Taylor Swift Album Poll

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.

This fucking idiot is still digging:

If you can find a way to say "professional songwriters helped Taylor Swift write a lot of those songs" on the Internet without getting the response I got today, I'd love to see it.

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

Apparently Taylor Swift is not a "professional songwriter."

who is that guy? I never even knew him by his name

He's David Allen Coe's son, who has a very successful and very well made podcast about country music called "Cocaine and Rhinestones."

So dumb. She had a publishing deal at 13, yes she had some grown-ups work with her.

lol i thought I never even knew him by his name hinted that i actually did know who he is :)

Daughters of the Confederacy, Sons of Famous Racists

More solo Writer credits on here than co-writes, fwiw

I think the Coe argument is that if she doesn't need other writers, then ... why does she need other writers? But that's still pretty dumb, because of course countless singers and songwriters have had collaborators over the years. Big deal? If anything, her solo writing credits and such prove Swift is *not* just some pop star puppet, so ... yeah, I don't know what Coe is getting at. He might be right that some fans overlook proven hitmaker Max Martin's conspicuous presence, but Coe's at the same time stubbornly overlooking the fact that (whether he or I or anyone likes it or not) she's tellingly the only constant in this increasingly expansive and singular body of popular work, so, like, suck it, Coe.

just reads like he's being deliberately provocative and then digging a hole trying to find a position he can actually defend. he does not have any sort of meaningful point and is likely just trying to promote his other podcast ("your favourite band sucks") which has an episode on swift coming soon.

"Damon's right and I don't give a fuck." watered down to "Damon was obvs incorrect to flatout state she's not a songwriter. She's just not the songwriter her fans pretend she is." to claiming his point was only that "we should acknowledge the importance of Taylor Swift's co-writers"

"your favourite band sucks" is soooooo stupid.

i can only assume it's totally insufferable

I tried listening to one episode of C&R and he was yammering on about the Miss America pageant, and his voice made me want to saw my own ears off. (Yes, I am aware that my own voice is horrifying to listen to. That's why I let guests do 90% of the talking on my podcast.) I never even got to when he reached the actual subject of the episode and can't remember what the subject was now. And the title of his other show alone makes me perfectly comfortable in saying fuck that guy and everything he's involved with.

oh wow I heard of that podcast but I didn't know it was DAC's kid....does he ever acknowledge or talk about the Rated XXX cuz that is some of the most vile racist shit

I think he's defended it as satire. Here's something I found from 2016:

https://m.facebook.com/tylermahancoe/posts/487555224762620

Good TMC profile here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2021/04/15/tyler-coe-country-podcast-season-two/

ugh that Facebook response is so fucking annoying

I feel like he suppresses some of that attitude on Cocaine & Rhinestones, he's better in storytelling mode.

He never fails to mention what a liar he thinks Tammy Wynette is though.

unperson OTM, absolutely unlistenable show

I really, truly enjoyed the first season of C&R, but when the long-awaited second season finally dropped, I couldn't get into it. Just haven't been in a country mood lately and I think you kinda have to at least be open to it before you're hammered with the immense amount of information that he drops into an episode. Say what you want about the dude and his voice or attitude, but he does a ton of research for the show.

having seen a bunch of shit head racist at a party laughing and dancing to Rated XXX with a loaded hand gun on the coffee table, i can safely say that no one who listens to it sees it as satire

Coe is right that Neil Strauss absolutely found a mislabeled Johnny Rebel song on Napster and then got it published in the New York Times

Hey there's room to find both Coe and Strauss obnoxious as fuck.

And, yep, can absolutely confirm growing up in the middle of Illinois cornfields that absolutely none of the lunkheads playing DAC in their pickups were appreciating the biting satire of those X-rated albums.

Is it also true that none of the material is "homophobic," as Strauss and the Times allege?

lol I would not say that the lyrics to "Fuck Anita Bryant" are not homophobic

I remember liking the C&R ep on the Dixie Chicks and the broader history of females being censured in country and am surprised to see his regressive hot takes on Swift's songwriting.

I suppose the triangulated position is that Taylor's own insistence on being respected as a songwriter who writes her own material (a decent chunk of it by herself), and in particular her own lyrics, inadvertently feeds into a kind of rockist-about-pop mindset which has been very prominent in general for the past five years or so.

My suspicion is that Coe (in a very ham-fisted manner) was suggesting that Taylor is setting up a false dichotomy as between herself and other pop artists whose reliance on professional songwriters is more acknowledged - this might be particularly salient in the context of modern country, where reliance on professional songwriters is much less likely (as far as I can tell) to count as a strike against an artist.

(I don't think she was actually doing that, of course - or certainly not intentionally)

It's interesting to compare the fan/critic treatment of Taylor in this regard with someone like Miranda Lambert, who writes amazing material, sometimes by herself and sometimes in collaboration, and also performs material written by others, and the dividing line between those various categories is basically non-existent from a reception POV (like, it would seem odd to me to distinguish between "We Should Be Friends", which is a solo Lambert credit, and "Pink Sunglasses", on which she doesn't have a writing credit). The idea that Taylor is personally responsible for at least the words of her songs seems like a big part of the swift-enjoyment-machine, whereas with Miranda it seems less directly relevant.

It seems relevant to this discussion that Swift was signed to a songwriting contract at 13, years before she was signed as a performer. She was literally a professional songwriter first.