Did anyone enjoy Taylor but felt at 3.5 hours it…. dragged a little?

Tee hee. I've been to a Radiohead gig and loved every minute of it. Including singing 'Fake Plastic Trees' with a group of fellow concert-goers on the tram back to Manchester.

I'll get me coat ...

What's nice about swearing for the sake of it. Why do you need too?

Does she swear like that in front of her child?
She appeared at the Albert Hall one of the nicest venues and classiest venues in the country and she had to be foulmouthed.
The saying money dosent buy class is definitely true.
Nothing to do with living a sheltered life.

Are you from the Victorian era? Why does swearing bother you so much? Must live a very sheltered existence!

I feel depressed about both of them
You couldn't have picked two worse people to compare.
Adele is a foul mouthed woman, dragging society down even more and as common as muck. No class. Does she swear like that in front of her son/mother. Deffo no role model.
Elton is the big don't you know who I am type. Remember his outburst at an airport.
Very mediocre too. Appaulling to big for his boots attitude as well.

I mean this woman has some fantastic PR. The ranking of her as the 8th best guitarist of the last two decades has caused so much hilarity in the heavy metal world where most drummers could play the guitar better. The hype round TS is really not related to talent. guitar.com/news/music-news/taylor-swift-8th-best-guitarist-of-last-two-decades/

People actually think things like this?

My husband has done that 3 times now! 4 if I manage to get tickets for next month. How dare he!

You know what, it is so frustrating when people start on about her dancing skills. The absolute best bits of the night she was sitting in a long dress, playing the guitar. She's not aiming to be Britney Spears, doing Slave 4 U in a headset with prerecorded vocals, and she's poked fun at her dancing skills herself.

I think I blame all the promo shots being of the opening sparkly bodysuit outfit.

What a bizarre comment. Do you also feel a bit depressed about Elton John, Adele etc? The whole idea of star power is that it is unattainable to most people, everyone knows that it’s not a career path for most

Me too. There's nothing original about any of her stuff to my mind (or ear) jolly enough to listen to in the car.

I don't understand the complete hysteria and quite frankly feel a bit depressed about what a great example she is, as if this a realistic career path for anyone who fancies it.

She’s lucky being a vaguely normal blond nearly 6 footer! And she’s been very honest about the pressure to be stuck thin, how she succumbed and how she has to constantly check herself to not critique her body.
The backing singers, dancers and band are a great variety of body types and also aren’t over styled/ made up/ unattainable. What unites the whole set is a lot of energy! I’m also an out of touch old lady and pretend to be interested because of my dds, as it is I just love music and promised never to miss out on seeing a performer I love when Leonard Cohen died and I’d been postponing, deferring and delaying seeing him for 40 years. My cover was blown when although I’d seen her in Edinburgh with dd1 I then got last minute tickets cheap for yesterday, dds not in London so I took a young colleague. It was wonderful and rare to be in a massively female enormous crowd and she declared it the best night ever 😁

@randoname Good point! And that can certainly stand alongside the other drawbacks to pop culture that exist. It's rare that anything is 100% great or terrible.

I also like the way she looks vaguely normal and hasn't changed her look loads. I think British female youth culture has a bad rep (esp on the continent) for being over-make upped and tacky, so I'd love it if I had a teenage daughter who wanted to emulate a TS look - instead of the popular endless black and bum scrunch shorts vibe. That's a whole other personal preference, judgey, out of touch old lady thread though!

@EveningSpread tbh “fine maybe good, but equally not really groundbreaking” is great for popular culture. It’s not her job to educate young women but she’s doing a better job than anyone else I can think of off the top of my head. I’m a freedom programme trainer (DV) and there’s a real dearth of healthy role models in relationships.

@randoname I'm certainly no expert on her entire catalogue and haven't seen a show! I've looked up lyrics to a few of the more recent songs and of course heard a few. What you describe is fine maybe good, but equally not really groundbreaking. And it doesn't have to be, but so many people want to claim it's genius!

I do think it's fair to say the topics of pop music can be narrow, vague, and repetitive. They have to be to be catchy and have mass appeal - it's a well tried and tested formula in that sense.

YANBU. I switched off from the Disney+ recording and was just glad I wasn’t there.

Agreed. Lady gaga did a good few hours when I last saw her and I was transfixed, she has so many different styles I think that kept it going and her visual art/costumes and (no offense Taylor) her vocals and dancing are way better, I was astonished by her vocal ability actually. I admire Taylor tho but do find the music fairly samey.

I think TS’ talent is creating such a phenomenal hype out of her very mediocre talent and convincing people to pay a fortune for it. Not her singing or performance.

