Are You a Swifty?

And Marjan Vahdat is a popular Persian singer ...

I guess i am not so much "snob" as i thought at first ...😊

@simao I said, “that dog won’t hunt,” not, “that dog don’t bite.”  
I look forward to the edification and growth I may be so blessed to attain in a future meeting with the sage-like simao.
 

These Misra brothers are very popular in India...

I guess i am not a "snob" , it seems i like very much popular music...

@tylermunns at the risk of being unctuous myself, the term is "good'un", not 'goodin'  

Sheesh, along with the "That dog dont bite", you're about as folksy as a credit card. 

Anyhow, I can tell that you're defensive and thin-skinned, so I'm going to bow out of this conversation. I'll let you get the last word in as you are bound to do anyway. I would advise you to learn to take criticism and not associate pushback with attack. 

I cannot have an opinion because i never listen to her "consciously"...

I had not listened consciously to no popular music after Bob Dylan Leonard Cohen old men and singers (Billie Holiday Joan Baez) of a past era now...

I am old i guess...

But i really think that this tylermunns claims as a musician himself must contain some truth because of my virtual visceral indifference to almost all popular music nowadays from North america since decades:

I said I think the vast majority of the most popular music today is utter trash

Now saying that ask for courage or taste for provocation...

Anyway there is so much tremendous music in the past and on earth that listening actual popular music of North america dont enter my mind not my ears too very often ... There is for sure exception as perhaps Taylor Swift is one but i did not even know her nor ever heard her ... I had no opinion about her in particular... I dont like Celine Dion and it is a good singer and like me she is from my country but i never could really like what she does at all even if i recognised his talent for sure... but what about Lady Gaga and othgers popular singers ? i cannot stand any of them for more than three minutes...😁

I must be "snob" ...😁

I like popular music of Abida Parveen especially ( the bigger voice) and Naseebo Lal though if i want to be provocative ... it is popular music by the way ...😊 and poetical and musical for me ...

I Like poetry ....And music ...

Try it

Speaking of popular music , i own more than 100 albums of Fado ... it sound good to me ... 😊

@simao No, talk of "legitimate art" is not the conclusion one who actually read my words and understands words would reach.  

Best of luck with that whole "words" thing and that whole "intellectual honesty" thing.  

You're off to a good start with, "unctuous." That's a goodin'!

@tylermunns Nothing of what you've blathered about has struck a nerve save for the unctuous manner in which you blather. At least millercarbon had a sense of humor.

And yes, I did say "legitimate art" as that's the conclusion one can reach about your opinions on the manner. 

Anyway, best of luck with things. 

@simao Allow me to once again issue semantic gymnastics and snobbishly parse out words:
“…enforcing a completely arbitrary and arrogant gateway for what can be considered legitimate art…”
Come again?  
“gateway?” “enforcing” said gateway? 
What is this crap?  
Ay yi yi…
Who said anything about “legitimate art?” Not me.  That was you.  

I said I think the vast majority of the most popular music today is utter trash (that includes Swift, though I wouldn’t put her in the upper tier of the most egregious offenders). It appears my opinion has struck a nerve, as though you’ve somehow taken this as some personal affront.  
It’s just a personal opinion. You’re free to disagree.  

I wish I could be so flattered to think I had the power to be a “cultural gate-keeper” and “enforce a gateway” to the whole of the music-listening population, but I don’t.  
You’re giving me waaaaaaaaay too much power, bud.  
Again, it’s just 1 out of 8,000,000,000 opinions.  
I’m not sitting here as though I’m some God-like bouncer at some Studio 54-esque gate, checking everyone’s music collection and saying, “nope, sorry, you can’t come in…too lame…you can’t enter the world of music fandom.”  
Just. A. Guy.

You referenced this sentence of mine, “ - Whether there is any merit to exposing oneself to a significant swath of Top 40 music in 2024.”  
Not sure if you just totally missed the point or if you were taking my words out of context or some combination of both. 
That was something I wrote in a previous post here, a bullet-point-thing merely illustrating the various topics I’d addressed here (there was a knucklehead who chose to join the forum and just start firing away Yosemite Sam-style with the political trolling, and he foolishly tried to insinuate my contributions to the thread were of the same nature, so I just listed the various topics I’d addressed, all of which were relevant to this thread on Taylor Swift, none of the topics remotely close political candidates or Bible sales)
It was a question, not a statement either way.   
I’m not really sure what your last sentence is getting at
 

@tylermunns Buddy, you can semantically parse your words all you want but, yes, you are enforcing a completely arbitrary and arrogant gateway for what can be considered legitimate art. I'm sorry, that's your opinion and I guess you're entitled to it but, again, you come across as holier-than-thou.

