Melt Face Molly Drop
Well-Known Member
She’s almost as prolific as King Gizzard
Hot Take/ Musical Confession Thread!
- Thread starter Count_Vader
- Start date
waruv
Well-Known Member
That's not even a hot take to me at this point. I consider myself a Taylor Swift fan - own the records, listened to a ton of her over the last 15 years or so - but even with big pop stars we normally get a cyclical break. Harry Styles was in a lot of different places last year around this time and then faded out to do other stuff. Olivia was everywhere in the Sour era, dropped for a year and change, and then came back with Guts. Taylor Swift media just never fuckin goes away. It's brilliant on her part but people need to throw her into freaking everything and it's inescapable. We went from Midnights (Anti-Hero, Karma) -> Eras Tour Dominating News Cycles -> The Breakup -> Cruel Summer Revival / TS1989 -> Eras Tour Film Release -> Swift/Kelce -> New Album in the span of like 15 months. Any one of those events of those along would create suitable buzz for most pop stars but it's just endless fodder.
No joke, I had to ask my GF for a Taylor Swift discussion moratorium during peak Eras Tour nonsense as it became truly problematic.
Edit: To @Fleetwood-Matt 's post, it's impossible to even be mildly critical of her with fans without getting just a ton of crap and I feel like as much as she got a slew of ridiculous crap in her Red/1989/Reputation cycle from people, her fans are being just as abrasive and obsessive as the anti-Swift folks were then.
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Fleetwood-Matt
Well-Known Member
This is my issue. Every other artist gets hurt when they are overexposed but it just has no negative affect on her. I don’t even hate her/her music specifically but I am beyond exhausted of her because of the press cycle and her fanbase. My whole family is literally obsessed with her and I can’t escape it. Even a mild criticism of her is blown into a big deal by her fans
Last 2 weeks I was posting ratings for the AOTY noms on instagram. I got zero reaction on any of them but my mid rating for her elicited numerous messages of people upset and disagreeing with me
Indymisanthrope
Well-Known Member
I think the most interesting phenomenon about her is that she's able to do it while sticking to basically two things, music and tabloid gossip. No major scandals, no reality show, no guest appearances on SNL, no movie cameos that spin up into an acting career...
For most artists, that trajectory is critical to staying relevant. Timberlake, Gaga, Beyonce, The Weeknd, Travis Scott, Ariana Grande...they all do it. For TS to oversaturate us this much while basically sticking to just her main career track is pretty remarkable.
Edit: okay she's done more acting than I could recall. Man, her filmography is dire though. So far in the 2020s it's just Cats and Amsterdam, two of the most notorious flops of the decade.
Melt Face Molly Drop
Well-Known Member
It’s the timing of her 2 album releases at the height of covid (and 5 in 5 years), coupled with all 4 of her re-recordings being released in that same timeframe. Then her relationship catapulting her into the stratosphere. Chiefs winning has also helped. Double that down with some Grammy wins, a gigantic tour, and baby, you got a stew goin’
boychik0830
Well-Known Member
I don't hate Taylor swift but I definitely think that She's overrated. People only buy stuff of hers because how popular she is. For most other artists People don't feel like they have to rush out and buy vinyl or other merchandise from their favorite artists like they do with Taylor.
Fleetwood-Matt
Well-Known Member
I just don’t understand how an artist like The Weeknd gets hurt by being overexposed but she can do all of this and she isn’t affected. 5 albums in 5 years and the sales are only going up, how aren’t her more casual fans exhausted. Gizz is a fun comparison here because I refuse to keep up with all of their albums no matter how much I love them, but even her most casual fans will keep up with her nonstop releases
Indymisanthrope
Well-Known Member
"Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded"
wokeupnew
Well-Known Member
These two comments are kind of related. I think Taylor has transcended norms and what we think should happen. Fans should get tired of all this music… but they just haven’t. It’s not a cult but it is very very close to it with the most extreme fans.
I’m Just Ken
The Man Behind The Tan
This is a take.
Melt Face Molly Drop
Well-Known Member
This is just a very half baked take.
I’m Just Ken
The Man Behind The Tan
TenderLovingKiller®
Well-Known Member
I am amused by the backlash on here. N&G via Folklore was a safe space for atypical Swifties.
The overexposure doesn’t bother me. It probably helps that no one in my life really cares about Taylor Swift.
