You make me so happy it turns back to sad

October 20, 2017 7:56 PM

Taylor has a new song out. I find it more appealing than LWYMMD. In fact, it's Gorgeous.
posted by hippybear (77 comments total)

i love t swift and i wanna believe, but this has a weird mid-00's throwback vibe -- sounds like a b-track from a no-name radio singer
posted by zeee at 8:56 PM on October 20, 2017 [6 favorites]

Taylor Swift ins't 30 yet is she? She really needs to face up to the fact she can't be a teenager forever and just plan on disappearing forever around her birthday. Maybe buy an island or fake her death or leave Earth in a spaceship. Or I guess she could stop channeling her inner vindictive 14 year old into song and write some growed up tunes for herself.

In other words, I do not share the T-Swift love, I find her a kind of uncomfortable throwback teen star who is not getting a bit long in the tooth for her schtick.
posted by fshgrl at 9:09 PM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

Between the line about going home to her cats and "can't say anything to your face (pause) 'cause look at that face" this kind of sounds like what Weird Al would write if he wanted to do a T Swift pastiche (Probably doesn't help that the lyric video style reminds me of Word Crimes)
posted by btfreek at 9:10 PM on October 20, 2017

I actually kind of like this, musically anyway. The lyrics make me want to die, as usual.
posted by stoneandstar at 9:20 PM on October 20, 2017

God, yeah, this woman should go away forever, so real artists like the Rolling Stones, and all other male artists who havr been around for the last 40 years can keep going despite not having anything new to say. .. lord, how juvenile she is.
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 9:59 PM on October 20, 2017 [30 favorites]

I find it more appealing than LWYMMD.

Not hard. I’m a part-time poptimist, so keep that in mind when I say that “Look What You Made Me Do” is total try-hard vicarious embarrassment fuel, and that’s not even getting into her weird Beyoncé cribbing in the music video. It’s pretty apparent that she has minimal command over her own aesthetic.
posted by invitapriore at 10:00 PM on October 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

so real artists like the Rolling Stones,

Oh yawn, literally nobody was saying this. It's perfectly possible to have nontoxic views on music and still not warm to the escaped military AI construct that is Taylor.
posted by ominous_paws at 10:17 PM on October 20, 2017 [54 favorites]

So 30 year olds should stop appearing in public and disappear forever? Wasn't that the plot of Logan's run? Srsly you can hate on Tswift- lord knows I do too, without going full sexist on women over the *shocking* age of 30.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 10:42 PM on October 20, 2017 [15 favorites]

I feel like a lot of these newer tracks rely on lyrical repetition way more than her early stuff? Like, just chanting the same thing twice or three times instead of an actual bridge or chorus etc? The lyrics from this new album seem especially banal and laboured, so I don't feel like it really works.
posted by smoke at 10:55 PM on October 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

Not a song for those of us old enough to remember Gorgeous George.
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:00 PM on October 20, 2017

I don't think fshgrl is being sexist at all. Just pointing out that her output isn't as mature as you'd think she would be by now.
posted by ajryan at 11:02 PM on October 20, 2017 [12 favorites]

Can we please have 1989 back? For pop, it was good. Don't bother listening to the lyrics, but catchy and singable. This and LWYMMD is just awful.
posted by greermahoney at 11:31 PM on October 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

Mod note: A couple deleted. Maybe if your hatred of Swift compels you to post stuff that sounds incredibly bigoted toward a swathes of other people re their non-mainstream sexuality, etc., reconsider posting here. Nobody has to like Taylor Swift, but on the other hand nobody is forced to spend time in threads about one of her songs. If you do want to discuss here, please avoid gratuitous insults to non-cis-het-trad-etc-etc folks, among other collateral damage. Thanks.
posted by taz (staff) at 11:48 PM on October 20, 2017 [15 favorites]

This seems to just be a trend in all pop music

I'll resist the hack (and effortful) step of posting link after link to lyrics from 50s, 60s etc hits that are all repetition, but I do wonder if some nerd somewhere online has put together proper data on this.

