Taylor Swift vs. Scooter Braun and Scott Borchetta:

lustycourtier

Pjon said:

Snags said:

guitars4you said:

Pjon said:

guitars4you said:

My daughter is a big fan of T Swift - So you can't help picking up the buzz of what is going on,...

 She has certainly created an ability to maximise everything that goes with the corporation and her name - How big a team she has behind this corporation I don't know - How ruthless is she as a business person and indeed how talented as a business person is she - But is there a 'silent assassin' in there as well - It sounds like she rightly wants to control every aspect of the Taylor Swift Corporation - With success comes power and is she now flexing those muscles...

For now the TS Corporation can do no wrong - She is obviously talented and works hard with a talent to maximise the whole TS package 

I have three daughters and a wife who are fans, so I get this stuff on a daily basis. Do you want to know what extra songs she played in her last few shows? I can text my youngest and she'll be able to tell me every word of them. I have no real complaints other than it all being a boring.  

But, I also share a little of your disquiet about the fact that it's a huge business, not just one person and everything feels very controlled. But that's not really a complaint, more of a view that Taylor Swift could in fact be a hologram and nothing would be any different to the business.

One oddity that I noticed while we had the Eras tour on, is that none of her backing band have any presence on Wikipedia. I thought it was interesting and googled a bit more, but there's very little about them. I'd have expected them to have some background with bigger acts, or side projects, you know, some sort of life away from Taylor Swift. They apparently have as much skin in the music game as some of the tiny, local folk-punk bands I follow. Odd.

About the band - I asked my daughter the same question - I would not expect her to know who the new Steve Gadd might be, or Nathan East - But I did ask who the live band are, who is the MD, any regulars from previous tours- And it was almost a question based on ‘is there a live band on stage’ - You know the band wouldn’t be mediocre members but it does all appear to be low key and so what 

I'm not sure how Sherlockian you have to be to type in "taylor swift backing band" into Google, but you get a whole bunch of hits, many of which lead to bios, links to other sites, bits of issues etc. and the info that her backing band are style "The Agency" all hidden away in terribly secret locations like, er, USA Today

I wouldn't expect a youngster who likes TS to give a shit about the band, in much the same way a lot of people (guitarists excepted) probably couldn't name Alice Cooper's band over the years and so on.

A few random links from the first results page:

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2024/03/22/eras-tour-cast-meet-taylor-swifts-dancers-singers-and-band-members/73020978007/

https://taylorswift.fandom.com/wiki/The_Agency

https://taylorswiftmovie.wordpress.com/biographies/taylors-band/

You are my daughters and I claim my £5!  

The bio from one of your links, picked at random:

GRANT MICKELSON – GUITARGrant Mickelson is a Nashville-based country, rock and jazz musician who specializes in electric and acoustic guitar. He sings backup vocals for Taylor and plays mandolin. Grant was born on April 30, 1984 and was raised in Sioux City, Iowa. His passion for playing the guitar led him to Texas, where he majored in Jazz Studies at the University of North Texas. In 2004, he moved to Nashville, where he studied music at Belmont University and began making contacts in the music industry. Affectionately known to fans as “Rooster,” he is the one with the crazy hair on stage.

Apparently, he left her employ in 2015 and has done nothing since. Or before. As I keep saying, very odd, and now I've decided it's worthy of a conspiracy theory.

Hes very active on Instagram and seems very busy musically 

Snags

@Pjon ;; I think he's alive and well, he appears to be active on Instagram, having had a family and possibly playing guitar in some mega-church worship band. So she's probably not eating her band members and hiding the evidence. Probably.

Pjon

Snags said:

@Pjon ;; I think he's alive and well, he appears to be active on Instagram, having had a family and possibly playing guitar in some mega-church worship band. So she's probably not eating her band members and hiding the evidence. Probably.

Good, you are feeding into my conspiracy theory - cult like followers, people recruited from church groups who then disappear but send occasional messages, hologram front-woman, cannibalism....

