Time for Taylor Swift to Take Up a Vegas Residency
Right. Taylor Swift is the most important artist of our time. She is the spirit of the age. She is the sign of the times. A few months ago news came that she was engaged to be married. Ah. No, really. Ah-ah-ah! In August the entire ladyhood of the entire world suddenly was asking itself what the significance of this change of polarity in Swift’s life is for everyone else’s life. And then in October she produced an album so bad it is making everyone notice how bad the other ones are, and perhaps how bad she is. The dream is over, as John Lennon said in 1970. No one listened to Lennon, but he was right. For some reason we have kept the young in a time capsule of 1960s California dreamin’; and every generation has to somehow escape and discover its maturity, such as it is, or can be.
Now, I know nothing about Taylor Swift. Nothing. Until today I have not listened to a single song of hers, unless you count the song of hers that Drumeo made Mike Portnoy drum to, in a performance that showed the brilliance of Portnoy and the irrelevance of whatever piffle he was drumming over.
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James, I like your philosophical musings. You write well and it’s enjoyable to read your essays.
But personally I think Taylor Swift is so uninteresting for anybody over a certain age (I’m 58), I must admit I struggled to focus on your sentences.
I find even shrugging is too much of an effort when her name comes up.
My daughter seems to have a vague interest in her music to the extent that when she’s doing something boring, like washing up dishes that can’t go in the dishwasher, she puts on some background music and occasionally it sounds like Taylor Swift (I’m never sure). But she’s young and I’m sure she’ll grow out of it.
Agreed. What was the point of that? Maybe he gets paid per word.
Imagine being interested enough to write an entire, lengthy article about a performer you’ve admitted you know nothing about.🤔 Maybe he was all out of ideas for a subject or had writer’s block.😐
Well this Taylor chappie is a cultural phenomenon, you know, so we must have an opinion (possibly even a theory or two?) about him…
I think she is an AI robot. Not AL, as in Call Me Al, but AI, as in Artificial Intelligence. Her face never moves. I couldn’t name a single song of hers. The first time I was given a name to the face was about four years ago when accompanying other families to a child’s fourth birthday party. While the harassed wife handed out mini sausage rolls the weird 45 year old father was gurning at his enormous flatscreen of this robot gyrating all over it wearing what looked like a small handkerchief. I found it all in rather bad taste. Especially with lots of small children running around.
I know little about her and cannot recall any of her songs, but it’s nice that she gives others pleasure. Music has always been a massive part of my life but I’ve never really thought about its wider or cultural significance. It’s very personal. I’ve certainly never considered what I think musicians ought to be doing with their lives or their careers. I am merely thankful that music exists and that people continue to make music that I find emotionally moving or physically stimulated.
Most bands musicians lose their mojo. I think there is a difficult transition between their initial story or approach which informs initial success and what they do after that . After that well crafted music of whatever type must come to the fore, rather than the music being a kind of carrier for their initial story message or style which has been exhausted. If you want another female artist to critique why not try Ebony Buckle. She’s a bit Kate Bushy, but sings about planets and foxes.
Very few don’t lose it. Bowie had a fantastic run – I think Scary Monsters stands up very well in comparison to work he did 10 years earlier. I can’t think of many bands/singers who have kept up quality and innovation and vigour for very long periods. Most of the artists whose entire catalogue is amazing died young – Hendrix, Nick Drake, Joy Division.
Very few don’t lose it. Bowie had a fantastic run
Bowie would have had a really hard time getting worse than he already initially was.
:->
Well, I am a fan. For people that like him I would say it’s a commonly held view that he kept up a high standard for a long time while not being stuck in a very specific mode.
What floats your boat, musically?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxej4Hl-lYQ&t=371s
While I do think this is the so-far best album of the band, I could easily have named someone else. That’s just something I listened to while dishwashing yesterday evening.
Not a band or a genre I know much about. My interest in metal stopped with Black Sabbath, unless you count Motorhead as metal (which I don’t, really).
Motörhead is a bit of an interesting phenomenon because it got started by Lemmy Kilminster after having been kicked out of Hawkwind “for taking the wrong drugs” and Larry Wallis, who was, at that time, busy with doing the guitars for the 3rd Pink Fairies album (Kings of Oblivion) which means it’s sort of a bridge between late 1960s music and what came after The Great Outburst of Total Crap™ which was the 1970s (minus a few hard rock groups). Kilminster’s insistence on “We play rock’n’roll” notwithstanding, they were a hugely influential metal band.
The label actually means very little wrt to musical style, just that it’s organizationally underground/ independent and predominantly instrumental and not vocal, usually homophon and not polyphon, free from both improvisation and Africa-influenced rhythmic and not wedded to melancholia as only permitted emotional content. Which arguably makes it totally uninteresting to the 99.999% of the people who prefer “beautifully sad” singalong ditties and get annoyed by anything which demands more attention.
Well I am not averse to a singalong ditty, happy or sad, but I do like Motorhead too. No Sleep til Hammersmith, I was there. Though I prefer Hawkwind, with or without Lemmy.
For goodness sake, she’s just a pop singer. Music for the masses and all that. If you were around in the 70s you would have seen plenty of blokes dressed in sparkly gear, wearing makeup and long hair, gyrating to inane lyrics. TS is no different.
Quite, but J. Alexander does have a penchant for waxing lyrical about the perceived shortcomings of the female sex. I feel that we women are basically the gift that won’t stop giving as far as men with a certain mindset are concerned.
I mean, that’s a lot of words dedicated almost exclusively to someone he claims to “know nothing about”.
