[--gKrish--]

Even Trump used to play Taylor Swift in his Rolls Royce. This is an old video that came out when I was still in highschool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coR3ayUHJTQ

Being kind and grounded despite her popularity makes her likable to most people. I do not know if she is an exceptional artist, but she certainly is talented.

While listening to ‘Blank Space’ from the previous post, I realized that back then, most songs that topped the Billboard charts, like this one, were family-friendly and not filled with profanity, unlike many songs now

[Samfromindia]

Grew up listening to this, when she was a talented country singer

https://youtu.be/xKCek6_dB0M?feature=shared

[MotorDev]

I'm not a big fan of Taylor Swift's songs, but my friends really like them. I prefer listening to artists like Rihanna, Metallica, No Mercy, and Lady Gaga. I also love 90's euro music, especially La Bouche. Maybe the variety in the music I like is why Taylor Swift's songs don't connect with me as strongly.

[anandhsub]

Forget teens, my daughter who is a 7 year old is a massive fan and knows each line of atleast 50 TS songs. She went to the movie twice, and danced and sang along to all the songs.

I was a bit reluctant to fan her craze, but slowly I have also started liking her songs, so much so that she was my second most streamed artist in 2023, just after ARR.

My favorite keeps changing around, but currently listening to Don't Blame Me on loop.

[download2live]

Last year they did a podcast on Music Gigs. They also discussed how Taylor Swift is doing it slightly different.

Other than that having a clean image helps a lot. I think now it is considered an advantage to have a controversy ridden image so as to stay in news. Taylor Swift seems to have gone the other way. Clean image might be boring and not news worthy but there are people who would prefer such stars.

Having said that, I am not a fan of any music star as such. I just love some individual songs. No matter who sang them.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by androdev

@androdev, father of two teenage boys, has left the chat.

Asked my grown up kids,

"Batao yeh Taylor Swift banda kaun hai" {who is this Taylor Swift bloke}
"Papa, you won't understand. Yeh aap ke samajh ke bahar hai {Papa you won't understand, this is beyond your comprehension skills}

I fumble around for my cassette tape of Kishore Kumar songs from the 1960s.

True confession: I had never heard of Taylor Swift till I read this thread. Now where did I leave my dentures.

[Samurai]

I was not a big fan, but I like her many songs. I have been listening to Taylor Swift for years. For one thing, I can hear the words very clearly. I don't need to google the lyrics.

But I started liking her more when an old family video surfaced about how she decided to sacrifice her popularity/safety to oppose Trump endorsed Marsha Blackburn. This came out after many years later. This video shows she is a really good person.

https://youtu.be/bhjSEkkZ2aA

[Hayek]

Originally Posted by SmartCat

All you fuddy duddies, listen to "Blank Space" song and see if you like it

I have always prided myself on having had a very eclectic taste in music. Grew up listening to the Beatles, Carpenters, Abba and Boney M; then moved on at around 9 or 10 to Michael Jackson (I still can remember listening to Eddie Van Halen’s guitar riffs at the start of Beat It and how it blew my mind), Wham (Make it Big), Madonna and Samantha Fox (whose poster accompanied one of the Lamborghini Countach on my side of our bedroom wall), before moving on to Rock and Heavy Metal in my junior college years.

I also love Hindi music - Kishore Kumar, Rafi, Jagdish and Chitra Singh, down to newbies like Rahman, Shankar Ehsaan Loy and Arijit Singh, and listen to the odd country musician like John Denver as well.

But I must say I have lost touch with Western music in the last two decades. I still think of Coldplay as a new Rock Band that came out recently, and while my son (now 16) gave me exposure to Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeren and Imagine Dragons pre Covid, I have never consciously heard Taylor Swift.

That said, I have heard Blank Space quoted above - just that I didn’t know it was Taylor Swift and thought it was a song called “We’re Young and Reckless”.

But let me correct that - even if not suited for a 50+ man, I am starting a Best of Taylor Swift playlist now. If my son disowns me, it is your fault @SmartCat.

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by Hayek

and while my son (now 16) gave me exposure to Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeren and Imagine Dragons pre Covid. I am starting a Best of Taylor Swift playlist now.

