Taylor for Elle - Label Disputes *New Snippets*

[Whispering 18,865]

​Well, I may not be a professional critic, but in all the music I've reviewed, I've learned a thing about good songwriting and Taylor's efforts are average at best. There's a few other songwriters that get bigged up that I aslo disagree with, but Taylor is the one I can understand the least. If I, a 25 year old (her age), finds her songwriting childish and bland, surely a much older person will echo it too? Her repeated praise from respected critics really baffles me. Meanwhile, Lana Del Rey had to work so hard to be taken seriously by critics and still isn't considered a phenomenal songwriter, despite her lyrics being a million light years above Taylor's.

Well, yes, it's hard to say what's respectable, but admit it, dating a lot of people isn't good for your reputation, especially when you're a woman. It's s-xist and men aren't chastised in the same way, but like it or not, it happens. Not all serial daters or bed-hoppers are bad people but their reputation suffers whether they like it or not. Which can prevent you from finding the perfect partner later. It's no wonder celebrities who date a lot ultimately can't seem to find that one person they stay with forever - they start to become notorious and someone not to go to if you're looking for a "real relationship."

I explained how going pop was not a risk at all in my reply above. I really am mystified at people who claim that this pop transformation was the biggest risk of her career. On the contrary, it was the ultimate conformity.

Well, I'm not a country music fan, but I do find a charm in some "real" country music better than Taylor's brand of country pop. I've never liked country pop at all. Real country is gritty and heartwrenching and country pop diluted the genre until it was so bland. And it turned country songs into more wholesome pop songs. So, I basically have always seen Taylor as pop songwriter. Admittedly, some of her earlier country influenced stuff was better but still not on the level of "real" country artists. I sometimes wonder how they feel about people like her becoming world famous and being awarded while they barely get the recognition for doing the genre right.

 

It's the country music critics and the country legends that praised Taylor's songwriting. I would say they understand what songs constitute good songwriting in that genre. Lana Del Rey is a different kind of songwriter. Writing a good country song is different than other genres of music.

Yeah....I'm not going to agree with you on this dating thing. I know tons of girls who dated lots of guys throughout high school and college and they never had trouble with their reputation. This isn't the fifties! Lol These girls ended up with good guys in long term relationships or as husbands. I never heard a single person say "omg, they dated 5 guys last year". If you made that statement in college, you would get a collective "so?" from everyone. Dating several people a year is pretty standard, for people that aren't at the point...for whatever reason, to settle down yet. 

Taylor was the current country queen. Leaving that comfort zone, which gave her massive crossover appeal, was risky. Also, country music fans are unbelievably loyal! Leaving the such a huge and loyal fanbase was also very risky. Unlike pop music fans, country fans stick with their artists well into their forties and beyond. Their are only three women who country music fans have embraced and supported without fail over the past decade, and Taylor happened to be one of those three. As the youngest of the three, she was set for at least twenty to twenty-five more years in country music. Pop is way more fickle and the turnover rate is much faster and they accept way more females, so the competition is more intense. All of that was a risk. 

Eh, the old "real country" argument. Crossover country has been around for decades. There wil always be purists and those who like traditional country, and that's fine...but, that doesn't mean it is more "real" than the more modern or crossover type country. I believe there is room for both types and I can enjoy and appreciate both! 

[Paper Planes 340]

​It's just that popstars are known for dating a lot (Madonna, J.Lo, Britney, Taylor, etc). Gaga is one of a small group who have only had a small number of relationships since being famous. Plenty of other celebrity women get pictured with random men, but they're only connected to them if they're currently single or are known for serial dating, which is at least understandable. Taylor wouldn't get hounded for who she's dating if she actually took a break from it.

By taking risks, I don't mean selling out and being s-xual. I mean going back to writing real country music with no pop hooks. She's not risk taking, she's conforming. Her going pop was a natural progression - she's got more pop with every album, making her transformation just under a decade in the making. I hardly call that a risk. Since when is making pop music a risk? That's the kind of music you make to get popular. Taylor proved with Red that the public are here for her pop songs, so even if she lost some of her country music fans, she's gained new pop fans. We've seen her fans stick around for her pop work, so it wasn't like she was leaping into the unknown by making an album that her longtime fans might not like.