Really the beauty of pop is that if the song is good, it doesn't always matter if the lyrics are pure repetition or nonsense. You only really notice when the track as a whole isn't great. I think.
posted by ominous_paws at 12:03 AM on October 21, 2017 [7 favorites]

Or I guess she could stop channeling her inner vindictive 14 year old into song and write some growed up tunes for herself.

But then what becomes of my inner vindictive 14 year old? When I was dragging my feet on finishing up my doctorate and feeling terribly miserable and lonely and angry about it, Taylor Swift's ridiculous-bubbly-vindictive-aggressively-teenagery songs were on the very short list of the things that cheered me up enough to get back to writing. I've already added this one to that glum days playlist, and I'm 32. It's fine if she wants to start writing nuanced reflective songs ahout adult life, I guess, but I very much value her current output and will be sorry if she stops producing it.
posted by Aravis76 at 12:36 AM on October 21, 2017 [14 favorites]

I don't think fshgrl is being sexist at all. Just pointing out that her output isn't as mature as you'd think she would be by now.

And yet, when has that judgement ever been applied to a male artist here? Male musicians get a pass on whatever shitty, juvenile acts they do, especially if it is regarding women. "Oh look, his latest music video includes a naked statue of the woman he's been stalking. He is such a brilliant, tormented artist."

Seriously, are there ANY male artists you feel aren't mature enough? And if so, why haven't you brought that up?
posted by happyroach at 12:51 AM on October 21, 2017 [9 favorites]

Idk man who was the thread about again
posted by ominous_paws at 1:02 AM on October 21, 2017 [6 favorites]

And turning a thread about Taylor Swift into a thread about male musicians, even just to rag on them, would be a rather ironic way to try to avoid being sexist.
posted by AdamCSnider at 1:05 AM on October 21, 2017 [16 favorites]

And yet, when has that judgement ever been applied to a male artist here? Male musicians get a pass on whatever shitty, juvenile acts they do, especially if it is regarding women.

Oh no, I feel exactly the same ick about John Mayer and his ilk. I guess my comment got deleted for being hateful and not approving of people's sexuality(?), which is ironic on a thread about Taylor Swift.
posted by fshgrl at 1:30 AM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

If we're going to break out into that, Ed Sheeran I guess is the obvious parallel? He's got way too much writing talent, experience and (baffling) collaboration with more credible artists to be still churning out the Creepy Nice Guy Ditties that he still is, and if we're ranking people I have far more dislike for him than Swift, absolutely.

There's just something fascinating about Taylor's 100%, apolitical image management, beep-boop hello fellow humans attempts at relatability, and success at whipping up the fanbase that's way more interesting than Sheeran, Biebs et al though.
posted by ominous_paws at 1:34 AM on October 21, 2017 [11 favorites]

Frank Guan referred to the lyrics of this song as "verbal stock photos" in his review for Vulture, which I think captures it perfectly. I find Taylor Swift despicable as an apparently willing icon of ideal white feminine victimhood etc., but I've always admired her songwriting for it's keen little observations and faultless command of melody. Can't believe the same person who wrote Out of the Woods has perpetrated anything like these last three singles on the public. And I can't understand why she consistently turns to clearly-enunciated talk-singing when she has the cringiest things to say.

I definitely think Ed Sheeran is the infinitely worse male Taylor Swift, but for that reason I utterly avoid him and don't have the knowledge or interest to criticise him. It is rather unfair that women often undergo more scrutiny for being more worthwhile than their competition.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 1:58 AM on October 21, 2017 [15 favorites]

Wow it’s really solid pop music
posted by gribbly at 2:01 AM on October 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Well, I fell into this thread randomly.