Rest assured I don't take anything you say personally (I mean, why would I? Though judging by the sheer amount of your own word salad you're tossing, you seem to invest a lot of emotion in this forum). But, yes, your earlier comment about 

"It seems odd to me that you would describe as "boring" the hypothetical person who eschews superficial and shallow things (presumably in favor of exciting/interesting/smart things)" 

reinforces my point about snobbery. Your "exciting/interesting/smart" (whatever the hell that last descriptor means) things are to millions boring, meaningless, and uninspiring. 

And your earlier comment:

"Whether there is any merit to exposing oneself to a significant swath of Top 40 music in 2024" 

has been adapted by many and applied to just about any year of pop music over the past half century or more. As if Top 40 music of 1994 or 1984 or 2004 had more or less merit. 

@larsman I was making a point with an analogy.
You said “if someone likes something, that means it’s good.”  
I’m saying, “no it doesn’t.”  

@wesheadley 

Thanks for the SECOND list of music suggestions.  You are very kind and generous.

And, yes, these will be added to my playlist.

@tylermunns - Hi! Oh, I took it that your question was sincere, and I do really believe that. Not that I like everything; there's a lot of music I can't stand! 🤣  

These are not violent acts we're talking about here - it's musical taste... 

@waytoomuchstuff 

Your musical references are all things that I like a lot. They are all very singular in their sound. So based upon that, here are a few things to try that you might like:

Woods - Strange to Explain
Vetiver - Up on High
Real Estate - Daniel
MGMT - Loss of Life
J Mascis - Elastic Days
Those Unfortunates - Welcome to Woodbury Down
Bryan Ferry -  Mamouna
Steven Wilson - The Harmony Codex
Jonathan Wilson - Rare Birds
The Clientele - Bonfires on the Heath
Waxahatchee - Tigers Blood
Angel Olsen - Forever Means
Tennis - Yours Conditionally 

Hope you get a chance to hear some of these and enjoy them as much as I do.

@larsman 

"Personally, I think if somebody likes it, it's good, even if it's just good for that one person. Can't negate somebody else's experience..."

I appreciate what you're getting at, but do you really, I mean...really believe that?

Cyber-speak can often impart unintended tone and fail to represent tone accurately, so I'm going to emphasize that the above question is sincere, not laced with contempt, sarcasm, condescension or anything like that.  

I'll further clarify the question: lots of people think unspeakable violent acts of cruelty are "good." These people end up in prison.  If they think those things are "good," does it actually make them "good?"

@simao I said the music was vapid. If you want to take that personally and take it as though I'm saying YOU are vapid, I have no control over that, that's on you.

I watch "Farting Preacher" videos on YouTube very often.  
Is that "shallow" enough for you?

It seems odd to me that you would describe as "boring" the hypothetical person who eschews superficial and shallow things (presumably in favor of exciting/interesting/smart things). I find stupid, trite, cliche-mongering things to be, at best, boring. At worst, a punishing experience.  

Different strokes, I guess.

@tylermunns look, I'm not arguing that we as a society are attracted by the superficial and hollow (and yes, I do lisyen to swift and have seen a few shows), but again, labeling her fans as vapid is snobbery at its finest. 

Are you without fault? Do you have no superficial and shallow interests? If not, you must be a total bore to hang out with. 

@waltersalas +1 

Personally, I think if somebody likes it, it's good, even if it's just good for that one person. Can't negate somebody else's experience.... 

@wesheadley 

Thanks for the "new" music suggestions.  I've created an "AudioGon" playlist on Tidal and added these.  Hopefully, something there will resemble something like Carol King, Supertramp, and America tossed into a blender?

@waltersalas 

"The popularity of any given music is certainly not proof of its artistic merit, but neither is it proof of the lack of it. "

Well stated.  +1

@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.

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

@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.

@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 

"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.

@tylermunns , you are a legend in your own mind. Now go type another five thousand or so meaningless words that say nothing and that nobody cares about.

@immatthewj  Read my multiple posts here on this thread, and then read yours.  
See if you can figure out which of the two things is “conversation,” and which is “trolling.”  
You said I was “trolling.”  
Ha!  
It takes one to know one.
Have you ever heard the psychologist term, “projection”?  
Look into it.

