The Influence of Taylor Swift

Jennifer Holland: Welcome to Short Talks from the Hill, a research and economic development podcast from the University of Arkansas. I’m Jennifer Holland. My guest today is Christa Anne Bentley, an assistant professor of musicology here at the U of A. Her research focuses on the politics of music at the intersection of popular and folk styles in the United States, and she has examined the confessional songwriting of the 1970s singer-songwriter movement. This was the focus of her first book and investigates how singer-songwriters provided a new language of musical protest that intersected with 1970s social movements. Her extended research looks at singer-songwriters in the 21st century, in both folk and pop contexts, and she is currently co-editing a collection titled Taylor Swift: The Songs, The Star, The Fans – just one of the many topics we’re going to discuss on our podcast today. Christa, welcome to Short Talks!

Christa Bentley: Hi, Jennifer. Thank you.

JH: Thanks so much for joining us. So, for those who are unfamiliar, tell me a little about the study of musicology. You know, what is it, what does it mean and what type of research does it involve?

CB: Sure! Well, musicology studies music from historical and cultural perspectives, so it’s sort of like the art history equivalent of music. A musicologist might be looking at a particular piece of music – how it was put together, what the premiere was like, how people responded to it, and what people thought about it in its time. And musicologists also study cultural aspects of music, so how does music interact with other themes like national identity, or technology, or social movements – like my research does. And there are many different subfields where people might study a particular genre or era or country even, if you will. And my area is American folk and popular music, as you mentioned.

JH: Awesome, so your first book is titled Feeling Free: The Politics of the Singer-Songwriter Movement in the United States. Tell me a little about your research for this area and how that book came about.

CB: So, that research is looking at this time period where a group of artists started to identify as singer-songwriters, and that’s a term that, you know, a lot of us know but it actually has a moment when people started using it. And, these artists, their music involved writing their own songs but also writing from a personal perspective and sort of performing this vulnerability or confession within their work, and so that’s where this term really comes from. And we might think that they’ve been around for a long time – they have – but this specific movement came up in Los Angeles in the late 1960s and early 1970s surrounding Joni Mitchell and Bill Withers and James Taylor, and my book looks at how these artists used this type of personal perspective to explain larger social problems. And a lot of people look at these artists and say that when they wrote from a personal perspective their music was self-indulgent or narcissistic, since they were singing about themselves and their lives, but at the time that this musical movement was coming up, there were other social movements that adopted these more personal tactics for organizing and political communication. So, I’ve found that there’s a lot of overlap between the protest communication of the 1970s and the personal storytelling of singer-songwriters, and my book is making the case that these artists were exploring social issues; however, from a personal lens.

JH: Okay, great. Sounds very, very interesting.

CB: Thank you!

JH: So, how did you get involved in the study of musicology to begin with? Was that an interest that, you know, came out of college or earlier?

CB: Yeah, I studied vocal performance in undergrad, and while I was there, started taking music history classes and was inspired and really thought, “Wow, this is the side of music that I just think is so important.” And, you know, what really made me interested in music in the first place was more the academic side of things than maybe being on stage myself, so it turned out to be a really good fit. I was studying music more from a Western classical perspective, and while I was an undergrad I sought out a couple of other courses, but they weren’t in the music school, so it was the politics of rock in the poli sci department and a U.S. women’s history course, and that was the first time that I, you know, wrote a paper on Joni Mitchell, because that wasn’t really what we could write about in our classical music courses. But that was an exciting kind of entry point into popular music studies, but I couldn’t really do it in music school. But in graduate school, that’s where I really got a chance to study things outside of the kind of Western classical purview and really immerse in pop culture.

JH: Now, the book you’re currently working on – Taylor Swift: The Songs, The Star, The Fans – where did the idea for that project come from and why did you choose to focus on Taylor Swift, in particular?

CB: Sure, so, this project came out at kind of the perfect time. Swift had released Folklore and Evermore – this was during the pandemic – and she had announced her re-recording project, so there was a lot of talk and discussion about, you know, her many, many projects, and since then she’s put out Midnights and announced her Eras Tour. So, it’s honestly, there’s a lot to keep up with, and we’re trying to keep track of everything she’s doing at all different times. And the reason why we wanted to talk about Taylor Swift and the purpose of the book is to use her as a prism for understanding the many different facets of popular music, such as copyright and issues for women in the industry, LGBTQ+ interpretations of her work, and then also to use Taylor Swift as a prism for understanding kind of broader cultural phenomena, like fandom and social media. So, the book has 13 different authors, and that was just luck, and they represent the number of different fields that are involved in the book, including musicology, music theory, fan studies, journalism, and there’s even a songwriter who’s contributing a chapter. So, you can approach this book wanting to learn about Taylor Swift and hopefully learn a lot about the music industry and broader culture, or you could want to learn more about how social media, copyright, and end up learning some really fascinating things about a very specific artist: Taylor Swift.