@EveningSpread I disagree that her view of relationships can be summed up thus, “love lives should be the centre of everything… shaping their ideas about what love is, or what's important, in ways that are actually narrow and limiting. ”
It’s more “I’m not going to stick around in a relationship that isn’t great and it’s agony being dumped but I get through it.”
Thats an incredibly realistic and healthy message. That’s the songs- her patter in the shows is all about friends, the support acts, her parents, songwriting and the crew.

@BitOutOfPractice Don't be sorry! Like you said I expected a dressing down hehe. Being challenged is good :)

(I just love bread you see. Lots and lots of bread.)

But Dominoes is part of an epidemic of greasy, stodgy, easily accessible badness that's killing people! Is it harmless enjoyable fast food, or is it a travesty that half the world (me included) stuffs their fat faces and gets sick while the other half gets sick from not having enough to eat? I mean, I don't sit around thinking about this kind of stuff all day because I'd go mental. But it's all there in the background.

Same with TS (or any other pop artist). Of course it's nice that people are having a good time. Of course music creates shared communities and a sense of belonging and gives people hope and enjoyment purpose. Of course really popular artists have managed to tap into something that speaks to a moment, or a group of people.

But that same music/musician might also be contributing to unrealistic beauty standards, or emphasising to teenage girls that crushes and love lives should be the centre of everything. Or shaping their ideas about what love is, or what's important, in ways that are actually narrow and limiting. And super stars have huge carbon footprints, like someone else said.

Pizza and pop music can be enjoyable and terrible at the same time.

And you're totally right, I wouldn't say this in a crowd of super fans, haha!

Hi @EveningSpread I would definitely prefer to talk pizza - I like a reeeeealy a very thin crust. I think dominos is stodgy and greasy. Though, to be fair, stodgy and greasy are not bad in and of themselves. And many people do love Dominos so who am I to judge or take a moral stance about it, saying pizza is everything that's wrong with modern society.

I'm sorry we've had a tense discussion. As you can see, this is a raw subject for me!

You see, when I see 90,000 people having a great time, feeling the love, and loving a music artist, even one I don't like myself, I don't think, "I must tell them why they are all wrong." I think, "How lovely—it looks like everyone enjoyed themselves," even if it's not my taste. It's just a different perspective. I mean, I secretly loathe the Foo Fighters, but I didn't mention that to any of the fans I met on the train on Saturday, I'd have been lynched!

@SerafinasGoose · Today 11:25

To my mind, what's really boring is fanaticism. Any fanaticism, be it football, music, or religion. Other people's fixations are not normally a point of interest for most.

Yeah, this is. I do know one particular person who's obsessed with a certain science fiction genre. They keep saying, 'have you seen the new series? Have you seen the new this and that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah' to anybody and everybody that they meet.

And when 19 out of 20 people say 'no, I've not seen it,' this person says 'well, when you gonna watch it?' They say 'Well, I'm not really interested. So I'm not going to watch it.' And this person looks half annoyed and half confused. They are obsessive over this particular thing. They get actually quite annoyed and irritated and literally cannot understand why other people aren't into it - or at least trying to give it a go.

Some people have said 'I've watched it and I think it's boring,' and you can see them going purple in the face with anger because someone slagged off the show that they're obsessed about, and they stand there explaining why the person's opinions are WRONG.

It really is quite bizarre.

But I don't see Taylor Swift fans getting obsessed or angry. I just see Taylor Swift fans getting sick to death of people slating and berating a beautiful and talented young woman, who's incredibly successful, with a massive fan base. It just makes me wonder why they're so nasty about her. Is because she's a woman. Is there another reason?

@BitOutOfPractice But it's not a justification for snobbery because I do like some pop music! And all those things I wrote about TS, I can also think about an artist whose music I enjoy.

I can like listening to something, but think it's lyrically weak and maybe even part of a really problematic culture. I can like the Domino's pizza, but know the tasty sugar and trans fats are tricking me into eating the whole XL stuffed crust, and I'm going to feel like shit later. There's a massive difference between enjoyment and value, but a lot of people (some on this thread) won't accept that.

(Tell me about your pizza preferences. I also like a nice sourdough pizza with decent ingredients. But just like with the pop music, sometimes you want the trash.)

Sorry your husband was a ranty snob. (I've been ranted at by insufferable theory bros too and it does get dull.) I don't tend to talk like this in real life as it doesn't make you any friends. And I think cultural phenomenons are genuinely worth engaging with because they have such massive reach and impact! I thought I'd get a load of hate for that post but all the deifying, grateful Swifties just made it come out haha.

@beguilingeyes yes I have experienced that prog rock muso species as well. Bob Seger is great! I'll join you on the rail!

Eh? Do you? 😅

I like quite a lot of Prog Rock (may god forgive me) and Prog snobs are the absolute worst. Most of them don't like any other kind of music and they seem to think that liking complicated time signatures and lots of widdly widdly keyboard solos makes them cleverer than everyone else.
I happened to mention that I like Bob Seger on a forum once and they nearly ran me out of town on a rail.