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Analyzing my sources: methodology

Today I will explain how I’m going to use my primary sources. 

My primary sources are: 

Taylor swift’s whole twitter account: - taylor swift Twitter “ How did I get this lucky, having you guys out here doing something this mind blowing?!  Like what even just happened??!?!” 

                 - Taylor nation twitter  “Once upon a time, the planets and the fates and all the stars aligned. We all ended up at midnight at the same time. And now, we have the perfect soundtrack for our sleepless nights.” 

                - “Cardigan” in her folklore album : song for her fans 

               -Taylor swift announces new album onstage at VMAs : the independent 

And as a reminder here's my question: How did Taylor Swift maintain such a deeply personal link with her fans around the world? 

I have different types of sources. 

The most important one is going to be taylor swift’s whole twitter account. Social media is as we know really important nowadays, it's a great way to communicate. So taylor swift’s whole twitter account will be a great way to see how she communicates with her fans, how often and in what way. I’ll analyze how often she posts, and how her fans respond. 

One tweet that I found which seems really important to talk about is: “ How did I get this lucky, having you guys out here doing something this mind blowing?!  Like what even just happened??!?!” 

She is talking directly to her fans, thanking them. 

Another important source that I'll be using is one of her songs   - “Cardigan” in her folklore album. I'll need to analyze the lyrics, and the meaning behind them, as it is apparently a song for her fans, which is a key element to answer my question. 

And for the last source, it’s a video from the VMAs, when winning she announces to her fans her new album. I'll have to talk about why she chose to announce it at that time.

[coyerpopularmusic]

pré-projet: main question, primary and secondary sources + time frame

Today I’ll talk about my pré-project. I changed my question, my primary sources and my secondary sources. I tried to narrow my focus. here’s what I came up with...

So my question will be: How did Taylor Swift maintain such a deeply personal link with her fans around the world? 

I started thinking about how she does that, how she keeps such a link with her fans, and I found that through regular meet and greets, hiding endlessly easter eggs within her releases, through her music and music videos but also with every tour she makes to see fans around the world makes her relationship with fans so much stronger. 

Primary source:  

Taylor swift’s whole twitter account:

  - taylor swift Twitter “ How did I get this lucky, having you guys out here doing something this mind blowing?!  Like what even just happened??!?!”

 - Taylor nation twitter  “Once upon a time, the planets and the fates and all the stars aligned. We all ended up at midnight at the same time. And now, we have the perfect soundtrack for our sleepless nights.” 

   - “Cardigan” in her folklore album : song for her fans 

   -Taylor swift announces new album onstage at VMAs : the independent 

         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOOpACczcBE 

Secondary source: academic sources: 

1) -Taylor Swift, political power, and the challenge of affect in popular music fandom (Simone Driessen    Erasmus University Rotterdam) 

2) Queer folklore : Examining the Influence of Fandom on Sexual Identity Development and Fluidity Acceptance Among Taylor Swift Fans (Leah Dajches and Jennifer Stevens Aubrey  Department of Communication, University of Arizona)

Other secondary sources: 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2021/04/29/taylor-swifts-fans-have-always-loved-her-but-their-support-of-her-new-no-1-album-feels-special/?sh=85f9d1d68188 (forbes) 

https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/timeline-taylor-swift-generosity-8481430/ (billboard) 

https://www.hellomagazine.com/celebrities/20211112124634/taylor-swift-kind-list-2021/ (hello magazine) 

Time frame:   starts when she is 16 until now 

[coyerpopularmusic]

"this is America" Childish Gambino

Today I wanted to talk about Childish Gambino, and one of his songs. The song is called "this is America". I thought it was interesting to talk about it this week, since we saw this week the theme of "political song". The song expresses important issues, such as gun violence, mass shootings and widespread racism into a mainstream hip-hop hit. Guns and violence are a recurring topic in America.

The video reveals provocative imagery of the rapper as he kills a choir, starts to dance while violence breaks out around him.

