Just Big and Greedy

The parasocially speculative pop star breakdown

Hello,

I am so grateful for the feedback I have received and for anyone who has read and engaged with my work. It’s really cool to have placed my piece about the power of the cute commodity in Dirt, which has published so many excellent writers and ideas since its inception. Thank you to my friends with whom I’ve discussed this idea in bits over the past year. 

Also, I understand a big convo on Substack especially has been about boys/men and reading/media. I’m not really an expert, but I have friends who are exploring different facets of literary culture. Derek would like to talk to more people about reforming the publishing industry, from a product manager’s angle.

jack b

has been writing about the “no more books for men” crisis. Also--I’d consider Chris of

Salieri Redemption

an OG in this field of study. 

Now, onto the main topic

---

Taylor Swift is the biggest greediest pop star in the world and she’s the best at it and she’s my favorite. The public periodically souring on her does not affect anything other than her ego; she is truly too big to fail. She may be the last card carrying member of the pop elite. Yet the more power she amasses, the more competitive she appears to become. I attribute this to greed, petty insecurity, and a sense of personal responsibility rooted in the capitalistic principles of “unlimited growth.” By that I mean as a billion dollar company, she keeps hundreds of people paid and feeds their families. To fail would be to fail them. Beyond the material stakes, she is insecure about her need to be and be seen as “good,” which although extended to the public sphere, is not a concern she appears to have with her perceived rivals. 

Beyonce? SAFE! 

Beyonce is the one dominant cultural force that Taylor will never attempt to undermine. Beyonce is invested in a project of African American exceptionalism. Taylor Swift is invested in Taylor Swift exceptionalism. They are not competitors. Beyonce’s greatest works have come from sampling and engaging with Black American history. One of her greatest strengths is curation. She becomes part of the canon through deconstructing and reintroducing the complexity, false promises, and victories of Black America. Even with her status as a genre-bending pop-R&B artist, Beyonce has always been relegated to the “urban contemporary” ghetto by the Recording Academy. That doesn’t reflect her real world status where her music is both largely enjoyed and respected. Taylor Swift probably has enough self-awareness and white guilt to understand that she has been winning a rigged game. Folklore’s win? I get, especially considering the lighter competition that year. But Midnights was an uneven album that was redeemed mostly by its bonus tracks edition, which was not considered for nomination.

Despite not being too far apart in age, Taylor Swift is culturally a millennial while Beyonce is culturally Gen X. Taylor Swift is Coca Cola, Target, and Stanley Cups. Beyonce is how people felt about the iPhone in 2009 and Telfar in 2019.¹ Beyonce’s power was grandfathered in before Taylor’s time, and unlike Taylor, stat-maxxed and rooted her performance value in her physical singing and dancing abilities from a very young age. Taylor Swift is a magnetic performer only in the way a gawky white girl-woman with a serviceably good voice can be, which is to say she’s the best performer a gawky white girl-woman with a serviceably good voice can be and her concerts are a well-created and a fun experience. She took her unassuming relatability and made it into an enormous weapon. She would never go after Beyonce sunbaenim, especially since Beyonce was notably kind about the whole Kanye VMA thing that Taylor is still holding onto.

Taylor’s richness doesn’t come from any sort of history beyond secondhand anecdotes and a rom-com imagination. This is what annoys me about the adulation of Taylor Swift with reference to Shakespeare or Faulkner, for a Harvard professor to generate a curriculum to shoehorn in Emily Dickinson readings. To compare her to members of the literary canon does her a disservice and discredits her particular skills. Is it not enough to be an artist who creates for girls and women? Taylor Swift is like Nora Ephron or Little Women, timeless because she uses a different toolset from the literary “heavyweights.” Her work is “simple” and enjoyed by children and the masses. Her clarity of vision, sense of universality, and interlaced metatextuality make her music satisfying with high re-listenability.  

What if I don’t want to be your favorite reference?

The one thing Taylor needs as an artist is a proper successor, one whose talent is a credit to her artistry. Janet Jackson has Britney Spears and Tinashe. The Strokes have The Arctic Monkeys. Fiona Apple has Mitski and Kanye. Although Taylor Swift’s influence is everywhere, this is so obviously top-down where Taylor is the master and everyone else is a poor copy. What is her legacy thus far beyond empowering white girls who can’t sing and can kind of play guitar to pursue confessional singer-songwriting? This category includes Gracie Abrams, who dropped an album of knockoff Evermore tracks because she got permission to borrow Aaron Dessner. In fact, this “generosity” might be keeping Gracie in her shadow as an inferior Taylor Swift-Phoebe Bridgers hybrid. Even so, the fact that Taylor is collaborating with her leads me to believe that Taylor doesn’t find Gracie threatening whatsoever. The younger artist’s entertainment industry connections may be helpful in Taylor’s open desire to win an EGOT. Beyond that, Gracie’s status and comparatively-easy resulting success likely means she has no fire in her belly. She can afford to pursue success on her own terms. She seems content singing quietly and mildly mispronouncing words with a core set of fans who really get her. While I have no doubt that she is at least as talented as the average professional recording artist, I am a picky listener. Olivia Rodrigo singing “shuburbs” nearly ruined her for me and I really liked “Drivers License” otherwise. 

