Taylor Swift is awful (and her music isn't even very good)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't get comparing One and All Too Well.

Two totally different perspectives. Bono was a grown man with years of a long marriage to a woman he fell in love with at age 15, and mother of his four children. I'm not saying the song is about her, but to me, it's at least written from a perspective of someone who has experienced love in that kind of relationship, where you've seen each other at your absolute worst, you have years of resentment, you blame each other, even in deep love. That's an element of any decades long relationship that has gone on between adults, even in the happiest and most loving marriages. The for better or for worse, in sickness and in health parts.

Taylor was young when she wrote All Too Well, she has a lyric about her 21st birthday, so the relationship probably started at age 20, and it's about the heartbreak of losing love in that ideal phase where you are all doped up on love hormones (The boy in the song "Almost ran the red when you were looking over at me"). That is new love. When you can't take your eyes off the person. That is a fun, wonderful phase but it doesn't last long even if the relationship does last.

I get totally different experiences and feelings listening to the two songs. Bono is talking about his soul mate, they are one, they carry each other. Taylor is heartbroken from all encompassing young love that ended. It was no less real, and it doesn't happen with every crush, it deeply resonated with her and they got serious, and he made her feel like a million bucks, but they are young and those kinds of relationships often end and that phase is not sustainable.

What do their ages and personal lives have to do with any of this? I have never read any of Bono’s songs as being remotely personal. He’s creative enough to imagine the perspectives of totally different people. He’s making it up, because that’s how real artists work. They make things up. Things that have nothing to do with themselves or their lives.

At any rate lyrics and the messages are very similar, not the words, but the ideas within them. Based on wording alone, Taylor’s much later song added nothing new to Bono’s much superior one. It’s derivative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't get comparing One and All Too Well.

Two totally different perspectives. Bono was a grown man with years of a long marriage to a woman he fell in love with at age 15, and mother of his four children. I'm not saying the song is about her, but to me, it's at least written from a perspective of someone who has experienced love in that kind of relationship, where you've seen each other at your absolute worst, you have years of resentment, you blame each other, even in deep love. That's an element of any decades long relationship that has gone on between adults, even in the happiest and most loving marriages. The for better or for worse, in sickness and in health parts.

Taylor was young when she wrote All Too Well, she has a lyric about her 21st birthday, so the relationship probably started at age 20, and it's about the heartbreak of losing love in that ideal phase where you are all doped up on love hormones (The boy in the song "Almost ran the red when you were looking over at me"). That is new love. When you can't take your eyes off the person. That is a fun, wonderful phase but it doesn't last long even if the relationship does last.

I get totally different experiences and feelings listening to the two songs. Bono is talking about his soul mate, they are one, they carry each other. Taylor is heartbroken from all encompassing young love that ended. It was no less real, and it doesn't happen with every crush, it deeply resonated with her and they got serious, and he made her feel like a million bucks, but they are young and those kinds of relationships often end and that phase is not sustainable.

What do their ages and personal lives have to do with any of this? I have never read any of Bono’s songs as being remotely personal. He’s creative enough to imagine the perspectives of totally different people. He’s making it up, because that’s how real artists work. They make things up. Things that have nothing to do with themselves or their lives.

At any rate lyrics and the messages are very similar, not the words, but the ideas within them. Based on wording alone, Taylor’s much later song added nothing new to Bono’s much superior one. It’s derivative.

The wording is not similar at all. Totally different lyrics. And you think Bono was imagining himself as a teenage girl losing her first big love? I agree bono is a genius and he can tell a story from different perspectives, but I don’t think he was trying to get the same perspective she was. Like I said, I just get two totally different ideas about these songs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't get comparing One and All Too Well.

Two totally different perspectives. Bono was a grown man with years of a long marriage to a woman he fell in love with at age 15, and mother of his four children. I'm not saying the song is about her, but to me, it's at least written from a perspective of someone who has experienced love in that kind of relationship, where you've seen each other at your absolute worst, you have years of resentment, you blame each other, even in deep love. That's an element of any decades long relationship that has gone on between adults, even in the happiest and most loving marriages. The for better or for worse, in sickness and in health parts.

Taylor was young when she wrote All Too Well, she has a lyric about her 21st birthday, so the relationship probably started at age 20, and it's about the heartbreak of losing love in that ideal phase where you are all doped up on love hormones (The boy in the song "Almost ran the red when you were looking over at me"). That is new love. When you can't take your eyes off the person. That is a fun, wonderful phase but it doesn't last long even if the relationship does last.

