Taylor Swift - Speak Now (Oct 2010) - hype, anticipation &c

there was virtually nothing country about this show. Nary a Telecaster in sight

I . . . just . . .

Instruments and arrangements don't make a song "country."

It's not my style to attack posters on here, but Josh's view of Swift the artist (not just the live shows) is retrograde and disheartening in a critic in 2011.

Sorry you feel that way. I have no prob. with Swift the artist. I have a problem with Swift the performer, who aimed entirely for teen girls (who also composed the vast majority of the crowd that I saw). If someone else digs it, that's cool, but basing a show's success on its appeal to teens is a conversation killer to me. I judge her on the standards by which I judge anything. A good show is a good book is a good meal. The "good" is the important part.

Alfred, if you can think of a more overt country signifier than a Tele twang, I'm all ears. I don't truck with that "barely out of her teens" stuff, though, which is what truly sells her short. I mean, Adele is "barely out of her teens" (for example; not saying that she's better or worse than Taylor). Johnny Marr was "barely out of his teens" when the Smiths debuted. And so on.

because she's a sharp observer, an excellent melodist, and some singer.

Is exactly my point. Those attributes are important enough, and real enough, that she simply didn't need the overkill. I wanted to see Taylor Swift the sharp observer, the excellent melodist, the singer, not Taylor Swift the cast member.

I've become less of a genre fetishist as I've aged. "Country" to me is "telling stories" -- dispatches from the middle and lower middle class. It's got nothing to do with instruments.

Teles are fucking badass though alfred. Question that probably won't get answered here: do country guys always buy Fender teles, or do some of them go for G&L ASATs?

Alfred, if you can think of a more overt country signifier than a Tele twang, I'm all ears.

Banjo? Dobro? Mandolin? Pedal fucking steel?

I mean, just because Brad Paisley is all popular and shit doesn't mean Tele=country.

http://www.sweetslyrics.com/images/img_gal/11684_prince_l.jpg

Or even that country=Tele.

Shit, man, a lot of people play Teles. But not a lot of country music lacks a Tele.

Jon, I think a lot of them actually have custom guitars that are often based on Teles - like, Tele shapes but not really Teles. So it's not the brand so much as the shape/sound/electronics.

Alfred, is there anything "middle and lower middle class" about Swift's stories?

Phil, I'll totally give you pedal steel as a more overt signifier.

how come whenever everyone else does a comedy display name people get the joke, but when I do one, everyone just calls me jon. toss this.

Alfred, is there anything "middle and lower middle class" about Swift's stories?

Yes, I would say so.

Hmm, I'd say her songs are more universal than that, which I don't think is the same as defaulting lower middle class, which is just sort of patronizing.

But not a lot of country music lacks a Tele.

A certain type of country played by a certain type of performer? Yes. "Country music," categorically? No. When I look at live shots of the top-selling country acts of the last few years I see a few Teles, a few Gretsches, a few Les Pauls, a couple of PRSs, a Strat or two . . . "Tele" as a country music signifier is currently limited, as far as I can see it, to solo male singer/songwriter types -- Dierks Bentley, Brad Paisley, occasionally Ricky Skaggs, etc.

many xps

Vince Gill and Rodney Crowell too, right?

Yeah, maybe it's a dude thing these days, I guess.

anyway, way back when I threw it in there because someone called Taylor Swift country, and I guess to my ears there's almost nothing country about her. But I didn't take into account the apparent shifting definition of country, assuming it can be defined at all. I do, I suppose, still like genres, especially those rooted in such long and storied traditions. Can reggae be reggae without many of the things we think of as reggae?

http://forward.com/workspace/assets/images/articles/blog-matisyahu-022211.jpg

Ha, for a second there I wasn't sure if that was a David Allen Coe joke or a Matisyahu joke. I'm still not sure?

http://www.cmt.com/sitewide/assets/img/artists/coe_david_allan/davidallancoe06-280x336.jpg

taylor's first album Sounded Country but since then she's outgrown it commercially and the last album was lovably catholic; nevertheless yes she still tells v. concrete stories and most of the stories are about girls from small towns who value family, sweethearted bad boys, and pickup trucks. also her vengeance thing, which as she became poppier started to turn critics off, is totally country-girl and when miranda lambert does it nobody ever complains.