No one can do Taylor better than Taylor herself. She has an essence that can be mimicked but not replicated. Olivia Rodrigo avoided becoming engulfed by Taylor by becoming too much of a threat. Since “Drivers License” was released, she’s thrived making witty, self-aware pop punk. She has always leaned on multiple references, including Paramore and Avril Lavigne, not just sad ballads. 

Taylor’s other younger affiliate, Sabrina Carpenter, is not a threat because she had to work hard to become unthreatening. She started as an alleged boyfriend stealer, and now she’s simply too hot and yoohoo boys!!! and a wink from her would make a million men faint. She’s not unthreatening because she’s a femcel (that’s Old Taylor), but quite the opposite. She’s like Jolene where she has her choice of men so actually she doesn’t want Beyonce’s crusty old husband. Sabrina Carpenter is far more Ariana Grande-Doja Cat than she is fellow Blonde Taylor Swift in her vocal tones and lyricism. An allyship or an affiliation is still different from a mentor/protege/legacy continuer relation. 

As I’ve said, the one artist with the most potential to be Taylor Swift’s successor is Phoebe Bridgers, who is the Elliott Smith to Taylor’s Shania Twain. Phoebe will never be a pop star, but her plainspoken vulnerability and fixation on various bleak motifs in her songwriting is very Taylor. I could see her becoming as big as John Mayer, depending on how often she references Dahmer. Boygenius’s “Strong Enough” is a particularly strong contender for the CVS aisles Phoebe Bridgers proclaims to love.

Always going to lose to people playing it safer 

There is something that I’ve been thinking about since reading

Princess Babygirl

’s essay “All Alone in their White Girl Pain” a few years ago. This was published after Lana Del Rey posted her “question for the culture” where she seemed to imply that as a white woman, she was unfairly scrutinized for the “problematic” nature of her lyrics while black (and one ambiguously Asian) women were free to sing about whatever they wanted to and be rewarded for it. She noted specifically the need to make space for “fragility” in feminism. 

“The kind of woman who says no but men hear yes - the kind of women who are slated mercilessly for being authentic, delicate selves, the kind of women who get their own stories and voices taken away from them by stronger women or by men who hate women.” I was tempted to find a counterexample. It’s not that Lana is wrong in her assertion that she wasn’t trying to glamorize abuse, but surely, there are artists other than Lana who speak to a feminine powerlessness.   

I’m surprised not more people made the link between SZA and Lana Del Rey, but it makes sense considering who is and isn’t allowed to be seen as fragile, a question SZA answers so achingly in CTRL. The two artists feel spiritually related in how they both subvert and conform to their perceived image. I would love it if someone took this kernel and expanded upon it, since I’m not yet intimately familiar with either of their discographies. I’m mainly speaking on CTRL and NFR! And some of Ultraviolence. 

LDR uses the aesthetics of being a fragile and delicate woman, but sometimes turns it on its head in a “he’s a talented loser but I still love him😍” way (as put aptly by a Reddit commenter). It doesn’t come across as self-victimizing to be ride or die for a man who kinda sucks. To refute the point about glamorizing abuse, much of the violence she sings about is ultimately about alcohol addiction. (Jim being Jim Beam, but also I guess a composite for different types of destructive forces.)

I love how SZA sings so explicitly about the struggle to be seen as soft and delicate and gentle and worthy of being cared for. Her heart is sweet and sensitive but she’s doomed to be messy and hot. She longs to be vulnerable, but no one lets her. Even though she knows it’s fruitless, she aggressively performs hotness while begging for commitment and settling for scraps.   

I experienced a stream of unrequited crushes/romantic rejection from 2016-2019 and made “Drew Barrymore” my anthem. Call me a pick-me, but you can’t be one if you never get picked!! I too felt as though I must have been losing to those who were more effortless, warmer, more legible. There was an archetype I came up with: a girl who runs, who is always polite and can never shake off someone who annoys them, is described as a “ray of sunshine” or “pure light” by everyone she encounters, whose Instagram tags are littered with adoring candid photos and “mems.” She would be kind to me, too. I wonder who those girls are jealous of, or if their minds even work that way. I assume they’re not as invested in the archetypes, but perhaps their jealousy is fractional. They envy one woman’s intelligence and another woman’s abs. They would admire my “bravery” because they do not experience that kind of rejection. 