Not a Taylor lover or hater, more indifferent, but while I also feel ill about aging musicians who seem to stay quite childish, it also feels weird to complain about because isn't most music aimed at the 18-24 age demographic anyway? Some obviously is aimed younger, but I'd think the largest chunk is aimed at a relatively "immature" demographic, and as such, is crafted to fit for them. Taylor (and many others) could easily be much more thoughtful and have more depth to them, but keep pumping out hits with no more than a 10th grade reading level with intent on selling more units/getting more streams.

I mean, it only took Trent Reznor until he was in his forties to grow up and stop whinging like a teen because he never got over being short or whatever. (I hope I am allowed to make this joke as I was a youthful NIN fan.)

Anyway, it seems a little unwise to make judgments about a person based on their art, especially when their art is produced with the lowest common denominator in mind to sell the most units. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
posted by deadaluspark at 2:27 AM on October 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

It's a fun little song and video. It doesn't seem like it's one for the ages though.

As a side effect I saw the last 20 seconds of the LWYMMD video, which I am very glad for.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:11 AM on October 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

I heard TS was a Nazi or a Nazi sympathizer or at least didn’t want to disappoint her fans who might be Nazis or Nazi sympathizers. This was on NPR’s On the Media if I recall, so not a crazy source (and it was Brooke, not Bob!).
posted by rikschell at 5:06 AM on October 21, 2017

I'm a pretty big Taylor fan, but I'm lukewarm on all the Reputation stuff. This was better (for all the complaints about repetitiveness it was much much better than "... Ready for It" on that score), but still not making me super excited. I don't dislike it, and I'll buy the album, but more on faith than anything I've seen in these singles. I didn't find it super immature, like "Teenage Dream" ugh. If anything it's more mature than her last take on similar material ("Enchanted" which I adore as a song), but it's probably less mature than 1989 generally.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:32 AM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

Or I guess she could stop channeling her inner vindictive 14 year old into song and write some growed up tunes for herself.

But then what becomes of my inner vindictive 14 year old?

Exactly. When I was in my teens and 20s I was obsessed with maturing, growing up, finding my place in the world, becoming an adult, being taken seriously, etc. I wasn't until I was in my 30s that I realized that's all bullshit, it's a goal that's impossible to attain, and rather than bend over backwards to achieve some semblance of "maturity" I would just be better off doing what seemed right by my lights, and, let's be honest, the most important, immutable aspects of my self were pretty well set in stone by age 14. If TS wants to be true to her vindictive 14-year-old self for the rest of her career, more power to her.

That's all the opinion I have about TS.
posted by lollymccatburglar at 5:38 AM on October 21, 2017 [6 favorites]

Yeah, I had heard that as well, rikschell.

I don't think this song's lyrics are juvenile exactly. Lyrically in the aural sense, the word choices within the rhythm of the song end up rhyming and - what's it called when a poem has that combo of internal rhyme and alliteration that was, eg., commonly found in Old English poetry (which didn't worry as much about rhyming the ends of lines)? It's not obvious from simply reading the lyrics, but when sung in the context of the song they have that quality. It's kind of a clever composition in that sense.

In terms of the content of the song lyrics, I hear lots of heterosexual men of all ages expressing anger or resentment at women they are attracted to and are afraid of rejection from or otherwise think of as unavailable to them. I suppose when you flip the gender roles in that story, we pretty much only ever hear teen girls expressing similar views in public (and not very often, at that), because by the time we reach adulthood, heterosexual women tend to either be trained out of that or have had enough experience on the receiving end of such behavior to realize what entitled, toxic bs it is. But I have heard adult women express similar feelings in private/small groups of other women on a few occassions, 'cause such patriarchal ways of thinking about desire can be hard to avoid internalizing. This adoption of a more traditionally male entitlement shows up in other Taylor Swift lyrics too, and seems to be why she's considered as semi "feminist" in some circles. In the case of this song, it's certainly not a healthy way of thinking about desire. But, at least in reference to how a significant number of adults behave, it's observationally inaccurate to call it juvenile. (Though, if one thinks that adults in general - heterosexual men included - should have healthier ways of approaching desire, one could certainly make a value judgement on that behavior.)
posted by eviemath at 5:44 AM on October 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

I heard TS was a Nazi or a Nazi sympathizer or at least didn’t want to disappoint her fans who might be Nazis or Nazi sympathizers. This was on NPR’s On the Media if I recall, so not a crazy source (and it was Brooke, not Bob!).

