When You Think Taylor Swift I Hope You Think Of Me

Well it has been a very long journey, but this will be my last post of this music blog. For nine weeks, I have given insight about some of the most popular topics that are discussed in the world of pop music. I discussed some of the pros about pop music, including about how this type of music is fun to listen to and a great way to express oneself. Also since this is one of the most popular music genres, an artist who makes a pop record will more than likely achieve fame – as long as the song is good of course. Even though this is my favorite type of music, I did mention some of the cons of pop music. An example is how this music is played everywhere you go, and sometimes you may feel like you can’t escape from it. I also wrote that pop music today has become more sexualized and has created some awful trends that occur among the younger generation, such as twerking. My purpose of stating both pros and cons is to suggest that sometimes it’s possible to have too much of a good thing.

Although most people think that pop music today sucks, I’m still going to listen to it no matter what. I’ve been listening to pop for as long as I can remember, and it clearly shows what my personality is. If you have been reading my posts, I’m not like most guys out there. I think my music taste is very unique since guys don’t typically favor Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, and Katy Perry over male rap singers or rock bands. I want to stress that whatever you’re interested in or whatever you want to become in life should be up to you. Don’t change yourself just because someone else might not like the same things or might not like who you are.

As I’ve stated numerous times, Taylor Swift will forever more be my favorite pop music artist. Hopefully someday I can meet her and tell her how much she means to me. I’d like to conclude with a lyric from her song called Tim McGraw: “When you think [Taylor Swift], I hope you think of me.

Music Is Art And Should Not Be Taken Advantage Of

For a moment, let’s put ourselves in a hypothetical scenario. Let’s say that you are the biggest sensation in the music industry and you produce your most successful album to date. You think that it’s a beautiful piece of art.  After making your album available to world, imagine if a person decides to put it on a website for anybody to access it for free. This person did not get your permission to do this, and you don’t get any compensation for having your album on this website. Also because of this, people don’t buy your album and just go to the website. Wouldn’t it make you upset if someone took your work, and you didn’t get anything for all the work you put into the album? This scenario is actually similar to Taylor Swift’s controversial issue with music sharing websites such as Spotify. 

Recently, Taylor Swift took a daring move and decided to take her entire discography off of Spotify. This means that people no longer had access to her music for free. Sounds pretty selfish, don’t you think? It may seem that way, but she actually has a good reason for doing this. She argues that music is a type of art and should not be free. All types of artists might feel that it wouldn’t be fair for someone to take their work without paying for it.  

First, it’s a fact that music can count as a type of art form. It has similar elements to a painting or a piece of poetry. According to an article that defines music as an art, music includes “levels of feeling, emotion, and meaning” and also “has language involving sound and notation that is a capable of communicating numerous.” That being said, a finished album is comparable to a painting hanging in a museum. Both artists worked very hard to convey their feels and share a message. Naturally, they would want to receive credit and earn what they deserve for making said work. The purpose of emphasizing that music is art is to show that you can’t just treat music like it’s something you can take advantage of. Just one song might not be as valuable as a million dollar painting, but it’s still worth as much to the artist who made the song. 

So going back to Taylor, she feels that all people should pay for their music. If people just take the songs she wrote, it’s not very fair to her and all the people who helped her produce her albums. I’m sure many other music artists feel the same way. 

In conclusion, I support Taylor for making this statement. I always buy her albums because I like supporting her. Even though we have access to music sharing websites like Spotify, we should still support our favorite artists by buying their artworks that they make.

Music Sharing Websites Are Killing Music Sales

Recently, an extremely controversial issue has swept across the world of pop music. I first read about this issue on Facebook, and shortly after, this topic appeared on many other online news articles. It appears that the world famous pop star Taylor Swift has decided to take her music off of Spotify; this is one of the largest free music sharing applications. I didn’t believe the article at first, so I decided to log into my Spotify account and check myself. After searching her name, the results appeared as though she never existed in the music industry. At first I was a little upset and thought that it was selfish of her to take her music away from her audience. However, after doing some research, I learned that withdrawing her music from Spotify is a way for her to go against music sharing websites and to try and save a sort of declining music industry. 

