#because they would make her a better songwriter and artist and performer

[terrainofheartfelt]

"DAUGHTER" is such a SONG and I have not gotten over how Beyonce just wove in a 17th century Italian aria?

so like the thing about "Caro mio ben," is that practically every novice vocalist learns to sing it. it's from these anthologies that a 2X Italian Songs and Arias and every voice student learns at least 2 or 3 of these because they are certified good pedagogical tools for learning vocal technique. which means every single person who studied voice (classical or musical theater or just took some voice lessons in high school) has heard this aria.

and it is a pretty little song. it's nice to sing. I learned it when i was a college freshman and learning how to use my instrument. and i am just obsessed that Beyonce Knowles Carter has absolutely taken the same kind of training (because she wouldn't still be wailing if she didn't) learned this little Italian aria from some long forgotten opera by some long forgotten composer, and decided that she liked it so much she would throw it in her country album, and in her country album's MURDER track.

like, she took two of the best women country Genre Songs: Goodbye Earl & Jolene, and merged them to create GOODBYE JOLENE, and she just peppered in this Italian. which may be a reference to "choir boys and altars" but "Caro mio ben" is entirely secular and not sacred at all, which makes it a curious choice, especially since she's used Schubert's Ave Maria in one of her songs before! ("Ave Maria" on I Am Sasha Fierce). actually the text of Caro mio ben roughly translates to

Believe me, my love, when we're apart from each other, my heart languishes. I am faithful to you but I'm always sighing, cease being cruel! it's too much pain!

so it's less about evoking holiness and more about the emotional depth behind the story this and the couple songs preceding it are telling. like!!! crimes of passion! yeehaw! italian!!! she did that!

Queen B is nuts and a classical music girlie and I love her for this. ARTISTE!!!!!

[dd-is-my-guiltypleasure]

David Duchovny: ‘The X-Files took up my life, but it was a miracle’

It's behind a paywall so if somebody has access I would love to read the article

Update : got it, thanks @aimsies-mctaymellburg

David Duchovny: ‘The X-Files took up my life, but it was a miracle’

As Fox Mulder in the hit sci-fi show, the actor and singer peddled fringe conspiracy theories. Now the 63-year-old says Mulder’s paranoia is everywhere.

In hindsight it wasn’t a great idea for me to kick off an interview with David Duchovny by suggesting that he was a musical dilettante. You’re most likely to know Duchovny, of course, as Fox Mulder, the conspiracy-theory-guzzling FBI agent in The X Files, one of the biggest shows of the Nineties, watched at its peak by 30 million in America alone. Perhaps you saw him as the womanising writer Hank Moody in Californication or the 1960s detective Sam Hodiak in Aquarius. You may even have read some of his five books.

Duchovny, a New Yorker living in Los Angeles, is less known for music, although he’s been making rather decent folk-rock for a decade — songwriting, playing guitar and singing in a honeyed drawl. His 2015 songHell or Highwater has been streamed more than a million times while Layin’ on the Tracks, from 2020, has pointed lyrics about a certain politician (“It’s a killing joke that no one laughs at/ A stupid orange man in a cheap red hat”). He has released three albums, with a fourth due next year, and this month plays Latitude festival in Suffolk and the 2,000-capacity Shepherds Bush Empire in London.

So does the 63-year-old feel that he should no longer be seen as just a musical dabbler? “That’s part of a lazy person’s perception,” he says, bristling slightly. “It’s a lens through which people want to see me. I think music is an innocent art form — you listen to it and you have a response. To bring any kind of baggage to bear on it in the beginning seems to me to be dishonest, but that’s the way things go.”

YouTube clips of recent shows suggest people were having a lovely time, I say. This doesn’t have the soothing effect intended. YouTube footage lingers “because of the horror of the cell phone”, Duchovny says. “It’s a pet peeve of mine.” Is he tempted to ban them at his shows, as artists from Prince to Bob Dylan have? “I don’t know that I can enforce that view on anybody.”

For Duchovny, it’s as much about phones limiting his performance as it is about the audience not living in the moment. “To do something unique or for the first time, to reach for a note or play a different melody — all these are chances you might take if you weren’t inhibited by the fact that somebody is [recording] it,” he says. “You’ve got to be able to fail and the ubiquity of cell phones makes failure scarier than it needs to be.”

Failure is the key to another of his jobs: podcasting. In his series Fail Better, he adroitly interviews guests including Bette Midler, Ben Stiller and Sean Penn about their failures. “I feel like I’ve been failing my entire life,” Duchovny said on launching it in May. That may sound strange from a man with English degrees from Princeton and Yale, who has won a Golden Globe for The X Files and another for Californication.

Is he familiar with Elizabeth Day, the British journalist who has hosted a successful podcast called How to Fail since 2018? When Duchovny announced Fail Better, Day tweeted: “I might invite David Duchovny on @howtofail to discuss his failure to be original.”

“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” he says. “If she wants to be rigorous in her thinking, she would investigate what my approach to failure is. I don’t know what her approach to it is. My sense, since failure is universal, is that there’s room out there for more than one discussion.” This is a rather po-faced response to what seemed like a playful comment from Day, and surprising because Duchovny has a wicked sense of humour. He can also afford to be more magnanimous, given that his podcast is at No 12 in the UK chart and hers is at 54.

Gillian Anderson, his X Files co-star, certainly likes his podcast, writing this week on Instagram that she had listened to all of the episodes and found them “intimate and vulnerable ��� very smart questions, although I wouldn’t expect anything else from you [David]”.

“It’s very sweet,” Duchovny says. “I will email her and thank her. I’m sure somebody running my social media is … I don’t really like to be on social media.” Later that day his Instagram account replies to Anderson’s post: “Thank you for listening, you have an open invite [to appear on his podcast]!”

That encounter would be worth hearing because his relationship with Anderson is fascinating. Despite their chemistry in The X Files there were rumours of friction — although they looked to be getting on swimmingly when they appeared on Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show in 2016 to publicise the return of the show, which ran for two more seasons.

When asked by Kimmel about frostiness between her and Duchovny in the Nineties, Anderson collapsed into giggles, laid her head in Duchovny’s lap and put any froideur down to the dampness of Vancouver, where the series was shot. Her hair kept going frizzy, she explained, and “for every single take we’d have to stand there and blow dry my hair again”.

“And I got pissed at that?” Duchovny asked.

“Well, I think it added to the tension,” Anderson said.

“It kinda makes me sound like an asshole,” Duchovny replied.

Anderson had nothing to do with him leaving The X Files in 2002, he says now. “That was just me wanting to have a family, but also to try other things. It had kind of taken up my life. There was no animosity with the actual show and the people that I worked with. I am proud of the show — it was culturally central in a way that it’s very hard to do these days in a fragmented landscape. There’s so many lightning-strike aspects to it that I can’t help but think of it as some kind of a miracle.”

The X Files gave conspiracy theories a kind of nobility — “the truth is out there”, as its tagline ran. Now they are more widespread and pernicious. “Mulder’s way of looking at the world was through conspiracy and that was the fringe at that point,” Duchovny says. “It doesn’t seem to be so fringe any more. It’s really the world that [The X Files creator] Chris Carter foresaw happening almost 30 years ago. He’s almost clairvoyant in that case.” Is Duchovny more evidence-based than Mulder? “Not at all. I’m an artist — I am associative-based and I see poetry as science and science as poetry.” So are there some conspiracy theories that he buys into? “No, I’m talking about art. I think conspiracies are mostly just lazy thinking.”

One failure that has shaped Duchovny is that of his marriage to the actress Téa Leoni, who starred in Bad Boys and Deep Impact. They married in 1997 and have a daughter, West, 25, and a son, Kyd, 22, but divorced in 2014. “That darkness does deepen you. It makes you more empathetic and humble,” Duchovny says. One of the themes of his podcast is “the difference between humiliating and humbling. Often we focus on humiliation in our culture. I don’t see any positives coming from humiliation, but I see a lot of them coming from humility.”

