Taylor Swift - Blank Space

"I hate the way they portray us in the media, if you see a female singer-songwriter they say you're a crazy bitch, if you see a male singer-songwriter they say you're expressing sincere emotions"

Okay, that's not actually a real quote, it's infact Taylor Swift's comment about the sexist criticism she gets for being good at writing love songs structured framed into Kanye West's notorious declaration of racial injustice during the Hurricane Katrina telethon (why are cyclone disasters always named after women?). Believe it or not, there's something curiously symbiotic about Taylor Swift and the guy who drunkenly interrupted her VMA awards speech 5 years ago in both how they express themselves musically and the public perception of them as people. Both have a knack for intimate lyricism both revealing of they're self-belief and insecurities in way that's endearing even when (or because) it sounds corny. Both have reached the point where they've no longer limited themselves to what genre of music they're 'supposed' to belong to and became perhaps pop music's two biggest forces of this decade. Unfortunately, both have often gotten even amounts of venomous bile from a lot of people that, while people who say it will aggressively deny it, stems from an uncomfortably racist and sexist place of resentment, aided by the onslaught of clickbait articles irresponsibly presenting Kanye's many interviews getting hits of making him look like an Angry Black Buffoon and frankly ludicrous articles going as far as making Taylor Swift's business decisions (i.e. not being on Spotify) sound like breakup stories, keeping the idea that she's culture Serial Heartbreaker Woman.

And brilliantly, one thing both of them ALSO have in common
is how they also churn out records which respond to this negative attention by embodying the hyper-realised punching bag TMZ want's you to think of them as, whilst bringing the joke back on those people. Much of Kanye's last two albums are like this in terms of narrative, and some of Taylor's singles of Red suggested at this too, so it's refreshing to see this song become the phenomenon it is, since it's damn great and remarkable that even without the video you can hear how thrilled she is playing this fictional, wicked character in her singing and delivery, yet never sounds overly snarky like some past hits of hers did.

And the great news is apparently now they're gonna start making music together! This is gonna be one of the best duets OF ALL TIME!

*Disclaimer: No I don't mean to imply that you are racist and/or sexist if you don't like Kanye and/or Taylor's music, no artist is for everybody, I mean the people who get a suspiciously smug kick out of bashing them on a daily basis, especially when they're white and/or male.
Laatst gewijzigd: 19/02/2015 08:30