(Please don't think I'm even vaguely serious with any of this, btw! )

Vintage65

Taylor Swift is no Bob Dylan IMHO, but I can see why she connects with such a large demographic.

monquixote

Vintage65 said:

Taylor Swift is no Bob Dylan IMHO, but I can see why she connects with such a large demographic.

Am I going to get lynched by a group of boomers if I say I think she's much better than Bob Dylan?

thecolourbox

It's horses for course isn't it. Not really sure comparing with Dylan is really the natural comparison to make. A bit like comparing Andy Warhol or David Hockney to Monet - different styles for different audiences. Her themes and delivery style are much more relatable to a lot of people than Dylan's more abstract rambling

Kurtis

thecolourbox said:

It's horses for course isn't it. Not really sure comparing with Dylan is really the natural comparison to make. A bit like comparing Andy Warhol or David Hockney to Monet - different styles for different audiences. Her themes and delivery style are much more relatable to a lot of people than Dylan's more abstract rambling

I actually thought the lyrics posted earlier had a slight Dylan-esqe quality.

Not a totally unfounded comparison imo. 

Vintage65

monquixote said:

Am I going to get lynched by a group of boomers if I say I think she's much better than Bob Dylan?

Taylor Swift definitely sounds better, and there are only a couple of Dylan albums that I actually like, but he came into it when lyric writing was a joke and he certainly set a high bar for future songwriters, and that's what I measure everything against. As far as audience reach is concerned, Taylor has certainly smashed it out of the park.

Kurtis

monquixote said:

Vintage65 said:

Taylor Swift is no Bob Dylan IMHO, but I can see why she connects with such a large demographic.

Am I going to get lynched by a group of boomers if I say I think she's much better than Bob Dylan?

It's a matter of opinion innit.

I'm genx and prefer Dylan. 

thecolourbox

Kurtis said:

thecolourbox said:

It's horses for course isn't it. Not really sure comparing with Dylan is really the natural comparison to make. A bit like comparing Andy Warhol or David Hockney to Monet - different styles for different audiences. Her themes and delivery style are much more relatable to a lot of people than Dylan's more abstract rambling

I actually thought the lyrics posted earlier had a slight Dylan-esqe quality.

Not a totally unfounded comparison imo. 

I suppose, but what it says to me is that talented lyric writers can cover a lot of different ground and influences, and she certainly does. I'd say she's justified in her own right by what she's created, without needing to be compared to different artists I suppose is what I was kind of trying to say. She's not Bob Dylan, but neither is literally anybody but Bob himself. She is where she is because she's brilliant and has made some very bold moves in the process. Good on her

Vintage65

Kurtis said:

thecolourbox said:

It's horses for course isn't it. Not really sure comparing with Dylan is really the natural comparison to make. A bit like comparing Andy Warhol or David Hockney to Monet - different styles for different audiences. Her themes and delivery style are much more relatable to a lot of people than Dylan's more abstract rambling

I actually thought the lyrics posted earlier had a slight Dylan-esqe quality.

Not a totally unfounded comparison imo. 

I've come across quite a few comparisons online.

Kurtis

thecolourbox said:

Kurtis said:

thecolourbox said:

It's horses for course isn't it. Not really sure comparing with Dylan is really the natural comparison to make. A bit like comparing Andy Warhol or David Hockney to Monet - different styles for different audiences. Her themes and delivery style are much more relatable to a lot of people than Dylan's more abstract rambling

I actually thought the lyrics posted earlier had a slight Dylan-esqe quality.

Not a totally unfounded comparison imo. 

I suppose, but what it says to me is that talented lyric writers can cover a lot of different ground and influences, and she certainly does. I'd say she's justified in her own right by what she's created, without needing to be compared to different artists I suppose is what I was kind of trying to say. She's not Bob Dylan, but neither is literally anybody but Bob himself. She is where she is because she's brilliant and has made some very bold moves in the process. Good on her

I think the point is that Dylan is considered by many to be one of the greatest songwriters of all time and saying she is no Bob Dylan is saying they don't think she is one of the all time greats with regards to songwriting.

