tarheelhockey
Offside Review Specialist
Once she started opening her mouth to talk politics she quickly went downhill.
So basically you're saying "went downhill" has nothing to do with her music and everything to do with your political biases?
Once she started opening her mouth to talk politics she quickly went downhill.
Well her music sucked when she left country and went to pop. That better?So basically you're saying "went downhill" has nothing to do with her music and everything to do with your political biases?
I don't think you listen to Taylor Swift if you say she hasn't changed as an artist. She went from country, to full out pop to now indie type music. Her sound is no where near the same as it was when she was making country albums.
Well her music sucked when she left country and went to pop. That better?
I mean no disrespect, but listen to Reputation/1989 then listen to Folklore. If you think those are the same type of music, then I guess you just have a much larger definition of pop music than I do. They have completely different sounds.To my ear, she's barely changed at all. Especially since she dropped the country flavor and went into straight pop, which is basically where she still is now. Her "indie type" music is still pop music, it just has a very slightly more adult-contemporary flavor.
Thing is, there's really nothing wrong with staying in the same range of the spectrum. I don't think anyone wants to see her put out a rap album or something. It's simply that she takes a very formulaic approach which is both inoffensive and forgettable.
FWIW, I'm not reflexively against her. I think she's done some songs which are formulaic in the right way. "You Belong with Me" is a good example of that.
I think it's funny to rip on her for releasing formulaic music, and see that contrasted (different posts, I know) with... AC/DC, who is possibly the most formulaic rock band ever. It feels like they only wrote two songs.
I didn't expect the AC/DC comment to take on so much attention
All I meant is that I know the musical sensibilities of a large portion of the entertainment forum doesn't typically lean into the realm of Taylor Swift, so this announcement may not hold much weight with a majority, but for those who do enjoy her music its a pretty intriguing development.
My favorite bands are Tool, Deftones and The Mars Volta, so Taylor Swift is far outside of my musical sensibilities too and I definitely held a lot of the earlier stated opinions on her music until 1989 came out.
1989 is actually a remarkable pop album and is arguably one of the best pop albums ever done. The production and layering of rhythms, sounds and melodies is a stroke of genius. It made me go back and revisit her catalogue and find out that there is a lot of really good content, even on the earlier bubblegum stuff. Really, she has mastered making some poppy, radio friendly, stuff that appeals and gets people to buy in and its in the grit of the album where her good material is.
But even if you didn't like 1989 and other offerings, Folklore really is completely different. She definitely isn't formulaic on the majority of her music (radio hits excluded) and I don't think you get to partner with Aaron Dessner of The National and Justin Vernon to create not one, but two albums, if you lack substance, depth and musical value.
The National and Bon Iver basically dominate a genre that is outside of Taylor Swifts musical journey prior to Folklore and they were excited to partner and collaborate to conceive these albums. I think that does make a statement about the quality of music that she has and can create. Neither of those bands need the added attention of the Taylor Swift fan base and even if they did, I don't know if it would resonate with them in a meaningful way to make it a marketing ploy.
And.. she absolutely can use her platform and fame to speak politically and talk about issues that are relevant to her. That is within her rights and nobody should be told to stick to sports, or music, or whatever else because you don't like what they have to say. She is passionate about women's rights and if she wants to promote political candidates that are also pro-women's rights, she gets to do that.
"Pop" is often a lazy derogatory term utilized by snobs of all sorts of talent levels(even musicians of high competence like Beethoven condemned Rossini because the lighter style and invasion into audience into the mind's of the Viennese public ticked him off) to condemn a style instead of any sort of real critique of the ability of a songwriter to string notes in an effective manner. Or in the case of a singer, execute the notes or for the really advanced musicians, vary the notes while not compromising the identify of the song.I mean no disrespect, but listen to Reputation/1989 then listen to Folklore. If you think those are the same type of music, then I guess you just have a much larger definition of pop music than I do. They have completely different sounds.
"Pop" is often a lazy derogatory term utilized by snobs of all sorts of talent levels(even musicians of high competence like Beethoven condemned Rossini because the lighter style and invasion into audience into the mind's of the Viennese public ticked him off) to condemn a style instead of any sort of real critique of the ability of a songwriter to string notes in an effective manner. Or in the case of a singer, execute the notes or for the really advanced musicians, vary the notes while not compromising the identify of the song.
One can get a lot done even when sticking to form. There were a lot of sonata-allegro first movement written, of varying character, but their "form" was more consistent than inconsistent for 50 or so years.
If non-conformist songwriting is what someone wants, Roy Orbison would be up at the top of the list, thanks his non-formal, mostly raw talent background.
I think there are two different things going on here... there's the matter of formulaic songwriting, and then there's this forum's preference for rock over pop. Those two ideas overlapped in a single sentiment in the OP.
In general, I do think it's fair to say that there's a pretty heavy cultural bias toward calling pop acts "generic" and rock acts "creative" even when the objective evidence says otherwise.