True Life: I Just Fell in Love with a Pop Album

(I did warn you this blog was eclectic.)

I'll preface this by saying that no, I don't listen to a lot of pop music. I don't drive, and when I do listen to radio it's usually in a gym or bar, where I have no control over what I'm hearing. That said, I've heard enough snippets of Ariana, Iggy, and Katy to know that there's not a lot of substantial stuff in Top 40 pop right now.

At least, that's what I thought prior to spending this past week streaming "1989" and finding that I couldn't stop listening to it. I've been wandering in a fog of infectious tunes for seven days, unable to get the words out of my head (though to be fair I haven't been trying that hard).

I was embarrassed to admit it at first, but now I'll say it for god and everyone to see: this is a fantastic album. I'm not being ironic; I truly like the music, and I like Taylor Swift herself a lot better having listened to it.

It's not that I've ever harbored a particular dislike for Swift, I just thought a lot of the hype was unfounded. Sure, her previous songs have been catchy and cute, but they just weren't for me (probably because I'd long since left my tweens by the time she arrived on the scene). The most notable memory I associated with Taylor Swift was the media circus a few years ago when she was releasing an album and the blogosphere devoted a significant amount of time and research to figuring out exactly which celebrity fling each song was about. Cue exaggerated eye roll.

But "1989" is different. It's a full pop album, for one thing - and I think the best decision Swift and her team made on this record was to lean into that 110%. Every song has a catchy, current hook, and I have no doubt that any of the tracks would fit in just fine with the current fare on the radio. But what sets it apart from the bunch is what Swift brings to the mix: not just the palpable sincerity she brings to each song but the lyrics themselves.

If you've been waiting for this record in the hope of more sappy ramblings about various celebrity boy toys, you'll be disappointed. Sure, some have combed the songs for hints of this, but I think to approach the album this way is to miss the point. To put it in a very simplistic way, this is a much more mature album. Sure, a lot of the songs still have that trademark romantic overtone, but even the ones that are most reminiscent of Swift's earlier work have a new layer to them, an acknowledgement that sometimes you make mistakes in love, and sometimes relationships have to end, and both of these things are okay. Apart from finding this refreshing myself, I love the idea of 15-21 year old girls hearing these kinds of things, and hopefully taking their cues from them.

As for Taylor Swift's "scandalous" love life? Don't worry, it's addressed on this album in a way I don't think she's ever done before. Don't get me wrong, the record is far from being a "fuck you" album, but the way Swift handles it is almost better, and certainly classier. She faces the popular perception that she's boy-crazy and confronts it head on, namely in the track set to be released as the album's second single, "Blank Space". The lyrics to this track (possibly my favorite on the album) are sharply sarcastic, and it really gives a great insight into how Swift has decided to handle her media-imposed identity. She's done pretending it isn't true that she's dated around, and she's done trying to apologize for it. Taylor Swift knows she's a player, and she's openly mocking our singular fascination with that aspect of her life. That kind of empowerment is something I can't help but applaud.

I think the other misconception about Swift is that she's somehow less intelligent than other musicians, perhaps because of the themes she tends to write songs about. While that not only seems like a ridiculous generalization (I do hate the idea that being smart or "worldly" means wholly dismissing notions like romance), you only have to listen to "New Romantics" to see that Swift is smarter than most people give her credit for. The song is a ridiculously danceable commentary on the Millennial generation, and one of the better commentaries I've seen to boot. The titular comparison between the current generation and the Romantics of the 19th century, angst-ridden and eager for stimulation, is astonishingly apt and I could probably write another several pages on that, but I won't.

I guess what I'm saying, and why I felt compelled to write this when I usually stick to literature and politics, is that I think it's time we give Taylor Swift the credit she deserves. By that I mean not just giving her our money or our ears, but giving her actual respect as a feminist, as an artist who has come into her own and made the praiseworthy decision to use her staggering fame to really make a mark rather than simply searching for the next big hit. She knows that there are literally millions of young girls out there being inundated with competing narratives of what a woman should be, and she's choosing to wield that power in a deliberate, responsible way. In my opinion, that's a pretty big deal.

People, Not Property: Why Clicking That Link Makes You Part of the Problem

Maybe it stems from the mythology of Adam and Eve -- Eve was produced from the rib of Adam, and therefore was an extension of him. Maybe subconsciously men still think women are theirs to create, theirs to control. It wouldn’t surprise me, given this latest scandal.

Since I read the first post about this latest celebrity photo leak, I have felt absolutely sickened. I wasn’t thinking about the men who are trying to profit off the photos, or the many voices that have chimed in across the internet arguing the semantics of what it means to put a woman’s nude photo on a public forum without her consent. I was thinking about the women in question, whether they spent the weekend hiding under the covers, afraid to leave their houses and go out to face the world; or even worse, if they have to go to work today or tomorrow and wonder if their colleagues - people they know and trust - looked at the photos, if they’re thinking about them, if they shared them with other strangers.  The mere thought of that level of humiliation makes me want to curl into the fetal position, so I cannot possibly imagine what they are going through.

Even if you think of yourself as a person who would never end up in this situation (although this belief in itself smacks just a little bit of victim blaming), think for a minute about your own life, your own embarrassing moments, of things out in the world you know could one day come back and haunt you. Think of a photo you took because you wanted to spice things up with your significant other, or even just a photo you took because damn, your ass looked really good that day. Think of the silly text messages you send to your friends which, taken out of context, could easily be misconstrued as something bizarre or even mean.

Because the problem is that yes, these women are in the public eye, but that in no way means they’ve surrendered their right to privacy when it comes to this. The point, and the reason many women across the world are appalled by this leak and the way it’s been handled, is because those photos were never intended for public consumption, much less public judgment. These women were taking photos intended for their partners, or maybe even just for themselves, and to think that you, the anonymous masses of the web, have somehow earned the right to invade that personal, private space, is both delusional and cruel.

The issue in this particular case comes down to body autonomy, something all people are entitled to, but which women in our society are rarely granted in full. Members of the female gender should have just as much freedom as men to make choices about their bodies, whether those choices emerge in the arena of reproductive rights, sexual activity, or merely the ability to choose who does or does not see them naked. Maybe these actresses take pride in the fact that they haven’t done a nude scene in one of their films or tv shows; maybe they just don’t care to become another body for the world to pass judgment on. The point is, it’s their choice, and when people commit acts like this, when other people conspire and spread access to photos like this, they are actively and maliciously taking that choice away. It might be well-disguised by the sleek veil of modern technology, but this photo leak is essentially no different from taking an upskirt photo on public transit, or peeping in someone’s bedroom window in the hopes you’ll get to see them changing clothes. You wouldn’t hesitate to call a person who pursues those sorts of things a creep (or worse), so it begs the question: if you were one of the people who clicked over to look at these celebrity photos, if you were one of the people who used them in some manner for your own enjoyment (or even just to attract traffic on your own media platform), what exactly does that make you?