Thank you, @tylermunns (aka Trog), for contributing two more cents and further enhancing your own troll status. You certainly know how to type a lot of words and say nothing.

Taylor Swift….who is he again?

@immatthewj

Nope. Swing and a miss.

I’ve said quite a bit about a whole heckuva lot of things on the three pages of this thread.
I commented on,
- Taylor Swift’s music and her cynical exploitation of the American’s need for vapid pablum
- sexism
- pop history
- Jack Antonoff
- digitally-pitch-corrected vocals
- whether there is any merit to exposing oneself to a significant swath of Top 40 music in 2024
- the ways people ascribe “role modeling” to celebrities
- the ways older people slag contemporary popular music
- the ways people go out of their way to contribute to a subject of an online forum thread even though they write how stupid, bad and frivolous the whole thread is
- the ways people somehow find a way to turn a thread about a bland apolitical pop artist into a vomit-fest of irrelevant political crap

I “added my $0.02” on a whole heckuva lotta things on this thread, all of them relevant to the thread.

What you chose to do was different.

What you chose to do was come on this thread and do nothing but feed the trolls, and feed them by referencing our former President and Candace Owens, two things that couldn’t possibly be more irrelevant to the topic of Taylor Swift’s music.

When I criticized the decline of the thread going from being about Swift’s music into a bunch of dumb, childish, completely irrelevant, junior-high-cafeteria-level blather, you got butthurt and chose to attempt to attribute hypocrisy to me, a wild and sad attempt, one that failed badly, only further embarrassing yourself.

Swing and a miss.

Is Kid Rock selling a bible…. yet ?

Sad that a thread regarding the most insipid, milquetoast, uncontroversial, apolitical celebrity somehow inspires troglodyte political blather.

And yet here you are, Trog, adding your $0.02; how sad.

🤮

Sad that a thread regarding the most insipid, milquetoast, uncontroversial, apolitical celebrity somehow inspires troglodyte political blather.

brunomarcs

240 posts

03-19-2024 at 07:35am 

You mean to tell me she's a singer? I've never heard her sing anything and Candice Owen's says she's a psychopath

Thanks! I'll know to totally ignore anything you have to say now!

Not a fan.  Watch KPop girls groups sing and dance then watch her moves.

unless you include her ability to brainwash weak minded humans and fish.

@jmalen123  , that kind of sums up Fat Donnie, doesn't it?

You mean to tell me she’s a singer? I’ve never heard her sing anything and Candice Owen’s says she’s a psychopath.

What is amusing about that is: Candace Owens does not even know the definition of the term. Since a picture is worth one thousand words, Candace should look in the mirror if she wants to understand psycopathy.

@loomisjohnson +1

@tkkjlsoup 

+1000000000

I love that particular track 

If nothing else she's very triggering to the maga folks. as this thread demonstrates.

Sorry but I don't own anything by her.She got great mives on stage.

RIP Tom

kinda like … Lara Trump covering Tom Petty ?…… the hypocrisy is so rich…. or not $$$ as reality turns out…..

Im think n Ted N and Lara and Kid Croc couldn’t generate 5 pages here…. combined…

@larsman  What if “the new thing the kiddies are all gaga about” is, at one time, the Beatles, and at another time, it’s Taylor Swift?  
What if, at one time, it’s Bob Dylan, and another, it’s 21 Savage?  
Chuck Berry, or Bad Bunny?
Surely we’d agree that the first thing is much better than the second?  
Just because people get older and things marketed to young folks seem juvenile and frivolous doesn’t mean they are just as good as those things from the past.   
 

So many people here sound like so many from my parents' generation when the Beatles first came out, that this new music that was intended for people a generation younger than themselves, by definition had to be no good, they didn't need to even listen to it to know that...  I'd expect it's always been this way and always will be. 

"It's all about the hype, her PR staff, aided for some reason by the major media...been there done that, see Madonna."

@middlemass 

Agreed, except that Madonna is more interesting personally and musically.   

About "role models":

History will demonstrate that deeply flawed individuals can be competant public servants. And those who fit the wide definition of "strong role model" can make the world a much more dangerous place.

"The opposition" uses a tool whereby they require supporters to "defend the indefensible", which is highly effective to force the other side to play defense, and kill (meaningful) conversations. The ability (and willingness) to connect the dots pertaining to major issues while minimizing the impact of (often trivial) individual flaws doesn’t make a person complicit, or a bad person. It makes them an adult capable of sorting things out, assigning priorities, and solving real problems. This also requres a high risk tolerance for being proven wrong.