Like her or not, Swift is carving her name in the music annals. Also, as mentioned before, she just may a significant political influencer. Like many cultural icons, I don’t think she cares too much about the people who don’t like her or her music. She is her own force..,
That is not true. What is true is that Bob Dylan is not for everybody and many have found found him to be a taste that it took time to aquire; however, a large percentage of the people who make that statement about Bod Dylan's inability to sing have never gave him any serious listening time.
Many of the negative comments remind me of the comments made about Joni, Dylan, and even Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue! Stop being old cranky MEN and open your mind….
Is she writing music like Mozart? No. Does she sing like Stills? No. But then neither does Dylan, Clapton, Blackmore nor Alicia Keys, to name just a few.
Just gave the Taylor Swift album a first listen while doing some photo work at my desk; I quite liked it; reminded me of Lana Del Rey, actually, and I like Lana. Good tunes, good lyrics, often quite dark. 👍
@tylermunns a review of the new Swift album that echoes your observations about Antonoff. I agree with the review and so far as this new album is completely forgettable.
@botrytisHow is that a disingenuous question?
Is is not disingenuous to suggest that saying, “Taylor Swift is mediocre” is the same as saying, “(parent referring to a popular artist in 60s/‘70s) it will ‘rot your brain?’”
@tylermunnsdisingenuous question. I am sure she will After all, musical sensibilities have changed and Beyonce and Taylor are the best selling artists. Also have way more awards.
@botrytisDo you think 50 years from now people will regard Taylor Swift’s music the same way we regard Chuck Berry, Little Richard, James Brown, the Beatles and Bob Dylan today?
1) Going from Rosemary Clooney/Doris Day/Frankie Laine/Patti Page,
to Elvis/Little Richard/Buddy Holly/Chuck Berry—>’60s/‘70s,
and,
2) Going from Kanye West/Lady Gaga/Bruno Mars/Katy Perry,
to Taylor Swift/BTS/Bad Bunny/Morgan Wallen.
Those two things are not alike.
1) is a radical shift in what popular music sounded like.
2) is more or less just a continuation of the same
@onhwy61, I suppose the the term sensitive is more fitting in this situation. I hate politics in today's scenario. One is reticent in the mundane act of placing a sign in your front yard or a bumper sticker on your vehicle. Having the fear of some radical defacing your private property. That's the difference of the 60's and today's radical opposites. It's truly sad and not what I feel the founding fathers desired. Differences of opinion is needed, but to the the point of bloodshed, we are all one.
Can I laugh here. People are reacting like their parents did.
I remember my parents saying, while in college, ’Why do you listen to that Junk? It will rot your brain’. The same with new music and how people are reacting negatively in this thread.
It is funny people complaining about Taylor Swift, I am not a fan, but admire her musical and business acumen.
@roxy54, jeez, I figured that the subject matter and comment would also include the obvious inference of sarcasm/cynicism. Why is everyone so SERIOUS all the time?? AB
@deadhead1000You’re right.
Openmindedness certainly entails not shutting off completely an entire thing based on only a small sample size.
People’s tastes change and one may be surprised trying something again how much they like it.
In other words, don’t be a Green Eggs & Ham kinda guy.
Intelligent people should just stop responding to the haters much like the broadcast people quit showing idiots running onto the field. They only do it it for attention. Dear Haters, why can't you just say "It's not my cup of tea" and move on, then go vote for trump (I couldn't resist).
Music experience is not innate taste merely and only, it is about educating ourselves about the world music richness and about our own body reaction ..
I am not born to like sarangi or tanbur over rap... 😊
I learned it ...
The fact that some rap is not bad ( after all it is mostly poetry and i like poetry by the way ) dont means that it is enough to hear mostly rap...
thats my point ..
Some music elevate the soul some not so much... It is my main criteria...
I prefer yoruba speaking drums by far to most rap try it :
I agree with you overall, for instance, your food analogy is a good one. But sometimes you have to try something 3-4 times to learn to enjoy it. Wine is a good example. Some people don't like wine, but when asked, they'll say "Well I tried it once and I don't like it." Or they will have tried a really cheap wine. And then as you say, some people have tried it many times, and still don't like it. My son has tried wine several times and still doesn't appreciate it. I myself tried Chardonnay a few years back and decided I didn't like it. Then someone gave me a good one and I realized I just had a bad wine the first time. Music is the same. Who liked Miles or The Grateful Dead the first time they listened to it? I would guess very few, I know I didn't, but I tried both several times and I appreciate their music.
Same goes for music, there are types of music that you have to listen to more then once, or listen to a really good artist. Rap is a good example because some of it is really bad. But there are many people out there that have heard one song and that was the end of it for them. I also understand those who don't like the lyrics (killing cops, calling women names, drug use, etc), but when I mention there are rock songs that do the same, they just come back and say "That's different." - not sure how, but OK. I myself rarely listen to Rap, but there is some really good Rap music out there.
I have read that back in Mozart's day, young ladies would throw their scarfs or gloves or underthings (I can't find the reference) at Mozart. Scandalous! How dare these young people listen to such trash! And more current, let's not forget the outrage about Elvis, or the Dead Kennedy's and their song Kill the Poor?
Having a personal opinion may not necessarily be “not having an open mind.”
If a person makes grand sweeping statements about stuff they haven’t exposed themselves to, well, yeah…that’s certainly not having an open mind.
