Hating Taylor Swift: The World’s Old New Sport
So are we all supposed to be hating on Taylor Swift again? Is that what the summer of 2016 protocol calls for? Because God forbid that I’m out of fashion here. I mean when I was railing on Taylor Swift for saddling up with Max Martin on 1989 to manufacture derivative pop songs, I was chastised at large because didn’t I know that she stood up to Spotify and Apple, and how self-aware “Blank Space” was?
I thought Ryan Adams covering Taylor Swift’s 1989 was a horrible machination of Swift fever run amuck. Yet who was I to criticize a record that had outsold all others and defined the sound of a generation? All of a sudden I had No Depression readers and hipsters who usually hate anything that’s popular giving me shit for my misguided notions about Ryan Adams’ brilliant homage to a musical goddess. Have I been vindicated now that Swift’s ex thinks she’s a messy bitch, and she got caught in a lie by a Kardashian?
Do you hate Taylor Swift? Well you better if you know what’s good for you, because she can’t deliver an artificial ideal of perfection, and because her failure makes us all feel better about ourselves.
I’ve been doing this shit since 2008, whether it was hip or not. Remember in 2010, when the collective world was wallowing in the ridicule of Taylor Swift after she screwed up her duet with Stevie Nicks on the Grammy Awards? Here was Saving Country Music’s response:
This is the vicious pop cycle, and sorry, but FUCK YOU, I won’t participate.
This is how it works: the mass public overly glorifies an otherwise average talent to make themselves feel “inspired,” and then when the fall starts for their starlet, it is meteoric, and fueled by the jealous, narcissistic hunger of the pop public, tearing that person down with all their spite, sinking their nails into their flesh and feeding like animals off their destruction to fill their vacuous egos. It is a sick, pathetic, and all too predictable cycle that I will not participate in.
And I won’t participate now.
So Taylor Swift is done, is she? You’re sure of that? There’s no return from getting bested by a Kardashian, and the entire sham of her marketing persona being made public? That’s your final answer?
That’s how we all felt in February of 2010. Eight months later she was releasing a record that she wrote all by herself, produced herself, and sold 4 1/2 million copies on the way to winning two Grammy Awards for her song “Mean”—a song specifically targeted to her detractors post the 2010 Grammy debacle.
“But the cycle ends right now
‘Cause you can’t lead me down that road
And you don’t know, what you don’t know…”
The cycle did end, and no, we didn’t know. Then it was Red in 2012, and 1989 in 2014, and all of a sudden Taylor Swift was the biggest music star in 25 years and you even had Ryan Adams fans singing Taylor’s praises and defending her work, despite Taylor relinquishing more and more control of her music to others over this period. But it was popular to like Taylor again. Until it wasn’t.
It’s the Tiger Woods effect. Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neil, and any number of other high-profile athletes could be known for running around on their wives and be forgiven by the public because they have never set up a false image of perfection. But Tiger was supposed to be this vessel of virtue. Like Taylor. Like Tom Brady. And as soon as a scratch in the veneer shows us that lo and behold, they’re human, it’s hip to join the dogpile. It’s sport.
Perhaps Taylor Swift is a messy bitch. But show me a great artist who wasn’t?
So what exactly are we supposed to do now that Taylor cheesed off her ex-boyfriend and got caught in a semi-lie by Kim Kardashian? Do we regret 1989‘s Grammy for Album of the Year like Marisa Tomei’s Oscar? Are you really surprised that all of the staged Instagram photos were a facade? You really didn’t know this before? You think it’s any different for Ryan Adams or anyone else? Or is it really surprising to us that Taylor got angry for being called “that bitch” in a song, and had the image of her naked body splayed all over the internet in a video? Wouldn’t you get a little bit out of your skull in that instance?
Of course Taylor Swift is more marketing than man. And now that her music is an artifice of hired gun hitmakers like Shellback and Max Martin, she doesn’t even have that to fall back on like in 2010.
But counting Taylor Swift out? Not I.
Whether Swift is being couched as the biggest superstar in decades, or public enemy #1 on Twitter, she has always remained who she is: an average girl. That’s not a knock. It’s her average-ness that is at the heart of her appeal, and her genius is understanding this. She’s gorgeously average. It’s the vulnerability that she’s willing to expose through her songs that makes them connect with so many. Because we’re all flawed. Like Taylor. We just hate when she reminds us of that in the real world, so we take it out on her instead of ourselves.
