When you reach age 21 you are no longer an adult

[koganbot]

From June 6 to July 11 the number 1 song on Billboard's adult contemporary chart was Taylor Swift's "Love Story." From July 18 through October 24 it was Miley Cyrus's "The Climb." From October 31 through December 26 (which hasn't happened yet, but Billboard can read palms), it was/is Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me." To put this in perspective, number 1 right now on Radio Disney's Dot Com request line is Iyaz, who's 22 years old, making him a couple of years older than Taylor and five years older than Miley. Taylor, by the way, turned 20 last week; does this mean her reign as an adult contemporary queen may be in jeopardy?

Comments

[tyropshaw.livejournal.com]

I'm confused. Taylor is still # 1 on a future chart and you question whether her made up title of "Adult Contemporary Queen" is in jeopardy because some guy who is 22 is #1 on the Disney charts? First, I doubt this "lyaz" wants to be the queen of anything. Second, your own facts show that a younger artist had already took MS. Swift place on the A.C.chart and Swift got it back and held it longer. Third, what would Ms. Swift be other than Adult Contemporary? Or more precisely how would she be excluded from that marketing category (as she could simultaneously also be marketed as just plain "pop" or "country"? There seems to be many people past 21 who make the adult contemporary charts. That Miley Cyrus does too is interesting, but it might be as much about how radio programmers define their audiences (younger is always better) as the artists and listeners themselves. If Taylor Swift, who styles herself after adult contemporary country queens, isn't adult contemporary than what is she?

With that said, I have a question for you. As you seem to be a huge fan of Taylor Swift and, to a lesser extent, other young American female pop stars whose lyrics seem partially torn from their own diaries, do you have any thoughts/opinions on the British pop singers who are essentially do the same thing? Specifically, I mean people like Kate Nash, Emmy the Great, and, especially, Laura Marling. I find it especially difficult to take Swift seriously after hearing Marling's songs, though I can understand potential differences of tastes in regards to both subject matter and their interpretation of their intended audience.

[koganbot]

I was just finding a funny way to inform people who might not be watching the Adult Contemporary chart that it's been topped for over the last half year by performers who are not adults, which is interesting given that the title of the radio format is adult contemporary. The format gets its title because the people who listen to it are older and are presumed to want to hear older people's music that isn't as hip or trendy as what the young people listen to. My joke at the end is that as Taylor becomes an adult, that may make her less likely to top the adult chart. It is a joke. Obviously, plenty of adult performers do well on adult contemporary radio. Jason Mraz was topping the chart earlier in the year, and most of the performers on the chart are over 21.

That said, Taylor doesn't style herself after Adult Contemporary country queens. Her singing isn't at all like Faith Hill's or Shania Twain's or LeAnn Rimes' (those are the three female country singers who jump to my mind as having frequently crossed over to adult contemporary radio in the last decade); nor is it like Martina McBride's or Lee Ann Womack's, who've crossed over a little. She may model her singing a bit on Natalie Maines' of the Dixie Chicks, who hit on Adult Contemporary with "Landslide" back at the start of the decade but haven't since. Not that any of this is relevant to the point I was making.

[tyropshaw.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I picked the wrong post to express my curiosity. Mostly, I was interested in whether you had any opinion on the young female singer/songwriters "across the pond," either compared to Swift or on their own, since you seem to take Ms. Swift more seriously, in terms of pop music history, than most people I've read.

As for Swift, I now cringe at my "difficult to take seriously" remark, though I did attempt to qualify it as a matter of outlook/taste. I do think, and believe I've read, that Swift at one point did want to style herself after the Adult Contemporary country queens I alluded to and you named, but I don't necessarily believe that's a bad thing. It's Swift's (or any artist's) intelligence and creativity that determines her value, not a selection of random influences/inspirations.

[koganbot]

Probably the only one of the young female British singer-songwriters I've paid extended attention to is Lily Allen, whom I like a lot even if she does come on like a brat. Well, there's Marit Larsen too, of course, though she's Norwegian not British.

There is a whole slew of singers from Natasha Bedingfield to Amy Winehouse whom I refer to a bit sarcastically as the quirk girls; obviously, the quirk girls cover a range of different styles and personalities, but what they have in common are fairly respectable and conventional notions of poetry and quality and idiosyncrasy, which is probably why I've yet to give most of them a fair listen. It's too bad I've let my prejudice against their respectability get in the way of my hearing them, and maybe someday my ears will open. I put Kate Nash and Duffy and Adele in this category, and Laura Marling too, though I doubt that I've heard more than a track or two by her. (Do you have any specific favorites by her?) In Australia there's Gabriella Cilmi and in the U.S. Sonya Kitchell, and Lykke Li in Sweden, and I might include Nelly Furtado, who's Canadian (and she rather effectively crossed to r&b). Those are just the ones who spring to my mind immediately - there are plenty more - and as I said they cover a lot of different styles, and hovering in the background for some of them is Bjork.

In some way or another the quirk girls are all descended from the folk rock and art pop of the '60s, especially women singers such as Joan Baez and Judy Collins and Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro. I'd say the same about many of the teenpop stars of the early to mid '00s, such as Michelle Branch and Vanessa Carlton and Pink and Avril Lavigne and Ashlee Simpson. Pink, of course, worked with Linda Perry, while Avril worked with Clif Magness, and Michelle and Ashlee worked with John Shanks, who had a history collaborating with such people as Stevie Nicks and Melissa Etheridge and Sheryl Crow and Alanis Morissette, all of whom have singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell in their ancestry. Taylor Swift's connection to that line of descent isn't as clear - she works a lot with Liz Rose, whose experience has primarily been in country music - but you are quite right to hear a similarity between Taylor and the British singer-songwriters, if nothing more than in the sense that the stories in Taylor's songs are often specifically her story, or the stories of characters like her, whom we're supposed to think of as individuals rather than as figures from a musical genre. (Which isn't to say that the songs and stories don't draw on genres and conventions, or that singer-songwriter isn't a genre itself.)