@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
|
@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.
|
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...
|
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.
|
@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.
|
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.
|
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 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 am one but there is no relation between my "crusty state" and the artistic value of Taylor Swift... 😊
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
@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.
|
@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.
|
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?
|
|
I think Dylan chooses to sing as he does. His Nashville Skyline album proves he doesn't have to.
|
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.
|
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.
.
|
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...
|
@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.
|
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.
|
|
|
@roxy54 , what CD would you recommend for someone to start out with her?
|
@immatthewj I guess because his Melodies and his lyrics are so engaging. They’re good enough I can Overlook his voice.
@simao , okay. As an aside, and not that it relates or applies to Taylor Swift, but I remember (it must have been around the end of ’86) I read No Direction Home, and I believe it was there that I read that Bob Dylan (and perhaps this was before he started calling himself Bob Dylan) was trying to imitate Woody Guthrie and that was when his style of singing developed and how (I guess one might say) the sound of his voice developed. (I am not going to search through the book right now to try to confirm that, but maybe I will later.)
However, as far as Bob Dylan’s vocals, I love them. I kind of lost touch with what he did after Street Legal (I have listened to a lot of his stuff post-Street Legal, but none of it was really grabbing me anymore), but I think the entire Blood On The Tracks is actually a testimony to how well he can sing. I love his voice on Desolation Row. His voice seems perfect (to me) for Visions Of Johanna. The same for Dignity.
As I typed previously, Bob Dylan’s voice is not for everyone and it may be an acquired taste that some never acquire, but I am one of the ones who does enjoy the sound of his voice and usually prefers the sound of him singing his stuff to that of the countless who cover him.
With all that typed, I also enjoy the vocals of (to name just a few) Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison, Boz Skaggs, Mark Knoffler, Jim Croce, Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle and Leonard Cohen; I suspect that not everybody thinks that those guys are, or were, great singers either. I really like the sound of Lucinda Williams voice and I used to get a lot of pushback about that also.
|
@immatthewj
@mahgister was asking who might be an equal to the two singers he mentioned for emotional power in their singing, and I nominated her.
|
It seems very few here had any pride about the greatest singer of the century being Ameerican neither chinese nor Russian or German or Italian. ( This is Toscanini saying, not mine and he know a bit about singing and never make lying compliment . He terrorised the singers and the musicians anyway never satisfied ) .
i am a bit provocative but ... 😊
|
The main takeaway for me about Taylor Swift is that she learned a very hard lesson early on in the music biz about record deals. I believe it was FZ who called it the international hum job.
She's really taken the lesson to heart, too. To the point that she's doing a Sinatra re-recording her own stuff to a label she controls. I think FS and FZ are very happy somewhere as they watch her laugh all the way to the bank.
I am, too. Too many artists of all stripes get badly ripped off because they aren't contract lawyers. If even one little kid follows her example to avoid her teenage naiveté, that's a win for society at large and artists in particular.
|
I nominate Mary Fahl.
I had to do a Google to find out who she is. I've heard of The October Project but I don't think I am familiar with anything they have done. Her Reimagining The Dark Side Of The Moon sounds interesting.
But what are you nominating her for?
|
@roxy54 so true. Her voice, like Beth ortons, is powerful yet divisive.
@immatthewj I guess because his Melodies and his lyrics are so engaging. They're good enough I can Overlook his voice.
@botrytis idk, there are plenty of artists in my Gen X generation who don't speak to me at all. I mean just about everyone I knew in college and an adulthood raved about Smashing Pumpkins and Violent Femmes and Dave Matthews and for me they are completely forgettable artists. Again, not taking away from their Artistry or influence but there's no connection at all.
|
|
There are tons of great artists that lack technical proficiency, either vocally or instrumentally.
Staying with a nonsarcastic and nonconfrontational tone: does this put you in the camp of those that maintain that Bob Dylan could not/can not sing?
And in the same tone: if someone cannot paint, can his or her paintings really be art?
|
Celine Dion had more voice talent than most all female singers but do not touch Edith Piaf or any great female singer because art ask for a soul or a daimon or poetry something which tylermunns call "art"...
Dion was all his life under the spell of the man who designed and coached her from 13 years old to adulthood and he became his husband. He litterally created her persona . She was for sure talented more than most female singer it is evident . But it is not enough. Piaf sung in the street to eat . We hear his soul not his broken voice.
Tylermunns is then right ... 😊
You can learn to sing better than most...
But you cannot fake "art" or deliver "art" as a gained net profit after working hard...