Mike
July 19, 2016 @ 9:04 am
I like Taylor Swift. I think many of her songs are well written and it’s easy to see that she’s meticulously worked to improve her craft (writing, singing, and performing). Plus she doesn’t rest on her laurels and doesn’t let her detractors dictate her genre, even if they do obviously influence her material. All that said, I’m not a big fan of her music. I will admit that it took me a long time to get over the lyric “when you’re on the phone and you talk real slow, cause it’s late and your mama don’t know.” I still get the image of some idiot talking really loud and slow, somehow not understanding how low and slow are different things. In any case, Taylor Swift is talented… I don’t begrudge anyone for like her or her music.
Justin L. Williams
July 20, 2016 @ 9:21 am
My daughter is 19 and likes Taylor Swift. I am just too damned old. I hate her voice, don’t get the songs and don’t know or care anything else about the destruction of the western world or whatever? She just leaves me longing to hear Emmylou singing a Burger King menu or anything.
seak05
July 19, 2016 @ 9:15 am
This is really good (& as a golf/sports fan the Tiger reference is spot on). I don’t think Taylor is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I respect the fact that she has done much of her own songwriting/producing. I just in general despise that part of our culture that makes up put people on pedestal’s and then rip them down.
zen
July 19, 2016 @ 9:19 am
…all this could well be a setup http://elitedaily.com/entertainment/taylor-swift-music-video-director-tweets-kardashians/1557200/
Andrew
July 19, 2016 @ 9:25 am
I don’t really care.
Aggie14
July 19, 2016 @ 9:50 am
Taylor Swift has taken a lot of flack for a lot of things, but I personally respect her. Unlike other current country stars, she faced up to the fact that she was no longer country and got out. Granted, it took some time, but she isn’t like these other idiots (Thomas Rhett, FGL, Keith Urban) that maintain they’re country artists, when in fact they’re anything but. Make whatever music you want, but don’t slap a genre on it that doesn’t match!
Mike
July 19, 2016 @ 9:55 am
That’s the difference between being successful making the music you want to make and being successful only because you’re making the music your format dictates.
Jim Bob
July 19, 2016 @ 10:00 am
I haven’t given two shits about her since she said “I’m not country.” That’s where my beef with her ended. Hell, I halfway respected her for that.
Bertox
July 19, 2016 @ 10:19 am
Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate….that’s what people say-ee-yay (sorry, couldn’t resist)
Jen
July 19, 2016 @ 11:16 am
I really couldn’t care less about her, but either Tom Hiddleston is an idiot, or he’s just playing the game. Waiting to hear the next ex bashing song…who will it be about, this time? She broke up with Calvin, like we all knew she would, now how long will she string Tom along? Maybe it’s all part of a game, to give Taylor more airtime, more print, and more attention. Either way, I don’t care about her, but I feel sorry for any fool stupid enough to date her, and just have to wonder if they’re being paid for it. BTW: look up Key of Awesome for some hilarious Taylor Swift parodies! They have nailed her!
Robert S
July 19, 2016 @ 12:01 pm
50 ! Key of Awesome does have its moments.
liza
July 19, 2016 @ 1:51 pm
She’s 26 and always in the public eye. It will be difficult for her to have a relationship as it is for many young celebrities these days. I think she should continue as she is…she’s way too young to settle down and if something isn’t working, she should move on. I think she’s smart, talented, a bit immature, and probably loads of fun. I think any guy would be lucky to be in her orbit for a while.
Shane
July 19, 2016 @ 4:47 pm
No kidding Jen. When I heard Swift had found herself another beau my first thought was “She must need some new material”.
albert
July 19, 2016 @ 11:24 am
….and why is it we’re paying attention to the Kardashians , much less TS again ..? WTF ? I didn’t realize they were still around . This circus is the epitome of pointless , un-redeeming , vacuous , shameless sex-and-looks-sell self -promotion …a lowest common denominator of gossip and fodder aimed at the undiscerning and otherwise unaware element of society – THE VERY YOUNG in years or in mind .
