Taylor Swift Podcast Episode

In this episode of "In the Mind of Kaz," the host discusses Taylor Swift and her music. They acknowledge that everyone has their own opinions about Swift but discuss her career and personal life to provide context. They mention her transition from country to pop music, her controversies, and her recent re-recordings of her previous albums. They then talk about Swift's newest album, "Midnights," and the mixed reactions it received. The host interviews their father, who is a Taylor Swift fan, and they discuss their favorite songs from her and their thoughts on "Midnights." They also talk about how Swift's music fits in with other artists and her impact on the music industry. The host concludes by addressing common criticisms of Swift and encouraging listeners to give her music a chance. They mention the possibility of Swift re-recording her third album, "Speak Now," and express excitement for what she will do next. Welcome back, my loyal listeners. In today's episode of In the Mind of Kaz, that's me, we're going to be talking about, you guessed it, Taylor Swift. Now listen, if you're not a fan of her, first of all, don't worry. I'm no superfan, or Swifty, as they're called. Some of her music I enjoy, and some I don't. No matter what your opinion of her is, I'm not going to try and change your mind. However, I am going to give some of my own opinions, and respond to various criticisms. I firmly believe that there are both valid and invalid reasons to dislike her. Before even announcing her newest album, Taylor Swift was a topic of much controversy. There are one or two of you who actually consistently listen to this podcast. You guys know the deal. I'm going to take a minute to go over her career and some relevant personal life information, so we can all have the same context for the rest of this episode. And then we'll get into the meat of the episode, including our very special guest. Taylor Swift grew up in West Reading, Pennsylvania, and after being signed to Scott Bruchetta's label, released her first single, Tim McGraw, in 2006 at the age of 16. She quickly became extremely popular as a country artist, and it was only in her fourth album, titled Red, that she began moving into the area of pop music. She released her fifth album, 1989, in 2014 at the age of 24. Every single one of her albums before this had been an instant hit, and she had already won 10 Grammys, and been nominated 30 times. Despite her overwhelming popularity, she was also widely criticized for writing songs about the men she had dated, and had public feuds with Kanye West and his then-wife, Kim Kardashian. In 2018, Taylor switched labels, and all of the master recordings of all of her previous works were sold to Scooter Braun against her will. Taylor dealt with all the hate towards her during this time by releasing another hit album, titled Reputation. Reputation has a darker theme, and it was a clear response to the insults and misogyny that had been thrown her way. Additionally, instead of allowing Scooter Braun to continue benefiting from her work, she made the decision to re-record every one of her previous songs and release her own version of these albums. Taylor then released a new album in 2019, which was the exact opposite of Reputation, a bright, soft, upbeat album named Lover. She also released two new albums during the COVID quarantine, which took on a more folksy sound. She has also now re-recorded three of her previous albums, which now include Vault Tracks, which were not previously released. This was where we were at, 11 albums in and 11 Grammys in, when she announced her newest album, Midnights. This was incredibly unexpected, as most people were waiting to hear which album Taylor would be re-recording next. Also unexpected was the synth-pop sound that she adopted throughout Midnights. And also unexpected was the seven extra tracks she announced the day of. To say reactions varied would be an understatement. In terms of streams, it was a resounding success. On the day of its release, Midnights became the most streamed album in a single day on Spotify. She also became the first artist to cover all of the top ten spots on the Billboard Hot 100 chart at the same time. These are just two of the many records her newest album broke. Despite this, people had lots of different thoughts on the overall quality of Midnights, especially compared to her previous releases. Some people were hoping to continue the sound of Folklore and Evermore, the folk albums that she released during the pandemic. These people were disappointed by the electronica synth-pop genre that she went with instead. And this led to criticism, such as calling the album corny, redundant, and cringeworthy. However, many diehard Swifties who have been there since the beginning fought against this narrative by explaining how Taylor is known for switching genres, and is, at heart, a cringey and cat-loving millennial, and there's nothing wrong with that. Me personally, I have to admit, when I first heard some of the lyrics from Midnights, for example, All the cat eyes sharpen up to kill a man and Sometimes I feel like everybody has to love me, baby and those are just two examples. There was quite a few that just made me pause. At this point, I was leaning towards the first group's opinions. I quite enjoyed Folklore and Evermore, and I was sad not to get more of that. However, I'm also a fan of Red, Speak Now, and her debut album, so I kept an open mind. Once I listened all the way through the album, a few times, I came to agree with the Swifties. Not every song needs to be taken seriously. Once I realized that, I could start bopping to Karma without feeling dumb for yelling, This is not to say that there aren't any serious tracks on there. In fact, this is one of Taylor's most vulnerable albums, with the theme being, and I quote, The stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life. Now we're getting to my main point in this episode. You do not have to be a white millennial woman who owns three cats in order to enjoy Taylor Swift. Her music is not only made to reach a wide variety of people, but it's also able to be understood and related to in countless ways. To help me further understand her influence, I'm going to be talking to a 50-year-old Taylor Swift fan who just so happens to be my father. Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me on. Great to be here. Thanks for joining us today. Okay, so let's start with your overall opinion of Taylor Swift. Before Midnight's came out, what did you think about her, and how much did you listen to her? Well, it's safe to say I'm a Swifty. I first became aware of her and her music over 10 years ago, and I've been a fan ever since. She's what you'd call a crossover artist, starting out in country, then moving into pop, and borderline rock, and other kinds of sounds. I'm always interested in those kinds of artists. Good answer. So, not counting Midnight's, what are your favorite albums or songs from her? Oh, good question. So, whenever a new Taylor Swift album comes out, what I usually do is kind of scan through it once and see what are the interesting ones, and add those to my Taylor Swift playlist. And looking through that, I'd say my most regularly listened to songs on that playlist before Midnight's would be from Lover, and from her original album, Taylor Swift. From her older album, I'd say my favorite songs are Our Song, and probably, oh, I don't know, I'm Only Me When I'm With You. Those are pretty good. Classics, even. From her newer stuff, I like the pop songs like Paper Rings and Shake It Off. They're just good, classic pop. So, you're a fan of the more upbeat pop songs, then. What was your first impression of Midnight's? With all the marketing hype ahead of Midnight's, I wasn't sure what to expect. Would it be more like her old school stuff, pop or country, or more like her more recent albums that came out during the pandemic, Folklore, Evermore, that kind of stuff? So, I didn't know what to expect, but hearing it, it was very clearly going to be very pop-ish, very processed. I thought she's sounding good. As I had a second and third listen and got into the deeper meanings behind the lyrics, I really started to appreciate it. Oh, I agree. I definitely needed to listen to it a few times to fully appreciate the album. So, what songs in particular jumped out at you? On the first couple of listen-throughs, Antihero jumped out at me, of course. That's the big one she launched with. And Karma. Great pop song. Really like it. Great energy, good sound. As I went back more and more, I really liked Maroon. I think that's a really interesting song. Definitely got a lot of plays from me. Interestingly, though, I think the most important and probably best song she's done in years isn't on the main album. It's on the bonus tracks on the 3AM album. Let me guess. Would've, Could've, Should've? How did you know? I think it's a fantastic song. For anyone listening who hasn't heard it, Would've, Could've, Should've is the 19th track out of the 20 that Taylor just released. It's about her relationship with John Mayer, which I talked about earlier in the episode. If you remember, she was 19 and he was 32, and it was a very unhealthy relationship. This song is about how it affected her and how much she regrets it. In fact, let's just play a clip of it now. And that's not even the best part of the song, so if you haven't heard it, go ahead and check it out. This is definitely one of people's favorite songs from the album. Definitely one of the more popular ones. But why is it your favorite out of all of them? When I first listened to it, what got my attention was the instrumentation. It was so different from the pop songs on the rest of the album. This one's got guitars and piano and a really interesting drum beat. I think there's even some harmonica in there. So it turns out this one was co-written and produced with someone else that is not on the rest of the album for the most part. A guy from the band The National. He's got a great sound, so I was happy to see her collaborating with him. From a lyrical point of view, I think the song is fascinating. If you ask anyone, the most casual music fan, what Taylor Swift writes about, the running joke would be she writes about her ex-boyfriends. And while this is also that kind of song, this is a very different one because this isn't someone she broke up with or broke up with her last year. This is an adult woman who was looking back at herself when she was 19 and the advice she was getting and what she was doing and the choices she was making and how she was being treated. This is a mature writer at her best, I think. Yeah, I completely agree. She's had an incredible career and it seems like she just keeps improving and changing. So how does Taylor Swift fit in with the other artists that you enjoy and listen to? Well, I started my musical journey back in the 70s and 80s where the biggest names of my teen years were Springsteen, Madonna, and Michael Jackson. Each of them had their own journey, of course, but looking at how their careers changed over time, you can see how each of them went through a genre shift. Michael Jackson started as a kid doing R&B group with his family and then became the king of pop in the 80s and 90s. Huge success. Whereas