Taylor Swift Has Business Thoughts

I don’t read the Wall Street Journal because I have about seventeen dollars in the bank and aggressive Federal Reserve Policy or whatever happens in Chinese commodity markets probably isn’t going to swing my fortunes too dramatically. Discussions about outlawing tits on the Internet are of greater concern to me. So I missed Taylor Swift’s op-ed piece in the Journal. She was the go-to person for talk about the death of album sales and the future of the music recording industry. She may only have a jerry-rigged home-school high school diploma, but Taylor was able to build some strong metaphors comparing music sales to boyfriends and moonlight kisses:

Some music is just for fun, a passing fling (the ones they dance to at clubs and parties for a month while the song is a huge radio hit, that they will soon forget they ever danced to). Some songs and albums represent seasons of our lives, like relationships that we hold dear in our memories but had their time and place in the past. However, some artists will be like finding “the one.” We will cherish every album they put out until they retire and we will play their music for our children and grandchildren.

I’m only slightly jealous that Taylor Swift has superior syntax than I (or me?). Albeit, she sounds like the 50-year old President of her local area Romance Novel Book Club.  Taylor continues with her romantic relationship metaphors about how artists need to shake it up in the bedroom musically to keep their fans interested over the long haul. She also mentions that people will still buy albums that “allow them to feel like they really aren’t alone in feeling so alone.” Fucking, eh, Taylor, you just put your little country superstar paw right on my heart strings and tugged.

Taylor Swift didn’t need to say anything really. She’s a living, breathing demonstration of where the music business sits. Artists and their labels need to motivate their fans to listen to their shit over and over again since they’re only making fractions of pennies per listen on streaming. For bands that can’t get millions of Spotify listens, all your dough is coming from live performances and fans getting super high and buying shit on your website. In short, absolutely nothing has changed in the music business. But Taylor Swift got to talk about love in the Wall Street Journal. I’m sure there’s a secret decoder ring dig in there about a boyfriend as well. I moved on to paper with a sports section.

Photo Credit: FameFlynet, Pacific Coast News, AKM-GSI