The overexposure doesn’t bother me. It probably helps that no one in my life really cares about Taylor Swift.
waruv
Well-Known Member
This will be a bit of a thinkpiece and either far too hot takey or far too thinky for this thread but here it goes. boychik's post got me to think on this a bit as I do think the point was half-baked but there is something there.
One of Taylor Swift's most interesting qualities as a musician, and this goes back to the very start, is that she never makes music that feels - for the lack of a better word - inaccessible or that makes her feel that way. For as long as I can remember listening to music, our biggest musicians who filled arenas in the pop realm eventually got to the point where the music they made felt like songs meant to relate to people who don't exist. Often this was intended - the appeal of a Britney Spears is that she is an inaccessible, beautiful, popstar. Katy Perry leads off with I Kissed a Girl and is doing songs that just feel like they happened in places that you'll never see. Even someone like Ed Sheeran who is as down to Earth as you get paints scenes that feel like complete fantasies you see in movies but that are a step too far to happen in real life.
Taylor doesn't do music like that. She is very, very careful and deliberate about making the more fantastic songs feel more like "story" pieces - like even songs like Blank Space or Anti-Hero establish her as a character, not necessarily "Taylor" - the Taylor you see in every other song. Some are just straight, pure real-life song writing and simple scenario crafting (a ton of the S/T and Fearless and Speak Now were like this - pointed pieces that did happen to her or things most of us have kind of imagined or can easily image. Some of the more radical takes and songs are still couched and grounded to at least a feeling we all get. Take Bad Blood - none of us will ever go to verbal war with an international pop star which is what this is - but the feeling of a perceived friend betraying you and wanting to fight them and take it out verbally? For sure.
Just as importantly, at least until very recently - her image wasn't really ever that either. This feels truly effing insane to say about an artist who put out Reputation and the theatrics surrounding that, but there was always an intention to have fans fully understand what was coming before it happened. Reputation makes sense in the wake of the Kardashian/West "betrayal" of it all. The glacially slow transition from country to pop. The jolt to Lover to Folklore/Evermore all made sense with what was happening to and what Taylor Swift was actually doing. And what it did is what pop stars have failed to do for eons that genre stars actually can do - maintain fans who feel like they're supporting Taylor Swift (the human being). In many ways, Taylor Swift (the person) seems great and is the person behind Taylor Swift (the performer) who does exactly what we all want to do when "things" happen to us. Evermore/Folklore coming out as we were all stuck indoors felt...genuine, if nothing else, like how many of us felt. The TVs make sense as the fight over her labor, work, sweat, and tears against obvious villains. It's what we dream of - the work we put in being taken back from those who steal it. So even if she dates luminaries, flies around on private jets, and is the biggest star in the world, it's very rare that she herself ever lets us see that or feel like she wants us to see it .She may and probably does, but it's not her portrayal.
Which kind of gets back to three posts in this thread
I think the difference is that, at least until the Midnights cycle - it was all moderated to some extent. Taylor was and is a MASSIVE musician and tabloid fodder, but you could kind of easily avoid the narrative otherwise. She was building up a massive base of true-blue fans over a generation but you know, it was its own universe like most musicians are. The sheer popularity of the Eras tour then pushed that outwards - the album cycle became a "tour" cycle and a "film" cycle and a "political" cycle and a "sports" cycle. So if you're a film person or a news person or a sports person you can no longer safely not have an opinion on Taylor and talk about her - and given that Taylor is great and polarizing, it just makes it so much more difficult to avoid the discourse, and more people don't want to miss out on an opportunity to be part of it.
This is probably a lot of nonsense to be honest, and to be clear, I still really do like most of her music and her as a person, I just think it makes some sense that we're seeing backlash. For so many years, to steal her phrase, she was the girl in the bleachers. Then she became the cheerleader. Then she became the star of the game. Then she became all of it, and the all of it is pushing other people out of the discussion and bringing in people who aren't ones we want to work around or with. And it's not really her fault but I think it's become just so...omnipresent that it's increasingly unplesant. Pizza's great but I don't want pizza every day.
I feel kind of bad honestly, as I think Taylor Swift is genuinely a great person and a legitimate role model, so we go.
