Taylor Swift Album Poll

The really important thing about this whole exchange is that it brought this fucking asshole out from under his rock:

Damon's right and I don't give a fuck.

Taylor's worst-selling album (before Spotify came along and made that not much of a thing at all) was the one she wrote herself to prove she could do it and that album was immediately followed by her bringing in Max Martin to prove ____?

— Tyler Mahan Coe (@TylerMahanCoe) January 25, 2022

who the fuck is this guy?

I replied b/c I'm bored.

who the fuck is this guy?

He hosts that Cocaine & Rhinestones podcast about country music that music journalists all seem to love.

Ugh, hate to see that. I like some of that show. Meanwhile, the president-elect of Chile is a Swiftie.

Here in Chile you have a huge group of supporters who knows that you write you own songs from the heart. Dont take seriously guys that need to insult or lie to get attention. Hugs from the south Taylor

— Gabriel Boric Font (@gabrielboric) January 25, 2022

lol Coe is an insufferable troll. The podcast rules though.

Has Billie said anything? “Thanks but no thanks?”

Am I allowed to pick neither side in this?

you don't have to be a swift fan to admit albarn was just being wrong & dumb

Oh obviously. He's been an awful cunt for so long it's hard to say if he wasn't always one

taytay's popular-girl 'I used to like you, but WOW. YIKES. You are SO DONE HERE' act (which is also in all her music, and her extremely extensive stan-army twitter presence) manages to grate almost as much as albarn's clueless misogyny though

read the rest of the interview & it's very bad and seems to be almost begging for albarn to say something stupid like this "what did you think of the beatles documentary" "what did you think of boris johnson's lockdown parties" etc

xp I don’t really care for TS but this stupid post puts me firmly on her side

OTM x1000

Albarn always has always struck me as the worst kind of arrogant middle-class English bell end. It still mystifies me that anyone actually cares about his music or are interested in what he has to say. Has he ever actually been seen as a perceptive and interesting individual? Because I must have fucking missed it if the cunt ever said anything worth paying attention to.

xp a thousand? thank you for attempting to simulate the stan army pile-on experience just for me

imagine this being your personality

Albarn always has always struck me as the worst kind of arrogant middle-class English bell end. It still mystifies me that anyone actually cares about his music or are interested in what he has to say. Has he ever actually been seen as a perceptive and interesting individual? Because I must have fucking missed it if the cunt ever said anything worth paying attention to.

well now he looks like an ugly college lecturer in full mid-life crisis!

I'd be interested to hear more about systematic co-writing and if it's ever used to protect an artist's brand. I have no interest or opinion on the particulars in the case of Albarn-Swift and I'm happy to believe the people defending her (lol at Chile's president), but I've still occasionally wondered about this. The case at hand shows it is a sensitive subject, and people here seem to confirm the process is kept secretive and it's not easy to know for sure. Have we somehow gone back to a time when "songwriter" credits are more important than they were previously (50s-60s, 80-90s), when being a pure pop performer was accepted, but now the performer cannot be seen to be separated from the creative team? And co-writing is a convenient way to muddle everything and maintain the illusion? Or maybe not, and it's case by case and several pop stars don't claim any (or minimal) control over the creative process. It still seems like an ingredient of reputability and a marketing value for some though, despite all the discourse to the contrary since, what, 15-20 years that haven't really dispelled the myth of the artist-as-creator. Do we ever get out of that cycle.

he looks as if he worked at the college cafeteria serving warmed over pizza

what I do know is that if she had Antonoff, he had Coxon

Winners all round baby

Just came here to show Taylor solidarity and found @gabrielboric. Love that international socialist Swiftie power! 🌹✨

— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) January 25, 2022

Ofc she takes it very seriously

My #SpotifyWrapped will come as a surprise to ✨absolutely no-one✨ pic.twitter.com/H3zWuoOkTu

— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) December 2, 2021

look ok obv albarn is the baddie here, we're all acknowledging it, but if it's come to recognising the socialist success story that is taylor swift, something's gone a little awry perhaps

blaming a popstar for the wild and OTT behaviour of their fanbase is unfair, if people want to get caught up in stan culture then they're choosing to participate in that side of things, and as ugly as it is there's no reason to assume that a loud minority of online aggressive fans represent what actual listeners and "normal" fans are like

Maybe accusing someone of not performing the work she’s well documented of having done isn’t anything besides being an ignorant cunt and reaching for the slightest reason to defend Albarn in this light is deeply suspicious at best idk

people saying that her being a bit irritating, and that is on the same level as Albarn's attempts to discredit her agency via misogynistic tropes, is exactly why women have to work twice as hard to be taken seriously and have to be vocally defensive about their own work too.