Justin Bieber's popularity too is a head-scratcher for most of us in our 40s/50s+. But if you go through his playlist of songs, eventually we'll find likeable songs. Need to separate wheat from the chaff.

'Best of <artiste name> playlist' is a good start, but then it depends on the music taste of the person who created that list. If it is a 20 year old, we might not like that either. That's why I prefer 'ft. Justin Bieber' or 'Justin Bieber ft.' search word in Youtube/Spotify. Added bonus is that theme of such songs (where two artistes collaborate) is unlikely to be the typical teenage lovey-dovey variety.

Example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euCqAq6BRa4

[GTO]

No one does live concerts like Taylor Swift, guys! Personally, I'm not a big fan of her music, but man, she has a following.

She announces a concert in a new city and fans go berserk. Tickets are sold out in seconds. And then it’s the turn of cities to pull out all stops to woo her fans. For instance, the city of Glendale in Arizona wrote a proclamation or a love letter to Taylor Swift. It even renamed itself ‘Swift City’ for a couple of days.

It might sound weird and crazy. But it does make sense as to why cities are so excited. Because, in just the US, her tour could generate economic activity worth a whopping $5 billion. It took her concert in Vegas to bring tourism finally back to pre-pandemic levels. So yeah, you’d imagine that cities want to ensure that the fans really splash cash when they attend the concert. It’ll give the local economy a nice little boost amidst all the economic worry.

Back when Taylor Swift’s concert tickets just went on sale. The volume of traffic on their platform was so massive that they said that Taylor Swift would have to perform a stadium show (that could probably pack 50,000 people) every single night for the next 1,000 days just to meet this demand.

A must-read article on concert tickets from Finshots

[deathwalkr]

Beatlemania
Elvismania
MichaelJacksonmania
etc etc

I am a metal head so not much of a fan. My teenage daughter used to like her but says she's passe now and listens to someone called lana del rey or something. Ah well.

Music has a way of connecting into people's souls and when musicians sing songs people think they are singing about them. Their life, their pain, their joy.

TS is a phenomenon no doubt. Some university was even offering a phd on her i think

And i think she recently broke Elvis's record of longest #1s in Billboard top 10?

[sanjayrozario]

Every era has its own genre of music followed by a specific fan base. I belong to the GnR, Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Metallica, Megadeth fan base. I find Taylor Swift's songs absolutely mediocre. But my kids love her songs & find my music taste too poor for their liking. So to each, his/her own.

[RMN]

Not a fan and probably will never be and I don't understand why she is so popular. But I only realized that she was so popular recently and was like whaaaa . Maybe it's because she peaked in India only recently (~1-2 years) ? Or am I wrong?

[ZedXPro95]

I love her stuff lol, and I’m a 28 year old guy

Well, her music was horrible until 2019, afterwards she went on to close her deal with her Production company, I’m not sure of the full fiasco, but she didn’t want the right of her music to be sold to Scooter Braun, he’s not seen to be a good guy in the industry but extremely successful and gets the artist to succeed, he was the guy who made Justin Bieber a phenomenon.


But that’s not exactly what happened, the rights were sold to Scooter, so she went on a spiral, and made three amazing albums.
* Folklore
* Evermore
* Midnights

All three were well received by critics and were not exactly on top of the charts, but they were really good albums for a seasoned artist who made pop songs and switched to pop-country type music.

The songs were filled with stories and emotions and characters, unlike her previous albums which were just crowd pleaser’s which topped YouTube charts.

She later on went to re record the songs now owned by Scooter Braun and called it Taylor’s Version.


This made her a revolt again music giants, and her Eras tour is a business case study on how giants concerts are supposed to be done efficiently.

But the cherry on top for me, her recent three above mention albums, they helped me and my then-newly wed wife bond, she follows old school and recent Tamil songs, while I follow pop, hip hop, rap and country music.
Taylors albums were perfect during the lockdown, they were quiet, emotional, and brought out lot of discussion points.


We haven’t followed the movie or the tour, but what she has built after closing her old music deal is crazy impressive, especially when you consider that she sort of changed her music identity.

[Raghu M]

I am in the category of - "Taylor Swift who?". Please someone tell me, am not alone. In my late 30s but have no idea of her. May be I heard the name but the word 'Swift' rings in a different way!