January 5, 2015 • 45 mins
One of the most powerful women in the music industry, Taylor Swift has amassed a global legion of fans through her catchy songwriting, social media savvy and star-studded dating history. Cristen and Caroline take a look at the country-princess-turned-pop-powerhouse's incredible career and why her critics ignore her talent.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You From how Supports
dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline, and today we're talking about Taylor Swift.
He might seem like an unlikely subject for Stuff I'm
Never Told You, So to begin, Caroline, I first wanted
(00:25):
to pick your brain as to why t Swizzle. Yeah, well,
my boyfriend. Actually not to sound like I'm just talking
about my boyfriend, right, you can talk about him. Well,
it's real cute. No, My my boyfriend works in the
music industry and had made a couple of comments to
(00:47):
me recently about liking Taylor Swift, appreciating her or even
admiring the way she does business and the way she
interacts with her fans. And I sort of shrugged off
the comments because he's not the type two. He doesn't
actually listen into Taylor Swift. I'll just put it that way. Um,
he you know, has other musical preferences. So I just
thought it was interesting, like, Okay, what is to like
(01:10):
about this girl? Because I have never listened to Taylor
Swift's music in any sort of regular, devoted way, and
so I just had this impression of her as like, uh,
you know pop princess or a little country princess who's
more celebrity than musician, because you know, she's in all
the magazines, on all the blogs. You know, everybody's tracking
(01:32):
her whole dating life and everything like that. And I
just sort of had this stereotype of of like, well,
how how could she be a serious businesswoman or serious
musician or artist of any kind. But the more that
I started talking to my boyfriend about it, especially in
the wake of her decision to yank all of her
stuff off of Spotify, Uh, the more I came to realize, like,
(01:55):
there's definitely something there to talk about because she kind
of I don't know if she's breaking any molds in
the music industry, but she's certainly making her own. And
also considering the fact that she's still so young. She's
twenty five and has put out now five studio albums,
(02:17):
so she's been doing this for a long time and
she's so clearly good at it, and I think it's
also worth talking about, not just in the sense of
this young music mogul, but also to her cultural influence,
particularly to her younger fans, because she has made lots
of headlines regarding her personal stance on feminism and the
(02:42):
whole celebrity feminism thing can be tiresome and sometimes I
think distract us away from more arguably more important things
to talk about. But as we'll get into, I mean,
it's the same kind of thing when we were talking
about Beyonce. It you can't just did to guard or
marginalized the impact of her influence on so many girls,
(03:07):
in particular, well the Swifties in particular, Swifties are die
hard fans, So why don't we kick off with better
understanding who Taylor Swift is outside of tabloid headlines and
music videos. Yeah, she definitely has an interesting backstory. And
I just say interesting because she her family definitely had
(03:29):
the resources to help her get into the music industry
to the degree that she is now. Uh So, she
was born in nineteen eighty nine, and I say that
because her latest album is called nineteen eighty nine in Pennsylvania,
and it's reported everywhere that she grew up on a
Christmas tree farm. But her family they're not farmers. Her father,
who is a stockbroker, actually purchased the farm from one
(03:52):
of his clients. Um, but yeah, both of her parents
work in finance and are super involved in supportive of
her career, and back in the day, they actually agreed
to move to Nashville from Pennsylvania so that Taylor could
pursue her music career and now they're part owners of
her label. Yeah, so it definitely isn't one of those
like up from the via your own bootstraps kinds of stories.
(04:14):
But I don't think that that should mitigate her talent
because she was scouted early and was one of the youngest,
if not the youngest, person to get a songwriting development
deal when she was still in her teens with a
big label, the specific one I'm forgetting at the moment um.
(04:35):
So clearly she was very good at what she did
and had a knack early on. And she talked about
how in middle school especially, she was super awkward, but
she really found a lot of refuge in songwriting and
it was like the thing that she looked forward to
every day. Well, right, and the whole thing about her
awkwardness in middle school, I mean, who's not awkward in
middle school, to be honest, But she talked about how
(04:56):
back home in Pennsylvania it was sort of a mean
girls situation and that everybody was like, Oh, you think
you're hot stuff because you sing the national anthem at
a game or something. Whereas when she moved to Nashville,
all of a sudden, she's sort of in that culture
where it's probably not too hard to encounter either singers
or the children of singers, and so people that are
(05:17):
new school were like, oh, you're staying at school. Do
you want to be in the talent show? Yeah? And
I think it's too she like Parlay's that awkward phase
obviously into her music videos in particular, and probably it's
part of her appeal to younger girls going through that
awkward phase too. But I don't want to get ahead
of myself because next up we just need to highlight
(05:38):
just how mind blowing lye successful she's been. I mean,
you mentioned that your boyfriend appreciates her role in the
music industry, because I mean, it's clear that she has
been instrumental in keeping it alive in a lot of ways. Yeah,
she basically saved it back in twenty way back in
(05:59):
a couple of days ago. Um So, her latest album,
which is nine, like we said, was really its signaled
a major departure from her past as being this this
Country darling Um. I mean, she'd always been pretty poppy, uh,
but this was her concerted effort to go pop. And
the album was the first to go platinum in It's
(06:21):
sold nearly one point three million copies in its first
week of US release, making up of all US album
sales at the time it's it was the most successful
record debut since Eminem's two thousand two release of The
eminem Show. So thank god Taylor Swift came along and
(06:42):
uh showed up eminem Um. But and also just to
highlight how much fans were anticipating this album, because of
course there was a whole pr lead up to it too,
stoke fans desires to get the first pop album by
Taylor Swift in Canada on iTunes. By accident there was.
(07:04):
It was something like eight seconds of static, not actual
music that was released and it's still hit number one,
just because they were like, this is a Taylor Swift
something or other, Taylor Swift static, and so they bought
it and oops, it's just static, but it's still raced
up the charts. All right. If you can even sell static, yeah, yeah,
that's awesome. And if we look more at why and
(07:27):
how Taylor Swift essentially blew up the music industry in
According to Nielsen, more than half of the sales of
nine nine were physical copies versus digital. And this is
according to the Seattle Times. And that's that's a big
deal because how many people yourself included, Like, how many
people do you know buying tons of albums anymore? People?
(07:50):
A lot of it is just either a digital download
that's legit because you're buying it off of something like iTunes,
or you're streaming it on Spotify, or maybe you're just
playing steeling it off of you know, some websites somewhere. Well,
and especially for younger fans, like I would be quicker
to buy a CD for my dad than for my niece,
(08:11):
So you would be like, what is this? How do
I do that shiny thing? You're giving me? A Kristen right? Well,
so if we look at the numbers. According to the
Recording Industry Association of America, they reported that the sales
of CDs for the first half ofeen were down nineteen
percent from the year before to fifty six million. If
you compare that to two thousand two, total album sales
(08:34):
in the US were at six hundred and eighty one million,
and we'll we'll definitely get into more of the whole
issue around hard copy versus digital downloads as it applies
to Taylor Swift specifically in just a minute. Yeah, in
nine performed so well, obviously. Uh. It debuted at number
one on the Billboard two hundred, making t Swizzle the
(08:55):
first and only act to have three albums some more
than one million copies in a week. Not bad, not
bad for certainly not And I mean this is definitely
building off of previous success because before that, before came out,
she was the only female artist and the fourth artist
ever to twice have an album sell a million copies
(09:17):
in its first week. And that's twelves read and speak
now and for a few more accolades. She's won seven
Grammys as of this recording. She's also the youngest person
to ever win Album of the Year, which she won
in two thousand nine for Fearless, which was notably the
first album that she wrote solo. And in terms of
(09:39):
overall sales, she sold more than twenty six million albums
and seventy five million song downloads worldwide. She's a global brand.
And I remember there was a I think this was
mentioned in a two thousand and eleven New Yorker profile
of her how at the time they were her record label,
Big Machine, was preparing for like they were thinking the
(10:02):
next step would be Australia because she had done really
well in Asian They're like, okay, well, we've got the
Asian market. Next up is Australia, which was apparently a
big deal. And of course she nailed it. And she
was the first female artist since Madonna to successfully tour
and sell out stadiums there, yeah and back back, I
think I was yeah back in tent and that New
(10:23):
Yorker piece. They cited Forbes as ranking her as the
year's seventh biggest earning celebrity, with an annual income of
you know, just a paltry forty five million dollars, which
includes not only her music stuff, but also all of
her product endorsements. And what is so and I say
this genuinely, so please don't get mad at me, but
(10:44):
what is so adorable about Taylor Swift's product endorsements is
that she's very clear about how like, she will not
endorse something if she herself does not like it and
or grew up wanting to be in an advert like
cover girl who sponsored her I think most recent tour,
um she is a cover girl and told the interviewerre like, no,
(11:04):
no, no no, I've always been excited about this, like this
is awesome. And so that is part of the t
Swift brand, about being not only awkward and a little
gawky or whatever, but being adorably genuine. Yeah. And whether
or not that is partially artifice to me, it doesn't
really matter, because it's all part of how savvy of
(11:28):
a businesswoman she is at this point. I mean the
fact that this five ten model lesque five year old
can still be described adoring. Lee is a little bit
awkward and gawky, which is like nod, she have seen her.