JH: Okay. And tell me a little bit about your chapter in the book that you’re working on right now. What are you covering specifically?

CB: Sure! So, my chapter is about Taylor Swift’s acoustic sets, and I’m looking at three case studies: her Grammy Museum performance in 2014, her performance at the Bluebird Cafe that was a part of a documentary on that venue in 2019 – I believe it came out – and then her NPR Tiny Desk that she did when she was touring or preparing to tour Lover, the tour that never happened, of course, because of COVID. So, my research is again about this idea of what people think of as a singer-songwriter, and Taylor Swift always writes her own songs, and she often writes from this personal perspective, and then in her stagings she often does this really large-scale, intense arena performance, and these acoustic sets are a chance for her to kind of perform with a different persona. And by that I mean, just interact with a smaller group of people, have less of the, you know, glitter guns and fireworks and sequins and backup dancers, and that creates a different kind of relationship between the audience and her and between the audience and her and her music. And I’m arguing that it’s one of the ways these acoustic sets – and especially the way that she’s put them out on digital media – is a chance for her to craft this idea of herself as a songwriter, which has been very important to her in the copyright case as well.

JH: Okay, so talk to me a little bit more about how you see her as a prism for understanding changes in the music industry.

CB: Well, two things that I find really interesting about Swift are that people are actually still buying her physical albums, which really does not happen as much anymore! And then at the same time that people are buying physical copies, she’s also breaking streaming records. So, this is a great example of how she’s changing her approach to marketing or how we would typically think about marketing and popular music. Instead of appealing to a genre demographic, she’s going directly to her fans, and that’s really kind of a change from what we used to see. This is where studying social media and her fandom can show us really interesting things about how Taylor Swift is changing the industry, as album sales are down and the payouts for streaming are really pitiful. And then within those sales and streaming records, there’s also a story that’s related to copyright and her “Taylor’s Versions.” So, she’s found a way to not just re-record her albums but convince people to buy them and stream them. And the way that people feel invested in this artist’s legal and business interests is pretty fascinating to see. I’d say it’s kind of unique and also yielding some pretty remarkable results for Swift.

JH: Is there anyone you can think of in the past who has come close to doing what she has done, as far as maybe revolutionizing, you know, some part of the music industry or having this sort of impact on our culture?

CB: Yeah, well, I think many artists have kind of revolutionized the music industry in the past. In terms of kind of record-breaking, I think an important artist to think about for women and women in popular music is Carole King. And for 40 years, her album Tapestry held the longest amount of time on the charts, and that record then was broken in the 2000s by Adele, and now we’re seeing this kind of constant record-breaking with Taylor Swift, but there’s definitely women who kind of broke through at that level. Well, not as much as Taylor Swift, but had this kind of moment where they broke through and were really seen as big players in the industry starting, yeah, with Carol King’s Tapestry.

JH: Okay, great. So, back to your book… Who, you know, who’s the audience for it, and then where can someone buy it when it’s released?

CB: The book is published through Rutledge, and we’re aiming for publication late next year, so we’ll have a lot of Eras to our international content to keep up with. My co-editors and I, we really hope that this book would be interesting to both academics and fans and music lovers. So, academics might be coming to this book for, you know, critical case studies at the same time that fans might want to come to this book out of their intense fervor for Taylor Swift. And the academic content is in there, but we really hope that people who, you know, don’t have advanced degrees would be able to read it, which means we’re making certain decisions about vocabulary and that things are defined in clear ways. And it can be a hard needle to thread, but I think everyone in the volume sees the potential opportunity to reach someone who picks up this book because they love Taylor Swift.

JH: So, finally, as someone who specializes in music, I can’t let you go without asking about your favorite songs or artists. So, first of all, do you have a favorite song or artist in general? And second, since we discussed Taylor Swift in particular, is there a song or album of hers that resonates most with you?

CB: My favorite artist of all time is Joni Mitchell, and she’s just an incredible songwriter and has played a huge role in my interest in music from the get-go, when I was in middle school learning how to play the Circle Game on the guitar. So, I’ve just been inspired by her for a long time. And as far as Taylor Swift goes, I love Folklore. I would be very happy for her to just put on a cardigan and produce music with Aaron Dessner for the rest of time. But, she is such a varied artist as well, and so I like 1989 as well, if I’m feeling more upbeat.

JH: Alright, thank you so much Christa. It’s been great visiting with you today!

CB: Thank you, Jennifer!

Matt McGowan: Short Talks from the Hill is now available wherever you get your podcasts. For more information and additional podcasts, visit arkansasresearch.uark.edu, the home of research and economic development news at the University of Arkansas. Music for Short Talks from the Hill was written and performed by local musician Ben Harris.