What?
posted by leotrotsky at 5:50 AM on October 21, 2017

Reminds me of a Facebook post I saw this week, which was a (real? imaginary? the context was missing) conversation between an educator and students that went something like: educator describes young boy pulling young girl's hair. Students' response: "he likes her!" Educator describing teen boy doing something equivalent. Students' response: some boys will be boys type excuse. Educator describing a young 20s man hurting his girlfriend in some equivalent way. Students' response: ohhh, that's bad. Then educator made the point that it was always bad, but how would the young adult men or women know given all of the previous messaging they had received when younger?

I.e., the sort of entitlement to another's body or affections and corresponding resentment of the object of attraction exhibited in the song isn't "juvenile" from a moral judgement perspective, it's unhealthy for anyone at any age (and sexist, because of the ways we tend to tolerate such behavior differentially in men versus women). Calling it juvenile tends to support the excuse-making exhibited in my anecdote, which is what ends up teaching men to engage in controlling or violent behavior against women in adulthood.
posted by eviemath at 6:00 AM on October 21, 2017 [7 favorites]

(From the Your Favorite Media Is Problematic department. You're welcome. :P )
posted by eviemath at 6:03 AM on October 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

On the Media: Taylor Swift: Alt-Right Icon. They're not saying that she's a Nazi, just that she has a big fan base among the Alt-Right and she's never denounced them.
posted by octothorpe at 6:28 AM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

BROOKE GLADSTONE:: What’s Swift’s response been to the attention that she's gotten from the alt-right, anything at all?

MITCHELL SUNDERLAND: Silence. On Nazi sites, they view any silence as approval.

Oh come on for fuck's sake. Give Swift credit for not stooping to engage with either the alt-right or these hacks.
posted by chavenet at 7:15 AM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

I don't know, y'all. I started listening to this song yesterday and within the first minute I forgot I was listening to it. I can see how it would be appealing to die-hard TS fans or anyone who likes a derivative pop sound, but it definitely is not for me. Also, I think it's hilarious that any time TS gets criticized, someone raises the hue and cry about how we NEVER EVER talk about any male artists that way on MeFi, how mean... somehow forgetting the virulent hatred that comes pouring out any time Kanye West is discussed here. Come the fuck on.
posted by palomar at 7:36 AM on October 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

I started listening to this song yesterday and within the first minute I forgot I was listening to it.

I had the song open in a tab and before I got to this comment, I caught myself looking for some music to listen to because I kind of forgot there was already music playing. I like pop music! But this sounds like it was made by committee and produced by Hitbot9000.
posted by Shepherd at 7:47 AM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

You'll take my complete indifference to Taylor Swift from me when you pry it from my cold dead funhouse mirror neurons.
posted by y2karl at 7:57 AM on October 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

One thing Taylor has lost recently is her more personal voice with it's ability to bend any song and make it sound like Taylor Swift, like those giant soda machines where everything tastes vaguely fruity. Red is the best example of this, every single song is unquestionably Taylor, even when she's also kind of aping other styles.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:04 AM on October 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

What I find interesting about a lot of the criticism surrounding Taylor's music is that people feel it's "disingenuous" for her to keep on playing the so called "victim" card in the relationship story of her albums. Assuming you believe each album tells a unique story (something I'm sure people argue about).

I've listened to a few podcasts where fans/critics are waiting for her to "mature" or to tackle more adult subject matter. At least that's the take I'm hearing. I'm not a consistent enough fan or listener of her music to take a position on this, but it's something I found interesting because I've heard it from various pop-culture review sites.
posted by Fizz at 8:17 AM on October 21, 2017

Or I guess she could stop channeling her inner vindictive 14 year old into song and write some growed up tunes for herself.

