by Andrew Donaldson · March 19, 2024
Taylor Swift Records and CDs for sale at Target. Photo by Andrew Donaldson
I am told — by the same check marked joyless online scolds who deem themselves arbiters of everything and judges of all — that Taylor Swift is bad for the culture, destroying young impressionable minds, and is a threat to masculinity, femininity, the American way, puppies, Apple Pie, and God himself.
Oh, shut up.
Having been a girl dad for all the 2006-to-present period of time in which Taylor Swift the performer and artist, her music and cultural impact are undeniable. Currently in the middle of the record-setting Eras Tour, with yet another album due out next month, and her quest to re-record her studio albums well in hand, Swift is pretty much the biggest thing going in music. While sitting in my local theater and watching my youngest sing along to every song in the Eras Tour movie, which Swift released directly to theaters in yet another money printing business move, internet scolds were the furthest thing from my mind. Watching my 16-year-old enjoy the music that directly parallels her own lifespan was just all joy and no critical thinking or analysis. To her, she’s never lived in a world without Taylor Swift soundtracking whatever was going on.
And before you worry about some kind of unhealthy fandom thing, my youngest’s other favorite artist besides Tay Tay is 70s rockers Blue Öyster Cult, so calm yourself. When it isn’t Taylor, she’s going rock, punk, and hip hop, well rounded from years of car riding with her father’s eclectic and varied musical tastes.
As pop idols and musical heroes go, despite what the folks who make money on engagement try to sell me on, I just don’t see anything objectionable about Taylor Swift to get in a twist about as a parent. Yeah, the newer albums have more language on them, including an F-bomb in the hook of Maroon, which was my preferred song off the Midnights album. Not like they haven’t heard those words before, even though not from me as I try really hard not to curse in general and in front of my family specifically. Yes, she’s a grown woman now whose lyrics of relationships have gone from teardrops on a guitar after school to blouse unbuttoning and various other illusions to frolicking. Thirtysomething women have sex…shocking, to some I know, but accurate and true; deal with it. Sure, Taylor got a little tight at some football games in public while taking a break from the biggest music tour of all time. Grown adults have grown adult beverages at a football game; if this has you clutching your pearls you might not be ready to be in public around sportsball.
My generation at that age dealt with musical things like Aaliyah’s shocking death, only to find out that R. Kelly had her as one more victim — when she was only 15 and maybe younger — on his long list of abused women as the years went by. We had Kurt Cobain’s suicide, a year after Courtney Love’s Hole bassist died from an OD, and the swath of hard-to-watch that has been Courtney Love ever since. Biggie and 2Pac beefed each other into early graves by gunfire. Bradley Nowell OD’d a week after his wedding, a year after the birth of his son, and two months before Sublime‘s self-titled third album became a massive record and yet another cautionary tale. This is in the same time period Shannon Hoon was found dead of in his tour bus bunk from an OD as Blind Melon‘s trippy earworm “No Rain” sold millions of records with Hoon’s trailing fill of “it’s not sane” summing up the waste of it all.
But do tell me again how I’m supposed to get all worked up over the great pernicious evil that is Taylor Swift…show your work and weigh it in the balance against the graveyard of dead and debauched artists us 90s teens dealt with, you midwitted turnips.
And above all else, spare me the “She’s gone POLITICAL” nonsense. What official statements and positions Taylor Swift has gone public with are pretty tame, and unless you live in “anything but what I believe is of SATAN” levels of maturity, perfectly in line with living in a diverse, pluralistic society where folks are free to express their opinions political and otherwise. If Michael Jordan astutely understood that “Republicans buy sneakers too” the tens of thousands of Swifties at the Era’s tour are getting their revelry on with the ballot box being the furthest thing from their minds.
Do you remember what the previous generations did to Sinead O’Connor when she got “political” – and she was proven right in the long run, by the way? We dealt with P Diddy, or Puff Daddy, or whatever Sean Combs was going by at the moment yelling into the MTV screen about “Vote or DIE” which makes Swift’s backstage family council meeting about speaking out against Donald Trump seem downright Presbyterian. “Vote or Die” registered voters and made for some truly top-notch parody; Swift’s political activities and their influence remain to be seen. Both approaches, in the United State of America, are not only permissible but better than the default setting of most folks to politics of ignoring it completely.
