The Promise and Impact of Taylor Swift

What a fabulous post! I too have despised the “ignorant, trashy, radio hit” style of the “Big & Rich” genre. I think you make an excellent point about Swift’s, although naïve, honesty. You’d be hard pressed to find someone who listens to her debut album and say they; a) can’t understand where she’s coming from, and b) understand that no one put her up to this: it’s real. I am typically not a fan of female country music because I typically cannot relate, or don’t care to relate, to the songs. Swift’s music, although it embraces many of the same themes, is different in its honesty and sincerity. Great post!

But Taylor Swift’s music is shallow in pretty much every way that you can evaluate it:

1. Theme. “I have a crush on the boy that sits next to me in algebra class” is a shallow theme, just as shallow as “life goes by quickly” and “I don’t care what other people think.” When a song’s sentiment is that shallow, there’s not much that the lyric itself can do to salvage it.

2. Perception. If we adhere to the theory that art is what you perceive it to be, the vast majority of Swift’s fans aren’t appreciating her music from your perspective. It’s hard to argue that a song which inspires people to visit this site and comment OMG ITS JUST LIKE THIS W/ ME AND MY BF THNKS TAYLOR U R THE BEST is not shallow.

3. Lyrics. At best, they’re just giving you an out to argue, “this song is not really as bad as it seems.” A clever line or two doesn’t turn a song from bad to good when so much else is stacked up against it. Furthermore, some of the writing on Taylor’s album is rather strong but “Teardrops” is a poor example. What’s sophisticated and mature about “wishing on a wishing star?”

4. Performance. I realized that you focused on lyrical construction, but the production on “Teardrops” sounds like a second-rate high school demo tape. In general, Swift is a poor technical vocalist and only of average interpretive ability.

“Will we see freshmen from Belmont plucked off campus by record companies?”

I realize that’s an anecdotal question, but the answer, as a proud Bruin, is no. Belmont students are successful because the program provides networking opportunities and access to amazing internships, as well as a broad cross-section of courses within the various MCSEMB majors. And all of that takes time.

Jim,

I wasn’t dissing Belmont or MTSU or any of the colleges most associated with the Nashville music scene. I was just pointing out how if record companies really wanted to go out and start signing 18 year-old kids, then those schools have the potential to turn into “star factories,” just as when ACC basketball programs have certain talented players who use those programs for a platform to go to the NBA after one or two years. Sometimes the players who stay 4 years end up benefitting the most, and others don’t. The potential for this same situation exists in the Country music industry. I certainly hope this doesn’t end up being the case as the labels react to the “Taylor Swift phenomenon,” but it takes time to see how it plays out.

Then you obviously have your “LeBron James” type talents who have the raw talent in their teen years the labels will seek to grab up before they even get to college..

But, at every age level there is a weeding out of talent. I think at least six or seven artists who released albums on Sony BMG Nashville labels during my tenure there were gone after 1 or 2 records, and other artists cropped up to take their roster slots.

Peter–
I know you didn’t mean that comment as a diss, although I take some offense to your inclusion of Moderately Terrible School of Underachievers in the same breath as Belmont.

No, we don’t have a superiority complex!

For labels to cull from Belmont in the freshman and sophomore years would require Belmont to provide its students a kind of exposure that does not presently exist at the school.

The Belmont environment is infamously insular in the student’s first few years–there’s development taking place, alright, but it’s happening within the school’s tight-nit community.

I think your comparison to the ACC is fascinating, but I just don’t see that being a reality.

I know this is becoming an argument of semantics, but your point was so thought provoking that I had to touch on it.

I’m a Belmont grad myself, so I’ll just add that in terms of the music business, the school is most adept at producing behind-the-scenes players, though a few lead artists have found success.

I am certain, however, that in a post-Taylor Swift world, a heck of a lot more freshmen and sophomores at Belmont will be putting themselves out there, and they will get a lot more attention now. Age will certainly be less of a barrier than it used to be.

