NYT Says Taylor Swift Is Bigger Than The Beatles!? WTF

[Tusker]

Musical nostalgia is a part of how we are wired, according to this article. Some things get encoded a bit more vividly and that's quite normal.

 

A quick Beatles story about coming of age. At first I just wasn't into pop music. Saturday Night Fever alerted me to the Bee Gees and I went to back to study their previous songs. Which led me to the Beatles. Of course.

 

Then Sergeant Pepper the musical happened. Terrible movie, but I was a huge Beatles fan by then. In the movie Barry Gibb sang a brilliant song I had never heard. "How can that be?" I thought. "I know the entire Beatles catalog. How can there be a hole? I've got to be fixing the hole." 😉 So I went to my friend Kevin, who had every Beatles bootleg available. "Oh, yeah that's A Day in the Life. Banned in Singapore due to Paul's drug thing in the B section."

 

I had to have it.

 

Later that year the BBC aired a 10 episode retrospective on the Beatles. Armed with a cassette recorder I captured A Day in the Life off the radio. It's still one of the greatest songs ever, made just that bit more special by my tiny rebellion. I don't think my Swifty daughter can hope to understand the depth of connection. I imagine it works both ways?

 

 

[Adan]

16 hours ago, J.F.N. said:

 

Impressive, thanks for sharing!

 

University professor?

 

 

That's a high fallutin' label for a guy who tries to pick up younger women in food co-ops.

[J.F.N.]

47 minutes ago, Adan said:

 

That's a high fallutin' label for a guy who tries to pick up younger women in food co-ops.

 

That one flew over my head, guess it's some reference I missed here 

[Tusker]

20 hours ago, MathOfInsects said:

OK, sheesh.

 

The Beatles did not invent pop music. They were the product of pop music, not the progenitors of it.

They came along at a time when pop music had started to go through one of its stagnation cycles. The rock n rollers of the 1950s were middle-aged and not really speaking to the largest record-buying market any more, and nothing had quite emerged to fill the vacuum. (This is something we recognize in retrospect, it's not like people were sitting around going, "I wonder what oh what will fill what we all mutually perceive is a demographic-based musical vacuum?")

The Beatles were one of several Merseybeat groups to sort of burst out of people's radios sounding different from the polished rock n roll and crooner songs of the time. It's a similar phenomenon to how grunge was a big middle finger to the 80's coked-out high-sheen synth- and arena rock that was hanging on past its expiration date. They didn't know they were going to go on to be THE BEATLES, they were just teenagers who happened to be pretty telegenic and mutually pretty damned funny. Their songs had a weird quirk of sort of seeming like they were all chorus, even the verses, and this along with the Merseybeat made those songs very catchy. 

This all happened when post-war England was in a pretty bleak state, and this boppy music hit in the exact right way at the exact right time.

As it turned out, the group also had the exact right four people in it, for whatever alchemical reason, and a genius for tapping into the zeitgeist. It also turned out that the band contained 1, 2, or 3 of the century's great songwriters, depending who is counting, whose potential might not have had the opportunity to be tapped were it not for the financial good fortune of the group. But even then, they contributed to the cannon, they didn't invent it. 

They did some important stuff--a bunch of "f you, we're trying this" stuff that influenced others afterward, just as they'd been influenced by similar artists before them. But in real time the old folks mostly thought of them as some weird thing the kids liked for whatever weird reason that kids like things. 

Literally as I got to this paragraph I realized the TS comparison is far more apt than I'd have argued for. It's not just numbers. It's a tapping into zeitgeist and paying it off with incredibly well-written songs that speak to a particular influential demographic, coupled with the fearlessness that comes with success. 

 

As a Beatles fan, I am grateful for the points you made which I didn't realize before.  To take just one: The artistically aspirational music which influenced me as a musician occurred toward the tail end of their career. My favorite album is Abbey Road, and I can hear in my favorite prog artists how much they were influenced by Come Together and I want You, She's so Heavy and Because. Brilliant tracks. But this was not typical Beatles fare. Instead it was their rather beautiful sunset.

