The sequence of events that moved Taylor Swift from wildly successful, really interesting pop star, to the kind of pop star that the supposedly more discerning, with-it crowd gets to ponder and write thinkpieces about is pretty strange: She gained everybody’s sympathies because Kanye was a dick, only to lose those sympathies when she was given awards by the kind of people that would’ve given her awards whether Kanye grabbed the mic from her or not.
This response is perhaps best represented in this bizarre kinda insane piece, which Rob Harvilla already zinged properly, but there’s still a lot to unpack here. Apparently, Swift’s “average”-ness causes a lot of controversy.
Probably because in 2009/2010, being some kind of meta-commenting, bicurious, genre-bouncing, in-quotes superstar, is way more played-out than being a regular-ass person. And that, simply by doing what she does and doing it very well, Swift and the response she elicits, make clear an unfortunate trend that’s been floating around for a while now–what I call “Boutique Poptimism”.
Namely, that we’re past the point where the idea that “hey maybe unabashed pop music kinda rules” is controversial and what’s happening is a backwards bending, a regression, where a new bunch of new implicit rules are being laid-out for what constitutes “good” pop from “bad” pop. No surprise, they’re ideological. They have a lot to do with what the music “represents” and very little to do with how the music sounds.
Because everyone’s aware that dismissing Pop is closed-minded, the response is not to wholly embrace it, to step out of one’s comfort zone (one of the many values behind Poptimism), but to find the Pop that already suits ones values and co-sign that. This is particularly apparent in the “Indie” embrace of Lady Gaga and to a lesser extent, someone like Ke$ha. You will hear both of them on your town’s hit stations…and at liberals arts school dance parties…and in Urban Outfitters.
These pop musicians are acceptable because of their inauthenticity, because they comment on pop, they aren’t just making pop like Swift. Gaga, who clearly took some classes in Postmodern theory but only kinda paid attention, has made herself critic-proof: If you don’t like her, you don’t “get” her. And with that, a more rarified audience is hooked, beyond such negligible things as monster choruses (but little else, Gaga’s songs are like hair metal in that sense) but “big” ideas.
And Ke$ha–well it’s mind-blowing that anybody but newly-divorced Moms would like her but the cool kids like her too, because it sorta sounds like Peaches or Uffie or that last Yeah Yeah Yeahs record. She provides the illusion of being open to new sounds, with dashes of electro, an almost rapping style, and edgy topics like drinking too much. Again–these aren’t songs about “square” stuff like boys and getting married.
That she has a dollar-sign in her name to be “ironic” and that she swipes from the debauchery of Keith Richards for style points, while using the very similar debauchery of Diddy for a punchline, makes her deeply square and rockist is besides the point. If it’s couched in something, anything that appears trangressive, like irony or feminist or postmodern theory, no matter how bastardized, it’s acceptable.
This is really fascinating because it’s both a rejection of Rockism’s absurd demands for authenticity and an embrace of an equally complacent set of values. Ones that don’t open up the world of music (and through that, the world at-large) but open them up on one’s own terms, providing the illusion of porous borders and expansive taste, without any of the hard stuff involved, like stepping out of one’s comfort zone or putting one’s self out there.
It takes a Strong Poptimist to enjoy Taylor Swift. One that sees the inherent value of worker-bee skill and talent bouncing up against simple, but sincere expression, who can also see/hear some of the same stuff in Gaga or Ke$ha and appreciate the differences too–Poptimism is not supposed to be the one or the other game Boutique Poptimists like to play.
further reading/viewing:
-”Boutique multiculturalism, or why liberals are incapable of thinking about hate speech” by Stanley Fish
-”Why Taylor Swift Offends Little Monsters, Feminists, and Weirdos” by Riese for AutoStraddle
-”So Let’s Deal With This “Taylor Swift Is a Feminist’s Nightmare” Thing” by Rob Harvilla for Sound of the City
-Lady Gaga & Rob Fusari (thanks to MFastow for the link)
-Review of Music from the O.C: Mix 4 by Rob Mitchum for Pitchfork
Are You A Serious Comic Book Reader?
Totally savage post. Someone had to say it. In a weird way, I think Taylor Swift can sort of be grouped in with Vampire Weekend here…
Tyler Boehm
23 Feb 10 at 4:09 pm
I removed an aside because it was confusing, but the point was basically "Taylor Swift is controversial the same way VW are for being white and sorta wealthy."
Indeed.
brandon
23 Feb 10 at 4:27 pm
who on earth is defending or embracing ke$ha other than tweenage white girls on youtube?