The great Marian Anderson the greatest singer i ever listened to with Maria Callas never studied really. She was black opera singer at a times where it was a bit hard to emerge. She could rival Billie Holiday any day. And sing Bach or Verdi and Schubert . You cannot learn to sing like her even with a perfect voice. Callas express so much emotions we do not even could say that she had talent or it is because she worked hard. The part that move us cannot be learned nor be fake...
Soul is the part not learned.
I am in love with Anderson or Callas being through the singing. It is more than music there .
by the way Callas can even rival Anderson in the lied and in the blues and gospel and in the jazz, she rival Anderson only in opera. This is why Anderson beat any singer on earth. Whose female singer can rival at the same time Elisabeth Scwarzkopf and Billie Holiday in their own repertoire ? Give me a name ...😁 Good luck...
By the way it is for me the most beautiful woman to ever live... 😊
|
There are tons of great artists that lack technical proficiency, either vocally or instrumentally.
Technical proficiency in this way is by no means a pre-requisite to being a great artist.
Conversely, tons of super-technically-proficient performers may bore a listener to tears.
|
I've been listening to Dylan for decades and decades and I've seen him in concert a few times and I still stand by the fact that he really does not know how to sing.
@simao , then why have you been listening to him for that long? I ask that question without intending to be confrontational or sarcastic.
|
@simao Exactly. For many she speaks to them. To these old crusty ’audiophiles’ they don’t get it. They basically have turned in their parents (many of them are and grandparents). Evey generation does the same thing to the new music that comes out.
Swift just doesn’t speak to me, but I can’t take anything away from her. If you saw her talk about how she got ready for her ERA tour, one could see her professionalism showing (I mean being a treadmill singing every song?). That is dedication and something I do respect.
Taylor Swift is also a very good businessperson and music is also a business.
|
Here's a reason article that puts it into a, for me at least, more understandable perspective. Like the writer says, I don't necessarily dislike Swift I'm just not affected by her at all. Her Artistry simply doesn't speak to me, no matter how much talent she has.
|
@immatthewj I've been listening to Dylan for decades and decades and I've seen him in concert a few times and I still stand by the fact that he really does not know how to sing. However like all the people decrying Swift as being talentless, that's just my opinion and my opinion doesn't mean anything
|
Only to much well wrapped mass consumers musical product are uninteresting for me ... I will not use the word "pathetic" ... She is talented anyway ...
But many popular singers male or female had a touch of genius. The list is too long to be written here...
But many others at least half are mass products for consumption .. Do you remember the "twist" era ?
|
Ok Swifty.
Not really. I think I've only listened to a couple of her songs. One was a quite long one, a ballad of sorts that she performed on SNL, and the other one I remember hearing on a public radio station I used to listen to when I was driving, I kind of liked it, but all I remember of it was it was about a park in Jersey, or something like that? As I typed, that one is at least a few years old.
All I was getting at is: is everyone (and there are a bunch) who is compared to someone else (such as Bob Dylan, as an an example) pathetic?
|
|
"Lana Del Rey probably takes it as a compliment."
Absolutely. Adele has mentioned Lana as a great influence and she certainly took that as a compliment as well.
Well, I do not see why that should be "pathetic."
|
"Lana Del Rey probably takes it as a compliment."
Absolutely. Adele has mentioned Lana as a great influence and she certainly took that as a compliment as well.
|
“Her latest album is a blatant rip off of Lana Del Rey’s sound and style. So much so that it’s downright pathetic.”
What exactly is Lana Del Rey’s “sound” and “style” and how may one “blatantly rip-off” such?
Lana’s songs, whether one prefers one over the other, will always be more harmonically, structurally and melodically sophisticated than Taylor’s, and dare I say her lyrics present greater sophistication as well.
Nevertheless, there is nothing so distinct in Lana’s music to constitute a “unique sound” that may be “ripped off” by anyone.
Languid vocal delivery, pop song construction of well-trodden means, and a few string arrangements mixed in with electronic percussion…Lana has no unique claim to such.
|
Her latest album is a blatant rip off of Lana Del Rey’s sound and style. So much so that it’s downright pathetic.
Lana Del Rey probably takes it as a compliment.
|
"Her latest album is a blatant rip off of Lana Del Rey’s sound and style. So much so that it’s downright pathetic."
+1
|
Her latest album is a blatant rip off of Lana Del Rey’s sound and style. So much so that it’s downright pathetic.
|
Bro, her new album sucks...it's full of filler crap. The critics aren't wrong here...
The poetic lass has run out of talent, it appears!!
@deep_333 , did the critics always love all of the albums you put out?
|
