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

I didn't say I was being personally preached at @EveningSpread I know from personal experience that this sort of diatribe enjoys a wider audience 😉

OK here's an example of the sort of bollocks that makes you sound smug, preachy, and pretend clever, just to say "TS music isn't for me. I don't really like pop music":

"For me, the state of some pop music and pop lyrics are a worse than a travesty: they're indicative of how narrow and predictable and commodified the range of human emotions and experiences have become. And how easily impressed and pacified we are."

I mean, I sort of agree with you but 'twas ever thus with pop music. But having listened to this kind of justification for snobbery for ten solid years has made it all very, very old to me. I also think you are wide of the mark about TS's lyrics personally. I mean, they are a step up from "I want to hold your hand" or "I like big butts", that's for sure.

As for your taste in pizza, here we can really fall out! 😚

I do 🙋🏼‍♀️

😂 Radiohead also apparently did a 2.5 hour concert and that would have absolutely seen me off!

Oh it’s not just online either 🙄 I grew up listening to rock/punk/metal and you wouldn’t believe the snobbery. The arguments that still go on today about what is metal and what is nu-metal - it doesn’t surprise me that the 80’s goth group went insane, some of these people are so fucking snobbish it’s crazy.And it makes no sense because why wouldn’t you want other people to enjoy a band/artist? Thats good for the band/artist! But they can’t bear it because it makes them less ‘edgy’. It’s on par with going up to a woman who is wearing a band t-shirt and asking her to name three songs because a woman couldn’t POSSIBLY enjoy rock because we’re all meant to just listen to Aqua on repeat.

Kin HELL. Ingenious band name it may be, but three hours of 'The Grateful Dead' and I'd off myself ....

Yes, which is why I’ve said repeatedly that it’s a longer than normal gig.

But it’s that new - Google it, others have done it. Muse or The Grateful Dead, for example. There was a classical music artist whom I believe did about double many years ago, but I’ve forgotten the artist and story.

Im not knocking what she’s done, she must have amazing stamina to do it. But the idea that ‘only’ she could achieve this belittles what other musicians around the world and through history have done. It’s okay to celebrate her achievements without disregarding other musicians amazing feats too.

It covers (I think) 10 albums and 18 years, with a good balance of singles and fan favourites, and won't be repeated. It felt more like a musical to me!

To be honest I went to see Elton John's Yellow Brick Road and that felt a bit short at 2.5 hours.

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.

And a national fixation, as far as the UK is concerned, is with class: not just as a matter of socio-economic background, but taste and snobbery/reverse snobbery. This is more than boring, it's tedious in the extreme and this whole site is saturated in it. This thread is the musical equivalent of the pampas grass and 'live, laugh, love' plaques vs. understated Farrow & Ball paint and 'posh people really do have mucky houses' rhetoric. It's BS.

That 'class/taste' has permated the musical genre gatekeeping that so often happens online is predictable. (The 'I love eighties Goth' group on Facebook got really nasty). That particular music is 'for' particular people. That if you like Madonna or Katy Perry, you couldn't possibly like Mozart, for eg. Or that bubblegum pop is 'really' a deep commentary on existential angst or social satire. I had to laugh when Muttley MacLad of the Macc Lads slapped down some journalist who accused him of ingenious satirism, saying it was the 'worst thing that's ever been said about us!' Good for him, too (even though his name IS really Tristan ...).

There's a market for bubblegum pop. The job of light entertainment is exactly that: to switch off from the heavy stuff. And that's okay: whether you do or don't like Taylor Swift.

"Lots of artists with significantly more talent have historically done as long or longer sets."

I'm not sure that that's true. Springsteen is a bit of an outlier. I got to hundreds of gigs. Started in the 70s and almost all of them are 1 1/2 to 2 hours. On stage at 9, off at 10.30-10.45.

Three hours is pretty rare.