Like I said - I certainly hope the ACC/NBA analogy doesn’t take hold re: Country music industry and the top music schools.

I actually think the issue of songwriters needing to adapt to writing for younger talent reaching younger audiences would be the bigger of the hypothetical issues I brought up.

Speaking as a current Belmont freshman, it seems to me like a lot of the artists on campus have spent thousands of dollars out of their parent’s pockets to make demo CDs which contain below average material. Then again, I’m not involved with music at all, so who am I to judge? (I’m a journalism major and track athlete)

Anyways, I completely agree with this article. Sure, the feelings of “I have a crush on a kid in my algebra class” are shallow NOW. But have you ever been in high school? To HS-aged girls, its not a shallow subject at all. Its quite relevant.

I like Taylor because she knows her audience and plays to it. None of her songs try to tackle adult problems, and she doesn’t pretend to not be a teenager. She doesn’t have alter egos like Carrie Underwod, where one minute she is asking help from Jesus and the next minute she is slashing holes in some dudes tires.

I wonder what would happen if there were a male version of Taylor Swift and if he would be successful? In retrospect, Blaine Larsen seemed to be trying to hit that “high school” crowd on his first album, but that wasn’t wildly successful.

Totally disagree. Taylor maybe able to write a few lyrics, but the songs are so bad I have to turn the radio or tv down. She cannot sing before a live audience. She has sung at several prime time TV shows lately and I have been embarrassed for country music because of her lack of vocal ability. We need to find a young teen that can actually sing, if we want the tenny boppers.

Taylor is contemporary country, but I think she is very good contemporary country.

I full-heartedly agree with a lot of the new radio stuff basically being junk. Where’s the new Garth-style, George-Style, Alan-Style, EARLY Tim-style, Tracy Lawrence-style, John Anderson-style music? Those songs had heart. I want to hear some new true vocalist female singers. Find me somebody that can sing like Wy or Reba!

I actually think Don’t Blink is a good song but it would have been more affective if put to a different tune.

I’m going to Belmont in the fall as an incoming freshman, but if I was offered a deal I wouldn’t want to put out a record until I’m 21 personally.

I agree with Alison B.’s post. Taylor doesn’t have to be perfect. Besides, few artists are. Taylor’s music isn’t exactly my kind of music, but country music needs people like her to bring in new and young fans.

I give Taylor 4 years, 6 tops, before she becomes a Nashville washout. She’s dancing with a machine that doesn’t care for longevity and she doesn’t appear to have the steel will of Loretta, hell she’s not even Crystal Gayle.

I don’t want to sound like a jerk, but I really doubt that when Big Machine is out there promoting her that they care about the older audience. She does what she’s supposed to do perfectly, identify with her age group. I’m personally in her age group. I hope she lasts and I believe she has way too many fans not to. How many other aritsts out there are going double platinum? Not many.

I think her latest single “Our Song” is one of the most insipid country songs on the radio today.

I’m so sorry to have to break this to all of you, but Taylor Swift was scouted and signed at 14. That means they’ll be looking for 7th graders to develop, and there’s really nothing new about that either. Nashville is full of executives whose tastes border on pedophilia, and that was the first thought I had looking at Taylor Swift for the first time. The songwriting talent is there, but it’s a Pop writing sensibility with “country” instrumentation. and production. It’s also secondary to her appearance, which is something between a porn star and a Lingerie model. Five years ago they would have cut her songs to a “seasoned” pro to record. Now they’ll just ditched that. Who needs a great voice when mediocre vocals can be auto tuned?

My prediction is she’ll be “country” for one more CD, then go to Hollywood to debut as a major film and Pop star . You can bet some script is in the works. On top of that I predict she’ll be offered college scholarships to pretty much every major University, and will choose one that has a good online program she can do from off campus. She’ll do a non music major and be well prepared to be her own Pubbery by 22 years old.

Unfortunately , her success is probably the final blow to any mature, talented female hopefuls in Nashville or the music biz in general . Looks and youth will play an even greater role as the men in charge continue to grey and age themselves. The older and more powerful the men, the younger the ingénues. It’s extremely disheartening and depressing. Even disgusting.

