this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2023
6 points (71.4% liked)
Taylor Swift
533 readers
9 users here now
General Taylor Swift discussion. Welcome all Swifties!
Bring your clown hats, your wild theories, and your hype, this community is for you.
Some basic guidelines:
- Posts should be about Taylor Swift
- "Shoehorned" articles about Taylor are considered not relevant.
- Criticism of Taylor is fine, but open trolling or low effort posts like "Her music sux" will be removed.
- Downvote trolling is actively monitored. Downvotes are enabled and welcome, but if all that you do is downvote, it will result in bans. Join the discourse, if you don't like this community feel free to block it. Admins have the ability to see votes by user, and we use that ability here.
- General "Don't be a dick" rules apply, no trolling, no being a jerk
- No NSFW. This is a fun Swiftie community. NSFW is banned here.
- Use the "spoiler" tag generously when it comes to Tour spoilers. Pictures and outfits are fine, but streams/setlists should be marked. (Remember while the US tour is winding down, our global Swifties are just ramping up)
- Add [Spoiler] to your title
- Use the spoiler text for any spoilers in comments/description (the triangle with the exclamation point)
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Personally I know exactly how you feel. I'm someone who always says eat the rich, and I hate celebrity worship, and I still hold to those, but Taylor is definitely a weird phenomenon with me.
I do think it's because she's so relatable, and it's weird as a celebrity but with her I personally connect so much with her lyrics, her writing, from the highs to the lows. That tied with that I'm a millennial, only a few months away from her in age, we've gone through similar things so when a new album comes out it's always like "Oh my god this is exactly how I'm feeling!"
Red I was going through a bad relationship. 1989 was definitely a perfect summer album of "oh my god I'm just over everything can't we just dance?". Rep I had just moved to a new city and I was very much in a mood lol. Folklore and Evermore I think everyone needed during the pandemic.
Now I will say I keep it in check. Taylor is not perfect. I definitely have opinions about her that I like and that I don't like. (Seriously, the amount of carbon she puts in using a private jet makes me sick, I don't care how famous she is, she should offset it with how much she rakes in), and let's not even start about how capitalistic she is with 18 versions of one album.
The fandom can be some of the most loving and welcoming people (seriously, did not expect a pop music/Taylor instance on Lemmy to have this many subscribers!), but at the same time it can be very toxic. People definitely think there are "levels" to being a Swifite and that's just not true. But I think that happens with any large group of people. Jerks are still going to be jerks whether or not they like Taylor.
However even with all of that, when I put on one of her albums it's just... I immediately feel everything and I love that. So even with my eyerolling of the fandom and me wishing she'd be better, I still love every minute of it.
Wow, we do really think alike lol. It is funny though because on a personal level I don't feel that identified with Taylor or her experiences (I'm like 9 years younger and I'm a guy), yet I can connect with her emotions through her music. I do feel the same about her jets and all the capitalism thing. Also I find it creepy how people gets crazy obsessed over her relationships and personal life, but as you say... When an album plays or when I see her in a video or something, I simply can't resist my swiftie side.
I think that's healthy to have fun and be a Swiftie but also be aware of the downsides of celebrity worship.
My SO and I were in New York and by coincidence my family member lives a couple blocks away from Taylor's apartment in tribeca. So I walked us by her apartment and my SO laughs and eyerolls and says I'm obsessed. And I laugh too but for me the line is if I start standing and waiting for Taylor, like if I'm in those groups waiting to see her for 2 seconds walking out of her apartment I've gone too far. It's not even like she's stopping for autographs or anything, literally just steps into a car
I think it says more that she recreated the albums to regain her rights of ownership. Yes, that is capitalism, but I think it's better that she gets a say than the record companies for a contract she signed early in her career. It would be better if she used that position to relax the copyright and encouraged derivative works, but I'd rather she has that control than the labels.
Everyone is onboard for the rerecord. I think Scrubs is talking about how she'll release an album these days, wherher re-record or original, and have an overwhelming amount of slightly different versions with slightly different bonus tracks.
See this chart that had to be made just to clear it up for midnights:
She's incredibly savvy, and it's working for now, but I do wonder if there will start to be any fan pushback on the alternate version overload.
Yeah this is what I was referring to. I bought at least 5 different copies of that album because she kept only releasing some songs on some versions. Taylor, I love you, but please just let me buy one version with everything. I'd even pay a premium for thay
I didn't know. With the MP3/Streaming era, albums aren't what they used to be. That isn't to say that an artist and record producer won't put together a selection of tracks in a specific order to evoke emotion beyond the tracks themselves, but the era of the opera is mostly past; no more Tommy, or The Wall. Most people who listen to an artist today are going to acquire just the songs they want to hear and not the set. I wonder if it isn't more of a strategy to encourage fans to buy a/any complete album, instead of a selection of individual tracks? Hearing something on a full album you might not hear otherwise could be intended as a reward, rather than a gotta collect them all game of encouragement.