One wonders if the reference to humiliation has something to do with Duchovny checking into rehab for sex addiction in 2008. Could him playing the bed-hopping Hank in Californication be a case of art imitating life? “People never tire of trying to figure that out,” he says with a sigh. “But to me, that’s not what acting is about. I don’t look for things that are mirroring my life in any way.”

Well, there are parallels in Reverse the Curse, the 2023 film that Duchovny directed, starred in and adapted from his book Bucky F***ing Dent. He plays a would-be novelist who has “sacrificed his artistic dream to put food on the table”. His father, a publicist, did the same, publishing his debut at 75, the year before he died. The film has some really funny scenes, including one where Marty and his son have a farting competition in a motel room that ends up smelling like “an aquarium that fed a sock”. That may have come from a line in Aquarius where someone says something similar about a police station. “I might have ripped it off, I’m not sure,” Duchovny says. “ You can ask Elizabeth Day about that.”

David Duchovny will perform at Latitude festival, near Southwold on July 25 and 02 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, W12 on July 27

[twopoppies]

"I would like Harry to be remembered for his great songwriting skills, his voice and the great performer he is, but everything is so overshadowed by the rest that in 20, 30 years I don't know if he will be remembered as one of the greatest of our generation (and he deserves it so much). I just think there's too much noise overshadowing his music"

I'm the say ranting anon as yesterday and I was gonna leave it at that but I saw this and I think is an interesting topic so I'm gonna rant a little bit more (sorry in advance).

It's impossible for anyone to know how is Harry gonna be remembered 30 years from now but what we can do is trying to compare him with the artist we consider legends today.

Lets take Elton John, Freddy Mercury, Prince, George Michael, Madonna, Whitney Houston and David Bowie for example... Each and every single one of them is considered a legend, the most successful in their field, the ones current artist use as inspiration and what they aspire to be. You know what else they have in common? Careers full of rumors, cheating scandals, drugs scandals, gay scandals, failed marriages, fake marriages, money problems, etc, etc, etc.

But those are no the things they're remember for, at the end their music and their art is soo good and made such an impact that all the "noise" sorrounding their careers just take a passive role.

I mean, as a fan, leaving through the rumors and all the nonsense is annoying as fuck and I would love if when I spoke about Harry people ONLY asked me about his music because he is so much more than his supposed girlfriends but what can I do?

And of course it is possible to be successful in the industry without playing the game, I wasn't trying to imply Zayn isn't but there's levels to that success, at least in the eyes of the general public.

Like let's be honest, all 5 of the boys has had a successful solo career so far but which one of them is more likely to achieve the legend status your anon is talking about??? Everyone under the sun knows the answer is Harry.

And why is that? It's not because he's has a powerful voice or because he's an excellent lyricist or because he's and incredible performer. Of course he's all that. But the reason he has achieved so much and is probably get the legend status someday is because how his team has marketed him. I'm sorry but without Columbia and the azzoffs Harry wouldn't be where he is today 🤷‍♀️ They're horrible people but they sure as hell know what they're doing and Harry is happy with their job and where his career is going so...

Yep. Marketing really does make a difference.

There’s something unquantifiable about the artists you mention, though. Take Madonna, for example. Cyndi Lauper came out at the same time. She had a much better voice. Her singles were huge. She had a great look. She definitely had fans (still does), but Madonna had that extra something that drew the masses in and kept them there (and oh my god did she have scandals and gossip galore—some of them very purposely manufactured).

And I agree with you about the Azoffs/Sony/Harry’s team. They’re taking him where he wants to go.

In reference to this

[notyouraryang0dd3ss]

https://www.tumblr.com/shitswiftiessay/749223380728889344/taylor-sees-her-prot%C3%A9g%C3%A9-out-charting-her-for-the

saw this in the anti tag and i have so many things to say (it's gonna be a bit long):

one: those tweets prove further that the reason taylor keeps coming on billboard hot 100 lists is because swifties are chart obsessed and have no problem streaming her songs all day if it means it'll appear on charts. they've got nothing else going for them except 'she keeps topping the charts' because there is zero songwriting, melody, performing or visual talent in any of her songs or tours.

two: taylor distanced herself from/turned on olivia (i still don't know the details of the deja vu suing case so i won't make assumptions as to what exactly happened between them) as soon as olivia started threatening her fame. in my biased opinion, i would also say that olivia is a better songwriter and overall artist than taylor (i love her guts album), and taylor didn't like seeing that a young artist could potentially outshine her. so they're not friends anymore. taylor then latched on to sabrina because she wasn't as threatening to her career as olivia was, but now that espresso has the potential to top taylor's song on the charts, swifties are turning on her too. and if this continues, i have no doubt that so will taylor. (side note: espresso is such a fun summer bop!)

it's extremely pathetic that taylor feels so threatened and insecure because of up-and-coming 20-something year old artists despite being arguably one of the biggest pop artists in the world right now.

i also feel bad for both sabrina and olivia. imagine just starting out in the music industry, and your childhood idol seeming so eager and genuine in being your best friend, but completely flips around when you show any potential of being successful. taylor is a vile person.

also! you are my fav anti ts blog! i love your takes on all this stuff. keep doing what you're doing queen

“you are my fav anti ts blog!” omg stop 😳 i’m blushingggggggg

sorry this took me so long to respond to. personal life events are occurring and i also have the attention span of a goldfish now for some reason. im going to answer in order of your points:

one: swifties are the streaming farms they keep accusing sabrina of using. also taylor swift herself has probably bought and used streaming farms more than any other person on the spotify top 10 list. its this and taylor is sinister enough to drop new releases to block artists from getting #1’s (she did this recently with billie right?). also swiftie chart obsession just shows how insecure they are??? toxic by britney spears never went #1 and its her most popular song. i’ve never seen a fanbase as insecure as swifties because the way they lash out over even the perception of a threat towards taylor is just…so inappropriate? its such a disproportionate reaction to whatever the “threat” is (in this case, charting). like the fact swifties keep coming into the anti tag just demonstrate how intensely insecure they are. no other fanbase is so fragile they go out of their way to go and bully people for not liking their fave. like its usually the other way around, antis harassing stans. but you have swifties coming into the anti tag (where we appropriately tag and do not engage with swifties) and harassing us? for not liking her? in the anti tag? its really a testament to their insecurity that they must bulldoze anything that threatens them and their fave. which ties into the second point-

two: wasn’t sabrina like olivia’s opp because olivia’s ex cheated on her with sabrina? is that correct? that’s makes it so nasty that taylor went out of her way to purposely befriend sabrina after cutting ties with olivia. and immature! and petty! and just reflective of how low taylor stoops to make people feel like shit! not only that, but someone who is almost half her age! how awful do you have to be to do that? olivia is more talented than taylor and poses a massive threat to taylor because the music they both make appeals to the same demographic of people. the problem is olivia is actually a part of that demographic, which threatens the fuck out of taylor. how lame do you have to be to feel threatened by other female artist success all the time? and not only that, but the same people you know who adore you (and therefore easier to manipulate because you know they will trust every word out of your mouth) because you’re their childhood idol? what a horrible person.

and espresso is a reallyyyyyyy good pop song!!!

[goodold-fashionedlovergirl]

The whole jury topic hasn’t left my head, so I thought I’ll put my notes down here.

I've also put down who the German and Austrian jury was (not names but jobs) so I'd be interested if anybody knows who was in your countries jury and if it's as imbalanced as the ones I found.

So my first opinion is that I am not against jurys overall, however, I think they need an overhaul.

Jurys exist because some time ago people said that Eastern European countries just give each other all the votes and this is unfair. That is obviously not true and also Juries don’t stop voting blocks (looking at you, Greece and Cyprus).

In my opinion, the role of the Jury should be an impartial judge of the music that is presented, and give votes to the countries that send songs that aren’t very accessible to a viewer when you hear it the first time.

