Are You a Swifty?

@tylermunns 

"Taylor Swift’s music and her cynical exploitation of the American’s need for vapid pablum."

 This kind of wrinkles me. I mean, I'm no Swift apologist or celebrator, but that quote above just reeks of cultural gatekeeping -- as if you feel that you are somehow better and more astute than millions upon millions of musical appreciators in this country. It's on par with those in this community who feel that rap is not music.

@simao My description of Taylor Swift’s music (have you ever heard Taylor Swift’s music, by the way?) as constituting a “cynical exploitation of the American’s need for vapid pablum” is not at all “on par with those in this community who feel that rap is not music.”
Not in any way whatsoever. How one could make such a leap in logic, how one could draw such a comparison, is beyond me.

“Cultural gatekeeping.” Talk about yet another meaningless, vague, buzzword-infested word salad of a trendy term.
“The O’Reily Factor” with Bill O’Reily was the #1-rated cable “news” (quotation marks around ‘news’ is a must in this case) show for some 15-odd years.
In 2022, “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” was Hulu’s most-watched series premiere in the U.S.
In 2016, an objectively, indisputably vile person was ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
McDonald’s “OVER 20 BILLION BURGERS SOLD” (or whatever number the sign says).
We could go on and on.
Do YOU think those are all good things? After all, someone who never engages in “cultural gatekeeping” would never commit the egregious sin of pointing out that something is utter garbage. I mean, look at how many people buy the stuff!
Americans buy utter garbage, and they literally fall over each other in droves (note the typical opening feeding frenzy after the ranch hands ring the feeding bell at 6:00 am at a big box-store on Black Friday) trying to buy it.
This is very old news.
And no, it is neither snobbery nor “cultural gatekeeping” (whatever the hell that means) to point this out, and to call the things cited above things like “trash,” “garbage,” “objectively bad,” “drivel,” “pablum,” etc.

Just because 20 trillion burgers sold doesn’t mean it ain’t bad for ya.

@tylermunns

Count me as a fan of the vast majority of your posts in this forum, but I’m afraid this isn’t one of them. Taylor Swift’s songs about the vicissitudes of young love are at least as interesting--to cite a random example--as Fleetwood Mac’s, and many of her tunes are nearly as catchy.

The popularity of any given music is certainly not proof of its artistic merit, but neither is it proof of the lack of it. Swift writes catchy tunes that resonate with her target audience--which isn’t you or me, though on her better songs it’s not that hard to remember when.

My daughter finally got me to give her a try last summer, and I was surprised by how quickly my reflexive resistance to her music was worn down with repeated exposure to it. Before long, I found myself wanting to hear this song or that.

Sure, it can get a little syrupy in places. Young love and heartache can do that to a person, however talented and well-meaning. I’ll probably make a best-of when I have more free time this summer and enjoy the hell out of it.

@waltersalas  That’s cool.  
I just disagree with you on ol’ Taylor.
Maybe at some point I’ll feel differently.  
Maybe not.

@tylermunns 

It really helps if you have a relentless teenage daughter begging you to give it a try. In this case, I'm glad she prevailed. In other cases, not so much. I don't guess I'll ever love Imagine Dragons the way I should. 

Be well.