Derek Sullivan
July 19, 2016 @ 11:30 am
It’s too bad that Swift quit writing her own music. Sparks Fly, in retrospect, was pretty great. Was it country? Not really, but it was a lot of things. My wife loves it and we were just listening to it the other day and I feel it holds up well.
To me, most of the songs on 1989 sound the same and are kind of dumb.
Derek Sullivan
July 19, 2016 @ 11:38 am
Sorry I meant the album Speak Now. I need to work on my Swift knowledge.
Nadia Lockheart
July 19, 2016 @ 1:43 pm
Much of “RED” was also exquisitely written once you got past the Max Martin/Shellback collaborations and a couple other filler tracks. “All Too Well” is among her best recordings to date, in my opinion, along with “Treacherous”, “State of Grace” and “Stay Stay Stay”.
If there’s one trait of Taylor Swift that gets grating, it’s her penchant for writing her share of vengeful, passive-aggressive songs concerning her relationships. I cringed hearing “Bad Blood” for that reason, and we already knew upon her releasing that that she can be compelling when she writes more emotionally complex songs like “Back To December”. It just feels forced when she does the former by this point.
When she released “1989”, she stated she was embracing pop music fully because it presented a challenge to her. Well, guess what? Now that she has mastered that feat, she needs to up her game in the songwriting department rather than doubling down on a mostly dumbed-down formula. I’m confident she can, but I’m wondering if her thin-skinned tendencies may result in more pointless jabs at Katy Perry, Calvin Harris and others put to song and using her existing formula to success just to keep trying to besting Katy Perry in pop culture relevancy.
albert
July 19, 2016 @ 5:55 pm
“…. she needs to up her game in the songwriting department rather than doubling down on a mostly dumbed-down formula ”
Agreed , Nadia . Unfortunately and for the most-part , today’s pop ( and country ) music is all about ‘dumbed down formula ‘ and seems more and more to be headed in that direction for the reasons I stated in my above post . Read any pop lyric on the page . Just the lyric . Nuthin’ much going on there in terms of original or fresh or clever…. much less mature.
I think TS is all about TS ..HUGE ego fed non-stop by adoring minions who are really just about being part of a cultural thing and not so much about art or talent or smarts . She’s a poser …loves the limelight ….loves attention , obviously , seems to live a staged life on all fronts and is so FAR from real people’s real life experience that its almost humorous how gullible her minions seem in spite of this . Of course this isn’t new. Just disappointing in terms of the depths this fandom has sunken to in the absence of REAL talent and vision . Bring on the studio techies , the synth-meisters , the software and and drum machines and put ANY pretty face you want in the mix then market market market to the kids ( and their moms ) who are all about trend and pop culture.
Saying all of this , what the hell does any of it have to do with saving country music . How ’bout we declare this a Swift-free zone ? ‘
Marky mark
July 20, 2016 @ 5:52 am
Regarding the first two thirds of your second paragraph, sounds like your talking about trump and his supporters. …although that has nothing to do with saving country music either!
The Senator
July 20, 2016 @ 6:51 am
Hillary and her supporters would fit the same description.
Really, any cult of personality centered around an overexposed public figure would fit those words.
Lefty Throckmorton
December 26, 2023 @ 12:12 pm
Regarding her current (as of 12/26/2023) political awakening that has the left-wing progressive media sphere all amazed and supporting her, why couldn’t she write some decent protest songs about what’s bugging her, like many other artists in the past and present? That would do more for the nation (and the world) then just making what to me is (frankly) a PR stunt to get her more fans (telling people to vote, mainly younger people.)
As I’ve said elsewhere recently, I know of better female singer/songwriters than Swift, and they write better music than she does (one example being Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent who came out with this song about society’s overreliance on social media, Digital Witness;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVAxUMuhz98&pp=ygURRGlnaXRhbCBXaXRuZXNzZXM%3D). This to me is better than Swift’s songs about falling in love and breaking up.
Adrian
July 19, 2016 @ 11:46 pm
Derek, how old is your wife? E.g. Is she a 20 year old sorority girl, or is she a mother of tween daughters?
BlackHawgDown
July 19, 2016 @ 12:24 pm
She was always overrated as a singer. She never could sing great live. But as a song writer she was always very talented.
liza
July 19, 2016 @ 1:53 pm
She’s charming and engaging live, though. I haven’t seen her since her earliest years, but I thought that then.