First, I want to briefly explain how Spotify works and how it could possibly hurt the music industry and its artists. Spotify is a free application – the only downside is that there are some ads that pop up after every couple songs. All you need to sign up is an email and an appropriate age. Once you have it, you can listen to an infinite amount of songs by your favorite artists. You don’t have to purchase any of these albums or songs in order to listen to them at the best quality! While all this is great, it leaves a problem for artists like Taylor. Here is a quote from Yahoo Music that discusses the issue about Spotify:

“Music streaming services and file sharing have sharply cut into music sales for artists over the past couple of years.”

This is relevant because if these music sharing websites have all these albums available for free access, people won’t actually buy the album in regular stores or on digital music stores like iTunes. According to a news article about decline in music sales, free music is challenging the music industry.  If there are no sales, the artists won’t make money for the work that they produced. Since they have to sell their music for a living, how can they do this if websites like Spotify have their music on it already? If someone knows they can listen to it for free, they wouldn’t waste their money to buy it. 

After doing some more reading from the Yahoo Music article, Taylor Swift is smart for making this rebellious move towards music sharing. If she allowed Spotify to stream her new 1989 album, obviously people wouldn’t actually buy it. By doing this, she sold about 1.3 million copies within the first week, which is a record in music sales since 2002. Her actions show a powerful statement: we can save the music industry and artists and increase sales if people actually buy music and stop using streaming websites. 

Do you agree with Taylor and think that music sharing websites are negatively affecting artists? Even if I like using Spotify, it’s true that people are taking advantage of the artists who made the songs. While all this is true, people won’t stop using Spotify, but hopefully we can get them to use it less.

They Say "Twerk Twerk Twerk". I Say "No No No".

Oh god, it’s happening everywhere! I see a bunch of girls (and guys) wearing “booty” shorts and doing this god awful trend on Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube. People do this on the floor and shockingly on the wall. I see a rap artist wearing a thong in this position on her album cover. I also see it happening on TV by a pop singer with short hair who seems to be dancing in her underwear with a foam finger. Lastly, and most unfortunately, this is occurring in Taylor Swift’s latest music video. This is such a tragedy! If you haven’t guessed yet, this trend I’m talking about is called twerking. 

So what exactly is twerking? Well, according to Oxford Dictionaries, a twerk is defined as a dance where “sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance” occurs. Generally, this type of dance is associated with rap music; for example, Nicki Minaj’s song and video Anaconda is about girls with “fat asses” twerking in short shorts and thongs. Not so shockingly, this trend has leaked to other music genres like pop. Miley Cyrus decides to twerk during her controversial performance at the 2013 VMA Awards. Twerking has also occurred in Taylor Swift’s Shake it off video. This was devistating because her videos don’t normally consist of these behaviors. Lastly, these artists suggest that twerking is cool which explains why people are posting themselves doing this on social media!

So why would I care about twerking so much? I’m mostly concerned about the younger generation. An article states that twerking is usually associated with strip clubs and prostitutes. It could also be an invitation to sex. Since teenagers see twerking performed by their favorite artists, they will copy them because it looks cool. This is dangerous because if these kids start twerking in videos or public places, they will catch someone’s attention in a wrong and sexual way. In order to prevent kids from twerking, the article states that some schools enforce “face to face with space” dancing at school dances. I think it’s good that schools created this rule. If you were a parent and had a daughter, would you want to see her twerking in front of some random guy? I definitely wouldn’t. 

Although I’m totally against twerking, I’m aware we can’t make it go away. Unfortunately, it has become a part of popular culture. People are going to continue twerking. A normal argument they have for anybody who speculates against them is “Fuck the haters!” – sorry for the language. We’ll have to except the fact that sexuality continues to be an element in pop music and other genres. Although twerking seems to be inescapable, you have the power ignore it. Just look away.  

