Taylor Swift Corrects Blur's Damon Albarn
The pop star wants it to be known that she writes all of her own songs along with a plethora of professional songwriters
British musician Damon Albarn of Blur and the kayfabe anime group Gorrilaz came under fire recently for singling out Taylor Swift while explaining why corporate-sponsored music sucks.
Albarn, who I’m just going to call Blur because it’s more palatable, apparently found it notable that Taylor Swift presents herself as a songwriter but also collaborates with many co-writers, “I know what co-writing is. Co-writing is very different to writing. I'm not hating on anybody, I'm just saying there's a big difference between a songwriter and a songwriter who co-writes”, he said, his mouth apparently full of Vaseline.
It seems at first glance like a noteworthy distinction. Swift’s employs a cadre of professional songwriters who regularly pen and produce thought provoking masterpieces for the likes of Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Maroon 5, and Justin Bieber.
Of over two hundred songs in which Swift has a writing credit, she is credited as the sole songwriter on about twenty five percent of them.
The other writers credited, sometimes up to four per song, include people like Max Martin, who has written for The Backstreet Boys, Katy Perry, and Britney Spears - some guy named Shellback, who has written for The Jonas Brothers, Adam Lambert, and Britney Spears - Louis Bell, who has written for Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, and Selena Gomez - Dr. Luke, who has written for Maroon 5, Katy Perry, and Miley Cyrus - Liz Rose, who has written for Tim McGraw, Blake Shelton, and Carrie Underwood - Brett James, who has written for Miley Cyrus, her father Billy Ray Cyrus, Tim McGraw and Carrie Underwood - Andrew Lloyd Webber, who wrote the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar - and Frank Dukes, who has written for Drake, DJ Khaled, and Cardi B - among many others.
While this may seem like a mark against Swift’s songwriting prowess, given that many of the artists her co-writers create content for fall somewhere between empty-vessel-who-fits-a-sparkly-suit and Punchline, this has been the norm for years among the industry’s truly gifted songwriters, who are considered uncompromising in their artistic dedication.
Prominent examples include Bob Dylan’s revolutionary folk-rock tune Like A Rolling Stone (co-written by Dylan and Pitbull), Stevie Wonder’s defining soul-funk paragon Superstition (written by Wonder and Ryan Seacrest [featuring Lil’ Yachty], and Hank Williams’ heart-wrenching Lovesick Blues (written by Williams, Jake the Snake Roberts, Flipper the Dolphin, and David Copperfield).
Taylor Swift responded to Blur’s musings with a fiery and passionate retort, stating, “I write ALL of my own songs. Your hot take is completely false and SO damaging. You don't have to like my songs but it's really fucked up to try and discredit my writing. WOW.”
This brief statement appears littered with half-truths. It would be more factually accurate for Swift to state that she writes twenty-five percent of her songs, while she co-writes the remaining seventy-five percent with people who churn out sexually provocative pablum for twelve-year-olds and southern Applebee’s customers while referencing that she literally has a revolving cabinet of people who control every genre on the Billboard charts.
Nonetheless it must be “damaging”, to use Swift’s word, to anyone masquerading as a songwriter when someone points out the fairly obvious, that Swift has been cast as the archetypal sheltered suburban white chick whom the music industry has allowed to hold a guitar on stage.
Swift saying she writes “ALL of my own songs” is like Wolfgang Puck claiming he prepares all of the frozen meals with his face on the label by hand, or Leonardo DiCaprio stating that he was the movie Titanic. Not that he was in it, he just was that thing.
She seems entitled and it’s highly possible she’s an idiot. What’s clear is that she is maybe as good a songwriter as the other figureheads her songwriters supply with material, such as Justin Bieber or Britney Spears. They just aren’t as oppressed as her.