imo
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Nah Taylor Swift is pretty obviously a decent person. When she spoke out against Marsha Blackburn it was not at all obvious it wouldn’t tank her career. She was at that time still mostly a country artist and there was real risk in doing what she did.
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Ideally we’d have the death penalty for vampire squids defacing famous American brands that produce great products, but in reality it’s just business as usual.
The move to cut what sources say were possibly more than half the existing jobs, including most of the production positions, came three months after the international corporation InMusic bought the company. Founded by inventor and sound engineer Bob Moog almost 50 years ago, Moog’s instruments have been played by the likes of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. All of its synthesizers were made in Asheville.
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Here’s Roger Linn (bona fide American genius) talking about the same asshole CEO of inMusic that recently took control of Moog:
I mostly agree that it’s improbable that she’s a piece of shit. I give Taylor Swift a ton of credit for being simply the best person at reading her demo who ever existed though… and that includes knowing where the good risks to take are… and getting out early enough to convince you it isn’t cynical was a great move for her long term ability to operate. So was giving out six figure bonuses to everyone who worked on the last tour.
I agree with her and if I was in her spot and being entirely amoral I’d make the same moves. Getting on the right side of labor in your early 30’s in 2023? Brilliant move. Same kind of move as coming out against Blackburn when she did.
I think she’s a decent person, but I also think she’s really really smart and at the absolute edge of where the wind is blowing at any given time. I’m sure there was some luck involved in her becoming the biggest pop star in the world but she’s made so many correct moves in a row it’s a bit like claiming Warren Buffett is a fluke at this point.
The only actual career criticism I have is that it’s not a perfect game because she’s objectively terrible at picking which songs on her albums should be singles. Definitely worse than random.
Examples? I’m not that familiar with her discography but her popular songs mostly make me go “yeah, makes sense”.
(Is this maybe even something for the Musical Hot Take Thread?)
If you listen to any of her albums there are generally 3-5 songs better than any of the singles from that album on that album. The most egregious example is probably Me! from Lover, but that’s just the worst one it remains at least sort of true for every album except maybe folklore and evermore… and there it’s just every track being pretty similar in terms of quality.
Once more for the record this is the music that is playing in my car any time my wife is in it. I like Taylor Swift but my level of knowledge about the subject is mostly an artifact of celebrating my 15th anniversary with a Swifty last month.
Sure, sure, of course.
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taylor swift lived through multiple years of the trump presidency before breaking her political “silence” policy, she can go fk herself, and her shitty music while she’s at it
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Where’s the boo this man emoji?
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boredswifty IMO
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Fwiw she regrets that decision. Have you watched her Miss Americana documentary?
https://www.axios.com/2020/01/24/taylor-swift-politics-miss-americana-donald-trump
I imagine anyone already so cynical about her would dismiss the documentary as part of the PR campaign.
I mean you’re talking about someone with one of the more tightly controlled PR presences out there. Mostly because she doesn’t need to be ‘managed’ in the conventional artist sense.
Look I’m a business guy by trade who had some exposure to music as a business at a young age… I believe what my eyes are telling me. This person is an all caps OPERATOR.
Once you realize how much better she is at being a pop star than everyone else it clicks how the entire thing really could be an act. At that point you can either be really disillusioned and sad about how someone who appears to be awesome might actually be a piece of shit like the rest of us, or you can do what I’ve done and make peace with a Schrödinger’s cat situation. I’m honestly OK with it either being entirely sincere or a complete act. If it’s a complete act it’s high level competence porn and if it’s completely sincere it’s nice to see the nice person lap the competition year after year.
I’m a huge nerd about business in general and it’s not hard for me to muster natural interest in the business of movies/music/sports. Without that natural interest it would be much harder for me to keep up with these topics, which exist in my brain to make small talk with normies.
Obviously she has great PR but also she’s really really really good at writing songs. This isn’t all branding, she’s legitimately one of the most talented people on the planet.
@DUCY https://www.buildingforwardgv.org/ a mere $100 million dollars in local sales tax increase for our suburb of 35,000 people to… build a new police HQ. When the failbox of our police leadership has been a national story. 
I read that URL as “building for war”
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I’m picturing the funniest possible version of this in my head and it’s hilarious. I’m sure it’s not really how it goes, but I’m imagining a Swifty being like OMGOMG did you know she’s dating Travis Kelce?? Followed by you breaking down her business acumen and making the case for what a shrewd capitalist she is.
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Oh no! You were in your car!?
https://x.com/abughazalehkat/status/1706777915516715084?s=46&t=mdG4vqCfpbP4Xp4esdQ98A
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