The Power Of Taylor Swift

Name two songs from "1989."

Even better, have you heard anything other than "Shake It Off"? The perfect twenty first century anthem wherein it's all about me, I'm my own brand and will tolerate no haters song?

Once upon a time artists led with their music.

Today they lead with their marketing.

And alongside their music was a desire to have an impact, to change the world. Actually, that's what appealed to me about Taylor Swift to begin with, she was channeling teen angst and feeding it back to those who experienced it, with hooks and changes along the way. But then her development became stunted by the spotlight and she went on react and when you compare her work with that of Joni Mitchell at the same age one can see the divergence, Joni was concerned with art, hits were secondary, Taylor is all about the hits.

But a hit ain't what it used to be. Music exists in an echo chamber. What's important to you is unheard by others. Yet in the past two weeks Taylor Swift has demonstrated that no one has the power of a musician.

Taylor Swift is most certainly a child of her generation. A greedy, thoughtless person who's only about the bucks. And you can blame the parents while you're at it, the baby boomers who sold out the country during the Reagan era, eviscerating the safety net and rewarding the so-called "job creators" who stopped paying taxes and living amongst the rest of us. How do we expect our artists' work to resonate when they don't have our lifestyle? Trying to make ends meet, herded in the back of the plane like cattle.

Oh, there are a ton of wannabes doing this, and their main complaint is they too can't get rich.

That's right, Taylor Swift single-handedly ignited the Spotify debate, brought it to the front page, into nooks and crannies her music will never penetrate. She spread ignorance throughout the land. To the point where Daniel Ek came down from the mountaintop to respond, but his words will get a smidgen of the traction, because he's a techie, not a musician. And you might say he's rich, but if money were everything Oprah wouldn't be doing live appearances, you see there's nothing like that hit of love from the audience.

How did our society get so screwed up?

Taylor Swift is just the poster girl, this is not about her. She's just employed the new systems to become the most powerful, shedding all her edge along the way. Just imagine if John Lennon and Paul McCartney called Paul Anka to help them write songs. Or Irving Berlin for that matter. Just imagine if the band were so desperate they needed to buy insurance.

Instead, John Lennon was busy speaking his mind, getting in trouble with religiosos, stating the obvious, that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus. And then in his spare time he agitated for peace, even commented on the social situation with "Revolution."

And he was loved even more for it. Sure, he's dead, but the reason fans love John more than Paul is he was sui generis, he went his own way, he had rough edges, he spoke his mind, he was an artist.

Not that Paul isn't uber-talented, that's not the point I'm making. Paul's music pushed the envelope too, and he was the one pushing "Sgt. Pepper," which cemented the album format seemingly every music-maker does not want to let go of.

But in this financially challenging world, money is paramount. if you're rich, you cannot be criticized. And if you're not, coin is the only goal.

Call me a child of the sixties, but I remember music being so much more. Actually, we swept aside the mindless ditties of the early sixties on a road of exploration, the entire youth pulled away from its elders greased on the skids of the tunes. We changed society.

But today kids are best friends with their parents. Your image is as important as what you have to say. And it's all about the Benjamins. The best and the brightest go into banking and tech and the underclass entertains us on reality television and MP3. Mindless nitwits whose only goal is to get rich. Who sidle up to corporations like wet nurses, believing they'll die if they leave any money on the table.

At least Eminem was challenging.

At least Ice-T was singing the truth of the streets.

It's like our entire nation needs a reset. To get away from this money culture. Taylor Swift wasn't bitching that Spotify wasn't getting her music to more fans, but that it was making her less cash. And her label head Scott Borchetta emphasized this point. And their voices are so loud and powerful that they pulled the ignorant into their net, creating chaos where none existed before.

That's the power of art.

If only it could be used for good.

Daniel Ek on Spotify: http://bit.ly/1uZIdvg


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