14 DAY TRIAL // From the very start, Taylor Swift was a bit pop and a bit country, but she always identified as “country” or, if not, “country pop / pop country.” With her new album, “1989,” dropping in stores this month, she’s going pop all the way, in a move apparently meant to help her distance herself from the country genre for good.
To promote the album, Taylor landed the cover of Vogue UK, but she also did an interview with the mag. It’s not rubbing fans the right way, because she seems to be saying the move is due to her desire to be more “challenged” as an artist.
Pop is “brave,” “bold” and “challenging,” country is not
Fans didn’t mind it that much when Taylor announced plans for the October release of “1989,” an album of which she said was inspired by all the great pop songs of the ‘90s that made her younger years all the better. After all, she’d been doing some form of pop all along, so why get upset about it now?
However, the Country Music Association did mind it, sending out a tweet that was seen as snarky by many, especially because it was deleted within minutes and never came back online again. “Good luck on your new venture @taylorswift13! We’ve LOVED watching you grow! #TaylorSwiftYahoo,” it read.
If there was sass in this tweet – and there probably was –, the feeling is mutual.
“This time around I’ve chosen the brave and bold way of going about things,” Taylor tells Vogue. “Because with this album I’ve completely changed the sound of everything I’ve done until now. So it’s interesting to not be afraid of that. You know, I don’t want to hurt people’s feelings, I don’t want to betray Nashville, whatever, but essentially it comes down to challenging yourself as an artist.”
Reading between the lines
Naturally, Taylor is too business savvy to go on the record bad-mouthing country music openly. However, by describing her upcoming album in such praising terms and stressing that it’s unlike anything she’s done before, she is actually saying that “1989” will be everything her country materials were not.
That would be “brave,” “bold” and “challenging.” Hold the presses!
According to many voices online, Taylor is biting the hand that fed her for so many years, and what’s worse, she’s doing it when she has no apparent reason for it: she would still do great in pop without saying these things.
If there’s any truth to this theory, Taylor is making the same mistake many other young artists / former child stars have made in the past, that of trying to establish themselves as adults by completely trashing and demeaning the work they did before, in the hope of gaining some distance from it. That’s indeed a very risky move.