The arguments so far:
Safe Basha – @Rahini: I’ll do one better: Vijay is the Taylor Swift of Tamil cinema. He ain’t the greatest (sorry VP), but his fanbase has come to age and his contemporaries are either inactive (Rihanna, Lourde), lost interest (Lady Gaga) or making absolute dogshit (Katy Perry). Meanwhile, both Taylor and Thalapathy churn out content regularly and the content itself is always safe and okay.
Basically, Taylor is Thalaivi of teen girls.
Madan: Aman Basha: Taylor is vera level. Even Guitar World has stooped down to the level of saying stuff like she has changed music as much as the Beatles (!) (ok, could somebody name ONE thing for starters – something that doesn’t do with her ‘personality’ or ‘likability’ or other attributes that have nothing to do with the music?). Whereas in TN, the biggest Thala or Thalapathy fans will stop short of comparing their respective idols to Rajni.
Madan: “Basically, Taylor is Thalaivi of teen girls.” – And thalavali of musophiles old enough to relate to the lyrics of Steely Dan’s Hey Nineteen. Hard times befallen soul survivors when Swifties think their girl is bigger than Beatles!
Madan: “So now we have fans who have become ardent supporters and evangelists for these guys – not because of talent or output but because its a marketing created “cult” of sorts” – If we circle back to Aman’s Taylor Swift example, this makes sense. Sure, she is more talented than Vijay or Ajith but the mass hysteria around her is quite out of proportion to her musical output. It’s essentially cult of personality. I would hesitate to call it inorganic or purely manufactured. It’s more that people wanted to identify with someone and Swift/Vijay/Ajith fulfill this need just because.
kaizokukeshav: “mass hysteria around her is quite out of proportion to her musical output”
Not a fan of her but I can see where Taylor Swift’s stardom is coming from. Her songs don’t have profanity, she doesn’t give the romantic teenage girl vibes, her songs can be played in fun social settings and they’re peppy enough for repeat value.
I am sure millions of parents with girl children are dreaming for singers like her, and the same phenomenon worked with Kalki too IMO. Getting success in the absence of profanity, lust and gore is an achievement in itself.
Madan: “Her songs don’t have profanity, she doesn’t give the romantic teenage girl vibes, her songs can be played in fun social settings and they’re peppy enough for repeat value.” – I don’t disagree with any of this but none of it warrants comparisons with The Beatles either. There is a craven need for fans of an artist to manufacture artistic significance of their favourite even when there may not be what they’re looking for.
Safe Basha: These days, pop stars have such high moments and then completely disappear. I am old enough to remember when the world was going gaga over BTS and calling them the “Beatles from the East”. Not to mention poor Katy Perry who ruled the charts when I was 10 and is desperately trying to regain popularity with some hypersexualized MVs. I’m sure Sabrina Carpenter or my beloved Dua Lipa would have their moments too.
Still, popstars have nothing on our movie stars who can still stay solid even without success. As for the identity theory, I have heard stories of old time Krishna fans flinging dung on NTR movie posters which I’m sure happened in other villages too, so don’t really buy this theory.
Skateboard: “Her songs don’t have profanity, she doesn’t give the romantic teenage girl vibes, her songs can be played in fun social settings and they’re peppy enough for repeat value.”
Mmmmm…outside of hip-hop most pop singers rarely inject profanity into their songs. And serial dating celebrities, breaking up with them and then proceeding to write songs about those breakups is, IMHO a very teenage girl-y thing to do,
As for “songs can be played in fun social settings and they’re peppy enough for repeat value.” this is also stuff that other singers/bands routinely put out. But Taylor Swift I will admit, is on another league. It’s definitely a triumph of branding, marketing and PR and yes talent, although she has like a tenth of the vocal range of past Super Star divas like Whitney Houston or Celine Dion and about half the sex appeal of a Beyonce.
The Nice Girl Image, boosted by articles about giving her entire band and crew members hefty bonuses, The Woman Who Took Control Of Her Songs evidenced by her Re-Recording all her past hits and then re-issuing them when the recording labels refused to give her the rights, the tabloid ready whirlwind romance between her and football star Travis Kelce on top of her ridiculously prolific output (she averages an album every 2 years and in between re-releases past albums and her latest in 2024 is a DOUBLE album!), sold out arenas, the almost manic devotion of “Swifties” have all come together masterfully to elevate Taylor Swift into this giant juggernaut Pop Phenomenon.
I don’t begrudge her any of it, because unlike Vijay’s largely craptacular filmography, I actually like more than 2 of her songs 🙂
kaizokukeshav: ”There is a craven need for fans of an artist to manufacture artistic significance of their favourite even when there may not be what they’re looking for.”
Sounds salty. I know few Americans taking their kids to Taylor Swift concerts in another country as a part of a vacation itinerary. That’s definitely not manufactured.
Madan: “I know few Americans taking their kids to Taylor Swift concerts in another country as a part of a vacation itinerary. That’s definitely not manufactured.” – As Srini said, I never said her popularity is manufactured. But the fans don’t want to stop there, they want to extrapolate that to elevate her artistry, which is what I have a problem with. It’s another iteration of the MCU argument – they are not happy with the movies crushing it at the box office, they also want to hear the critics say Endgame or whatever is as great as Citizen Kane or Godfather.