Technical the jury has a set of things they should look out for when voting:

Vocal capacity of the artist(s)

Performance on stage

Composition and originality of the song

Overall impression of the act

For example, The Swiss song Watergun was memed because a Swiss guy sings about not wanting to be a soldier. He won’t be because he is lucky enough to live in a country that is historically neutral. As a viewer, you think this is silly and make jokes. You might get turned off from voting for him because you disagree with the message that he sends out. If you are in the Jury of a country this shouldn’t matter. You should have heard the song, and thought “This man has extremely good vocals, I’ll mark him up for that”.

(Also, not sure if everybody is aware of that: the jury doesn’t vote on the same show we saw on Saturday - there is a Jury Finale the day before. Apparently, Norway had some troubles with her vocals on that day which is why she got a lower score.)

I’m also gonna say this: the categories mentioned above absolutely do not warrant Loreens incredible lead in the Jury votes (as a reminder, she had 340 points. Israel the second placed only got 177 points) I don’t think a 163-point difference is that fair, what did Loreen do that was so much better compared to Noa Kirel? The stage show was impressive for both, I don’t think either of the songs was particularly original.

On the other hand, Blanca Paloma from Spain only got 95 points. Eaea is a song that I had to listen to about 6 times before it clicked for me, so it’s not a very accessible song. However, she has amazing vocals (I’d go so far to say she was the best female vocalist on that day), and the staging was great. To be honest I thought she would be in the top 3 of the jury vote just for that.

This is why I’m now thinking that the Jury didn’t do the job that I think they have. I did a quick google and found out about some of the juries of the evening:

Austria:

Editor of a radio channel (Alternative/ pop is mainly played there)

A music journalist

A journalist for the culture editorial office

A Schlager singer

a bass player for a pop band (that was a bit hard to find as the first thing you find of this guy is that he makes lamp)

Germany: 

an actress/singer who was in Eurovision in the 70s, 

a pop-singer and songwriter

a music agent who got started as the drummer in a pop band 

the singer of a pop band who was also in the talk of representing Germany this year

the head of music of a radio channel - from a quick google search the radio station mainly plays pop

5 people 4 of them are in pop music. Not quite diverse is it?

I have also looked if I can find who was in the Swiss jury this year but didn’t find anything yet. (I looked for the German-speaking countries, as I am German speaking)

However, just from the 2 juries, I think I know where one of the problems is: they are extremely pop music focused.

To get a meaningful jury vote, I would love to see some diversity. Get songwriters in there. Or maybe a theatre director? All countries have a national opera, I’m sure some staging driector could judge on the performance on stage. A vocal coach who isn’t just in pop music. I also think that 5 people isn’t big enough to get the diversity you need. Make it 10 people! And don’t add people who are on a radio station, they will vote for what they can play.

Also why I am not about to say that the jury needs to be abolished completely, this is the Televote only score:

Blanca Paloma is an incredible singer as already said - it’s just not a song you hear once and love immediately. Also, I may be biased but Austria doesn’t deserve only 16 points. 

Unfortunately, the running order has a big input into the Televote score. Example: maybe you are still out, come home late and decide to switch on Eurovision during song 10. Or you just forget what song #5 sounded like.

Some of you might take notes for every song and decide who you call for after careful consideration. I can say that I don’t do that, I have my favourite that I vote for and I’ve decided that a few days if not weeks before the show.

But I don’t think the jury should have so much power. I think a 75 % public vote and a 25 % jury vote would be fair. This way the public that pays for every vote is more powerful, while songs that could be overlooked by the general public can still get a shot.

[thepopcloud]

i can definitely see sabrina having a really big album rollout if she plays her cards right. releasing espresso just before performing at coachella was an extremely smart move from her and her team. so i really hope we get to see more smart decisions like that in the near future.

my advice would be to let espresso marinate more with the general public, maybe let it reach top 5 on the hot 100 or maybe even the number 1 spot. and when it starts to fall out of the top 10 spots (and i'm not talking about those weeks where a big artist releases an album and they occupy all the top spots e.g taylor with ttpd, maybe dua this week, and billie soon with her new album, weeks like these don't count), once they see espresso falling out of the top 10, that's when they should release a new single. cause we want to still have the public's attention when we're releasing our new single okay.

i can see the new single happening in early/mid june. and it should sound completely different from espresso, cause we don't want to bore the public, but it should still be upbeat and easily digestable and also have those playful lyrics that we've grown to love from her.

i don't think there's going to be a third single cause the album is probably going to be short (11 songs maybe), because my girl was busy with eics and the eras tours (but u never know). i can see the album dropping in august, cause her team would want for her to drop it while she still has the public's attention. and it should be accompanied by a single. and for this single we need something that says "I'm here to stay", like that moment when the public think they know exactly what they'll be getting from you, but then you surprise them with something even BETTER. that's the type of single we need.

for the bsides on the album, we need like 2 or 3 bops other than the singles that people would stream the album for, along with some slower tracks with the personal songwriting that we've seen on eics that the people can go back to. i would say take what worked on eics and just keep it up but also switch it up a little, give us something new, sth fresh, sth that would make us think "ooh girl we didn't know you could do this". the album needs to gag the locals. period.

so yeah that's how i can see sabrina playing the long game and truly cementing herself as the next pop girlie. because she's finally found a sound that works for her personally and that she's comfortable with, and at the same time fills a void that pop listeners have been feeling these past few years and makes them want to come back for more.

[thesinglesjukebox]

OLIVIA RODRIGO - "OBSESSED"

She's the press conference, we're the conversation...

[7.09]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: As previously noted, all of Olivia Rodrigo's art-punk moments are perfectly calibrated toward critics who wish that 1993 never ended, but it's a schtick that works. If Rodrigo was not a tremendously skilled performer, both as vocalist and actor, this would feel tedious. The way she sneers and whispers and whines functions incredibly in her system; the music is slightly too pristine (Dan Nigro, for all of his skills as a producer, has still not figured out how to make distorted guitars sound not-Mutt Langeian), but Rodrigo's calculated derangement elevates her surroundings into something glorious. It helps that the lyrics -- co-written by Annie Clark, who tried and mostly failed to access this kind of heat the last three albums -- are actually caustic and not just fake-mean. The spite is self-directed, the call coming from inside the house. [9]

Alfred Soto: Annie Clark's responsible for the intentional melodic cul-de-sacs in the verses, I assume, while the star and Dan Nigro took care of the chorus' expected clatter. I wouldn't mind "Obsessed" on the radio played between "Like That" and "Fortnight," but she's done better than its metaphoric flatness. [6]

Oliver Maier: Didn't realise there were other bonus tracks, I've been too busy rinsing "so american" [8]. This one is another showcase of Rodrigo's efficient songwriting style: funny, expository verses line up the pins for a bowling ball hook to come screaming down the lane and annihilate them. [7]

Andrew Karpan: "Obsessed" is her sharpest rawk record yet, containing the best application of this guitar riff I’ve heard in a decade. In elevating her conceit to a literal ex-lover battle royale, perhaps something of a gender-twist on Scott Pilgrim, she turns it into something that provokes, like all good Olivia records do. A torch song for nostalgia culture, trapped by the soft, easy comfort of foreclosing on the dreams of yesterday’s future, trapped inside a past whose sounds it will never escape. “I remember every detail you have ever told me, so be careful, baby,” she says. Don’t say we weren’t warned.  [7]

Leah Isobel: I usually enjoy Olivia's intellectual approach, but "Obsessed" feels so precisely, studiously engineered to be the kind of song that teenagers call "sapphic" that it ends up losing me. [5]

Taylor Alatorre: "I like [Olivia] with the melodies, I don't like [Olivia] when she acts tough." [3]

