celeb news Email from ‘Scott Swift’ (Taylor Swift’s Dad) to Taylor’s old manager in 2005 leaks

[PoisonedIvy]

5 minutes ago, Static Shock said:

Rihanna is the best-selling female artist of the 21st century, NOT Taylor Swift. Period. And she's still outperforming her peers and new artists even though she hasn't released an album in nearly a decade. 

Rihanna is the “best selling female artist” to people who think singles equate to albums or tours, where the real success lies. She’s not currently outperforming Taylor, one of her peers, contrary to your statement; but you have proven yourself to reject reality so I will let you live in your own world. 
 

5 minutes ago, Static Shock said:

The Beatles, like Taylor, only have numbers b/c they're white in a society that has a preference for whiteness. Take away the numbers and they get exposed as mediocre. 

Well unluckily for you numbers don’t go away

 

Their white privilege was a starting point, not a guaranteed conclusion. 
 

The Beatles and Taylor are far from being the most prolific or advanced artists in music, but their whiteness doesn’t detract from their many strengths. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Taylor are all great songwriters. Benefitted from white privilege but the rest of that success is due to their skill  

[FightDragonsWithMe]

Just now, Static Shock said:

I literally posted proof of Taylor downplaying her wealth. You Taylor stans are extremely delusional. And it's not uncommon for mediocre rich people to delude themselves into thinking they achieved things through pure hard work, talent and merit. 

 

I Bet You Think About Me (Taylor’s Version)

[Verse 3: Taylor Swift]
You grew up in a silver-spoon gated community
Glamorous, shiny, bright Beverly Hills
I was raised on a farm, no, it wasn't a mansion
Just livin' room dancin' and kitchen table bills

 

Yes a song that's not on the original 2012 Album doesn't prove your point in the slightest 

[wastedpotential]

5 minutes ago, Static Shock said:

Rihanna is the best-selling female artist of the 21st century, NOT Taylor Swift

Please, aside from the beer book, find some definitive source that proves this. Extra challenge, find a source that doesn't equate a ¢99 single sale with an $11.99 album sale while making this claim 

[FightDragonsWithMe]

Taylor grew up on a literal farm 

 

She has legit never hidden that she grew up this wealthy from us  

 

https://www.insider.com/taylor-swift-childhood-home-pennsylvania-tour-photos-2022-3

Edited December 30, 2023 by FightDragonsWithMe

[PoisonedIvy]

White privilege is not some boogeyman that guarantees success. It certainly doesn’t hurt or hinder it, but you can’t just attribute an artists success to their privilege.

[wastedpotential]

2 minutes ago, Static Shock said:

I literally posted proof of Taylor downplaying her wealth. You Taylor stans are extremely delusional. And it's not uncommon for mediocre rich people to delude themselves into thinking they achieved things through pure hard work, talent and merit. 

 

I Bet You Think About Me (Taylor’s Version)

[Verse 3: Taylor Swift]
You grew up in a silver-spoon gated community
Glamorous, shiny, bright Beverly Hills
I was raised on a farm, no, it wasn't a mansion
Just livin' room dancin' and kitchen table bills

 

That line, especially 'kitchen table bills' is a hallmark of the writing style of her co-writer on the song, Lori McKenna. She's made references to the mundanities of life like that several dozen times across her writing career, and it's not exactly imagery Taylor would use otherwise. It clearly wasn't a line that she wrote, and it was clearly kept in to provide a bit of juxtaposition with Jake Gyllenhaal's upbringing in Beverly Hills with his well connected director father and screenwriter mother. Plus, for what it's worth, the house where she grew up was on a farm. 

[Mean Trees]

4 hours ago, Jay07 said:

This Merrill Lynch banker mentality is exactly how Taylor is running her career. These people destroyed America and some people are celebrating it. Just turn a profit, no matter what.

Exactly. But Merrill Lynch ran dry eventually so she better change it up for her own benefit.

 

 

[MissedTheTrain]

24 minutes ago, Jay07 said:

Because the most important qualities for a performer are singing and dancing. Songwriting will get you signed to a publishing contract not as an artist. Just ask Lady Gaga who had to fight tooth and nail to keep her songs for herself and didn't have daddy sending screeds to her manager. It's clear that her being the only artist signed to an upstart label and her dad's close relation to the label owner (and partial ownership of the label? Not clear on the details) were factors in her being signed as an artist as she didn't have any obvious qualities to be one.

If you're an artist who's main focus is singing and dancing, sure.  If you're an artist who's main focus is storytelling, no.