63guild
July 19, 2016 @ 12:48 pm
got to love the irony though, telling people you dont want to be part of narrative you never asked to be in, but writing songs and publicly dissing exes when they didnt ask for that as well.
liza
July 19, 2016 @ 2:01 pm
Did she name any ex in a song, other than possibly Dear John? The narrative she refers to began with being pushed off stage during an acceptance speech.
63guild
July 19, 2016 @ 3:33 pm
no, but she has admitted particular songs were about particular exes and gave the names. again putting them in narratives Im sure they didnt want to be part of.
Katrina
July 19, 2016 @ 7:55 pm
Everyone knows full well that she is a song writer that uses her personal experiences, but they go ahead and date her anyway. So they have accepted to be part of the “narrative” so to speak.
63guild
July 20, 2016 @ 3:15 am
songs are one thing I agree, but there have been petty public interactions as well of her throwing someone under the bus. just dont go crapping on others and when it comes back your way be surprised.
BEH
July 19, 2016 @ 1:23 pm
Who’s Taylor Swift?
Mike W.
July 19, 2016 @ 1:55 pm
I don’t really care about Taylor Swift. That being said, her being torn down is so quintessentially American entertainment media/fans. Prop people up until they reach the mountain, then tear them down into the gutter and then cheer massively if they rebound and “overcome their burdens”. Lots of people (including Swift and her management team) have projected this image of her as the “Perfect All American Girl”, so it’s no surprise that the losers who support the gossip rags and TMZ’s of the world are now more than happy to tear her down for not having enough flaws.
Again, I’m no Taylor Swift fan and certainly not a fan of her music, but this sick fascination parts of this Country and the World have with propping up celebrities to the point they are treated as quasi “Gods” and then tearing them down is rather disturbing.
Sidenote, I wonder if Ms. Swift regrets leaving the Country world at this point? Had she stayed within the genre, I bet the blowback against her from mainstream sources would be far lighter than what she is/will be experiencing now. Yeah, people like myself and other readers of this sight would dislike her music, but Country artists generally are insulated in the Nashville/Music Row bubble. In short, Swift probably ain’t dealing with sycophants like Mr. and Mrs. Kardashian-West on the entertainment world’s stage.
Trigger
July 19, 2016 @ 9:43 pm
25 comments in, and finally someone gets the point of this article.
zen
July 21, 2016 @ 7:09 am
Taylor Swift regrets leaving country music? Are you kidding? She loves the media attention and all the drama, she loves the fame, she loves the money.
She lives for all of this things…and that’s why she left country music in the first place.
Jen
July 19, 2016 @ 1:58 pm
This, right here sums up music today:
https://youtu.be/70yznk16kmw
albert
July 19, 2016 @ 6:10 pm
that video absolute NAILS it , Jen . Its encouraging to see that not every young person has been hoodwinked ( how do you like THAT old school vernacular ? ) into believing that the music being fed to them is any more than what this video points out . I’d say it was brilliant but its far too obvious to be brilliant . You just need to choose to be awake to see it for what it is . Shit .
Fuzzy TwoShirts
July 19, 2016 @ 2:28 pm
Taylor Swift is a great person, despite the fact that she is a middling talent who writes unremarkable songs, she has a lot of character, and she doesn’t pretend to be something she isn’t, and stands up for what she believes in…
I think that’s what the greater public sees in her… authenticity, in a world of fake, processed music, she doesn’t call her detractors old farts, or say “I hear so much George Jones or George Strait” or tell people “my team made a mistake, I’ll own that” or “get over my affair and quit calling me bro-Country.”
She ignores her detractors and makes her own art (the dubious amount of Max Martin influence being the elephant in the room) and does so like a mature adult, who simply accepts that people won’t like it.
In spite of the poor quality of her music, and the unusually-worse-than-usual quality of 1989, she’s a celebrity we could still use, because she’s not a scandal-celebrity, she’s not a clickbaiter… (the most recent escapade notwithstanding)
in our scandal driven, “who said what” make-the-biggest-headline media universe, she stands out because she has withstood the powers that be and has remained a modicum of self-control and maturity, in a world full of celebrities who trash other celebrities and make everything they can public in a never-ending battle to out-headline another celebrity.
Much like Trigger, Swift has never played their game.
