>I certainly did not intend to deny Taylor Swift's superlative business acumen, or to suggest that it does not play a major part in her success! But I don't think it would count for much without the songs to back it up
But...no, that's...that's exactly what you're doing, right there. She absolutely would be successful even if she didn't w…
>I certainly did not intend to deny Taylor Swift's superlative business acumen, or to suggest that it does not play a major part in her success! But I don't think it would count for much without the songs to back it up
But...no, that's...that's exactly what you're doing, right there. She absolutely would be successful even if she didn't write a single word of her own songs. Her "true" level of songwriting ability - which is in fact unknowable - has a negligible bearing on her success, outside of her ability to take a higher cut of the proceeds of Swift Inc by filling multiple roles personally. Many pop queens never wrote a word, so pop stardom is plainly not contingent on songwriting ability.
Asserting that Swift's success is in any way contingent on her songwriting ability is in fact diminishing her abilities in these other arenas, which would almost certainly have carried her to pop success regardless. She doesn't just have "business acumen," she has more business acumen than almost anyone else on the planet, and certainly more than almost anyone else in the music industry. Her move outside of the country music environment was entirely self-precipitated and was opposed by basically every music industry person she worked with at the time, as one example.
The material difference you're looking for is that established songwriting teams with a history of mutual collaboration are quite a different thing from Jack Antonoff writing songs for Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, and just about everyone in between. Antonoff's personal fortunes are not even slightly tied to any one partner in rhyme and he's not particularly "close" to any one of his clients more than others, so far as we know . Wouldn't be good business for Antonoff Inc to let such a thing out anyway even if it were true. Anyway, you're essentially comparing married couples to polygamists and calling them equal because they both have sex.
"Her "true" level of songwriting ability - which is in fact unknowable"
This is an utterly bizarre comment. As I've repeatedly pointed out, Taylor Swift has written a good number of songs by herself, and they include some of her most famous and popular works - "Dear John", for example, or "Mean", or "Love Story". My own view is that those alone are enough to prove her a masterly songwriter. You may disagree - maybe you dislike those and the other songs she wrote by herself, and feel that they show her a poor writer. But love them or hate them, they give us plenty of evidence for her abilities one way or the other.
"The material difference you're looking for is that established songwriting teams with a history of mutual collaboration are quite a different thing from Jack Antonoff writing songs for Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, and just about everyone in between ... Anyway, you're essentially comparing married couples to polygamists and calling them equal because they both have sex."
[Sound of hairs being split finer and finer] Your original claim was that calling a paid partner like Antonoff a "close collaborator" was something new, because it used to require (in your words) a "personal relationship". Now you accept that a pair of people with no personal relationships at all can be "close collaborators" if they are "established songwriting teams with a history of mutual collaboration", and you claim that Swift and Antonoff are different from that.
But (in your terms), Mozart and Da Ponte were themselves "polygamists" - both of them worked far more with other people than they did with each other. Swift and Antonoff have a much more consistent long-term relationship than they did. The same is true of various other famous close collaborators, like Giuseppe Verdi and Francesco Maria Piave. There is really nothing new about Swift and Antonoff doing the same thing.
A songwriting credit is a contract item that determines how future royalties from a song will be divided. It is not inherently an accurate description of the process behind a song's creation. Song-wrights less famous than Antonoff often take a lump-sum payment for their services in lieu of future royalties and forego a songwriting credit for their contributions. Record labels likewise often have song-wrights on retainer who likewise don't get credited as songwriters on individual songs. As a result, any popular artist's "true" level of songwriting ability is in fact unknowable.
Antonoff is very plainly a preeminent consultant in the music-making industry who works for the highest bidder. Even if Swift has been a very high bidder for quite some time, it's not sensible to compare that to a collaborative process between peers. Your original claim was in fact that Swift 'closely collaborates' with numerous people in addition to Antonoff - numerous people who also happen to be veteran music industry song-wrights. These interactions could be collaborative or they could be strictly transactional - who's to say Taylor doesn't buy an Antonoff song and then tell him to get lost while she tailors it to her liking? - but that would be, again, an unknowable.
