by Michael McCarthy
I’m getting really tired of older rock musicians taking shots at Taylor Swift—and, more broadly, acting like the success of younger pop artists is somehow evidence that music has gone to hell.
The latest is Todd Rundgren, who recently called Swift the “apotheosis of mediocrity” and said there’s an argument to be made that she “ruined music.” He went on to say that she isn’t a great singer, songwriter or dancer.
Look, I’m hardly a devoted Swiftie who thinks Taylor can do no wrong. She’s extremely hit or miss for me. I love albums like Red, Speak Now, Reputation and Midnights. On the other hand, I can’t stand Lover or 1989. When Taylor releases something I love, I listen to the hell out of it. When she releases something I don’t care for, I don’t listen to it.
Funny how easy that is.
What I don’t do is decide that because millions of other people love an album I don’t like, those people are somehow destroying music.
Rundgren’s larger argument is even stranger. He suggests that boys started spending their money on video games instead of music in the ’90s, which caused the record industry to turn its attention toward young women and eventually gave us enormously successful female artists like Swift, Lady Gaga and Pink.
There may be an interesting discussion buried somewhere in there about how the demographics of music consumers have changed over the decades. But jumping from that to Taylor Swift “ruined music” is ridiculous.
Ruined it how?
Did Taylor Swift prevent anyone from making rock records? Metal records? Punk records? Experimental records? Did she sneak into recording studios around the world and smash everybody’s guitars?
Of course not.
You can make an argument that she’s overrated. You can hate her voice. You can think her songwriting is mediocre. Hell, you can think every album she’s ever released is garbage. Music is subjective. That’s part of what makes talking about it fun.
But the existence and popularity of music you don’t like doesn’t prevent the music you do like from existing.
Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett recently got himself into similar territory. He appeared onstage wearing a shirt that read “Taylor Swift Is a CIA Psyop,” apparently as a joke, and subsequently complained in an interview that today’s songwriting and popular music are “crap.”
For what it’s worth, I love a lot of Metallica’s music. But I don’t think they’ve made a particularly good album since Death Magnetic. Their more recent records just haven’t done much for me.
So what do I do?
I listen to Master of Puppets. I listen to Ride the Lightning. I listen to …And Justice for All. I listen to Death Magnetic.
What I don’t do is announce that Metallica ruined metal because they stopped making records I particularly enjoy.
That’s the distinction that seems to get lost whenever these conversations happen. There’s an enormous difference between saying “I don’t like this music” and saying “this music shouldn’t be popular.”
And there is an even bigger leap from there to saying that one enormously successful artist has somehow “ruined music.”
Taylor Swift didn’t ruin music. Neither did Britney Spears. Neither did Nirvana. Neither did disco, rap, grunge, boy bands, Auto-Tune, streaming or whatever else people have blamed for supposedly killing music over the years.
Music changes. Audiences change. The artists at the center of popular culture change.
Sometimes those changes produce music you love.
Sometimes they produce music you can’t fucking stand.
That’s okay.
Todd Rundgren has made important records. Metallica has made some of the greatest metal albums of all time. Taylor Swift has made some albums I love and some albums I never want to hear again.
All of those things can be true simultaneously.
If you don’t like Taylor Swift, don’t listen to Taylor Swift.
I promise you, your old records will still be there.
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