She has always let her art, and her character, speak for itself.
And even though her art isn’t great, it’s real, and she doesn’t insult people for not liking it, and she’s been honest about it.
Take note Luke, Blake, FGL, Aldean.
Adrian
July 20, 2016 @ 12:05 am
I have a different perspective. I don’t see anything special about her character. On the other hand, I think the girl has amazing political skills and marketing savvy. She is where she is in the entertainment business because she is able to read her audience better than any other modern celebrity. She perceives the emotions of the typical 12-18 year old female, their hopes and dreams and fears. She convinced them that she feels their pain, just like a former President from Arkansas. And she will talk her way out of an apparent lie just as effortlessly as Slick Willie did. It is a special talent of sorts, but one that has little to do with music.
Corncaster
July 19, 2016 @ 2:51 pm
She looks like a mannequin. She’s probably a pain in the ass. She writes catchy, fairly frivolous songs. My daughter likes her and hears in Swift the current conversational idiom. She’s adept at the “star” thing.
Erik North
July 19, 2016 @ 4:57 pm
Not that I am a fan of hers by any means, but I do think some of the Taylor Swift bashing does go over the top because of her celebrity status, and for reasons that often seem to have little to do with what she does inside her profession. The media attention around incidents like her run-ins with the Kardashians (who, God knows, should have been consigned to the dustbin years ago), her confrontations with Kanye West, and all of her breakups with guys that lead later to songs is just par for the course in our media-obsessed world where, as Andy Warhol was famous for saying, anyone can be famous for fifteen minutes. Obviously, her fifteen minutes are going far too slowly for most of us.
That said, however, at the risk of sounding like a gratuitous basher, I still have a lot of problems with T-Swift as a singer, regardless of genre, country, pop, or otherwise. Her voice still sounds irritating to my ears; the production on her records is way over-processed, and a lot of her material just sounds too teenybopper-like given that she is 26 years old. Occasionally, she has done more acoustic folk/country songs like “Begin Again” and “Back To December”, which do reveal the kind of singer AND songwriter she could conceivably be if she would work a lot harder on the substance and a little bit less on the surface stuff.
But it’s one thing to be adept at being a “star”, and quite another at being a great singer. Right now, she’s good at the first, but quite mediocre at the latter. It could all vanish if she doesn’t knuckle under and fix the things that are wrong,
David
July 19, 2016 @ 5:10 pm
So, any word on when she will be releasing another country album? When she announced she was leaving country, all the local country stations dropped her like a hot potato. I probably went a year without hearing more than one or two of her songs. Now, over the last month or so, she’s back. On the stations I listen to, her old music is getting about as much airplay as anyone. I’ve heard everything from “Tim McGraw” to “Begin Again.” I suppose it could just be a coincidence, if those actually existed on radio, but everything on radio is too orchestrated for that (Gibbs’ Rule 39 definitely applies). Maybe she isn’t coming back, but I think something is up.
Adrian
July 20, 2016 @ 8:36 am
I don’t think she will return to the “country” genre. Initially Nashville gave her the space to start her career, with less direct competition for teen female fans. But country was not and is not a big enough genre for her ambitions. Also much of her initial 10-18 year old suburban female fan base has become an 18-25 year old urban female audience, as girls went to college and moved to the cities. She had to adapt to stay relevant and grow commercially. If she had stayed in the “country” genre, she could have continued to play the young and innocent girl act until she was about 25, then her career would probably have reached the end of the road. Positioning herself as a pop artist and moving to the big city also makes much more sense if she were to pursue a career in acting, or in politics, in the future.
BwareDWare94
July 19, 2016 @ 5:20 pm
I think Taylor Swift bashing is popular because she’s so clearly talented but sacrifices that talent for mostly boring music. I understand the vocal criticisms, but I think at this point it’s just plain false to say that she isn’t a great singer. Her voice and technique have developed very well. I’d say my favorite piece by her is still the Civil Wars collaboration, though I can’t think of the title.
I’ve said it before–get back to me when she’s closet to 40. I think we’re in for some great material later in her career.
Nadia Lockheart
July 19, 2016 @ 6:08 pm
“Safe And Sound”?
BwareDWare94
July 19, 2016 @ 10:07 pm
That would be the song. Such great high notes.