Yes, other artists have had to suffer the same kind of backlash Gaga has (I even mentioned Xtina's name previously) and yes, some of them did go into a blackout period afterwards. Had it not been for The Voice (and by extension, her co-judge asking her to do a feature on his song), she would have gone into hiding like she always does after an album. She's currently doing that - Lotus flopped even harder than Bionic and she responded to that by taking a break from The Voice judging and went out of the public eye to work on her album. She's barely been seen for the last 2 years. So, your example of her wasn't the best. I could give you a long list of artists who took a blackout period after a failed album or public backlash. As I keep saying, Taylor has never endured that, so she's never had to make a comeback or redeem herself, so how do you know if she'd respond so positively if she did?

My point is that making a song about one critic's opinion seems too nitpicky. It's like, get over it. Use the bad review to line your cat's litter tray and move on. If a whole bunch of critics brought her down, that's a bit more understandable, but one? Plus, a professional critic's job is to critique a singer and if the singer can't sing, they should say so. Taylor is essentially belitting someone for doing their job. And she goes for the jugular: she calls the guy "a liar and pathetic and alone in life." That's meaner than anything he said to her. But you know what, I could have accepted the song a whole lot more if she'd just made it a song about mean people in general. A feel good anthem for every victim of bullying. A nice gesture for her fans who can sing along to it and relate. But she destroys the relatability factor when she drops that killer line: "drunk and rambling on about how I can't sing." And suddenly, it's revealed that the song was about her all along and comes across as self-absorbed. And as for comparing it to DWUW, like Cellie said a few posts above, Gaga's reasons for such a song were much more severe. Being called fat is worse than being told you can't sing. Gaga once had an eating disorder and still struggled with her diet to this day. When someone like that gets called fat, it can trigger a relapse and it's an evil word that haunts them. Being told you can't sing is factual and something you can improve on. There may be a few people who breakdown after having their singing trashed but it's nowhere near as widespread as the amount of people who develop eating disorders after being called fat. Gaga kept the song reasonably relatable for her audience and never made it overly personal, so it could be a comfort to a lot of people, not just her.

​The problem with your argument is that she DID take a break from dating for most of the 1989 album cycle (and a bit beforehand). Calvin Harris is the first man she has been connected to in a while.

I can see where you're going with the inclusion of her pop songs on her past albums (Red, in particular), but she still gave Big Machine material to push off to country radio at the same time to appease her country fans. She may have gained some pop fans with 1989 (and WANEGBT, IKYWT, and 22), but it seems that she lost many more country fans than she gained pop fans. I come from an area that thrives on country music, and many people here belly-ache and moan about her pop material.

Christina is not currently in a blackout - she reappeared on the season of the Voice and released some country songs for another show. I could place my bets that Taylor would come back kicking from a 'flop era' (despite the fact that she probably won't have one in the near future) because she has taken every other criticism and turned it into some positive. Again, my example of Blank Space: many people only have the argument that she dates a lot of guys, so she just went right along with them and poked fun at herself. Not many artists can do that.

Let's not pretend the critic targeted in Mean is the only one to ever say she can't sing. I've said it before myself - the girl isn't the strongest vocalist live. Many people - both critics and not - have said the same thing. One review just tipped her over the edge to write a song. Most of the song is relatable to listeners - only the few key lyrics of the song are clearly about this one situation, in which a critic said some truly nasty things about her. Same could be said about DWUW - despite the fact that you claim it is reasonably relatable and somewhat impersonal. Let's take the Christina Aguilera or solo version second verses: "My bones hurt from all the shows, oh, but I don't feel the pain 'cause I'm a pro. I sink in, then I'm okay, because my body belongs to you when I'm on stage." How many listeners are going to be breaking hips on stage and relating the song back to their own lives? Mean may have some unrelatable portions, but let's not put DWUW on a pedestal here. If Mean is solely about Taylor, then DWUW is solely about Gaga. Clearly Mean struck chords with plenty of people, considering it's multi-platinum and landed two Grammy awards.