I get totally different experiences and feelings listening to the two songs. Bono is talking about his soul mate, they are one, they carry each other. Taylor is heartbroken from all encompassing young love that ended. It was no less real, and it doesn't happen with every crush, it deeply resonated with her and they got serious, and he made her feel like a million bucks, but they are young and those kinds of relationships often end and that phase is not sustainable.

What do their ages and personal lives have to do with any of this? I have never read any of Bono’s songs as being remotely personal. He’s creative enough to imagine the perspectives of totally different people. He’s making it up, because that’s how real artists work. They make things up. Things that have nothing to do with themselves or their lives.

At any rate lyrics and the messages are very similar, not the words, but the ideas within them. Based on wording alone, Taylor’s much later song added nothing new to Bono’s much superior one. It’s derivative.

The wording is not similar at all. Totally different lyrics. And you think Bono was imagining himself as a teenage girl losing her first big love? I agree bono is a genius and he can tell a story from different perspectives, but I don’t think he was trying to get the same perspective she was. Like I said, I just get two totally different ideas about these songs.

+1
How are these songs even being compared? I’m a huge U2 fan and this is ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't get comparing One and All Too Well.

Two totally different perspectives. Bono was a grown man with years of a long marriage to a woman he fell in love with at age 15, and mother of his four children. I'm not saying the song is about her, but to me, it's at least written from a perspective of someone who has experienced love in that kind of relationship, where you've seen each other at your absolute worst, you have years of resentment, you blame each other, even in deep love. That's an element of any decades long relationship that has gone on between adults, even in the happiest and most loving marriages. The for better or for worse, in sickness and in health parts.

Taylor was young when she wrote All Too Well, she has a lyric about her 21st birthday, so the relationship probably started at age 20, and it's about the heartbreak of losing love in that ideal phase where you are all doped up on love hormones (The boy in the song "Almost ran the red when you were looking over at me"). That is new love. When you can't take your eyes off the person. That is a fun, wonderful phase but it doesn't last long even if the relationship does last.

I get totally different experiences and feelings listening to the two songs. Bono is talking about his soul mate, they are one, they carry each other. Taylor is heartbroken from all encompassing young love that ended. It was no less real, and it doesn't happen with every crush, it deeply resonated with her and they got serious, and he made her feel like a million bucks, but they are young and those kinds of relationships often end and that phase is not sustainable.

What do their ages and personal lives have to do with any of this? I have never read any of Bono’s songs as being remotely personal. He’s creative enough to imagine the perspectives of totally different people. He’s making it up, because that’s how real artists work. They make things up. Things that have nothing to do with themselves or their lives.

At any rate lyrics and the messages are very similar, not the words, but the ideas within them. Based on wording alone, Taylor’s much later song added nothing new to Bono’s much superior one. It’s derivative.

The wording is not similar at all. Totally different lyrics. And you think Bono was imagining himself as a teenage girl losing her first big love? I agree bono is a genius and he can tell a story from different perspectives, but I don’t think he was trying to get the same perspective she was. Like I said, I just get two totally different ideas about these songs.

Dear God in Heaven, Bono wrote that song in 1990, when Taylor was one herself. He wasn’t trying to sound like a teenage. He came up with a general idea about a breakup and dissolution in a relationship. The song was made up. It was meant to be universal and apply to all sorts of people in all sorts of situations. Little Taylor grew up hearing this song. Because she’s not creative enough to come up with her own ideas, she used it in creating her song many, many years later. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume it was inadvertent, but it’s the exact same concepts. She is regurgitating something she grew up with. It is derivative.

[Anonymous]

The mansplaining on this thread is ridiculous. I feel like I’m back in college, having some drunk frat boy trying to explain music to me, explain why Paul Simon is good, explain why Bono is a genius and why modern pop stars suck and are “derivative.”

It reminds me of “We are never getting back together” when Taylor makes fun of her ex for hiding “away to find your piece of mind with some indie record that’s MUCH cooler than mine.”

We get it… Anyone who does not like Taylor Swift is a musical genius and the rest of us don’t know anything and it’s up to you to tell us why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The mansplaining on this thread is ridiculous. I feel like I’m back in college, having some drunk frat boy trying to explain music to me, explain why Paul Simon is good, explain why Bono is a genius and why modern pop stars suck and are “derivative.”

It reminds me of “We are never getting back together” when Taylor makes fun of her ex for hiding “away to find your piece of mind with some indie record that’s MUCH cooler than mine.”

We get it… Anyone who does not like Taylor Swift is a musical genius and the rest of us don’t know anything and it’s up to you to tell us why.