She's awkward at all. She's just done such a such
an incredible job building and maintaining her brand in the
(11:51):
same one in a similar vein as Beyonce. Yeah, yeah exactly,
or a similar way as as Sminty. Yes. Yes, we
do like to think of ourselves as the Taylor Swift
of the podcast world. Perfect um. But yeah. So the
whole thing about her recent success with nineteen eighty nine
(12:12):
UM is that it has been super reaffirming for her.
This is coming from an article in Time magazine which
I think was titled The Power of Taylor swift Um.
She was talking about how every single element of the
album was called into question and she had to say, no,
this is how we're doing it. I mean, I love
that coming from not only a woman, but a very
(12:33):
young woman putting her foot down to all of these
record label execs. And she says, the fact that we
came out and did the kind of numbers we did
in the first week, you have no idea how relieved
I was, because it was all on me if this
didn't work. And to give you an idea of the
things that she was pushing back against, I mean, exacts
were concerned about the title, do you really want to
(12:53):
call it nineteen eighty nine? The cover image? Do you
really want to feature a picture of yourself when it's
not your full face, it's just like half of you.
And she definitely had to fight back against a lot
of people her label head in particular regarding her departure
from country music. They were like, all right, well, if
you're gonna go pop, can you at least get three
(13:15):
country songs on the record, And she's like, no, this
is my this is my thing. I'm doing this well.
And notable too that not only did she decided to
do this as a full on pop record, but she
also moved out of Nashville. I mean, she still has
her place in Nashville, but she also bought an apartment
in New York City. Um, but one thing that jumped
(13:35):
out to me in the Time magazine interview was her
bristling a little bit when the interviewer brought up Spotify
and her decision and Big Machines decision to pull all
of her music from the streaming service, because she was
basically like, why are you asking me about this? I
wrote an op ed in the Wall Street Journal, and
(13:56):
this isn't news anymore. This is my decision. How Ever,
her decision to pull her music from Spotify, it's certainly
still having ripple effects in terms of the music industry,
which obviously is evolving more and more towards digital right.
And so for perspective, she's honestly just one of a
few musicians who have taken their music off of Spotify
(14:18):
and streaming services like that. But you know, we talked
a little bit about album sales in the music industry earlier,
but let's give you a little more perspective around this issue.
So as sales of physical, actual concrete hard copy albums
and digital downloads decline, revenue from streaming services like Pandora,
(14:38):
like Spotify rose twenty in the first half of this
is great, right, well, except for the fact that artists
end up getting paid just a fraction of a penny
each time a song is streamed. Granted, if you're somebody
incredible like a Taylor Swift, like a Beyonce, You're still
going to make a ton of money. It's the little
guys who really suffer. So for a little more Taylor
(15:00):
Swift specific perspective, the Seattle Times talked to industry analyst
Alice Enders, who said that for a digital download, not
streaming on Spotify, but like literally purchasing it from iTunes
for digital digital download, Taylor will probably take home fift
of retail that's fifty or sixty cents, which is a
lot compared to Spotify's fraction of a penny. And there
(15:24):
was some news recently giving some more detail about the
whole Spotify deal, and the CEO of Spotify was none
to please. Not only that Taylor Swift withdrew her music
from his service, but that she's been so public about
it as to write that. Wall Street Journal op ed
and he was basically saying that, hey, Taylor was on
track to make more than six million dollars this year,
(15:45):
which was countered by the head of Swift label, Scott Barchetta,
who says, well, it's actually more like five hundred thousand,
which is kind of a big deal. But so when
you look at album sales in general, sales are down
so much that before Taylor Swift's nine Came Along was
set to be the first year in decades, decades when
(16:09):
no album was going to be certified platinum. And so
the fact that she's been able to do this after
having taken her stuff off streaming, I think is a
pretty incredible achievement, and I think it says a lot
about her fans too, Yeah, I mean, and the motivation
for pulling this stuff off Spotify obviously they're economic reasons,
but her whole thing too was this valid argument that
(16:36):
my music has value, It should have inherent value, and
I'm not comfortable putting it out there and sort of
devaluing it by just going ahead and agreeing to leave
it on Spotify. And so she talked all about this
in the op ed she wrote in July for The
Wall Street Journal, which of course went viral because everyone's like,
(16:57):
oh my gosh, Taylor Swift was the Wall Street Journal,
How kookie um. But she talked about how, quote, the
music industry is not dying, it's just coming alive. And
it was a very hyper optimistic portrayal of the music industry,
basically saying like art should be respected and valued and
if you you know, it's all about you have to
(17:20):
understand how to wield social media and cultivate your fan following.
At the same time, like we can't just give our
music away for free. And there great arguments sort of
in a vacuum that she makes, But at the same time,
it's an easy argument for Taylor Swift to make. You know,
it's a very sunny assessment of things are just coming alive.
Of course, you're you're twenty five, and you are like
(17:42):
selling as many records as the Beatles did. This is crazy.
But one thing the Beatles did not do was directly
communicate with their legions of beatlemaniac fans, and Taylor definitely
makes it a point to and not only talk about
how she's on social media, but to really genuinely be
you there and tweet back to her fans, talk to
(18:03):
them on tumbler, laugh at herself when people post memes
about her and things like that, and she's always done it.
In one interview, she talked about how back in two
thousand five, she told the folks at her record label
that she was commuting communicating with fans on my Space
and it just blew their minds, and partially because she
had the advantage of growing up on the internet. Yeah,
you know, she's a little bit younger than we did,
(18:24):
so she I mean, obviously we were both on my Space,
but for her, you know, my Space was an even
more integral part of her life, and she was savvy.
It's spotting the business opportunity of that. I mean, she
even talked about this in the Wall Street Journal about
how today you almost develop your online following and then
(18:44):
the product will follow that your online following has as much,
if not more currency than your actual art, as she
refers to her music. Yeah, and it's it's you know there.
There is a question about a lot of celebrities about
whether they are how invested they are in connecting with
their fans and is it really them behind the curtain?
And I think Taylor has really set herself apart by
(19:07):
making it clear that, yeah, this is me, and I
think it's really cool that you send me pictures and
stuff like that, and and and Vulture wrote about this too,
as far as her everything from her Internet presence to
her liner notes and her albums are a way to
reach out to her fans, and they said that it's
all one very savvy project to encourage devotion and relatability.
(19:29):
And another part of that is the fact that on
all of our social media she is posting some really
incredible pictures of some really incredible real life friends too. Yeah,
it's well known that she has just a bevy of attractive,
super famous gal pals. For lack of a better word,
I hate that I just said gal pals in the podcast,
so apologies to the listeners. But you know, people like
(19:51):
model Carly Class, Lena Dunham, who famously introduced her by
example to feminism and also feminists musician Lord, who initially
said some not so nice things about Taylor Swift in
the media, sort of labeling her as, you know, sort
of a vapid boy, crazy pop princess who has since
come around and now they're friends, and they you know,
(20:13):
always tweet to each other and take selfies together and
you know, make their instagrams just so jealousy provoking. Um.
But there was this great quote about this in Vulture, saying, quote,
performative female friendship is as old as a high school yearbook,
and celebrities have always been friends with with each other,
but social media learns an easy way to perform that
(20:34):
practical BFF requirement, the shout out. And it's just interesting
to see how she in particular, far beyond like a
lot of other celebrities at her level have used social
media for that. Yeah, because I don't doubt that she
has friends with these women, and that regardless of you know,
whether she's famous, she would be posting pictures of herself
(20:55):
and her friends. It just so happens that she's incredibly famous,
her friends are incredibly famous, They're very photogenic, and taking
these pictures, posting these pictures and things like that allows
people access into her life in a way that they
don't get if they're just reading tabloids, are just reading
gossip blogs. That's more of like a hey, I'm posting
(21:17):
pictures of my friends, and it's almost like you're my friends.
To looking at these pictures, well at least gives them
the sense that they're on the inside. And that's definitely
part of crafting a very specific image. And we're going
to talk more about that image when we come right
back from a quick break and now back to the show.
(21:40):
So in the first half of the podcast, we really
talked about Taylor Swift the businesswoman, kind of to establish
that she's a lot more than just a pop princess,
as a lot of people just think that she is. No,
she has a lot of ownership over her career and
over her image, and I want to talk a lot
about her image because has I think this This also
(22:01):
gets at why we wanted to talk about her on
the podcast, because yes, clearly an example of a savvy, smart,
successful young woman in the music business, but it's her
image that gets people talking so much, right exactly, And
so when she was interviewed by Time magazine, she talked
(22:25):
a lot about sort of the motivation behind why she
does things. She's often called the anti Lohan because she's
not one of those young child stars who has either
made the turn into like sexy music like Britney Spears.
And I only say that because I know that sounds ridiculous.
But she did have a quote about like, I don't
(22:45):
feel like I need to go dark like Britney Spears
did to prove that now I'm a grown up um.
She definitely maintains this image of being the prim statuesque
young woman who wears a lot of anthropology and other
vintage clothes and things like that, but she's got a
goofy side that she definitely has a goofy side, and
so she was telling Time magazine that she would rather
(23:09):
live her life based on what her grandkids will say
one day, rather than necessarily worrying about what the media
says about her or what social critics say about her.