As for reasoning behind the songs, the statement "Being told you can't sing is factual and something you can improve on" may be true, but in many case, being told you are fat is also something factual and something you can improve on. Are either comments kind or acceptable? No, but they're normally rooted in some sort of truth. Yes, there are people that cannot lose weight or develop eating disorders, etc., but a majority of people can lose weight in a healthy manner, just as people can develop their singing voices in a healthy manner. 

[Hello Mr. Radio 45]

I love behind the scenes stuff like this.

[Mariano 958]

Omg I love what she said

[StrawberryBlond 14,672]

It's the country music critics and the country legends that praised Taylor's songwriting. I would say they understand what songs constitute good songwriting in that genre. Lana Del Rey is a different kind of songwriter. Writing a good country song is different than other genres of music.

Yeah....I'm not going to agree with you on this dating thing. I know tons of girls who dated lots of guys throughout high school and college and they never had trouble with their reputation. This isn't the fifties! Lol These girls ended up with good guys in long term relationships or as husbands. I never heard a single person say "omg, they dated 5 guys last year". If you made that statement in college, you would get a collective "so?" from everyone. Dating several people a year is pretty standard, for people that aren't at the point...for whatever reason, to settle down yet. 

Taylor was the current country queen. Leaving that comfort zone, which gave her massive crossover appeal, was risky. Also, country music fans are unbelievably loyal! Leaving the such a huge and loyal fanbase was also very risky. Unlike pop music fans, country fans stick with their artists well into their forties and beyond. Their are only three women who country music fans have embraced and supported without fail over the past decade, and Taylor happened to be one of those three. As the youngest of the three, she was set for at least twenty to twenty-five more years in country music. Pop is way more fickle and the turnover rate is much faster and they accept way more females, so the competition is more intense. All of that was a risk. 

Eh, the old "real country" argument. Crossover country has been around for decades. There wil always be purists and those who like traditional country, and that's fine...but, that doesn't mean it is more "real" than the more modern or crossover type country. I believe there is room for both types and I can enjoy and appreciate both! 

​Critics in general praise her, not just country ones. She's won general awards as well as country ones too. Of course it's different writing for a different genre but there's something fundamental about writing a good song that is universal. You're talking as if country is the only genre in which you can make deep, personal songs when in fact, all genres can be like that. And it doesn't answer why someone like Taylor gets praised for songwriting when Lana doesn't. Some critics really don't know talent even when it's right in front of them, but they'll happily consider anyone below the age of 18 who writes songs to be a prodigy.

Well, wherever you're living must be some utopia because where I'm from, if a girl serial dates, she gets a bad rep and will only attract boys who are bad news. I don't think I've ever seen a girl who's been able to get away with dating a lot the way that boys can, even if they are in college. I remember after the dating jokes following the Red era, a few people even said Taylor would be lucky if she ever finds someone to date again as she was so well-known for writing 4 albums worth about all her exes by that point that it was unlikely any man would want to get involved with her in the near future. Considering she went through her drying out period after Red, I think they were partly right. It's the same for any female artist who makes a living off of breakup songs. Many of them go on to have unstable love lives as it places a curse upon them of some sort. Men will start to think "Why would I want to date such a whining b***h who'll trash me if we ever break up?" A lot of people said that anyone who dated Adele after 21 must be a strong man.

Well, I see your point about how she could lose all these country fans, but again, I don't really see the average Taylor fan as a country fan anyway. Back in the day, I noticed a lot of her fans also loved pop music. Obviously, since almost all her fans were teenage girls, who tend to like pop music to some degree. And she's got her gay fans too, who are also known to like pop music. I think it's a matter of her fans just happen to be loyal, it doesn't matter what genre she is. In the US, her biggest market, her album sales have stayed practically the same across 5 albums now. Red sold just slightly less than her more country effort, Speak Now, and 1989 has already outsold Speak Now. I think that's a sign that her original fans have stuck around. I'm sure even her country fans are still buying her work regardless. Until she went fully pop, only her fans bought her work. Therefore, I think of her fans as HER fans, not her fans + general country fans.

​The problem with your argument is that she DID take a break from dating for most of the 1989 album cycle (and a bit beforehand). Calvin Harris is the first man she has been connected to in a while.