Nortey Dowuona: Somehow this is not the most unflattering portrait of a theater kid whose talent and charm won't win them the undivided loyalty of their partner, and by extension their audience, that we're covering this week. But at least in four years/four months/yesterday we won't be regretfully disavowing it, so full points! [10]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Teenage romance at its most entertaining: unhinged, mean-spirited, and untethered from reality. Olivia, ride those "la-da-da-da, da-da-da"s all the way to the bank. [8]

Mark Sinker: My favourite bassline, my favourite MBV callback, my favourite mood… [10]

Isabel Cole: For me, Rodrigo’s defining moment as an artist remains the opening of SOUR: not “brutal,” which is a bop, but the little intro, where she cuts off some dramatic strings to announce before the guitars kick in: “I want it to be, like, messy.” I find that moment endearing because it feels like she’s trying to convey that she’s aiming for a certain artistic rawness, but doing so in a way that undermines her goal by calling attention to the effort involved in striking the pose. It's a sweetly teenaged thing to do, the musical equivalent of cutting up your jeans just so. Unfortunately, the reason I think about it whenever I hear one of her songs is that I can never quite shake the sense that she’s playacting at all these big emotions. Her vocal affectations -- bananies-and-avocadies whisper-singing, a deliberately tuneless wail -- are common enough in the pop girl universe, and I have nothing a priori against them, but on her they always feel like affectations, lacking pathos or bite. She sings like she’s doing an imitation of someone else, even though she writes her own songs. Sometimes she serves up a jam regardless, but on “obsessed” the hooks are not landing. The track is too muted for tension or darkness, too polished for its own rock-star fantasies. [4]

Katherine St. Asaph: I hate that I don't hate being pandered to this hard. [9]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[sizzlingpatrolfox]

read your TS post and honestly just find it quite interesting that so many things you criticize when it comes to bts whether some members as people or artists...are all present in TS if not even more, and suddenly when it comes to this white woman that is an awful performer, write the same kind of dull repetitive music always clutching at the same topics, doesn't renew herself as an artist, is full of white feminism bullshit, and a chart obsessed person are all things you never seem to mention. Like the biased perspective when it comes to her is quiet something by all her fans.

Because I don't discuss Taylor Swift in this blog. This isn't a freaking Taylor Swift blog.

And also, because I don't care. She never promised anyone anything, she never set herself up as a role model or beacon for social injustices like BTS did. Taylor fans either aren't running up and down every known platform screaming how much of an activist she is the way armys do with BTS. Taylor isn't called BulletproofGirlz and her fans aren't called Adorable Representative M.C. For Youth. She never went from being Yes I'm the voice of the underdogs and the misunderstood to it being just a concept and god forsaken debut name.

You sound insufferable so I won't really reply to more than this and I won't look for the post myself, but there's actually a post where I make fun and criticize armys who were "disappointed" in BTS because they said something misogynistic or homophobic. I actually think it's on the verge of IDIOTIC to look for artists to stan/like only so you can bring up their "good deeds" and make yourself feel better. Because you're literally the only one cares about this online moral competition.

In that same post I said I don't care that BTS don't speak on feminism because they're not women, and because I have real people, local heroes to look up to.

In fact, the only time I ever mentioned being slightly disappointed that they didn't use a gay couple, was on the permission to dance MV. If anything, most if not all my posts are actually making fun of armys for believing BTS to be, and talking about them as if they were the biggest activists that ever lived. I don't even talk about them, I talk about the perception army has of them.

And if you're that Beyonce fan, let's not even go there. Link me to Beyonce's many acts supporting feminism. Representation is not enough, I mean donations or posts calling awareness to women's isuess. She doesn't write her own music, either, which is something I have repeatedly seen seen pjms/hive call out vkook for.

Also another thing Taylor never claimed to be: a performer. Everybody knows she's not a performer. She knows she's not a performer. She never promised people anything, so why would I expect her to put on a show? Why would I feel cheated and robbed if I went to her concert and she didn't do full choreography when I know she never did?

I don't think she's a bad songwriter at all, and even the moments when she is (because there are songs I don't like and songs I never listen to), I'm okay with it, too. I'm not a fan of people only to say "look at me I'm a fan of this person that makes me so much better than all of you". I've always liked her songs, and I still like them and I do think they're good. If you don't think so, I really don't give a fuck.. like seriously.

You know what, if you wouldn't have had the need to just argue for the sake or arguing, you would've seen me post an ask I have on drafts about her album where I specifically mention that I agree her sound is stale in this album. Because I do like people a lot and still have my own personality and opinions.

I've always liked her for her music, and I still like her music. If I criticize BTS is for things they used to do, but stopped doing. It's about things they used to be, but stopped being. If someone goes from making good music, to doing music I think it's terrible of course I'm going to have an opinion. I love Harry Styles' first two albums but think as it was is ugly and the whole album is terribly wrong - and I've said it. Like two tweeks ago I was here, sharing old BTS songs because I still think those songs are good. Why am I not allowed to say that at some point they started making bad music? Why amd I not allowed to say they used to do great coreographies and now they're all out of synch and dance poorly?? Taylor never did some of that and then stopped doing it, so what exactly am I going to call her out for?

"The things you never seem to mention" have you realized that I just don't discuss Taylor in this blog? Because it's not a Taylor blog, it really isn't deeper than that. We're only talking about her now because of her album, otherwise I've posted about her what - 5 times in the span of years???

I thought Jimin crying in MOTS concert online was kind of silly considering he was paying million dollars for rent at that time while many people were out of jobs. I can empathize with him and it was sad to see him cry because I'd been rooting for him to go on tour and do everything he wanted to do, because I like Jimin as a person and an artist - so I'm simply rooting for him. I can feel all that while simultaneously being aware of how privileged he was, and still is. And that his pain was bad, but when put in the context of the pandemic, his life wasn't on the line. Jimin himself said in an interview that he was thinking about how young he is and how much money he's earning and what to do with it. Not in an obnoxious, arrogant way but as a form of self-reflection. I respect that. He knows that he's got more money than the regular person, but he also goes through hard times mentally.

Jimin donates so much money every year and has been doing it for a long time - I think that's amazing and I share the posts that report on it because I really believe it's awesome and It's exactly what I would do if I had the money. I was particularly moved when he donated money to buy polio vaccines.

But I'm not asking him to do any of it. I'm not waking up every other thinking "I hope Jimin does some charity today so I can yap about it to losers on tumblr." It's simply not something I think about Jimin or ANYONE. If he does, it's good. If he doesn't, I'll still like him.

I bring this up to repeat something I've said about Jimin and BTS a million times: I don't pity them.

I don't pity Taylor either and I'm not asking anything from her.

Likewise, I'm able to read the lyrics "you wouldn't last a day in the asylum where they raised me" and know that it's just a lyric and giggle at the memes that make fun of that because she's lived a fairly awesome life. That's songwriting to you, btw. Not everything is literal.

I've never been interested in Taylor Swift's life, and I've spent literal years not knowing one single thing about it, but if she said "new music this friday" you bet I was going to be there, waiting for it. Same goes for Harry Styles and so many other people I listen to. And I've talked a dozen times about how I'm hoping it'll get to the point where I'll be able to be that kind of Jimin fan, as well. Where I don't care what he does or where he is, but I'll still be always curious to hear his new music.

[mr-divabetic]

"You can go around all your life singing stuff that’s just basically a song,” Shirley Brown said. “But I think you are supposed to relate to what’s happening—inner feelings.”Shirley Brown sang in church in West Memphis, Arkansas, until she was discovered at age 14 by Albert King, blues guitarist and singer, singing at the Harlem Club in Brooklyn, Illinois.  She worked with Albert for a period of nine years (where he was her manager), and rubbed elbows with Soul luminaries such as Johnnie Taylor and Little Milton. Blues legend Albert King persuaded Shirley Brown to sign with Stax Records and release her smash single “Woman To Woman.”  Soul Express describes Woman to Woman as a milestone in the history of Southern soul music. Starting with a dramatic rap, it tells of a woman determined to hold on to her man and tell it over the phone to her rival.  Hello, may I speak to Barbara. Barbara, this is Shirley. You might not know who I am, but the reason I'm calling you is because I was going through my old man's pockets this morning and I just happened to find your name and number. So, woman to woman, I don't think it's being any more than fair than to call you and let you know where I'm coming from.”

