Is Taylor Swift talented??

I'll add "Mean" which had this fun ring to it.

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HEI guys.

I can't disagree with this

She is a good songwriter, a good performer, and a very savvy marketer. My co-worker's daughter loves Taylor Swift and he took her to one of her concerts. He's a country/rock fan and said he wasn't that interested in the concert, but once it started he said it was magical and one of the best concert experiences he ever had. (Yes, some of that is how great a time his daughter had).

Alexander Avila on YouTube has a really interesting video essay about Taylor Swift's career and how it intersects with the relationship she has with her fans.

I think that a lot of people write her off because she's pretty and twee-looking and she exists in the pop-music space, etc. But to deny that she is talented---musically and PR-wise---is just silly. If you don't like her as a person or don't like her music, that's a different question.

I spent way too many nights this summer listening to the G-Flip cover of "Cruel Summer".

I dunno, I just have a hard time attributing ALL of someone's success to talent. Does she have talent? Sure. Did that talent get her where she is now? Absolutely not.

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"This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined." -Baruch Spinoza

Oh, I don't attribute all of her success to her talent. She definitely had a lot of very explicit, privileged boosting of her career. Her family moved to Nashville to help start her career and her father bought a big chunk of a record label to get her first record released. She's also, you know, a pretty, elfen looking white woman and all the blessings that come with that.

But I don't think that she would have the career that she does if it weren't for her songwriting skills and her performance ability. Nepotism only gets you so far. And I'd even argue that she basically took that initial boost from her parents and has done a fantastic job of keeping herself marketable and a person of very high interest.

I think that it can be both: I think that she is a very lucky person who had a family rich enough to jump-start her career, and I think she is also a very talented person. I don't think that your average mid-talent nepo baby makes it as far as Taylor Swift has.

I think either way it comes down to talent at least to a degree, but it's true she had an easier start. However she has been actually doing a lot to sell her songwriting as a brand, her albums as narrative units of sorts, and emphasize the element of her life experiences through the years and albums, which has created a consistent parasocial relationship with her fandom. That, and that she has a ridiculously big output for a modern pop star; that makes her stay for longer because there's always something new she's doing, and a lot of content. For instance her latest album casually threw in a "side B" with 15 extra tracks that hadn't been announced.

Maybe a better thread topic would have been "At what is Taylor Swift most talented?"

To assume a young woman could just somehow become a billion-dollar success with absolutely no talent whatsoever is, clearly, laughable.

y’all do know she was taught songwriting by a bigwig in Nashville, right? Liz Rose helped her write a sizable chunk of her very very earliest material (stuff we probably never heard and never will hear). her songwriting really is just average, so i’ll never get why so many people say she’s such a gifted writer. if you’ve heard one song of hers then you’ve heard like 90% of her catalog. methinks her teacher just gave her a template/formula to follow, and that’s why everything always sounds the same. it’s truly boring stuff.

but what i find truly laughable is her acoustic variants. a good chunk of them are just the main vocal copied from the non-acoustic version. it’s easily one of her laziest traits but it’s pretty genius from a business sense.

straight up: i just can’t tolerate vapid, tryhards. but she has certainly got the market cornered in that regard. gotta respect that.

peace! ✌️

That's not exactly what I meant with "songwriting as a brand". How good it is, that is arguable; however, what she has sold successfully is that it is her and her very own, something not so common in the current pop music industry, at least to her level of popularity, and the work ethics that come with that, the idea that there's a lot of personal input in her songs and so on, things that to make her audience stay because they have that sort of relationship with her music. All in all, it's just marketing strategy that has proved successful and resilient.

She probably uses Ai to write now.

I don't listen to her crap.

I don't think that learning from another person makes you untalented. Most successful athletes were at some point coached by another person who was a successful athlete. Many successful authors were mentored by other people who were talented writers. Very few successful people just do it all on their own right from the start.

I think that she is above average as a writer, and especially in the mainstream pop culture space. I think that she has a talent for evoking moments and memories that are common, yet feel very specific.

I'm not a Taylor Swift fan, by the way. I know a few of her songs from radio play (and I do really enjoy that G-Flip Cruel Summer cover), but that's about it. But I find it genuinely baffling for people to say that she's untalented. She's a big-time pop star: talent is about a combination of musical ability, marketing, and performance.