Like anyone on the shortlist of artists who find themselves perched atop the cultural zeitgeist for a particular dispensation of time, Taylor Swift isn’t just a reflection of the times and culture but a screen to project the times and culture upon as the biggest star in the land. In a world where engagement is king of all media, Taylor Swift content, good, bad, or indifferent pleasures the algorithms and carnival cries in the clicks better than just about anything else. Once you get right with that fact, you can start to parse through the caterwauling and get to the pros and cons of Taylor Swift, artist, and person. She is well on her way to being an all-timer at the artist part by any measure. That she seems to be a well-functioning hyper-successful human adult while doing it is remarkable and praiseworthy whether you like her music, image, brand, Swifties or not.
Not covered as much but telling, outside the Scooter Braun beef which has all sorts of insider implications, you rarely hear any drama not boyfriend related with Taylor Swift. She keeps a tight circle of friends and family, makes sure plenty inside her orbit are benefiting from her success, and genuinely seems to keep her fans in her processes both musically and business-wise. She has proven, not only in word but action, that she really loves working and creating, a work ethic that is all the more admirable for someone who was a billionaire by 30 years old.
The interweb know-it-alls keep telling anyone who will listen all these negatives about Taylor Swift. When I consider the actual person Taylor Swift, I find their arguments specious. As a parent, I’d much rather go along for the ride and memories with my quickly becoming adult kids, even if that means listening to 1989 (Taylor’s Version) on the latest family road trip instead of my own playlist. Which, by the way, has exactly two Taylor Swift songs on: the aforementioned Maroon and the best of the Taylor Swift catalog in my humble but accurate opinion, Wildest Dreams . We should not listen to the online Taylor Swift naysayers.
I love my kids, my kids love Taylor Swift, I find no legitimate reason to not do so, therefore I listen to Taylor Swift. And Wildest Dreams is a banger. It slaps. Lit. Or something, whatever the kids say these days.
I apologize for nothing.
Tags: Taylor Swift
Andrew Donaldson
Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has since lived and traveled around the world several times over. Though frequently writing about politics out of a sense of duty and love of country, most of the time he would prefer discussions on history, culture, occasionally nerding on aviation, and his amateur foodie tendencies. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter @four4thefire and his food writing website Yonder and Home. Andrew is the host of Heard Tell podcast. Subscribe to Andrew’s Heard Tell SubStack for free here:
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My take on the Taylor Swift thing: when Swift is on tour, periodically some tweets from the Swifties make it all the way to my feed. They tend to take a particular form. 1-2 seconds on Taylor Swift then the camera turns around and the person yells into the camera about how “I’M AT A TAYLOR SWIFT CONCERT!” and the rest of the video is a monolog about being at a Taylor Swift show. “She’s so great! She’s so talented! She’s so amazing!”
The video may then swing back around to show another 1-2 seconds of Taylor and it may not.
Say what you will about fan videos shot at Great White concerts, they focus on the band and the pyro.
Within the past few days I saw an article where Eddie Veder was talking about taking his daughter to a Taylor Swift concernt, and he was singing her praises and putting over the energy of the crowd.
I love my kids, my kids love Taylor Swift, I find no legitimate reason to not do so, therefore I listen to Taylor Swift. And Wildest Dreams is a banger. It slaps. Lit. Or something, whatever the kids say these days.
I apologize for nothing.
I have three daughters. I apologize for nothing either.
And worth noting that her “In the Music Business” fans include the front man for Disturbed. If she’s good enough for metal, she’s good enough for me.
Well, that read was five minutes I’ll never get back. 🙂
I know of Taylor Swift. I know she’s a singer. I don’t care about her politics, her music, or who’s she’s dating. Growing up, I never cared about any band’s views on anything except for the music they produced. Anything else was irrelevant. I’ll never understand why people view entertainers as anything other than entertainers.