Christ alive peeps where was op gloating?
She enjoyed it.....she thought it was a bit long she didn't decry it as a money wasting pile of shite or anything

@BitOutOfPractice No, you didn't engage, you just said it was nonsense with no justification or explanation. (E.g. which bit is nonsense, and why? Which bit is faux intellectual, and what does that mean? Equally I think your phrasing permits the reading that you're calling my post nonsense written by a faux intellectual music snob, so the quotation wasn't really twisting things.)

You're not personally being preached at by someone writing something on a pubic forum. If you feel that way, and can't mount a response beyond an unfounded dismissal, that says more about you.

This is what really confuses me: when people feel personally attacked by others' views, even when they're not directed at them.

FWIW, I like loads of stuff that I don't think is "good" or "intellectual", but I don't feel the need to deify or hero worship it.

I really like Domino's pizza and S Club 7. (Domino's pizza is so addictive to me its unreal.) But I can like them without claiming they're the greatest pizza or band in the world. Or feeling attacked it people say they're shit.

That's where the fascination comes in - it's the way people attribute god like status to TS or any other artist, or get wound up if you challenge the idea the music is good. She's the biggest example of this at the moment, which is why she gets talked about so much.

Ahhh, the Fannies. Great Festival band!

I tend the agree with OP. Quite a few things, films, concerts, I'd prefer them to be shorter and really enjoy only the songs I want, the main songs.

It was a concert, not the second coming of Christ

That's one outfit from the opening number. a lot of her outfits are like this one...but nobody mentions them. I wonder why that is?

This thread is deliciously bonkers, on both sides of the Swiftie divide!

The op was brave to start a thread about a concert that fans of TS are paying hundreds and hundreds to be at, or cannot secure tickets for love nor money. You take your life into your hands admitting that you got there 'by chance' while proper Swifties (and parents of Swifties) have been struggling for months to get tickets. And to add insult to injury, you say it dragged on. I suppose they feel that your ticket may have been enjoyed more by one of the thousands who couldn't get a ticket. I remember similar arguments about Glastonbury several years back "you don't even want to go that much, proper Glastonbury goers have been pushed out because of you".

As for TS herself, I like a number of her songs and I think she's a good role model for young girls. Taking a man to court for just a dollar to make the point that women should not have to endure being touched up (sexually assaulted) was a stroke of genius. My 7yo dd loves her. I can see why. I think there's a huge amount of musical and intellectual snobbery about her that tends to bring out the worst in her detractors. So you listened to music that wasn't mainstream when you were a teenager. Musical taste is entirely subjective. I listen to music that makes me think. I also listen to music that makes me feel. It's as much about identifying with it on a personal level, and an influencer of mood. Nobody should have to justify their taste in music to anyone, or indeed be made to feel that they're not quite clever enough to understand and appreciate fringe music, because, you know, you're just too 'mainstream'.

I actually happen to think TS's music is quite clever. There are a few university professors who would agree. I like how she's switched personas over the years - women are not one dimensional after all. The way she markets her music is innovative. She's emotionally intelligent, she's fesity. And yes, she's beautiful too. Fans buy into the whole 'package'. It was ever thus.

Would I pay hundreds of pounds to go and see her? I wouldn't even do that for my favourite band of all time. But this TS debate brings out the worst in both camps. Chill out, accept that people will see a different part of the picture to you. And please stop with all the snobbery. It's not to your taste, that's all you need to say.

I did engage with what you wrote. I said it was boring preachy and faux Intellectual music snob nonsense. You did me the disservice of putting your speech marks where it cut off the word nonsense, changing the meaning somewhat.

I have no problem with experts. I do have problems with being preached at. Taylor Swift seems to bring out the very worst in self professed musos. She seems to be like some Pavlovian bell to them. Just like bros or wham were in my day. She seems to make them want to give us the benefit of their superior wisdom and, put us all right.

as I say, she’s not my favourite artist, not my least. But I really do not understand why she causes people like you to write screeds about her and why your taste is better. 🤷‍♀️

@CurtainsOfSparta and @ExitChasedByCars I wasn't suggesting that the OP on this thread was slagging off TS. Sorry for the confusion.