I think the fact that he uses such provocative imagery is well thought out as I think he wants to shock us and reflect on gun violence. In the first minute, Gambino shoots a man, who has been tied up, after he kills him he just hands the gun to another man, who safely wraps it in a red cloth. I saw in a Huffpost article that most of the viewers interpreted these scene as reference to Americans' willingness to protect gun right over people despite the alarming high rates of gun violence.

"This is America" video has reached 858 millions of view. With this high number, hopefully it'll make people realize that guns are a problem. And maybe things will then change. Let's hope for the best.

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Taylor Swift and her fan base

For my final project, I chose to talk about Taylor swift and more specifically taylor swift’s fans. I’ve always listened to Taylor swift but never really deeply tried to understand her lyrics. it was recently that I viewed the impact she had on her fans. 

 Her whole fan base has always been so attached to Taylor swift and present for her and I wanted to talk about their relationship to Taylor Swift. 

Key question: 

How did such a fan base grow, and what do they represent?

My primary sources: 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2021/04/29/taylor-swifts-fans-have-always-loved-her-but-their-support-of-her-new-no-1-album-feels-special/?sh=85f9d1d68188 forbes 

https://news.yahoo.com/taylor-swift-fans-believe-her-191647729.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall news.yahoo 

https://www.newsweek.com/taylor-swift-fans-share-their-wildest-theories-about-upcoming-album-1738206  newsweek 

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2022-10-21/taylor-swift-midnights-john-mayer-scooter-braun-kanye-west-fan-theories La times 

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/netflix-s-taylor-swift-documentary-miss-americana-revealing-reinvention-ncna1127761  NBCnews 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOOpACczcBE youtube

[coyerpopularmusic]

Female singers and body image

Female singers are often expected to look their best, to be fit, to have a great outfit on. But most of those female singers were often bullied for their bodies, for showing too much skin or sometimes not enough. Those expectations are always so high and conflicting, but things like that shouldn’t be talked about. Those discussions should be focused on music. 

For example Taylor swift, one of the biggest stars of the last decade has been bullied on how her body looked. In her documentary “Miss americana” she revealed that because of all that she struggled with body image. Diplo, an american dj and music producer once tweeted that he wanted to start a kickstarter to “get taylor swift a booty”. 

I think society expects sometimes so much for female singers and nothing or not as much on male singers. I think we could talk then about the Negus, and the chapter on identities, when talking about gender, female and male are not treated the same, and we don’t have the same expectation for both. 

Another example is Billie Eilish, she kind of grew up in front of everyone and so many people talked about how loose her clothes were, how she looked like a boy, so in a short video she shared some of her thoughts on body image and the bullying she is receiving “If i wear what is comfortable? I am not a woman, If I shed the layers, I’m a slut; though you’ve never seen my body you still judge it and judge me for it.” she also explains the reason why she would wear baggy clothes ``that's why I wear big baggy clothes. Nobody can have an opinion because they haven’t seen what’s underneath”. 

So now the question is what can we do to change things? How do we change female expectations? 

[coyerpopularmusic]

The Jonas brothers: brothers before boy band

The Jonas brothers are a boy band, composed by three brothers: Kevin Jonas, Nicholas ‘nick’ Jonas and Joseph ‘Joe’ Jonas. Kevin was born in New Jersey; Joe in Arizona and Nick in texas. 

Their career started because of Nick, who was the first one to work as a soloist. Columbia records signed him and discovered through him that Kevin and Joe also had musical talents. They all joined Columbia studio, and started a band. This pop rock band was formed in 2005. Their first debut album was ‘It's About Time’. 

Following their music career they joined disney in 2008. The first fight between the brothers was around 2010-2011. It was because they wanted to pursue solo projects but the group was reunited in 2012 to record a new album.  But It was in 2013 that the brothers canceled 23 tour dates between October and December saying that there was a “deep rift within the band” over “creative differences”. The conflict within the band affected more than just the music they produced. It was affecting their relationship. The brothers shared later that there was heavy tension; brotherly arguments and unhealthy communication. 

