Taylor Swift: Fearless Poll

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

still dont get u dudes jizzing all over the one tree hill of pop

Any other really similar pop-stars get this much love here in the past?

...

I'm standing by it.

given how many words have been expended on explaining why t-swift is amazing, claiming you don't understand why people love her or acting surprised when they express this love is tantamount to admitting you're illiterate at this point

or we are decently literate and just think a lot of people on this site are fronting

I think a lot of people here don't actually enjoy country music as they'd like to on some philosophical level and taylor swift - who writes decent, approachable pop songs - is a good way to pretend like they actually like country music. hope she makes a 'yankee hotel foxtrot' soon!

also whenever you guys start analyzing her amazing songwriting techniques, you guys look like some parent talking about their 10 year old's amazing academic prowess. look at her, she used a 'bridge'!!! can you believe she's only 20??

I don't think anyone on ILX who praises Taylor Swift is using it in any way to claim they're really into Country now, or even that Swift is the token Country artist they like as some sort of 'look at how eclectic I am' front.

just one theory to explain the fronting, maybe you got a better one?

somewhere between 'she really is that good' and 'Tim F's enthusiasm is infectious'?

most of the "real" country music fans on ilm like taylor swift, afaik. including me.

but i like the idea that anyone needs a theory to explain why people like good pop music.

I still hate country. I don't believe that Taylor Swift has any country in her music, other than a few extremely minor banjo parts and shit.

you definitely don't have to like country to like her. fearless especially is pretty much just a pop-rock album with a few country touches. (the first one is more obviously country.)

but you also don't need some complex double-blind study to figure out why anyone enjoys catchy well-written pop songs.

Her stuff reminds me more of Fleetwood Mac.

I'm giving my vote to Love Story, since it's the song that won me over. And I really enjoy almost all country music.

Very curious about this "philosophical level" that I should be or would like to enjoy country music on?

http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~bertrand/5_nob_6.jpg

"If you don't like Taylor Swift on my level, you're just fronting."

just one theory to explain the fronting, maybe you got a better one?

the obvious - it's not fronting and you have to be really, really fucking thick to think it is

also whenever you guys start analyzing her amazing songwriting techniques, you guys look like some parent talking about their 10 year old's amazing academic prowess. look at her, she used a 'bridge'!!! can you believe she's only 20??

how on earth is this even remotely like what anyone's said? who has ever praised her for using a bridge? at this point you're just arguing with the voices of the strawman in your head

Ol' Strawy. Great guy.

Lol at the idea of people saying they like Taylor Swift as a way to gain cred. for liking country. ??? Liking country still doesn't bring a lot of cultural cache. If you did want to prove you liked country, there are hundreds of country artists it would be more appropriate to claim to like rather than Taylor Swift.

I don't think people are fronting when they say they like her, I think they're fronting about how much they like her.

So many non-country fans probably like her precisely because she's pop country.

x-post:

Well it's certainly possible for people to front for various reasons. Personally I like her but not nearly as much as some others seem to do. I really did find her one of the more appealing recording artists on commercial radio over the last year and a half, and I genuinely do find some of her songs pretty moving. Her overall sound is a little too far removed from what I usually go for for me to want to hear her that often.

Haha, if people on ILM front about liking things, it may simply be because a lot of us really enjoy liking things.

this is boring. iatee, you're being a) totally ill-mannered b) completely dense - shrieking "i don't believe you!" in response to a bunch of disparate people articulating why they like something doesn't cut it. i think you're fronting when you say you don't believe any of us tbh.

as I said, I don't disbelieve that plenty of people genuinely like taylor swift and I do think there are reasons to like her...she makes simple and accessible pop music. I just think there's a difference between a. 'like taylor swift' and b. 'believe that taylor swift created the best piece of music in 2009'. I do think anyone in group b is fronting to some degree or another, and it's pretty apparent in the way some people here talk about her. this thread: Taylor Swift '08: The Hype, Anticipation & Appreciation Begins Right Here is filllllled with people projecting complexity onto her music.