She says, I think more about the people in my
life that would be disappointed, my mom, my dad, my
kids if I ever have them. And she says, and
that's why it's not as much pressure as thinking about
(23:31):
the millions of little minds that you must be shaping.
Because everybody also calls Taylor Swift a role model, because
she isn't the one being photographed out at the club,
falling out of a limo, being wasted all that stuff
and Lindsey so sad for Lindsay Lowen, Lindsay Lohan and Brittany. Um.
But again, I mean, you know, she she accepts that
(23:53):
role model mantle that people put on her, as opposed
to I feel like a lot of celebrities out there
who when people shake their finger at them and say,
you shouldn't be acting like this because you're a role
model to young girls. A lot of young women who
are celebrities stay, well, I don't want it, I never
wanted it. I'm just living my life. And well, that's true.
Everyone should have a right to live their own life
and get drunk in a limo if they want. I mean,
(24:14):
who hasn't wanted to get drunk in a limo? Um.
There is something very interesting about this, the fact that
Taylor Swift is so super conscious of being a role model,
wanting to be a role model, and definitely making an
effort to play the part. Well, because it's an interesting
dichotomy too, because clearly a lot of what fuels her
(24:37):
music and her fandom is her dating life, even though
right now she's kind of sworn off guys, hence all
the selfies with all of her lady BFFs. But you know,
there's that whole angle that leaves fans, you know, digging
through her liner notes trying to find clues as to
whether that is about John Mayer or whether that is
(24:59):
about Harry Styles, who she's actually singing about. But at
the same time, she's very conscious, like outwardly of like
she has no interest in being overtly sexy, right, And
if you watch her videos, it's so clear. I mean,
she's gorgeous, and she's very well dressed, and she has
I think I've already described her once in this podcast
a statuesque, and she is, but it's not. I mean,
(25:22):
it just stands so much in contrast, for instance, to
Katie Perry or Nicki Minaj, although I feel like Nicki
Minaj and Taylor Swift that just gets into apples and oranges,
And I mean, the whole crafting of the image using
social media. Vanity Fair called it actually a rather brilliant
marketing move. They say that it doesn't mean it was conscious.
(25:42):
She is, after all, the product of this Internet era,
but it is a very conscious decision to craft her
own image in whatever way she can, and social media
is a big part of that. I mean, you know,
that's why people warn you, like, don't put anything on
the internet you don't want people to see, because it's
all part of what you project to the outside world.
And Taylor is super conscious of that. Yeah, there was
(26:04):
I believe it was in a Rolling Stone uh profile
of her which talked about her paranoia. She was just
like I whenever she goes into a dressing room for
the first time she has I'm sure someone else check
for cameras because you know, it's something like things that
(26:24):
we would take for granted that just absolutely cannot happen,
right Well, I mean also the whole thing about like
she also checks for Mike's She's worried about people being
bugged and wired and and taping any sort of performance
or or video shoot or anything like that. And she
even had one interviewer listened to a preview of her
album on earbuds, like she wouldn't play it for her
(26:46):
out in the open. Yeah, but speaking of listening to
a new song, being a songwriter is also front and
center as part of that image. For instance, in two
thousand and ten, it was a huge deal that she
wrote all the songs to her album Speak Now by herself.
I mean, people were saying this is unheard of for
(27:08):
an artist to do that, and they're also skeptics who
say she's not writing this by herself, there's no way,
But I mean, she stands by that, and a lot
of people who she writes with stand by it as well,
Like we might. I might come in and sort of bounce,
she might bounce ideas off of me, But she's writing
everything's or her songs. Yeah. Well, and and she's a
(27:32):
songwriter to the point where in October uh Nashville, the
Nashville Songwriters Association International honored her for a record sixth
time as Songwriter Artist of the Year, surpassing veterans like
Vince Gill and Alan Jackson. And though now though that
she's made this pop transformation, she is working with more
(27:54):
pop leaning songwriting partners like the very big deal Max Martin.
He works with a ton of artists. But Liz Rose,
who's also a big deal songwriter in Nashville and is
a former collaborator with Swift, says basically what Kristen just said,
that it's it's not the Taylor's not writing just because
she's collaborating with people, which, by the way, I mean
(28:17):
You'd be hard pressed to find any musician who doesn't
collaborate in some way with someone on songwriting or arrangement.
But anyway, Liz Rose said that my strength with Taylor
isn't writing lyrics. It's whittling things down and pulling out
the important pieces. She says, the writers that did try
to mess with her lyrics, she didn't write with them
a second time. Yeah, I wouldn't want to cross Taylor's swift.
(28:40):
Girl knows what she wants. Yeah, And her attitude toward
writing song lyrics is I mean, it's it's really basic
in a way. She just she told Time Magazine, for instance,
I've been able to write songs and feel better. They
clarify and simplify the emotions that you're feeling. And it's
the that emotive quality to her songs and the fact
(29:04):
that a lot of the subject matter does deal in dating,
in romance and crushes and all of that that her
critics try to write her off. But Tommy Givenson, who
is the brainchild genius behind Rookie Magazine and other incredible things,
wrote about this in Believer Magazine, basically saying no, no, no, no,
(29:25):
that is exactly why she's so good. She said essentially
that she has a gift for taking what might seem
like a mundane kind of thing, like having a crush
on a boy, and actually pulling out and writing those
(29:47):
emotions to make it sound as big as it felt.
Even though we might want to disregard those kinds of instances,
it's still, I mean, it's still a gift to be
able to capture that and clearly capture it in a
way that resonates with so many younger girls in particular. Yeah,
And I mean that's why I like what she said
(30:08):
to Vanity Fair. And and I think this is part
of seeing her coming of age. Not to sound like
I'm this crotchety old woman who's like, look at this
young girl coming of age. But that's what I like
so much about Taylor Swift's quote in Vanity Fair about
songwriting and writing lyrics and having people judge you so
harshly for being female and writing about your emotions. She
(30:31):
says that for people who portray women like her as
clingy or insane or desperate because of the way she
writes about relationships and love and things like that, she said,
I think that's taking something that potentially should be celebrated
a woman writing about her feelings in a confessional way
and turning it and twisting it into something that is
(30:51):
frankly a little sexist. And in the same vein, she
also calls out people who criticize her and claim that
she doesn't write all of her songs, or that she
has a ghost writer, or she has a whole team
of people pulling the strings behind her. She actually said,
we all know that this is a feminist issue, and
of course, when I read that is the first sense
of that paragraph, I was like, what do we tailor
(31:14):
what do you mean? Well, don't worry if she continued.
She talked about how nobody questions her male singer songwriter
friends about whether they write everything, and she said, you know,
in the beginning, I thought we were all on the
same playing field, and then it became pretty obvious to
me that when you have people sort of questioning the
validity of a female songwriter and making it seem like
(31:36):
it's somehow unacceptable to write songs about your real emotions,
that it somehow makes you irrational and over emotional. Seeing
that over the years changed my view. And she talks
about how she takes up the cause for Nicki Minaj
and Iggy Azalea, saying that why do they have to
prove that they write their own lyrics when men in
the same type of genre don't necessarily have to justify that. Yeah,
(32:00):
and along similar lines in terms of people wanting to
dismiss her music as oh, well, it's just you know,
dribble about boys and heartache, she's talking to the guardians saying,
I really resent the idea that if a woman writes
about her feelings, she has too many feelings. And I
really resent the be careful buddy, she's going to write
a song about you angle because it trivializes what I do,
(32:22):
which kind of echoes her Spotify decision. She said, quote
it makes it seem like creating art is something you
do as a cheap weapon rather than an artistic process.