I can see where you're going with the inclusion of her pop songs on her past albums (Red, in particular), but she still gave Big Machine material to push off to country radio at the same time to appease her country fans. She may have gained some pop fans with 1989 (and WANEGBT, IKYWT, and 22), but it seems that she lost many more country fans than she gained pop fans. I come from an area that thrives on country music, and many people here belly-ache and moan about her pop material.

Christina is not currently in a blackout - she reappeared on the season of the Voice and released some country songs for another show. I could place my bets that Taylor would come back kicking from a 'flop era' (despite the fact that she probably won't have one in the near future) because she has taken every other criticism and turned it into some positive. Again, my example of Blank Space: many people only have the argument that she dates a lot of guys, so she just went right along with them and poked fun at herself. Not many artists can do that.

Let's not pretend the critic targeted in Mean is the only one to ever say she can't sing. I've said it before myself - the girl isn't the strongest vocalist live. Many people - both critics and not - have said the same thing. One review just tipped her over the edge to write a song. Most of the song is relatable to listeners - only the few key lyrics of the song are clearly about this one situation, in which a critic said some truly nasty things about her. Same could be said about DWUW - despite the fact that you claim it is reasonably relatable and somewhat impersonal. Let's take the Christina Aguilera or solo version second verses: "My bones hurt from all the shows, oh, but I don't feel the pain 'cause I'm a pro. I sink in, then I'm okay, because my body belongs to you when I'm on stage." How many listeners are going to be breaking hips on stage and relating the song back to their own lives? Mean may have some unrelatable portions, but let's not put DWUW on a pedestal here. If Mean is solely about Taylor, then DWUW is solely about Gaga. Clearly Mean struck chords with plenty of people, considering it's multi-platinum and landed two Grammy awards.

As for reasoning behind the songs, the statement "Being told you can't sing is factual and something you can improve on" may be true, but in many case, being told you are fat is also something factual and something you can improve on. Are either comments kind or acceptable? No, but they're normally rooted in some sort of truth. Yes, there are people that cannot lose weight or develop eating disorders, etc., but a majority of people can lose weight in a healthy manner, just as people can develop their singing voices in a healthy manner. 

​But I already said that she did take a break from dating. I never said she didn't. But she obviously broke it with Calvin. She couldn't even take a break from dating long enough to get to the end of one album's promo cycle. Is 2 years really too much to ask after she's had as many boyfriends as she's had? If she'd not dated at all, she could have made her next album with absolutely no break up songs on it as no one had broken her heart this time and it would get people excited to see her make a album without this crucial component on it. She's currently on her seventh boyfriend since becoming famous and she's been famous for a decade. That means she's had a new one roughly every 1.3 years. According to her fan wiki, her longest gap between boyfriends has been 1.5 years (from Jake to Connor). She lasted a year and a half without a guy when she wasn't on a dating break. But that was about the same amount of time it took for her to go from dating Harry to dating Calvin and this was when she was supposedly on a dating break.

Read what I said above about her US sales remaining fairly stable for all her albums. Her fans aren't going anywhere. And like I also said, her fans were never general country music fans, except for maybe her first album, when she was an unknown quantity. Until she went full on pop,the only people who bought her work were her fans. Now, by going pop, she has her fans and the public behind her.

Once again, you're conventiantly referring to the very end of the phase. Of course she's coming out of her blackout now because her new album's coming up. And by the way, all her promo has been US based, so as far as her international fanbase is concerned, she still is on a blackout. Well, I'm sure we'd get a whole album of Mean-esque songs if Taylor ever flopped, without much room for positivity. Flopping would hit her like a ton of bricks and she'd respond the only way she knows how - lashing out at the people she thinks are at fault. I've never found Taylor's music particularly positive as you claim. Most of the time, she's bashing someone who hurt her or mourning over something. She bashes anyone: exes, girls who try to steal her boyfriend, people who steal her moment as awards shows, mean critics, the general public at large. She's always come across like a whiner to me. And Blank Space sounded like she was finally being self-aware. But she later claimed in an interview that the song was written as a joke. It was all about what the media thought she was like, but it wasn't a true reflection of her. She just thought this media perception of her was an interesting character and decided to make this character come to life. So bang goes that theory.

