Voice of America: How Taylor Swift became a pop star for everyone
Today it became known that the fifth album of the American singer Taylor Swift "1989" for the week sold 1.2 million copies - no one has achieved the best result for the last 12 years. We understand the Swift phenomenon, which at one time changed the market of country music, and now marks even higher.
"Welcome to New York," says Taylor Swift to herself in the first song of the album "1989". “Welcome to New York,” she says, just like her. For the last eight years, Swift has built a reputation for herself not so much a girl from a high society as her own among strangers. Her songs filled with sentimentality, youthful bitterness and everything that can be imagined after the words "you" and "we" in a situation where you are alone with your "I" have never been a thing in themselves, but on the contrary - they invited you to accents solely on universal experiences.
Her style-forming experiences in this case do not need speculation at all - the details of her relations with men have long been visible, and she herself is not shy about discussions of meta-problems. So, for example, today she openly criticizes the institute of romantic relationships in a circle of stars - when from the chain “ask the agent an email, send a cold invitation to dinner, try again” for some reason a great feeling should flare up. The forced (work, bitterness of disappointment) break in the long series of such relationships allowed Swift to seem to seriously get a better out of themselves for the first time - friendship, she admits, is no longer shaded by jealousy, endless parties are not at all necessary, and even sex can be postponed until true love.
It is not surprising that she so quickly found a common language with Lena Dunham and Tavi Gevinson - the most, perhaps, prominent apologists for self-digging (as a constructive analysis, and not as, forgive my God, whining). And it is precisely lately that she finally began to identify herself as a feminist: “I don’t understand how to resist the idea of equal opportunities for men and women.” More recently, this confidence was buried under the "fear of scaring a male audience."
Before Taylor Swift, the industry was confident that country music could only be sold to middle-aged women.
All of the above as a source of inspiration, on the one hand, is broken about the reproaches of its excessive conformity with the image of a white rich heterosexual woman - that is, a woman, according to the established opinion, devoid of problems. The only question is whether the paranoia constantly developing in such conditions is not considered a problem - Taylor seems to be seriously afraid that her phone will suddenly start recording and sending where all the details of her life should not be, and someone from the fans will simply steal her very Here are all the above-mentioned "advantages" of heterosexuality in an environment where the moral code has historically been in favor of men. A little fact about money: her new home in New York, though worth $ 20 million, was chosen, among other things, because it outwardly reminds her of the farm where Taylor's parents fell in love with each other in due time. In the next building lives and works its security.
If our heroine was in fact the one who her detractors go to see, the conversation could have been ended. But one more thing, definitely, the main place in her complimentary portrait is still allotted to music. Before Taylor Swift, the industry was confident that country music today (that is, yesterday) can only be sold to middle-aged women. To refute this stereotype, in addition to talent, it only took to find the most unconventional audience and talk heart-to-heart. This audience turned out to be teenagers, and the subject of conversation in most cases is a broken heart.
From the moment when Swift was mistrustfully mistreated, waiting for the worship of the foundations, until the moment when she was able to allow herself to dictate terms, not much time had passed. Not so much to have time to lose a tangible connection with his audience, but enough to want something new for her and himself. Perhaps that is why her transformation from country sensation into a shining pop star went so smoothly. For the sake of justice, in many respects everything went for it - she increasingly found herself in the same public context not with Dolly Parton and Dixie Chicks, but with Kanye West and Miley Cyrus (who made a similar jump a little earlier).
Her music had more and more in mind not so much country as America as a whole - this was greatly contributed to the collaboration with pop producer Max Martin, responsible in particular for "I Kissed a Girl" Katie Perry and "Baby One More Time" Britney Spears Not to mention the fact that the musical landscape itself hinted transparently that sooner or later the girl of her potential (including the managerial one) within the framework of country music should have become cramped. And when the head of the label Big Machine, out of old habit, asked the singer to finish a couple of country tracks for "1989", he didn’t meet with any understanding.
On the one hand, all these factors were quite clearly manifested in the last album, "Red", but for the exit into the stratosphere and from the point of view of today, the banal lacked grandeur - primarily in the field of sound. And this is not something to the fault of "Red". The context of topical female pop music, obviously Swift, has indeed emerged quite recently. The starting point here is with equal success both the new Beyoncé album and the ever-increasing influence of the image of Stevie Nix - almost the main female musician, who was able to win an ideological victory, having built in the initially unfriendly context.
One can argue for a long time about whether it was worth a little quieter “to be able” in a different situation, but in the case of Taylor Swift, the bottom line would still be at least excellent songs. Melody by Phil Collins and Annie Lennox, Madonna’s self-assurance, a subtle use in arranging Swift's native acoustic guitars - all this is put on the usual drums drums and framed by sound, of course, sterile. Of course, if sterile - the antonym of fuzzy, but not alive. The question remains open as to whether the Taylor Swift transformation worked on its audience in the same way as it worked on it, and whether the kinetic energy acquired by it would pass to that very ordinary listener who had been her only equal partner the whole time. Of course, the new Taylor may not suit him for various reasons. But why, turning to one of the brightest songs of the album, do not judge that sometimes all that is really needed is to stay close.
Photos: taylorswift / Instagram