If a person takes the time to expose themselves to something and says, “I don’t like it,” that’s just having a personal opinion.
If someone handed you a plate of the best preparation of a particular food that was ever prepared for that food, and you ate it and said, “I don’t like it,” is that “not having an open mind”?
The person that eats it and says, “this is the best thing I’ve ever eaten” may not necessarily have “a more open mind,” but merely a different experience.
My younger daughter is a fan of a Korean K-Pop boy band called BTS and introduced me to it. They are the TSwift equivalent of Korea, it appears. I am sure they write young people lyrics like Swift as well (with some cheese and sap). When it is simplistic lyrics that I don’t care to understand, I am glad it’s in a different language that I can’t understand.
But, when I listen to some of BTS’s stuff, I feel like dancin like there’s no tomorrow. I like these boys....Swift’s stuff doesn’t amuse me enough, a bit meh... doesn’t awaken my dancing spirit.
@larsmanFor one, I didn’t say anything about “political violence” either.
Again, I was merely using an analogy to challenge the notion, “if someone likes it, it’s good.”
@tylermunns- Please forgive me for not being explicit that I was talking about artistic taste in a thread about Taylor Swift, not political violence....
And I think some music is perfectly fine to recognize as being of the five-year variety
i dont have music i like for couple of years only sorry ,...It never happened to me even under 20 ...
All music i ever loved in my life since 13 years old i like it today as much...
I discovered new forms of music but i never changed in the reason why i love a piece of music or not ...
It must be grounded in poetry and the words beauty...i begins with choral music when i was a baby....
Music must be grounded in deep roots of a soul and country spirit ...
The country dont matter ...
If is is a fabricated well make product with no real roots in poetry and a country soul a cultural tradition , i would not like it enough to listen to it a second time ...It will be an artificial artefact like a flying saucer passing in the sky for me ...Or an industrial repeated product... Artificial anyway ... Even if the artist is a genius...
Lady Gaga is very talented as i said but i cannot live with his product and she is a genius able to create one product...
Fado for example is not a product but is deply root in portuguese soul and popular poetry ...I cannot be bored by fado...
Lady Gaga bore me after 3 minutes of my admiration for his genius... I am sincere she is a very talented artist ... But i prefer the folk roots of Joan Baez for example or the roots of Billie Holiday who sing with his soul and for his people ...
Art must be rooted in human culture traditions and history...music as poetry...
Guess why Gaudi is the greatest modern architect: he is rooted...
Guess why most modern architecture if not hideous is without soul : no roots and on the opposite modern architecture is the same as pop music on all earth it uproot man from his own culture it extract him from his soil...
Why did i love so much australian didgeridoo music with 40 albums ? Yes i confess ... 😁
it is rooted in deep soil and in dream spirit of 60,000 years history...
here is an encounter between two instruments from two rooted cultures i love it :
@mahgister I sometimes look at it this way: how much of the music I listen to now do I think I'll still be listening to in 5 or 10 or even 15 years? And I think some music is perfectly fine to recognize as being of the five-year variety and then I'll let that music go because it has done its job and I'll move on to and consume another type of music that will last another 5 years.
But I think when we were younger we tend to pack a lot of music that does last for 15 20 25 years or longer, like even 50 or longer, and the more we have of that music the less patience we have for a lot of the stuff that comes after it. Like I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with you on Lady Gaga who is incredibly insightful and personal in her lyrics and music and is definitely not a manufactured, controlled mass produced artist. Not at all.
But then again, I remember a few years ago so and told me that Rihanna had a really good voice, and I remember saying something to the effect of how could you tell because she sounds the same as a lot of other singers. Which of course she doesn't and I know that but I'm not invested enough to actually discern her voice and approach to music among all the other artists who I think are similar.
In my humble (not so much) opinion , there is two type of "popular music"...
---One popular music is rooted in deep soil of a country and in poetry as Bob Dylan An example taken at random,😉
---And there is "popular music" fabricated and manufactured in studio as in a chain of automobile assembly parts ( Lady Gaga ) .. It is not even bad, lady Gaga is very talentuous... It is just without "soul" nor any past roots...no attraction at all for me...
Then i am not a snob i like all popular music on earth save the one fabricated in North America ...I guess tylermunns is not wrong about popular music being trash even if the word trash is not the one i would have used ...
Between the two types of popular music i indicated above, there exist a third type which is a mix of the past roots of India and of the POP culture... I dont like as much this third type ...Bollywood Jasmine Sandlas so talented she was and she is please me way much less than Abida Parveen ... Because Abida is nearer his roots and sufi poetry and less POP in an American sense ...
I don't think being old has anything to do with liking or not like Swift or Gaga or any contemporary music any more than being a 20-something has anything to do with loving Nina Simone or Julie London or Jean-Luc Ponty. For you it seems more a question of style and being comfortable with what you enjoy, rather than making an effort to make room for new voices.
Forgive me for being didactic here, but it's like making friends as you get older: it's harder to do because everyone already has pretty much filled their social lives. And yet every now and then we make room.
Like, I discovered Jasmine Sandlas, a Punjabi hip-hop artist, a few years ago and made room for her catalog in my listening. But a friend tried to get me into Muse and I just couldn't make room for them. Yet. Maybe in a few years, but probably not.
And not to be cliche, but my mom would always blast Amalia Rodriguez when I was growing up - got me to make room for Fado early on.
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