Well, couldn't she have just written a personal song addressed purely to the critic? That would be real and honest. But no, she reeled her fans in by thinking this song was for them and then right at the end, they realised they'd been duped. If I was truly invested in this song, I would have been p****d off by that ending. Your use of the altered version of DWUW is meaningless as this wasn't the official version presented to the public. Maybe the solo version was the original, but her label got her to change it to feature a rap to make it more popular. But the Xtina duet was last minute and she could hardly sing R Kelly's verse. For all we know, Gaga maybe just added those lyrics on a whim so she could sing that version with Xtina. And personally, I can find alternate meanings in songs to fit my situation and this new verse could be reworked to fit. Whatever, it wasn't the official version we got as a single or an album track, so it really doesn't matter. I wouldn't judge Taylor by lyrics she put in alternate versions of her songs that weren't on her albums. You're just trying to find ways to desperately defend Taylor now.

But I'm referring to people who aren't fat but are being called fat. Gaga had put on weight, sure, but she wasn't FAT. Yet people were calling her fat. That's what I mean when I say that being called fat isn't necessarily factual. Plenty of nasty people call girls fat for reasons of jealously or just pure hatred and it's usually aimed at girls who aren't fat at all. And not everyone has the same idea of what fat is, so it's not always a true term. But if someone's being told they can't sing, well, it's usually true. And if you improve upon it, you'll ultimately come out better for it. But if you're not fat, yet are being told you are and try to "improve" yourself, you'll become unhealthy and come out worse.

 

 

[Alfonso 1,539]

You have to burn to emerge, true Phoenix. She's amazing. 

[Redstreak 6,653]

​Critics in general praise her, not just country ones. She's won general awards as well as country ones too. Of course it's different writing for a different genre but there's something fundamental about writing a good song that is universal. You're talking as if country is the only genre in which you can make deep, personal songs when in fact, all genres can be like that. And it doesn't answer why someone like Taylor gets praised for songwriting when Lana doesn't. Some critics really don't know talent even when it's right in front of them, but they'll happily consider anyone below the age of 18 who writes songs to be a prodigy.

Well, wherever you're living must be some utopia because where I'm from, if a girl serial dates, she gets a bad rep and will only attract boys who are bad news. I don't think I've ever seen a girl who's been able to get away with dating a lot the way that boys can, even if they are in college. I remember after the dating jokes following the Red era, a few people even said Taylor would be lucky if she ever finds someone to date again as she was so well-known for writing 4 albums worth about all her exes by that point that it was unlikely any man would want to get involved with her in the near future. Considering she went through her drying out period after Red, I think they were partly right. It's the same for any female artist who makes a living off of breakup songs. Many of them go on to have unstable love lives as it places a curse upon them of some sort. Men will start to think "Why would I want to date such a whining b***h who'll trash me if we ever break up?" A lot of people said that anyone who dated Adele after 21 must be a strong man.

Well, I see your point about how she could lose all these country fans, but again, I don't really see the average Taylor fan as a country fan anyway. Back in the day, I noticed a lot of her fans also loved pop music. Obviously, since almost all her fans were teenage girls, who tend to like pop music to some degree. And she's got her gay fans too, who are also known to like pop music. I think it's a matter of her fans just happen to be loyal, it doesn't matter what genre she is. In the US, her biggest market, her album sales have stayed practically the same across 5 albums now. Red sold just slightly less than her more country effort, Speak Now, and 1989 has already outsold Speak Now. I think that's a sign that her original fans have stuck around. I'm sure even her country fans are still buying her work regardless. Until she went fully pop, only her fans bought her work. Therefore, I think of her fans as HER fans, not her fans + general country fans.

​But I already said that she did take a break from dating. I never said she didn't. But she obviously broke it with Calvin. She couldn't even take a break from dating long enough to get to the end of one album's promo cycle. Is 2 years really too much to ask after she's had as many boyfriends as she's had? If she'd not dated at all, she could have made her next album with absolutely no break up songs on it as no one had broken her heart this time and it would get people excited to see her make a album without this crucial component on it. She's currently on her seventh boyfriend since becoming famous and she's been famous for a decade. That means she's had a new one roughly every 1.3 years. According to her fan wiki, her longest gap between boyfriends has been 1.5 years (from Jake to Connor). She lasted a year and a half without a guy when she wasn't on a dating break. But that was about the same amount of time it took for her to go from dating Harry to dating Calvin and this was when she was supposedly on a dating break.

