Taylor Swift – The Life of a Showgirl – Is the audio performance up to the marketing hype? – Review (CD,colored vinyl records, streaming,Stereo Atmos)

[Timcognito]

Saw Molly Tuttle at the Freight and Salvage and later at the Greek Theater in Berkeley some years back. What struck me was how good of a guitar player she is/was on both occasions. For you roots music fans this recent PBS special was good music and good sound recording.

Recorded Live at Analog | Molly Tuttle & Ketch Secor | Season 2 | Episode 2

A rare joint set includes “Big Backyard,” “Wagon Wheel,” “Crooked Tree,” and more.

www.pbs.org

 

[A Surfer]

I'm an older man, over 50 but under 60 and I actually like some Taylor Swift music. Sometimes things that are made to be fun are just that, fun. I think she is actually quite talented. Maybe she is popular because her music is pleasant and makes people feel good.

I might be missing something, but isn't that what music should do?

As a person though, I have no opinion at all. No clue. Hopefully she is a decent human being.

 

[Axo1989]

It's not just country music we are discussing, it's also the use of technology and auto tune.
A few days back i listened to an entire Swift song, and all i heard was a robotic voice and computers. I got the feeling their wasn't a real instrument being used including her voice.
If you take the other side of this Rhiannon Giddons for example you hear clearly how music is ment to be made. without a whole bunch of technology and with Talent.

I think I'm with @Chrispy on this one. Some of the finest/funnest music I've come across is generated without a plucked string, stretched skin, human voice or wooden noise box in sight. I've no objection at all to people making musical noises with traditional contrivances or unmodified voices, even if I personally avoid the sometimes depressing effect that has on me. Music born of poverty of means carries some of its misery with it. But that's obviously orthogonal to subjective appreciation, and music in toto which can be made in all sorts of ways.

 

[Axo1989]

fine with it if it’s balanced by sharing what the sisters and daughters think of Steely Dan, Dire Straits, and Pink Floyd

A: Maybe, just maybe, this is all Grandpa's music—you know, like Led Zeppelin?
B: My wife is just crazy about Mark Knopfler/Dire Straits.
C: Back when my granddaughter was about seven, she said "LCD Soundsystem must be the best people in the world". That was over ten years ago.
One stepson's fave is Nick Cave, another makes electronic music, has loads of gear. The Dan, Straits and Floyd don't figure into their interests.
My Swift-loving sister (Toni, the one who just got a vintage Gibson for $4700.00 at Norman's Rare Guitars), her husband and my wife are Deadheads. My wife has a vague allergy around Steely Dan (I'm a fan), likes Pink Floyd (I'm still on the fence).

I've got one Taylor Swift CD—Folklore—doesn't really turn me on. I figure I'm just the wrong demographic, seeing as I'm thrilled by Schubert's D. 958, the Well Tempered Clavier and Beethoven's piano sonatas.

Different strokes and all that.

I'm an older man, over 50 but under 60 and I actually like some Taylor Swift music. Sometimes things that are made to be fun are just that, fun. I think she is actually quite talented. Maybe she is popular because her music is pleasant and makes people feel good.

I might be missing something, but isn't that what music should do?

As a person though, I have no opinion at all. No clue. Hopefully she is a decent human being.

I recall dropping my younger sister off at a Taylor Swift concert here (not the last tour, but prior) which I didn't attend myself. The same year she went to see Bring Me The Horizon, which I did. Assumptions about the circumference of anyone's musical taste can fall by the wayside quickly. But I guess I'm not 'overwhelmingly male or old' either, so 'Steely Dan, Dire Straits, and Pink Floyd' basically fall outside that circle for me too (apart from my soft spot for Ummagumma). Otoh we were both a little shocked when our older sister hadn't heard of Lana Del Rey.

 

[A Surfer]

I imagine Taylor Swift, and the entire population of Taylor Swift fans really don't care at all about a bunch of older men who complain about how untalented she is. Haters are gonna hate.

 

[Talisman]

I imagine Taylor Swift, and the entire population of Taylor Swift fans really don't care at all about a bunch of older men who complain about how untalented she is. Haters are gonna hate.

Look, the world isn't divided into old caryatids who only listen to Dire Straits and Pink Floyd and fresh young people who listen to Taylor Swift.
I'm barely 42, raised on electronic music, nu metal, and '90s dance, but Taylor Swift still seems pretty insignificant to me.

