Can someone explain the Taylor Swift appeal to me? — Page 2

Nope. She was like "Bye country! I'm pop now! And I'm gonna order me up some excellent friends thru the Internet. Have you met my BFF Lena Dunham. She taught me the importance of taking a stance against the World Health Organization's call to legalize prostitution! We're deep thinkers that way!"

I am also not a fan. I know people love her because of some of the stuff she has done for fans. While I do not think everything she does is insincere, I think some of it is over hyped a little. Like it was "news" how some girls got into a car crash after 1 of her concerts and were found because of the glowing bracelets they were wearing that they got there. I mean, yay that they had them, but to have the whole fanbase praising her for saving them was a little much and ridiculous, in my opinion.

I don't get it, either, to be honest. Her "transition" felt more like a half-transition to me, since her brand of country usually had that poppy sound mixed in with it and was regularly played on mainstream pop radio anyways, so I don't know why people keep praising her and worshiping the ground she walks on for her "impressive transition" from country to pop when music-wise, she doesn't sound all that different from any other pop star out there. It's cool that she writes her own songs, I'll give her that, but her singing in my opinion is a bit mediocre and her voice is really nothing special; it's all light and bubblegum. Many of her songs are trite and forgettable if you don't listen to them fifty million times.

As for her public persona, I don't doubt that she's probably a nice person, but this whole "feminism" thing she has going on is something that I personally believe is a ploy to appeal to the masses. Feminism is becoming mainstream again, and Taylor didn't even start talking about it until it started becoming the "cool thing" to do, which, if you're a feminist, shouldn't be the reason to join such a group in the first place. Besides, she only ever seems to comment on feminism when tabloids are trashing her, when she can claim it's all due to sexism in the music industry (despite the fact that both female AND male celebrities get trashed on a daily basis).

I guess I just don't understand why she's become so successful. It's good for her that it happened, but I'm not exactly thrilled when society starts worshiping a celebrity like they're the second coming of Jesus, regardless of who it is. One shouldn't have to feel like they're going to get dragged just for disliking a certain artist's music.

Updated On: 8/26/15 at 01:02 PM

I'm happy to live in a world where it's cool and trendy to say you're feminist because that brings people one step closer to looking at the way women are treated in the world.

I'll tell you who's not a feminist, lazy unproductive twee sensation Annie Lennox, for trashing Veyonce for calling herself a feminist.

Anyone who's not a feminist either doesn't know what a feminist is, or is a prick.

Also, when people say Taylor writes her own songs, I imagine it helps to have Max Martin, Shellback and Ryan Tedder collaborating with you, as they did on 1989. She only has one solo writing credit on that record, at least according to my extensive research on WikiPedia.

Updated On: 8/26/15 at 01:13 PM

What about the way Bey sold out Tina Turner with her "Eat the cake, [replaced Ida] Anna Mae" lyric?

Man, I brought this up on a high school friend's post about an award show performance of Drunk In Love and how I thought it was disrespectful to Tina. She commented, "Yeah, you don't get it cause you are white. It's a METAPHOR!" Okay then.

Updated On: 8/26/15 at 01:58 PM

I'm only defending Beyoncé against Annie Lennox whom I abhor.

Yeah, what did Annie do? Aside from destroy every other performer at this past year's GRAMMYs by reminding us what true star presence was.

As for Swifty, I am so pleased to be among others who don't get "it" either. "Shake It Off" is great, sure, but the rest of her stuff is so bland and mediocre. She represents something I find so disappointing today - that all mainstream pop music these days is so formulaic and lifeless with generic, overly compressed production/mixing. And, yes, I know she writes her own songs. Brava, Swifty, brava! Just wish her supposed songwriting talent were more apparent to me.

It's not that there isn't tons of great music being produced today - there is - you just have to dig a little deeper for it. It's that the mainstream has become so homogenized. I do find it a bit sad that "pop" music no longer seems to have any room for the rebels and the stars with a little roughness around the edge; a few of the right screws loose. Don't forget, David Bowie was a MASSIVE pop star, Bjork was a pop star, Kate Bush was a pop star - well, moreso in the UK, but still. Today, if any of those artists were starting out, I DO think they would find success but it would be decidedly niche success. I doubt any of them would be household names.

I'm sorry to hear that Annie considers writing music a bother.

Maybe I missed the subtleties of her argument - hear it from her own mouth in this short clip from (my beloved) Charlie Rose.

Updated On: 8/26/15 at 06:26 PM

Her songwriting days have been over for eons. I was once on hold for tech support for three hours and the bodily waste that was her covers album played on an endless loop. That afforded me a non-consensual opportunity to give the album what people in literary circles would call a close read.

She's soooooo lazy and never really does anything and coasts on her rep for being fierce. And trashing other women. And flouncing around in an HIV Positive t-shirt. Screw Annie Lennox. Screw Annie Lennox to HELLLLLLLLLL.

^ One of the most popular wrestlers ever, really good actor within his "action hero" genre, extremely charismatic, able to poke fun at himself and his image, fun to watch on screen. Hope that helps.