Swift is an excellently sharp businessperson & brand manager and it's just odd that you have a need to assert a certainty on these unknowables in addition to that..
>I certainly did not intend to deny Taylor Swift's superlative business acumen, or to suggest that it does not play a major part in her success! But I don't think it would count for much without the songs to back it up
But...no, that's...that's exactly what you're doing, right there. She absolutely would be successful even if she didn't write a single word of her own songs. Her "true" level of songwriting ability - which is in fact unknowable - has a negligible bearing on her success, outside of her ability to take a higher cut of the proceeds of Swift Inc by filling multiple roles personally. Many pop queens never wrote a word, so pop stardom is plainly not contingent on songwriting ability.
Asserting that Swift's success is in any way contingent on her songwriting ability is in fact diminishing her abilities in these other arenas, which would almost certainly have carried her to pop success regardless. She doesn't just have "business acumen," she has more business acumen than almost anyone else on the planet, and certainly more than almost anyone else in the music industry. Her move outside of the country music environment was entirely self-precipitated and was opposed by basically every music industry person she worked with at the time, as one example.
The material difference you're looking for is that established songwriting teams with a history of mutual collaboration are quite a different thing from Jack Antonoff writing songs for Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, and just about everyone in between. Antonoff's personal fortunes are not even slightly tied to any one partner in rhyme and he's not particularly "close" to any one of his clients more than others, so far as we know . Wouldn't be good business for Antonoff Inc to let such a thing out anyway even if it were true. Anyway, you're essentially comparing married couples to polygamists and calling them equal because they both have sex.
"Her "true" level of songwriting ability - which is in fact unknowable"
This is an utterly bizarre comment. As I've repeatedly pointed out, Taylor Swift has written a good number of songs by herself, and they include some of her most famous and popular works - "Dear John", for example, or "Mean", or "Love Story". My own view is that those alone are enough to prove her a masterly songwriter. You may disagree - maybe you dislike those and the other songs she wrote by herself, and feel that they show her a poor writer. But love them or hate them, they give us plenty of evidence for her abilities one way or the other.
"The material difference you're looking for is that established songwriting teams with a history of mutual collaboration are quite a different thing from Jack Antonoff writing songs for Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, and just about everyone in between ... Anyway, you're essentially comparing married couples to polygamists and calling them equal because they both have sex."
[Sound of hairs being split finer and finer] Your original claim was that calling a paid partner like Antonoff a "close collaborator" was something new, because it used to require (in your words) a "personal relationship". Now you accept that a pair of people with no personal relationships at all can be "close collaborators" if they are "established songwriting teams with a history of mutual collaboration", and you claim that Swift and Antonoff are different from that.
But (in your terms), Mozart and Da Ponte were themselves "polygamists" - both of them worked far more with other people than they did with each other. Swift and Antonoff have a much more consistent long-term relationship than they did. The same is true of various other famous close collaborators, like Giuseppe Verdi and Francesco Maria Piave. There is really nothing new about Swift and Antonoff doing the same thing.
A songwriting credit is a contract item that determines how future royalties from a song will be divided. It is not inherently an accurate description of the process behind a song's creation. Song-wrights less famous than Antonoff often take a lump-sum payment for their services in lieu of future royalties and forego a songwriting credit for their contributions. Record labels likewise often have song-wrights on retainer who likewise don't get credited as songwriters on individual songs. As a result, any popular artist's "true" level of songwriting ability is in fact unknowable.
Antonoff is very plainly a preeminent consultant in the music-making industry who works for the highest bidder. Even if Swift has been a very high bidder for quite some time, it's not sensible to compare that to a collaborative process between peers. Your original claim was in fact that Swift 'closely collaborates' with numerous people in addition to Antonoff - numerous people who also happen to be veteran music industry song-wrights. These interactions could be collaborative or they could be strictly transactional - who's to say Taylor doesn't buy an Antonoff song and then tell him to get lost while she tailors it to her liking? - but that would be, again, an unknowable.
Swift is an excellently sharp businessperson & brand manager and it's just odd that you have a need to assert a certainty on these unknowables in addition to that..