Why would Kraft stop selling cheeze singles?

She's a master at making the fairly narrowly targeted Max Martin music content that goes after the mid to early teen female demographic. She makes really slick extruded pop product, but it's still extruded pop product. It's predictable and looks good on projected sales pie charts at board meetings. There's very little reason for her to change at this point.
posted by bonehead at 9:31 AM on October 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

"I still think this style of video with written words flying around in sync to the audio are fun. "

That's called a "lyric video" and as a professional production, grow out of the homegrown YouTube "karaoke scroll" lyric videos that teenagers would sync to their favorite songs and post on YouTube (because they didn't get rapidly DMCA'd), which turned out to be unaccountably popular (given their incredibly low production values!) because people want to know what the lyrics are saying. Amateur lyric videos were often getting more views than the official music video! Artists and labels realized they could put out their own lyric videos (often when the song first drops, before the music video is released) for play on YouTube, and they could fancy it up a bit, but still produce them very cheaply compared to music videos, and capture all that traffic who wanted a lyric video that showed them the words while saying them. Also most artists only produce a couple of music videos per album, but can cheaply and easily do lyric videos for every song, which will capture a ton of YouTube play.

So yeah! An emerging art form, driven by the new medium of streaming video and the fanworks that resulted and the music industry's response to new forms of "airplay." They're fun to watch evolve!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:37 AM on October 21, 2017 [15 favorites]

someone raises the hue and cry about how we NEVER EVER talk about any male artists that way on MeFi, how mean... somehow forgetting the virulent hatred that comes pouring out any time Kanye West is discussed here. Come the fuck on.

The fact that we're also racist doesn't really make our misogyny better.
posted by howfar at 10:03 AM on October 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

i don't even expect her to sue them all into oblivion, but she could actually say something, like other artists, other than creeping on her fans' tumblrs and liking their love-in posts about how she couldn't possibly be a nazi. not much to ask especially in her case, she's being actively promoted as a totem. i'm sympathetic, but not too much in this case, as she's an artist known to smartly utilise both press and her songs and public persona to communicate specific intent about herself and her branding.
posted by cendawanita at 10:11 AM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

anyway, i loved 1989 but every single from this upcoming one has left me bored. so i guess i'll just wait till the album drops and see if it's worth even waiting.
posted by cendawanita at 10:12 AM on October 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

i'm still trying to puzzle through my own intense boredom tbh, and i feel part of it is explained by this trope about how celebrities' mental age/maturity calcify at the age their celebrity debuts, and for someone who i enjoy for the ability to describe certain parts of being a girl, even though i used to find her country stuff more precocious than authentic, yeah i'm not really looking forward to witnessing an entire album of arrested development.
posted by cendawanita at 10:28 AM on October 21, 2017

There's a great song that starts out
"I stay out too late
Got nothing in my brain
That's what people say..."

then handles it this way:
"'Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play
And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, baby
I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
Shake it off, I shake it off"

it's a pretty good song.
posted by fraula at 10:43 AM on October 21, 2017 [7 favorites]

to the escaped military AI construct that is Taylor

Nah, Taylor Swift is very gifted, but not in the realm of music. She's a marketing professional, and a very good one (I saw an interview with her where she said if she wasn't doing music, she'd be working in marketing.)

In fact, the snarky comparison to the Stones is apt, because she's basically a modern day Mick Jagger. It may have started with the music but it ends at the bottom line.
posted by klanawa at 11:07 AM on October 21, 2017 [7 favorites]

It's like a stack of Dan Brown-level symbological enigmas, codes and secrets, though with the central mystery being some dumb Twitter/Instagram beef between two celebrities famous mostly for being famous.

Fact: the term "snake people" for millennials comes from a beef between Taylor Swift and House Kardashian.
posted by acb at 12:01 PM on October 21, 2017

If we're going to break out into that, Ed Sheeran I guess is the obvious parallel?

