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Fan Base: Archived: Taylor Swift (#2)
Member Since: 7/23/2012
Posts: 8,113
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Quote:
Originally posted by a_little_sinner
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It was just posted by WSJ online at 4:00pm 
Goes to print in tomorrow's paper.
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Member Since: 7/23/2012
Posts: 8,113
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Quote:
Where will the music industry be in 20 years, 30 years, 50 years?
Before I tell you my thoughts on the matter, you should know that you're reading the opinion of an enthusiastic optimist: one of the few living souls in the music industry who still believes that the music industry is not dying…it's just coming alive.
There are many (many) people who predict the downfall of music sales and the irrelevancy of the album as an economic entity. I am not one of them. In my opinion, the value of an album is, and will continue to be, based on the amount of heart and soul an artist has bled into a body of work, and the financial value that artists (and their labels) place on their music when it goes out into the marketplace. Piracy, file sharing and streaming have shrunk the numbers of paid album sales drastically, and every artist has handled this blow differently.
In recent years, you've probably read the articles about major recording artists who have decided to practically give their music away, for this promotion or that exclusive deal. My hope for the future, not just in the music industry, but in every young girl I meet…is that they all realize their worth and ask for it.
Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for. It's my opinion that music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album's price point is. I hope they don't underestimate themselves or undervalue their art.
Arrows Through the Heart
In mentioning album sales, I'd like to point out that people are still buying albums, but now they're buying just a few of them. They are buying only the ones that hit them like an arrow through the heart or have made them feel strong or allowed them to feel like they really aren't alone in feeling so alone. It isn't as easy today as it was 20 years ago to have a multiplatinum-selling album, and as artists, that should challenge and motivate us.
There are always going to be those artists who break through on an emotional level and end up in people's lives forever. The way I see it, fans view music the way they view their relationships. Some music is just for fun, a passing fling (the ones they dance to at clubs and parties for a month while the song is a huge radio hit, that they will soon forget they ever danced to). Some songs and albums represent seasons of our lives, like relationships that we hold dear in our memories but had their time and place in the past.
However, some artists will be like finding "the one." We will cherish every album they put out until they retire and we will play their music for our children and grandchildren. As an artist, this is the dream bond we hope to establish with our fans. I think the future still holds the possibility for this kind of bond, the one my father has with the Beach Boys and the one my mother has with Carly Simon.
I think forming a bond with fans in the future will come in the form of constantly providing them with the element of surprise. No, I did not say "shock"; I said "surprise." I believe couples can stay in love for decades if they just continue to surprise each other, so why can't this love affair exist between an artist and their fans?
In the YouTube generation we live in, I walked out onstage every night of my stadium tour last year knowing almost every fan had already seen the show online. To continue to show them something they had never seen before, I brought out dozens of special guest performers to sing their hits with me. My generation was raised being able to flip channels if we got bored, and we read the last page of the book when we got impatient. We want to be caught off guard, delighted, left in awe. I hope the next generation's artists will continue to think of inventive ways of keeping their audiences on their toes, as challenging as that might be.
There are a few things I have witnessed becoming obsolete in the past few years, the first being autographs. I haven't been asked for an autograph since the invention of the iPhone with a front-facing camera. The only memento "kids these days" want is a selfie. It's part of the new currency, which seems to be "how may followers you have on Instagram."
Fan Power
A friend of mine, who is an actress, told me that when the casting for her recent movie came down to two actresses, the casting director chose the actress with more Twitter followers. I see this becoming a trend in the music industry. For me, this dates back to 2005 when I walked into my first record-label meetings, explaining to them that I had been communicating directly with my fans on this new site called Myspace. In the future, artists will get record deals because they have fans—not the other way around.
Another theme I see fading into the gray is genre distinction. These days, nothing great you hear on the radio seems to come from just one musical influence. The wild, unpredictable fun in making music today is that anything goes. Pop sounds like hip hop; country sounds like rock; rock sounds like soul; and folk sounds like country—and to me, that's incredible progress. I want to make music that reflects all of my influences, and I think that in the coming decades the idea of genres will become less of a career-defining path and more of an organizational tool.
This moment in music is so exciting because the creative avenues an artist can explore are limitless. In this moment in music, stepping out of your comfort zone is rewarded, and sonic evolution is not only accepted…it is celebrated. The only real risk is being too afraid to take a risk at all.