Woman to Woman, lovingly referred to as the soul soap opera, was written by James Banks, Henderson Thigpen, and Eddie Marion. The songwriters offered the song first to Inez Foxx, who passed on it. “She didn't want to do it. She felt like the rap part in the beginning of the song was for a male artist, and a song like that with a rap would be better for a person like Isaac Hayes," James Banks told Soul Express. 

The song's recording took more than one session. But Bobby Manuel, who played guitar on the sessions, said, “The recording session (for Woman to Woman) was magical. We all knew it was a hit record. Everybody was really excited."  Shirley was nominated for a Grammy for Best R&B Performance, Female, but Aretha Franklin and Ain't Nothing like a Real Thing won that year. Millie Jackson, who was also nominated in the same category that year, told QuestLove on his podcast that Aretha should have been excluded from being nominated in that category because her recording failed to meet the qualifications. 

"Woman to Woman" reached No. 1 on the R&B charts and No. 22 on the pop charts. The song proved so popular that Country Music legend Barbara Mandrell covered it, and Lonnie Youngblood talked to Barbara and blew his horn on the mid-tempo answer song, Man to Woman. A year after the song's success, Stax Records folded.   Shirley Jones chased her dreams to New York City, where Clive Davis signed her to his Arista Records label. . “I was one of the first soul singers he (Clive) signed. I was there before Whitney and Aretha. Clive said that if we could ever get the right material, we could have a hit. But he felt that the material was too Southern. He didn’t want that Southern soul sound.  Clive and Shirley Brown didn't see eye-to-eye in the direction of her music. "Clive Davis wanted me to do a Bette Midler song or something like Barbra Streisand. I could probably sing those kinds of songs, but I didn't feel them." In early 1977, Shirley’s first Arista single, a soul ballad called Blessed Is the Woman (With a Man like Mine) was released.  “I’ve always been a great admirer of Aretha Franklin,” Shirley Brown admits. Some people feel that Shirley Brown and Aretha Franklin are similar to the Isaac Hayes/Barry White situation." Some people speculate that Clive felt she sounded too much like Aretha Franklin and he jeopardized her career to boost Aretha's.    “Clive wanted to make Shirley like Whitney, "says Bobby Manuel. "He wanted to take somebody that had those chops, who could sing like that… and take them pop.  The marriage really didn’t work.  He was sending us pop songs, and she just wasn’t into them.” Luther Vandross loved Shirley Brown. I would buy up all her albums in the UK for our tour bus and his dressing room. 

After Shirley left Arista, she signed with several other labels. She still continues to make beautiful music. Some wonderful songs in her catalog include “I Ain’t Gonna Tell”, “Love Is Built On A Strong Foundation,” and the soul ballad,  "I Need Somebody to Love Me."

[ukrfeminism]

5 minute read

Only 18% of headliners at the UK's top festivals this year are female, Sky News analysis has found.

Women are seen as too much of a "risk" for the top slots because of a perception festivalgoers prefer watching men, as well as the pool of female talent still being too small, music industry experts say.

Industry figures also called on Glastonbury to do more to bridge the gender divide.

Across 104 festivals this summer, only a fifth (20%) of headline acts are fronted by women, compared with almost four-fifths (78%) by men and 2% by non-binary people.

At the biggest festivals, with over 30,000 capacity, this is even lower for women at one in six (18%).

And if you count the total number of performers on stage during headline slots, only one in 10 (11%) are women.

According to our research, while women are still behind men across the board, they are more popular with fans on YouTube, Google and the radio, than they are with festival promoters when booking headliners.

Meanwhile, the likes of Glastonbury, Isle of Wight Festival and Latitude don't have a single female-fronted headliner on their main stages this year.

Bucking the trend, is the British Summer Time Festival in London's Hyde Park which just announced Lana Del Rey as its final headliner.

Glastonbury, which is releasing its final 2023 tickets on Sunday, faced a backlash in March after it revealed the Arctic Monkeys, Guns n Roses and Sir Elton John will headline its famous Pyramid Stage this year.

Folk rocker, Cat Stevens, is also booked for the Sunday afternoon "legends" slot despite rumours Blondie was due to take it.

Organiser Emily Eavis said the female headliner they had planned, widely rumoured to be Taylor Swift, had to pull out due to a tour clash.

Women 'too much of a risk'

Eve Horne is a producer, singer-songwriter and founder of Peak Music UK, which mentors female and non-binary artists and producers. She is also on UK Music's Diversity Taskforce and is a board member of Moving The Needle, which works to improve female inclusion in the industry.

She says there was hope that the devastating impact of COVID would make industry bosses prioritise inclusion and diversity.

"If anything it did a 360 and went backwards," she tells Sky News.

"Everyone started going for the money again and saying there's too much risk in putting women as headliners."

Eve claims promoters repeatedly tell her that festivalgoers of all genders prefer watching men perform more than women.

"It's about money at the end of the day and we still have old white men gatekeeping the industry," she adds.

John Rostron, chief executive of the Association of Independent Festivals, which represents 105 UK events, says the problem stems from there being a smaller pool of female artists for promoters to pick from.

"A headline slot might be the pinnacle of an artist's live career.

"There are plenty of barriers for any artist to get there, but for women there are maybe triple the number of barriers, so the talent pool at the top is smaller.

"We have to wait for them to come up and then be open to booking them."

The problem gets worse at larger festivals where big acts charge high fees and promoters have to meet those costs with ticket sales - and are also accountable to shareholders.

"You can't say that a male band sells more tickets because they're men," he adds. "But you can say that they sell more tickets than another band when that's been proven to be true."

YouTubers and radio DJs choosing more women

Sky News looked at YouTube views and radio play to see how popular female-fronted artists are on those platforms. "Female-fronted" refers to acts with a female lead performer.

They were far better represented on both platforms than they were at the top of festival billboards.

On YouTube, in the 12 months to the end of March, female-fronted artists made up 35% of total music views, while their male counterparts were 65%. Non-binary-fronted acts were at fewer than 1%.

Almost half (24) of the 50 most searched for artists on Google in the same period were also female.

Both data sets suggest fans do want to consume female-fronted artists.

On the radio, they have averaged roughly a third (32%) of plays between 2019 and now, with male acts at just under two-thirds (65%) and non-binary at 3%.

So far in 2023, the gender balance has been almost equal, with female and male artists both at 48%, with the remainder non-binary.

Six of the top 10 songs played on the radio so far this year are by female solo artists including Miley Cyrus's Flowers - the most popular song of 2023 so far.

Increases in non-binary representation are largely down to a small number of artists, such as Sam Smith and Olly Alexander.

At festivals there are signs of progress. Across all stages almost three in 10 (29%) acts are female-fronted - up by almost 2% on the five-year average.

But that progress isn't reflected in headline slots.

'Glastonbury can afford inclusion managers'

By contrast, the Mighty Hoopla, a 25,000-person festival in south London, has had no male-fronted headliners since 2018.

Olly Alexander headlined in 2018 and is returning this year.

It offers a "platform to LGBTQ+ performers" and ensures at least 50% of performers are female and non-binary across the whole line-up.

Cassie Leon, who heads-up inclusion for the festival, says with their audience, it's "relatively easy" to commit to a diverse line-up.

"Part of queer culture is trying to uplift women as much as possible," she adds.

Asked how other festivals should improve female representation, she says more staff should be hired specifically to promote inclusion.

"It's everybody's issue, from the agents to the festivals to the places finding the talent," she says.

Specifically on Glastonbury, she adds: "If you can afford Elton John, you can afford inclusion managers."