ByronTheBulb
23 Feb 10 at 6:25 pm
As I said in the post, she's made this weird entrance into for lack of a better word, "hipster" culture. On rotation in Urban Outfitters, being played at liberal arts parties (much to the chagrin of my friends still in college, attending these parties). She was also reviewed favorably in the NYTimes.
brandon
23 Feb 10 at 6:30 pm
Well, okay. But the ny times also gives favorable reviews to Taylor Swift, so the dichotomy you're working with here breaks down in that context. And as for hipsters playing Ke$ha at parties and ignoring Taylor Swift, couldn't that simply be chalked up to the fact that Ke$ha's music, derivative and awful though it may be, draws from the same aesthetic palate as the music that normally gets played at those things?
ByronTheBulb
23 Feb 10 at 7:10 pm
Byron-
Dude, you set-up the thing that only "white tweens" enjoy Ke$ha, which most certainly isn't the case with Swift, and so indeed, if only white tweens like Ke$ha, there wouldn't be stuff about her in the Times, right?
And indeed, that Ke$ha's music is of the same style as other stuff going on at cool kid dance parties is exactly my point: The embrace of pop that's ALREADY like the stuff they're already listening to. Additionally, Ke$ha gets plays at Urban Outfitters or wherever, but say, other dance-oriented pop songs do not–indeed part of her aesthetic is this vaguely indie, electroclash thing…
brandon
23 Feb 10 at 7:22 pm
Wait, so you're commenting, as if from the outside looking in, on the "supposedly more discerning, with-it crowd" that's now writing thinkpieces about Taylor Swift, who you apparently thought was "really interesting" already, in your own thinkpiece about Taylor Swift, despite never having written much of anything about her before outside the context of Kanyegate? Way to have your cake and eat it too, dude.
Al
23 Feb 10 at 8:00 pm
Church, what a befuddled cluster fuck. I would've never read Sound Of The City again if they picked this up. How many big words can you use to say nothing? Next time don't "unpack" just throw in a porn.
Abe Beame
23 Feb 10 at 8:58 pm
yeah I get what your saying Brandon, but damn sometimes you are so overly verbose, there has to be a simpler way to make that point.
Jason
23 Feb 10 at 9:32 pm
the "white tweens" thing was obviously throw-away snark. the point is that you're trying to set up this divide between "false poptimists" who only listen to Ke$ha/Gaga while ignoring Taylor Swift and so-called Strong Poptimists who, like, really get what Taylor Swift is doing, except your only examples are the ny times (who has embraced both) and kids at hipster parties who have probably never heard or used the word "poptimist" in their lives.
ByronTheBulb
24 Feb 10 at 12:21 am
Oh also…
Sept 14 2009:
"West's entire mic-grab, drunken-speech thing was in direct response to politics. The ones that dominate popular taste now, a kind of mediocre, push everything into the middle, so that sweet Taylor Swift gets an award too–because Beyonce couldn't sweep, even though she should. There needs to be time for boring, regular people because giving a few more minutes to interesting, beautiful people just wouldn't be fair"
&
"The part where Swift's music breaks down, where it simply isn't as artful as Beyonce or Kanye for that matter, is the lack of knowingness involved."
Feb 23 2010
"Apparently, Swift's "average"-ness causes a lot of controversy. Probably because in 2009/2010, being some kind of meta-commenting, bicurious, genre-bouncing, in-quotes superstar, is way more played-out than being a regular-ass person…It takes a Strong Poptimist to enjoy Taylor Swift. One that sees the inherent value of worker-bee skill and talent bouncing up against simple, but sincere expression."
ByronTheBulb
24 Feb 10 at 12:44 am
When a post has the word Poptimism in the title, it's probably gonna be some insider music nerd baseball. When it's a reference to fucking lit critic Stanley Fish, it's probably gonna be a little wordy and obnoxious. Think harder guys?
I don't see how my critiques of Swift's music, her lack of knowingess (say the same kind that Waka Flocka Flame lacks) have much of anything to do with defending her from a bunch of pseudo-elites that are aligning themselves with Gaga (and/or playing themselves by even taking Ke$ha seriously) and suggesting she's better as a pop star because she's trangressive or brash or whatever.
Also, I don't enjoy Swift's music, but for a long time now, it's been clear that its grabbing a lot of different people and there's something going on. That's why it's "interesting", Al.
Re: Ke$ha
I mean, who are you guys interacting with? Where do you go? What/who do you listen to? I can cite the Times or Urban Outfitters or my friends still in college, but those aren't the only places, they're just generic, tangible examples of an attitude that's been growing in the past few years, sorta hitting a peak with Gaga: Boutique Poptimism.