Again a matter of opinion I suppose. 

She's obviously very good at what she does, that’s hardly really debatable. 

crunchman

Kurtis said:

thecolourbox said:

It's horses for course isn't it. Not really sure comparing with Dylan is really the natural comparison to make. A bit like comparing Andy Warhol or David Hockney to Monet - different styles for different audiences. Her themes and delivery style are much more relatable to a lot of people than Dylan's more abstract rambling

I actually thought the lyrics posted earlier had a slight Dylan-esqe quality.

Not a totally unfounded comparison imo. 

She's a better singer.

Personally I'd choose to listen to Dylan over her though.

Vintage65

Kurtis said:

I think the point is that Dylan is considered by many to be one of the greatest songwriters of all time and saying she is no Bob Dylan is saying they don't think she is one of the all time greats with regards to songwriting.

Again a matter of opinion I suppose. 

She's obviously very good at what she does, that’s hardly really debatable. 

I've never said she is not good at what she does. I've gone through all the Taylor's version albums with a forensic eye and I quite like them. What I am referring to are the lyrics on a page and how they have been constructed, so it's more of a literary critique, but in saying that they have been written for a target audience.

Apologies if I have derailed the thread 

Vintage65

Duplicate post

Kurtis

Vintage65 said:

Kurtis said:

I think the point is that Dylan is considered by many to be one of the greatest songwriters of all time and saying she is no Bob Dylan is saying they don't think she is one of the all time greats with regards to songwriting.

Again a matter of opinion I suppose. 

She's obviously very good at what she does, that’s hardly really debatable. 

I've never said she is not good at what she does. I've gone through all the Taylor's version albums with a forensic eye and I quite like them. What I am referring to are the lyrics on a page and how they have been constructed, so it's more of a literary critique, but in saying that they have been written for a target audience.

Apologies if I have derailed the thread 

Sorry, didn't mean to imply you did, just saying 

Kurtis

crunchman said:

Kurtis said:

thecolourbox said:

It's horses for course isn't it. Not really sure comparing with Dylan is really the natural comparison to make. A bit like comparing Andy Warhol or David Hockney to Monet - different styles for different audiences. Her themes and delivery style are much more relatable to a lot of people than Dylan's more abstract rambling

I actually thought the lyrics posted earlier had a slight Dylan-esqe quality.

Not a totally unfounded comparison imo. 

She's a better singer.

Personally I'd choose to listen to Dylan over her though.

Technically, maybe, but if you'd rather listen to Dylan then...?

ICBM

Dylan is unfairly dismissed as a singer - it’s the tonality of his voice which rubs people up the wrong way, his pitching is fine and his phrasing is fantastic - he *can* sing. His range isn’t all that huge, but he’s no worse than many.

(I can’t sing at all, by the way.)

Taylor Swift is a great songwriter in my opinion - maybe not one of *the* greats, but it’s probably too soon to tell yet. I think she could be, and possibly already is. How long was it before Lennon and McCartney were recognised as such? Within the lifespan of the Beatles, I think, but possibly not.

I’ve got all her early albums on CD and I don’t use streaming, so I’m not really a party in the fight, but I’ve not felt any compelling reason to buy the new versions.

Vintage65

ICBM said:
How long was it before Lennon and McCartney were recognised as such? Within the lifespan of the Beatles, I think, but possibly not.

Without Dylan, they'd still be singing about love me do do and holding somebody's hand   

ICBM said:

I’ve got all her early albums on CD and I don’t use streaming, so I’m not really a party in the fight, but I’ve not felt any compelling reason to buy the new versions.

They are very good recordings, with excellent musicianship, and bonus tracks like this gem ...

Kurtis

I'd say her production values are much higher than Bobby D's! 
Especially his early stuff where it's just him and a guitar. Some of his later stuff hasn't aged as well. 

A technical masterpiece ^