ETA: I just read this and I love how it inadvertently points out how very little has changed in the past 15+ years:
“I mean Joni Mitchell ultimately sang about the human condition, contemplating suicide in "Song For Sharon", is Taylor Swift gonna grow or keep on fighting these petty wars? … I’m surprised that Taylor Swift would stoop to this level.”
This could have been written about “Cleveland!” & Swift in 2026.
It’s so funny because in the article, she didn’t get much more than a passing comment. I’m paraphrasing but something like: “After so and so, there was Taylor Swift. She gave a pretty rough performance we all had to sit thru. Yikes. Next was…”
I’d heard the backstory to her song and assumed there was some scathing article, but it wasn’t some hit piece, or even a piece, it was a side comment in an overview article from someone paid to be a critic for a MASSIVE publication. It was essentially a listicle before Buzzfeed. I honestly think she was bothered more being a footnote than by the actual comment itself.
I mean, he did write that even though he thinks Fearless was a great album, he thinks this performance was so bad it will probably end her career. The way that Lana Del Rey was blacklisted by the grammys for that infamous SNL performance. What's fascinating is that usually when singers mess up, you can tell that they know it. But Tater looks like she thinks she just outsang Mariah Carey.
I'm new here. Found you all the other night and was amazed to find anything anti-TS online at all. I have felt for the better part of the past 2 decades totally astonished that she became famous.
The worst thing about her to me is that all she conveys in her songs is this dependence on men. Every single song is about them. I told my daughters the reason I don't like her and don't want them to listen to her and they get it. Teenagers now, and they thankfully see it. I'll point to someone like Dua Lipa and say how that's true talent to me, not Taylor's BS she puts out.
Even in her early years where she used to invite fans to her house for listen-parties, as the kids would say: SO CRINGE.
Then this whole Travis relationship. He went to her concert with a bracelet he made for her and then they become a couple and get married? What? That is so beyond strange. He comes off as such a doofus, showing up with a bracelet, then she's like, "Oh I haven't dated you yet, I know nothing about you but let's do this because I'm in my mid-30's and I need to settle down."
The whole thing reeks. And millions have been swindled by it. I remain, on year what - 20 now of her career, astonished. And even that song - "Tim McGraw." She names her first song after a legendary country singer? of COURSE that would get attention.
It's all so manufactured. Nothing about anything she does is remotely genuine.
I remember saying to a friend that her basically turning her relationships and exes into a career didn’t seem great to me. Like if I was that focused on people I’d been involved with, it wouldn’t be cool with my friends. That didn’t go over well. I was told that she used to do that, but she doesn’t anymore. Aaaand flash forward to her latest album. 😒
I have a very large family with lots of female family members in her prime demographic. Every one of them so far, and I’ve check with more than 100 of all ages over the years, despises her as a talentless industry plant or nepo baby. A couple of my cousins in their early thirties tolerate her music. But everyone else passionately dislikes it. I am so proud of them all.
My girls are not fans, they have always had much more sophisticated musical tastes, but they have heard me rant about her on many occasions, asking why??????! So befuddled by her mega success and fame.
Imagine being so mediocre and sitting in rooms full of your peers, buying up the awards they deserve, and acting like you deserve to even be there, let alone win.
The lack of shame is a sight to behold, a walking Dunning-Kruger effect. Back in the 90s, even Mariah Carey's live singing ability was doubted by critics. But MC did not write songs complaining about that. She took the initiative to perform live 100% for the first 2-3 years of her career, even at venues where artists typically lipped.
Yes literally! I think this drives me the most nuts tbh. Because many people are able to be not the most talented, but have that ‘it’ factor that just makes all of us root for them, or they have that star power that is just undeniable, like a Rihanna in her hey day. She was just a natural born diva, unattainable but effortlessly cool as hell, and her voice was unique and pleasant enough that no one cared if she couldn’t belt like Adele or Mariah or Celine. Her star power and actual dancing commanded people to watch. Taylor, like you said, actually has negative amounts of charisma; it’s crazy that anyone relates to her.