No matter how much I succeed and how much I win, I will always be less favored in any setting compared to someone warmer and better able to “reserve” their complexity for those who understand. In contrast, although I’m generally friendly, I’m also persnickety, critical, and demanding. (These are all traits on full blast on this platform). I am not a self-identified loser, especially since I am a healthy American tryhard. I no longer lead with my potential liabilities in social settings, so I’m not shooting myself in the foot like that. But I still have a long way to go before I adopt more regularly the habits that kinder, warmer people have long-practiced. I figure I don’t know if I want the trouble of everyone wanting to be my friend. I’ve never been the MOST well-liked, but I have often been favored by many who ARE the MOST well-liked and respected. I try to be the person they can express themselves to, who has no expectations of a performance. 

I don’t need everyone’s love, just the attention of a select few, to inspire the kind of devotion I was ready to give in return. It has felt rare to find someone who loves me, or has at least shown the potential. I have been slavishly loyal, even when it hasn’t been good for me and even when I’ve been told (in all ways except words) to leave. Sometimes when someone pushes me away it has made me desperate and eager to worm my way back in, akin to “a dog with a bird” at their door. But other times, I’ve just waited, feeling that the strength of my loyalty can compensate for their lack and that they’ll see how deserving and good I am. It’s why I could never call myself a people pleaser. I never learned how to be good enough at it. 

It’s not that the sunshiney distance runner and I want different things. I historically have a lower tolerance for people I don’t immediately click with and I don’t get endorphins from cardio. She lavishes attention on even those who have no apparent friend potential. She’s a true people pleaser. People are pleased by her, pleased to be around her. I feel at times I have to perform my personality, dial up the levels, be quippy in an attempt to be pro-social, realize that it’s not the same as being pleasant, then feel selfish for having wanted attention at all. Because she would never ask for attention, nor does she give to get. She only cares about others, how she can make them feel, and her likability is a byproduct of her service to people. She keeps all her discomfort and pain quiet so no one is bothered by it. I am wounded, sometimes post-wounded, and make a big fuss about it. 

And THAT is why I loved SZA’s CTRL. And maybe the sunshiney distance runner is my “Sympathy is a Knife.” 

Never get invited cuz I’m such a hater

On Brat, Charli XCX alludes to feeling insecure around Taylor Swift in her song “Sympathy is a Knife.” On one end, she is self-aware about the illegitimacy of her insecurity, but on the other, she does want to kill herself. <3 “This one girl taps my insecurities, don’t know if it’s real or if I’m spiraling…I couldn’t even be her if I tried.”

A big part of this insecurity is Taylor’s commercial success and the respect she has in the industry. Her music is beloved not only by civilians, but also critics and other musicians. Notably, Charli was an opener for Taylor and the crowd didn’t “get” her. 

I am going to guess that another part of this is Taylor Swift’s looks, her uncomplicated and inoffensive American prettiness that somehow still allows her to hold her own next to Victoria’s Secret models. Somebody once replied to some tweet about how people hate women who are beautiful with “smart person jobs” by saying “this is why people hate Taylor Swift.” This was a notably dumb response because pop star is a career reserved exclusively for beautiful people and the music they make is considered stupid. Being pretty and blonde is a significant part of why she’s allowed to become famous at all. 

It’s these factors combined that make her this incredibly powerful alpha dog, and Charli just can’t do that. It only happens about 4 times in a generation, and one of those spots has already been taken by Lebron. Taylor Swift is simply built different in her ability to amass fame, money, and success. When you can’t compete with this hegemonic overwhelming figure, when you’re an underdog, aren’t you alt by default? You might be the king of alt, even a full-fledged member of pop’s upper class, but you’ll still be mistaken for the other “alt” girl with big hair. It’s stupid. She’s poems. You’re parties. But don’t you know the privilege of name, voice, and face recognition is only for the pop elite? 

There is an indisputable set of values and skills necessary to be viciously ambitious and truly “make it” in the way Taylor Swift has, not merely an it factor. When people don’t possess it, they feel compelled to use the alt identity as a crutch. Sometimes this is the only way to move forward when you feel like you can’t compete: inventing your own category. Of course, this invention can overlap with a simple lack of interest in the mainstream and commercial, but I am talking about alt as an IDENTITY, not an incidental categorization. Ultimately, being alt can be cope. 

One “alt” value that has made its way into the mainstream is cursive singing. I understand not everyone can sing like Mariah Carey, but this “hack” has made so much otherwise great music unlistenable. I hate cursive singing because it is the sound of forced soulfulness, designed to compensate for a lack of technical ability and wisdom. Amy Winehouse did “cursive singing” but she always enunciated and it made sense in the context of her music, which borrowed from the jazz tradition. Cursive singing in pop, folk, hip-hop, and rock makes emotions sound fake. 

