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All Hail Taylor Swift, Person of the Year!

Fast Eddie B said:
How bold of you to suggest they suspend their First Amendment rights to free speech.
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People choosing for themselves what to say and when to say it is the epitome of free speech. People deciding that what they're about to say is stupid and won't land well with their audience, and not saying it after all, is the epitome of free speech.
 
If nothing else this thread should teach us that just because we ourselves aren't aware of something doesn't mean it's not a huge thing millions of other people are very interested in. I'm sure there were plenty of people in the 60s who had no idea The Beatles were a big deal to others. And there are people reading this now who don't even know who Anita Doth is!
 
TragicMonkey said:
If nothing else this thread should teach us that just because we ourselves aren't aware of something doesn't mean it's not a huge thing millions of other people are very interested in. I'm sure there were plenty of people in the 60s who had no idea The Beatles were a big deal to others. And there are people reading this now who don't even know who Anita Doth is!
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I'm taking the message as that if Taylor Swift posted that she didn't like Iowa, her zombie horde would unthinkingly wipe it off the map. Not that we really need it per se, but it has a lot of corn or potatoes or something.
 
Samson said:
As a hypothesis, I suggest the world would be better if actors musos and sports people shut up about politics except where they are directly affected.
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If artists started being nonpolitical today, it would be the first time in the history of art.
 
theprestige said:
America has a controlling interest in just about every economic, commercial, diplomatic, and military institution in the world. POTUS is the chief executive of all of those interests. His influence does not end at the US border. It's global, and it's almost certainly bigger, globally, than anyone else's.
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Yes yes we know, America is the most important country in the world and everybody should bow before it.

And you accuse me of cultural bigotry.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Does it work both ways? Would you like Trump to not tell anybody what he thinks about anyone who isn't a politician?
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Heck, by that kind of reasoning Trump should have never gotten into politics after being in show business.
 
Thermal said:
I'm taking the message as that if Taylor Swift posted that she didn't like Iowa, her zombie horde would unthinkingly wipe it off the map. Not that we really need it per se, but it has a lot of corn or potatoes or something.
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It is a gift to the foes of Iowa! Why not use this power?
 
plague311 said:
<snip>

She's stood up to recording studios, including re-recording her entire catalog to get out from under their thumb...
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I have no dog in the Taylor Swift is amazing/the devil fight.

This is the only bit of cultural zeitgeist about it that gets my hackles, though.

She's had an army of support to get where she is. Award winning writers and producers gave input all through her career.

She turned the very typical fact that an artist who wants to get pushed on radio and go on world tours doesn't get sole credit and all the money into some kind of 'woe is me' story.

She's gotten millions of fans to buy music they already bought 10 years ago a second time to "support her" in "reclaiming her music." Yes, you had producers and writers who've launched dozens of people to stardom, but it was all you scribbling lyrics in a little torn up notebook and the big bad corporations are stealing your baby...so I guess I'll buy another album?

It's the same "bootstrap" ******** we hear from the "self-made" crowd, just with dusky eyeshadow and red lipstick.
 
TragicMonkey said:
If nothing else this thread should teach us that just because we ourselves aren't aware of something doesn't mean it's not a huge thing millions of other people are very interested in. I'm sure there were plenty of people in the 60s who had no idea The Beatles were a big deal to others. And there are people reading this now who don't even know who Anita Doth is!
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Yep!

Link

When The Beatles received MBEs, people couldn’t believe the musicians got the honor. Papers and media outlets debated whether or not they deserved them, with many outlets covering the story with scorn. Many previous MBE recipients felt the same way. George Read, a member of the Coast Guard, wrote a letter to the palace.

“I am so disgusted with the Beatles being given this award that I am considering sending mine back,” he wrote, per the book The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz.

Others didn’t just threaten to return their MBEs. War hero Paul Pearson sent his back with a note stating that “its meaning seems to be worthless” now that The Beatles had one. Hector Dupois, a former member of Canada’s House of Commons, sent his back decrying the “superior authority’s wish to honor sorry fellows with whom I have no desire whatever to be associated.”
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Of course later on, John Lennon presumably realized they were right and returned his.
 
Delphic Oracle said:
I have no dog in the Taylor Swift is amazing/the devil fight.

This is the only bit of cultural zeitgeist about it that gets my hackles, though.

She's had an army of support to get where she is. Award winning writers and producers gave input all through her career.

She turned the very typical fact that an artist who wants to get pushed on radio and go on world tours doesn't get sole credit and all the money into some kind of 'woe is me' story.
She's gotten millions of fans to buy music they already bought 10 years ago a second time to "support her" in "reclaiming her music." Yes, you had producers and writers who've launched dozens of people to stardom, but it was all you scribbling lyrics in a little torn up notebook and the big bad corporations are stealing your baby...so I guess I'll buy another album?