And Wildest Dreams is a banger. It slaps. Lit. Or something, whatever the kids say these days.
Gotta admit, I find Taylor Swift to be really frustrating, probably because I’m not really close to the Taylor Swift fandom.
She’s so successful commercially, and musically she’s so mid. Can’t at least do a couple good, catchy pop songs a la Britney or Christina Aguilera?
she’s far from being a mid… she can write catchy songs and more… if you want catchy songs..listen to Style, New Romantics, Out of The Woods, Blank Space, Red, Love Story, You Belong With Me, Sparks Fly, Getaway Car, Karma etc…but she’s can do much more…she’s a poet… her lyrics are basically poetry.. you don’t see popstars writing songs like she does now a days…. when it comes to song writing she’s up there with the greats… her critically acclaimed masterpiece albums like Folklore and Evermore are literal proof of testament to her talent in music… songs like The Lakes, My Tears Riccochet, Cardigan, Seven, Epiphany, Hoax, Willow, Ivy, False God, Champagne Problems, Tolerate It, Evermore, Cowboy Like Me, No, Body No Crime etc… I’d suggest u try out these songs before you judge her… even if the music ain’t ur cup of tea you can’t deny her pen game!
you’re saying her pen is
mighty?
I don’t like her music either. When I’m exposed to it at the gym or wherever I don’t even see how there could be some fun to it like I do with some of the other female pop acts. But then I am just an aging metal head.
I found “You need to calm down” to be quite catchy and the message was also good. It was actually directed at hysterical scolds on both the right and left though, due to its music video, it drew most of its denunciations from the right so that balance got lost.
Heh, while she isn’t my bag I find the politicization (by others) of her beyond preposterous. Overall though it doesn’t really bother me that music exists which does not cater to my taste. I’m sure most of the Swifties would think what I listen to sucks and that’s fine with me.
I did find the tongue-in-cheek ‘feud’ over one of her album covers with Ihsahn (a legendary black metal musician) a few years ago to he pretty hilarious. Not sure if she ever responded to it but I give Taylor credit, the cover in question was really metal.
https://www.kerrang.com/ihsahn-responds-to-taylor-swifts-new-album-cover-looking-rather-similar-to-his
My aunt went through a month-long phase where she would spend all day reposting obnoxious Facebook posts about how Taylor Swift was triggering conservative snowflakes, making their heads explode, and sodomizing their corpses, or something like that.
it doesn’t really bother me that music exists which does not cater to my taste.
An unusually mature attitude, which can be extended to all sorts of things. And which would make the world a quieter, less silly place.
What would people talk about on the internet then!?!?!?
Reverse gatekeeping.
“You’re not allowed to like that! It’s not for you!”
Feature, not bug.
Even though I understand that different people will like different kinds of music, my first unguarded reaction to a lot of popular music is “OMG how can anyone like that crap???”. It takes a few seconds for the more rational part of my brain to kick in and remind me that other people have their own backgrounds and experiences and taste, and that my confidence in the absolute rightness of my own reaction is unjustified (sometimes).
I liked the occasional “argue about food/sports/music/etc.” posts that used to be more common here (e.g. the Mt Rushmore series), because it seemed like a helpful reminder for people who were generally busy getting angry at each other for “serious” political disagreements that they could find themselves getting just as worked up about disagreements that everyone intellectually understood were just matters of taste and not fact. So that maybe on some level when they went back to arguing about politics, a little bit of that realization would transfer over and there would be a bit less outrage and a bit more empathy in the mix.
When I was an undergraduate I met a woman who was doing her PhD dissertation in the music department on “sing-along rock.” I initially understood it intellectually, but didn’t really get how it could be a thing. She took me as far as the elevator lobby on a floor in the women’s dorm. Most doors were open; everyone’s radio was tuned to the same station; you could hear a whole bunch of women singing along, including people doing the harmony.
I’m sure that over the years those women poured a fair amount of money into artists/groups that did rock that invited the listener to sing along, and their metal head boyfriends had no clue what the attraction was.