No, they're not projecting complexity onto her music. Most music is complex, has subtext, some sort of motivation. They're trying to untangle what it all means, and finding the process gratifying. Why? Because the music is so good they want to pore over every detail. What you're doing is completely ridiculous and the worst kind of argument because you make sure that nothing we say will ever 'prove' it wrong. I can verbally abuse you and call you a shithead, and you'll keep on saying "you're fooling yourself". I'm not in the habit of playing something on repeat far more than any other music unless I think it's the best album of a particular year. Short version: Get a life.

lol @ its good cuz i like it

iatee killing it itt

No, they're not projecting complexity onto her music. Most music is complex, has subtext, some sort of motivation. They're trying to untangle what it all means

um if you need some help untangling what a taylor swift song means, I can help you out

I think a lot of people here don't actually enjoy country music as they'd like to on some philosophical level and taylor swift - who writes decent, approachable pop songs - is a good way to pretend like they actually like country music

this is really stupid -- why would anyone pretend to like country music? i don't fuck with country music at all but taylor is the most mainstream pop country out there -- that's why a lot of people who don't like country dig her

fyi white horse is really abt her challenging battle with cocaine addiction

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0CNi9wqirCA/0.jpg

i think it's one thing to say "you all are retarded for liking this music" -- i think it's another to say "you all are pretending to like this and are expressing this by writing paragraphs upon paragraphs about this music on a message board thread read by 20 people" -- i really don't think that there's any fronting going on

fyi white horse is really abt her challenging battle with cocaine addiction

O_o

i think it's one thing to say "you all are retarded for liking this music" -- i think it's another to say "you all are pretending to like this and are expressing this by writing paragraphs upon paragraphs about this music on a message board thread read by 20 people" -- i really don't think that there's any fronting going on

right, again and again: I don't think people are pretending to like her. liking taylor swift isn't that hard. I think a lot of people are exaggerating how much they like her and the paragrahps upon paragraphs are be sorta smh embarrassing after her next album comes out and it's more of the same, except a little worse and you guys get bored.

i don't fuck with country music at all but taylor is the most mainstream pop country out there -- that's why a lot of people who don't like country dig her

I said as much...

the "paragraphs upon paragraphs" are a lot less than has been written on ilm about vampire weekend, tv on the radio, animal collective and a whole lot of other schmindie hype that i for the life of me can't figure out how anyone stays interested in enough to listen to much less write about, but i don't think any of those people are or pretending or exaggerating. they just like different stuff than me. i don't know how you'd measure if someone is exaggerating how much they like something, but i know for sure that in the last 16 months or so fearless has been one of the 10 albums i've listened to most, and i wouldn't be surprised if it was in the top 5. i've also made copies of it for friends and family, and made fans of several of them.

so ... yeah. some of us really do like it that much.

yah idk i totally believe u dudes like this garbage "that much" but a lot of the paragraphs strike me as granting whats basically a 2nd rate rilo kiley album a degree of subtlety and complexity is doesnt have & doesnt really much seem to want

I've never heard a Rilo Kiley song, but the song Jenny Lewis did for Bolt was nice.

That shit actually breaks my cold heart, come to think of it.

granting whats basically a 2nd rate rilo kiley album a degree of subtlety and complexity is doesnt have & doesnt really much seem to want

conversely a lot of the anti-taylor snideness here and elsewhere strikes me as almost-not-at-all veiled contempt for the idea that teenage blonde girls could have anything at all to say.

Would prefer it if Taylor Swift's were more along the lines of Voivod, it is true.

conversely a lot of the anti-taylor snideness here and elsewhere strikes me as almost-not-at-all veiled contempt for the idea that teenage blonde girls could have anything at all to say.

they dont, really! i mean i guess u can call t.swift's suburban fairly tale garbage "universal" or w/e but catching feelings off a taylor swift jam is just lol.

Which are the T Swift songs that involve fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, giants or gnomes? That's more like some Finnish metal shit right there.

conversely a lot of the anti-taylor snideness here and elsewhere strikes me as almost-not-at-all veiled contempt for the idea that teenage blonde girls could have anything at all to say.

I don't see why it's even snobby to suggest that your average suburban teenage girl who hasn't finished high school isn't going to have a ton of interesting insights into the world. most of her songwriting ideas seem to come from MTV movies. there's zero depth (musically or lyrically) to any of this stuff and I mean, it's not her fault or anything - people shouldn't be looking for it. reading things in the taylor swift tea leaves is just sorta sad - the absurdist taylor swift analysis paragraphs say more about ilx than they do about her.

ever heard an English/Film Theory/etc... major?

i don't know really what "lyrical depth" entails, but taylor swift's best songs seem honest and clear in a way that goes well beyond cliché. and i mean, not all her songs are her best ones, and she obviously uses plenty of clichés, and even some of my favorites of hers i like more for the tune and the vibe than the words per se. but if songs like "fifteen" and "the best day" don't seem artful and true to you, then i dunno. maybe you just have different ideas about artful and true.

or something like "our song," which is just zippy and fun but has a clever little lyrical device in the chorus.

What type of music do you like, iatee and Lamp?

lamp has really good taste

Not questioning that. I'm just.asking.

uh, my itunes top played artists are john cale, smog, jacques brel and the beach boys. have at me.

I’ve grown to like the re-recorded album tracks a lot now, too. I’ve basically been going back-and-forth between the two versions. What an album...