However, there have been plenty of threads and posts on this thread where posters have done so.

I have no idea how deep or clever or insightful you are!

I'm not an expert, but being accused of being a "faux intellectual music snob" reminds me that we did find out a while ago that the British people are sick of experts ;) If you'd like to engage rather than call me names I'd like that :)

It's sad that anything other than "I love X" or "X is a genius" is met with such suspicion and disdain.

And there, right there, in the post before my last one is the kind of boring, preachy, faux intellectual music snob nonsense that I had to listen to from my very own muso when I was married

Yes yes @EveningSpread you are so much more deep and clever and insightful than us all mere mortals. 🙄

And i Say that as someone completely ambivalent about TS.

Getting home from anything at Wembley (or other huge venue) is a nightmare whatever the event

This! My DD and my DH both love TS. I don’t like listening to her music at all. Whenever we’re all in the car they both listen to her and I genuinely can’t tell the difference between most of her songs (maybe that’s a problem with my ears, I don’t know). They try and convince me I’m ‘wrong’ for not liking her stuff (obviously in a lighthearted way) but it absolutely grates on me. And from the threads I’ve read on here you can’t say anything negative (even if just your opinion is you don’t like her music) without being lynched!

To add: I have nothing against her - she’s obviously doing something right and good on her - I don’t see the same level of threads and arguing over any other artists, especially men which is interesting. I don’t know the ins and outs of her carbon footprint etc because I’m just not interested enough to know. All I know I genuinely feel bored and ‘urgh’ when most of her music comes on but that’s ok. I’m sure lots of people think the same about the stuff I listen to.

That’s ok @ExitChasedByCars its a rather, erm, odd thread so clarity is all I’d say!

I'm sure she's having a really hard time being 'torn down' by the odd person who doesn't find her lyrics full of genius! Why so dramatic?!

Also the statement that a single line can 'take your breath away' suggests to me that it's broad enough to mean something to someone who's never met TS. Pop music often works like this: by making us feel like the artist knows how we feel - that even though they're big and famous and special, they can relate to us. So maybe we're like them too! Maybe we're special too!

For me, really good writing isn't about soundbites that strike me as mildly clever or that I can 'relate' to. In fact, for me really good writing shocks, unsettles, is hard to get in to, takes time to understand and unpack, or makes you question things or look at them in a new way.

Pop music doesn't work like this. They write about things in a vague way so it could be relevant to anyone - so it has mass appeal. And all the emotions they're writing about have become so standardised, so usual, so expected, that it's easy to package them up and sell them back to us.

Pop music is so powerful because make us feel a sense of belonging that we sadly lack in a world where we're increasingly fragmented from each other - where we live further away from each other, spend more time at work, and have less and less free time to really connect with each other. And pop music is one of the many feel good consolation prizes that we have in a crumbling world that distracts us from our problems. Keep us stuffed full of TS and Deliveroo and Boohoo clothes and we won't be as desperate to make the world better. We'll be content enough to let it all carry on.

Some of the comments on this thread show that TS is deified - you can't say an ill world about her without it making people angry. Concerts are the new churches, pop music the new religion. And religion used to be the thing that distracted us from worldly misery, by promising us there was something better coming after. Football, pop music, shiny new trainers - they all do the same thing.

For me, the state of some pop music and pop lyrics are a worse than a travesty: they're indicative of how narrow and predictable and commodified the range of human emotions and experiences have become. And how easily impressed and pacified we are.

And a couple of hints that she's Juliet on her balcony, or sticking 'all's well that end's well' into a line doesn't make her the next Shakespeare.

I think there's so much beauty and hope and great, challenging art in the world - but it's not there for me in a woman talking about seeing her latest boyfriend by a vending machine over a tinny beat.

5 hour Springsteen gig sounds like heaven on earth!