Madonna started out a big, huge pop sensation in the 80s and then switched to club and EDM, basically. Her followers did not follow her into the club, if you will, and she fell off the pop charts. Springsteen had his early career talking about girls and cars and driving down to the river and having a heartbroken. And then he evolved. He stayed true to his overall sound, but the topics changed over time. He matured as a writer and he grew and grew and grew in his career. He never peaked like he did in the 80s again, but he's had a number of albums since then, some of which are, in my opinion, as good as anything he had done when he was younger. So where does Taylor fit into that? I mean, she's essentially the modern equivalent of a Springsteen, maturing as she goes, continuing her original sound, but also evolving it over time. That's a perfect segue into my final question for you, which is what do you think her Taylor's overall effect on the music industry has been, especially compared to those other artists you were just discussing? Well, let's be clear. Taylor Swift is the music industry right now in some sense. She announces a tour and it sells out and maybe even breaks the ticketing system. She releases an album and every song places in the top 10 for Billboard's Hot 100 the next week. She is dominating at whatever she's trying to do. My personal opinion is she's made her fame on breakup songs and scorned lover songs. I don't think that can continue into her adulthood much longer. She has to grow into new topics beyond what she's famous for. Not to say she hasn't written others, but I think that can't be the crux of her hit after hit after hit. She's going to have to grow into pop songs and songs that are made for the radio, but are also not breakup songs and heartbreak songs. I've already seen that she's starting to do that with songs that reflect on other topics like antihero, which is deep inside her own head and her own thoughts and how she's treated by the world and what she thinks about that. I would encourage her to continue to do that, grow her career and build on the success she already has, which is enormous. That's exactly the point I wanted to make this episode. Thank you for coming on and answering my questions. It's my pleasure. Happy to be here. Continuing on with what he was just talking about, Taylor doesn't just sing about men. We're seeing this more and more in her lyrics. Even though I have to say some of her best songs are about breakups and the men that she's dating, I'm definitely not trying to say that those are bad songs. She does sing songs about grief and family and childhood and politics. Every single person who's listening to this right now, thinking about how much they dislike Taylor and dislike their music, I just want to ask you why. If you're thinking that you just don't like pop, there are just so many people who don't like pop who still enjoy her music. My dad, for one. But I promise, if you look up Metalhead reacts to Taylor Swift on YouTube, there will be tons of videos. I've seen many of them. It's really incredible to see different people with different tastes in music appreciating her as an artist even when they didn't expect to like her, but they still end up relating to her lyrics or liking the beat or whatever. If you think her lyrics are meaningless or cringy, as some were saying, watch chat and react videos on YouTube. They dissect every word of every one of her songs and I promise you will find new meaning through them because they really do such a deep dive on what she's referencing, what she thinks about, what all of her lyrics mean. And if you dislike her as a person, I understand. I do. There are absolutely things that she has done that I disagree with. And we should all do our part to hold her accountable and not idolize her. That's actually what her last song on Midnight's is about. It's called Dear Reader, so you should totally go check that out if that's how you feel about her. And lastly, if you hate her because she's a girly pop star and you're just too cool to care about things like that, I want you to close this app, open up Google, and type in how to unlearn toxic masculinity. Or if you're a woman, how to unlearn internalized misogyny. And just read or watch the first thing that pops up because trust me, I am doing you a favor. And on that note, let's end it. No, I'm just kidding. We still need to talk about where Taylor is heading next. Taylor is known for hiding clues to future announcements in her videos or posts, and it's those clues that have led Swifties to believe that her next project will be re-recording her third album, Speak Now. I won't get into all the hints and theories because this episode is already way too long, but I will tell you that the reasoning is pretty sound. If Taylor follows through, it seems that Speak Now, Taylor's version, could be coming up any time now. She also announced her next tour, which will be performing with artists such as Moona, Girl in Red, Phoebe Bridgers, and more. It's only been 16 years since Taylor's first album, and she has already become a household name and won hundreds of awards. Even now, it's obvious that she hasn't peaked yet. She has so much more to share with the world, and I for one cannot wait to experience it. Now, that's actually all for today, folks. So, as always, thank you for joining me and taking time out of your busy schedules to listen to my rambling thoughts. So, wherever, whenever you are, goodnight, g'day, and goodbye. Oh, and please remember to come back and hear my next episode, which will be covering nothing since this is a fake podcast for my English class. Bye!