That "I'm in luurve with your body" song, that sounds like a shite Hot Chip song and is everywhere, really ought to have a Windowlicker-style video: imagine the camera panning around a king-sized bed, with shiny satin sheets, and then, from the billowing folds, emerges Sheeran's grinning, Furby-like visage, well-moisturised and horribly, viscerally physical.
posted by acb at 12:12 PM on October 21, 2017 [9 favorites]

She tried to use legal means to get the memes that started this whole thing taken down, but was thwarted.

Jesus, knowing what we know now, reading anything Mitch Sunderland wrote gets a creepy extra layer.
posted by kmz at 12:33 PM on October 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

Well, she does admit to getting drunk in the song, so I guess that counts as being a bit more mature.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:43 PM on October 21, 2017

the word choices within the rhythm of the song end up rhyming

Rhyming "face" with "face" and "gorgeous" with "furious" are one of the things that really bugged me!
posted by smoke at 2:00 PM on October 21, 2017

My kids really like Taylor Swift, and I am so glad I can, thanks to this thread, ask them if they have heard this song before they ask Alexa to play it. Cool dad for the win!

Now everyone into the Camry! We're going to Hot Topic!

i kind of like the song, though, especially the bass and drums.
posted by 4ster at 3:06 PM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

I like the arrangement. I think they got the basic feel from Yazoo's Only You.
posted by bhnyc at 3:12 PM on October 21, 2017

the word choices within the rhythm of the song end up rhyming

Rhyming "face" with "face" and "gorgeous" with "furious" are one of the things that really bugged me!

My point was that it had more of that other poetic thing whose name I can't remember than modern rhyming. I know my comment would have been a lot more clear if I could remember the proper word so that one of us could look it up and include a link or something. But I can't. But please don't completely quote me out of context?
posted by eviemath at 3:58 PM on October 21, 2017

I wish we could get over the idea that being critical about a female artist's creative output is automatically misogynist. Kinda feels like that notion itself is misogynistic, since it seems the people pushing that narrative can't abide any criticism of their faves.
posted by palomar at 4:01 PM on October 21, 2017 [7 favorites]

like, for real, it's okay to talk critically about an artist's seeming lack of growth in their own work, or to discuss how an artist's carefully curated image grows stale. Insisting that no one do that kind of indicates that you don't think the art/ist can stand up to scrutiny.
posted by palomar at 4:05 PM on October 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

This is a Sex Pistols song in makeup and a tight dress. These lyrics are about frustrated lust turning to anger and about blaming someone else for your attraction to them. A guy singer with a mean voice could make something really creepy of them.

"You should take it as a compliment
That I got drunk and made fun of the way you talk.
You should think about the consequence
Of your magnetic field being a little too strong."

"And I'm so furious
At you for making me feel this way.
But, what can I say?
You're gorgeous."

"There's nothing I hate more than what I can't have.
You are so gorgeous. It makes me so mad."
posted by ckridge at 5:17 PM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

They're not saying that she's a Nazi, just that she has a big fan base among the Alt-Right and she's never denounced them.

I mean, I can understand the appeal:

• Extremely white
• Aggrieved
• Seeing relatively innocuous things as actually a big deal
• Not as smart as they think
• Ruthless image management that doesn't actually manage to fool anyone

I'd honestly be surprised if Tay-tay turned out to be a Nazi sympathiser, because she always struck me as being basically incompetent when it comes to solving problems and it probably never occurred to her that this actually is a problem.
posted by Merus at 6:29 PM on October 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

I really like the lyrics, and think Swift is a remarkable talent, but I don't think she wrote these lyrics and they don't fit her. Most of her songs are co-written and this one was written with Max Martin and a guy who calls himself Shellback. It's not the viewpoint of someone as beautiful as her, and really it's a way of looking at the world that is a mostly male flaw I recognize in myself. It gives me the uncomfortable feelng I get when I listen to 70s Elton John songs and the viewpoint is clearly Bernie Taupin's (want to back to the farm, want to have a bar fight, etc).
posted by w0mbat at 7:11 PM on October 21, 2017

Hey, now! Let’s not disparage the John/Taupin collaboration, okay?
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 7:22 PM on October 21, 2017

So I know there are alternative explanations out there, but are the lyrics rubbing anyone else the wrong way?

