Ford
Contributor
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2010
- Messages
- 7,334
- Location
- Freedomland
- Basic Beliefs
- Just don't knock on my door on a Saturday Morning
For those of you who have not yet figured it out: It’s a brand new day. Girls aren’t interested in songs about how they neeeed to get him back. Nope. They don’t need him or those sad songs anyway. Nope, they happily listen to songs that tell him to fuck right off if he can’t appreciate their awesomeness.
And Taylor Swift is just the girl for them.
She is wicked smart and not coy about it. She speaks up and out. And they listen because she’s not just telling her truth but theirs as well.
If I may delve into the subject I know about for a minute...
There are a few parallels between Taylor Swift and Garth Brooks. In fact I'd go so far as to say she was the female Garth Brooks, and has become something more. Bear with me here.
Garth Brooks is (last time I checked) the biggest selling solo artist in US history. Bigger than Elvis. Bigger than Sinatra. Is he the best singer? Not by a long shot. Best musician? Hardly. Yet he understood what his audience wanted, was very savvy at marketing, and super-served them in a way no other artist had ever done. He put on shows that had never been done before (except for Chris LeDoux, don't get me started) and met his fans en masse after every show. He celebrated his 1 millionth concert fan by giving them a truck backstage. He spent over 24 hours signing autographs at a Nashville event known as "Fan Fair" where people could maybe meet their heroes for a second, but (famously) he took time with every single person in line and stayed until they'd all met him. He also didn't entirely shy away from politics like most country artists, but he did it in a sly way. His song "We Shall Be Free" is the polar opposite of that one song about "don't try that in a small town" that came out recently, but his fans dug it because hey...he was Garth Brooks.
He dipped his toe into the "I've got a platform and a hundred million fans...maybe I can do something with it" but Taylor has taken that ball and ran with it. Is she the best singer? Best musician? No, but she understands her audience, is very savvy at marketing, and has seized on the fact that people - a lot of people - are listening to her. She super-serves her fans, and has figured out that she has a platform and can use it.