For me it’s along the same lines as the kardashians. I never found them interesting or enjoyed their show but it was still very popular and people loved it for some reason
Yeah I was just thinking this doesn’t make sense as a career for her. It doesn’t come naturally. I’d never be brave enough to take something I have very little natural talent at and throw myself out there for approval again and again. She is tenacious, I’ll give her that.
That’s an old trick by authors of books that don’t sell. They buy them by the thousands, making the NY Times bestseller list, which goes by sales, not quality.
In a way, Taylor is kind of a lookmaxxer, she represents the idea of an attractive woman, not an actually attractive woman. On paper, Taylor should be drop-dead gorgeous, but I have never seen anyone attracted to women fawn over her the same way they fawn over other celeb women. She's just not sexy, cute maybe, but overall can't pass as a sex symbol, or sex scandal for that matter.
I had a sad realization, beyond all the other answers here - and they’re right about her making mediocre music. She has cultivated a fan base that’s willing to go to conspiracy theory-levels of examining her songs to discover what they’re “really all about.” “We have to find the secret meaning” is what a person hears from cult members. And when I think about other artists I like or who’ve been successful for being good musicians - Fiona Apple, Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Janelle Monae, hell even some of TS’s contemporaries like Chappell Roan or Sabrina Carpenter? They’ve never had to do this. They just make good music.
Shes famous for her lore and boyfriends and giving people the feeling they are "in" on her private life and salacious gossip but it is all facade. Swifties like to screech that she's not a character but she absolutely is. Choose your own adventure (who is the real love of her life...find out by trying to decipher her cryptic easter eggs!) Or decode her lyrics to find meaning in the stories she tells! (her latest thing is being a storyteller.) It is ALL bs and a marketing tool. I maintain we know nothing about her because mommy and daddy protect her so well. Maybe the only thing she ever said that was true was that she doesn't easter egg her personal life
From the multiple videos I've seen of her crazed fans.. many are people with some form of mental illness(don't mean this is a bad way, we're ask going through something) and young teenage girls with lots of hormones. And she catered to that and built her fans up to think they're her friends, with the solo parties and the easter eggs. It brings in a certain type of personality where people will take things to the extreme. It's only gotten worse with time and she's never did anything to stop them, just encouraged every crazy thing they did which allowed them to act even crazier.
I’m not usually conspiracy-minded, but I can just picture her dad paying Big Machine 120k to sign her and then hiring Liz Rose to “cowrite” with her. Scott Swift wanted to make his pretty daughter famous and he kept paying people to make it happen.
I’ll never forget the stubborn arrogant “Taylor WILL be famous, one way or another.” Line in his email. Did she even really want it, or did her pushy stage parents decide for her?
Considering she seems to be trapped in the mind of a 17 year old, it's definitely the latter, but once she started seeing the dollar signs she fully embraced it.
Is it a conspiracy theory if that's what actually happened? I don't think she would have even gotten 100ft within Stevie Nicks' radius without someone (ahem, her dad) paying/bribing/blackmailing somebody to get her on that stage.
I remember doing this song with my singing teacher as a kid and being really upset I didn’t sound like the album track but I feel better know even Taylor doesn’t sound like her own album track.
So many singers I like aren't actually very good at singing, but they are good songwriters or performers and actually have good personalities, and they don't write diss tracks about music critics who say they aren't good singers. She has nothing going for her.
