AIBU to say Taylor Swift is a once in a generation songwriter?

[HomeatRoseCottage]

I’ve had 1989 TV on all day and she’s just magic 🥰

I think she’s brilliant, quite versatile musically, really good with words without sounding pretentious, very clever at image making and theming her albums. She is an excellent role model for girls and women alike. I like her music, very listenable to. And one of the things I like about her which seems fairly fresh to me and different to the female artists I grew up with is how she talks about her desires, she isn’t just an object but expresses her own wants - this is empowerment.

I think she is fantastic. Just watched her documentary on Netflix again.

I agree OP. I probably wouldn’t if I only knew her singles though. But I have the pleasure of knowing her albums inside out 😂 I don’t think her most popular “mainstream” songs are a good representation of her talent

No question Elton is a musical genius.

He's obviously not a great lyricist hence Taupin writes the words (extraordinary partnership they have) but a songwriter of the highest magnitude in popular music he certainly is.

Of course there's nothing wrong with baking...could spend all day in a bakers with the smell of all sorts of delicious stuff.

That's who Styles was...just that. X Factor and Cowell is why he is where he is.

Because this is a thread about her being the greatest songwriter of her generation. Offering up someone who they consider a better songwriter makes perfect sense?

Honestly I don't think someone who doesn't understand this very basic comprehension should be talking about whether someone is a great lyricist

Who?

She has more talent than many but I don’t think she phenomenal

She has probably the best pr in the business she has become a product that many have unquestionable belief in

I absolutely love The Beatles but I don’t think everything they recorded was fantastic or every song was an amazingly clever piece of writing

I don’t know anyone who would say that Taylor Swift and Joni Mitchell are the same generation, given that they were born more than 40 years apart.

And you can fuck off insulting my intelligence.

Wow, you’re so cool!!

Yeah I don't mean 23 years ago plus when referring to a modern female.

She's great, was gutted I failed to get tickets

Nobody is 'just' their job. What a ridiculous way to look at life.

This

I loved AW and think it's incredibly sad she died so young. I do also think her legacy is enhanced slightly because of this as was she here still now who knows whether she would have continued to be so brilliant or not

Taylor is continuing to grow and I think her music is with her. She also seems determined to use her platform well and do good while she can.

I'm really glad DD looks up to her. There aren't many examples of positive young women for her to see

Some of my favourite lyrics of hers;

"I want auroras and sad prose
I want to watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet
'Cause I haven't moved in years
And I want you right here
A red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground
With no one around to tweet it
While I bathe in cliffside pools
With my calamitous love and insurmountable grief"

"You know there's many different ways that you can kill the one you love, the slowest way is never loving them enough"

"Clover blooms in the fields Spring breaks loose, the time is near What would he do if he found us out? Crescent moon, coast is clear Spring breaks loose, but so does fear He's gonna burn this house to the ground"

And as for her greatest achievements
-She removed all of her music from Spotify and Apple music for years forcing them to pay artists fairly for streaming
-First woman to win Album of the Year at the grammys 3 times
-Only artist in HISTORY to have all 10 spots on the top 10 simultaneously
-Only artist to receive 200 million streams in a day on Spotify
-1989 TV debuted yesterday with 175 million streams which was the 2nd biggest debut in history...number one being Midnights. She's literally competing with herself at this point.

It's really hard to compare her to the likes of Queen, The Beatles, Michael Jackson ect because their legacy was based on CD sales and weren't on streaming (because it didn't exist) but I will say Taylor is probably the only artist still pulling in impressive CD/Vinyl numbers (Midnights sold 575,000 copies on Vinyl and 395,000 on CD...not bad for a medium that's rarely used these days)

But compared to streaming the numbers don't lie, she's up there with the greats;

The Beatles
Highest Streamed Song- Here Comes the Sun (1,114,469,016 streams)
Number of monthly listeners- 29.5 millon
Number of songs with over a billion streams- 1

Queen
Highest Streamed Song- Bohemian Rhapsody (2,284,617,617)
Number of monthly listeners- 46.9 million
Number of songs with over a billion streams- 5

Taylor Swift
Highest Streamed Song- Blank Space (1,568,073,074)
Number of monthly listeners- 101.4 million
Number of songs with a billion streams- 5

Plus she seems like a generally nice person, she's only recently been named a billionaire in the past couple of days but before that shes been giving away millions. Each tour stop she donates a huge amount to the local food bank (The one in Florida said it was enough for 125,000 meals). She gave all of her truck drivers 100,000 as a bonus for their hard work, she's covered fans medical bills, rent, she donated over 1 million for nashville tornado relief, ect ect.

