Taylor Swift’s Music Objectively Sucks (musically)
In school, this group of girls always makes the teacher put on Taylor Swift and, of course, they do because it’s family-friendly and they like that group of girls (who are my mortal enemies).
I’m just stuck here listening to these songs, and I don’t think they’re necessarily “bad”. I think they all sound awfully similar.
It turns out that I’m correct because all her songs are pretty much the same (musically) and you can’t fight me because… I’m correct.
Alright, let’s talk chords first.
Most songs use chord progressions and it just so happens that Swift uses the same one (almost) ALL THE TIME.
She uses the I-V-VI-IV chord progression in almost all of her songs. This means nearly all her songs are either C-G-A minor-F or C-G-D minor-F.
For those unfamiliar with music theory, C, G, A minor, D minor and F are all chords, meaning they’re three notes.
- C major is C, E, G
- G major G, B, D
- A minor A, C, E
- D minor is D, F, A
- And F is F, A, C
Something to notice here is just how similar these chords are. Out of the 12 notes on the piano, these 5 chords only use 7 notes.
The only note that isn’t used twice is B in G major. That goes to show how similar her songs can sound. They all have the same kind of feel to it.
There are more reasons she’s boring
It would be fine if her songs didn’t all use diatonic harmony.
If you look at other pop artists such as Adele, they sometimes break away from the key, change various note setups and add things that may be considered cross-genre.
Swift, on the other hand, sticks to the notes in her key. It just so happens that (almost) ALL of her songs are in C major, so (almost) ALL of her songs use the same notes.
That means that most of her songs only vary by 7 notes.
It makes her songs boring and repetitive.
It doesn’t help that all of her songs use the same layout
Almost every one of her songs uses the verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus layout. To be fair, this is quite common in a lot of pop music, but oftentimes, other artists will change it up a bit.
Her voice may sound nice…
But it’s often just very light and breathy. She rarely goes to the extremes. While this makes her songs easier to sing, it also makes them more boring.
Compare this to someone like Adele, who, unlike Swift, uses a lot of different dynamics, pitches and techniques in her singing. This may make her music hard to sing, but it makes her songs a lot better.
What about lyrics?
If you look at a lot of Swift’s lyrics, you find a lot of repetition. Most (not all) of her songs are about romance (breakups especially) and use very basic storytelling.
I want to end this by pointing out that Taylor Swift isn’t a bad artist. She is a very talented singer, and she has a lot of skill (to get to where she is today).
I do still think that other artists are more musically complex than her, such as Adele, who has deeper lyrics, better singing and lots of distinct sounds.
It’s perfectly fine to like the artists you want to like (even if their music sucks).