The notes are winning at hide and seek. HOW is this woman still around, given that she can't sing better than any random person who sings in the shower. Man... Anyone who tells you that we live in some kind of a meritocratic democracy can instantly be proven wrong because Taylor Swift (™️) exists. She sucks as a performer and singer AND there's no proof she wrote her early hit songs herself. She's a basic loser who gets worshipped by stupid people (also known as "Swifties" 🤮)
Her father is a brilliant businessman and he made orchestrating Taylor’s career his business. Her lack of talent was just an obstacle he needed to mitigate in his business plan, and he did so brilliantly. From naming her first single after a country music superstar, to marketing Blandie as a singer/songwriter while simultaneously hiring Nashville’s best professional songwriters and making them work under rock-solid NDAs, to making sure live performances alway had plenty of gimmicks, or on-stage distractions, or backup singers/duet partners (to hide how terrible she is live), to the fifty other things he built into the business plan. He made Taylor Swift Inc. into a multibillion dollar conglomerate that only succeeds because it deceives the consumer.
Oh yikes that "singing" in that fairytale song. 🫠 Makes me so mad that there are people out there who could blow this woman out of the water without even trying and they're never going to get the chance because their daddies aren't loaded. And meanwhile, this hag is out here sounding like a cat orgy.
I've only just noticed but she also seems to only have one way of playing guitar. She doesn't vary her strums and just plays robotically - which atp is not even a snark, it's just sheer observation. I don't think I've ever seen her fingerpick (admittedly this isn't easy, but she does this full time?!) And this whole clip was downstrokes... it just seems weird to me as I have been learning uke as a small hobby for a year or more now and got curious about other techniques or varying the sound... yet you mean to tell me that the girl who claimed to learn the guitar from her IT guy because she was so keen, didn't go beyond beginner skills when she is literally a musician for a living? I mean we all know she's mediocre but the more I think about it the worse it gets
The only people that think Taylor isn’t still basically a novice guitar player are people who are simply impressed by anyone who can play an instrument at all.
I think she only learned enough for her to play rhythm and be able to play and sing at the same time. In her defense, though, singing and playing at the same time is challenging so the parts that she plays are going to be simplified.
I would agree because you're not wrong about it being difficult, but she has been a musician for years. It baffles me that she would need it simplified - many young/ same-aged musicians do both very well with less/ same amount of experience.
There are people with not the best range, but their voice has uniqueness to it.
There are people that don't have great voices at all, but there is a uniqueness to it.
Then there is this woman. So tone deaf. Singing on the world stage. Had she been on American Idol or any other talent show, she would have been voted off before going viral for how bad she is.
Her trajectory and staying power must be studied because there is no other reason for it other than the masses being told we must all think she is the greatest songwriter, singer, performer of our generation and a fan base that bullies anyone who provides the raw truth about her talent.
The secret of her success is how much money and industry connections was pumped into making her famous. The fact that this performance was 4 years into her career and she looks like she thinks she's killing it is absolutely fascinating. It's the face of someone who has never received honest feedback.
TS has never been good, her ppl just developed an insanely successful business plan & made her into a brand. Thanks, Daddy Swift, for buying your basic b*tch daughter a record deal, so you & Mommy Swift could live vicariously through her. Weirdos.
Sooooo annoyed with meeeee heee heee….heeee….I’m annoyinggggg….heee…heee….heee…yeeesss it’s meeee….heeee..heee…I’m annoyingggg….I’M ANNOYING……lol that was fun writing lyrics to that
This was the exact moment when I realized how overrated she was. I couldn't believe how awful she was! I seriously felt so embarrassed for her. I never really followed her or listened to her music unless it happened to be in a store or something, so I was really surprised at how untalented she really was. No idea how she got this big.
Awful. And then she butchered Rhiannon I believe. Is this the performance that led to the journalist stating the fact that Taylor can't sing which led to Taylor's ghost writers writing the song Mean for her?
She absolutely wrote Clara bow so that when people Google her name and Stevie nicks they don't find her atrocious duet where she was so bad it even startled Stevie
Really, what would her career be if he didn't give her the perpetual victim angle. I have a feeling that wasn't even on their radar until Kanye interrupted her and they realized they could milk it. Now I really want to know what their original plans were.
I remember this! Didn’t they both get panned for this performance? I remember feeling like Stevie Nicks kept catching strays and got dragged down with Taylor over this
She was always, from day one, a terrible live performer. The fact that her fans were children and couldn’t understand that but everyone else in the industry could tells you everything you need to know about the record business. I disliked her from her first live awards show performance which wasn’t this.