While Britain's biggest festival might be less profit-focused than others, raising funds for charities and reportedly paying artists a fraction of their usual fees, smaller festivals still seem to do better at booking female-fronted headliners.

Jungle and drum and bass artist Nia Archives is headlining two indie festivals this year - We Out Here in Dorset and Outlook in Croatia - as well as playing at Glastonbury.

"It's a hard one for me," she says "because I know I'm being given those opportunities but also recognise that not everybody has those opportunities."

Heavy metal and rock among worst offenders

Other than the Mighty Hoopla, no festival in our database has had more than a third female-fronted headline acts between 2018 and now.

Six have had none at all since then - Isle of Wight, Download, Kendal Calling, TRNSMT, Slam Dunk Festival and Bloodstock Open Air.

With half of the worst offenders coming under rock and heavy metal, John Rostron, of AIF, which represents Bloodstock Open Air, says things are "particularly difficult" across those genres as there is a "much smaller talent pool".

Bloodstock's festival director Adam Gregory shares his view.

"There is a shortage of female-fronted bands coming through the ranks," he says, adding that headline slots are booked according to the "strongest available offering".

John also points to the way some major festivals sign up artists exclusively - preventing them from playing other events.

"Someone playing third at Reading might be perfect to headline one of our smaller festivals, but they can't. Both organisers and artists have a responsibility to say no to exclusives."

'Ethical' promoters

There are groups trying to make a difference.

Not Bad For A Girl, a DJ collective based in Manchester and London, formed four years ago to "create a platform for female and non-binary DJs" - running their own events, performing at others, and on the radio.

They wear signature pink balaclavas in a bid to "eliminate conventional beauty standards" after members were denied opportunities on account of their gender.

Founder Martha Bolton says they actively support diverse talent, for example by "having two events and using one as a cash cow, so the other can promote an up-and-coming artist".

She adds that big organisations like Glastonbury have a responsibility to set the standard for the industry.

"It needs to be the bigger people taking that jump for the rest of us who can't afford the risk."

No accountability

There is no official regulator of the music industry in the UK, so no official means of accountability when it comes to gender diversity.

UK Music, which has its own diversity taskforce, acts as a trade union, and connects smaller associations that represent specific parts of the industry.

Keychange is an EU-funded diversity programme that asks its 600 signatories (41% of which are festivals) to commit to at least 50% female inclusion. By the end of 2021, 64% of signatories had met the target.

But neither body is legally binding.

In an interview with The Guardian in March, Emily Eavis said Lizzo, who will perform just before Guns N Roses on the Pyramid Stage, could "totally headline" but the rock band were already booked.

She reiterated that female inclusion is "top of our agenda", having committed to 50:50 representation in 2020 and secured more than half female and non-binary acts for 2023 so far.

In its diversity statement the festival says it is "working alongside experts in equality and anti-discrimination" on an internal review.

"We try our best and we obviously aim for 50:50. Some years, it's more, some years, it's less," Eavis told the BBC earlier this year, adding it's "looking like we've got two female headliners" for 2024.

But she added that despite being the biggest festival in the country, it is not just down to her to make change.

"We're trying our best so the pipeline needs to be developed. This starts way back with the record companies, radio. I can shout as loud as I like but we need to get everyone on board."

Sky News has contacted Glastonbury for further comment.

[twopoppies]

I completely understand your anons point about playing the game to survive in the industry, however I do tend to think that its kind of counterproductive if someone wants to have a long and memorable career.

I don't think everyone needs to play the game the way Harry, Taylor or more recently Sabrina do to be successful. If we think about Adele, Noah Kahan or Chappell Roan they are or are becoming extremely successful without having to sell their souls to the business - and what do we know about them? Just how good their music is.

The way Harry plays the game, makes it feel so much less about art or music that it kind of obscures the great artist/musician he is. I think ultimately I would like Harry to be remembered for his great songwriting skills, his voice and the great performer he is, but everything is so overshadowed by the rest that in 20, 30 years I don't know if he will be remembered as one of the greatest of our generation (and he deserves it so much). I just think there's too much noise overshadowing his music.

Hi, love, I think the problem with this way of looking at the situation is that Adele was always marketed as a powerhouse Voice™ and a great songwriter. That will most likely be remembered that way because those were her big selling points. Noah Kahan and Chappell Roan are terrific artists, but they're newer to fame, they're not nearly as well-known as Adele or Harry (or Beyoncé, or whomever), and we have yet to see if they'll become legends. We also don't know where they want to go with their careers.

With Harry, he's always been marketed for his sex appeal. That was his main selling point in 1D. Coming from a boyband meant he was never taken seriously as a musician. I absolutely agree with you that Harry is so much more interesting as a singer/songwriter/performer than as a constant fixture in gossip columns. However, I think Harry's goal is to become a legend, have his art mean something, and have it remembered. My guess is that his team knows this, and that's their goal, too. We may not like their methods or understand their route, but I think they know how to get him where he wants to go better than we do.

He's much more highly respected for his music, lyricism, and performances now than he was after HS1 dropped. So a lot of what they're doing is working. I'd love for the days of PR girlfriends and rumors about who he's sleeping with to be over. I guess we'll just have to see where things go.

[greenlikethesea]

thank you so much for the tag @flashyysins!!!

🎧🎵 when you get this, you have to put in 5 songs you actually listen to at the moment. Then tag 5-10 followers to do the same. 🎵🎧

okie dokieeeeee, here we GO!

1. The News - Paramore

with the exception of “ignorance” absolutely kicking “the only exception” in the teeth in terms of an introduction to the era, i tend to always like the second single paramore releases from an album more than the first. i liked “that’s what you get” more than “misery business,” i liked “still into you” more than i liked “now,” i liked “told you so” even more than i liked “hard times” -- and this time, i absolutely love “the news,” even though i adored “this is why”. this is classic Hayley Is Unhinged. the composition of this is taylor york at his most fractured and strange. zac clearly has influence on both the sound and aesthetics of this cycle. and this is, by far, the coolest video they’ve ever released. i have always thought that hayley was one of the most incisive and insightful lyricists of our generation, and this is her at her most cutting and cunning -- it couldn’t have come at a better time, when we’re all feeling hopeless and frustrated and manipulated by people with an agenda.

2. Trick it - TWICE

This was apparently one of my most listened to songs this year -- I just think it’s SO sonically interesting and a real master class in modern pop songwriting! i think all of the girls are at their best vocally and the composition, as well as the lyrics (penned by dahyun, who is one of my favorite lyricists in twice), really play to all of their strengths as performers. and that initial drop in the first chorus when that rollercoaster synth loop plays is just pure dopamine. i don’t think it’s the best song on the feel special album (that would be love foolish or loud, probably), but i think it’s a delightful b-side.

3. Hello Hello - Trixie Mattel

so ya boi absolutely loves the country stuff that trixie does -- i think out of her releases, one stone and barbara are my favorites -- but i’ve been absolutely loving this 60s beachy girl rock direction she’s been going in with her latest music. this song is so cute! it’s infectious and fun and great to dance to, and she has this real knack of capturing the thrill of the chase with a lot of her songwriting, that initial spark and running after that feeling instead of just letting it slip through your fingers. also this video is simultaneously the gayest thing i’ve ever seen and also, hello hello, this is my lesbian girlfriend, trixie mattel.

4. Substance - Demi Lovato

i listened to this song once and then kind of forgot about it, but i came back to it recently! i am so goddamn happy that demi is going back to her pop punk roots because i think this is really where she thrives, and what she’s mean to be doing! the lyrics of this song absolutely slap (don’t wanna end up in a casket/head full of maggots/body full of jackshit i get in abundance -- REAL AS HELL) and the composition of this song is all the best parts of 2000s emo rock. and also, the sentiment of this song is so fucking real, especially with what i’ve been going through in my dating life right now. the video is also a really interesting grown-up take on the la-la land video, paralleling it in really intriguing ways.