Eduardo Vargas
July 19, 2016 @ 7:10 pm
Well, reading the comments here leads me to be a bit surprised.
I know many will disagree with what I am about to say, but I never found Taylor Swift to be particularly authentic or even real as a singer. There’s a certain vibe I have always gotten from her that she’s basically that girl in High School whom you have a crush on but rejects you because he’s interested in the bad boy / or worse that she the kind of person that is extremely kind and nice only to backstab you when you aren’t looking.
Of course, none of this means that she’s necessarily that kind of person, but it does kind of surprise me how the public in general is so surprised about how she really isn’t the “good girl” she proclaims to be when in reality she hasn’t been that for a very long time if you actually where paying attention.
Clearly when every time you break up with someone and paint yourself as the “victim” in the song you know something is clearly not right.
TheBoomStick
July 19, 2016 @ 7:19 pm
On one hand, the accusations of her playing the victim,her dating men of debatable sexual orientation, her PR game, and the white feminism do deserve criticism, it’s the “Why’s” of everything that strikes me as weird.
That and the rumors of her being a closeted homosexual since before her 1st LP would certainly explain her management team’s inability to pass her off as “authentic”, let alone heterosexual, to anyone paying attention.
Bear
July 19, 2016 @ 10:18 pm
Hey if she is all PR stunts who is to say she didn’t work with Kim and Kanye to manufacture this new PR stunt, working for the long con as it were?
But coming from a family where my parents tried to so hard to create the perfect image in order to maintain their status and image Taylor Swift ALWAYS seemed phony to me. Like to good to be true phony. Normal people in my experience are messy, it’s the crazy one’s who try so hard to be normal.
Adrian
July 20, 2016 @ 12:10 am
I still wonder if the 2009 VMA incident was a set up all along. It just fit the stereotypical Hollywood script a little too well.
Summer Jam
July 20, 2016 @ 2:28 am
I like Taylor alot. I don’t own any of her albums but I’m definitely a fan. I love who she is as a person too. She grew up only about an hour from where i live in PA.
Angelo Rinaldi
July 20, 2016 @ 3:33 am
Kanye and Kim are kinda irrelevant, so they keep using Taylor (the biggest popstar in the world) to try to be relevant.
None of this will affect TS, her next album will be very huge (at least in terms of sales/success).
1989 wasn’t great, but it still had very good material. Clean, This Love, Style, New Romantics and others are great pop songs, better then everything you’ll ever hear from Rihanna or Katy Perry. Unlike them, Taylor really puts herself into her music.
She is a tireless worker, she puts on shows that last over 2 hours!
She even stood up for matters involving the music business (spotify, apple).
I respect her very very much.
And let’s stop saying “she dates guys only to write songs about them, she should grow up!”. Every songwriter writes about his/her own life, and you on this site should know it very well. Sometimes these songs are average (We Are Never Getting Back Together anyone? ahah), but sometimes they’re kinda great (Back To December and Dear John are my favorites).
In the end, people actually care about her albums. Not just her hit singles (like Katy and Rihanna). She can sell so much because she has something more than the average popstar.
I’m pretty sure she will be remembered in 30 years, just like Madonna. She really has something.
Adrian
July 20, 2016 @ 8:25 am
She is a cult figure, kind of like a mini Trump for young girls. Her appeal is more about the cult of personality and identity politics than anything else. She also plays the populist card. She claims to be fighting for small indie music artists, though she is not one of them. Just as Donald claims to represent the blue collar American worker, though he is not one of them. She has also been very agile in changing the style of her music, and she is able to do so because many of her fans care about albums because they are attached to her personality and how they think she identifies with them. Many of her fans identify with her regardless of whether she releases “country” or pop music, just as many of Donald’s supporters do not care whether he is a Democrat or a Republican.
zen
July 20, 2016 @ 4:46 am
In the celebrity world, when people write about you it cannot be a bad thing. That’s what show business is all about. As Simon Cowell once said “There’s one thing that is worse that bad press and that’s no press”.
Forbes recently revealed that she’s the highest paid celebrity in the world in 2016. So she is now bigger than ever….not just her fame but also her finance.
Tom Baker
July 20, 2016 @ 8:16 am
Not sure about this part: “It’s her average-ness that is at the heart of her appeal, and her genius is understanding this.”