The main issue here is that there's a clear shift in "poptimism" which whether one's heard the term or not, if you engage in popular music from a view beyond conventional or "conventional" consumer, you're a part of. If you're shopping at Urban Outfitters or if you're at some school of 1000 kids, then your tastes, values, etc. provide you with a less typical view of pop. Or if you're a music critic or a blogger or whatever.
brandon
24 Feb 10 at 4:09 am
Also this:
"Also this:
""West's entire mic-grab, drunken-speech thing was in direct response to politics. The ones that dominate popular taste now, a kind of mediocre, push everything into the middle, so that sweet Taylor Swift gets an award too–because Beyonce couldn't sweep, even though she should. There needs to be time for boring, regular people because giving a few more minutes to interesting, beautiful people just wouldn't be fair" from an old post
is in reference to what I see as Kanye's view on the situation, not MINE and is additionally, a comment on like Politically Correct fairness, the way that victory's gotta be doled out to a bunch of people, that one person isn't allowed to excel, etc.
It's nothing like the stuff being lobbed at Swift in the thing I linked, though I see how, if you quote it out of context and present it as "SEE!" it looks that way.
brandon
24 Feb 10 at 4:14 am
I'm not saying you don't or can't find her interesting, I'm just saying you took an awfully condescending view of the "crowd" that started writing and debating about TS post-Kanye or post-Grammys considering that writing this effectively makes you part of it. And that when someone who writes as much as you do about seemingly anything that interests you calls an artist you've barely ever written about "really interesting," it seems like you're just paying lip service to the idea that she's interesting in order to score points on that so-called crowd.
Al
24 Feb 10 at 1:46 pm
That Fish article is a bit of mind-blower. I have a feeling it'll be with me for a while. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
As for Swift and the rest of 'em, it's interesting how these discussions are never about music but are about taste and style. Cultural identities butting heads against each other. To those involved,the issues seem essential. To the onlookers, it all seems silly.
For me, the more interesting discussion is what makes the individual song work or not work. I've seen Brandon do that kind of thing on here with various rap songs which is why I began reading this blog regularly. So if you're taking the role of the "strong poptimist," why not be more proactive in evaluating the craft of this music? It's one thing to point out the laziness of hipster critics; it's another to do the dirty critical work yourself.
But if this kind of pop music criticism is out of the realm of this blog, why bring up the subject at all?
Evan
24 Feb 10 at 4:37 pm
Good post
Fernando
25 Feb 10 at 12:19 am
I think a lot of you are willfully misreading the post and projecting a whole lot into it, but as Evan kindly put it–seriously guys, we're so far into this blog comment crap, lay off the snark–by saying in one way or another, I sorta dropped the ball on this post. That it needs more analysis to really work.
Though if that's the case, not sure how all you fuckers can call it verbose, oh well. So yeah, part of this is on me, for sure.
BUT…
Al-
My snarky comment would be "way to read the first paragraph of something and comment", but I won't say that.
My issue here is not the sudden interest in Swift by a lot more people, but how that sudden interest is only there to SHIT ON HER and contrast her with other pop, better pop, gay-friendly pop, feminist-friendly pop, etc. Hence, Boutique Poptimism.
Your critique of me kinda doesn't work because I'm just saying it's dumb to put up essentially haterade-soaked thinkpieces on someone they didn't care about before. I don't think it's having my cake and eating it too to call out people for paying attention to someone suddenly, only to shit on her.
That's MY interest, not the music or any of these artists but how it makes explicit a trend I've noticed for awhile now: Boutique Poptimism.
Evan-
I guess I don't think the discussion of which songs work or don't work is that interesting and it's why my post isn't about that…and it's why a lot of you guys are annoyed with it.
I'm not a "Strong Poptimist" and it's weird you're reading it as if I said I am. I'm making a contrast, based on Fish's essay, between a "strong" and "boutique" poptimist.
To make this more meta, obnoxious, etc. one of my things with music critics or just my friends discussing pop, is how it seems dumb to really hate on any pop music. As in, we'd all get along better and look less dumb if we celebrated good pop and when we dismissed the bad pop, we really thought about it and laid it out there.
It's all kinda "dumb" from a certain point of view. Saying something sucks because "this guy can't rap" or "this girl's lyrics are dumb" or "her ideology is conservative" just seems weird. The question is…DOES IT (still) WORK?