People just love to hate on her but she's about to set the record for highest grossing female tour (Previously Madonna, Beyonce recently surpassed but once Taylor releases her numbers she'll completely smash it). She's literally on top of pretty much everything right now.

People like what they like and on the whole people tend to favour the music of their own/slightly previous/slightly after generations IMO. TS is not my thing, in terms of female singer songwriters Kate Bush is my thing, but then she's my generation and was, perhaps is still, something quite unique.

I think these 2 women had very different ideas about stardom and what to do with it, so it is an academic comparison. However, people like TS, pay an absolute fortune to go to her concerts, good luck to her and them.

I haven't read the full thread but while I enjoy Taylor Swift's music I think Masie Peters could give her a run for her money. I'm not sure if they are counted as the same generation musically though.

Are you fourteen ? 😂

For everyone posting lyrics trying to convince others to like her... You do realise it's meaningless right? I could post lyrics from my favourite artist but it would sound like random words without the music, singing, talent. It's the whole thing that brings a song together. TS lyrics posted so far all sound like nonsense to me.
When ever someone posts lyrics on social media regardless of artist, it always makes me cringe.

Taylor Swift doesn't have a manager, doesn't have a management team. She conducts her business herself. She doesn't need PR. If she wants to publicise something, she posts it on Instagram.

You don't have to like her, but all the posts calling her a "product" and ascribing her success to her parents or producers or anyone else is pure nonsense.

As they say, Taylor Swift is the music industry.

LOVE HER

Wish I was 14 😀 but nearly 50!

Listen to her albums on a loop - so so good.

@NeverTalksToStrangers2

Taylor was cancelled in 2016. This was due to a culmination of criticism and oversaturation in the media (she's overexposed atm too probably, but I don't think it will harm her this time) and Kanye West and Kim Kardashian trying to ruin her career. They told lies about her and recorded a phonecall with Kanye and Taylor, choosing only to release clips of the parts that suited them. The full recording was leaked in 2020 (probably by Kris Jenner) and Taylor was proven to have been telling the truth the whole time.

I think a lot of that was a misunderstanding. When Kanye was getting backlash over the lyrics he said he had approval....because he had got approval for what he thought was the offensive part.... but then Taylors reps made it sound like even that hadn't been discussed so it all escalated from there.

Awful what happened though, and as a Kanye fan I think the video for Famous was disgraceful and I'm surprised there wasn't more outrage about that!

She isn't a patch on Emeline who sings about the things women face in the world.... IMO of course

Of course she has a management and pr team

she is a product worth a lot of money to a lot of people not just herself that takes management

what do you think she planned/arranged and marketed her tour, her release of music, her merchandise

i haven’t said her success is down to her pr team I have said she has the best team in the industry to make people believe that it’s all down to her being phenomenally talented she is talented but her team have certainly done a great job in creating a belief of her being far more talented and far more groundbreaking than what she is

I agree. Nothing about those lyrics convinces me that Taylor Swift is a genius. To me, they aren't anything special. If I spammed the thread with the lyrics of a singer I love, I don't think they would sound like great works of genius either (even though I think they are.) But Taylor Swift fans REALLY want you to see what they see and to think she is amazing. They quote lyrics at you and urge you to listen to various songs. If you don't like her, you're just not listening properly or you haven't listened to the right song. There has been plenty of hostility and criticism about artists I love, but I don't give a stuff. I like what I like. I don't need anyone to agree with me. We're allowed to like different things.