Vaithi Bharath: About Taylor Swift, not only does she churn out mostly profanity-free & positive-sounding chartbusters consistently (not for nothing does she have 14 Grammys) but also presents herself as a role-model with her life choices, financial acumen, and balance as a person. Honestly, what’s not to adore here?
I don’t know if it makes sense to say she is not just as good as The Beatles – it is about how the artists connect with their fans through their work. Yes, she has the power of the internet on her side but so do many others. The fact is that she is such a prolific song writer which is the ultimate bond and if she can keep multiple generations (Millennials to Gen Z to Gen Alpha) hooked on to her songs, why is she any less?
Madan: “I don’t know if it makes sense to say she is not just as good as The Beatles – it is about how the artists connect with their fans through their work.” – Because how artists connect with their fans doesn’t have very much to do with artistic significance itself, which is about what she has brought to the table musically. And it’s not me comparing her to the Beatles on artistic significance to pull her down because I know that’s a very unfair yardstick that 90% of popular artists would fail to meet. It’s the VP of Gibson; honestly, they’re just shilling, looking for eyeballs by riding the coattails of her popularity.
https://guitar.com/news/music-news/taylor-swift-beatles-comparison/
I mean, the very concept of a band didn’t really exist at least at a mainstream level before The Beatles. To even suggest she has changed music as much as they did is ludicrous to the core…unless even Gibson is ignorant about Beatles and that would be hard to believe.
It’s like just because Kenny G is heard in elevators all around the world and liked by a very large audience doesn’t mean he changed jazz as much as Armstrong or Miles Davis. Let’s please keep the hyperbole aside.
Akhilan: @Madan I don’t think it’s ludicrous to suggest that she has “changed” music as to me, this is quite a personal not necessarily a universal claim. For me, her pop is different to say a Beyoncé, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga etc. I like the fact that she continues to write extremely personal lyrics (albeit a lot about her exes, break-ups etc.) Therefore, just because she hasn’t for you doesn’t mean she hasn’t for me and countless others. For me, she is one of the greatest singer-song writers of all-time. And my yardstick is probably different from yours. You clearly don’t seem to agree, which is absolutely fine, but don’t negate my experience or call it hyperbole. As long as fans can be respectful to one another, I don’t really see what the issue is. We all have our own individual tastes/sensibilities.
Furthermore, “how artists connect with their fans doesn’t have very much to do with artistic significance?” – I found this to be extremely problematic. It is ALL about her artistry to me. I’m not connecting with her because she looks a certain away, has a billion dollar fortune, or that she’s dating x, y, or z. Back in 2008 when I first heard “Love Story” as a 15 year old on the radio, it spoke to me melodically, sonically, and lyrically more than any other song by any other artist at that time. I had no idea who Taylor Swift was or what she looked like. All I knew was the song made me feel a certain way, that I couldn’t stop hearing it on loop, and I wanted to memorize its lyrics. This is how she connected with me for the first time, and I how became her fan and no one can take that away from me.
Madan: “this is quite a personal not necessarily a universal claim” – That would be if said Gibson executive framed the statement that way. He says emphatically that she changed music, not that she changed how HE felt about music. I really dislike it when people get carried away by their personal feeling about an artist and turn it into a statement that they can pass off as objective. But the moment you make an objective statement, I am going to judge it from that prism. Me, I have no problem distinguishing my likes from claims about the influence and impact of an artist. I love Steely Dan, Stevie Wonder and King Crimson more than the artists I am about to list, all of whom I consider as far more revolutionary and the only ones whose influence approaches or matches that of the Beatles – Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Kraftwerk and Michael Jackson.
Sticking with that, “I found this to be extremely problematic. It is ALL about her artistry to me.” – Once again, I am talking about artistic significance from an objective standpoint because that is the framing the Gibson executive chose. An artist being significant to YOU does not by itself make the artist significant in a ‘global’ music context. So in that context, I don’t see what is problematic about it. Sure, she has connected to millions of fans but so did just about every big name pop star before her at some or other point in their career. That does not make most of them as significant as The Beatles and I wouldn’t regard any other than Michael Jackson to have had that measure of influence. Not even ABBA, who sold millions and millions of albums too and whose music I like more than MJ.
RamenNoodles: Re. The Beatles – when I can to the US in the early 90s (yes, I am old), I started talking about music with some old people (60+). They swore that only Sinatra mattered. They dismissed Beatles as “music for kids”. My point is – there is scientific research on this, but most people stop listening to new music around the ages of 25-30. Whatever they hear when they were 15-25 is what they will continue to insist is the “greatest ever”.
About the Beatles – “first to be a band” etc is ridiculous hyperbole. Kinks,Stones etc were already around or forming so Beatles didn’t happen in a vacuum. What worked for Beatles was they were 4 photogenic Brit boys (and yes, they were a “boy band” initially). Early music was mostly just covers of Little Richard etc. Then they started making original stuff (with cringe lyrics if I may add – see “I wanna hold your hand” ). They improved after that and Sgt Pepper/Revolver are interesting. But all the hype is mostly just nostalgia, sorry. I listen to tons of music from 60s all the way to stuff released last week.
People praising Beatles to the skies today sound exactly like the folks who told me they listen to only Sinatra. Time goes on.
And then I made this new thread. Fight on!
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#Taylor #Swift #Beatles #music #fan #wars #spinoff #G.O.A.T #review #thread