Re: Fish
Glad you dug the essay, Fish is an interesting guy. Sometimes he's spot-on, sometimes he's unbearable–check the introduction to "There's no such thing as free speech and that's a good thing", called "It's Not Fair" in which he reduces affirmative action and multiculturalism to "it's not fair". Annoying. He's interesting though. Check out his stuff on "interpretive communities"–also relevant to music and hip-hop.
TO EVERYONE-
On the topic of boutique poptimism/multiculturalism, y'all see that ridiculous discussion of the new Jackie Chain video on THE FADER: The Pros and Cons of Jackie Chain’s “Mack a Bitch” Video.
Kind of EXACTLY what Fish is talking about in the essay linked in my "further reading/viewing"…
brandon
25 Feb 10 at 3:01 am
Words like "Work" and a lot of things you advertise as commentary on commentary made without rendering judgment are still projections you are making and aren't without implicit judgment. (Your take on Kanye on Swift, the poptimist's critical opinion and underlying motivations behind said opinions, etc.) Lots of loaded wordplay and wiggling out involved in your defense but I really respect you acknowledging "So yeah, part of this is on me, for sure."
Abe Beame
25 Feb 10 at 6:30 am
Oh man Abe, I'm really glad you respect me now!
brandon
25 Feb 10 at 6:31 am
Okay, sorry. You're a pretentious windbag and this post was a convoluted brain fart. Blah blah blah as you were.
Abe Beame
25 Feb 10 at 6:33 am
Much better, now go away until I post something else that gets in your crawl.
brandon
25 Feb 10 at 6:38 am
My snarky comment would be "way to read the first paragraph of something and comment", but I won't say that.
Well, there are things about the piece as a whole that I agree with (and also some things that are to WTF for me to even start to argue with), the issue I was bringing up was more that it opened with shots fired at a strawman that resembles you as much as anyone else.
My issue here is not the sudden interest in Swift by a lot more people, but how that sudden interest is only there to SHIT ON HER and contrast her with other pop, better pop, gay-friendly pop, feminist-friendly pop, etc. Hence, Boutique Poptimism.
I get that, and again, I don't totally disagree. I just think it would've made a lot more sense coming from someone who's registered any interest in these things in the past and doesn't just seem to be responding to dumb thinkpieces with slightly less dumb thinkpieces — I mean I read the AutoStraddle thing to but just rolled my eyes and went on with my day. The main, thing, though, is that as you admit, your interest is more in the debate than in the music, and that arm's length distance makes this feel like some kind of intellectual exercise. "It takes a Strong Poptimist to enjoy Taylor Swift" sounds like some kind of satirical Hipster Runoff psychobabble, except you're actually dead serious.
Al
25 Feb 10 at 8:01 am
Al-
I mean, I'm not dead serious. And as I said before, when a post has the word Poptimism in the title, it's probably gonna be some insider music nerd baseball. When it's a reference to fucking lit critic Stanley Fish, it's probably gonna be a little wordy and obnoxious. I think you were fairly warned as to what kind of post this was going to be when you read the title in your RSS feed.
brandon
25 Feb 10 at 3:44 pm
Yeah, you've established that that's the rhetorical armor you're guarding the post with. But if that's the closest you'll come to admitting you're talking out of your ass, I'll take it.
Al
25 Feb 10 at 3:47 pm
It's writing dummy, it's gonna have some rhetoric in it. It indeed, has a conceit, just not the one you want it to have. Sorry. i'm pretty blown away by this because it's a fairly simple point made relatively briefly (with plenty of mocking postmodern terms yes). Most of your comments read like you're responding to something other than what I wrote.
Again, who are you and others talking to? I mean this is the kind of stuff that even like, a lot of Moms are hip to in 2010. This is discussed by Gaga on Oprah or Perez Hilton.
A co-worker of mine, who happened to read the piece (I didn't even know he knew I had a blog, it was weird) said that he'd been cornered too many times in bars recently after saying something disparaging about Gaga, Beyonce, etc. by women or gay men.
That's what the post is about. Injecting ideology into pop music at the expense of everything else…which sorta misses the point of enjoying pop music. That Autostraddle rant is not an uncommon point of view.
brandon
25 Feb 10 at 4:06 pm
At this point I'm not sure if you're addressing me or all the commenters, but most of what you're referring to now are the things I alluded to agreeing with in the piece.
