I just spent the last 18 hours listening to every Taylor Swift song available to the public. I don't know why I did this, I guess I wanted to truly see if she was as great as her fans and the world say.
What follows is my honest review of the artist Taylor Swift and her 24 albums, (11 studio released.)
First it's important to recognize I am not her target audience, I am a grown man where as her audience is usually females between ages 11 and I'd say conservatively 28ish.
First Taylor swift started in country and began as a sweetheart who wrote safe/cute songs for little girls. She definitely was not a strong singer, but also not bad, she was young and she had what I'd call a, "sweet," voice. It was appropriate for the safe music she made in her early career. Music you could let your daughter listen to without worry.
Right away I could tell Taylor writes most of her songs herself and dies so with her guitar as they are all slow songs about love. This is what I'd expect from a teenage girl.
As her success grew her desire to go more mainstream did also. She would eventually cross over into pop which is where she is now. This is where I will make most of my review as she has been a pop artist far longer than a country artist.
Now she is a grown woman of 35 years old so I can fairly criticize her as she has no more development to go through vocally.
Taylor Swift has over 21 hours of music, meaning if you played every song she has its 21 hours worth, ball park. Out of all her songs I counted maybe 20 that sound different and these are the more upbeat songs. Every song, every damn song sounds slow, some ballad.
100% of her songs are about love, usually from the perspective of a wronged girl or woman. Every song is about some guy who let her down, cheated on her, wronged her, something about that. She is always the victim, always the wronged with the exception of I think two songs being, Tim Mcgraw and You Belong With Me.
Taylor is away hurt, betrayed etc, 21 hours of music... all the same topic and point of view. Her songs sound so similar in fact that it was hard to remember names or when one ended and another began. I had wondered why they all sounded the same, and it hit me. These are the reasons why her music sounds the same.
1. She has no life experience. Taylor was born into ease and luxury, never has struggled and began singing when she was a child, she just flat out didn't experience shit to sing about and it's obvious her inspiration for song writing came from teen romance movies and books.
2. She finds certain words she thinks sound poetic and deep and uses them, for example, "Scarlett," and, "fortnight."
3. She can't really sing amazingly. That soft, sweet, "adequate," voice she had as a girl, yeah that's all it ever turned into. So naturally, she will make the same song over and over because to be frank, she can't do much else vocally other than the, "sweet," voice. She's no Adele or Ariana Grande, so her songs all sound soft, slow, sweet etc. The studios try to make it more than what it is but the fact is she is a very average singer you could find in any High-school or Junior High choir. But she has a high budget and production that carries her.
4. She writes for women, only women, and not JUST women, the generic women. For example, women naturally lack accountability and they all feel they are hurt, abused, victims etc. So Taylor writes generic things that would apply to basically any woman. Its like if I said, "You loved him, and he broke your heart," or, "He was the one, but he left you alone."
Every female would say, "Oh my God that's totally me!"
She leans heavily into female victim mentality and it pays off big time.
"Taylor Swift writes and performs very vocally safe and below average middle school relationships poetry and puts music behind it. It's generic, it's mostly boring and her best work is definitely when she raises the tempo because the slow stuff all sounds the exact same."