 

Have you never heard of the concept of a "singer/songwriter"?  Bob Dylan, for example...he didn't dance, and his voice has never been considered good.  Yet, he's one of the best selling artists of all time.

 

Taylor's focus has always been "I write stories about my life", songs that were personal to her.  Her voice was fine enough to be the vessel for those songs. She was doing something nobody else in Country was at the time: writing songs for her own generation.  Her dad working hard does not negate the fact that she did have something.

 

Lady Gaga is a completely different story, considering she was trying to enter the Pop realm, a completely different world from Country. She wasn't writing personal, relatable songs about her life...she was writing radio ready Pop bangers.

[FightDragonsWithMe]

How long did Taylor hide that her father came from generational wealth and was a banker before you stopped or decided to be a Swiftie y'all? 

[Static Shock]

4 minutes ago, wastedpotential said:

Let alone considering that the user's first post here (the one that was oh so reminiscent of the good sis Dill Green) was that Taylor's career was funded with slavery money, which just isn't true. His father was a banker and so was his grandfather, but his grandfather apparently started in the mail room in the 1890s and worked his way up over decades 

 

He certainly benefitted from the discriminatory laws of the time but bankers working in mid-sized towns outside Philadelphia in the 1930s aren't likely to be managing a lot of money from Jim Crow profits, because that's just now how financial flows worked at the time 

Poor white man, working in the mail room (and where's the proof?), while black people were literally seen as less than human. 

 

Yes, Archie Swift had a hard time transitioning after WW2, I bet. /sarcasm

[In 1944, the GI Bill lifted a generation into the middle class — but excluded Black vets who served their country at war and came home to segregation.]

 

The entire USA economy was significantly built off of slavery. Period. 

[Jay07]

Ultimately, the most gross thing is that he actually speaks like the evil rich stereotypes we see in movies (I am 1% broker in my company, I manage hundreds of millions,  I made a nice profit selling my mansion and my boats etc) and that certainly explains some qualities I always found offputting in Taylor (obsession with money and being #1, complete disregard for anyone and anything including the environment and her fans lives when there's a profit to be made). I can't understand how people can stan these corrosive capitalist vultures who have literally ruined American society and then turn around and claim to be progressives who want to eat billionaires. The cognitive dissonance. 

[FightDragonsWithMe]

It's so weird how Taylor can't just excel at music 

[Jay07]

34 minutes ago, MissedTheTrain said:

If you're an artist who's main focus is singing and dancing, sure.  If you're an artist who's main focus is storytelling, no.

 

Have you never heard of the concept of a "singer/songwriter"?  Bob Dylan, for example...he didn't dance, and his voice has never been considered good.  Yet, he's one of the best selling artists of all time.

 

Taylor's focus has always been "I write stories about my life", songs that were personal to her.  Her voice was fine enough to be the vessel for those songs. She was doing something nobody else in Country was at the time: writing songs for her own generation.  Her dad working hard does not negate the fact that she did have something.

 

Lady Gaga is a completely different story, considering she was trying to enter the Pop realm, a completely different world from Country. She wasn't writing personal, relatable songs about her life...she was writing radio ready Pop bangers.

Yeah, fair enough and I admit I'm not particularly familiar with country music but I still think that a teen girl with no obvious marketable gifts (let's face it, the songwriting wasn't even that exceptional, especially at the time) would have been signed and pushed as hard as she was in 2005 Nashville if her dad wasn't footing the bill.

Edited December 30, 2023 by Jay07

[Static Shock]

9 minutes ago, wastedpotential said:

Please, aside from the beer book, find some definitive source that proves this. Extra challenge, find a source that doesn't equate a ¢99 single sale with an $11.99 album sale while making this claim 

Sweetheart, I've already provided a source. Rihanna has outsold Taylor Swift. Period. 

 

Now, you provide a source that proves otherwise other than FraudMasters (a blog run by a random French white man). 

 

FraudMasters operates on limited information and uses fictional math as a workaround.

[MissedTheTrain]

32 minutes ago, Static Shock said:

Her singing voice is NOT fine. Taylor has a mediocre voice. Her songwriting reads like a 12-year old white girl's diary. I wish y'all would stop pretending that Taylor is serving Missy Elliot, Mariah Carey, etc. w/ her songwriting. 

 

 

 

 

Taylor's voice is fine.  Not great enough to make it as a vocalist if she didn't write her own songs, but it's good enough to be the vessel for the songs she writes.

 

 

"Her songwriting reads like a 12-year old white girl's diary" might be your opinion, but I (and countless critics, writers, producers, etc) disagree with you.  I can't imagine a 12 year old writing something like Ivy, Would've Could've Should've, evermore, right where you left me, etc.