[MathOfInsects]

3 hours ago, Tusker said:

 

As a Beatles fan, I am grateful for the points you made which I didn't realize before.  To take just one: The artistically aspirational music which influenced me as a musician occurred toward the tail end of their career. My favorite album is Abbey Road, and I can hear in my favorite prog artists how much they were influenced by Come Together and I want You, She's so Heavy and Because. Brilliant tracks. But this was not typical Beatles fare. Instead it was their rather beautiful sunset.

A very mature and beautiful album, a masterpiece really, created by guys who knew it was going to be their last one together. It really shows George's ascendancy as a songwriter, too. It's his songs that kick off both sides of the album. Both classics, too, not that "Blue Jay Way" shizzle.

 

Both Paul and John claimed to have written "Because," which is the chords of Moonlight Sonata played back to front, or roughly so. I believe the session doing harmonies for that song was their last one together. I think the last time they all played together--appropriately--was the overdubs for "The End."

 

It does have Octopus's Garden on it, which is a fun song to sing but let's face it...not up to the aspirations of the rest of the album. Each record had a couple like that, usually the "Ringo" song, but sometimes "Ob-Lah-Di," a dumbass song that gets away with murder because of how catchy it is in spite of itself. Speaking of murder, I'm not sure "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" doesn't fall in the same category, it's just such a weird-ass song that it sort of escapes scrutiny.

McCartney engineered/composed a brilliant sunset (as you put it) for the group. 

 

They played through that medley on Side B just as we hear it (with one song cut out eventually). It wasn't stitched together later, they played that whole thing as a composition. Brilliant dudes. 

 

There was an active prog scene burbling up in CA and elsewhere (including England), which the Beatles were well aware of. They traveled to San Francisco and LA specifically to check out the scenes there. And of course the Beatles were consciously influenced by Frank Zappa and the Mothers, a studio-only band that did theme-albums, so that crazy decision to let "I Want You/She's So Heavy" be a descent into madness had some reference points for them. But again...they made it awesome and salable.

 

Man, the hours I spent in high school with my little stereo speakers on either side of my head, just waiting for that hard tape-cut that ends that song. It's like falling when you're in a dream, and you're not quite sure if, when you hit bottom, you'll just die. They were fairly long broken-up by then, but those sounds were wondrous to me. 

[Floyd Tatum]

On 6/21/2024 at 10:50 PM, Reezekeys said:

Thanks for posting that, it's charming, and quite amusing!  I'm not saying this to be mean - I admire (and covet) their youthful enthusiasm, taking on challenging material - that's the way you do it!   The guitar player is obviously good, they all are, really, and are on their journey.

But, on the humorous side, I can imagine the phone call to, let's say, the bass player:  "Hi, Tyler?  This is Brandon Patterson - do you, um, still play bass?  Do you think you could play with our band, Blenkinsop, this Saturday?   What music do we play?   Well, mostly just a bunch of old rock and roll songs, you know, Johnny B Good and that kind of stuff.   You can?  All right! Thanks, man.   We start at 1 pm, can you be there by 12:30?   Great!"

[ProfD]

7 hours ago, Tusker said:

Musical nostalgia is a part of how we are wired, according to this article. Some things get encoded a bit more vividly and that's quite normal.

Excellent article.  Should be required reading especially when folks become territorial over music that formed the soundtrack of their lives.😁😎

[Docbop]

OH NO the world is coming to an end Paul McCartney went to a Taylor Swift concert and had fun!!!!   Why didn't someone remind him he was supposed to just stand there looking like a sourpuss.

 

 

https://www.nme.com/news/music/watch-paul-mccartney-dancing-with-taylor-swift-fans-at-london-wembley-eras-show-3768002?

[Tusker]

35 minutes ago, Docbop said:

OH NO the world is coming to an end Paul McCartney went to a Taylor Swift concert and had fun!!!!   Why didn't someone remind him he was supposed to just stand there looking like a sourpuss.

 

 

https://www.nme.com/news/music/watch-paul-mccartney-dancing-with-taylor-swift-fans-at-london-wembley-eras-show-3768002?

 

Oh No. Peace is breaking out!! 😅 

 

A John Lennon paper weight caught my eye at the local coffee shop today. Took a pic cause I knew you guys would love it. 😃

 

 

 

 

[MathOfInsects]

10 hours ago, Docbop said:

OH NO

 

10 hours ago, Tusker said:

Oh No.