Celebrity Spotlight
I predict that some things will never change. There will always be an increasing fixation on the private lives of musicians, especially the younger ones. Artists who were at their commercial peak in the '70s, '80s and '90s tell me, "It was never this crazy for us back then!" And I suspect I'll be saying that same thing to younger artists someday (God help them). There continues to be a bad girl vs. good girl/clean-cut vs. sexy debate, and for as long as those labels exist, I just hope there will be contenders on both sides. Everyone needs someone to relate to.
And as for me? I'll just be sitting back and growing old, watching all of this happen or not happen, all the while trying to maintain a life rooted in this same optimism.
And I'd also like a nice garden.
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Member Since: 3/14/2013
Posts: 3,519
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Quote:
Originally posted by Haunted.
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The first pic almost gave me a hard-on. Almost. 
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 5,500
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Quote:
Originally posted by Haunted.
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 These crop tops lately >>>>
The look for the new era, maybe? 
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Member Since: 7/15/2012
Posts: 2,055
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Quote:
Originally posted by Haunted.
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Hot!!!
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 5,500
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Quote:
Originally posted by WayTooHonest13
Quote:
Where will the music industry be in 20 years, 30 years, 50 years?
Before I tell you my thoughts on the matter, you should know that you're reading the opinion of an enthusiastic optimist: one of the few living souls in the music industry who still believes that the music industry is not dying…it's just coming alive.
There are many (many) people who predict the downfall of music sales and the irrelevancy of the album as an economic entity. I am not one of them. In my opinion, the value of an album is, and will continue to be, based on the amount of heart and soul an artist has bled into a body of work, and the financial value that artists (and their labels) place on their music when it goes out into the marketplace. Piracy, file sharing and streaming have shrunk the numbers of paid album sales drastically, and every artist has handled this blow differently.
In recent years, you've probably read the articles about major recording artists who have decided to practically give their music away, for this promotion or that exclusive deal. My hope for the future, not just in the music industry, but in every young girl I meet…is that they all realize their worth and ask for it.
Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for. It's my opinion that music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album's price point is. I hope they don't underestimate themselves or undervalue their art.
Arrows Through the Heart
In mentioning album sales, I'd like to point out that people are still buying albums, but now they're buying just a few of them. They are buying only the ones that hit them like an arrow through the heart or have made them feel strong or allowed them to feel like they really aren't alone in feeling so alone. It isn't as easy today as it was 20 years ago to have a multiplatinum-selling album, and as artists, that should challenge and motivate us.
There are always going to be those artists who break through on an emotional level and end up in people's lives forever. The way I see it, fans view music the way they view their relationships. Some music is just for fun, a passing fling (the ones they dance to at clubs and parties for a month while the song is a huge radio hit, that they will soon forget they ever danced to). Some songs and albums represent seasons of our lives, like relationships that we hold dear in our memories but had their time and place in the past.
However, some artists will be like finding "the one." We will cherish every album they put out until they retire and we will play their music for our children and grandchildren. As an artist, this is the dream bond we hope to establish with our fans. I think the future still holds the possibility for this kind of bond, the one my father has with the Beach Boys and the one my mother has with Carly Simon.
I think forming a bond with fans in the future will come in the form of constantly providing them with the element of surprise. No, I did not say "shock"; I said "surprise." I believe couples can stay in love for decades if they just continue to surprise each other, so why can't this love affair exist between an artist and their fans?
In the YouTube generation we live in, I walked out onstage every night of my stadium tour last year knowing almost every fan had already seen the show online. To continue to show them something they had never seen before, I brought out dozens of special guest performers to sing their hits with me. My generation was raised being able to flip channels if we got bored, and we read the last page of the book when we got impatient. We want to be caught off guard, delighted, left in awe. I hope the next generation's artists will continue to think of inventive ways of keeping their audiences on their toes, as challenging as that might be.
There are a few things I have witnessed becoming obsolete in the past few years, the first being autographs. I haven't been asked for an autograph since the invention of the iPhone with a front-facing camera. The only memento "kids these days" want is a selfie. It's part of the new currency, which seems to be "how may followers you have on Instagram."
Fan Power
A friend of mine, who is an actress, told me that when the casting for her recent movie came down to two actresses, the casting director chose the actress with more Twitter followers. I see this becoming a trend in the music industry. For me, this dates back to 2005 when I walked into my first record-label meetings, explaining to them that I had been communicating directly with my fans on this new site called Myspace. In the future, artists will get record deals because they have fans—not the other way around.
