“Look, you can choose to like Taylor Swift, and I concede she’s so good at the exact thing she does that she’s hard to resist in certain contexts. If the occasional three-minute bursts of Swift make you feel good, I won’t deny you that.” —Mark Hemingway in TheFederalist.com
I’m caught in a bit of digital hi jinx regarding #TaylorSwift.
Most of my blood tribe are #Swifties. I am not. That should suffice to paint a picture of how some of our “good natured” texting exchanges go.
Disclosure: I’m 67 and have lived through the life-and-times of many a pop star. While there are the rare exceptions—virtuoso talent, brilliant composition, scintillating ideation—most Stars rise and fall on very formulaic fare.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
While acknowledging her success, Hemingway articulates his reservations about the Swift phenomenon as well. In particular, his comparison of Paul McCartney’s “Eleanor Rigby” and Swift’s anything is illuminating. And it illustrates the gut-level ambivalence I have regarding the world’s current top pop star.
I do not anticipate changing any minds or increasing my familial popularity given my (at best) lukewarm posture towards Taylor Swift. And, as Hemingway notes above, that’s OK.