I don’t get it. Her music is sometimes catchy but otherwise unremarkable, from the songs I’ve heard. How does she break all these records and accumulate so much fame and wealth?
She’s pretty, but a lot of singer songwriters are, especially those with makeup and costume people, a support staff.
Is there something else to her that people like?
I’m confused about what makes her so apparently unique or phenomenal.
Update: there are so many things that make swift unique or phenomenal.
I’ve received tons of great answers from people that have helped me understand, like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle, many factors that makes swift different and consequently more successful than her peers.
Clever lyrics, top-tier production, sharing autobiographical and emotional points in her life very directly, apparent honesty with few or no public blemishes, creating a community of fans through Easter eggs and house parties and unconventional, but always personal methods, an early start supported by wealthy parents, she keeps winning against abusers, and her music itself is popular and fun.
Those are just a few of the puzzle pieces contributed here, and a dive into this post is a pretty good explanation of many of the factors that must be contributing to her phenomenal success and recognition, that set her apart from other pop stars, even pop stars who were phenoms in their own right.
This is a very educational post, thank you to everyone who has contributed.
She makes music that a lot of people really like. Often times because they relate. It sounds like it’s not your kind of music, and that’s fine. Not really any more to it.
That doesn’t explain all of the awards. And it’s not just a lot of people, it’s often a historical amount of people right?
That many people and that many awards just because she has the same formula every other pop star has?
She’s really good at making pop music. Just because it doesn’t appeal to you doesn’t mean she’s not good.
My friend Alex is really into metal music. Like, it’s all he listens to. Every once in a while I’ll listen to some of his songs, and they all sound the same to me. The stuff he says is awful sounds the same to me as the stuff he says is incredible. That doesn’t mean there’s no variation in metal or that it’s all just formulaic, and it doesn’t mean that bands can’t be really good at making and playing metal music, it just means I can’t tell when they are, cause it’s not my kind of music.
It appears to be the same for you and pop music. It all sounds the same to you because it’s not your kind of music.
Wow! Those are pretty virulent, unsubstantiated assumptions.
I like pop music, hence my curiosity.
The reason I prefaced my statement with “it appears” is precisely because I didn’t want to assume.
A velvet glove on an iron fist.
I suggest speaking and theorizing based on your personal experience rather than the positions you assume others take.
Ok, so take this same disdain that you have for other people assuming your thoughts and feelings, and apply it to your own views on Taylor Swift’s fans. Just like you, they have their own thoughts and feelings, and unlike you, they don’t find her music unremarkable.
fucking based
And look, here we are, there’s a huge post where people answering the question I actually asked instead of funneling irrelevant natives toward boring conclusions.
Yes, everyone has their likes and dislikes, kudos to your revelation, but aren’t you curious about the world at all? How it functions? Why people like that they like?
If not, you probably aren’t going to understand or appreciate the conversations going on all around you gainfully answering the question this post presents, in which people try to pin down, or rather, crowdsource a theory on what makes someone who is unremarkable from a distance so culturally celebrated and unique.
Awards are generally either the industry giving itself awards for their own products or a metric of sales, which is a product of good marketing. Neither of these things have to do with talent or originality.
I’m leaning here also, I’m really interested in the awards she receives now that she’s re-recorded her albums versus the amount she got when she broke out.
Yes it literally does. Disappointed to see OP approach this with such bad faith—it’s clear you don’t want to have your predetermined conclusions challenged. :(
This is an open-ended question, and there have been tons of useful, insightful answers that have changed my views if you cared to read, as to why this particular pop star, who doesn’t seem to differ much from most other pop stars, is rewarded so much more and is so much more popular.
Yes, people like her music, but that isn’t the question, which is why do people like her music?
Why are Israel and Palestine fighting?
“They don’t like each other.”
Phew, case solved, now you don’t have to learn anything new and you understand nothing more than you did before.
live feed of the goalposts being moved:
idk what to say buddy lol.
I wish people would stop using the goalposts comment when you obviously don’t know what it means.
Let’s look at these three questions.
What are the mechanisms that explain Taylor Swift’s popularity?
What are the mechanisms that explain Taylor Swift’s recognized popularity?
What are the mechanisms that explain Taylor Swift’s recognized musical popularity?
Pretty on message.
If you look at the threads of this post, you’ll find the most people recognize that and are contributing to the answer.
someone provides their answer to number #1 and you dismissed it without evidence. i find this gross and in bad faith; this is all im pointing out. 👍
Do you want to provide any evidence for that? I’ve answered tons of people who have answered the first question, and for the most part we’ve had engaging conversations and many of them have contributed to the overall answer.
And that’s not all you’re pointing out. You repeatedly are inaccurately attacking the merits of my questions or comments rather than responding to the questions or comments.
If you consistently encounter a lot of “bad faith” arguments to your comments that are provably in good faith, you should probably look a little closer to home for where those bad faith arguments lie.