I really haven’t seen Taylor being marketed to adult males the way Britney Spears was. She dresses very demurely (certainly not “something between a porn star and a lingerie model”), and her core audience is clearly teenage girls who could certainly find plenty of worse role models.

So it’s the makeup? The hair?

By the time we hear of them, yes…but many artists are in development for years.

I’m a bit confused; even if a lot of newly signed female artists are just 12 years old, what is the problem with that, exactly?

I agree with Chris that Taylor is out of the ordinary, but I do think we’re seeing a trend to younger females. I’m working on a new faces feature for 2008, and I’m shocked at how many females are in the 17-22 range.

I’m with Chris on this one. Nashville’s track record with teens in the last decade hasn’t been so good, and Taylor is more of an exception than a trend.

Nashville has long tried to sign young artists, and they’re going to keep trying, because they feel country needs to reach young people like it did, for a while, in the early and mid-’90s. The executives figure that’s where the biggest sales are, and if you look at the fan bases of Carrie Underwood and Rascal Flatts, they’re probably right.

But Nashville, being Nashville, has in the past focused on signing young, attractive acts they think they can turn into appealing performers, and that rarely works. The biggest spate of signings of teens and women in their early 20s happened after the success of LeAnn Rimes and Shania Twain (whose audience tilted heavily toward young teens). A couple of them, Mindy McCready and Jessica Andrews, had temporary success. A whole bunch of them–Jessica Day, Alecia Elliot and several others–failed because Nashville’s idea of what would appeal to young listeners was drastically wrongheaded.

I think Taylor Swift does write songs that relate to this audience, which is why she’s got their ear. That’s significantly different than having young women (like those above) cut songs penned for them by by the Music Row factory writers.

I was at a New Year’s Eve party with a few families that had teen kids, and some of the girls were getting up in front of people singing hits of the day, a cappella. Of six songs performed, two were by Swift. The others were all pop singers, such as Alicia Keys. It was pretty obvious, hearing and watching them perform, why Swift’s songs connected as they did.

This has little do with how Swift is marketed or what her imaging is, no matter how tawdry Boomer’s ideas about Music Row executives are. Boomer thinks youth and looks play a bigger role now, but I don’t think it’s any bigger now than it has been since the ’90s. If anything, I think there’s more emphasis right now on artists who write their own material than there has been in country music in a decade or more.

There seems to me to be less of an effort put into developing good-looking, questionably talented vocalists, male or female, and more of an effort into developing artists who bring something to the table, be it a vocal or writing talent.

I’m rather of the view of whether you can identify with the experiences or emotions being portrayed in a song is totally irrelevant. I’m Taylor Swift’s age, I’m barely months out of high school and the situations she writes about are ones I bear familiarity with - but I don’t care, because I don’t feel anything when I listen to her music.
The idea that you should be able to identify with what an artist is singing about sames to encourage lazy writing - the audience is doing half your work for you. One of my favourite artists in country music is Gary Allan, and the zenith of his achievements are SMOKE RINGS IN THE DARK and TOUGH ALL OVER. I can’t identify with the experiences he portrays on either record, and I’ve never experienced the emotions except in the most general fashion, and definitely not to anywhere near the extent he’s singing about, but the songs are well-crafted enough and his performances so authentic and compelling that I feel them anyway - that is to my mind the mark of a great song or artist. I don’t even understand what Bob Dylan is singing about most of the time, but his music remains profoundly affecting.
Swift is doing the same slice-of-life experiental style of songwriting that is pervasive on mainstream country radio these days - except that she’s aiming at a younger crowd. This isn’t necessarily a criticism; I’ve no reason to doubt that these are her genuine artistic preoccupations, and she’s an agreeably witty writer who knows her limitations as a vocalist and works within them. But her music strikes me as a little fluffy and I’d wait for at least a sophomore record before making a judgment about her as an artist.