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To be fair, she's not the only one. Snoop Dogg done one 1st, then Katy and most recently, there was one with Christina Aguilera and someone called Latto, who I've never heard of.
that’s not what I was saying lol. I’m just saying you’re not using the main methods of consumption for what’s the modern popular media. That’s not saying you’re not a part of the general culture or the sort. I don’t listen to Taylor myself, I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is if you don’t listen to popular radio, use social media or the sorts it’s not really an accurate gage to describe the current popular discourse, in terms, at least, of pop music.
it’s like, in the 80’s not listening to the amin radio stations of the day and not watching MYV etc. Therefore only seeing or hearing of Michael Jackson from adverts, magisine covered seen in shops or the news and saying he doesn’t have recognisable songs. That was my point. By the way, I’m not implying that Taylor Swift is as big as Michael Jackson.
I agree and disagree. I think it can be fun to speculate, but at the end of the day nothing is certain and people deep it too much, like their life depends on it.
Yes, I've no real issues with it, but I do get where Tommy is coming from, in so much as some speculation has some basis to it and other things are just pure unfounded speculation.
I do agree with you though, that some folk just get so wound up and angry about it, when there really is no need. By all means disagree with someone's speculation but it all seems to get so confrontational and angry, when all were doing is speculating about bloody music artists.
It's not that clear cut, geographical location played a big part in what was available to you in the 80s. For instance, MTV was predominantly a US thing, it wasn't available in the UK until cable TV came in 1989 (I think) and even then not that many people bothered with it, as it was so expensive, it was and never has been available on terrestrial TV in the UK. Also, radio was very different in the US to the UK, it was predominantly FM radio in the UK and pretty much centred around the state run BBC radio. There really was a very limited variety and choice of media outlets, to listen to music and even fewer to see music in the UK in the 80s and even into the 90s, certainly compared to the US.
True to be fair. Maybe it’s just my generation and like having friends, but even though as a kid my parents only listened to radio 2 or grt hits I still new the current songs, despite not hearing them at home.
First of all, I wouldn't describe myself as a scientifically trained expert on current pop music, just like most people aren't, here and elsewhere. But I am aware of both the long-term changes in songwriting/production and tastes in "popular" music, including that – compared to about thirty years ago – today's potential hit songs are shorter, simpler in terms of harmony and dynamics. This is necessary in order to be heard on social media, as it has already been empirically determined that it takes about 10 seconds to decide whether a song is liked.
What I know about Taylor Swift's music is that she and her songwriting/production/management team have mastered this pattern ideally and therefore – as I also wrote before – I don't question the laurels she has earned.
But what I don't do on the other hand is listen to music that doesn't touches me. And I don't think this is necessary in order to be, so to speak, "enlightened" about current pop tendencies.
Nevertheless, for the reasons listed above, I take it upon myself to know enough about the structure of current pop music in order to make a well-founded comparison with my own quality standards.
Then you gave the example from the 1980s with MJ. And here I'll pick up on what I already wrote in a previous post: Yes, there were people in the 1950s who didn't care about Elvis, people who didn't care about the Beatles in the 1960s, people who didn't care about MJ/Madonna in the 1980s. Not because they were deaf, isolated or uninterested in music, but because they had other interests, generationally or culturally justified.
Why am I writing all this here? Simply because I clearly disagree with your assumption that everyone needs to know a handful of Swift songs! Unlike you, in 1984 I would never have assumed that everyone had to know at least a handful of MJ songs, because otherwise they had allegedly removed themselves from popular culture.
To put it on an intertemporal level, which – as I also wrote before – is always necessary to understand things better:
There were people participating in modern life – by the way, the majority of world's population – who didn't care about MJ when he was at his commercial peak, just as there are people now who no longer care about MJ almost 15 years after his death. Likewise, there are still woken up people – believe it or not, also the majority of world's population – who nowadays don't give a damn about Taylor Swift. And at some point she too will have successors who will replace her in the interests of general popularity.
That's the way time goes, and it will never change …regardless of the respective artist.
Is there some rounding going on? For example, when looking at pure sales of physical singles for Fearless (69,000) times the multiplier of 0.3, you get 20,700 instead of the listed 21,000.
