Defending Taylor

After reading and thoroughly enjoying Taylor Swift’s article at the Wall Street Journal I wrote a positive and friendly response about her cheerful optimism towards music and the popular music industry. Afterwards, I read Nilay Patel’s response at Vox that in my own opinion misses the point of Taylor’s article completely. Before I continue with Patel’s article I want to point out what I consider the main point of Taylor’s article:

“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.”

Taylor’s message is powerful; she wants to empower young female musicians and encourage them to not give away their music for free while trying to ‘make it’ in the music industry.

To provide an efficient point by point, I will review my favorite quotes from Patel’s article.

“…the vast majority of consumers actually reward convenience. That's why the iPod was a huge hit even though digitally-compressed music sounded terrible at the time, and it's why teenagers today get most of their music on YouTube, even though YouTube sounds worse still.”

I agree! For many types of technology convenience is rewarded but I am not sure that the iPod was a huge hit solely because of convenience; it was a hit because it was small, new, fashionable, high-tech, and you did not have to lug around your CD collection anymore!

As far as the sound quality I am a bit baffled; how good does the quality have to be? I understand that with compression a lot of the highs and lows and the dynamic aspects of music are lost to make the music ‘level’ but for the most part pop music could care less. Do you really need to hear the minute musical details of ‘Wiggle’ or “Aint’t It Fun’? No.

The only time I want a perfect sounding recording is when I listen to Classical Music and some types of Jazz. Good quality recordings are good enough when listen to most R&R, R&B, C&W, or Pop songs; YouTube sounds fine unless you are listening to Classical, then it is okay. I assume there are adudiophiles out there who can’t stand the quality of YouTube but they are a small percentage of the total population and probably incessantly complain while they have their $200 headphones on.

“It's also why the album is dead: you can't sell a handful of singles and some okayish filler songs to people for $10 or $15 or $25 anymore, because convenient internet music distribution has utterly destroyed the need to bundle everything together.”

Ugh. I purchased so many albums when I was growing-up and 75% of the songs were disappointing. The only artist I was consistently happy with was Morrissey; most of his albums were good from beginning to end but then that is my bias.

I do agree that the internet has incentivised artists to release singles rather than albums but not all artists. The artists that focus on hit singles, hundreds of millions of YouTube views, and getting their songs on TV and in movies are usually not worried about lofty ideas of artistic merit; they want the songs to be good, they want people to enjoy them, and they want to be successful. These goals are fine and this type of music serves its purpose.

Continuing the discussion about albums, Mr. Patel saw Jimmy Lovine give a speech where he “bemoaned the fact that artists are churning out bad-sounding singles while touring instead of spending years in the studio crafting Led Zeppelin-like masterpieces.”

Ugh. This always makes me smirk; baby boomers lamenting the poor quality of music after 1971 (1975 for Led Zeppelin). I find it funny that there seem to be so many writers and influential people who are stuck in the 60s and early 70s. If they would open their minds they would realize that there have been countless ‘Led Zeppelin-type’ masterpieces created in the last 35+ years and many today are being created in people’s living rooms!

One artist that created two album length masterpieces in the early 2000s was Tom Waits with Blood Money and Alice. Now Tom Waits does not have the best voice and his music is not blues rock but the quality of the songwriting, the musicianship, the instrumentation, and the ingenious use of the source material is brilliant. If you then move beyond singer songwriters and blues rock into rap, R&B, and other types of music you could find many album-length masterpieces; you just have to be open.

Finally, one of Patel’s main points is the fact that albums sales are in a free fall mainly because of the internet. Music, and the economics of music today are different than what they were ten-years ago, very different than twenty-years ago, and a lifetime away from thirty-years ago! But as with different industries, technology, and art forms, one generation means change and if one does not adjust they will be left-behind.

How will Katy Perry make money? Well, that is easy, she is a pop superstar! No worries there and her albums and tour make plenty of money. How will Daniela Andrade and Pomplamoose make money? That is difficult and more complex. I suggest watching Jack Conti’s TEDx lecture on the small business musician because musicians these days have to hustle (even more than before) and be open to other types of revenue streams because signing with a major label does not always equal pop music success.

Conclusion

Mr. Patel brings up many good, valid points about the contemporary music industry, pop music, and album sales. But when it comes to Taylor Swift, Mr. Patel missed the whole point of her Wall Street Journal article and comes off as demeaning and arrogant.