I have been a long time fan of Taylor Swift, not since the beginning but since the first album, since “Our Song” for sure. And along with being a huge fan of her songwriting, I was also a huge fan of the way she handled her business, her core decency in all things. She was much like the Derek Jeter of popular music, she never set a foot wrong, success didn’t change her so you’d see it, and her deep love of her fans and transparent social media were a thing of joy.
2015 is the year of the Tay, Apple bows down to her, Elvis Costello anoints her the new President, people are in awe of her steely self-regard. And yet in the year of Tay we lost her.
The entire Apple episode has been terrible, terrible. It doesn’t matter if Swift is being sincere or not, what matters is the perception of it. To recap.
1 – With 1989 about to be released, Swift removed all her music from all streaming services.
2 – Then she “made” Apple change their minds on their penny ante three months not paying artists for their streams during the test period of Apple Play.
3 – Finally, she gave ITunes exclusivity on streaming her back catalog and her latest album.
What sort of fools do they take us for? Really, what a pathetic little maneuver. If this wasn’t a set up from beginning to end, what does the word set up actually mean? It is a wretched little business move by a rich, smart woman who lost any sense of moral balance. Or, again, that is my perception of the situation.
There is this overwhelming sense in which the sweet Taylor, the girl with a heart, is just a memory. Surrounded by her super-powered posse, private 747s and house upon house upon house, business associates and business decisions, stuff like refusing to have her Rocks Rio show streamed, that she gives the term too big for her britches whole new vistas of meaning.
Musically, 1989 was a masterpiece but her first newish song since than, the “Bad Blood” remix with Lamar Kendrick calling it in sure wasn’t. The video was atrocious as well.
As for the live show, we will see tonight but the opening acts don’t even begin to cut it. They are both the pits.
So while people claim this is Swift’s greatest year, I don’t see it. Rather, she went from being one of the greats to one of a plethora