Al
25 Feb 10 at 4:16 pm
Well, at this point, you're the only person still talking. I guess to me it just seems sorta insane to take this much time to not engage with the idea of the post, and repeatedly take issue (or really, just call bullshit) with the tone, structure, etc. but you know, INTERNET. I should know better by now.
brandon
25 Feb 10 at 4:22 pm
Haha well it's my fault for posting more than once, coulda left it at that. I have no dog in this fight — I like the same Taylor song and the same Gaga song everyone else agrees on and little else — but trust me, I'm doing you a favor by sparing you my own long-winded thesis about poptimism and female pop stars in '09/'10. I think it's too soon to call whether Ke$ha has or will have the same cache Gaga's had, I personally haven't seen any evidence of 'cool kids' paying her mind yet, but who knows really.
Al
25 Feb 10 at 4:52 pm
Al-
I mean, I'd love to read that, that's sorta why things are posted: to stimulate discussion, etc.
And my guess is me and others reading this would prefer that to this fruitless back and forth.
Never said she'll have the same cache as Gaga, just that she's being broadly embraced in the same way. I'm obviously not making this up, go to an Urban Outfitters, you'll hear her song played. Turn on your hits station, you'll hear her song played. etc. etc. That's interesting. In Raleigh it's even made its way to the NC-equivalent of Baltimore's MIX 106.5, so something's going on here. Trust me?
I spend my time between Baltimore and Raleigh, which pretty much have nothing in common and I'm seeing/hearing the same thing.
brandon
25 Feb 10 at 5:05 pm
I'm still kinda scratching my head at Urban Outfitters or top 40 stations being a measuring stick of anything other than general ubiquity, to be honest. And I swear I'm not being willfully obtuse about this, I just don't see the significance. "Tik Tok" is a #1 hit, of course you're gonna hear it in those places, and hearing it more than Swift's similarly big hits is no surprise either since hip hop-flavored synth pop crosses over more universally than even the biggest country songs. But it's news to me that people who like Ke$ha frequently compare her to Uffie (or know who Uffie is), I thought she was generally in the uncool pop star zone as Katy Perry (or Gaga circa "Just Dance"), big but not given much thought by all but the most pop-friendly critics. If we're considering anything Caramanica's written up in NYT to have penetrated hipster culture, that's casting a REALLY wide net, he's really not a strong barometer for critical trends, and I mean that as a complement.
Al
25 Feb 10 at 7:18 pm
Al-
But that's a special kind of ubiquity that other pop stars, pop stars with one hit especially, aren't really afforded. You won't hear Katy Perry in Urban Outfitters, ya dig?
brandon
25 Feb 10 at 8:36 pm
I'll take your word for it! I had to look up OU and figure out whether I was confusing it with American Apparel or which is which, and it didn't occur to me that their music selection would be any more carefully curated than what you hear in Old Navy. Do they play a lot of indie rock or something?
Al
25 Feb 10 at 9:02 pm
Al-
lolz, yeah, it's sort of this mid-point between say, American Apparel and H & M. Less cool than the former, cooler than the latter. They sell LPs now and stuff and knick-knacks. Last time I was in there I heard, yes Ke$ha, and also Dam Funk, Bat for Lashes, and a song or two from Blueprint 3. The GIRLS LP was for sale there too.
brandon
25 Feb 10 at 9:08 pm
I wish I had visited the comments section earlier so I could point out how you were getting ragged for obscure phrase usage by a gravity's rainbow reference.
adam katzman
4 Mar 10 at 7:03 am
"It takes a Strong Poptimist to enjoy Taylor Swift. One that sees the inherent value of worker-bee skill and talent bouncing up against simple, but sincere expression"
I mean, I don't even think you need to be a strong anything, just a sensible person who doesn't think that not very well thought-out irony or electro gestures are indispensable parts of good pop music. Which I hope would be most people. Though perhaps not most young music critics. Taylor's not, I don't think, a great artist, but she's good, sincere, her songs show some attention to craft, etc. Now, I had no idea Ke$ha got any favorable reviews from anyone, that seems hard to imagine as she's so godawful, but if you say the Times and Urban Outfitters like her, I guess I'll take that on faith. I haven't been in the latter or read a review in the former for months (in the case of the latter a couple years). I would hope you see some difference between Ke$ha and Gaga, on whom the point of her postmodern theory classes may have been lost but who can write a pretty good song.
tray
4 Mar 10 at 9:35 pm
she’s beautiful and attractive, I’m a big fan of hers, best wishes to her
sara
19 Mar 10 at 11:36 am
I’m eager for Taylor Swift’s new album. Seems like ages since her last one.
Jules Diefendorf
7 May 10 at 6:27 am
[...] and cold–like a grandmother giving you a life lesson—but that’s preferable to the sassy, pseudo-feminist kiss-off Lady Gaga or Ke$ha (or shit, even Beyonce) would’ve dropped if they were in Swift’s [...]
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