EW shades Katy and Taylor Swift: Do they promote bullying?
Katy Perry and Taylor Swift are music's mean girls
Quote:
Still, it seems this song speaks to a potential directional shift in girl pop that, frankly, is troubling. Perry and her fellow hit-churner Taylor Swift have taken the break-up song to a new level, crucifying their exes publicly — to massive success. It begs the question: When did a few cute girls’ personal burn books turn into the American songbook?
Like Swift, Adele’s blockbuster 21 chronicles every moment of a relationship withering on the vine. And yet Adele’s M.O. feels different, less tawdry, if only because she has steadfastly refused to name the man who spurned her. To do so, she said, would empower him.
Adding fuel to the fire, she’s been explicit about the men who have inspired her songs (sometimes more cryptically than others). Much of this can be attributed to age. Swift is still only 22. Fame notwithstanding, it’s a very self-centered age.
With that in mind, what message does it send when Swift uses her guitar as a pitchfork and her voice as a torch to lead a musical witch hunt? Sure, Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, and Martina McBride (to name a few) have all had a vengeful hit or two about no-good men. Taylor Swift has made a career on them.
Like Swift, Perry is not purging the ugliness from her life. She is capitalizing on it, wallowing in it for personal and financial gain.
Perhaps the most baffling element of Swift and Perry’s success is that they have indulged in this bitterness while still keeping their good girl, teen dream images intact.
However, Swift and Perry’s latching on to the bully conversation makes their tactic of using of songs as public humiliation tools all the more unsettling. When Swift gloats at her unnamed assailants in “Mean,” does she undercut her message of strength overcoming cruelty by participating in essentially the same behavior? Can she rightly claim that others’ ”words like knives and swords and weapons” used against her actually made her a better person when she’s wielding all her lyrical might to make her foes feel “like nothing… pathetic and alone in life”?
But it’s a bit rich when Swift sings of how “people throw rocks at things that shine” and Perry dares her nemeses “to throw your bombs and your blows” considering both ladies are raining down retribution all the way to the top of the charts.
I am by no means saying that all pop music needs to be whipped cream and rainbows (if only for Annie’s sake), but when your personal empowerment is predicated upon taking down another person in the most petty, public way, how empowered can you really be?
Since when does writing a breakup song equal bullying tho. Or putting your husband in a movie about your STRUGGLES, and doing it as unbiased as possible.
****** ass article, but get that hit thread Barbara.
Pretty sure Part of Me was written before she even met Russell... even with the changed bridge, it's not like she wrote that just to humiliate him.
Taylor not only scorns men (Forever & Always, Dear John), but also has songs like Back to December that puts her in that position, so it's not all one-sided. That article
Lets talk about how men frequently address women as bitches and crazy in their songs and that somehow gets a pass and is even considered cool. Those poor milliomaire guys getting their feelings hurt. Aww.
However, I feel like the article is more relevant for Taylor than it is for Katy.
How is so? First off its pretty clear that this dude is not familiar enough with Taylor's discography to make such a generalization. Actually some of the points he is trying to make are flat out ignorant. Secondly this is what songwriting is about. Channeling your emotions through music. Nothing that has not been done in the past before.
When men calling women as "bitch", etc., it became acceptable. Even the men writing about their exes all the time, just listen to the male singer/songwriters. Is it because those women the writer talked about are famous that it became wrong for them to? Go listen to the '70s music by singer/songwriters first, then we'll talk.
The taylor swift parts are more or less true and very well researched and worded.
The katy perry parts are just thrown in there, my guess is the writer needed another reference to prove his point and seeing that "part of me" with its changed bridge capitalized on the divorce it fit right in with his point.
Well what can I say is it true that Taylor has songs about her exes? Yes but all artists who write their own songs have songs about there exes unless they can't get laid or something like that.
The part about her making a career of bashing her exes isn't true though. Her biggest hits are all positive songs or songs about getting into a perfect relationship or songs about how its her fault and apologizing.(YBWM, Love Story, Our Song, Mine, Back to December)