5. Ghost In The Machine - SZA, Phoebe Bridgers

a low key song to close this list out -- i have only started listening to sza’s new album today (i know, i know, but i got to it, okay?) and fuck, i’m so hooked on this song, it’s unreal. the composition is really haunting, and the lyrics feel like a reflection of what’s been going on in my head for the past several months. i don’t think anyone’s really making music like either of these artists right now, sza especially, and her frank addressing of her mental state, the way she’s calmly pleading with the listener to understand her -- it’s amazing.

tagging @sparklyslug @friendship-switchblades @compassionlotion @andropogonfalons @dallae @tayyloryork @quarrygraffiti @sea-heaux @sophrosyneadrift @marchionessofbones and whoever else wants to do this!

[septembersghost]

I was really sure that taylor was gonna win SOTY for ATW10 but now I don't think so😔Harry is literally everywhere. AIW was the most streamed song AND one of the biggest radio hits. The sound is retro rock and lyrics are somewhat meaningful instead of filler.It was critically acclaimed and commercially successful and broke a lot of records. Now I really think he's gonna grab both SOTY and ROTY. It was even in charts until recently. What do you think?

if taylor, an artist who, above all things, is renowned for her songwriting, and has never won the songwriting grammy award (a fact that is objectively nuts!), doesn't win SOTY for a ten minute version of the most widely acclaimed song in her entire, very expansive, catalog...i will have no words. it'll make the academy look like a joke tbh. i think it has added appeal because it's such a magical journey of a story, following red from its initial release and the reaction to it transforming over time, knowing she sang atw on the grammys all those years ago because *we* wanted her to, the lives the song has had, the mystique of the ten minute version finally coming to fruition. plus, it is genuinely gorgeously written and performed, and did add real substance and new facets to the original work, that in turn opened up the rest of the album. it should win and i'll be shocked (and very sad tbh) if it doesn't.

one key thing is, the grammys have been a bit better about spreading the wins around in the last couple of years. so i don't think they'll focus on only one artist or vote for a sweep.

as it was undeniably is the biggest hit of the year (definitely the song of the summer and a defining piece of 2022), it was #1 for fifteen weeks, it's currently the fourth longest running number one in the hot 100 charts' history. it would still be in the top ten right now were it not for christmas music, it's had real longevity. i think harry has a great chance at winning ROTY and best pop vocal for the album. i think they'll recognize the strength of its sound (it's interesting because i don't even think aiw is the standout of the album, but it's a perfect single. retro edge, sparkling synths, sounds upbeat but the lyrics are lonely and vulnerable, personal yet spoke to a vast audience's different experiences, the tubular bells, that now iconic bridge!) and why it's been such a success. (the bizarre foaming at the mouth hatred people have for him and for taylor is laughable at this point.) harry's a good songwriter and he keeps growing in new ways! we love to see it! but if you put aiw and atw toe-to-toe just on the merit of the songwriting alone, there's no way all too well doesn't come out on top unless they deliberately ignore it, which i really don't believe they will now. it broke a #1 record of its own, which was special to see, but ultimately everything rests on the strength of the song itself, and the song is a jewel.

[ileftherbackhome]

the fact that taylor performed cant feel my face on the 1989 tour during the height of her eating disorder is really painful because while that song is obviously about drug addiction it can also be interpreted to be about having an ED. idk maybe this is poorly worded or seems weird it just feels like she chose that song for a reason if that makes any sense

i've taken a break from studying to procrastinate on the internet but I haven't been able to stop thinking about this actually.

I went back and listened to her performance of the song and I find it really interesting that she switched the pronoun to "him." I find it interesting because there really was no need for her to do that. I know she was very closeted at the time but she also wasn't hiding the fact that she wanted to be out either.

She sang other songs like Cheerleader for example where she didn't bother to change the original lyric and I think the fact that she used "him" does make your theory that she chose the songs she covered on purpose during 1989 tour.

the reason I say this is because if you go to this page and just scroll until you reach the "1" time played part, you see the song titles of every artist she invited on tour and I think the songs she chose to play were very gay and sad but this one specifically... yeah I think this one was intentionally done because of her ED.

I think she views her ED voice as masculine, which is very interesting to me. I don't really want to speculate too hard but remember when we were talking about style and blank space's cake scene and how this feels ED related? I think this is another thing that lends credibility to that theory because okay, you could take this down a literal route or down a very metaphorical route about how she was brainwashed by the patriarchy into wanting a prince charming to the point where she would kill herself to attain the superficial standards that society lays out for women, where she is masculinizing her ED voice.

I think Taylor has struggled a lot with her gender identity actually, but not in like the 'trans' way but more in like what does it mean to be a 'good' woman type of way. Like, white women have this standard of womanhood that is quite harmful to society and all the things that are praised in us lead to oppression for other groups, and especially other women. Not even in like the gender expectations of dress or make-up but just how you are as a white woman and what society tells you as a white woman is that in order to be good, you need to be liked.

sorry this is getting so off topic but i have a point promise. white women in society are taught to prioritize being liked above all else, and it is clear in the documentary, Taylor also felt this struggle. I also think that Taylor is autistic so like I feel like she knew this from a very young age. Go look at her unreleased lyrics (most of which are from 12-15 year old taylor) and you can see this desire to be seen as like desirable from early on. She constantly penned songs about yearning for a man who doesn't know any better than to chase a prettier pageant queen than you. I think as she grew older, she became aware of this warped worldview that she was forcefed through media and I think by 1989, she was highly aware of a lot more than we give her credit for as a fandom.

side bar: when people say taylor didn't write the 10mv lyrics before 2021, i have to laugh because a line that says fuck the patriarchy is actually exactly the type of line I would expect 2012 taylor to cut in order to seem more palatable as a songwriter. I think that's also why we see her fucking the patriarchy more in her lyrics now, because she truly doesn't care about seeming like a good girl anymore.

ANYWAYS

white women are taught as a class that we need to be liked, ABOVE ALL ELSE. we must be peaceful wives who are practically perfect in every way but that never show any anger because anger is a "man" emotion. It's everywhere in white culture, but especially in the ways that white women interact with each other to enforce this standard. Being polite often means, for white women, sitting down and shutting up.

That's why in the miss americana documentary, she focuses a lot on her belief system of good vs bad and how it really enabled her to be the worst version of herself because in order to be good in this society, you have to be polite in the face of a lot of injustice. You cannot speak out because speaking out labels you a bitch and nobody wants to be a bitch.

I think by 1989, Taylor was kind of fed up with the cage she had built for herself but couldn't find a way out of that shit. You gotta keep in mind, once you hand over the amount of control BMR had over Taylor, it's IMPOSSIBLE to get it back. In a way, she had to be hit with 2016 in order for her to realize that it DOESN'T MATTER IF EVERYONE LIKES YOU because the people who matter will shoulder anything for you. I think she needed to realize that getting everyone to like was an impossible goal to set for herself in order for her to grow into the person she is today.

Like, I think she was very aware of social dynamics because songs like blank space really hides a lot of female rage under the comedic tones of the music video/song. Like, I don't think the fandom realizes just how angry taylor was/is with the media perception of her because she's so good at hiding her true emotions well.

I say all this to say that I'm almost positive taylor masculinizes her ED in her music because it's such a multifaceted metaphor for all the ways in which she internalized the most harmful parts of patriarchy growing up and how being in the public eye for almost 20 years and growing up in that eye as a woman really fucking almost killed her. I say all this to say that I'm pretty sure she meant it that way anon and I'm sad now.

Thanks for this.

