[ SECRET POST #5892]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5892 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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[Portals of Phereon]


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[Yuri Is My Job]



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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 16 secrets from Secret Submission Post #843.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, I think at some pint, that *is* a talent - particularly when it comes to pop songwriting. Being able to feel the same things as everyone else, and then write them in a way that everyone else can relate to, and then put all of that into a catchy three and a half minute song - that is the absolute essence of pop songwriting. To do it 15 or 20 or 30 or 40 times over the course of a decade is a pretty staggering achievement.

[meadowphoenix]

her songwriting isn't the savvy I'm talking about, mostly because I don't think her popularity or really any popstars' popularity is even primarily about her (or their) songcraft. pop stardom is about the skill of image crafting that makes any music accessible (for which taylor starts at an advantage...for which ANY white girl including madonna who is a great song-writer starts at an advantage). ubiquity and relevance isn't easy and isn't actually correlated with talent but it's incredibly psychologically influential. mariah carey is several magnitudes a better songwriter, but she's never reached the relevance of taylor swift and never would because of social and historical factors, including genre barriers. ne-yo has written so many hits it's actually insane, and he would simply never because he's not good at image crafting. yet bruno mars, who is about on his level, is international. the level of "people buy this music" isn't a sign of songwriting talent. like...the beatles early stuff isn't well-written lmao.

like i said some pop stars are also incredibly good songwriters, but I don't think taylor swift is.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree that pop stardom and pop songwriting are different skills. And I agree that pop songwriting is not the primary reason that Swift is famous. And I agree that there are other people who are great pop songwriters. But I still think that Swift is extremely good at pop songwriting.

[meadowphoenix]

yeah i mean plenty of people, well-respected credentialed people, say so too. but i feel like when people say that they mean that pop songwriting requires a certain level of mediocrity for broad appeal, and you know, maybe. i don't think marvel has ever been well-written but they clearly knew what the masses wanted for almost a solid two decades.

[(Anonymous)]

Eh. In my view, mass appeal requires universality, not mediocrity, and that's the whole point of the enterprise of pop music.

Obviously, it still doesn't mean that all popular music is good. But I think Taylor's music (at its best) really is good.

[(Anonymous)]

In my view, mass appeal requires universality, not mediocrity

Damn, well put.

Seconding your whole comment.

[meadowphoenix]

mass appeal requires universality
universality requires a level of reference that's not very high and not alienating people, and mediocrity works really well for that, but at any rate strictly speaking, this is not necessarily a skill or talent. instinct works really well for this too.

(at its best)
this is quite the qualifier imo

[(Anonymous)]

This, absolutely. Also, while she's moved away from this particular strength to some extent in recent years, there is a reason that one of the Rolling Stone writers said she had "a genius for verse-chorus-bridge architecture."

I don't generally think her lyrics are genius in the purely artistic sense. I think many of them are really good, but I don't personally tend to see them as genius, because at their root I honestly do find them slightly toothless. However, I wholeheartedly agree with that Rolling Stone writer that she has a level of genius for how a song is structured, which is a hell of a gift to have, IMO.

I'm honestly never more in awe of her gift for her craft that when I go back and listen to some of her earliest unreleased work, and it's like "Okay somebody explain to me how the fuck a fourteen-year-old wrote this rock-solid song that I am instantly addicted to."

[(Anonymous)]

She definitely has a talent. People are just whining that she's not edgy and weird enough. It's like being mad at a cheerleader who gets the lead in the school musical even though she's a very good singer.