I think I see where this is heading. 

[Thethirdapple]

OH, NO its DEVO!

In glorious ripped cassette audio on HD streaming!!!

 

 

 

 

 

PEACE

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[stillearning]

14 hours ago, Docbop said:

OH NO the world is coming to an end Paul McCartney went to a Taylor Swift concert and had fun!!!!   Why didn't someone remind him he was supposed to just stand there looking like a sourpuss.

Rumor has it that was Billy Shears.

[Finale]

Taylor Swift is bigger slimmer than the Beatles.

 

[HSS]

A yuuuge catfight is brewing!   Taylor Swift vs. Billy Eilish and Kim Kardashian.  If they do end up tussling naked on pay-per-view, this dirty old man just might spill some coin and watch. It'd probably be the biggest pay-per-view event in the history of the multiverse! 

 

https://www.lifeandstylemag.com/posts/kim-kardashian-thrilled-about-taylor-swift-billie-eilish-feud/

 

 

[HSS]

Grab a bag of popcorn.  It's on.  My money is on Taylor to send her social media shock troops of angry bored Millennial soccer moms to end Dave Grohl's career. Dave had better publicly grovel and snivel to Queen Taylor before it's too late. 

 

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/taylor-swift-seems-responded-dave-152151174.html

[stoken6]

40 minutes ago, HSS said:

Queen Taylor

 

My first thought.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[NewImprov]

Great thread! I'm personally not a huge fan of either Taylor, the Beatles or Jesus, I mean, they all have their cool points, but, generally, I find their fans kind of annoying.

 

As someone whose musical tastes were formed in the the early/mid 7-'s, the Beatles were kinda old hat to me and my friends. Eventually, I could see that things like In The Court of the Crimson King or Close to the Edge would have never happened without Sgt. Peppers, or Sabbath and Led Zep without Come Together, etc., but in all these cases, I prefer the results of the evolution over the initial seeds.

 

As far as Taylor goes, I work at a record store a couple days a week, and her fans are the nicest people, and they not only buy her stuff, but they buy other albums as well. We love them.

 

And that Jesus guy, he had some good ideas, but God save me from his fanbase...

[KenElevenShadows]

On 6/21/2024 at 4:01 PM, stillearning said:

Gotta disagree. I’m retired, and teach kids (and adults) at the local School of Rock one night a week. I have kids wanting to learn Beatles songs quite often. Right now I’m teaching two different children I Am the Walrus and Come Together. In the past… Let It Be, Hey Jude, and others that aren’t coming to mind at the moment. It often surprises me what they ask to learn! They come in wanting to learn Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Queen, early Elton John, even Genesis! Heck, I had one teenage girl wanting to learn a Peter Hammill song, but that was a rare one for sure. This job continually restores my faith in the younger generation, and I love it! The Beatles, cultural fossils? Not that I’m seeing! 

 

Exactly. I don't know where this narrative about kids not wanting to learn older music comes from, but I see it popping up in these forums all the time. I worked at a high school, and a lot of the kids were into Nirvana, The Beatles, The Doors, Hendrix, Zeppein, SRV, and metal.

[jazzpiano88]

My college aged daughter loves Taylor and thinks she’s a genius because everything she writes is a masterpiece and there has never been anyone in the history of music as talented.     I tied to argue against her for about 5 minutes.   It was going nowhere, and I  just gave up. 

[J.F.N.]

Until a couple of days ago I had never heard a second of Miss Swift's work, and due to current hype decided to give it a go with an open mind (I do like pop music in general, not only stuff from the 80's when I was in my teens).

 

Started with her last album, something about a tortured poets department, snoozed through the songs on the album, then went on backwards to the next previous album, and again to the next, after 3 albums I stopped, kind of confused.

 

My conclusion is that this can't have anything to do with the music, at all, it left me with no impression whatsoever. There's gotta be something eise in play here, and the lyrics in large are extremely bland, almost like they intentionally are created to be "generic", kind of like "cheap" train station shop paperback literature.

 

There's something that tells me that identification is the thing here, and I'm definitely not the demographics.