I wouldn’t recognize a Taylor Swift song if you put a gun to my head. She appears to be a nice person, and she obviously works very hard to entertain her audience, which I respect. (I could say much the same about Beyonce, though I do recognize the song about putting a ring on it.) I wish her nothing but the best with Travis Kelce. Her music doesn’t move me, but that’s about me, not her. I’m having trouble seeing why I should go to the trouble of having more of an opinion than that, let alone share it with the world as if anyone should care.
I used to say the same respect thing about Queen. Their music wasn’t my thing, but you have to respect anyone who can work hard enough to sell out 100,000-seat stadiums on six continents.
Okay. For them what don’t know Taylor Swift, I’m of the opinion that “Red” was her best album and each album since hasn’t been quite as good as the one before. Red was very, very good, though.
Here are the songs that you should know from it (and I’d guess that most know at least one of these):
“Everything Has Changed” was the song that made me the most excited when I looked at the CD because I thought “OH MY GOSH SHE’S COVERING ELBOW’S SONG ‘MIRRORBALL‘!!!” and, as it turns out, she wasn’t. Which is a bummer because I think that she’d do well with that song.
Though, now that I think about it, it’s probably more of a Lana Del Rey song. It’s got that melancholy thing going.
Anyway. Everything has changed was a song she did with Ed Sheeran. Wait. A step up from “with”. “Featuring”.
You probably also heard her song 22. It’s fun, it’s catchy… I kinda hoped that Weird Al would have picked it up and did an Amish cover of it… “I don’t know about thee… but I’m feeling 23!”
The one that I’d bet a dollar that everybody heard because, seriously, it was *EVERYWHERE* is “We Are Never Getting Back Together”.
Her next album, 1989, wasn’t as good but there was one song on there that was *REALLY* good and it was “Style”.
There. Those are probably her best songs (though I’m sure that others will yell “WHAT ABOUT THIS ONE” and point to “Shake it Off” or “Look What You Made Me Do” or whatever).
The main takeaway that I have from her stuff is that it’s upbeat and optimistic and even her angryish songs are fun and upbeat and she’s going to get over this other guy and, you know what, it’s *HIS* loss. Definitely sanguine.
Mid? Only if you’re of a different humor.
Taylor Swift has achieved the feat of being incredibly appealing to both teenage girls and middle-aged dads.
Like, all those dudes at the concert, they’re there with their kids but they’re not just there with their kids, get me?
I’m the father of an almost teenage daughter who loves Taylor Swift. I don’t have a problem with it. She’s relatively wholesome and traditional compared to a lot of popular music. Her songs are about wanting to fall in love and ride off in the sunset, the hurt of failed relationships, etc. The whole Travis and Taylor thing was the same. She was in a very public relationship with a traditionally masculine guy. It got my daughter and wife interested in the NFL, which is good.
Probably the only gripe I have about her is that her lyrics and music are mostly teenage girl drama all the time. And I don’t necessarily want to encourage that sort of thing. Like the line about “promise to always be overdramatic” from Lover. No, don’t be overdramatic. Being overdramatic isn’t good. I also don’t care for how much sexualization there is in her more recent albums, but she’s a 30-something year old woman and, again, it’s extremely tame by today’s standards in a lot of popular music. “Tangled in bedsheets” and “the shape of your body” v. “WAP.” And I feel pretty confident that Swift will not be twerking on stage in a thong or singing about her lady lumps.
So, all in all, there are much worse things my daughter could be into, and where I have problems with it, it’s a teaching opportunity, a chance to teach how to evaluate and discern.
Also, I didn’t end up a junkie or commit suicide despite years of listening to Nirvana, Alice in Chains, STP, GNR, Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, or all the other grunge bands of the ’90’s. So, the kids will be alright.
Thanks for writing this, Andrew. I agree with nearly all of it, but take exception to one piece: the best of her catalogue is obviously “Shake It Off.” Or maybe “You Belong With Me.” But we can’t forget “Bad Blood,” either. Eh, whatever. Well done.
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