Not sure there is much about her that is average, at least in terms of how she presents herself. What I find interesting is the dichotomy between the Taylor Swift that did the cool Christmas videos a couple of years back where she showed up at random fan’s houses with gifts and the one that has to be surrounded by her “squad” of other rich, white, skinny, attractive model friends. If in that latter move she was showing any sense of “how did I get here, you can too!!” then I would get it. But in those situations it she comes across more as “this is *us* – you are not allowed.” So I don’t see her as average, but rather someone who is more conscious than most at structuring the narrative surrounding her.
Adrian
July 20, 2016 @ 8:44 am
Her marketing message is, “I’m just like one of you, but you want to be just like me”.
Mixed messages are nothing new in the entertainment business. I recall about 20 years ago Shania Twain’s “Any Man of Mine” was messaging “girl power” to the gals and “come and get me” to the guys at the same time.
Trigger
July 20, 2016 @ 10:10 am
I would say the average human is pretty exclusive of who they hang out with, and tend to hang around people of the same demographic.
But your point is not lost on me.
Tom Baker
July 20, 2016 @ 12:23 pm
Social Identity Theory – in-groups and out-groups. In other words, I agree – people do tend to hang with those like them. But given who she hangs with it’s hard to think of her as “average” unless you are considering her as average relative to her identity group. Trust me, who she hangs with sure ain’t “average” relative to who I hang with! 🙂
Justin
July 20, 2016 @ 1:10 pm
Maybe she should bang trigger for making her famous instead of Kanye!
TammySwift
July 20, 2016 @ 4:43 pm
I have very little sympathy for Taylor. Yes she’s more “marketing than man” but her style of marketing has often been at the expense of making others look bad, which is why she has an such a huge list of celebrity enemies. I’m definitely not a Kardashian fan but credit where it’s due, Taylor got played at her own game this time.
That said, I agree this isnt the end for her. Musically,at least, she will bounce back because she sure can write a catchy pop tune. However, I dont see her whole “sweetheart” image recovering from this. I know she’s received backlash before but nothing on this scale.
Chris
July 20, 2016 @ 10:51 pm
A little off topic, but Trig – speaking of Max Martin’s pop puppets, what do you think of Demi Lovato’s announcement that she wants to do more country music?
Trigger
July 21, 2016 @ 9:15 am
Of course she does.
zen
July 21, 2016 @ 7:39 am
A very interesting article from Salon.com
http://www.salon.com/2016/07/20/its_all_fake_how_the_leaked_call_between_taylor_swift_and_kanye_west_exposes_the_artifice_of_celebrity_culture/
Mr. Reverb
July 21, 2016 @ 8:54 am
“Perhaps Taylor Swift is a messy bitch. But show me a great artist who wasn’t?”
I’m not sure I know what a “messy bitch” is – it seems like a highly ambiguous phrase – but not every singer-songwriter is a calculating phony, a Machiavellian schemer, or a self-involved narcissist on the level of Taylor Swift.
As far as I’m concerned, the recent pop culture events which have apparently cast Taylor Swift in a negative light have simply exposed certain character flaws she’s exhibited for a long time now. You reap what you sow.
Having said that, despite the fact that I’m not a fan, I don’t necessarily want the world to join together in “hating” Taylor Swift. I would rather they just stopped caring about her. Same goes Kanye West and the Kardashians.
ss
July 24, 2016 @ 1:56 pm
She can’t sing. She’s a fake and so she’s a perfect fit for the age of fakery.
Amy
July 24, 2016 @ 11:48 am
I might sympathize with Taylor if the situation truly were that the media put her on a pedestal and gave her an overly idealized image, and then attacked her and tore her down when she failed to live up to it with an unintentional misstep, but that’s not what happened. Taylor put herself on that pedestal; Taylor portrayed herself with an overly idealized image, and now she’s been exposed as a deliberate liar. She deserves the backlash. I’m sure she would have the public believe otherwise so that she can continue to play the victim, but I’m not buying it.