Except, I’m a woman, not a frat boy and I’ll venture to say that all of the posters on here are women. I never called myself a musical genius. I just see that Taylor lifted the concepts of “One” and yes, even some direct lyrics when writing the be lyrics to “All too Well.”

You are free to interpret it differently, but my views are not “mansplaning” or an attack on feminism. Your suggestion that all women must think and see everything in the same way, however, is very misogynistic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The mansplaining on this thread is ridiculous. I feel like I’m back in college, having some drunk frat boy trying to explain music to me, explain why Paul Simon is good, explain why Bono is a genius and why modern pop stars suck and are “derivative.”

It reminds me of “We are never getting back together” when Taylor makes fun of her ex for hiding “away to find your piece of mind with some indie record that’s MUCH cooler than mine.”

We get it… Anyone who does not like Taylor Swift is a musical genius and the rest of us don’t know anything and it’s up to you to tell us why.

The mansplaining condescension is nauseating. Sorry, she’s a billionaire. She knows more than these people, period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mansplaining on this thread is ridiculous. I feel like I’m back in college, having some drunk frat boy trying to explain music to me, explain why Paul Simon is good, explain why Bono is a genius and why modern pop stars suck and are “derivative.”

It reminds me of “We are never getting back together” when Taylor makes fun of her ex for hiding “away to find your piece of mind with some indie record that’s MUCH cooler than mine.”

We get it… Anyone who does not like Taylor Swift is a musical genius and the rest of us don’t know anything and it’s up to you to tell us why.

The mansplaining condescension is nauseating. Sorry, she’s a billionaire. She knows more than these people, period.

And mansplaining is used derivatively.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mansplaining on this thread is ridiculous. I feel like I’m back in college, having some drunk frat boy trying to explain music to me, explain why Paul Simon is good, explain why Bono is a genius and why modern pop stars suck and are “derivative.”

It reminds me of “We are never getting back together” when Taylor makes fun of her ex for hiding “away to find your piece of mind with some indie record that’s MUCH cooler than mine.”

We get it… Anyone who does not like Taylor Swift is a musical genius and the rest of us don’t know anything and it’s up to you to tell us why.

Except, I’m a woman, not a frat boy and I’ll venture to say that all of the posters on here are women. I never called myself a musical genius. I just see that Taylor lifted the concepts of “One” and yes, even some direct lyrics when writing the be lyrics to “All too Well.”

You are free to interpret it differently, but my views are not “mansplaning” or an attack on feminism. Your suggestion that all women must think and see everything in the same way, however, is very misogynistic.

I in no way suggested all women must think the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The mansplaining on this thread is ridiculous. I feel like I’m back in college, having some drunk frat boy trying to explain music to me, explain why Paul Simon is good, explain why Bono is a genius and why modern pop stars suck and are “derivative.”

It reminds me of “We are never getting back together” when Taylor makes fun of her ex for hiding “away to find your piece of mind with some indie record that’s MUCH cooler than mine.”

We get it… Anyone who does not like Taylor Swift is a musical genius and the rest of us don’t know anything and it’s up to you to tell us why.

(1) I'm a woman.

(2) I'm the one who "explained" why Graceland is such an important album, and the person I was explaining it too said herself that she was unfamiliar with Paul Simon.

(3) I don't think all modern pop stars suck or are derivative, or not necessarily any more derivative than anyone else (all musicians are derivative to some degree, even great ones, the question is whether they also innovate). I don't even think Taylor Swift sucks. I just don't think her music is great (it's fine) and I disagree with what has become the conventional wisdom, which is that she is the greatest pop artist of her generation. For pop music, I prefer artists who make catchy dance hits I can move to, and thus prefer Gaga, Beyoncé, Katy Perry, and Nikki Minaj. For lyrics and music that really makes me feel and think deep things, I prefer artists like Courtney Barnett, Kurt Vile, Angel Olsen, and others. For artists that kind of unite these things, I like Vampire Weekend, Dirty Projectors, Grizzly Bear, and others. To me Taylor Swift doesn't do any of these things as well as the other artists I've listed. These are not all indie artists. No one is going to give me coolness credits for liking Katy Perry. But Firework always makes me smile, and I can't say the same thing for any Taylor Swift song.

