Are You a Swifty?

Thanks, @roxy54  .

Only the early “Love Story” and “You belong to me”.

I’m generally not a fan of most contemporary music which seems to lack creative pleasing melodies.   Many songs have monotonous song phrases and a disconnect chorus, seems that singing in tune with a good voice is being substituted for a good melody.

@immatthewj Bob Dylan wasn’t, isn’t, nor ever will be a technically proficient vocalist.  
I feel like that should go without saying.

”Do you think Bob Dylan can’t sing?”
“If someone cannot paint, can his or her paintings really be art?”

If something moves you, it moves you.  
That’s it.  
It’s art.

Being a great renderer does not necessarily make an artist “better” than Jackson Pollack.  
Being a vocalist of 99.9 percentile control / pitch accuracy / pitch range does not necessarily make them a “better” vocalist than Bob Dylan.

Bob Dylan is not a great vocalist... This is evident...

The reason we love him is because of this mystery to be able to convey his poetry so powerfully with no real vocal talent. for sure he learned and do with what he had a good job. This does not explain once this is said his hypnotic voice power : his soul make it with his poetry psalmodied as an American Homer ...

America will had no more luck if the Kennedy crime is not fully solved... Dylan put it astoundingly well ... A genius cannot be explained by the concept of  talent and work ...

Learn how much you can Euler and Ramanujan art in maths cannot be reach by mere intelligence.

Leonardo da Vinci is not explained by talent gift and works nor Goethe ...

Genius is a spiritual gift over anything else... A relation with other plane...

A good (or great) singer is, for me, one who can  move me positively  with the way he or she sings. Which Bob Dylan did (and possibly still does, although I haven’t listened to anything by him that is at all recent). I remember on the LP "Dylan" he covered Lily Of The West and Mr. Bojangles and Spanish Is The Loving Tongue and all three of those covers blow me away (particularly lily Of The West). On the other hand, one of my favorite female voices is that of Linda Ronstadt, and I really like her cover of Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues, but if I could only listen to one version , I much prefer the sound of Bob Dylan’s recording.

I feel that arguing about whether Bob Dylan is a good singer is kind of like arguing about whether Scotch whiskey tastes good or not. I didn’t always enjoy the sound of Bob Dylan’s vocal work and it used to be that I’d rather siphon gasoline than drink Scotch; now-a-days I find Scotch to be delicious and Blood On The Tracks is magic to my ears.

Sorry, OP--I realize that none of this has anything at all to do with Taylor Swift.

.

The point tylermunns and me had made if i understood him right, if not i will apologize to him , is precisely that some singer as so extraordinary, that they are over good or bad category. They transcend the hit parade as true artist and nobody can explain why.

They are so original they cannot be a manufactured product of the song industry, with great talent as Celine Dion, or with lesser talent. ( it is useless here to give a name it is also relative to the being of each of us, we can be moved by something that could not move others because we are all different)😊

Then immatthewj is right too ...😊

I feel that arguing about whether Bob Dylan is a good singer is kind of like arguing about whether Scotch whiskey tastes good or not.

I think Dylan chooses to sing as he does. His Nashville Skyline album proves he doesn't have to.

The real Swifty…McVay

I think sometimes an artist's "imperfections" can be their most enduring qualities.  It makes them human, and relatable.  Perhaps even vulnerable.  Like the rest of us?

@simao There are plenty of older artists that don't speak to me either. That doesn't take away from what I said.

Too many old crusty audiophiles judging music just like their parents did when they were young.

It is hysterical reading this thread. Ms. Swift is laughing all the way to the bank.

@botrytis Inasmuch as the COA's (Crusty Old Audiophiles) making calls to "cue up Joni" seem out of touch with the present. But then again, Joni never really resonated with me, either (though "Help Me" has some of the prettiest chord progressions I've ever heard). 

In terms of out of touch judgment, did you ever have the pleasure of reading the (probably deleted now) threads on the artistic worth of modern hip hop/rap artists? That's when the COAs really started barking. 

@mahgister I can see your point. As a lifelong Rush fan, I've grown to love Geddy's range and register, while acknowledging how it can be a turn-off for many. 

I think Dylan chooses to sing as he does. His Nashville Skyline album proves he doesn’t have to.

@bdp24 , going back to a few posts that I made ago, I remember once reading that Bob Dylan’s style of vocal work came from trying to imitate Woody Guthrie. +1 on Nashville Skyline, and I personally feel that applies even more to Blood On The Tracks, as that LP  proves that Bob Dylan could sing.

She writes catchy tunes which presumes the fact she can and does write her own music, lots of it. It ain't Mozart but both of those things are real talents. Her lyrics are great.She's in touch with her audience and fosters a real emotional bond with them. She is generous with her time and attention. She is generous with her money, giving huge amounts to charity and not bragging about it. She is generous with those who work with her like the gigantic bonus she gave her tour truck drivers, enough that they could buy a house. She is a genius at business unlike quite a few folks who say that they're geniuses but are really only heirs. I also like the fact she shares her personal philosophy which seems to me to be positive and a good influence on those young people who listen to her. 