[privilege-rpg]

DAISY CLARINGTON

☆ FULL NAME: Daisy Cecelia Clarington ☆ GENDER: Ciswoman ☆ PRONOUNS: She/Her ☆ AGE: 32 (May 11th, 1992) ☆ TYPE: Half sibling; solo ☆ HOMETOWN: Chicago, Illinois ☆ JOB: Baker at Get That Cake! ☆ SCHOOL: PSU Alumni ☆ SEXUALITY: Pansexual ☆ FACECLAIM: Ana de Armas

ABOUT DAISY

[TW: SEXUAL ASSAULT, PHYSICAL ASSAULT]

If there was one thing that Monica Clarington did not know how to do, it was how to protect her family. Her eldest daughter, the product of an affair– but kept it secret enough because thankfully, Daisy “passed” for Walter’s daughter. She couldn’t really understand her path in life, and knew inherently that she was some kind of different. Daisy always found herself sort of falling by the wayside up until her mother walked in on her seated at the piano, playing a song Monica had never heard before. When asked where she’d learned it, Daisy simply replied that she had made it up.

Immediately, Daisy was enrolled in piano and guitar lessons, but what she really always wanted to do was sing. Now, when she made up a song, she made up her own words to them, too. As a child, they were complete nonsense, but as she got older, Daisy’s voice and songs became much more prophetic. She entered and won several songwriting contests in the Chicago area, and spent the rest of her time scribbling anything she possibly could into a notebook. Throughout her life, Daisy would fill many tiny books with her own wonders and imaginings, from doodles to snippets of lyrics to several attempts at writing stories.

Daisy became completely devoted to her musical studies, as she got older, so much so to the point that her parents enrolled her in a performing arts high school in Chicago. Not only did she spend her time songwriting, but she auditioned for every type of musical or performance opportunity that she could. This, Daisy had reasoned, was the big time– instead of getting a traditional education, she was taking voice lessons, instrumental lessons, and had an after-school job as a secretary at a record company. It was hard work but, for all of her flaws, Daisy didn’t simply want to be known as someone who rode off of her family’s coattails. If she was going to make it in the industry, Daisy wanted it to be on her own terms.

At nineteen years old, Daisy was hired as a songwriter in Sunshine Records stable, one of the youngest that the studio had ever seen. Even though Daisy wanted to write her own music and sing it too, she had great fun writing music for other artists. Several of her songs made it onto the charts, even if she wasn’t the recording artist who officially sang them. When she was twenty two years old, Daisy was finally signed to her own recording deal. Considering she’d had a lifetime of songs to write, Daisy had nearly three album’s worth of rep, plus an entire Broadway musical in her songbook. Her sound was singer-songwriter driven, piano-influenced, with some elements of pop-soul and jazz. Daisy also does play guitar and ukulele very well. She was known, at the time, for her incredibly stripped-down covers of pop songs.

The trouble started happening when the studio changed hands. A new CEO and executive director meant that obviously, the studio was going to be undergoing a massive overhaul. It  Originally, when Daisy met Declan Clifford, he promised her that he was going to make her a household name, a one track onto the A list with as many movie offers and Grammy’s as she wanted. She could win an EGOT, he reasoned, with enough training, and honestly, that was all Daisy wanted. She fell easily for his charm, his good looks, his empty promises, and his lies. He spent the better part of four years manipulating her and it wasn’t until she was left beaten after a night out at a record party, and she simply couldn’t continue.

The case of Jane Doe v. Declan Clifford rose its way through the courts on account of sexual assault, battery, gender violence, negligence, and several other crimes. The court case gained quite a bit of fame, and as a result, Daisy’s music took a backseat in favor of the scandal. She found herself unable to write for months, unable to handle the sheet anxiety and devastation of what happened.

Daisy is humiliated, and even though she’s proud of herself for finally standing up for her career, she’s beyond upset over what’s happened. At twenty seven years old, the last thing she wanted to do was start over, but she had no choice. Daisy’s musical career officially ended when she enrolled at PSU originally as a biology major, but two years later, she decided that she wanted to take a more active role in the care of those who were physically sick. She took a couple of years to figure out what she wanted to do with herself, including taking weird jobs at a bakery (she still has that one!), making her own jewelry, sourdough bread, hiking, and yoga. She’s almost finished with her degree, and while she’d never admit how much she misses being a songwriter, she’s content. Or trying to be.

FAMILY BACKGROUND

Walter Clarington comes from old money and used that as a means of funding his own career in film directing. In contrast, Monica Clarington (nee Peters) is an award-winning photographer who was hired to work behind the scenes for many of Walter’s projects. The two of them eventually married and began popping out babies whenever it was convenient for them career-wise. Any actual love they shared fizzled out when their children were still young, and arguments were a common occurrence behind closed doors.

Eventually, Monica had enough and left the family without another word. Walter struggled to balance his career with the children he was no longer sure he even wanted. He was financially present but his temper often turned towards him yelling at the kids, and they were largely on their own for a couple of years when it came to their emotional wellbeing. In 2002, their paternal grandmother stepped in and took over caring for them. Walter used that as an excuse to become even less involved.

Monica has made a comeback in her children’s lives multiple times over the years, but has never stuck around long enough to give the impression she actually wants to form a relationship.

[adventuresinclientservice]

Can a junkie teach us anything about creativity?

My mornings begin with a visit to the garage, where I stream YouTube while doing a stint on our Life Fitness X-5 elliptical trainer.  

I finished watching Tom Petty – or maybe it was Sheryl Crow or possibly The Cranberries –when a cover of Lou Reed’s Velvet Underground song “Sweet Jane” gets an airing.  Who is this person singing, I wonder, and what about her band, which sounds amazing?)

The singer is Margo Timmins; the band The Cowboy Junkies.  Maybe my music aficionado friend Ken Ohlemeyer knows them, but to me the alien name suggests a dismissible, drug-addled punk-rock group; they are anything but.  I am sold, immediately becoming a convert to their iconoclastic, impossible-to categorize sound.  Every day I find myself scrolling through YouTube to watch their concerts, of which there are several.

Last week I watched a program called A Beautiful Noise, which featured the Junkies’ music interspersed with short commentary by Margo Timmins, who not only is the lead singer but also serves as the band’s voice.  Leading the group, however, is her guitarist/songwriter brother Michael (another brother, Pete, plays drums).

Near the program’s end, about 50 minutes in, Margo had this to say about Michael’s songwriting:

“… he has no ego; when he writes a song, that’s his expression and when he hands it to me, however I interpret it -- and I’m going to interpret it from a female perspective; that’s my first entry into a song --  it’s okay.   “He never sort of says, ‘Well you know that’s not what I meant; why are you doing it that way?’  It’s my song and he allows me to do it my way and that’s … I think that’s his greatest gift to me.  Because it must be hard sometimes when I take his songs and muck them all up [laughs] and it’s not what he intended.  But he realizes that’s my expression and he has his, which is the actual writing of it.”

I imagined what it would be like if copywriters, art directors, and creative directors approached their work the way Michael Timmins approaches songwriting, devoid of ego?  There’d be no arguments, ever, about the work. Wouldn’t that be great? 

It wouldn’t be great at all.  I want Creative people to own their work, to be invested in it, to believe in it and fight for it.

But by “fight,” I don’t mean a dispute should devolve into a cage death-match.  I don’t want it to choke off discussion and debate, or silence thoughtful, alternative points-of-view.  And I absolutely don’t want it to be so  defensive in  posture it alienates clients and undermines a hard-earned relationship with them.

Chapter 34 of the current edition of The Art of Client Service is called, “Respect What it Takes to do Great Creative.”  In it I point out that,

“While it takes emotional commitment to make creative work, it takes emotional detachment to make it better.”

Given how many absorbing, engaging songs he has written, I have no doubt about Michael Timmins’s level of creative commitment; it’s evident this guy is a serious artist, determined to perfect his craft.  His sister Margo is a singular, distinctive performer; their contract suggests she does not tamper with his writing, and he does not tamper with her singing.

But for those of us not engaged in writing or art directing, striving to make the work better, we need to remember our role as collaborators in the creative process is to “improve the work, not approve it.”

As for putting ego aside to know that buried in a comment is an insight that might make average work good and good work better, now that truly is a gift.