It's the same "bootstrap" ******** we hear from the "self-made" crowd, just with dusky eyeshadow and red lipstick.
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Okay, I don't know anything about this, so just looked it up. It seems that someone bought the masters of her recordings while buying the company that originally owned them, and that after that, she wasn't able to use the recordings in documentaries and awards shows etc... unless she presumably paid what the new owners demanded.

So she re-recorded them to avoid being beholden to the new owner.

I don't see that as anything like your characterization. That said I have only skimmed the details and maybe it was written by her legion of devotees, so who knows....
 
Delphic Oracle said:
I have no dog in the Taylor Swift is amazing/the devil fight.

This is the only bit of cultural zeitgeist about it that gets my hackles, though.

She's had an army of support to get where she is. Award winning writers and producers gave input all through her career.

She turned the very typical fact that an artist who wants to get pushed on radio and go on world tours doesn't get sole credit and all the money into some kind of 'woe is me' story.

She's gotten millions of fans to buy music they already bought 10 years ago a second time to "support her" in "reclaiming her music." Yes, you had producers and writers who've launched dozens of people to stardom, but it was all you scribbling lyrics in a little torn up notebook and the big bad corporations are stealing your baby...so I guess I'll buy another album?

It's the same "bootstrap" ******** we hear from the "self-made" crowd, just with dusky eyeshadow and red lipstick.
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FYI this comes across as textbook having a dog in the fight.
 
varwoche said:
FYI this comes across as textbook having a dog in the fight.
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And the dog is prosecuting attorney in a major case that pits moneyed establishment elites against humble orphan puppies, each of whom has a respiratory ailment that gives them tiny, squeaky coughs.
 
angrysoba said:
Okay, I don't know anything about this, so just looked it up. It seems that someone bought the masters of her recordings while buying the company that originally owned them, and that after that, she wasn't able to use the recordings in documentaries and awards shows etc... unless she presumably paid what the new owners demanded.

So she re-recorded them to avoid being beholden to the new owner.
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The Legal Eagle did a very deep dive on this if anyone’s interested…

https://youtu.be/M-A_RrOeoWw?si=SpmGT2u6AK0Nw4R6
 
Samson said:
As a hypothesis, I suggest the world would be better if actors musos and sports people shut up about politics except where they are directly affected.
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I would argue, since Taylor Swift is a woman, that abortion rights directly affect her, that the GOP's abhorrent record of rolling back women's rights directly affect her, and that Marsha Blackburn voting against reauthorizing the "Violence Against Women Act" directly affects her.

So, how about YOU shut up about politics except where YOU are directly affected!
 
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Samson said:
As a hypothesis, I suggest the world would be better if actors musos and sports people shut up about politics except where they are directly affected.
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smartcooky said:
I would argue, since Taylor Swift is a woman, that abortion rights directly affect her, that the GOP's abhorrent record of rolling back women's rights directly affect her, and that Marsha Blackburn voting against reauthorizing the "Violence Against Women Act" directly affects her.

So, how about YOU shut up about politics except where YOU are directly affected!
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I think it is also worth pointing out that the majority of people who Samson is influenced by and whose opinions he attempts to parrot on this forum have literally no credentials in the fields they opine on.

The vast majority of them from Rogan, Rubin, Kisin, Foster, Dore etc... are failed comedians. And these types don't usually have any problem whatsoever with failed actors and comedians spouting off on their podcasts and YouTube channels about how climate change is a hoax, that the vaccines give you autism, that Putin is totally right, and that the transgenders are grooming your kids, etc... When they spout their opinions, they are... what was it again... oh, yes, furthering the fourth singularity and providing positive evolutionary pressure on our genes with their lies or some other confused and made up bollocks.
 
I haven't heard much of her music but she is considered an excellent song writer and performer. She credits Kate Bush as one of her influences.

She has two albums on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time list. I liken her to the next Micheal Jackson. I didn't listen to a lot of MJ either but I respect the talents of both of them.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
You summarized it well above.

But no proclamations about her being terrible. Just that her legal machinations were a net positive for recording artists going forward.
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Okay thanks. Yeah, looks like the situation was as I understood it and that the best advice for musicians is to make sure they have control of their material. In this case she had control of her intellectual copyright, but not the masters, so the solution for her was simply to make new recordings. It makes perfect sense and the people who were trying to screw her were the owners of the masters, not the producers or those who worked on her albums. She did the opposite of a "woe is me" narrative; she did something about it. And good for her!
 
