Breaking News: Does Swift Deserve All The Critics And Hate She’s Getting This Days

I am not a professional musician, but I have been a music fan as long as I can remember, probably bought 1,000–2,000 records/tapes/CDs in the last 50 years. Studied piano and guitar almost as long, composing/arranging/performing my own music since about 40 years ago. My favorite genre is rock, also love classical and metal, really respect some classic blues and country and folk. Love Broadway musicals. Respect jazz even though I cannot really play it. I’ll crank Ramones and Dream Theater and Danny Gatton and Mozart. I care about music, and have cared about it for half a century, as an amateur and fan.

I rejoice in the success of musicians whose work i respect, like, or love, including most of the most successful musicians who ever lived.

I had heard of swift years ago, but only heard her recordings recently. My youngest daughter is on a Swift kick and plays her stuff around me all the time these days.

Her voice seems okay – I don’t notice her using autotune – and the production is slick and polished. That’s all the good I have noticed.

I don’t hear anything worthwhile in the writing, though. Her chord progressions are banal. Her arrangements are “putting lipstick on a pig” (trying to prettify something that she should really have just abandoned). Her vocal melodies are trite and extremely simplistic, like you would teach to preschoolers (think “Wheels on the Bus” simplistic; “Happy Birthday to You” is more advanced than anything I’ve heard by her). And I don’t hear any effort to come up with original or interesting music or melodies, either.

In simple terms, I feel insulted as a musician when I hear her. It’s not jealousy – as I said, I love it when *good* music is recognized and rewarded. It’s like being served a shit sandwich and being told that I am required to eat and enjoy it, because that’s all that is being served. It’s like learning to love comic books from reading ElfQuest and Watchmen and the Sandman, then learning all the library carries is Archie and Richie Rich. It’s like learning to like television based on shows like Alpha House or Freaks and Geeks, then being forced.