I don’t get it. Her music is sometimes catchy but otherwise unremarkable, from the songs I’ve heard. How does she break all these records and accumulate so much fame and wealth?
She’s pretty, but a lot of singer songwriters are, especially those with makeup and costume people, a support staff.
Is there something else to her that people like?
I’m confused about what makes her so apparently unique or phenomenal.
Update: there are so many things that make swift unique or phenomenal.
I’ve received tons of great answers from people that have helped me understand, like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle, many factors that makes swift different and consequently more successful than her peers.
Clever lyrics, top-tier production, sharing autobiographical and emotional points in her life very directly, apparent honesty with few or no public blemishes, creating a community of fans through Easter eggs and house parties and unconventional, but always personal methods, an early start supported by wealthy parents, she keeps winning against abusers, and her music itself is popular and fun.
Those are just a few of the puzzle pieces contributed here, and a dive into this post is a pretty good explanation of many of the factors that must be contributing to her phenomenal success and recognition, that set her apart from other pop stars, even pop stars who were phenoms in their own right.
This is a very educational post, thank you to everyone who has contributed.
She’s really good at making pop music. Just because it doesn’t appeal to you doesn’t mean she’s not good.
My friend Alex is really into metal music. Like, it’s all he listens to. Every once in a while I’ll listen to some of his songs, and they all sound the same to me. The stuff he says is awful sounds the same to me as the stuff he says is incredible. That doesn’t mean there’s no variation in metal or that it’s all just formulaic, and it doesn’t mean that bands can’t be really good at making and playing metal music, it just means I can’t tell when they are, cause it’s not my kind of music.
It appears to be the same for you and pop music. It all sounds the same to you because it’s not your kind of music.
Wow! Those are pretty virulent, unsubstantiated assumptions.
I like pop music, hence my curiosity.
The reason I prefaced my statement with “it appears” is precisely because I didn’t want to assume.
A velvet glove on an iron fist.
I suggest speaking and theorizing based on your personal experience rather than the positions you assume others take.
Ok, so take this same disdain that you have for other people assuming your thoughts and feelings, and apply it to your own views on Taylor Swift’s fans. Just like you, they have their own thoughts and feelings, and unlike you, they don’t find her music unremarkable.
fucking based
And look, here we are, there’s a huge post where people answering the question I actually asked instead of funneling irrelevant natives toward boring conclusions.
Yes, everyone has their likes and dislikes, kudos to your revelation, but aren’t you curious about the world at all? How it functions? Why people like that they like?
If not, you probably aren’t going to understand or appreciate the conversations going on all around you gainfully answering the question this post presents, in which people try to pin down, or rather, crowdsource a theory on what makes someone who is unremarkable from a distance so culturally celebrated and unique.