Beyoncé or Taylor?

[ANTI WP 19,799]

Neither 

[tylerjs 5,081]

Idk, they’re both incredibly talented but I’ve never really resonated with either of them. I like a few songs from each camp but none enough to pick between them? I guess I just have never resonated with an artist the way I do with Gaga, so my personal bar for artists is basically impossible to pass 

Beyoncé is a better overall performer imo and has much more vocal capability, but Taylor is cute/impressive in a different way and has very emotionally-connective music that serves a different purpose usually 

[Mars 1,740]

but not even...

[SevenWonder 3,529]

11 hours ago, salty like sodium said:

This is like claiming Taylor also doesn't work with producers and engineers... The only difference is Beyoncé knows how to pick who she works with when Taylor always works with the same dude (Antonoff) or whoever is hot right now (Max Martin), as opposed to up and coming minority artists, or unknown talents (like Beyoncé does). At the point both of them are in their career, their talents are very much plural, as opposed to singular. Because the industry relies on teams of people helping you achieve your vision (producers, arrangers, sound engineers, etc.).

It's also very dismissive to claim Beyoncé isn't instrumental to her songs. Read any interview of her collaborators – she has the vision in mind from the start and is crucial to the final product. For Texas Hold 'Em they flew a banjo player in from across the country or something just because she had something in her head no one else was able to play.

Never said Beyonce wasn't instrumental to her songs. I said Taylor was more instrumental to hers. And I'm pretty sure that's a correct assessment. And since that's very important to me? Since it's something I value in how music is created? I gave Taylor the slight edge. 

I grew up loving indie music. One band creating everything together. Throw in a producer or two who ties everything together and then, viola, you have an album. I also like pop music that embodies that spirit. If there's a twenty (or whatever) songwriters/producers? It might be a brilliant song, but I tend to lose interest in that song and, even more, in that artist. 

I have no dog in this race. I am not much of a fan of either. (I also LOVE a lot of Cowboy Carter, btw.) So I was just answering the question based on my very personal, very subjective guidelines. 

[salty like sodium 967]

6 hours ago, SevenWonder said:

Never said Beyonce wasn't instrumental to her songs. I said Taylor was more instrumental to hers. And I'm pretty sure that's a correct assessment. And since that's very important to me? Since it's something I value in how music is created? I gave Taylor the slight edge. 

I grew up loving indie music. One band creating everything together. Throw in a producer or two who ties everything together and then, viola, you have an album. I also like pop music that embodies that spirit. If there's a twenty (or whatever) songwriters/producers? It might be a brilliant song, but I tend to lose interest in that song and, even more, in that artist. 

I have no dog in this race. I am not much of a fan of either. (I also LOVE a lot of Cowboy Carter, btw.) So I was just answering the question based on my very personal, very subjective guidelines. 

Thanks for the clarification. I still think this is missing the mark a bit – a LOT of cowriters/coproducers beyoncé credits are because she frequently makes subtle winks and nods back to classic songs (for example, she uses the guitar riff from Sinatra's Bang Bang and two lines of lyrics from Good Vibrations) – which means all the songwriters (and possibly producers) suddenly get songwriting and producer credit, because she wanted to pay hommage to them and do a deep-dive in musical history to create something new that paid hommage to the old. That's very different to the way Taylor creates her music, and it's also partly based on culture. African American artists historically come from less privileged backgrounds, without access to daddy's bank account to hire producers to create their vision, so a lot of them get started by sampling (using a beat from a pre-existing song) and starting to sing new bars on top of that. It's very common, and has been mentioned vocally by a lot of black artists. It's the same reason why Mariah Carey (who does write a lot of her own material) was sampling songs like the Tom Tom Club and a lot of different things in the 90s – because even when they can afford to do everything from scratch, it's still part of the culture to remix and rework old songs from other artists.

So it's more than just "she writes/she doesn't write", there's a lot more to how the song is composed and built, and why, and what it's trying to achieve. Taylor's music is primarily geared towards making people sob about break ups or feel happy about being in love. Beyoncé's music, since 2013, has been about challenging the way we understand music, genre, culture, race, feminism, motherhood and identity. The objectives are completely different, the processes are too. I wouldn't say one is "less instrumental" to the process than the other.

An indie film director (Call Me By Your Name) needs less VFX editors (and probably set designers, concept artists and costume designers) than the director of a science fiction film (Dune). That doesn't mean Villeneuve is less involved with his film, or has less talent as a filmmaker imo.

Edited April 3 by salty like sodium

[Gaga2645 2,032]

20 hours ago, RebeldeFaith said:

A little lesson for today:

 

 

And of course I choose Bey. 

.

To add to this, I believe the fact that people believe the discussion can even be had of who is better is an example of Beyonce’s longevity and star power too. This is gonna ruffle some feather but Swift is nowhere NEAR Beyonce when it comes to pretty much anything in the industry… Beyonce is seen as the standard which is why these discussions even take place to begin with. 
I also think it should be noted this is further proof that unfortunately, black & brown women in the music industry have to work SO much harder to even be seen on the same level as their white counterparts 

Edited April 3 by Gaga2645

[darkgaga 2,048]

Back in the day, Beyonce. But from the moment she switched sonically with Formation and everything after that I just couldn’t care less… not my taste of music, and also the Renaissance and her new album I just couldnt finish. 
 

Taylor had improved a lot over the past years, and even though I found Folklore and Evermore extremely boring, she knows how to write hits and keeps feeding her fanbase. I am now even considering joining a friend of mine to her concert since seeing it on Disney+
 

However I think Beyonce is still a better performer, I also need to be able to enjoy the songs being performed