It's not okay to...
-make fun of someone for the way he (or she) talks
-explain that insults should be considered complements
-use alcohol as an excuse for bad behavior

...and the part of about blaming someone's "magnetic fields" sounds (to me at least) a reference to sexual assault.
posted by oceano at 7:29 PM on October 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

I don't have any problem with the idea Swift wrote the lyrics, because I don't see anything intrinsically male about resenting someone because you lust after them. Men act up about it more, because men have impunity, but it seems unlikely that they own the feeling.

It's not a wholesome way to feel, but pop singers are all about celebrating baser instincts.
posted by ckridge at 7:30 PM on October 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

I don't like to think of myself as a snob, but I guess I must be. Because this doesn't strike me as especially good music (nor especially bad), just *current* music. Pop music is, by definition, the music that's popular in the given moment, and generally it's popular because it's on the radio (or whatever it is the kids listen to these days). That doesn't mean it can't also be good, but it sure doesn't mean it *has* to be good...just the latest thing. Would you, could you, seriously compare Taylor Swift with the Beatles? With Joni Mitchell? With Jimi Hendrix?

Would you trade your funk...for *this*?
posted by uosuaq at 8:21 PM on October 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Without ascribing positive or negative value to this - those are really not sex pistols lyrics, and this really is not a sex pistols song in any kind of disguise or way at all.
posted by ominous_paws at 12:23 AM on October 22, 2017

I think there's a significant difference between "You make me so mad, I'm going home to my cats" and "You got nothing to say, I kick you in the head and beat you black and blue". The Taylor Swift song is about unattractive resentment that expresses itself in sulking, not talking to the person, getting drunk and making fun of them to others and then going home to cats. I think it would be a major advance for feminism if every man who resented a woman for his attraction to her behaved in that way, instead of (for example) trying to control her behaviour, kick her in the head, or threaten to kill her.
posted by Aravis76 at 1:46 AM on October 22, 2017 [5 favorites]

It would be a major advance for feminism if those men stopped what they were doing, thought about it, learned something, sought help, changed their thinking, changed their behaviour, and stopped spreading casual misogyny to their friends and children. If they simply cut back to childishly indulging their resentment they'd be back to threats and violence in no time because all those things are connected, as it has been a major project of feminism to demonstrate.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 2:47 AM on October 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

I do wonder if some nerd somewhere online has put together proper data on this

This is the Internet. Of course they have.
posted by flabdablet at 5:03 AM on October 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

Would you trade your funk...for *this*?
posted by flabdablet at 5:12 AM on October 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

somehow forgetting the virulent hatred that comes pouring out any time Kanye West is discussed here

Everything old is new again.
posted by flabdablet at 5:25 AM on October 22, 2017

I'll resist the hack (and effortful) step of posting link after link to lyrics from 50s, 60s etc hits that are all repetition, but I do wonder if some nerd somewhere online has put together proper data on this.

There's actually a new Vox video on this very topic, complete with some nerd!
posted by thebots at 6:56 AM on October 22, 2017

Not only some nerd, same nerd!
posted by flabdablet at 7:04 AM on October 22, 2017

