This morning, driving home from chairing an AA meeting at Club Recovery, I was listening NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, as I often do, when one of the humorous quiz show’s wry, multiple-choice questions made oblique reference to Taylor Swift without mentioning her name… a fake story about an athlete (a tennis player, maybe) flying to a tournament in Australia but creating a delay as organizers were forced to halt proceedings to await his celebrity girlfriend’s arrival. The reason this made a dent in my consciousness was that until last Wednesday I had no idea what Taylor looked like. Of course I’d heard of her but at that point I couldn’t have picked her out of a lineup. Since then she’s been referenced in nearly every news show, from PBS to MSNBC to Fox News. She’s omnipresent.
As I logged on to Substack to edit a post offering some of my vintage stereo gear for sale, the first thing I saw was this piece by fellow Substacker Meghan Murphy, so I read it, found it amusing and shared it on Facebook. Big mistake.
Here’s my pinned Facebook post. I meant it when I typed it in July but as the racing season approached I weakened. Say what you will about FB but it’s a good platform for certain things, like rounding up people to meet at races and posting photos and blurbs from those races. Also, since Instagram and Facebook Stories have largely cloned TikTok’s three-second, vertical video format (with hideous music) and since I refuse to watch race car clips shot this way (thank you, Lanky Turtle, for keeping the faith) that leaves Facebook. After Sebring I’ll likely renew my boycott.
In any event, that article re-post has generated the most responses I’ve had in quite a while (63 when I started typing this, 72 now), mostly unfavorable to me. Here’s a sampling of the reactions:
BREAKING: Someone going to lots of effort to swear they aren’t a music snob or hipster doesn’t like something mainstream and massively popular. Film at 11.
Like racing fans didn’t have similar coverage of Sandy Andretti and her Kmart couture every race on ABC in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s.
ME: I remember Sandy well! SUGGESTED EDIT: Kmart Kouture. Why yes, I did spend my whole career in advertising, why do you ask?
She’s a good person who sends a very good message to young women. We could do worse than to have her as an example.
I hung out with her builder in the Bahamas’s 4-5 years ago. He has teenage daughters and she was fantastic to them
It’s just odd for so many MEN in particular to have such strong negative feelings about her… and feel the need to post about it.
Young, successful woman supporting her partner triggering AN-GRR-EEE white guys is highly entertaining.
ME: Wait, are you saying Taylor Swift is a Person of Color, like the whitest PoC on TV, MSNBC’s lovely Alicia Menendz, whom I only recently learned is the daughter of “embattled” Congressman Bob Menendez
She’s successful. Either you like her music or you don’t.
Others could emulate her generosity of spirit.
The Beatles were a boy band with sappy songs that are not holding up well. And John Lennon openly discussed beating both of his wives and disinherited his sons and left everything to Yoko Ono. And they were all drug addled idiots that promoted hard drug use and were banned from parts of India because their drug use was considered disrespectful.
ME: Mention of the Beatles reminds me of the first “manufactured” musical act I remember from my yute: The Monkees, 1966. There were undoubtably others before my time. Taylor is following a time honored path.
Here’s one of my favorites:
One would think that a Gen X man who is focused on motorsport would have far lower hanging fruit than a woman whose body of work contains enough circumstantial positive anecdotes to absolve themselves of random online negative opinions, unless those opinions are based upon such trivialities as jealousy. Certainly Liberty and the FIA deserve much worse.
Sorry, fifteen years too old to be a Gen X man, although I will admit to being white.
More:
Patrick King, waiting for more posts about the other bands/artists you dislike. Who else deserves a post about how much they suck?
Have you listened to Taylor’s entire canon? What about her talent do YOU dislike so much? What prompted you to post about this right now?
The lack thereof.
ME: Listening to “I Can See You” through good headphones as I type. The first three words are “Ah, Ah, Ah,” obviously Auto-Tuned. As to why now, I was looking to post one of my own Substack articles and the first thing I saw in “suggested readings” was the link I posted.
ME: I have no problem with her appearing during NFL broadcasts because I don’t watch football. On the flip side, I supported Aaron Rodgers dating Danica Patrick and was a big fan of her racing career before anyone had ever heard of her, having seen only her eyes through the visor of her helmet in a Car and Driver article when she raced as the most successful American since Danny Sullivan in British Formula Ford. I didn’t hold her gorgeousness against her though when I saw those later cheesecake shots of her draped over classic muscle cars.
ME: I just went back and reread the excerpt in case I’d missed something. I hadn’t. The (female) author in no way disparages Taylor’s worth as a human being or her niceness as a young lady eight year-old girls might look up to, just her musical talent. From what I’ve seen/heard of her performances I agree.
ME: Not worth taking about? Oh, but she is, regrettably, when she’s cited as having a possible effect on the 2024 presidential election by The Independent.
My issue is the music. Here’s one of my favorite woman talents, among many:
Here’s an earlier take on the Taylor Swift model, except this one can belt it out live, here at the Kennedy Center. No Hollywood effects, no colored smoke or flashing lights, just powerful singing with an orchestra. And way better looking than TS. Whoops! Did I type that out loud?
There was a time when pop and rock were almost interchangeable but that was half a century ago, before the advent of FM radio. Frightening that I remember those days! I was listening to a podcast a couple of nights ago and an Eagles tune came up in the conversation. The speaker mentioned that one of Joe Walsh’s solos was cut to shorten a song for pop/AM airplay. I’d long since abandoned pop/AM stations by then for reasons just like that.
This Facebook post is closing in on the number of reactions I got for the Christmas card with Santa under the hood of his red, white, blue and magenta BMW 3.5 CSL like the ones I saw race at Le Mans in 1975, along with the Calder Car in its only race appearance.
Sorry, I just had no idea of Taylor’s cultural significance. When I was eight years old I stuck my hand into a shrub thinking I was fetching a ball of some sort. Turns out it was a hornet's nest. Looks like I've done it again! No más!
Anyway, I prefer Kandace, what can I say?
Today’s magical musical memory, by some average old white guys, ten years ago. Note all the non-old folks in the audience. What’s up with that? 😳
I can’t actually stomach her music, much prefer something like Supertramp or Steely Dan, this new pop music has no soul.