Even though Taylor Swift has been criticized for weak vocals, she consistently sounds pleasant and legible. She doesn’t try to cover up with pretentious quirks. She makes songs that don’t require a huge range and she tries to make sure the listener can understand the lyrics. “Cursive” can work for a skilled vocalist as one tool among many, but for most it comes off as an amateurish crutch, a cheap shorthand for depth.  

I sometimes prefer the honesty of institutional power-seeking. In certain “alt” environments, everyone has main character syndrome and needs to feel like the most special person in the room, competing on taste and gatekeeping and intangibles. In environments where everyone just wants money and success, the sense of competition is rooted in an understanding that no one is special. That’s why they need to lean on skills and schmoozing. They feel their replaceability more acutely.  

This fear of being replaced is a major reason Taylor lacks a successor. She doesn't want to be part of anyone's influence, reference, a scene. The economy of Taylor Swift only works when she is singular. “When a new Supreme rises, the old one fades away.” Maybe she doesn’t believe she is particularly special. She has capitalized heavily on the values of precociousness, youth, and beauty. That’s why she feels such a pang in “Nothing New” when she comes across the new girl, possessing “the kind of radiance you only have at 17” and the poise that comes from having the “map” originated by Taylor. Yet her fear of being washed-up at 22 led to one of her most poignant songs and a meaningful collaboration with an artist whose lyricism is a credit to hers. When it comes down to it, for the fans, it’s her perspective and ability to communicate universally that really matters, not the stuff that is fleeting. It doesn’t matter whether she’s following trends or taking on new influences; her music has an essence that I am drawn to. The fact that she is copying a Lana song doesn’t take away from the fact that it is Taylor Swift’s version of a Lana song, not just a knock-off Lana to me. Her being special is what makes her special. 

If it is to be believed that “Sympathy is a Knife” is actually about being backstage at The 1975 show with Taylor Swift, then the entrance of Matty Healy’s fiance Gabbriette is not entirely flattering to Charli. So her wish came true and the all-powerful Taylor Swift and the overrated Matty Healy broke up. Isn’t it interesting how non-threatening Gabbriette is for Charli specifically? She may have grown famous in her own right as a model and baker, but ultimately she’s one of Charli’s girls, a byproduct of her Svengali exercises in star-building and now possibly matchmaking.

Drinking that She Espresso

As a musician, Gabbriette has not eclipsed Charli to any degree and is, as Charli describes, a beautiful “succubus-looking, dead-eyed” woman like herself. Now Charli can be the most successful musical genius in the room, unthreatened by Little Miss Maple Lattes, and take credit as the mastermind who spotted Gabbriette first. However passive, the wish to push Taylor out feels a little…Taylor Swift to me.    

Taylor Swift’s singularity despite her conventional sound puts her at odds with Charli XCX and the hyperpop scene. As I reflected after reading

coldhealing

’s post, Charli and PC Music found their way into the culture with an organic and responsive cross-pollinating approach. Britney Spears is the rosetta stone of global pop, and a heavyweight reference for the hyperpop sound and 1st and 2nd gen kpop. Roughly speaking, 2000s kpop borrowed heavily from Britney Spears, resulting in this high-artifice Splenda Britney sound. Hyperpop takes the extremities and artificiality of pop music and distorts them further, with the representative PC Music group becoming popular in the 2010s. At this point in the 2020s, kpop has taken influence from the hyperpop sound and artists like Charli have become the bridge between “pure” robot and commercial pop.

Charli’s legacy absorbs and feeds into the mainstream while also creating cling-clang sounds that are enjoyably abrasive (emotionally and audibly). She’s written hits for Selena Gomez (“Same Old Love”) and Camila Cabello (“Senorita”). Unlike Julia Michaels, she doesn’t necessarily bring a comparable style into her own music so she doesn’t risk cannibalizing her own career. I wouldn’t define Charli’s legacy by the number of “alt rebrands” we’ve been seeing this year from Camila Cabello to Katy Perry. Charli’s highly collaborative discography is marked by an ability to push fellow artists to match her level. Her “svengali” tendencies do come from curiosity and a visionary instinct. The “Girl, So Confusing” remix is the most representative current example. For her, being on top doesn’t inherently mean being lonely. 

1.  Let me put it this way. Trump is McDonald’s and Diet Coke. Obama is Starbucks Pike Place and Macbook and The National. These are both powerful associations. In contrast, Biden is Starry. And just for fun, Bernie is Patagonia. Beto O’Rourke was Vampire Weekend, specifically CT.