Warning: This article will offend Taylor Swift fans who actually think she can sing. I am deeply offended by the fact that Taylor Swift is a super celebrity, when Kate Gosselin is criticized for trying to be a celebrity. I bet Kate Gosselin could sing better than Taylor Swift! That’s how poorly Taylor Swift sings. In fact, Taylor Swift doesn’t sing much better than me!
It’s not even open to debate: If Taylor Swift were born in 1976 and waited until 2006 to pursue a singing career (age 30), then to this day, NOBODY would know whom she was, because a 30-year-old woman who absolutely cannot sing would never get a recording contract or mega fan base. Taylor Swift cannot sing. And many on the Web have expressed the same observation.
So why, then, was Taylor Swift the biggest selling artist in the U.S. for 2008? Why was Taylor Swift the first country music singer to “top the 2 million mark in paid downloads with three different songs,” according to Wikipedia? Why was her debut album certified as 3-times multi-platinum, and why has she earned over $18 million this year? Does all of this mean Taylor Swift can sing? NO.
A Country Standard Time Editorial in 2008 stated:
What may have propelled her career is a big marketing campaign and her reaching out to fans on the internet as a key component of the strategy (myspace.com for those living on another planet with regard to Swift). Remember, it’s not always the best songs or movies or books that do the best at the cash register. Sometimes other forces are at play.
Maybe that’s the case here as well with Swift. Nice, friendly, clean girl persona and songs that are commercially appealing and resonate with her fans.
The last two lines explain the success of Taylor Swift in a nutshell. The huge bulk of her fan base are teenage girls, which is why, if Taylor Swift had been born in 1976 and didn’t pursue a singing career until age 30, she’d still be waiting tables in Nashville and lucky to be singing in a small-town church choir.
The timing was perfect. American teenage girls were so disgusted and fed up with train wrecks like Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan and washed-up has-beens like Whitney Houston, that when Taylor Swift came along, she was a breath of fresh air and sunshine. Finally, a wholesome, clean, sober, down-to-earth “real” girl with the body every teen girl dreams of. Did it really matter that Taylor Swift couldn’t sing?
Her success is multifactorial, and the lyrics of her songs have much to do with her astonishing career success and milestones. Taylor Swift, according to her teen fan base, writes dynamic lyrics that they can all relate to. If Taylor Swift had MY voice (and trust me when I say this: I can’t sing to save my life), her songs would STILL be tearing up the charts!
Listen to her rendition (click HERE) of the National Anthem at the Thanksgiving Miami Dolphins vs. Detroit Lions, Feb. 23, 2006, and honestly ask yourself if NOWHERE in the song is she totally off key, out of tune, and can’t even hit the correct notes at times. This is a live, non-embellished performance, free of recording-studio acoustic-engineering trickery.
But even when the studio engineers doctor up Taylor Swift’s singing, it still comes out awful. Not long ago I was waiting at the hair salon where an easy-listening pop station is always playing. This young woman began singing, and I immediately cringed, thinking, “Who the devil is THAT? She’s horrid!” I didn’t know it was Taylor Swift. At that time, I had heard only a few fragments of her singing, and was not familiar enough with it to recognize that she was singing the song at the salon.
Nevertheless, as I read a magazine, I contemplated stepping outside to get away from that grating voice. “She’s terrible!” I kept thinking, pressing fingers to my ears to muffle the noise. The song ended and the DJ said it was Taylor Swift. “It figures!” I thought, only then realizing the similarity the voice had to the Taylor Swift I had heard before.
It’s been argued that she’s still young, inexperienced and finding her singing voice. Well, Leann Rimes certainly had found HER voice at just age 13! Look at all those incredibly talented grade school kids on “America’s Got Talent” and “Britain’s Got Talent.” Taylor Swift is old enough to vote, so please don’t attribute her inability to sing on key, display a vibrato (my critics, know what that is?), and sound halfway decent on being “young.”
And it’s not about style, either. Look at other country singers who can actually sing, such as Leann Rimes, Martina McBride, Crystal Gale, Reba McIntyre and Faith Hill. And if any of my critics think I can’t possibly know what I’m talking about unless I myself am a musician, then here it is: I play the piano, and that includes composing songs. But one need not be a musician or even a good singer to have a decent pair of ears!
My critics will rage at me that Taylor Swift is a talented songwriter; sweetheart; philanthropist; good guitar player; and drug and alcohol free. Well, yes, she’s all of these things, but that’s not what this article is about, is it? NO. It’s about this: Taylor Swift can’t sing!
So tell me, if Taylor Swift burst on the music scene with a hairdo like Kate Gosselin’s, a personality like Darlene Connor from “Roseanne” and a body like Serena Williams, would y’all still think she was a great singer?
As for her “songwriting,” just how much of her songs does she write, anyways? “Songwriter” is ambiguous. Does this mean she writes only the lyrics? Or does it mean she also writes the musical themes? Does Taylor Swift, in addition to composing the musical themes (melodies and harmonies), also arrange the music? Do you know what that means — arranging music? This means scoring the composition for each musical instrument in the song. Does she do any of that? That takes a heck of a lot of skill. I doubt that this teen girl goes that far with her songwriting.
If all Taylor Swift does is write the lyrics, she should be called a lyricist. If she indeed composes and scores the actual music, then this should be clarified by anybody who interviews her for an article or on TV.
For the sake of argument, suppose Taylor Swift, indeed, creates every musical component of her songs, right down to every single note played by every single instrument. This means she’s a talented composer. However, it doesn’t change the fact that Taylor Swift can’t sing!
Source: http://www.countrystandardtime.com/d/editorial.asp?xid=304