 

[Mart68]

And Diana Krall and Melody Gardot and Jacintha and Holly Cole... and all those other distaff audiophile phavorites!

You can't just lump Steely Dan in there with those others. Steely Dan were the peak of Western Civilisation.

Youngsters would be lucky to discover them once they grow out of Taylor Swift.

 

[goat76]

You can't just lump Steely Dan in there with those others. Steely Dan were the peak of Western Civilisation.

Youngsters would be lucky to discover them once they grow out of Taylor Swift.

For me, it’s about as unlikely I will listen to Steely Dan as if I will listen to Taylor Swift.

 

[whereisbrian]

I definitely prefer Karly Hartzman from Wednesday or Beth Gibbons to Taylor Swift.
But I'm not stopping anyone from buying her latest album

 

[Gary_G]

To be fair, Taylor Swift is not completely talentless.

It was this performance that I realized she is just a performer, not an artist. Rhiannon any day !

 

[A Surfer]

It was this performance that I realized she is just a performer, not an artist. Rhiannon any day !

Is that not a difference without a distinction?

 

[Axo1989]

You can't just lump Steely Dan in there with those others. Steely Dan were the peak of Western Civilisation.

Youngsters would be lucky to discover them once they grow out of Taylor Swift.

Reminds me of that 'how loud do you play your music?' thread a while back where the OP wanted us to measure A-weighted while playing a certain Steely Dan track. I'll admit I hadn't heard them prior but I discovered that 0 dB was my preference.

 

[Axo1989]

Look, the world isn't divided into old caryatids who only listen to Dire Straits and Pink Floyd ...

Caryatids who can't abide Taylor Swift: was that a Doctor Who episode I missed?

 

[Mart68]

Reminds me of that 'how load do you play your music?' thread a while back where the OP wanted us to measure A-weighted while playing a certain Steely Dan track. I'll admit I hadn't heard them prior but I discovered that 0 dB was my preference.

I do know a couple of people who say they don't like Steely Dan. I pray for them daily.

 

[Mart68]

Caryatids who can't abide Taylor Swift: was that a Doctor Who episode I missed?

I think it's that tentacle monster he kills at the end of 'Spearhead From Space.'

 

[Doodski]

I do know a couple of people who say they don't like Steely Dan. I pray for them daily.

Steely Dan is so freakishly accurately and awesomely tight as musicians that it simply blows my mind even after ~50 years of listening to Steely Dan music.

 

[mhardy6647]

Steely Dan is so freakishly accurately and awesomely tight as musicians that it simply blows my mind even after ~50 years of listening to Steely Dan music.

And that's the fundamental problem with them.
Mind you, I have all of the canonical Steely Dan albums*, and I do like them a lot -- especially the first one, when they were an actual band, sort of. Heck, I like David Jim Hodder's vocals, irrespective of Donald Fagen's snarky comments about him/them.

By the time Aja came around, Mssrs. Becker & Fagen had gotten kind of dry, nigh-on academic. Which is not to say that I don't like the record -- but I think it appealed to me a lot more in college than it does today.

Their good bad attitude was the best thing about them.
My favorite Steely Dan track -- not that anyone would ask -- My Old School.
In case anyone ever asks you to define sardonic. Just play that track for them. Great guitar solos, too.

Runner up: Brooklyn Not quite so snarky, but close.
__________________
*I never bought Gaucho when it came out. I did pick up a copy from the swap pile at the dear ol' Harvard, MA town dump somewhere along the line, but I don't think I've ever listened to it all the way through.

 

[Sal1950]

In 2100 when God hires a band the the 22th Century Anniversary party it will be Pink Floyd.
Roger Waters will be unavailable.

 

[Axo1989]

I think it's that tentacle monster he kills at the end of 'Spearhead From Space.'

Seems you can buy these for your collection:

Also, full-size for the garden. Which I vaguely want now. Not technically caryatids though, which would do double-duty as columns. Maybe @Talisman was suggesting the cranky codgers cited upthread are pillars of ASR?

 

[Talisman]

@Talisman was suggesting the cranky codgers cited upthread are pillars of ASR?

In Italian, figuratively speaking, a "caryatid" is used to define an "immobile" person fixed on his outdated ideas and beliefs.