born in 1989