What is Taylor’s Billie Jean?

VoRonika

VoRonika

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Neil Tennant has unleashed the ire of the Swifties with this quote.



To be fair, as much as her music is obviously not aimed at a pushing-seventy 80s pop star, I do think he has a grain of a point. She has lots of famous songs but does she have any that have obtained total cut-through? It seems to me more that she’s managed to sustain a remarkable level of success across a remarkable level of productivity, and in many ways she’s the defining pop star of the streaming era. Does she have a truly generational, era defining hit? And if not, does it even matter?
 
truly insane that this is even a discussion. If Taylor doesn't have a "generational, era defining hit" (what is that and who decides?) then... who does?
 
I can see where he is coming from, but it's a bit "old man shakes fist", no? Just because it isn't era- defining to HIM, doesn't mean it ISN'T? He's comparing the 80s, where one song came out at a time with massive publicity pushes and we watched limited tv channels which showed the same shit over and over again, where radio only played modern songs so saturated the big ones with the streaming era where everything is diluted by being able to access literally anything you ever want to.
 
It's a weirdly narrow view from such an obviously intelligent man. Sometimes it is the catalogue that has the weight; The Smiths would be an example of that, as would The Beatles.
 
I'd say during her most mainstream pop era (Red->Reputation) the lead singles were all designed to simply be big "hits" to launch album with. Look What You Made Me Do especially was written with headlines and going viral in mind.

Of those, I'd say Shake It Off has become the most well known to those casual people whose music knowledge consists of sticking HeartFM on and leaving it on in the background .

All in all though, music consumption in the 2010s/2020s is so different to the 70s/80s and I'm not completely sure what his point even is. Come back when you're the biggest artist of all time maybe hun.
 
I'd say he has a point in as much as she doesn't have one dominant hit, but after that, exactly what Shee says. My first thought was that I didn't really feel that I was qualified to judge what defined the current era, so I'm not sure that someone 15-20 years older than me is.

And then like octy says, it wouldn't fucking matter anyway, when you have a weight of a catalogue like she does.

In short, shut up Neil.
 
also worth remembering that as a solo act MJ was not super prolific and had an imperial era lasting 3 albums that spawned about 12 big hits. of course when you've had 40+ singles over 11 albums in the same space of time one is less likely to become the song that defines your career.
 
The sooner people realise that NOBODY is ever going to be the sort of famous that Michael Jackson was in the 80s, the better.

That's just not how the world works anymore.
 
GNL said:
The sooner people realise that NOBODY is ever going to be the sort of famous that Michael Jackson was in the 80s, the better.

That's just not how the world works anymore.
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but... is Taylor not? I feel like she is.
 
I think the other thing that Tennant has missed is the death of the Greatest Hits album. The key songs of an artist's catalogue would often be solidified with a GH or even a reissue with the intent of selling them to us a second (or third etc) time. Without that, these things are much more fluid and what happened with Swift's "Cruel Summer" is a perfect example of that.
 
To frame it slightly differently - and I’m just making conversation here, I have no axe to grind against Taylor Swift - I would argue that Adele has three broadly ’Billie Jean level’ everybody and their nan knows them megahits - Rolling In The Deep, Someone Like You and Hello.

Does Taylor have one song with that level of cut through? I’d argue no…
 
VoR said:
To frame it slightly differently - and I’m just making conversation here, I have no axe to grind against Taylor Swift - I would argue that Adele has three broadly ’Billie Jean level’ everybody and their nan knows them megahits - Rolling In The Deep, Someone Like You and Hello.

Does Taylor have one song with that level of cut through? I’d argue no…
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I'd say the closest is Shake It Off, but I see your point also
 
Iguana said:
Shake It Off and Blank Space each have 3.4 BILLION streams on YouTube
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Could your mum hum them though?

She’s unquestionably one of, if not the biggest pop star in the world. I do think Tennant has a point though that she’s potentially a curiously mono-generational one.
 
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I doubt my Mum could hum ‘Shake It Off’ but I suspect that if I played it for her and said, ‘who’s that by then?’, she would know. It’s probably the only Taylor song where that would be the case.
 
VoR said:
I do think Tennant has a point though that she’s potentially a curiously mono-generational one.
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My dad is in his mid-70s and he listens to her lots. He finds the long albums a slog, but he especially likes her earlier stuff, which I am trying to break him out of :D Hated folklore though :(
 
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If "mum humming it" is the bar, then you're looking at Love Story. It's the one that will be played at weddings.
 
ZenGiraffe said:
If "mum humming it" is the bar, then you're looking at Love Story. It's the one that will be played at weddings.
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Unless you are Tischguana, who had Shake It Off.

But then, they also had ADRENALINA so they're not exactly going for MAINSTREAM
 
VoR said:
To frame it slightly differently - and I’m just making conversation here, I have no axe to grind against Taylor Swift - I would argue that Adele has three broadly ’Billie Jean level’ everybody and their nan knows them megahits - Rolling In The Deep, Someone Like You and Hello.

Does Taylor have one song with that level of cut through? I’d argue no…
Click to expand...
It might be a geographic thing but "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", "Love Story", and "You Belong With Me" are all more famous/ubiquitous in America than "Someone Like You" or "Hello". Obviously they all were massive hits, but I'd argue Taylor's are more enduring and widely known. That is partly because Taylor's profile has remained high, but that goes without saying.
 
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VoR said:
To frame it slightly differently - and I’m just making conversation here, I have no axe to grind against Taylor Swift - I would argue that Adele has three broadly ’Billie Jean level’ everybody and their nan knows them megahits - Rolling In The Deep, Someone Like You and Hello.

Does Taylor have one song with that level of cut through? I’d argue no…
Click to expand...
Adele has made 4 albums in the same timeframe in which Swift has made 11. Swift's albums are longer and her re-recordings have added 'Vault' tracks. I think Swift has released more new music in the last 2 years than Adele has in her whole career. All of this is fine, artists work at their own pace.

However, when there is much less music, the same songs tend to get played out more and more, especially on the radio. This is how a song really sticks. Swift doesn't have that because she works too fast and releases too much. Part of the reason Billie Jean stuck to Neil Tennant and an 80s audience is because Jackson released 6 or 7 singles from Thriller and didn;t make another album until 1987. Those songs were therefore played out on the radio, in clubs and by fans much more than any Swift album has been because you're never more than a year away from something new, whether it's 6 or 7 Vault Tracks or a 31 songs double album.
 
For the record, I like productive and unpredictable artists. I love delving into a sprawling catalogue. However, music industry logic for most of my life was that, if you had a hit album, you raked it for singles, toured, released a special edition and then gave it at least 2 years for a follow-up. Today's world seems to be more like the 1960's; 2 albums per year plus non-album singles and I'm kinda here for it.
 
I think that's a very good point. A big part of Taylor's success has been down to the relentless churn of new and reworked material. And with it being tied so closely to her personal life, her discography is as close as I can think of to a genuine ongoing pop music soap opera.

You do have to wonder how long that's sustainable for though, and when the dust inevitably settles, what will be the songs that still remain prominent in the public consciousness? (I'm not saying there won't be any before you all jump on me again! It's an open ended question...)
 
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She's proven she can evolve with the times. Didn't imagine she would make the transition to pop star so well, in 2014, and she did. Thought it was diminishing returns after Lover, too, and then the pandemic + Folklore happened. Didn't anticipate Midnights catapulting her either, and then that exploded with the Eras Tour and re-recordings. She and her team are very good at marketing her brand and evolving it.
 
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