Another theme I see fading into the gray is genre distinction. These days, nothing great you hear on the radio seems to come from just one musical influence. The wild, unpredictable fun in making music today is that anything goes. Pop sounds like hip hop; country sounds like rock; rock sounds like soul; and folk sounds like country—and to me, that's incredible progress. I want to make music that reflects all of my influences, and I think that in the coming decades the idea of genres will become less of a career-defining path and more of an organizational tool.
This moment in music is so exciting because the creative avenues an artist can explore are limitless. In this moment in music, stepping out of your comfort zone is rewarded, and sonic evolution is not only accepted…it is celebrated. The only real risk is being too afraid to take a risk at all.
Celebrity Spotlight
I predict that some things will never change. There will always be an increasing fixation on the private lives of musicians, especially the younger ones. Artists who were at their commercial peak in the '70s, '80s and '90s tell me, "It was never this crazy for us back then!" And I suspect I'll be saying that same thing to younger artists someday (God help them). There continues to be a bad girl vs. good girl/clean-cut vs. sexy debate, and for as long as those labels exist, I just hope there will be contenders on both sides. Everyone needs someone to relate to.
And as for me? I'll just be sitting back and growing old, watching all of this happen or not happen, all the while trying to maintain a life rooted in this same optimism.
And I'd also like a nice garden.
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Wait a second 
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Member Since: 8/27/2011
Posts: 14,680
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Quote:
Originally posted by a_little_sinner
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The last sentence 
Who said that Her album would have something related to a garden?
I like the article, I love the way she express herself, I hope that she is right on this and people keep buying albums..
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Member Since: 8/18/2013
Posts: 12,913
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She looks pissed, and it seems she is not in the mood for photos with fans either.
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Member Since: 9/16/2011
Posts: 50,981
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Ha crop top 
Ha article
Ha article shading "fun, passing fling" radio hits and shocking antics.
Ha article ending with the word "garden."
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Member Since: 3/15/2013
Posts: 1,995
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Quote:
Originally posted by JakeKills
Ha crop top
Ha article
Ha article shading "fun, passing fling" radio hits and shocking antics.
Ha article ending with the word "garden." |
The Secret Garden
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Member Since: 7/15/2012
Posts: 2,055
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Quote:
Originally posted by WayTooHonest13
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Taylor is so articulate. She has a very keen understanding of what it takes to build and preserve a career. I am concerned about her next album but I hope to be delightfully surprised.
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Member Since: 4/4/2014
Posts: 2,055
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Taylor is so hot 
That article; she's so intelligent.
Aug 4th? Makes sense but I wonder how and when she'll announce everything
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Member Since: 8/25/2012
Posts: 20,985
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Wow, she looks so freakin HAWT 
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Member Since: 6/25/2012
Posts: 41,860
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Quote:
Originally posted by bp21xo
The Secret Garden |
Ya'll didn't want the Erotica
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Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 1,760
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Quote:
Originally posted by WayTooHonest13
So a while ago i was searching for interns at BMR on twitter and tumblr and i followed a couple and a few of them were private so i figured they were legit and tried following them and one of them tweeted this:
The Herry Hymns are COMING |
Not you using Nicki's description for Pills N Potions. Come harder when you troll please.
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Member Since: 8/25/2012
Posts: 20,985
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Quote:
Originally posted by IStanHard
The first pic almost gave me a hard-on. Almost. |
Shocking 😱
Garden
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Member Since: 1/13/2012
Posts: 13,577
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Wait. She really wrote that? it was a nice read... Slay Tay
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Member Since: 1/13/2012
Posts: 13,577
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Quote:
Originally posted by IStanHard
The first pic almost gave me a hard-on. Almost. |
She really isn't playing with her fashion this era
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 5,500
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Quote:
Originally posted by Dani97
She looks pissed, and it seems she is not in the mood for photos with fans either. |
Why would she be pissed?
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 7,793
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Cool article. Interesting to hear Taylor talking about genres and sonic evolution. Also cool to hear her opinions about albums selling. Taylor has correctly identified that this is due to her close connection with her fan-base. Taylor says she is optimistic about album sales, I guess this is easier for her to do than any other artist as Taylor is the most consistent album seller over the past half-decade. When LP5 comes out this year, it will outsell all other albums in 2014 (with the possible exception of the Frozen soundtrack).
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