Read what I said above about her US sales remaining fairly stable for all her albums. Her fans aren't going anywhere. And like I also said, her fans were never general country music fans, except for maybe her first album, when she was an unknown quantity. Until she went full on pop,the only people who bought her work were her fans. Now, by going pop, she has her fans and the public behind her.

Once again, you're conventiantly referring to the very end of the phase. Of course she's coming out of her blackout now because her new album's coming up. And by the way, all her promo has been US based, so as far as her international fanbase is concerned, she still is on a blackout. Well, I'm sure we'd get a whole album of Mean-esque songs if Taylor ever flopped, without much room for positivity. Flopping would hit her like a ton of bricks and she'd respond the only way she knows how - lashing out at the people she thinks are at fault. I've never found Taylor's music particularly positive as you claim. Most of the time, she's bashing someone who hurt her or mourning over something. She bashes anyone: exes, girls who try to steal her boyfriend, people who steal her moment as awards shows, mean critics, the general public at large. She's always come across like a whiner to me. And Blank Space sounded like she was finally being self-aware. But she later claimed in an interview that the song was written as a joke. It was all about what the media thought she was like, but it wasn't a true reflection of her. She just thought this media perception of her was an interesting character and decided to make this character come to life. So bang goes that theory.

Well, couldn't she have just written a personal song addressed purely to the critic? That would be real and honest. But no, she reeled her fans in by thinking this song was for them and then right at the end, they realised they'd been duped. If I was truly invested in this song, I would have been p****d off by that ending. Your use of the altered version of DWUW is meaningless as this wasn't the official version presented to the public. Maybe the solo version was the original, but her label got her to change it to feature a rap to make it more popular. But the Xtina duet was last minute and she could hardly sing R Kelly's verse. For all we know, Gaga maybe just added those lyrics on a whim so she could sing that version with Xtina. And personally, I can find alternate meanings in songs to fit my situation and this new verse could be reworked to fit. Whatever, it wasn't the official version we got as a single or an album track, so it really doesn't matter. I wouldn't judge Taylor by lyrics she put in alternate versions of her songs that weren't on her albums. You're just trying to find ways to desperately defend Taylor now.

But I'm referring to people who aren't fat but are being called fat. Gaga had put on weight, sure, but she wasn't FAT. Yet people were calling her fat. That's what I mean when I say that being called fat isn't necessarily factual. Plenty of nasty people call girls fat for reasons of jealously or just pure hatred and it's usually aimed at girls who aren't fat at all. And not everyone has the same idea of what fat is, so it's not always a true term. But if someone's being told they can't sing, well, it's usually true. And if you improve upon it, you'll ultimately come out better for it. But if you're not fat, yet are being told you are and try to "improve" yourself, you'll become unhealthy and come out worse.

 

 

​I always find it humorous just how over exaggerated you approach the topic of her dating life. If I knew nothing about her, I would have thought she'd dated 30 guys in 2 years from the way you describe her. 6-ish guys in around 10 years from the age of 14 to 25 is not some wild eye raising number. You say multiple times that you yourself are a critic, but as a critic you have to realize your opinion is not universal. Simply because you could not understand the praise she gets doesn't mean others feel the same way and to be frank it's a little degrading to even suggest that she or her team pay for favorable reviews. She is a good song writer, she isn't the greatest but she is indeed above average. It's not all about what kind of clever metaphors or wordplay you can employ, but it's also about how it tells a story and the emotion that goes into it and that's what she delivers in spades. And to be quite honest, your going on about the writing of Mean is seeped in bias. You don't like Taylor, you are going to take any possible negativity and absolutely twist it out of proportion. People love the fact that Taylor's songs reveal things about herself but at the same time seem so relate-able to the human experience. You cannot honestly tell me that a song that includes one or two lines of personal info would just suddenly destroy your perception of it. And she has plenty of songs that deal with positivity and plenty of songs that speak about her own wrongs and issues. Back to December is like the biggest example.

