In defense of Taylor Swift
On Sunday, Salon published a piece that asked the question: Is Taylor Swift being taken too seriously? The author, Mark Guarino, argued that while Swift is an able songwriter and an obvious superstar shes not a serious artist.I disagree. Taylor Swift is being taken exactly as seriously as she should be and Ill get into why in a minute. But I want to first say that though Guarinos opinion is manifestly unpopular (the piece inspired a round of vitriol on Twitter, spearheaded by New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere-Jones), I suspect its more widely held than the euphoric press on Swift would suggest.
Like many great pop songwriters who break through freakishly young (Swift signed her publishing deal at 14 and released her first album two years later), Swifts lyrical style is so direct it can be misunderstood as facile. She is an artist who, without irony, titles her songs Love Story and Innocent. Youll find wit and sass and even sarcasm in Swifts lyrics but never cynicism or hopelessness, and for those whove actually experienced life after 22, that can be difficult to stomach. Then theres the fact that a very short list of largely female solo artists (Adele, Lady Gaga, Rihanna) currently prop up what remains of the traditional music industry. Its bad business to bite one of the few hands that still feeds you.
All that having been said, the reason most critics love Taylor Swift is because shes everything we wait for in an artist. The best pop songs feel instantly familiar, like theyre already downloaded into your psyche, part of the software the human brain comes with at birth. When I first heard Taylor Swifts Our Song, a twangy hit off her self-titled debut, I thought it was a cover, thats how primary and obvious it felt. When you blend that kind of lyrical easefulness with relatable good looks (boys want t! o kiss her, girls want to have her over for slumber parties) and a genuine warmth and comfort with the press, you have a superstar. Thats the decades-old equation.
There are two ways to go about calling the mathematics of Swifts awesomeness into question. You can say you just dont like the sound of her music; its too slick or too country or her voice irritates you. Thats a subjective, to-each-his-or-her-own kind of thing and go with God. The other is to dismiss her as insignificant because she writes songs about how it feels to be young. That is a profound misunderstanding of the fundamentals of pop music. At its core and this distinguishes it from other genres of contemporary art like film and literature pop music is about the universality of adolescence. Its about tapping into the version of our selves that is simultaneously most basic and most complete, the version formed in high school, when, as John Hughes once said, it feels as good to feel bad as it does to feel good.
There is nothing more emotionally sophisticated in the Beatles I Want to Hold Your Hand or Dion and the Belmonts Teenager in Love or the Crystals Then He Kissed Me than in Swifts best songs. And though I realize this will sound like blasphemy to many, Swifts Fifteen could be the sequel to Big Stars Thirteen. 1.2 million 22-year-old girls didnt buy Swifts new album, Red, when it came out last month; 1.2 million moms and older sisters and 16-year-olds and at least a couple of dads and a lot of gay men did because that feeling of being, as Swift puts it, happy, free, confused and lonely in the best way never really leaves you. A very brainy male friend of mine in his late 30s who sometimes quotes from medieval religious texts recently got his hands on a copy of Redand started inserting lyrics from it into the language of his emai! ls. This ! girl has serious cross-demographic appeal.
I suspect that when Swift critics accuse her of not being adult enough they dont mean it. I dont think anyone who really loves pop music can misunderstand it as a realm for grown-ups. I suspect that what we really disagree about is the packaging. Frere-Jones found an inherent sexism in Guarinos argument. Im not going to get into that, but what I will say is I think Swift would be neither as ridiculed nor as successful if she were a dude. More than the token Serious Female Singer Songwriters (Joni Mitchell, Lucinda Williams, Carole King,) Swift reminds me of masters of quirky pop sincerity like Alex Chilton and Jonathan Richman. Mocking an ex for liking a record thats much cooler than hers (as Swift does on We Are Never Getting Back Together) is so something Richman might do. If these guys had been 6-foot-tall blonds with cupids bow lips, they might have been resented by the rock boy demographic. Instead, they are adored.