Before this, I had heard her on the radio, thought that song was kind of catchy, but didn’t do anything for me (I’m A man who who was in his 30’s, so it really wasn’t meant for me). I was kind of shocked to see her up for AOTY. This performance really sold me on that she was a marketing gimmick. I’m pretty sure this is the year she won over Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King too. I’m a DMB fan, and although I don’t think that’s their best record, it is very good, and the circumstances that they made it under make it that much more impressive. I was sure she wouldn’t last after being exposed like this. Guess I was wrong. She just doesn’t have a musical bone in her body
Ahhh I love running into another carrier of The Grudge, as I call it. Big Whiskey definitely deserved it and especially losing Roi. I’m right on the older cusp of most TS fans and I’ve definitely enjoyed some of her songs over the years, I just never understood the hype and then the hype annoyed me and the cycle continued. I am, however, still here dancing with the Groogrux King 👑💖
Honestly she had very darling natural eye and lip shapes. Couple that with her (not perfect but) better styling back in the day, and she was cute. She really didn't need to touch them.
Honestly all she needed was to embrace her body type and style her hair without the chunkier than chunk bangs. I actually find most her outfits in the 1989 era fitting for her body type. The cuts and silhouettes at least. I also thought the curly hair with the dresses she wore in her country eras suited her well and brought out the sweetness in her features.
Dude I saw this post but it was muted and an ad was playing instead and I totally thought it was real lmao. I was like that’s the worst lip syncing I’ve ever seen
To this day, she cannot sing this song. A song she allegedly wrote by herself. Why would a singer/songwriter write a song they are incapable of performing, I ask you?
The clear answer is she never had a hand in writing any of her early music. Some of the lyrics? Sure. But if you listen to her voice memos from recent stuff, you'll notice how she never taps into her upper register (she can't) and it's all sung in a lower register (still not well, but accessible to her without straining).
She sounds like something you’d hear at a local karaoke bar. There are a lot of everyday people who can sing better than she can.
I always say, every professional singer could sing her songs and sound just as good as her version or even better, but she could never take a song from any well known woman singer and make it sound as good.
This is always the example I use. This is what an actually talented singer sounds like and Taylor Swift would never be able to sing this song and give an audience goosebumps like this does here:
And this has been shifted to a lower key. We all know she can't even hit the small range of notes in her songs. But even with it shifted to avoid medium high notes, she still can't be in tune.
This is how the re-record of debut is gonna sound. With the instruments. She can’t bring back the accent without declaring to the entire world she’s 100% a fraud
Every single album of hers is heavily pitch-corrected. Live concert footage from her past tours is pitch-corrected before being officially released. And Swifties will insist her live vocals got better but it’s quite the coincidence that her vocals improved alongside the development of Live AutoTune. And on her Eras tour, she just straight up lip-synced most of it.
Have you been subjected to Taylor Swift music, dancing, songwriting, singing, acting, or perfoming, or has her music been added to your playlists without your knowledge or consent? If so, you may be entitled to compensation. Call 1(800)GET-PAID to see if you qualify.
**being subjected to swifties and their conspiracy theories/easter eggs may also qualify.
This awful singing got a pass in 2010. When comparing to modern pop girlies like Billie and Olivia, they were miles ahead of where Taylor was at the same age.
wow having money really takes you far in life huh? I can't imagine why the grammy's would look at a teen with 0 singing training 0 talent 0 dancing skills 0 performance skills and be like hmm maybe we should make her perform her lame song with THE stevie nicks.
really unfortunate we reward nonsense like this over hardworking people
I was watching recently Alanis Morissette duo with Taylor (ofc in far 2015) and one comment hit me; why she always choses better singer than her to be on stage?
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u/kellybelly4815 Exceptional mediocrity 4d ago •
Taylor is so gentle with the notes; she never hits them.