And yes it does. Her artistic process often involve writing
highly autobiographical songs about either past crushes or relationships, or
(32:44):
just people who have done her wrong. Yes, but she
clearly does it very well and she's been very successful
at it. Is there room for critiquing some of her lyrics,
particularly in earlier albums, Yes, there have been times when
I gonna botch the actual lyric. But there have been
have there been times when she has perhaps thrown shade
(33:06):
at characters in her songs, whether they are real or fictional,
for perhaps having pre marital sex, or maybe making riskier
and quotes decisions than her character in the song would make. Yeah,
she has, But it seems like she has evolved from
that in the same way that her public stance on
feminism has evolved to the point that, you know, like
(33:28):
she was talking to Time, we all know this is
a feminist issue. Being that direct about it. Yeah, I
mean she admits she wasn't so sure about the feminism
thing at first, which everybody remembers because that is also
why when my boyfriend was like, hey, you know, Taylor
Swift is pretty savvy, I was like, yeah, whatever. She
won't even admit to being feminist, doesn't even know what
feminism is, she doesn't define it correctly, which I mean
(33:51):
full disclosure. I posted her quote that launched a thousand
blogs about feminism on the Stuff I've Never Told You
facebook page with probably snarky comment of oh, here we
go again, because she said back in the day and
back in the day. By the way, folks, is only
like three years, but still a lifetime for this woman's
(34:13):
career because so much has happened. She said, quote, I
don't really think about things as guys versus girls. I
never have. I was raised by parents who brought me
up to think if you work as hard as guys,
you can go far in life. And that was in
response to someone asking whether she was a feminist and
everybody was like, no, but you are, and now, of course, largely,
(34:34):
she said due to Lena Dunham's influence. She's like, oh, yeah, no, no, no,
I totally am a feminist. I just didn't get it. Yeah,
she says that kind of watching the way that Lena
Dunham operates and lives her life made her realize that
she's been taking a feminist stance this whole time without
actually saying so. And I mean that's what was so
fascinating about that slightly dated now New Yorker piece that
(34:57):
followed her around, because this writer is watching her operate
like a boss, I mean, telling people exactly what she
wants and how she wants it, but going about it
in a very very like adorable Taylor Swift fashion, even
to the point where she talks about how she was
so disillusioned by the typical format of the artist fan
(35:19):
meet and greet of like, Okay, you've seen the show,
and now you all stand in line and you get
a v I P bracelet because you paid a million
dollars to see me, and you come backstage and we
take pictures and you go home. Instead, she had her
mom and some of the other members of her team
help pick out individual members of the audience who looked
like these are the girls who were absolutely going crazy
(35:40):
for Taylor Swift and love her. We're gonna hand pick
them to come backstage. And then they like set up
in this like this super decorated tent and she hangs
out and she looks at their posters, and it's more
just like with the rest of the Taylor Swift brand
image thing, it's very much more like a hey, we're buddies,
we're hanging out, Welcome to my life, when really, you know,
(36:02):
they're not in her life. They're in a tent backstage,
hanging out on some really crushy pillows. But she has
definitely crafted this whole process in such a way that
allows these young girls to feel like I can really
connect with her. She writes about boys. I like boys.
I feel sad too sometimes and they really feel like
(36:24):
because she might tweet back at them, or she might
retweet a picture of them holding up the polaroids that
came with the hard copy of that they have a
connection to this superstar. Well, what do we take away
though from the superstar? Because you could also, and I'm
gonna play like crotchety feminists in the corner for a
minute and say, but you could argue that she is
(36:47):
ultimately promoting heteronormative culture. And she's, you know, traditionally like
beautiful girl. She's quite thin. Girls want to look like her.
Perhaps they judge their body is because of her. So
are we really should we really? Just you know, do
we love this so much? Whereas someone like Lord is
(37:09):
a bit more subversive. Yes, she's still white, but she
is a little bit darker and a little boy. I mean,
she's just a little more goth in general. But you
know what I mean, So what do we how do
we reconcile that kind of stuff? I mean, it's the
same kind of question that we circled around too at
the end of our episode on Beyonce of Well, how
do we reconcile like her sexy, the sexiness of her image,
(37:32):
and the her personal feminist believes well, I think I
think Taylor Swift and Beyonce both have a certain power,
and I mean, I obviously think that they exercise that
power differently, and they obviously look different. Um, but I
think what we're seeing with both of these pop stars
is that they are two young women who have really
(37:56):
really taken control of their careers and their image, and
who who are speaking up for their art and sometimes
for other women. And so if you can get uh,
an eleven year old girl to hear that message, I
think that's great. Do we need more diversity in our
(38:17):
feminist spokespeople, Absolutely, I would never turn that down. However,
working within the framework that we have, I think it's
pretty neat that you have someone like a Beyonce, or
like a Taylor Swift in this case, speaking up for
taking charge of your career, taking charge of your life,
being very vocal about the fact that hey, all these
(38:38):
naysayers who were like, don't do this way, you know,
they ended up being wrong and I ended up being right.
I think that's a great message for anyone to hear.
And the fact that we sort of got to watch
her grow up. We literally got to watch her grow up.
But the fact that we got to watch her sort
of quote unquote come of age into the idea of
feminism is actually really neat because I think that, you know,
(38:59):
to the Swift herself talked about how scary the idea
and the word feminism was to her as a younger woman,
and I think that there are a lot of plenty
of people out there, not just young girls, who can
identify with that idea that feminism is scary and it's
dirty and we don't like it and it means that
you hate men or you hate whatever. Um. They define
it in a negative way instead of a positive way.
(39:21):
And so the fact that we can watch her go
through this and come to this realization means that maybe,
just maybe some of her fans will come along on
that same train with her. I completely agree. And I
also think too that where we are pop culturally is
as much reflective in her fans as it is in
(39:45):
her naysayers, because this is something that Tommy Givinson was
talking to Flavor Wire about. She was the question was,
why do you think some people dislike Swift so much?
Because it's clear why so many girls in particular love her.
That's easy to understand. But Gevinson said, some of it
is just a standard, inevitable famous pop star part she
(40:07):
has an enviable life, But I think more of it
comes from people who really hate that it could be
more complicated than that, that they can't just dismiss it
as stupid teeny bopper music. Because critics mak her seriously,
and she's proven herself to be so much more than
a passing fat that's when they try to invalidate the
parts of her which are impressive or even somewhat subversive.
(40:27):
Her songs and feelings are based on lies because she's
a crazy, manipulative serial data. The unique amount of control
she has over her brand is exploitative of her loyal fans.
And she goes on to say, I've seen articles that
you Swift as the focal point for discussions on everything
from classism to gender. Can you think of another current
pop star that stirs up so much debate and discussion,
(40:50):
and I mean probably Beyonce. Well, and she mentions Beyonce.
She was like, yeah, there's Beyonce, but really, you know,
Swift and Beyonce are probably tied for first in that regard,
and this is going to lead us into our next episode,
in which we're going to shift our focus more to
the swiftiest end of things and talk about how probably
(41:11):
a lot of and it's not gonna be focused on
Taylor Swift, but probably a lot of her criticism stems
from her fan base and the fact that it is
teenage girls, tween age and teenage girls who adore her
the most, and a lot of times. If that's the case,
you are dismissed. So with that, shall we ask for
(41:34):
people's thoughts totally? What do you think about Taylor Swift.
I'm sure that there are Tea Swizzle fans and t
Swizzle haters listening, so we want to hear your thoughts.
Let us know what you think about her and if
she is important, particularly in terms of her influence on
younger girls, and do you think that that's a good
thing or a bad thing. Mom's staffth House stuffworks dot
(41:55):
Com is our email address. You can also tweet us
at Mom's Stuff Podcast. We'd love to hear your thoughts,
and we've got a couple of letters to share with
you when we come right back from a quick break
and now back to the show. Well, speaking of Taylor Swift,
we heard from a lot of women in music in
(42:16):
response to our episode a little while back on women
in indie rock, and Emma wrote to say, I really
loved your interview with Sarah Martin from Belle and Sebastian.
I've loved Belle and Sebastian for years and was really
excited to hear Sarah talked about being a woman in indie.
I just wanted to share my comparatively limited experience. I'm
sixteen and for the past year have been in a
(42:37):
fairly serious giggling band under the name of Spastic Fits
Love the name Emma. We recently recorded our first EP. Counterintuitively,
I found that being a woman in a male dominated
field of rock music has actually been an advantage. The
sheer fact that it seems to be unusual to see
a girl in a serious band, or in our case too,
(42:58):
we have a rad female basis as well, which is
even more uncommon, seems to peak people's interests in garner
respect for being able to make it in a place
women usually can't. Just thought i'd share. Thank you so
much for the wonderful podcast, and thank you Emma and
good luck with his fastic fits. All right, Well, I've
got to let her here. From Alicia, she says, I
can totally relate to the only girl in the band episode,
(43:21):
as I am indeed the only girl in my band.
We're called the Wag and we've been together for over
sixteen years. Here's a part where being the only girl
comes into it. Whenever we open for a big act,
we like to take a photo with them, usually the
press or they're also taking photos of us in the
national act. Sometimes the newspaper will only print a portion
of the photo. My bandmates have learned over the years,
(43:41):
if you want to be in the photo, make sure
you stand next to Alicia, because they will always print
the portion of the photo that has the girl in it.
For the first thirteen years and we were playing full
electric gigs all over the place. The band dynamics were
such that it was truly a democracy, with each person
getting an equal vote. Everyone was expected to carry their
own weight and be each other's roadies. Yes, even me,
the small, skinny girl, and I did it with pride.
(44:02):
No man was going to carry more than I did.
Being the only girl in the band can draw attention
when we're playing a bar with three other bands and
we're the only band with a girl. It's advantageous because
for some reason, people just don't expect girls to be
great rock and roll musicians, so I like to shock them.
Usually people will ask me, oh, are you the singer,
to which I reply yes, as are the bassist and
the guitarist. When one of us is singing lead, the
(44:24):
other two are singing harmonies and backup. Most bands don't
have either. As well as being one of the singers,
I'm also the keyboardist and percussionist, and on some songs
I play guitar or flute. They always assume that I'm
quote unquote just a singer because I'm female. I then
have the pleasure of telling them I'm the only one
in my band with a degree in music. Anyway, We're
(44:44):
not on the same level as Bell and Sebastian, but
having been doing this for over sixteen years, I can
completely relate to the episode and thoroughly enjoy it. So
thank you, Alicia, and good luck with your music, and
thanks to everybody who's written into us. Mom step at
house stuffworks dot Com is a email address and for
links to all of our social media, as well as
all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts, including this one
(45:07):
with all of our sources. In case you want to
learn more about Taylor's swift, head on over to our
website It's Stuff Bomb Never Told You dot com for
more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
how Stuff Works dot com
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You From how Supports
dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline, and today we're talking about Taylor Swift.