Someone hired lawyers to outsmart the other people's lawyers to gain greater control over assets that many people collaborated on and/or financed to get off the ground and which was always known to be, at the end of the day, a marketable asset which could be bought or sold in a free market.

My bemusement, my 'dog' if you will, is the great moral conflict perceived.

It's an IP dispute between one brand juggernaut and another brand juggernaut. If you want to get my blood pressure up over corporate IP slap-fights, ask me about CBS/Viacom and the Star Trek Kelvin timeline (but again, less to do with any great ethical quandry, just the terrible writing that results from crafting fiction around obscure legal contortions). This is more just plain humorous to me. However, if you feel strongly, click here to send your donation and send a message in support of artistic freedom(!).

I can't argue, though. It appears to be wildly successful marketing.
 
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Delphic Oracle said:
Someone hired lawyers to outsmart the other people's lawyers to gain greater control over assets that many people collaborated on and/or financed to get off the ground and which was always known to be, at the end of the day, a marketable asset which could be bought or sold in a free market.

My bemusement, my 'dog' if you will, is the great moral conflict perceived.

It's an IP dispute between one brand juggernaut and another brand juggernaut. If you want to get my blood pressure up over corporate IP slap-fights, ask me about CBS/Viacom and the Star Trek Kelvin timeline. This is more just plain humorous to me. However, if you feel strongly, click here to send your donation and send a message in support of artistic freedom(!).

I can't argue, though. It appears to be wildly successful marketing.
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That doesn't seem to be a good characterization though does it?

Taylor Swift clearly has a stake in the music she wrote and performed, right?

Your POV is that there are other people who also contributed to creating the music. This is true, but NONE of those people are involved in the battle over the rights to the music. The only person who is, is Taylor Swift, and she didn't merely get lawyers involved. She re-recorded the music and thus no longer beholden to people who had bought it and were extorting her over the rights to use it.
 
In discussing Taylor Swift as Times' choice on his podcast, Charlie Sykes said he would have chosen Jack Smith. He made a good argument for the choice, being the first to go after an ex-POTUS for his crimes. I had to agree with Smith as the choice.
 
arthwollipot said:
But that's the point. I shouldn't have to click a link to recognise the name of someone who is literally the most influential person on the planet.
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You can be influential without being a household name. Had you heard of Ben Bernanke, David Ho and Peter Ueberroth before they were named Time Person of the Year?
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
In discussing Taylor Swift as Times' choice on his podcast, Charlie Sykes said he would have chosen Jack Smith. He made a good argument for the choice, being the first to go after an ex-POTUS for his crimes. I had to agree with Smith as the choice.
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No, it should obviously have been for Jordan Pickford given how good he has been for Everton this year.
 
Ian Osborne said:
You can be influential without being a household name. Had you heard of Ben Bernanke, David Ho and Peter Ueberroth before they were named Time Person of the Year?
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Perhaps some years they actually attempt to fulfill the journalistic purpose of informing viewers of something and others they decide to sell more copies by writing the same thing the entertainment rags have been saying for months or years.

But we use the same label for both.
 
Ian Osborne said:
You can be influential without being a household name. Had you heard of Ben Bernanke, David Ho and Peter Ueberroth before they were named Time Person of the Year?
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That would actually be some pretty worthwhile journalism. If Time Magazine did an in-depth report on some influential person whose not widely known. Or even a report on the extent of the influence of someone who is widely known but whose influence is underestimated.
 
Delphic Oracle said:
Perhaps some years they actually attempt to fulfill the journalistic purpose of informing viewers of something and others they decide to sell more copies by writing the same thing the entertainment rags have been saying for months or years.

But we use the same label for both.
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theprestige said:
That would actually be some pretty worthwhile journalism. If Time Magazine did an in-depth report on some influential person whose not widely known. Or even a report on the extent of the influence of someone who is widely known but whose influence is underestimated.
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Hey, maybe they actually did do some journalism and wrote exactly why Taylor Swift is most influential person of the year and then written articles about the fifty also-rans with in-depth explanations of what made them influential as well. But we will never know because all any of us have done is look at the headline and dismissed it as lazy, pandering click-bait and left it at that.

Be honest, have either of you actually read the articles that accompanied the announcement? I haven’t.
 
angrysoba said:
Time magazine editors are trying to stay hip as they heard that their grand daughters were listening to Taylor Swift on their CD players in their retirement homes. It was a toss-up between her or U2 with their ground-breaking residency in Las Vegas.
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I believe Bono won it at some stage in the 90's for his innovative use of tax evasion schemes.
 
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