[Paper Planes 340]

​I always find it humorous just how over exaggerated you approach the topic of her dating life. If I knew nothing about her, I would have thought she'd dated 30 guys in 2 years from the way you describe her. 6-ish guys in around 10 years from the age of 14 to 25 is not some wild eye raising number. You say multiple times that you yourself are a critic, but as a critic you have to realize your opinion is not universal. Simply because you could not understand the praise she gets doesn't mean others feel the same way and to be frank it's a little degrading to even suggest that she or her team pay for favorable reviews. She is a good song writer, she isn't the greatest but she is indeed above average. It's not all about what kind of clever metaphors or wordplay you can employ, but it's also about how it tells a story and the emotion that goes into it and that's what she delivers in spades. And to be quite honest, your going on about the writing of Mean is seeped in bias. You don't like Taylor, you are going to take any possible negativity and absolutely twist it out of proportion. People love the fact that Taylor's songs reveal things about herself but at the same time seem so relate-able to the human experience. You cannot honestly tell me that a song that includes one or two lines of personal info would just suddenly destroy your perception of it. And she has plenty of songs that deal with positivity and plenty of songs that speak about her own wrongs and issues. Back to December is like the biggest example.

​Couldn't have said it better myself. Strawberry also admitted that she has never liked country-pop in another post, hence altering her view of Taylor already.

[Paper Planes 340]

​Well, couldn't she have just written a personal song addressed purely to the critic? That would be real and honest. But no, she reeled her fans in by thinking this song was for them and then right at the end, they realised they'd been duped. If I was truly invested in this song, I would have been p****d off by that ending. Your use of the altered version of DWUW is meaningless as this wasn't the official version presented to the public. Maybe the solo version was the original, but her label got her to change it to feature a rap to make it more popular. But the Xtina duet was last minute and she could hardly sing R Kelly's verse. For all we know, Gaga maybe just added those lyrics on a whim so she could sing that version with Xtina. And personally, I can find alternate meanings in songs to fit my situation and this new verse could be reworked to fit. Whatever, it wasn't the official version we got as a single or an album track, so it really doesn't matter. I wouldn't judge Taylor by lyrics she put in alternate versions of her songs that weren't on her albums. You're just trying to find ways to desperately defend Taylor now.

​Redstreak covered most of your argument, but once again, you're really trying to hide your bias against Taylor/Mean/country-pop, etc. No matter when the verse came about, in the end, that verse DOES matter because it was presented to the public. That reveals that the song was just as self-centered as you think Mean is. I personally think that both songs need those personal notes - writing a completely impersonal song is no fun for the writer/performer.

[StrawberryBlond 14,672]

​I always find it humorous just how over exaggerated you approach the topic of her dating life. If I knew nothing about her, I would have thought she'd dated 30 guys in 2 years from the way you describe her. 6-ish guys in around 10 years from the age of 14 to 25 is not some wild eye raising number. You say multiple times that you yourself are a critic, but as a critic you have to realize your opinion is not universal. Simply because you could not understand the praise she gets doesn't mean others feel the same way and to be frank it's a little degrading to even suggest that she or her team pay for favorable reviews. She is a good song writer, she isn't the greatest but she is indeed above average. It's not all about what kind of clever metaphors or wordplay you can employ, but it's also about how it tells a story and the emotion that goes into it and that's what she delivers in spades. And to be quite honest, your going on about the writing of Mean is seeped in bias. You don't like Taylor, you are going to take any possible negativity and absolutely twist it out of proportion. People love the fact that Taylor's songs reveal things about herself but at the same time seem so relate-able to the human experience. You cannot honestly tell me that a song that includes one or two lines of personal info would just suddenly destroy your perception of it. And she has plenty of songs that deal with positivity and plenty of songs that speak about her own wrongs and issues. Back to December is like the biggest example.