He might seem like an unlikely subject for Stuff I'm
Never Told You, So to begin, Caroline, I first wanted
(00:25):
to pick your brain as to why t Swizzle. Yeah, well,
my boyfriend. Actually not to sound like I'm just talking
about my boyfriend, right, you can talk about him. Well,
it's real cute. No, My my boyfriend works in the
music industry and had made a couple of comments to
(00:47):
me recently about liking Taylor Swift, appreciating her or even
admiring the way she does business and the way she
interacts with her fans. And I sort of shrugged off
the comments because he's not the type two. He doesn't
actually listen into Taylor Swift. I'll just put it that way. Um,
he you know, has other musical preferences. So I just
thought it was interesting, like, Okay, what is to like
(01:10):
about this girl? Because I have never listened to Taylor
Swift's music in any sort of regular, devoted way, and
so I just had this impression of her as like, uh,
you know pop princess or a little country princess who's
more celebrity than musician, because you know, she's in all
the magazines, on all the blogs. You know, everybody's tracking
(01:32):
her whole dating life and everything like that. And I
just sort of had this stereotype of of like, well,
how how could she be a serious businesswoman or serious
musician or artist of any kind. But the more that
I started talking to my boyfriend about it, especially in
the wake of her decision to yank all of her
stuff off of Spotify, Uh, the more I came to realize, like,
(01:55):
there's definitely something there to talk about because she kind
of I don't know if she's breaking any molds in
the music industry, but she's certainly making her own. And
also considering the fact that she's still so young. She's
twenty five and has put out now five studio albums,
(02:17):
so she's been doing this for a long time and
she's so clearly good at it, and I think it's
also worth talking about, not just in the sense of
this young music mogul, but also to her cultural influence,
particularly to her younger fans, because she has made lots
of headlines regarding her personal stance on feminism and the
(02:42):
whole celebrity feminism thing can be tiresome and sometimes I
think distract us away from more arguably more important things
to talk about. But as we'll get into, I mean,
it's the same kind of thing when we were talking
about Beyonce. It you can't just did to guard or
marginalized the impact of her influence on so many girls,
(03:07):
in particular, well the Swifties in particular, Swifties are die
hard fans, So why don't we kick off with better
understanding who Taylor Swift is outside of tabloid headlines and
music videos. Yeah, she definitely has an interesting backstory. And
I just say interesting because she her family definitely had
(03:29):
the resources to help her get into the music industry
to the degree that she is now. Uh So, she
was born in nineteen eighty nine, and I say that
because her latest album is called nineteen eighty nine in Pennsylvania,
and it's reported everywhere that she grew up on a
Christmas tree farm. But her family they're not farmers. Her father,
who is a stockbroker, actually purchased the farm from one
(03:52):
of his clients. Um, but yeah, both of her parents
work in finance and are super involved in supportive of
her career, and back in the day, they actually agreed
to move to Nashville from Pennsylvania so that Taylor could
pursue her music career and now they're part owners of
her label. Yeah, so it definitely isn't one of those
like up from the via your own bootstraps kinds of stories.
(04:14):
But I don't think that that should mitigate her talent
because she was scouted early and was one of the youngest,
if not the youngest, person to get a songwriting development
deal when she was still in her teens with a
big label, the specific one I'm forgetting at the moment um.
(04:35):
So clearly she was very good at what she did
and had a knack early on. And she talked about
how in middle school especially, she was super awkward, but
she really found a lot of refuge in songwriting and
it was like the thing that she looked forward to
every day. Well, right, and the whole thing about her
awkwardness in middle school, I mean, who's not awkward in
middle school, to be honest, But she talked about how
(04:56):
back home in Pennsylvania it was sort of a mean
girls situation and that everybody was like, Oh, you think
you're hot stuff because you sing the national anthem at
a game or something. Whereas when she moved to Nashville,
all of a sudden, she's sort of in that culture
where it's probably not too hard to encounter either singers
or the children of singers, and so people that are
(05:17):
new school were like, oh, you're staying at school. Do
you want to be in the talent show? Yeah? And
I think it's too she like Parlay's that awkward phase
obviously into her music videos in particular, and probably it's
part of her appeal to younger girls going through that
awkward phase too. But I don't want to get ahead
of myself because next up we just need to highlight
(05:38):
just how mind blowing lye successful she's been. I mean,
you mentioned that your boyfriend appreciates her role in the
music industry, because I mean, it's clear that she has
been instrumental in keeping it alive in a lot of ways. Yeah,
she basically saved it back in twenty way back in
(05:59):
a couple of days ago. Um So, her latest album,
which is nine, like we said, was really its signaled
a major departure from her past as being this this
Country darling Um. I mean, she'd always been pretty poppy, uh,
but this was her concerted effort to go pop. And
the album was the first to go platinum in It's
(06:21):
sold nearly one point three million copies in its first
week of US release, making up of all US album
sales at the time it's it was the most successful
record debut since Eminem's two thousand two release of The
eminem Show. So thank god Taylor Swift came along and
(06:42):
uh showed up eminem Um. But and also just to
highlight how much fans were anticipating this album, because of
course there was a whole pr lead up to it too,
stoke fans desires to get the first pop album by
Taylor Swift in Canada on iTunes. By accident there was.
(07:04):
It was something like eight seconds of static, not actual
music that was released and it's still hit number one,
just because they were like, this is a Taylor Swift
something or other, Taylor Swift static, and so they bought
it and oops, it's just static, but it's still raced
up the charts. All right. If you can even sell static, yeah, yeah,
that's awesome. And if we look more at why and
(07:27):
how Taylor Swift essentially blew up the music industry in
According to Nielsen, more than half of the sales of
nine nine were physical copies versus digital. And this is
according to the Seattle Times. And that's that's a big
deal because how many people yourself included, Like, how many
people do you know buying tons of albums anymore? People?
(07:50):
A lot of it is just either a digital download
that's legit because you're buying it off of something like iTunes,
or you're streaming it on Spotify, or maybe you're just
playing steeling it off of you know, some websites somewhere. Well,
and especially for younger fans, like I would be quicker
to buy a CD for my dad than for my niece,
(08:11):
So you would be like, what is this? How do
I do that shiny thing? You're giving me? A Kristen right? Well,
so if we look at the numbers. According to the
Recording Industry Association of America, they reported that the sales
of CDs for the first half ofeen were down nineteen
percent from the year before to fifty six million. If
you compare that to two thousand two, total album sales
(08:34):
in the US were at six hundred and eighty one million,
and we'll we'll definitely get into more of the whole
issue around hard copy versus digital downloads as it applies
to Taylor Swift specifically in just a minute. Yeah, in
nine performed so well, obviously. Uh. It debuted at number
one on the Billboard two hundred, making t Swizzle the
(08:55):
first and only act to have three albums some more
than one million copies in a week. Not bad, not
bad for certainly not And I mean this is definitely
building off of previous success because before that, before came out,
she was the only female artist and the fourth artist
ever to twice have an album sell a million copies
(09:17):
in its first week. And that's twelves read and speak
now and for a few more accolades. She's won seven
Grammys as of this recording. She's also the youngest person
to ever win Album of the Year, which she won
in two thousand nine for Fearless, which was notably the
first album that she wrote solo. And in terms of
(09:39):
overall sales, she sold more than twenty six million albums
and seventy five million song downloads worldwide. She's a global brand.
And I remember there was a I think this was
mentioned in a two thousand and eleven New Yorker profile
of her how at the time they were her record label,
Big Machine, was preparing for like they were thinking the
(10:02):
next step would be Australia because she had done really
well in Asian They're like, okay, well, we've got the
Asian market. Next up is Australia, which was apparently a
big deal. And of course she nailed it. And she
was the first female artist since Madonna to successfully tour
and sell out stadiums there, yeah and back back, I
think I was yeah back in tent and that New
(10:23):
Yorker piece. They cited Forbes as ranking her as the
year's seventh biggest earning celebrity, with an annual income of
you know, just a paltry forty five million dollars, which
includes not only her music stuff, but also all of
her product endorsements. And what is so and I say
this genuinely, so please don't get mad at me, but
(10:44):
what is so adorable about Taylor Swift's product endorsements is
that she's very clear about how like, she will not
endorse something if she herself does not like it and
or grew up wanting to be in an advert like
cover girl who sponsored her I think most recent tour,
um she is a cover girl and told the interviewerre like, no,
(11:04):
no, no no, I've always been excited about this, like this
is awesome. And so that is part of the t
Swift brand, about being not only awkward and a little
gawky or whatever, but being adorably genuine. Yeah. And whether
or not that is partially artifice to me, it doesn't
really matter, because it's all part of how savvy of
(11:28):
a businesswoman she is at this point. I mean the
fact that this five ten model lesque five year old
can still be described adoring. Lee is a little bit
awkward and gawky, which is like nod, she have seen her.
