I was writing about great songwriters the other day and here are two of the very best. Hip hop up and comer Kid Cudi and pop queen Taylor Swift would appear to have not too much in common but they are both songwriters who live and die solely upon their songs.
Anybody who watched Ghostface Killah trounce Kid Cudi all across Hghline last year won’t soon forget the sight of the great hip hop hop being dessicated by the the Wu Tang gang. Even among the friendly enviroment of Jay-Z’s 9-11 charity gig at MSG last year, Cudi was a complete irrelevance. John Mayer left a better impression.
Swift isn’t even that good. With the entire world at her fingertips, Swift can’t close the deal because she can’t sing. Her live performance is terrible and apparently Swift won’t do what she needs to to right the wrong.
But Cudi is on the verge of and Swift already is a huge star. Why? Because they both write great songs. Cudi writes emo hop r&b rock songs with dance guys like ra ra riot. Swift is a Carole King (yes, not a Loretta Lynn: the country is a feint and the genre is irrelevant any way)
And, and this is a little weird, both are big collaborators.
They both have posses of peers to hit stuff off.
This is a change: we think of our great songwriters as either duos are solo acts. My other two biggie songwriters today are white boy solitary men. One reason why is because Taylor and Cudi are both pop stars: they give up the sexiness of singularity for the comfort of big time musical accompanists to save em from thelseves. or the Kelly Clarkson syndrome if you prefer.
In the end, both Cudi and Swift can get away with losing on stage if they can keep on writing songs of this caliber.