Music Taste Is Something "Learned" From Others

As a child, I remember it all too well. The year was 1999. I remember seeing videos of people standing around an airplane, and then all of a sudden, these people were in a haunted house and turned into hideous dancing monsters. I remember that there were five people in this group.  This group had five distinct voices that sang the most beautiful harmonies. They had songs about fire, love, and heartbreak. I remember seeing pictures of these people all over my sisters’ rooms: on the door, on the wall, and even the ceiling. I remember my sisters asked me which one of these people were the cutest; they also asked me which song I liked the most. Lastly, I remember that they were my favorite music band because of my sisters liked them. This band was known as the Backstreet Boys. 

Now that my little anecdote is over, let’s talk discuss. When I was in elementary school, my favorite pop music band was the Backstreet Boys. Since I was just a kid, I didn’t know much about popular culture and the world around me. I just knew about the things that my sisters liked. They were obsessed with the Backstreet Boys, much like my obsession with Taylor Swift. They always had me listening to their music and watching their music videos. Since I grew up with my sisters my whole life, their interests inspired many of mine that I have today. The point of this story is to suggest that music taste is influenced by your peers and others around you. 

Sociologist Matthew Salganik and his colleagues decided to do a study where a group people would have to listen to a song and decide if they liked and would download it. Salganik also had another group where they could see only how many times the songs were downloaded. With this group, they could determine if the people downloaded a song without listening to it just because its popularity. Both groups determined the good and bad songs, but the researchers found that the highest rating songs would be the ones that received the most downloads. This study shows a fantastic example that people’s influences can impact your own. The study is also, however, not always true. 

Some people may claim that their music taste is completely original and not influenced by anyone else’s opinions (example: hipsters). I understand that people have the choice to like something that might be different from everybody else. Just because a song is very popular and has good ratings and thousands of downloads doesn’t mean that you have to like it. You may hate the song because you think it sucks. Whatever style you have, whether popular or unpopular, is great because it’s describes your personality and who you are. It makes you, you!

So going back to my Backstreet Boys story, I couldn’t image how different my life would be if I wasn’t exposed to pop music at a young age. If I didn’t have my sisters around, I’m sure I would’ve developed music taste on my own or from peers at school. Imagine if I turned into a rap lover or a screamo death metal lover instead of a Swiftie. I’m not saying that these genres are bad, but things could’ve been different if I had other influences at a young age.

Gender Stereotypes In Music Suck

Gentlemen, have you ever been told that something you like is too girly, and that it’s “gay” for you to like it? Ladies, do any of you have any interests that are more “masculine”, and are considered not feminine enough? If any of you ask yourself these questions, you might think that gender stereotypes can be really annoying. Just because you have an interest that’s slightly different than the norm of your gender, why should you be criticized for liking it? Sometimes, this is how I feel about my passion for pop music. 

Throughout the pop music industry, most of the singers assigned to this genre are female singers. For example, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, and Lady Gaga are some of the biggest names in the pop industry. Each of these girls has songs that “touch listeners by making them want to dance, have an honest message deliver, and doing it in a way that keeps the listeners involved and interested.” For instance, with Lady Gaga, most of her songs make you want to dance around and convey a message. These songs are quite fun to dance and sing around to. 

However, a guy who only listens to pop music is not considered masculine. I noticed a pattern that my guy friends tend to listen to a lot of rap and rock songs while my girl friends favor pop songs. After spending time sampling other music genres such as rap, this genre has different sounds and meanings compared to pop songs. Sometimes with rap songs, I have no idea what they are saying. Without knowing what they’re saying, you can’t possibly come up with a meaning. Perhaps men like this music type because the beats are more masculine as opposed to some of the “bubble gum” pop songs that we hear today. This is unfortunate there’s an assumption that only girls should listen to pop songs.

So do I ever let this stereotype get to me? Of course not! I may listen to rap music sometimes because my friends like it, but I’m not going to abandon pop music. I think my love for pop music makes me different than most guys. Also, I’m not going to stop liking it just because it may not be something normal for a guy to like. I want to stress that it’s okay to be different and you have the power to step out of your gender stereotype.