This “crusty old audiophile” line is tiresome.  
“When an Audiogon forum poster expresses a lack of Taylor Swift fandom, they are just a crusty old audiophile harboring an unfair bias against new music.”
This is a very cheap, easy, fallacious dismissal.  
Dismissing an opinion ad hominem on the premise that the progenitor is just “crusty and old” is just as bad as someone dismissing Taylor Swift on the grounds of “new=bad.”
If we want to debate the actual argument and do so on the terms of logic, fact and fairness, we can do that. That is an actual substantive debate.  
Making fallacious arguments is not.

i am one but there is no relation between my "crusty state"  and the artistic value of Taylor Swift... 😊

+1 , @rick847  . 

I have an old (in both senses of the word) friend who was bewildered when he in the late-70’s learned of my love for ABBA. Rock music snobs have always looked down upon Pop music. Jazz snobs look down upon Rock music, Classical snobs look down upon all other musics (except perhaps Jazz), etc., etc.

My ABBA records sit on the same shelf as my Mose Allison and AC/DC records. 😊

I used to have a couple of Abba 8-tracks.  In certain respects my tastes were rather eclectic back then, and in certain respects they still are.

I think she's talented and has a good voice---but I probably wouldn't go see her in concert. I streamed part of her Eras concert and have a couple of her songs on Spotify. That being said, I think he songs are just mediocre at best. After trying to listen to a few of her songs, I get bored and decide to listen to something else. 

@bluorion Same with me. People who have such negative reactions just don't have enough on their plates to do. Hence why I say 'Crusty Old Audiophiles' to people who have such negative reactions. Swift's music isn't written for them, it is written for a younger audience.

Don't like Taylor Swift, don't listen - it is as simple as that.

This thread shows why audiophiles are a shrinking group, all attitude all the time.

The thread is called, “Are You a Swifty?”  
The people posting here are addressing the question.  
Some say, “yea” some say “nay,” some say, “meh,” etc. etc.  

No transgression occurs, no evidence of some sort of personal flaw is shown when a comment is “nay,” or “meh.”  
That’s just a person (at least, I assume it’s a person and not a bot) contributing to a purely subjective topic.

I am not interested at all by almost all pop music ... Save few exceptions... I am a bot from the jazz and classical threads ...😊

I am ’Crusty Old Audiophile’ and i promote Indian and persian cultures...

😊

Audiophiles population decline because education decline and easy way to have decent sound at low cost in earphone made ’Crusty Old Audiophiles’ as me complete dinosaurus...Especially if this audiophile promote acoustics experiments and readings ... Most young will think that i am crazy because any earphone is enough and cheaper...

’Crusty Old Audiophiles’ are crazy , especially if they listen jazz, classical , persian and Indian...

Can one man be right against million peoples ? Yes i am right against hundred of millions in America, culture and litterature matter ... Sorry for the crowd...

And a manufactured product even when talent is there is only that : a manufactured product... We can appreciate it few minutes as for most pop singer ... A.I. will show you soon ... ☺😊

When i was young i thought that music was  only about personal taste. I was wrong , as litterature, mathematics, or any arts, it is not about tastes only , it is about education...

All painters are not Vinci or Turner or Picasso...

@mahgister I hear what you’re saying but it is virtually impossible to “prove” one work of art is “better” than another.  
I could sit here and drone on and on why a particular piece of music is “good,” with all the academic, musicological, music-theory-vernacular-laden talk regarding a given piece of music, but it’s ultimately still completely subjective.  
I don’t like Taylor Swift, but I will never “prove” that (blank) is “better” because it’s purely subjective.  
I may be able to make a well-formed argument fortified by extensive education but the Taylor Swift fan will say, “oh. Okay…yeah, I still like Taylor Swift more” and they won’t be any more “right” or “wrong” than me.  
Art is not mathematics or science.  
Math may certainly come into play in many forms of music: composition, performance, recording, and maximizing the fidelity of playback, but it is art, not math.

tylermunns

583 posts

04-29-2024 at 04:36pm

@mahgister I hear what you’re saying but it is virtually impossible to “prove” one work of art is “better” than another.

My point is we must educate ourselves... I dont judge people who like some pop singer ... I can appreciate some others too ... This is not my point at all ...

All artists and all musicians must be respected... Taylor swift had talent as i already say...

But we must educate ourselves  and we cannot listen  all our life to the same few pop artists...

There exist evidence in acoustics research that we appreciate music with our body not with our consumers conditioned intellectualized taste...😊

To explore many different timbre experiences in many different cultures is the way to be deprogrammed from inferior consumers manufactured products... I dont say that it is bad to listen Taylor Swift ... I say that we must not only learned our cultural heritage as Bach and Jazz but others timbre perspectives why ?

Because our brain/body must learned new physical invariant through new timbre experience for new harmonies , read this very important research :

in short :

https://www.sciencealert.com/pythagoras-

The real scientific research in Nature :

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-45812-z