 

The fact that you're posting a little clip from her just off the cuff trying to casually demonstrate something to someone tells me you're not interested in having a valid conversation.

 

 

[FightDragonsWithMe]

3 minutes ago, Jay07 said:

Yeah, fair enough and I admit I'm not particularly familiar with country music but I still think that a 14 year old with no obvious marketable gifts (let's face it, the songwriting isn't even that exceptional) would have been signed and pushed as hard as she was if her dad wasn't footing the bill.

You should have this same energy towards your fave  

[Saintlor]

I still cannot believe how privileged Taylor is to have been given so much and she would cry over not being nominated for a Grammy despite already winning a dozen

 

It can be really shocking how these people have so much and always want more  

 

 

Taylor is the type that when she was worth hundreds of millions, I bet she was upset that other singers like Rihanna were billionaires as she wants to be the richest one  

Edited December 30, 2023 by Saintlor

[Material Girl]

must be nice to have all that money to pursue your dreams 

 

taylor is not some relatable girl next door she sells herself as 

[MissedTheTrain]

2 minutes ago, Jay07 said:

Yeah, fair enough and I admit I'm not particularly familiar with country music but I still think that a 14 year old with no obvious marketable gifts (let's face it, the songwriting isn't even that exceptional) would have been signed and pushed as hard as she was if her dad wasn't footing the bill.

Of course, her privilege and her dad supporting her that much absolutely helped.  Talent alone doesn't get you anywhere.  But she definitely had a spark of something.  "Our Song", for example, is a very well written song for a 14 year old (and for anyone at that matter).  And again, what set her apart and made her exciting to people was the fact that she was writing diaristic songs about being a teenager...something nobody else in Country was doing at the time.  They were songs that people her own age could completely relate to.

[AvadaKedavra]

Hate to put bad things about taylor again  But Nothing screams rich kid than a 15-year-old driving a hummer to school
I want her life  im jealous 
 

 

Edited December 30, 2023 by AvadaKedavra

[FightDragonsWithMe]

2 minutes ago, Saintlor said:

I still cannot believe how privileged Taylor is to have been given so much and she would cry over not being nominated for a Grammy despite already winning a dozen

 

It can be really shocking how these people have so much and always want more  

 

 

Taylor is the type that when she was worth hundreds of millions, I bet she was upset that other singers like Rihanna were billionaires as she wants to be the richest one  

I'm convinced you're ironic now helpppp

[Headlock]

19 minutes ago, ImsoLOUD said:

More whataboutism  still irrelevant to that users original point.

 

and while you’re praying make sure you ask your God to bless you with some better deflection tactics too

 

That users “point” was a whataboutism, something that my comment was not. So congratulations on being wrong in two different ways at once!

 

God doesn’t exist, just like your debate abilities. You can run along and @ someone else.

[Static Shock]

30 minutes ago, FightDragonsWithMe said:

Taylor grew up on a literal farm 

 

 

Correction: a Christmas-tree farm that her Merrill Lynch father and mutual fund marketing executive mother purchased from one of his clients. 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Static Shock

[Communion]

3 hours ago, PoisonedIvy said:

Well Taylor (and especially not her father) aren’t the 1%. They’re not “rich,” 

Sis, I'm not going to comment on the racialized elements as a white person, especially if multiple users say the points are being made in bad faith, but this kind of talking point needs to be stopped in general. It took like a yearly $200k income for someone to be in the Top 5% of Pennsylvanian households in 2005. 

 

A Merrill Lynch VP making easily $250k, let alone then however many bonuses such an executive gets, is comfortably affluent.

 

Rich becomes pointless as a descriptor if it is reserved for only millionaires and billionaires and leads to the conversation that often people argue someone is 'not rich' to obscure their class status. If someone who makes hundreds of thousands of dollars is not 'rich'... what are they? "Upper middle class"? How can someone be 'middle class' in any understanding when they end up in the Top 3-5% of earners? What exactly do you think middle denotes?

 

He literally writes in the email how he's the organized one in the family to the point of him handling registering their boats when they moved - boats, boatS, aka multiple boats!

 

Taylor obviously wouldn't be where she is without her talent, so it's needless to pretend a Merrill Lynch banking exec has ever had to ever pull himself up by his bootstraps. Her family could be rich AND she could be a once-in-a-lifetime songwriting talent. 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Communion

[Static Shock]

4 minutes ago, Headlock said:

God doesn’t exist

You can't prove this.