There's a difference between childish resentment and actual entitlement. I can - and regrettably often do - childishly resent people who have more [money, success, sex, love, friends, happiness, citations, publications, holidays, good looks] than I do. I acknowledge that this is a stupid feeling on my part and in no way the fault or problem of the people whose good fortune I resent. Songs that dramatise these stupid feelings, while highlighting their total lack of rational justification, can be a cathartic way of working through them and getting back to a sensible state. Entitlement - the feeling that my resentment is their fault, and they owe me something because of it - is a quite different belief and has different consequences in terms of real world behaviour. It's also a gendered belief. There are a lot of men singing/talking/writing about what women owe them because they feel bad for stupid reasons. I don't think that's comparable to women singing/talking/writing about how they feel bad for stupid reasons, unless the women are also saying how the men should be beaten/killed/raped/punished as a result. I don't think this song is in that genre.
posted by Aravis76 at 9:01 AM on October 22, 2017

"Gorgeous" is (metaphorically) a Sex Pistols song because it expresses resentment at having sexual feelings and blames them on someone else, and because it is at the same time a completely contrived and artificial pop song. You could make an argument no Sex Pistols song expresses any such resentment or blame, though not a strong one. You just can't argue that "Gorgeous" doesn't. The words are right there.

Mocking someone publicly and then going home to sulk with your cats is a wholly different response to resentment and blame than kicking them in the head and beating them black and blue. However, this does not mean that the underlying resentment and blame is somehow different. People who act violently when they feel resentment do so because they have been let to get away with it, not because they have a special kind of resentment. It is pleasant to believe that there is a special kind of wicked human with particularly vile impulses that we don't have, but it is seldom the case. There are well-trained and poorly trained humans.

None of this reflects in the slightest on Ms. Taylor's or Mr. Rotten's actual impulses and training, by the way. They are pop singers. Their job is to express strong emotions cathartically. We can deduce something about their audience's impulses and training by how the songs are received, though.
posted by ckridge at 9:20 AM on October 22, 2017

People who act violently when they feel resentment do so because they have been let to get away with it, not because they have a special kind of resentment. It is pleasant to believe that there is a special kind of wicked human with particularly vile impulses that we don't have, but it is seldom the case. There are well-trained and poorly trained humans.

That's an analysis that implies gender has no bearing on how resentment is expressed in the world, and on people's moral beliefs about the proper response to resentment. I think it does, not because men are a special kind of vile human but because patriarchy is a thing. Granted patriarchy, I think the analogy between Taylor Swift and the Sex Pistols is disingenous. It's not sheer coincidence that the violence is in his song and the sulking in hers.
posted by Aravis76 at 10:03 AM on October 22, 2017

That's an analysis that makes no explicit comment one way or another on how gender bears on how resentment is expressed. It is noncommittal, not disingenuous, and it is noncommittal because in that passage I was concerned with discussing feelings, not acts. There are many people who do think that people who act violently are a special kind of vile human with special vile feelings.

All that said, I agree that parts of patriarchy are a particular kind of bad training that produces men who respond violently or abusively to feeling desire.

It is notable, though, that Ms. Swift is quite deliberately setting out to sound like a resentful guy. If you are listening with even half an ear "You should take it as a compliment" snaps your head right around. Just now, in this media context, that phrase marks out the guy catcalling on the corner. Swift is deliberately crossing two lines at once, one of civil speech and one of gender. She is actively inviting comparison with guys and actively setting out to look bad, so as to briefly win at the endless pop music game of "I'm not the same, I have no shame." Once she has your ear, she dissembles behind girliness and self-mockery. Malicious rage is quickly, artfully bared and then veiled again. She is not a star by accident.
posted by ckridge at 11:47 AM on October 22, 2017 [5 favorites]

You just can't argue that

Oh. Well, OK then
posted by ominous_paws at 11:59 PM on October 22, 2017

I've listened to a few podcasts where fans/critics are waiting for her to "mature" or to tackle more adult subject matter

Oh don't worry, she's still got plenty of time to start doing songs about nostalgia for young adulthood or being in a loveless marriage. And people will find them equally annoying.

Though are women pop stars even allowed to do songs about nostalgia? Wouldn't that involve admitting they didn't gracefully disappear or OD and die at age 27?
posted by happyroach at 1:23 PM on October 23, 2017