It’s that special time of year in Toronto when the cachet of knowing about a great new band before everybody else takes on a whole new level of urgency. And as obscure artists pound their beer-sticky kick drums for fans dying to say, years from now, “Dude, I saw them at a 3 a.m. set at the Silver Dollar before they were cool”– I will be at the Rogers Centre, peeing myself in happiness, at the Taylor Swift concert.
Knock it off with the eye-roll, already.
I’d like to think my not-hideous taste in music can be verified by having worked as a music producer at CBC, my stints writing about it for various publications, and the fact that I totally saw The National at Massey Hall the last time they were in town. I also play bass in an indie-rock band.
With sound mind and body, I heart Tay-Tay! And yet, do you think I could get a damn person to come to the concert with me and bask in an arena full of Swifty love?
It was an epic journey finding the single soul ready to defy the tired criticisms of Taylor. But I did. And now that I’m literally counting down the nanoseconds until I’ll be able to belt “We Are Never Ever Ever Getting Back Together” along with the red-lipsticked wonder herself, I’m gonna harness this giddiness to finally cast off my shame and take that hater shizz down. See, I know what your problem with Tay-Tay is:
SHE WRITES ABOUT HER EXES AND BY THE WAY SHE DATES TOO MANY BOYS
Writing about exes is not kosher for pop music? Check yourself. Stephen Stills said it like this: “How many times do people want to make fun of [Taylor Swift] for writing a song about getting dumped? I’m sorry, that’s what you do as a songwriter… Wear your heart on your sleeve, then just write about it.”
Seems to me that love has been a pretty successful source of song fodder for her and, oh, almost every other successful pop song writer ever since the Jurassic era (a time when songs were more often about hunting and consuming meat). In our time, I’d be less interested in a song about what kind of cereal Taylor ate for breakfast or how long it took to paste on those enormous false eyelashes for a red carpet gala. She has to write about something… why not the main theme of all arts and literature in human history?
And as for the number of people she dates, what does her personal life have to do with whether you like her music or not? Holla at me, Salt-N-Pepa:
That song made S&P the first female rap act to have a multi-platinum selling album back in 1993. Nineteen ninety-three. It’s time to get hip to the message, people.
HER SONGS ARE INSIPID
Insipidness is kinda in the eye of the beholder, so it’s hard to mount a case against it. However, I have a degree in English literature and have read a silly little rag you may have heard of called War and Peace–yet I find Taylor’s lyrics (which she writes and co-writes) compelling.
Off the top of my head, the opening to Red has relatively interesting imagery (“Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead end street”) and a few others moments from her new record crystalize unique images about scarves in drawers and crumpled papers and things more artistically surprising than vague laments about a broken heart.
But, again, we are talking about pop music. If you want to argue that pop is insipid, that’s cool–also, the sky is blue! Also, you can call up Paul McCartney and tell him you think The Beatles’ early, simple, dancey pop tunes were insipid! I’m sure he’ll appreciate that. And then he and his shrunken apple doll face will laugh all the way to their place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
HER SONGS ARE BAD
Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you knew more about composition than Neil Young, who’s even quoted as a fan of Taylor Swift’s writing in damn Wikipedia. By the way, that’s also where you can find out that goddess of song Stevie Nicks has said Taylor writes “songs that make the whole world sing” and has said, “It’s women like her who are going to save the music business.”
So when you say bad, do you mean that her songs are simple? Yeah, man! Her singles can definitely seem simple–there are only a few chord progressions. That’s because they’re pop songs, not B-sides off a Yes record.
Put on a set of serious headphones and you’ll hear insane levels of production that weave these simple songs into rich tapestries of sound and instrumentation. Sure, it’s all shiny and packaged and glossy. It’s meant to be that way.
When you say bad do you mean the lyrics are silly? That brings us to the immaturity debate…
SHE’S IMMATURE
I once wrote something comparing Taylor’s childlike qualities to similar ones in Dolly Parton, who, despite giggling multiple times daily, is nobody’s fool. But accepting we can never truly know Taylor or Dolly– or any other human being for that matter, let’s talk about her potentially immature music.
Taylor became famous in her teens for writing songs from a teenage point of view. And, judging by the 6:30 start time printed on my ticket for the show tonight, I’m guessing the vast majority of her fans are in the early teen demographic. She writes music appealing to this large chunk of cash-wielding fans–what’s wrong with that?
Meanwhile, I’m almost 30 and I still find her work compelling. Because, you know, sometimes it’s nice to remember what life was like before jadedness and cynicism, when everything was extreme and heated and imminent. If you want to hate idealism and earnestness, that’s your own waste of energy. Enjoy!
SHE’S ANTI-FEMINIST AND APOLITICAL
While I enjoy hunkering down into a good chunk of Betty Friedan as much as the next thoughtful woman, it is my opinion that overt feminism should not be a prerequisite for a successful pop tune.
I really don’t know why people expect her to be a beacon of politics, either in the realm of gender politics or politics-politics. She’s just rocking her career in a difficult industry by crafting insanely catchy pop tunes. And feminism fights for women’s agency so I don’t see how Taylor’s affecting such agency is anti-feminist or in poor taste. Some peeps were angered when she said she didn’t identify as a feminist. Some are disgruntled that she sometimes talks about wanting to be saved by a prince. That usually snowballs into some sort of judgment on her personal life (again, see Salt-N-Pepa above). But to me, whether she claims a feminist persona or not, Taylor Swift is a ridiculously successful female musician who makes a butt-load of money performing songs she wrote herself.
And I like them. And no, you can’t have my spare ticket.
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Brianna Goldberg is a Toronto-based producer and writer. Visit her website here.
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