Catholic, dude?

in the sense of eclectic.

inclusive.

Can reggae be reggae without many of the things we think of as reggae?

Sounds like a slippery question, because it depends what those things are, but the short answer is "yes". If you'd only heard reggae up to 1974, and were then presented with a early-90s bam bam ragga record you'd have trouble identifying musical forms in common, surely you'd find greater differences there than between Taylor and, say, Dolly.

oh interesting! I had always assumed that the adjective catholic had meant more like, "uptight". Learn something new everyday.

how has she outgrown it commercially when country and hip-hop (and Adele) are the only genres which can command multiplatinum sales these days?

"repressed"

taylor swift is bigger than brad paisley. and adele.

But she's part of the only other genre which commands these kinds of sales figures, so she can't have outgrown it; it's a tautological point.

Is Taylor Swift pretty much the biggest fish in the pond right now?

Gaga is bigger than Taylor, by far.

xpost That's a really good and helpful point, Tim.

I don't know if Taylor is bigger than those folks, to be honest. She may appeal to more people, that's for sure - as in, a broader audience. But like I said Brad Paisley played to as many people this past weekend as Taylor did. Dunno where Adele fits in on the concert field, though. Where does she play in the UK?

Brad Paisley’s This Is Country Music Debuts At #1 On Billboard’s Top Country Albums Chart With Sales Of More Than 152,000, Marking The Chart’s Best First Week In 2011!

The album, the third and latest by Ms. Swift — still a month shy of her 21st birthday — sold 1,047,000 copies in the United States in its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

talking about an order of magnitude here

anyway i'm not saying she's not country (i'm saying she is country!) just that her peers are gaga, wayne, kanye, etc., and that the sonic impurity of her countriness is both cause and symptom of her hugeness.

Yeah, she's a total pop star on par those erstwhile peers, for sure. But I don't really know how to gauge "popularity" anymore besides how many tickets they can sell, I guess.

If we're also sort of talking about this other stuff now, I did find that Brad Paisley show really illustrative of certain contrasts. Blake Shelton opened up, and he was absolutely everything (or many things) I don't like about modern country music, from the lame banter to the cover of Bobby Brown's "My Prerogative." But I thought Paisley was great, and found lots of ways to push and pull the genre in interesting directions without ever completely jumping genre ship.

Blake Shelton's good though. "Who Are You When I'm Not Lookin'" is one of my favorite singles of the year.

I had high hopes, actually, since I'd heard good things, and like the "Honey Bee" song. But he was lame.

He also has some song where he's all like "If you don't like my rebel flag you can kiss my ass".

"We're sorry, Mr. Shelton, kkvgz is deleting you from his ipod!"

He sang that one, yes.

I believe the song is called "Kiss My Country Ass." It's about being country.

It's about hating blacks and committing treason against the U.S. govt as far as I'm concerned.

http://www.savingcountrymusic.com/kiss-my-country-ass-blake-shelton-a-rant

oh great! Another I-hate-modern-country thread!

I like country music! Maybe even more than you, who knows?

I'm here nor there on modern country. Just pointing out a thing about a guy.

i like brad's verse about the confederate flag on "camouflage": "well the stars and bars offend some folks and i guess i see why." also i love that brad is so self-conscious about his role as Red State Ambassador he puts a verse about the confederate flag in a jokey song about how much southerners love camouflage. which is the perfect place for it. guy's got a light touch.

Hmm. Apart from "Camouflage," "A Man Don't Have to Die," and the Carrie Underwood duet, This is Country Music suffers because the playing and songs aren't up to his light touch; there's slippage.

you've always had more tolerance for the guy's incredible sap (and yes i know this is A Genre Staple) than i have; i can't get with "a man don't have to die" or the awful awful cancer-kid one. i love the five-minute prog-country songs though! and the instrumental ft. clint eastwood whistling. i could listen to him solo for a really long time.