One of Taylor Swift's most interesting qualities as a musician, and this goes back to the very start, is that she never makes music that feels - for the lack of a better word - inaccessible or that makes her feel that way. For as long as I can remember listening to music, our biggest musicians who filled arenas in the pop realm eventually got to the point where the music they made felt like songs meant to relate to people who don't exist. Often this was intended - the appeal of a Britney Spears is that she is an inaccessible, beautiful, popstar. Katy Perry leads off with I Kissed a Girl and is doing songs that just feel like they happened in places that you'll never see. Even someone like Ed Sheeran who is as down to Earth as you get paints scenes that feel like complete fantasies you see in movies but that are a step too far to happen in real life.
Taylor doesn't do music like that. She is very, very careful and deliberate about making the more fantastic songs feel more like "story" pieces - like even songs like Blank Space or Anti-Hero establish her as a character, not necessarily "Taylor" - the Taylor you see in every other song. Some are just straight, pure real-life song writing and simple scenario crafting (a ton of the S/T and Fearless and Speak Now were like this - pointed pieces that did happen to her or things most of us have kind of imagined or can easily image. Some of the more radical takes and songs are still couched and grounded to at least a feeling we all get. Take Bad Blood - none of us will ever go to verbal war with an international pop star which is what this is - but the feeling of a perceived friend betraying you and wanting to fight them and take it out verbally? For sure.
Just as importantly, at least until very recently - her image wasn't really ever that either. This feels truly effing insane to say about an artist who put out Reputation and the theatrics surrounding that, but there was always an intention to have fans fully understand what was coming before it happened. Reputation makes sense in the wake of the Kardashian/West "betrayal" of it all. The glacially slow transition from country to pop. The jolt to Lover to Folklore/Evermore all made sense with what was happening to and what Taylor Swift was actually doing. And what it did is what pop stars have failed to do for eons that genre stars actually can do - maintain fans who feel like they're supporting Taylor Swift (the human being). In many ways, Taylor Swift (the person) seems great and is the person behind Taylor Swift (the performer) who does exactly what we all want to do when "things" happen to us. Evermore/Folklore coming out as we were all stuck indoors felt...genuine, if nothing else, like how many of us felt. The TVs make sense as the fight over her labor, work, sweat, and tears against obvious villains. It's what we dream of - the work we put in being taken back from those who steal it. So even if she dates luminaries, flies around on private jets, and is the biggest star in the world, it's very rare that she herself ever lets us see that or feel like she wants us to see it .She may and probably does, but it's not her portrayal.
Which kind of gets back to three posts in this thread
I think the difference is that, at least until the Midnights cycle - it was all moderated to some extent. Taylor was and is a MASSIVE musician and tabloid fodder, but you could kind of easily avoid the narrative otherwise. She was building up a massive base of true-blue fans over a generation but you know, it was its own universe like most musicians are. The sheer popularity of the Eras tour then pushed that outwards - the album cycle became a "tour" cycle and a "film" cycle and a "political" cycle and a "sports" cycle. So if you're a film person or a news person or a sports person you can no longer safely not have an opinion on Taylor and talk about her - and given that Taylor is great and polarizing, it just makes it so much more difficult to avoid the discourse, and more people don't want to miss out on an opportunity to be part of it.
This is probably a lot of nonsense to be honest, and to be clear, I still really do like most of her music and her as a person, I just think it makes some sense that we're seeing backlash. For so many years, to steal her phrase, she was the girl in the bleachers. Then she became the cheerleader. Then she became the star of the game. Then she became all of it, and the all of it is pushing other people out of the discussion and bringing in people who aren't ones we want to work around or with. And it's not really her fault but I think it's become just so...omnipresent that it's increasingly unplesant. Pizza's great but I don't want pizza every day.
I feel kind of bad honestly, as I think Taylor Swift is genuinely a great person and a legitimate role model, so we go.
TrainFan73
Frothy
The hip hop thread would like a word with you.
TrainFan73
Frothy
I mean is there really a backlash, we’re all pretty much in agreement that Midnights is not her best work and that she should maybe take a vacation.
Are we? You are? Is everyone else?
TrainFan73
Frothy
Is it your favorite album by her? I don’t think there is one person here who has said it is her best work. There are degrees of it’s number 2 to 20 or whatever…
No but that’s not the implication of your post. It’s not red or 1989 but equally it’s a really good solid fun pop album that reviewed well and probably sits just below them and above lover and reputation in her pop canon.
TrainFan73
Frothy
Which gets to my point is there really a backlash here?