James, I’ll take it all back if you can write a similar article in the future but for balance make the focus of your denigration and criticism a male artist you can profess to also “know nothing about”. One of them lovely young male rappers ( do such ‘role models’ for lads have a shelf life?🤔 ), perhaps, with their family-friendly, wholesome lyrics and performances? Let’s see if you can manage to work up the same level of enthusiasm/interest to pump out such a piece.🙄⏳
He already did that for an article triggered by the death of Ozzy Osborne. Or probably did that. I didn’t read this article as the text supposed to make me read it was already terminally silly.
I know nothing about Taylor Swift except that her name keeps being mentioned as if it was somehow important and I don’t plan to change that. However, assuming that pop stars can no longer remain interesting once they hit the magic American fear number of 30 years of age, surely, this must be even more true for people commenting on pop stars.
My personal theory is still that the powers who laugh about us fancy a yoof cult everyone’s constantly supposed to bow to or apologize for not being yoofy enough anymore to count is that they’re seriously old (some UN guys look positively as if they must have been contemporaries of the dinosaurs) and have long since learnt that people are the easier to fool the younger they are.
NB: I obviously didn’t read the article and don’t plan to.
I am not a radio listener and have never knowingly listened to a Taylor Swift song but must have heard at least one without knowing it was her nor hearing anything worth finding out who it was unlike for example Stairway To Heaven. Pictures of her appear regularly in the paper and she does have great legs, is apparently very tall especially in huge heels as she towered over a singer called Sabrina Carpenter known only to me by Rachel From Accounts accepting freebie tickets to her concert. Swift writes her own songs which is great as it means she makes loads of money from publishing rights, and she can also do massive tours that bring in warehouse loads of money so well done her. I found the Superbowl clip where a lot of the crowd booed when she appeared on the big screen and looked puzzled as to why a mainly Republican crowd might boo somebody who supported Kackles Kamala. I think the writer is completely wrong on the aged 30 cutoff. However, a lot of artists can start well and then hit a weak spot later on as they struggle to match their earlier output. Some can have… Read more »
I have never knowingly heard any song by Taylor Swift – a distinction she shares with Ed Sheeran and that American rapist (?) whose name was inspired by Ken Dodd’s Diddy Men – so why I read this article from beginning to end is a mystery. But it hasn’t sparked any desire to hear her music.
You could argue that society started going ‘wrong’ with the advent of pop music. Not the music itself (a little of which was very good) but the new audience of young people with money. Not a ‘yoof cult’ as such but a market for desired ‘yoof products’.
Time has worn on and the audiences for music explored for more selling opportunities. But we are debating the differing value of musical sliced white bread vs musical artisan baked bread. Perhaps Taylor Swift for all her abilities is just another product reaching her best before date?
Or a great opportunity to sell “spoof products” (like “artisan baked bread”) to a rather uncritical audience.
“James Alexander is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Turkey.” Now why would a Political Science Professor employed by a Muslim university in Turkey try to please his Muslim Turkish hosts by writing a long hit piece on this particular celebrity female musician, who prefers wearing swimming costumes while performing her pop songs in front of thousands, and from whom gifted English actor “Loki” star Tom Hiddleston had a lucky escape in romance? Might it have anything to do with the fact that an Ethnic African Rwandan convert to Islam carried out a Muslim Terrorist Attack in Southport last year, stabbing 13 White People, including 11 little girls who were celebrating the music and dancing of TAYLOR SWIFT? Who told him to do that? Who chose the target for him? Maybe the Imam of the local Southport Mosque he had been attending, who has still not been questioned? Like the Muslim Terrorist Manchester Arena attack on White People celebrating the music and dancing of Ariana Grande, wounding over 1000 people and killing 22? Or the Ethnic African Christian men’s choir members who were murdered by Muslim Terrorists in Africa for singing together at choir… Read more »
James James James…
So many fine articles, but Taylor Swift??? Kate Bush??? Yeah, ok, phwooaarrr, but otherwise, Snoooorrre.
You bought all those Kate Bush albums? Were you, er, confused back then? Mind you, there wasn’t much talent around at the time: T Willcox, K Wilde, B Carlisle, A Lennox… Males slightly more interesting: A Ant, P Weller, S Le Bon (not him, no), G Numan and of course Prince. Even D Bowie was relatively quiet in the early 80s.
There’s always something interesting in your articles James – but this time, not so much.
(Mind you, I kind of glazed over half way through, sorry)
PS – James, your Postscript – about Harvard – that woke me up. Interesting at the last moment. Your work is all appreciated, no matter how snippy the responses.
Jeremy Vine likes Taylor Swift that should tell you everything!
Immediate thoughts about female singers, you are very selective (in order to fit your hypothesis no doubt, and the hypothesis is not without some merit) but singer songwriters such as Debbie Harry only became truly successful after the age of 30, and many of her lyrics have quite a different tone compared with the sugary examples offered here. TS always reminds me of a postmodern cleaned up version of Debbie. Another example that sprung to mind is Patti Smith, with a less conventional form of attractiveness. Both still around, still working and with many fans. Smith is particularly interesting for her devoted marriage, sadly ended due to the death of Fred (sonic) Smith, and as an example of an authentic version of femininity that some men really like. Notwithstanding all of that, her lyrics and poetry reflect an interesting, thoughtful mind, a curious observer on life.
If people were allowed to be themselves a bit more, perhaps less packaged for media consumption, we might have the chance to experience a wider range of femininity. Both sexes write about sexuality, emotions, experiences but they frequently do it in different ways.
As Plato said on the internet. “Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything”
I pray to God that I never meet you in a bar because if your conversation is anything like your writing I may well be in a coma within minutes. You have an uncanny ability to make the most interesting subject boring and brevity is definitely not foremost in your ambitions.