We doing podtalk niggas, Inspired by a poster mentioning how they thought it was remarkable to see how Taylor has such an impressive cult-like hold over her fanbase which allows her bland music to break records repeatedly, I'm not saying she's not talented, it obviously takes talent to do what she does

It gave me some loose thoughts, feel free to chime in

1. selling out
The concept of musicians selling out is basically musicians of every other genre capitulating to the desires of these bland consumers to gain access to their dollars. If you can speak directly to this fanbase like Taylor has, you'll be a superstar.

Take The Weeknd for example, he's almost two versions of himself. Dark Abel (Escape From LA, Heartless, After Hours) & Pop Abel (Blinding Lights, Scared To Live, Hardest To Love, Save Your Tears) exist on the same album but have somewhat different roles.

2. 'there's nothing wrong with you, everything is right with you
In the similar way that the alt-right recruits lame men by telling them they are perfectly fine as they are without growing, Taylor puts forward this bland image of a regular white women & aims to make blandness seem remarkable or at least the norm/something one should be proud of, thus it appeals to these bland women. Why challenge yourself by listening to something different when you can just look at the mirror & marvel at yourself in an auditory sense? This is why Taylor is so massive - she is the embodiment of white mediocrity being praised.
Portraying mediocrity in such an appealing way could arguably be considered a skill requiring great talent. Half of the battle of gaining attention is selling something/making something seem special.

3. feminism for the many? or for the few?
Taylor somewhat commandeered the 4th wave feminism era & 'girl-boss' movement to bolster her success. Proving that others can become oppressors akin to white men when they have enough status, using her power to block others women from chart success & also punching down as we saw on Actually Romantic. Spinning her individual experience of being screwed over by admittedly evil & disgusting creature Scooter Braun into a 'girl-boss' move by remaking & re-releasing her old albums & charging her fanbase exorbitant fees to purchase old music reborn in its many deluxe edition or with cardigan forms. This is her story, but you will all pay her for it.
She spins the tale of girl-boss not into its expected form of 'women who succeeds inspite of the patriarchy' but into women who succeed off the backs of other women & who is willing to crush other women to achieve this. Whether it be Nicki, SZA, Charli, Billie, Sabrina, whoever, she will release variants of her album to stay atop of you.
Even her era of her 'girl squad' of friends displayed this, as she calculated this move & aimed for them to only exist in accessory to her, with its heavy in-group/out-group dynamic.

4. what is a single? The best or the catchiest/most digestible
How often is the single the best song on the album? Or is it usually just the catchiest? Streaming (minus forced playlisting/payola marketing & disproportionately higher plays on earlier tracks on an album) allow for greater representation of what people are consuming, but the concept of 'a single' is catchiness & is about mass appeal & in America mass appeal = capturing the attention of 'white women'

Examples for illustration:
E.g. on first listen to CLB, Way 2 Sexy sounded like 'a single', although not in a staying power sense but it had a clear catchiness & structure that felt as such.
In an alternate world a la Bad Habits going to #1, I felt that Super Stars by Yves Tumor could easily be a 'single'.
On first listen of Renaissance I instantly thought Cuff It was one of Beyoncé's best songs ever/all-time but I didn't necessarily feel like it would be a #1 single.

Part of the old single equation may be down to radio friendly song structure too, Renaissance having songs with so many elaborate transitions may mean the songs could radio edit versions.

5. music colorism = pink tax
The pink tax (while definitely messed up) as an a***ogy is akin to colorism by music consumers, people willing to pay more for something of the same/similar function, perhaps even in a lesser quality or quantity as long as its aesthetic suits them better.

Is Eminem a pink rapper? Wanting to feel rebellious led to white consumers liking the Dr Dre pipeline (NWA - Dr Dre - Snoop Dogg, followed Eminem - 50 Cent). Eminem did it well but he didn't do it better but he reaped the rewards to the point that he is wealthier than 99% of his peers.

I went to a 50 concert this year & my friend who does not 'have his fist up'/isn't disturbed by the overbearing negatives of whiteness (& he has only dated white) noted that the concert audience was extremely white, he is never the one to say these things.

Whilst musicians can get bigger after death, is it fair to note that some of Mac Miller's posthumous success linked to him being white. XXXTentacion & Juice WRLD are the other biggest deceased 2010s rappers but both of them were much bigger than Mac prior to their respective passing aways.

(I'm a Mac fan, it's observation not hate, we breaking down concepts today)
Although we also see bland musicians e.g. Khalid who managed to command a mostly 'white women', so it's not always an exact concept of colorism, so i could be wrong?

I'm not saying I'm right or wrong

Saving for later

I think its fun to hate taylor swift but her succes isnt that deep
Like the a***ysis tho

good thread concept

is eminem a pink rapper

Chat GPT ass thread

ironic coming for you

Point to a thread where I use ChatGPT or gtfo

No GPT unless you meant Goated Person's Thumbs , I typed this out with these two hands homie

We need more threads like this. Great read and important topics that should be addressed

Cool thread

HIM OUT NOW

"This is her story, but you will all pay her for it.
She spins the tale of girl-boss not into its expected form of 'women who succeeds inspite of the patriarchy' but into women who succeed off the backs of other women & who is willing to crush other women to achieve this. Whether it be Nicki, SZA, Charli, Billie, Sabrina, whoever, she will release variants of her album to stay atop of you."

That's just the beast called capitalism, and almost every "successful" musician does this to varying degrees. That goes for Hov, Bey, Diddy, Rihanna, and all them upper echelon cats who masquerade black capitalism as black excellence. This here is the game. I'm not saying you can't have conviction about certain social values once you get rich, but often times, getting filthy rich means falling in line with the status quo, and not every artist is willing to go the Noname route and say f*** that

If I do more of these we gon get to those niggas too
I already got the bulletpoints ready for all four of them tbf, although I don't want to go too Chatricia Patricia with it