She's awkward at all. She's just done such a such
an incredible job building and maintaining her brand in the
(11:51):
same one in a similar vein as Beyonce. Yeah, yeah exactly,
or a similar way as as Sminty. Yes. Yes, we
do like to think of ourselves as the Taylor Swift
of the podcast world. Perfect um. But yeah. So the
whole thing about her recent success with nineteen eighty nine
(12:12):
UM is that it has been super reaffirming for her.
This is coming from an article in Time magazine which
I think was titled The Power of Taylor swift Um.
She was talking about how every single element of the
album was called into question and she had to say, no,
this is how we're doing it. I mean, I love
that coming from not only a woman, but a very
(12:33):
young woman putting her foot down to all of these
record label execs. And she says, the fact that we
came out and did the kind of numbers we did
in the first week, you have no idea how relieved
I was, because it was all on me if this
didn't work. And to give you an idea of the
things that she was pushing back against, I mean, exacts
were concerned about the title, do you really want to
(12:53):
call it nineteen eighty nine? The cover image? Do you
really want to feature a picture of yourself when it's
not your full face, it's just like half of you.
And she definitely had to fight back against a lot
of people her label head in particular regarding her departure
from country music. They were like, all right, well, if
you're gonna go pop, can you at least get three
(13:15):
country songs on the record, And she's like, no, this
is my this is my thing. I'm doing this well.
And notable too that not only did she decided to
do this as a full on pop record, but she
also moved out of Nashville. I mean, she still has
her place in Nashville, but she also bought an apartment
in New York City. Um, but one thing that jumped
(13:35):
out to me in the Time magazine interview was her
bristling a little bit when the interviewer brought up Spotify
and her decision and Big Machines decision to pull all
of her music from the streaming service, because she was
basically like, why are you asking me about this? I
wrote an op ed in the Wall Street Journal, and
(13:56):
this isn't news anymore. This is my decision. How Ever,
her decision to pull her music from Spotify, it's certainly
still having ripple effects in terms of the music industry,
which obviously is evolving more and more towards digital right.
And so for perspective, she's honestly just one of a
few musicians who have taken their music off of Spotify
(14:18):
and streaming services like that. But you know, we talked
a little bit about album sales in the music industry earlier,
but let's give you a little more perspective around this issue.
So as sales of physical, actual concrete hard copy albums
and digital downloads decline, revenue from streaming services like Pandora,
(14:38):
like Spotify rose twenty in the first half of this
is great, right, well, except for the fact that artists
end up getting paid just a fraction of a penny
each time a song is streamed. Granted, if you're somebody
incredible like a Taylor Swift, like a Beyonce, You're still
going to make a ton of money. It's the little
guys who really suffer. So for a little more Taylor
(15:00):
Swift specific perspective, the Seattle Times talked to industry analyst
Alice Enders, who said that for a digital download, not
streaming on Spotify, but like literally purchasing it from iTunes
for digital digital download, Taylor will probably take home fift
of retail that's fifty or sixty cents, which is a
lot compared to Spotify's fraction of a penny. And there
(15:24):
was some news recently giving some more detail about the
whole Spotify deal, and the CEO of Spotify was none
to please. Not only that Taylor Swift withdrew her music
from his service, but that she's been so public about
it as to write that. Wall Street Journal op ed
and he was basically saying that, hey, Taylor was on
track to make more than six million dollars this year,
(15:45):
which was countered by the head of Swift label, Scott Barchetta,
who says, well, it's actually more like five hundred thousand,
which is kind of a big deal. But so when
you look at album sales in general, sales are down
so much that before Taylor Swift's nine Came Along was
set to be the first year in decades, decades when
(16:09):
no album was going to be certified platinum. And so
the fact that she's been able to do this after
having taken her stuff off streaming, I think is a
pretty incredible achievement, and I think it says a lot
about her fans too, Yeah, I mean, and the motivation
for pulling this stuff off Spotify obviously they're economic reasons,
but her whole thing too was this valid argument that
(16:36):
my music has value, It should have inherent value, and
I'm not comfortable putting it out there and sort of
devaluing it by just going ahead and agreeing to leave
it on Spotify. And so she talked all about this
in the op ed she wrote in July for The
Wall Street Journal, which of course went viral because everyone's like,
(16:57):
oh my gosh, Taylor Swift was the Wall Street Journal,
How kookie um. But she talked about how, quote, the
music industry is not dying, it's just coming alive. And
it was a very hyper optimistic portrayal of the music industry,
basically saying like art should be respected and valued and
if you you know, it's all about you have to
(17:20):
understand how to wield social media and cultivate your fan following.
At the same time, like we can't just give our
music away for free. And there great arguments sort of
in a vacuum that she makes, But at the same time,
it's an easy argument for Taylor Swift to make. You know,
it's a very sunny assessment of things are just coming alive.
Of course, you're you're twenty five, and you are like
(17:42):
selling as many records as the Beatles did. This is crazy.
But one thing the Beatles did not do was directly
communicate with their legions of beatlemaniac fans, and Taylor definitely
makes it a point to and not only talk about
how she's on social media, but to really genuinely be
you there and tweet back to her fans, talk to
(18:03):
them on tumbler, laugh at herself when people post memes
about her and things like that, and she's always done it.
In one interview, she talked about how back in two
thousand five, she told the folks at her record label
that she was commuting communicating with fans on my Space
and it just blew their minds, and partially because she
had the advantage of growing up on the internet. Yeah,
you know, she's a little bit younger than we did,
(18:24):
so she I mean, obviously we were both on my Space,
but for her, you know, my Space was an even
more integral part of her life, and she was savvy.
It's spotting the business opportunity of that. I mean, she
even talked about this in the Wall Street Journal about
how today you almost develop your online following and then
(18:44):
the product will follow that your online following has as much,
if not more currency than your actual art, as she
refers to her music. Yeah, and it's it's you know there.
There is a question about a lot of celebrities about
whether they are how invested they are in connecting with
their fans and is it really them behind the curtain?
And I think Taylor has really set herself apart by
(19:07):
making it clear that, yeah, this is me, and I
think it's really cool that you send me pictures and
stuff like that, and and and Vulture wrote about this too,
as far as her everything from her Internet presence to
her liner notes and her albums are a way to
reach out to her fans, and they said that it's
all one very savvy project to encourage devotion and relatability.
(19:29):
And another part of that is the fact that on
all of our social media she is posting some really
incredible pictures of some really incredible real life friends too. Yeah,
it's well known that she has just a bevy of attractive,
super famous gal pals. For lack of a better word,
I hate that I just said gal pals in the podcast,
so apologies to the listeners. But you know, people like
(19:51):
model Carly Class, Lena Dunham, who famously introduced her by
example to feminism and also feminists musician Lord, who initially
said some not so nice things about Taylor Swift in
the media, sort of labeling her as, you know, sort
of a vapid boy, crazy pop princess who has since
come around and now they're friends, and they you know,
(20:13):
always tweet to each other and take selfies together and
you know, make their instagrams just so jealousy provoking. Um.
But there was this great quote about this in Vulture, saying, quote,
performative female friendship is as old as a high school yearbook,
and celebrities have always been friends with with each other,
but social media learns an easy way to perform that
(20:34):
practical BFF requirement, the shout out. And it's just interesting
to see how she in particular, far beyond like a
lot of other celebrities at her level have used social
media for that. Yeah, because I don't doubt that she
has friends with these women, and that regardless of you know,
whether she's famous, she would be posting pictures of herself
(20:55):
and her friends. It just so happens that she's incredibly famous,
her friends are incredibly famous, They're very photogenic, and taking
these pictures, posting these pictures and things like that allows
people access into her life in a way that they
don't get if they're just reading tabloids, are just reading
gossip blogs. That's more of like a hey, I'm posting
(21:17):
pictures of my friends, and it's almost like you're my friends.
To looking at these pictures, well at least gives them
the sense that they're on the inside. And that's definitely
part of crafting a very specific image. And we're going
to talk more about that image when we come right
back from a quick break and now back to the show.
(21:40):
So in the first half of the podcast, we really
talked about Taylor Swift the businesswoman, kind of to establish
that she's a lot more than just a pop princess,
as a lot of people just think that she is. No,
she has a lot of ownership over her career and
over her image, and I want to talk a lot
about her image because has I think this This also
(22:01):
gets at why we wanted to talk about her on
the podcast, because yes, clearly an example of a savvy, smart,
successful young woman in the music business, but it's her
image that gets people talking so much, right exactly, And
so when she was interviewed by Time magazine, she talked
(22:25):
a lot about sort of the motivation behind why she
does things. She's often called the anti Lohan because she's
not one of those young child stars who has either
made the turn into like sexy music like Britney Spears.
And I only say that because I know that sounds ridiculous.
But she did have a quote about like, I don't
(22:45):
feel like I need to go dark like Britney Spears
did to prove that now I'm a grown up um.
She definitely maintains this image of being the prim statuesque
young woman who wears a lot of anthropology and other
vintage clothes and things like that, but she's got a
goofy side that she definitely has a goofy side, and
so she was telling Time magazine that she would rather
(23:09):
live her life based on what her grandkids will say
one day, rather than necessarily worrying about what the media
says about her or what social critics say about her.