[CyberGene]

1 hour ago, J.F.N. said:

Until a couple of days ago I had never heard a second of Miss Swift's work, and due to current hype decided to give it a go with an open mind

Same here, was going to post along the same lines but you beat me to it. 

[Reezekeys]

And yet, there's this: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-18/why-are-so-many-taylor-swift-fans-middle-aged/103457252#

[J.F.N.]

2 hours ago, CyberGene said:

Same here, was going to post along the same lines but you beat me to it. 

 

It's obvious, right? If I'd express it a bit rude, I'd say it's "tacky"... but hey, that's my opinion, I'm not the king of the world... 🤪

 

 

[harmonizer]

Buddy Holly did not invent pop music either, but he was an earlier example of a pop band in the size of 3-5 band members, being more self-sufficient and controlling more of their own destiny, writing most of their own music, recording it and performing it with their band's own musicians (as opposed to a crew controlled by a producer or record company). And Holly's songwriting was good enough to have his material covered by many others who got top 40 hits with those covers more than 10 years after he passed. It would have been really interesting to see how his music would have evolved if he had not died so young.

[re Pete]

Played a wedding ceremony that the bridal party wanted to walk in to a Taylor Swift song. I never heard of it. But it was actually not bad at all to play, well written and worked well.

Got me thinking, after hearing what she pays her musicians. I worked with a women related to her years ago before she was famous.

She was very pretty. Blonde, long legs and built. Same looks.

Makes me wonder if she said she needed a keys player...$$$ 

 

 

[HSS]

2 hours ago, harmonizer said:

Buddy Holly did not invent pop music either, 

Correct...  Mozart invented pop music. 

[KenElevenShadows]

I like some of her stuff. She has two albums, "Folklore" and "Midnights", that I like. And bear in mind that, as many of you know, I mostly listen to "outsider" music such as dub, experimental, field recordings of Asia and Africa, weird electronica, ambient, Javanese gamelan, Alice Coltrane, Djivan Gasparyan, and other music that is not typically considered "mainstream".

 

I think Taylor's quite talented, if not quite my thing.

 

If we're talking giant pop stars in current pop music, I prefer Billie Eilish. And I generally prefer to not listen to most pop. But I do like some of Taylor's stuff. "Snow on the Beach" is probably my favorite song I've heard by her.

 

 

[KenElevenShadows]

Here's another song by her. You might not relate to this song, but you can be sure that legions of women do.

 

 

[ProfD]

The click-bait nature of the video title worked resulting in the comedy of this thread is comparing an iconic Pop music group from the 1960s to a young lady who's a Pop star in this millenium.

 

Everything is different...environment, social, political, technology, etc.

 

Again, the article on music nostalgia article nails it perfectly.  Some of the comments in this thread prove it.

 

Baby Boomer and Gen-X dudes defending a band that played a huge part in the soundtrack of their lives.

 

There aren't many real Swifties on the forum.  If they read this thread there would be plenty eye-rolling.😁

 

A few good men have an appreciation for both aritsts because it's all music.

 

Premature 4th of July fireworks here.🤣😎

 

 

[Bill H.]

8 hours ago, J.F.N. said:

Until a couple of days ago I had never heard a second of Miss Swift's work, and due to current hype decided to give it a go with an open mind (I do like pop music in general, not only stuff from the 80's when I was in my teens).

 

Started with her last album, something about a tortured poets department, snoozed through the songs on the album, then went on backwards to the next previous album, and again to the next, after 3 albums I stopped, kind of confused.

 

 

If you really want to try to get a handle on Taylor Swift, I'd suggest instead just entering Taylor Swift songs in Google. The highlights were pretty much all there - everything from the teenage girl plantively singing "Teardrops on my Guitar" to the mature woman addressing her demons in "Anti-Hero". 

 

Trying to decipher Taylor Swift from her last album would be like someone who had never heard the Beatles listening to their last LP (Let It Be) and concluding "OK that's The Beatles."

 

Well it is. But not really.

 

Going back three albums would be somewhat better, but it's still not the whole story. 

 

And I'm not a Taylor Swift fanboy or anything. Just my take on it.