Hmmmmm
July 29, 2018 @ 12:26 am
This is a long one: I’ve recently been reading a lot of the articles you’ve done on Taylor Swift. The first few that I read were from many years ago, and they were very Taylor Swift bashing. You had your reasons, as she was invading country music when she was country-pop. Therefore, country music became so much more fluid. Also, she isn’t a good singer technically. I am actually a fan of hers, and I as well as most other fans of hers agree she should work on her technical abilities, since she never had intense vocal training. However, I was a bit put off by you claiming she could not sing at all in the past. Although not technically adept, she is a quite good emotional singer and has a pleasant tone. Plus, she has improved over the years. So, after seeing lots of articles of yours which were very anti-Taylor, it surprised me when I read that one you did where you were rooting for her to win the Grammys for ‘Mean’. Even though you didn’t like the song, you had respect for her as someone who is authentic. Also, I was suprised when I read the article you did defending her from those who said she used autotune. I thought that was really fair and well written, as so many people claim she uses autotune as they are saying she sounds off pitch during some notes. If autotune were used, like you said, she would not be off pitch. Then, I came to this article, which also suprised me. Since, although you had past grievances with Swift, you wrote this at a time when the media was trying to act like her career was over. Now, don’t get me wrong, Taylor shouldn’t have lied about never receiving any call. However, the media headlines all made it sound like she approved all of the lyrics, when she only approved the first half. The second half, the one she didn’t approve, is the one she got mad about. Also he never played her the song or the video. You are certainly correct that her fans like her in spite of, and even for, her flaws. She is a superstar but still is accessible somehow. She somehow has the ability to make stadiums feel intimate. This is true for several factors. Despite the MySpace days of replying to every email being over, she still connects with fans on social media. Even after wiping her accounts and the period where she didn’t post anything, she still liked posts and jumped into fan’s Instagram live streams. You could say this is an amazing business strategy, because it’s true, but I don’t think anyone can claim that she doesn’t like doing it. Just for the sheer amount of time she has done it for. Also, despite the Kimye incident, she is a very honest person. Whereas most people when they hit a wrong piano note in the intro to a song would try to brush it off, she tells the audience and owns up to it. When a technical difficulty happens, she talks to the audience candidly about it. When she meets fans, Swift actually talks to them like friends. It may sound like an obvious thing that every celebrity should do, but some don’t. Taylor Swift isn’t a God like people tried to make her into. Nevertheless, she isn’t deserving of so much hate. Swift can be petty, but who hasn’t been at least once, if not multiple times in their lives? She was attacked for her suprised face, but isn’t it crazy to win something? She is said to be calculating, but wouldn’t you want to put hardworking and planning into something you care about? She is attacked when people find out she donated money to a cause for ‘doing it for publicity’, but wouldn’t you want to help people if you had the money? She is attacked for having a ‘squad’, but doesn’t everyone have a group of friends they hang out with? Plus, as far as my knowledge goes, she never rejected anyone, so it was not an exclusivity thing. She writes about love and love lost, but doesn’t everyone else? Side Note: She does have several songs not about love, despite popular belief. She has had failed relationships, but hasn’t everyone? In addition, people act like she has dated a ton of people. She has only dated nine guys over the last twelve years, the ninth being her current boyfriend. Taylor Swift manages to make herself relatable by strategically being herself, so much so that fans care very much for her well being. I can’t think of a single fan that was upset when Taylor took time off. Also, since she performs an old song acoustic every night, although some fans want her to perform some of her sadder songs, they also always add that since Taylor is so genuinely happy right now, that they wouldn’t mind if Taylor didn’t play the sad song they were hoping for, just so Swift would stay in a good mood. Sharing her emotions openly is one way she also connects with her fans. For instance, fans who’ve followed her for a while know exactly which eras she feel sad or happy in. I’ve seen a thread on reddit where they were talking about what era fans would go back to if they could, and a lot of people said that although they like the Red era, since Taylor was so sad for a lot of it, they would not go back. She has sort of become family in the way that people care about her. In conclusion, Taylor is just a person like everyone else, trying to do the best she can. For example, although she dances awkwardly and endearingly, she is legitimately trying to dance well during the Reputation era. She has flaws like every human, but perseveres and plays to her strengths. She is anxiety riddled, stress filled, a perfectionist, and a huge people pleaser, but succeeding in spite of it. She works very hard and is a smart businesswoman who actually puts forethought into her actions. She lives her life how she wants to. I think she is doing a damn good job of being totally, unequivocally herself. I can respect that, and I’m glad you do as well.