She says, I think more about the people in my
life that would be disappointed, my mom, my dad, my
kids if I ever have them. And she says, and
that's why it's not as much pressure as thinking about
(23:31):
the millions of little minds that you must be shaping.
Because everybody also calls Taylor Swift a role model, because
she isn't the one being photographed out at the club,
falling out of a limo, being wasted all that stuff
and Lindsey so sad for Lindsay Lowen, Lindsay Lohan and Brittany. Um.
But again, I mean, you know, she she accepts that
(23:53):
role model mantle that people put on her, as opposed
to I feel like a lot of celebrities out there
who when people shake their finger at them and say,
you shouldn't be acting like this because you're a role
model to young girls. A lot of young women who
are celebrities stay, well, I don't want it, I never
wanted it. I'm just living my life. And well, that's true.
Everyone should have a right to live their own life
and get drunk in a limo if they want. I mean,
(24:14):
who hasn't wanted to get drunk in a limo? Um.
There is something very interesting about this, the fact that
Taylor Swift is so super conscious of being a role model,
wanting to be a role model, and definitely making an
effort to play the part. Well, because it's an interesting
dichotomy too, because clearly a lot of what fuels her
(24:37):
music and her fandom is her dating life, even though
right now she's kind of sworn off guys, hence all
the selfies with all of her lady BFFs. But you know,
there's that whole angle that leaves fans, you know, digging
through her liner notes trying to find clues as to
whether that is about John Mayer or whether that is
(24:59):
about Harry Styles, who she's actually singing about. But at
the same time, she's very conscious, like outwardly of like
she has no interest in being overtly sexy, right, And
if you watch her videos, it's so clear. I mean,
she's gorgeous, and she's very well dressed, and she has
I think I've already described her once in this podcast
a statuesque, and she is, but it's not. I mean,
(25:22):
it just stands so much in contrast, for instance, to
Katie Perry or Nicki Minaj, although I feel like Nicki
Minaj and Taylor Swift that just gets into apples and oranges,
And I mean, the whole crafting of the image using
social media. Vanity Fair called it actually a rather brilliant
marketing move. They say that it doesn't mean it was conscious.
(25:42):
She is, after all, the product of this Internet era,
but it is a very conscious decision to craft her
own image in whatever way she can, and social media
is a big part of that. I mean, you know,
that's why people warn you, like, don't put anything on
the internet you don't want people to see, because it's
all part of what you project to the outside world.
And Taylor is super conscious of that. Yeah, there was
(26:04):
I believe it was in a Rolling Stone uh profile
of her which talked about her paranoia. She was just
like I whenever she goes into a dressing room for
the first time she has I'm sure someone else check
for cameras because you know, it's something like things that
(26:24):
we would take for granted that just absolutely cannot happen,
right Well, I mean also the whole thing about like
she also checks for Mike's She's worried about people being
bugged and wired and and taping any sort of performance
or or video shoot or anything like that. And she
even had one interviewer listened to a preview of her
album on earbuds, like she wouldn't play it for her
(26:46):
out in the open. Yeah, but speaking of listening to
a new song, being a songwriter is also front and
center as part of that image. For instance, in two
thousand and ten, it was a huge deal that she
wrote all the songs to her album Speak Now by herself.
I mean, people were saying this is unheard of for
(27:08):
an artist to do that, and they're also skeptics who
say she's not writing this by herself, there's no way,
But I mean, she stands by that, and a lot
of people who she writes with stand by it as well,
Like we might. I might come in and sort of bounce,
she might bounce ideas off of me, But she's writing
everything's or her songs. Yeah. Well, and and she's a
(27:32):
songwriter to the point where in October uh Nashville, the
Nashville Songwriters Association International honored her for a record sixth
time as Songwriter Artist of the Year, surpassing veterans like
Vince Gill and Alan Jackson. And though now though that
she's made this pop transformation, she is working with more
(27:54):
pop leaning songwriting partners like the very big deal Max Martin.
He works with a ton of artists. But Liz Rose,
who's also a big deal songwriter in Nashville and is
a former collaborator with Swift, says basically what Kristen just said,
that it's it's not the Taylor's not writing just because
she's collaborating with people, which, by the way, I mean
(28:17):
You'd be hard pressed to find any musician who doesn't
collaborate in some way with someone on songwriting or arrangement.
But anyway, Liz Rose said that my strength with Taylor
isn't writing lyrics. It's whittling things down and pulling out
the important pieces. She says, the writers that did try
to mess with her lyrics, she didn't write with them
a second time. Yeah, I wouldn't want to cross Taylor's swift.
(28:40):
Girl knows what she wants. Yeah, And her attitude toward
writing song lyrics is I mean, it's it's really basic
in a way. She just she told Time Magazine, for instance,
I've been able to write songs and feel better. They
clarify and simplify the emotions that you're feeling. And it's
the that emotive quality to her songs and the fact
(29:04):
that a lot of the subject matter does deal in dating,
in romance and crushes and all of that that her
critics try to write her off. But Tommy Givenson, who
is the brainchild genius behind Rookie Magazine and other incredible things,
wrote about this in Believer Magazine, basically saying no, no, no, no,
(29:25):
that is exactly why she's so good. She said essentially
that she has a gift for taking what might seem
like a mundane kind of thing, like having a crush
on a boy, and actually pulling out and writing those
(29:47):
emotions to make it sound as big as it felt.
Even though we might want to disregard those kinds of instances,
it's still, I mean, it's still a gift to be
able to capture that and clearly capture it in a
way that resonates with so many younger girls in particular. Yeah,
And I mean that's why I like what she said
(30:08):
to Vanity Fair. And and I think this is part
of seeing her coming of age. Not to sound like
I'm this crotchety old woman who's like, look at this
young girl coming of age. But that's what I like
so much about Taylor Swift's quote in Vanity Fair about
songwriting and writing lyrics and having people judge you so
harshly for being female and writing about your emotions. She
(30:31):
says that for people who portray women like her as
clingy or insane or desperate because of the way she
writes about relationships and love and things like that, she said,
I think that's taking something that potentially should be celebrated
a woman writing about her feelings in a confessional way
and turning it and twisting it into something that is
(30:51):
frankly a little sexist. And in the same vein, she
also calls out people who criticize her and claim that
she doesn't write all of her songs, or that she
has a ghost writer, or she has a whole team
of people pulling the strings behind her. She actually said,
we all know that this is a feminist issue, and
of course, when I read that is the first sense
of that paragraph, I was like, what do we tailor
(31:14):
what do you mean? Well, don't worry if she continued.
She talked about how nobody questions her male singer songwriter
friends about whether they write everything, and she said, you know,
in the beginning, I thought we were all on the
same playing field, and then it became pretty obvious to
me that when you have people sort of questioning the
validity of a female songwriter and making it seem like
(31:36):
it's somehow unacceptable to write songs about your real emotions,
that it somehow makes you irrational and over emotional. Seeing
that over the years changed my view. And she talks
about how she takes up the cause for Nicki Minaj
and Iggy Azalea, saying that why do they have to
prove that they write their own lyrics when men in
the same type of genre don't necessarily have to justify that. Yeah,
(32:00):
and along similar lines in terms of people wanting to
dismiss her music as oh, well, it's just you know,
dribble about boys and heartache, she's talking to the guardians saying,
I really resent the idea that if a woman writes
about her feelings, she has too many feelings. And I
really resent the be careful buddy, she's going to write
a song about you angle because it trivializes what I do,
(32:22):
which kind of echoes her Spotify decision. She said, quote
it makes it seem like creating art is something you
do as a cheap weapon rather than an artistic process.