I know it's hard to understand this, but it's possible to criticize Taylor Swift on the merits, and not be a misogynist, jealous, stupid, illiterate, classist, etc. I dislike Taylor Swift because I just do not think her music is very good. It's not terrible, it's just not great, and with the amount I have to hear it, and hear *about* Swift, it should be next level amazing. It's not. She is flying too close to the sun and it's inevitable that people are going to respond arguments that Swift is ahhhhhmaaaaazing with arguments that actually, no, she is not. That's not mansplaining.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mansplaining on this thread is ridiculous. I feel like I’m back in college, having some drunk frat boy trying to explain music to me, explain why Paul Simon is good, explain why Bono is a genius and why modern pop stars suck and are “derivative.”

It reminds me of “We are never getting back together” when Taylor makes fun of her ex for hiding “away to find your piece of mind with some indie record that’s MUCH cooler than mine.”

We get it… Anyone who does not like Taylor Swift is a musical genius and the rest of us don’t know anything and it’s up to you to tell us why.

The mansplaining condescension is nauseating. Sorry, she’s a billionaire. She knows more than these people, period.

Do all billionaires know more than everyone else? So Elon Musk is a genius who knows better than everyone else, and if, just as a for instance, he runs a popular social media platform into the ground, it must be because the rest of us didn't get it?

Being a billionaire means you are good at making money. It does not mean that you know more about everything, and people can still criticize you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't get comparing One and All Too Well.

Two totally different perspectives. Bono was a grown man with years of a long marriage to a woman he fell in love with at age 15, and mother of his four children. I'm not saying the song is about her, but to me, it's at least written from a perspective of someone who has experienced love in that kind of relationship, where you've seen each other at your absolute worst, you have years of resentment, you blame each other, even in deep love. That's an element of any decades long relationship that has gone on between adults, even in the happiest and most loving marriages. The for better or for worse, in sickness and in health parts.

Taylor was young when she wrote All Too Well, she has a lyric about her 21st birthday, so the relationship probably started at age 20, and it's about the heartbreak of losing love in that ideal phase where you are all doped up on love hormones (The boy in the song "Almost ran the red when you were looking over at me"). That is new love. When you can't take your eyes off the person. That is a fun, wonderful phase but it doesn't last long even if the relationship does last.

I get totally different experiences and feelings listening to the two songs. Bono is talking about his soul mate, they are one, they carry each other. Taylor is heartbroken from all encompassing young love that ended. It was no less real, and it doesn't happen with every crush, it deeply resonated with her and they got serious, and he made her feel like a million bucks, but they are young and those kinds of relationships often end and that phase is not sustainable.

What do their ages and personal lives have to do with any of this? I have never read any of Bono’s songs as being remotely personal. He’s creative enough to imagine the perspectives of totally different people. He’s making it up, because that’s how real artists work. They make things up. Things that have nothing to do with themselves or their lives.

At any rate lyrics and the messages are very similar, not the words, but the ideas within them. Based on wording alone, Taylor’s much later song added nothing new to Bono’s much superior one. It’s derivative.

I guess Taylor is a real artist to you the! She writes a lot of songs that are total fiction or from someone else’s perspective. Champagne Problems, Dorothea, the last great American dynasty, august, Starlight, cardigan, Betty, epiphany, Ronan, tolerate it, no body no crime. All about things that have nothing to do with them or their lives.

[Anonymous]

It’s such a sad reach to say “All Too Well” is cribbed off of “one”
They are songs and that’s where the similarity ends.
Almost as embarrassing as comparing “Graceland” to “blank space”
I don’t know what is going on with this thread, but everyone needs to stick to their day jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mansplaining on this thread is ridiculous. I feel like I’m back in college, having some drunk frat boy trying to explain music to me, explain why Paul Simon is good, explain why Bono is a genius and why modern pop stars suck and are “derivative.”

It reminds me of “We are never getting back together” when Taylor makes fun of her ex for hiding “away to find your piece of mind with some indie record that’s MUCH cooler than mine.”

We get it… Anyone who does not like Taylor Swift is a musical genius and the rest of us don’t know anything and it’s up to you to tell us why.

The mansplaining condescension is nauseating. Sorry, she’s a billionaire. She knows more than these people, period.

Thus we end up again with the idea that Swifties feel like they are defending all women when they defend Taylor. For some reason, her fans are buying into her because they believe they are defending themselves against the patriarchy. She makes a lot of money off that idea alone.
I think I post this every 8 pages or so, but still Taylor fans deploy the same technique. Your femininity/ level of internal misogyny isn’t marked by how much you love Taylor Swift.

[Anonymous]

I’m dying laughing at the idea that Taylor subconsciously ripped off some obscure Bono song written the year she was born because they share….one turn of phrase and a similar concept of…get this: reflecting on a past relationship. I’m the same age as Taylor and have literally never heard it before, or it’s an extremely forgettable song.