I don't know anything about Taylor Swift's online fanbase and don't care, Albarn was always a git but now he's outed himself as just another grumpy rockist old git.

never claimed for a second that albarn wasn't in the wrong, or that his statements weren't both idiotic and misogynistic (not to mention an old cliche), but there's also no doubt that swift knows exactly how powerful she is and how to wield that power for greatest personal gain - the idea that she's ignorant of what her stan army is like is surely fanciful. i am not defending albarn at all here though (hence 'awful cunt')

Have we somehow gone back to a time when "songwriter" credits are more important than they were previously (50s-60s, 80-90s), when being a pure pop performer was accepted, but now the performer cannot be seen to be separated from the creative team? And co-writing is a convenient way to muddle everything and maintain the illusion? Or maybe not, and it's case by case and several pop stars don't claim any (or minimal) control over the creative process.

it's very case-by-case. there are pop acts who are very hands on with the songwriting and/or production even if they work with co-writers & producers. there are pop acts who seem to have a more curatorial role, selecting beats and providing guidance for arrangements and usually having co-writers help flesh out their lyrics. there are pop acts who don't really pretend to be too creatively involved but are now contractually insisting on writing credits (this is a trend that only really took off last decade). it doesn't seem like we really see the older, most 'manufactured' model of pop act too much anymore, where there's not really any illusion of creative involvement at all. most acts that used to fit into that box have managed to move into one of the others as their careers have progressed.

never claimed for a second that albarn wasn't in the wrong, or that his statements weren't both idiotic and misogynistic (not to mention an old cliche), but there's also no doubt that swift knows exactly how powerful she is and how to wield that power for greatest personal gain - the idea that she's ignorant of what her stan army is like is surely fanciful. i am not defending albarn at all here though (hence 'awful cunt')

Not only that, but what he suggested - that the musicians created the music, and she comes along afterwards and listens to it and makes some lyrics - is how the last Blur album was made.

I think the issue here is that statements like Albarn's are not "old cliches" but widely accepted biases

The fact that Albarn would casually make such an aside as if he expects an "amirite" kinda response is super-indicative of how normalized this line of thought really is

As someone said on Twitter, a dude whose greatest contribution to pop music lyric writing is the phrase "woo-hoo" really should shut the fuck up.

But as a sometime music journalist, I have a broader question: Why do music journalists ask musicians to offer lightning-round one-liner opinions on other musicians? Does that ever end well, for anyone involved?

I think getting it to end badly is the point.

i assume it ends well for the publications reaping the clicks

they just want to get them to say something that will get clicks. the whole interview was dire

It's more a mystery to me why any experienced musician (or famous whomever) would take the bait. I always assumed it was taken for granted that you don't shit-talk your peers, because you never know when you'll be seated next to them at some awards ceremony or whatever. Unless you are famous for shit-talking, like Noel Gallagher, whose shit-talking (including my favorite Swift cheap-shot, which came maybe five years ago or so, so advantage Oasis on that front, Albarn) is much more entertaining than his songwriting.

Swift is a bizarre choice to argue Albarn’s “point” - like he wanted to say Britney Spears or Katy Perry but they’re not that currently relevant and he struggled to think of another woman making pop music.

As a not-fan “writes a lot of her own songs” is one of like three things I know about Taylor Swift.

He didn't put her forth as an example; he was responding to the interviewer's example. He was talking about his experience with songwriting that holds up in a solo piano arrangement vs songs (incl his own) that get across more on "sound and attitude" in the context of contemporary pop/rock arrangements and production. The interviewer offered Swift as a counterargument.

Yeah, but he responded "she doesn't write her own songs," which goes directly to milo's point

I still don't think he was struggling to think of a woman making pop music and picked Taylor Swift as opposed to just having an obviously inaccurate knee-jerk reaction to the example given by the interviewer.

(one he apologized for within 90 minutes of her response)

Albarn is very talented but has been a jerk in interviews for 30 years.

Maybe this should have been a poll as to which is the more talented songwriter

Personally I wouldn't consider him talented... just famous.

I think if Damon Albarn was in a Who's The More Talented Songwriter? poll with anyone I wouldn't vote for him. Even Eric Clapton.

I think about 99% of his songwriting is embarrassingly awful tbh, but I haven't heard any of imago's deep cuts yet - only really the hits!

honestly I think Coxon was extremely responsible for Blur being any good, but Albarn's written some decent songs, even if I'm much more a Suede guy these days

I enjoyed The Good, The Bad and The Queen mostly because it was really fucking good to hear Paul Simonon playing bass again.