In an ill mannered, poorly argued ad hominem attack on Taylor Swift, Bob Lefsetz had the efrontary to call call her greedy and thoughtless while he himself gets paid by Spotify. Why? Just guess. He starts by claiming nobody knows anything on 1989 but “Shake It Off” despite her having charted with every song she’s pulled off the album, a couple she hasn’t. he continues by claiming “a hit ain’t what it used to be. Music exists in an echo chamber. What’s important to you is unheard by others. Yet in the past two weeks Taylor Swift has demonstrated that no one has the power of a musician.
“Taylor Swift is most certainly a child of her generation. A greedy, thoughtless person who’s only about the bucks. And you can blame the parents while you’re at it, the baby boomers who sold out the country during the Reagan era, eviscerating the safety net and rewarding the so-called “job creators” who stopped paying taxes and living amongst the rest of us. How do we expect our artists’ work to resonate when they don’t have our lifestyle? Trying to make ends meet, herded in the back of the plane like cattle.
Oh, there are a ton of wannabes doing this, and their main complaint is they too can’t get rich.
That’s right, Taylor Swift single-handedly ignited the Spotify debate, brought it to the front page, into nooks and crannies her music will never penetrate. She spread ignorance throughout the land. To the point where Daniel Ek came down from the mountaintop to respond, but his words will get a smidgen of the traction, because he’s a techie, not a musician. And you might say he’s rich, but if money were everything Oprah wouldn’t be doing live appearances, you see there’s nothing like that hit of love from the audience.”
I disagree entirely with her opinion about Spotify, I was planning to write a story about how Lefsetz was right, Spotify is not the enemy. But Lefsetz was this horrible, nasty and inaccurate attack on Taylor makes it exceedingly hard to agree with him.
I argue in favor of Spotify all the time but so what? Taylor has the absolute right if not, indeed, the responsibility to not participate in something she doesn’t believe in. Why should she prop up Spotify? And if she makes more money by not working with Spotify, why is she then greedy.
Lefsetz is biased, he feels biased, he seems to be a shill for Spotify and he certainly gets paid by them, why would he he doing his Rhino Playlist for free? So, he throws his considerable behind a party who is paying him. And while I agree, Swift is wrong about Spotify, Lefsetz is clueless as to the songwriting genius of Swift. What Mitchell album are you discussing? The Hissing Of Summer Lawn?
Lennon himself mentioned Paul and Lennon sitting together at a piano, when they were around Swift’s age, saying, “let’s sit down and write a swimming pool.” Pop stars like money? I’ll alert the media.
I really hate unfairness and Lefsetz has gone too far here. He is a shill for big business, he is never ever ahead of the zeitgeist and he has no clue about music. the voice of nonsense, even when he’s right he’s wrong.
