Why I can’t listen to Taylor Swift anymore—Popstars, Power, and Politics.
For exhilarating happy moods, dance to Taylor Swift. When dejected and sad, cry to Taylor Swift. When fuming with anger, vent to Taylor Swift. In short, Taylor Swift’s music has been my emotional regulator.
In 2023, I listened to her for 8494 minutes, being a part of the top 1% of listeners on Spotify. Being a writer and an avid reader, Taylor’s songs were literature infused with music for me. She is a great storyteller. I’m thoroughly inspired by how she writes, composes, sings, and produces such good albums year after year while keeping up a fitness regime that enables three-hour-long performances. She has done a phenomenal job building herself as a brand at the global level.
When I watched the Miss Americana documentary (2020), I was thoroughly moved by the whole narrative about how she was so saddened by the regressive Republican politics of the USA, and she urged people to vote for the Democratic candidates in Tennessee in 2018. It was a milestone in her career as she decided to uphold a clear political stance as a pop star, not having done so until then. In 2022, she urged her fans to register to vote, and following that, about 35,000 voters registered. This political awareness and spirit also drove me to Taylor Swift, a fascinating icon, along with her powerful music.
With the success of the release of the enchanting album Midnights (2022), we saw the peak of the global rise of Taylor as a star in 2023. Her fantastic Eras tours and the Eras movie brought her fans—swifties together all over the world, wild and gorgeous as ever. I was one of them, who sang and screamed the lyrics in the theatre and danced with my stranger-fellow swifties. I also went to whatever Swifitie events I could afford and danced to the fullness of my heart.
My social media feed was full of Swift. Reels and shorts remixed with her music, about her new boyfriend, her cats, her lyrics analysed, her music detailed, eras tours clips, memes, and what not.
In the latter months of 2023, my feed was also filled with the atrocities committed by the state of Israel in Palestine. I came across videos after videos of how they massacre infants, youngsters, and the elderly in Gaza in the name of eliminating Hamas. I also saw how Israel continues to attack the West Bank, an area that has nothing to do with Hamas. We see Palestinian journalists and content creators portraying their everyday lives of resistance; they face the violence of a powerful enemy backed by the other powerful nations of the world.
Imagine the Holocaust in Nazi Germany happening now instead of in the 1940s. How would you expect your feed to be? How would you feel if you were watching a genocide happening on one side and then saw celebrities living their lives with all the money and resources with them, saying not a word? Popstars like Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, and Selena Gomez have established their own realms of fandom. They have followers, almost like a cult, who would listen earnestly to their opinions and reasonings. Artists like Dua Lipa or Questlove are demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and boycotting Israel, yet we have the more popular and powerful stars resorting to sad silence.
When a country has been subjected to the utmost violence by Isreal, who, after bombarding hospitals, schools, and even graveyards, have now even stolen the organs of its dead, our celebrities go aloof, carrying on their lives as if nothing is happening around them. If they don’t speak against this injustice now, nothing else matters—neither their songs, which help us get over our crappy exes, nor their songs or the ones where they reclaim their self-worth and reputation. They had the power to at least raise their voice, but they chose not to because that was safer for their career.
I listen to so-called celebrities very little now. I prefer brave musicians. Does this mean our politics should determine our music taste? Does this mean it is wrong to listen to them? Shouldn’t we be able to separate the art from the artist? These are questions to ponder. Maybe the bare minimum we could do is appreciate the art, but with a thorough awareness of where it is coming from and whom I am helping by promoting their business and making money. This is not an admonition against listening to Swift or such pop stars, but rather a personal reflection on our music choices and how they have a global context.
I may be a passive audience member witnessing the genocide in a faraway land, but I can make choices and decisions about whatever I have in control. Yes, I have to live on, but ignoring injustice at such a scale when your fellow humans are victimised in their own land is unforgivable. As an Indian who grew up as a follower of the generations that led the resilient freedom struggles against the British colonisers, how can I not stand with Palestine? I would rather listen to the musicians who stand along with me. I would rather give them a like, comment, or share their music. I would rather add them to my playlist and delete those who never used their influential power to take a bold stance against terrorist states. I would rather groove to the music created by just musicians and ensure my hard-earned money goes into the right hands.