And yes it does. Her artistic process often involve writing
highly autobiographical songs about either past crushes or relationships, or
(32:44):
just people who have done her wrong. Yes, but she
clearly does it very well and she's been very successful
at it. Is there room for critiquing some of her lyrics,
particularly in earlier albums, Yes, there have been times when
I gonna botch the actual lyric. But there have been
have there been times when she has perhaps thrown shade
(33:06):
at characters in her songs, whether they are real or fictional,
for perhaps having pre marital sex, or maybe making riskier
and quotes decisions than her character in the song would make. Yeah,
she has, But it seems like she has evolved from
that in the same way that her public stance on
feminism has evolved to the point that, you know, like
(33:28):
she was talking to Time, we all know this is
a feminist issue. Being that direct about it. Yeah, I
mean she admits she wasn't so sure about the feminism
thing at first, which everybody remembers because that is also
why when my boyfriend was like, hey, you know, Taylor
Swift is pretty savvy, I was like, yeah, whatever. She
won't even admit to being feminist, doesn't even know what
feminism is, she doesn't define it correctly, which I mean
(33:51):
full disclosure. I posted her quote that launched a thousand
blogs about feminism on the Stuff I've Never Told You
facebook page with probably snarky comment of oh, here we
go again, because she said back in the day and
back in the day. By the way, folks, is only
like three years, but still a lifetime for this woman's
(34:13):
career because so much has happened. She said, quote, I
don't really think about things as guys versus girls. I
never have. I was raised by parents who brought me
up to think if you work as hard as guys,
you can go far in life. And that was in
response to someone asking whether she was a feminist and
everybody was like, no, but you are, and now, of course, largely,
(34:34):
she said due to Lena Dunham's influence. She's like, oh, yeah, no, no, no,
I totally am a feminist. I just didn't get it. Yeah,
she says that kind of watching the way that Lena
Dunham operates and lives her life made her realize that
she's been taking a feminist stance this whole time without
actually saying so. And I mean that's what was so
fascinating about that slightly dated now New Yorker piece that
(34:57):
followed her around, because this writer is watching her operate
like a boss, I mean, telling people exactly what she
wants and how she wants it, but going about it
in a very very like adorable Taylor Swift fashion, even
to the point where she talks about how she was
so disillusioned by the typical format of the artist fan
(35:19):
meet and greet of like, Okay, you've seen the show,
and now you all stand in line and you get
a v I P bracelet because you paid a million
dollars to see me, and you come backstage and we
take pictures and you go home. Instead, she had her
mom and some of the other members of her team
help pick out individual members of the audience who looked
like these are the girls who were absolutely going crazy
(35:40):
for Taylor Swift and love her. We're gonna hand pick
them to come backstage. And then they like set up
in this like this super decorated tent and she hangs
out and she looks at their posters, and it's more
just like with the rest of the Taylor Swift brand
image thing, it's very much more like a hey, we're buddies,
we're hanging out, Welcome to my life, when really, you know,
(36:02):
they're not in her life. They're in a tent backstage,
hanging out on some really crushy pillows. But she has
definitely crafted this whole process in such a way that
allows these young girls to feel like I can really
connect with her. She writes about boys. I like boys.
I feel sad too sometimes and they really feel like
(36:24):
because she might tweet back at them, or she might
retweet a picture of them holding up the polaroids that
came with the hard copy of that they have a
connection to this superstar. Well, what do we take away
though from the superstar? Because you could also, and I'm
gonna play like crotchety feminists in the corner for a
minute and say, but you could argue that she is
(36:47):
ultimately promoting heteronormative culture. And she's, you know, traditionally like
beautiful girl. She's quite thin. Girls want to look like her.
Perhaps they judge their body is because of her. So
are we really should we really? Just you know, do
we love this so much? Whereas someone like Lord is
(37:09):
a bit more subversive. Yes, she's still white, but she
is a little bit darker and a little boy. I mean,
she's just a little more goth in general. But you
know what I mean, So what do we how do
we reconcile that kind of stuff? I mean, it's the
same kind of question that we circled around too at
the end of our episode on Beyonce of Well, how
do we reconcile like her sexy, the sexiness of her image,
(37:32):
and the her personal feminist believes well, I think I
think Taylor Swift and Beyonce both have a certain power,
and I mean, I obviously think that they exercise that
power differently, and they obviously look different. Um, but I
think what we're seeing with both of these pop stars
is that they are two young women who have really
(37:56):
really taken control of their careers and their image, and
who who are speaking up for their art and sometimes
for other women. And so if you can get uh,
an eleven year old girl to hear that message, I
think that's great. Do we need more diversity in our
(38:17):
feminist spokespeople, Absolutely, I would never turn that down. However,
working within the framework that we have, I think it's
pretty neat that you have someone like a Beyonce, or
like a Taylor Swift in this case, speaking up for
taking charge of your career, taking charge of your life,
being very vocal about the fact that hey, all these
(38:38):
naysayers who were like, don't do this way, you know,
they ended up being wrong and I ended up being right.
I think that's a great message for anyone to hear.
And the fact that we sort of got to watch
her grow up. We literally got to watch her grow up.
But the fact that we got to watch her sort
of quote unquote come of age into the idea of
feminism is actually really neat because I think that, you know,
(38:59):
to the Swift herself talked about how scary the idea
and the word feminism was to her as a younger woman,
and I think that there are a lot of plenty
of people out there, not just young girls, who can
identify with that idea that feminism is scary and it's
dirty and we don't like it and it means that
you hate men or you hate whatever. Um. They define
it in a negative way instead of a positive way.
(39:21):
And so the fact that we can watch her go
through this and come to this realization means that maybe,
just maybe some of her fans will come along on
that same train with her. I completely agree. And I
also think too that where we are pop culturally is
as much reflective in her fans as it is in
(39:45):
her naysayers, because this is something that Tommy Givinson was
talking to Flavor Wire about. She was the question was,
why do you think some people dislike Swift so much?
Because it's clear why so many girls in particular love her.
That's easy to understand. But Gevinson said, some of it
is just a standard, inevitable famous pop star part she
(40:07):
has an enviable life, But I think more of it
comes from people who really hate that it could be
more complicated than that, that they can't just dismiss it
as stupid teeny bopper music. Because critics mak her seriously,
and she's proven herself to be so much more than
a passing fat that's when they try to invalidate the
parts of her which are impressive or even somewhat subversive.
(40:27):
Her songs and feelings are based on lies because she's
a crazy, manipulative serial data. The unique amount of control
she has over her brand is exploitative of her loyal fans.
And she goes on to say, I've seen articles that
you Swift as the focal point for discussions on everything
from classism to gender. Can you think of another current
pop star that stirs up so much debate and discussion,
(40:50):
and I mean probably Beyonce. Well, and she mentions Beyonce.
She was like, yeah, there's Beyonce, but really, you know,
Swift and Beyonce are probably tied for first in that regard,
and this is going to lead us into our next episode,
in which we're going to shift our focus more to
the swiftiest end of things and talk about how probably
(41:11):
a lot of and it's not gonna be focused on
Taylor Swift, but probably a lot of her criticism stems
from her fan base and the fact that it is
teenage girls, tween age and teenage girls who adore her
the most, and a lot of times. If that's the case,
you are dismissed. So with that, shall we ask for
(41:34):
people's thoughts totally? What do you think about Taylor Swift.
I'm sure that there are Tea Swizzle fans and t
Swizzle haters listening, so we want to hear your thoughts.
Let us know what you think about her and if
she is important, particularly in terms of her influence on
younger girls, and do you think that that's a good
thing or a bad thing. Mom's staffth House stuffworks dot
(41:55):
Com is our email address. You can also tweet us
at Mom's Stuff Podcast. We'd love to hear your thoughts,
and we've got a couple of letters to share with
you when we come right back from a quick break
and now back to the show. Well, speaking of Taylor Swift,
we heard from a lot of women in music in
(42:16):
response to our episode a little while back on women
in indie rock, and Emma wrote to say, I really
loved your interview with Sarah Martin from Belle and Sebastian.
I've loved Belle and Sebastian for years and was really
excited to hear Sarah talked about being a woman in indie.
I just wanted to share my comparatively limited experience. I'm
sixteen and for the past year have been in a
(42:37):
fairly serious giggling band under the name of Spastic Fits
Love the name Emma. We recently recorded our first EP. Counterintuitively,
I found that being a woman in a male dominated
field of rock music has actually been an advantage. The
sheer fact that it seems to be unusual to see
a girl in a serious band, or in our case too,
(42:58):
we have a rad female basis as well, which is
even more uncommon, seems to peak people's interests in garner
respect for being able to make it in a place
women usually can't. Just thought i'd share. Thank you so
much for the wonderful podcast, and thank you Emma and
good luck with his fastic fits. All right, Well, I've
got to let her here. From Alicia, she says, I
can totally relate to the only girl in the band episode,
(43:21):
as I am indeed the only girl in my band.
We're called the Wag and we've been together for over
sixteen years. Here's a part where being the only girl
comes into it. Whenever we open for a big act,
we like to take a photo with them, usually the
press or they're also taking photos of us in the
national act. Sometimes the newspaper will only print a portion
of the photo. My bandmates have learned over the years,
(43:41):
if you want to be in the photo, make sure
you stand next to Alicia, because they will always print
the portion of the photo that has the girl in it.
For the first thirteen years and we were playing full
electric gigs all over the place. The band dynamics were
such that it was truly a democracy, with each person
getting an equal vote. Everyone was expected to carry their
own weight and be each other's roadies. Yes, even me,
the small, skinny girl, and I did it with pride.
(44:02):
No man was going to carry more than I did.
Being the only girl in the band can draw attention
when we're playing a bar with three other bands and
we're the only band with a girl. It's advantageous because
for some reason, people just don't expect girls to be
great rock and roll musicians, so I like to shock them.
Usually people will ask me, oh, are you the singer,
to which I reply yes, as are the bassist and
the guitarist. When one of us is singing lead, the
(44:24):
other two are singing harmonies and backup. Most bands don't
have either. As well as being one of the singers,
I'm also the keyboardist and percussionist, and on some songs
I play guitar or flute. They always assume that I'm
quote unquote just a singer because I'm female. I then
have the pleasure of telling them I'm the only one
in my band with a degree in music. Anyway, We're
(44:44):
not on the same level as Bell and Sebastian, but
having been doing this for over sixteen years, I can
completely relate to the episode and thoroughly enjoy it. So
thank you, Alicia, and good luck with your music, and
thanks to everybody who's written into us. Mom step at
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