Not generalizing her estrangement
Feb. 3rd, 2010 10:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koganbotMore convo with Tom on his Tumblr, this time as to whether or not Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me" is indiepop. I say not, though I can hear the potential indieness that he hears. (Also, more generally, I can hear parallels between country and indie in that country is up to its eyeballs in alienation and social resentment; one thing I find inspiring about Taylor, beyond the craftsmanship that insists you tell a story rather than simply allude to one while hoping that the listener will do your work for you, is that, though she's personally hurt - it's all over her lyrics - and she hangs on to her bitterness, she's not head deep in social resentment.*)
The reason "You Belong With Me" is not indie:
(1) The narrator (not to mention the songwriter) doesn't generalize her estrangement and try to claim it as an advantage and as a social critique (though she could have, which I assume is why you make the connection in the first place),
(2) She's not finding her way to a potential social niche that receives her and also generalizes its estrangement (I say "potential" niche in that it can be somewhat imaginary, and she can run across it in the media or on the 'Net rather than in her school),
(3) The music that the cheer captain doesn't like and that the narrator listens to in her room isn't the Velvet Underground's "Heroin," and
(4) "You Belong With Me" doesn't fetishize musical and social incompetence (though there are hints of the latter in the vid).
I needed to add (3) and (4) because there are other niches that try to generalize their estrangement but aren't indie, one of them being country, though country tries to pull the trick of simultaneously being estranged and claiming in its estrangement to speak for the heartland and for long-time viable values. I really don't know whether Taylor is on thin ice with the country audience for no longer playing up the country signifiers, but you can imagine a reworking of "You Belong With Me" where the narrator gets the boy 'cause the cheer captain rejected him for being too redneck, and then he goes on to be a star, sort of a "country boy" variation on "Sk8er Boi." Also, you should hear - you need to hear - Toby Keith's "How Do You Like Me Now?!" which came out two years before "Sk8er Boi." Also, try Taylor's own "The Way I Loved You," written with John Rich, where she's dating the nice-boy equivalent of the girl narrator of "You Belong With Me" but she's about to throw him over 'cause he's not her wild mistreatin' ex who fought with her and upset her and whom she still loves. (And significantly it would have been very easy for her to identify the wild, crazy, complicated boy as a redneck, but either (a) she isn't interested in kissing the country listener's ass by doing so, or (b) she's afraid to, in case it would limit her crossover appeal (but it's just an album track so she surely could have gotten away with the country signifiers if she'd wanted them).) By the way, where Taylor most comes across as heartland is in "Our Song" from the first album, where there's an implied rootedness in the past and in the timeless in all those behaviors that constitute their song. And in Fearless's "The Best Day" there's a connectedness to her dad that again suggests she's still connected to something long-term and deep even if she's alienated and hurt by the social life at school; I'm guessing that something like this would resonate with the mainstream country listener even though that particular song is vastly personal. It's also a better song than "Our Song," its being uncompromisingly personal being one of the reasons, but also I just prefer the melody.
I'm trying to pull you further into Taylor and into country (and yes Taylor is on the borderline as to whether she's country or not, and my fingers are crossed as to whether she can pull country in her direction, given that she's more and more eschewing country's bullshit and less willing than many other country songwriters to get over on signifiers and pandering, though so far there's no other Taylorette with close to her talent who could help with the pulling).
*Which isn't to say that one can't do great stuff with social resentment, mind you, as long as it doesn't devolve into an easy shtick.
The reason "You Belong With Me" is not indie:
(1) The narrator (not to mention the songwriter) doesn't generalize her estrangement and try to claim it as an advantage and as a social critique (though she could have, which I assume is why you make the connection in the first place),
(2) She's not finding her way to a potential social niche that receives her and also generalizes its estrangement (I say "potential" niche in that it can be somewhat imaginary, and she can run across it in the media or on the 'Net rather than in her school),
(3) The music that the cheer captain doesn't like and that the narrator listens to in her room isn't the Velvet Underground's "Heroin," and
(4) "You Belong With Me" doesn't fetishize musical and social incompetence (though there are hints of the latter in the vid).
I needed to add (3) and (4) because there are other niches that try to generalize their estrangement but aren't indie, one of them being country, though country tries to pull the trick of simultaneously being estranged and claiming in its estrangement to speak for the heartland and for long-time viable values. I really don't know whether Taylor is on thin ice with the country audience for no longer playing up the country signifiers, but you can imagine a reworking of "You Belong With Me" where the narrator gets the boy 'cause the cheer captain rejected him for being too redneck, and then he goes on to be a star, sort of a "country boy" variation on "Sk8er Boi." Also, you should hear - you need to hear - Toby Keith's "How Do You Like Me Now?!" which came out two years before "Sk8er Boi." Also, try Taylor's own "The Way I Loved You," written with John Rich, where she's dating the nice-boy equivalent of the girl narrator of "You Belong With Me" but she's about to throw him over 'cause he's not her wild mistreatin' ex who fought with her and upset her and whom she still loves. (And significantly it would have been very easy for her to identify the wild, crazy, complicated boy as a redneck, but either (a) she isn't interested in kissing the country listener's ass by doing so, or (b) she's afraid to, in case it would limit her crossover appeal (but it's just an album track so she surely could have gotten away with the country signifiers if she'd wanted them).) By the way, where Taylor most comes across as heartland is in "Our Song" from the first album, where there's an implied rootedness in the past and in the timeless in all those behaviors that constitute their song. And in Fearless's "The Best Day" there's a connectedness to her dad that again suggests she's still connected to something long-term and deep even if she's alienated and hurt by the social life at school; I'm guessing that something like this would resonate with the mainstream country listener even though that particular song is vastly personal. It's also a better song than "Our Song," its being uncompromisingly personal being one of the reasons, but also I just prefer the melody.
I'm trying to pull you further into Taylor and into country (and yes Taylor is on the borderline as to whether she's country or not, and my fingers are crossed as to whether she can pull country in her direction, given that she's more and more eschewing country's bullshit and less willing than many other country songwriters to get over on signifiers and pandering, though so far there's no other Taylorette with close to her talent who could help with the pulling).
*Which isn't to say that one can't do great stuff with social resentment, mind you, as long as it doesn't devolve into an easy shtick.
