#crew and post are the most thankless jobs because they're supposed to make it look like they didn't do anything at all

[whiskeyswifty]

Adele being in the top 3 most successful female artists got me thinking about how insane her success is when taking into account how little people care about her as a Celebrity and how comparatively little she appears to be in the public eye. It feels very "organic" in that way, which is not to say that she is a better artist than Taylor or that Taylor's success is manufactured, but Taylor is actively hustling for those numbers. Which is core Taylor Swift modus operandi and her work ethic and business mind is awe-inspiring. I just sometimes feel like Swifties act like everybody wants to be as successful as Taylor but only she is able to achieve that, which... doesn't feel true? Obviously she is a once in a generation talent, but idk if every artist is automatically envious of her level of success, if that makes sense. But maybe that is also me projecting my anti-grindset on other artists lmao

haha i'm also exhausted by her grind, don't worry. i know i sound like a broken record, and a coward maybe, but i think even throwing adele in there, the three of them are incomparable. I totally get the urge to compare them 1:1:1 but it's nearly impossible to do so fairly. you say taylor is a once in a generation talent.... and she is.... but so is beyonce... so is adele. the key thing is each of them have talents the others don't have. I guess bey and adele are the most comparable because they have exquisite voices, but also very different voices even within that parameter. i'm not a vocalist so i can't give you an expert breakdown of all the technical terms for what make them unique and yet still exceptional in their uniqueness, but even i can hear it as a layman. I've seen Adele in concert too and it's mind blowing just to hear her booming voice reverberate through an arena. but yeah, i can see how her success may look like it just "happened" to her while taylor had to claw her way. idk if that's the reality though!

Taylor has a once in a generation songwriting skill maybe.... idk if i feel comfortable even saying that. There are songwriters out here that blow me away all the time and for me, taylor's lyrical hit ratio is not high enough to say she's the ultimate and nobody can compare. i think it's tricky to talk about what her talent is exactly, compared to how easy it is to talk about the other two women, because it's a combination of not easily meritocratic things. bringing up her work ethic and business acumen is a huge component i think. Songwriting alone doesn't make her a once in a generation talent, which she's in the top echelon for absolutely but has many peers at the top, no matter who you ask. In my opinion, her "talent" is the combination of her ear for melody and pen for lyrical deftness that is also achingly sincere, a charisma that is utterly charming in irresistible to most, her acute understanding of how to market herself and her personality, her strategic approach to nearly everything to maximize profit and all the hoops one must jump through to achieve that (maintaining relevance, operating in multiple sectors, etc), and her burning desire to prove.... something idk what but it fuels her to keep pushing herself and challenging herself. i totally agree it's not manufactured, thats not the right way to put it. but it IS a hustle and by that i mean it's hard work! she puts in an INSANE amount of work to get where she is today, every single day i'm sure. and her team is incredibly small for someone at this level, which means she and her family shoulder even MORE of the work than a typical popstar would. i think what makes her once in a generation is that she possesses all of these traits at the same time, at a young age as well giving her acres of a head start, making for a deadly combination that has kept her a permanent fixture in the pop music world, and at this current time, the main fixture of the pop music world.

so in that way i'm not sure other pop stars want to be on that particular grind as hard and as constant as taylor is. it's admirable absolutely! and many of them sing her praises for how hard she works. but yeah, id say most singers know what it takes to have what taylor has, and they don't want to sacrifice certain things to get it (down time with their family/kids, work/life balance, constantly being on trial in the court of public opnion etc). i'd venture to agree that most singer/songwriters just love the creative expression and have no desire for giant lumps of money or smothering fame. that's also not to say that even if they hit the grind as hard as her, that they could achieve what she has. again, she has that deadly combo that makes her uniquely apt.

but i'd say one correction to the notion that "taylor is the hardest working person in music" and that's that many artists do work just as hard as her, just in other ways. what taylor does is not the only way to be a musician and her success is not the only kind of success that matters to an artist. since she's already in the mix, particularly Beyoncé. she works just as hard if not harder in certain areas, depending on what they're both working on. bey is equally as in control of her creative vision as taylor is, and there are hundreds of accounts for both women that can attest to their work ethic. They're both the hardest working women in music, in their respective ways. You may hear taylor brag about it more maybe, or show off more of her work ethic i guess, but i think you also may not be paying enough attention to beyonce who has countless docs and behind the scenes pieces that show how she is in total control. the shitty anon who brought up beychella ironically brought up a great example of that in action. the interludes show months of preparation, rehearsal, reworking choreography and the logistics of the stage. all for just two weekends of performance. all the ways beyonce crafted that performance to be exactly what she wanted, convey exactly what she wanted to say, and was fine tuning it down to the last second. Taylor has the chronic Good Student desire to show her work, which is relatable, and also her process is fascinating to watch! but other artists not exactly willing to show their work doesn't mean work isn't being done of the same caliber and effort. idk it just really is a thorn in my side when people say taylor works hard and other artists don't work as hard as her (which is not really what you're saying, i'm just bitching in general). I'm sure there are other artists who also work incredibly hard to achieve their versions of success that i'm not aware of, Adele for one i'm sure, I just don't know much about her processes. Just because they aren't working as visibly or working on the same pieces of their career as taylor is doesn't mean they're not working hard in other areas! areas you might not be privy to or aware of or know how hard it is to pull off so it might look like they're not working as hard. but they most certainly are and imo it's an inaccurate thing to say so generally, that taylor's success is cuz she works hard and everyone else doesn't lol.

one final little general tidbit i can't resist adding; as someone adjacent to her world and in the visual media world myself, just know that if it looks seamless or like it just came together organically... that doesn't mean that it did. it's actually much harder to achieve the illusion that something just happened, fully formed, organically like that. it incredibly tricky to pull that off and fully immerse you in it to the point that you don't notice the wires and the seams and the brush strokes holding it all together. it takes incredible skill and that just means those artists are VERY very good at their jobs and they actually had to work even HARDER to make it look that way.