​We've all got different ideas about what constitues dating too much, I suppose. I don't think being young is necessarily an excuse for dating a lot. I've seen plenty of young people have only 1 or 2 relationships during their entire teenage life, even the cool, popular ones and I went to a very tough school in the city which was hardly an establishment of purity. In this day and age, it's considered acceptable to be single and date at any age and the older set can now be just as frisky as the younger ones. It means that the idea of dating a lot being normal due to being young isn't as reliable as it used to be. Plus the relationships that she had before she was famous, Taylor's had around 10 boyfriends by now. In just 25 years, that's quite a lot. I don't know any friends or family (males included), who've dated that many in their life, never mind their first 25 years. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, just that it's quite significant and it's clearly something that keeps her career going (what would she have filled her albums with until now otherwise?)

I don't think my opinion is universal, nor have I ever claimed it is. I'm not the only one who thinks Taylor's songwriting abilities are overblown, but it just seems that everyone who agrees with me isn't a critic. Maybe it's not nice to say she pays for good reviews but it's a little odd that all her albums have had such praise considering how young she started out, her girly image, her inexperienced lyrics. That kind of thing usually doesn't go over well with full-grown male critics. That's why female pop albums have always suffered the wrath of critics - they go against everything they hate. Apart from a 2.5/5 for Fearless from Slant Magazine (who have always been quite hard on female artists) and a 2/5 from Sputnikmusic for Red, I've never seen a Taylor album rated below acceptable, with critics even praising her new genre change. And I think it's a bit too good to be true. Fact is that reviewers do get bribed to this day. I've seen albums that, not naming names, have extremely suspicious praise from critics despite them having a terrible voice, immature lyrics bordering on parody, beyond generic songs, etc. Stuff that the public was calling ear torture and an insult to our intelligence. But the critics liked it? I smell a rat.

Look, I'll give you a list of my favourite Taylor songs to at least show willing that I'm not completely biased against her. And as I'm a sucker for chronological order, they are: Tim McGraw, Picture To Burn, Teardrops On My Guitar, Should've Said No, Our Song, White Horse, Change, Never Grow Up, Enchanted, I Knew You Were Trouble, We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, The Last Time, Sad Beautiful Tragic, The Lucky One, Begin Again, Blank Space, Wildest Dreams, This Love.

I admit that not all of them have amazing songwriting, but they have a charm about them or I can relate to them in some way. Tim McGraw is my favourite song from her, even though I have to alter it slightly to match my situation. It reminds me of a friend I no longer have who I thought had feelings for me who didn't and that chorus, which I have chopped and changed to suit my personal situation, put my feelings down perfectly. Wildest Dreams is my second favourite song from her, but that's only because it's a clear rip off of Lana Del Rey's style (it even copies the beat from Without You). Songs like Blank Space really grew on me and are among her best songwriting and even her sellout tracks like WANEGBT and IKYWT are big guilty pleasures for me. I don't think she untalented, just that she's capable of so much more and wish she'd go back to the far more mature style she had on her debut.

I do like personal songs but not when they sound like they're for the world at large when they're really not. I think something like Gaga's You And I is a refreshing change from the super-bland love songs of today that are deliberately impersonal so that they're so relatable and can easily become hits. But it's clear that Gaga made that song personal and for herself and I love that bold honesty. But when I hear songs like Mean, which are personal songs masquereding as relatable songs for the public, I get annoyed at the manipulative nature of it.

​Redstreak covered most of your argument, but once again, you're really trying to hide your bias against Taylor/Mean/country-pop, etc. No matter when the verse came about, in the end, that verse DOES matter because it was presented to the public. That reveals that the song was just as self-centered as you think Mean is. I personally think that both songs need those personal notes - writing a completely impersonal song is no fun for the writer/performer.

​I try not to have bias, I really do. Taylor can genuinely surprise me, country pop can genuinely surprise me. It's just that most of the time, it doesn't. See my reply above for further clarification.

[Solitaire 902]

i hope so

idk whats so special about 1998

anyway her story reminds me of gaga when adele ruined her special night

these gifs hurt my soul

[holy scheisse 22,164]

bling not the music 

[Whispering 18,865]

This thread is from five months ago. 

[Yves 1,891]

Y'all should have warning points for opening this.

[Fiona Apple 13,006]

She MUST win the AOTY