So I’m wondering; is fame worth losing your relationship with your family? 

The Jonas brothers showed that no, it isn’t. That's why they stopped their band to concentrate on their relationship. They shared with their fans that after long talks, drinking games and deciding to live together for a while they were able to put aside their differences and decided that they could form a band again. The reunion of the band was an evenement that their fans were waiting for. 

To work with family and friends is a risk to take, in their case they were able to solve their problems but sadly for other bands like ‘One Direction’, ‘the Beatles’ or ‘ABBA’ they couldn’t solve their differences, and we, as fans, lost something: the chance to hear more songs from those bands. 

[coyerpopularmusic]

Why Bridgerton uses popular and modern music?

Bridgerton is an American historical-romance tv show. It is based on Julia Quinn’s novels. It is set in the competitive world of the regency era, where marriage is the goal for women.  

What is interesting in this tv show is that it gave the romance genre its own cinematic universe with the female gaze front and center. 

In this type of tv show you’re expecting  to hear classical music, but in this case it is not really true. The series include regency versions of songs by Billie Eilish, harry styles, taylor swift and Maroon 5. 

Why this choice of songs? 

It’s all about Bridgertons progressive ideas. The show isnt traditional, it is feminist, progressive and sometimes even defiant. So using modern music in the regency style is a great move to show that they are not like other tv shows. 

The use of modern music attracts lots of people, we wouldn’t pay attention if it was  classical music but here we’re more focused when listening to the music played. We switched between passive listening to active listening, waiting to see which songs are going to be played next  and will we know it. 

This choice of music is well thought out, it makes the show more accessible to audiences who don’t really like the regency era, but with this touch added with modern feelings, Bridgerton is a show unbothered by historical accuracy. If you’re interested in historical tv shows, then this isn’t a great show for you. I think it's an interesting little twist that brings a lot into a tv show, because we all know that music in tv show or movies are always really important, and chosen perfectly.

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Why are some popular music singers being forgotten?

In the popular music genre, there are many singers that are overlooked or just forgotten. For me I think it is interesting to see which one and why? 

As an example I have  Meghan Trainor. She is a Grammy-winning American pop singer, and still many people don’t know her or have just forgotten about her. Some of her hits songs are “all about that bass”, “lips are movin” and “no”. She has been a celebrity judge for the music competition series “the four” in 2018. But since 2018 we haven’t really heard of her, why is that? 

She got married in 2018 and then expected her first child in 2021, is that why we haven’t heard of her? From the moment you get married and have a child you're not interesting enough for the audiences? 

Well I don’t think it’s true because she has done so much since 2018. 

Since 2019 she has  released an EP, which is short for “extended play”, which is a shorter music album, it can contain between 2 to 9 pieces of music. The name of her EP was “the love train”, she also made the songs “badass woman” and “Run Like the River” for the film The Hustle which is starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson. She also did voice work for Playmobil : the Movie. 

All of the songs she wrote were usually about love or being confident , but her new album “takin’ it back” which is coming out in October 2022 might just be what  we’re waiting for to remember her. 

She is not the same person as she was in 2018; single, flirty and confident. Maybe that’s why people weren’t interested in her anymore. But now she is married and a mother and her new album will show us just that, it’ll be a raw new album about motherhood, which now makes more sense and maybe we’ll like her more for it. She says : “y’all, I’m struggling. This is real, but we’re all in this together. Who’s with me? It’s just more real and raw”. The fact that it’ll be more raw and about struggles might make us relate to her songs more. Her 2018 songs were about confidence and love but that’s the most common theme for popular music. So many women singers are singing about love which is not always what we relate to the most. Life is not just about love but about struggles. A lot more people could relate to struggles about life in general than confidence and love. 

I think when popular music singers are forgotten, it's because we heard too much of the same things, love songs are a classic, but maybe now she will make a comeback with something new, unique, raw and more interesting. Can’t wait to hear her songs!