Have we reached a consensus yet?

Yes. The consensus (decided by me) is that she is very talented.

I'm a great person to answer this question because I've been recently trying to figure out the Taylor Swift phenomenon myself by listening to several of her more popular albums. I must confess, after listening to quite a few of her songs, I don't fully understand why she is a billion dollar brand and one of the most successful artists of all time. At the same time, I can understand why she has a career in the industry and a following, and in answer to this question, I do think she is talented. I don't fully resonate with the type of music that she sings, and I agree that some of her songs are formulaic, but I think there is a significant difference between not personally fully understanding the phenomenon, and alternatively, believing she has no, or very little, talent in music. Also, many artists are formulaic, but have a lot of talent as well. They simply chose to channel that talent into very similar types of music, so doing that is not mutually exclusive of talent. Although in my opinion Taylor is not on their level, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey are good examples of that. I think Taylor Swift has talent as a writer, as a singer, as a performer, and as many here have said, as someone who knows how to connect to and form a real bond with her audience. I also think if you listen to some of her albums where she departed a bit from her formula, like in her album "Folklore," for example, that there is a soulfulness to some of her music that people that have only heard "We are never, ever, ever, getting back together" might miss or not be aware of. I think some of her talent is more evident in her ballads than in her more well known break up songs. I actually didn't know that she came from a well off family and that her father spent a lot of money early in his career to give her her start in the industry, so that is new information for me. I don't own a single one of her albums, and wouldn't consider myself a Swiftie, but I think she does legitimately have talent.

I really wish I could find this reel that came up on my Facebook and it would explain it all.

It was a Gen Z'er with her toddler daughter, who was wearing a KC Cheifs cheerleader outfit, who was asking the toddler questions like " who is your favorite football team?" The toddler replied "the Cheifs" with her arms raised. After a series of additional questions, the mother asks " Who is your favorite Cheifs player?" The toddler says "Taylor Swift". First off I really doubt the toddler was understanding any questions her mother was asking her let alone understanding that Taylor Swift is NOT a football player. It's those ***b ***** who thinks its cute to show the rest of the ***b ***** that her toddler knows anything. Let alone that the toddler even understands the lyrics to her songs.

I had to block that ridiculous shit.

I can't figure out what words this is, ***b ***** MovieGal? or anyone, just give me a post comment and clue me in.

I'm not that familiar with her music, other than what's on the radio, but there are a couple of songs I like the hell out of. Out of the few ones I've heard, "Anti-Hero" is probably the one I enjoy the most. It is fairly well written, and I think the music is great, especially because she plays with time, verses, and a bit of chord progression. So using it as some sort of monolith, I would say that she's talented. To be honest, at this point of her career, where she's probably the biggest mega-star in the US and beyond, I think it goes without question.

Oh, "Shake it Off" is hella catchy, also.

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Whooph! Alot of Taylor hate Rollin around in here.
Im not a fan, but I don't loathe her for the ridiculous popularity. She makes positive songs for young girls. Doesn't drug, drink, and where herself in the public. Works hard. Hate?! Wow I think we as a society need to get our priorities straight.
I mean I would never listen to Barney the dinosaur, but it was harmless brainless sweetness for many toddlers.
I won't watch an Adam Sandler movie now, but his stuff is safe to take the family too.
We have alooooot to enjoy out there. There's alot of crying about the state of music and cinema, but we're still able to find enjoyment easier than a parent trying to entertain their kids with a positive wholsome outlet. Way easier than fnding good role models for young teenage girls.
I don't listen to Taylor Swift, but wish there were more like her out there for reasons more important than my pleasure.

Talented in the PR/marketing/writing songs that will sell department.

"Talented" musically, i.e., she's decent but nothing special.

Still makes terrible normie music so none of the above matters anyway.

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San Franciscan lesbian dwarves and their tomato orgies.

Exactly.

Also though (and kind of related to what you say), she's an exceptional communicator.
There's about a billion teenage girls around the world who think she's her best friend. And for those who've been to see her in concert, their sister.

In terms of music I'd say:
-piano. plays by numbers. not really even a beginner.
-guitar. seems to have basic strumming competency.
-singing. reasonably capable.