celebrity gossip, academic style

Taylor Swift’s new album, “Speak Now,” sold a million copies this weekend — the first million-plus opening weekend since 2008. She’s being hailed as the savior of the music industry (old news; they said the same when “Fearless” has sold over 6 million copies since its 2008 release. Swift herself is the music industry’s best case scenario: she’s young, beautiful (in a uniquely feline sort of way), confident, unaffiliated with Disney, and without scandal (of her own incitement). Put it this way: she’s not Demi Lovato, nor is she Miley. And she’s certainly not Britney. There are no reports of substance abuse, body issues, or fights with over-bearing and/or exploitative parents. More than Lovato, Cyrus, or Spears, Taylor is business savvy. Her Twitter feed is a publicist’s dream, equal parts cute, confessional, and gracious. For your perusal, a smattering of recent Tweets:

This post is not a lengthy break-down of Taylor Swift’s image — a task that needs to be done. I’d advise you to check out Feminist Music Geek’s take, read Lainey’s coverage of any one of the million cute/nice/endearing things she does (here, here, here), or talk to anyone you know about their feelings about her — she’s seriously the most palatable American media product since, oh, Friends. Which is not to diminish her talent: unlike Feminist Music Geek, I actually like her songs, especially “Fifteen,” and find her pretty charming. The fact that she writes her songs is also heartening, especially in light of the male-producer-female-monsters of late — Ke$ha, I’m talking to you.

She’s still friends with her best friend from high school (who also gets a de-virginization call-out in “Fifteen”) and has sleepovers with celebrity BFF Selena Gomez. She likes sparkly things and doesn’t dress up as a giant bird in her grotesquely sexualized videos. This is a teen music idol I can get behind. (And no, it’s not that I don’t think teenagers and sexuality are mutually exclusive, but the way that Miley or Britney does it — neither one of those are the messages I’m hoping for young girls or, to be honest, for myself).

And here’s the thing: she seems authentically smart and self-possessed. Again, this is part of her image — she actually has talent! she has good parents! buy her records and endorse America! — but you can’t hide the fact that Swift, herself, is playing the guitar on-stage, which is in itself a stark departure from most teen (female) idols. She’s good at rhyming, at conjuring turns of phrase (I particularly like “You made a rebel of a careless man’s careful daughter), and she invoked my high school favorite Tim McGraw in one of her first singles. More than any contemporary artist, Swift writes about the way that I personally felt as a teenage girl.

[Okay, admitted digression: Obviously I was the type to be super into Fiona Apple and early Sarah McLachlan in high school, but "Shadowboxer" and "Sleep to Dream" spoke to my most angry, tragic feelings -- not the ones that most closely resembled my quotidian existence. Therein lies Swift's palatability: her inoffensive comes off as authenticity as opposed to blandness. Now, I want every girl to experience a bit of angst and rage in their media diet, whether in the form of Go Ask Alice (do teenagers still read this?), Billie Holiday, Neko Case, or Harry Potter. But it's also nice for the middle-ground to be an image that's not hyper-sexualized and obviously collapsing under the weight of our scrutiny.]

Girl may be “on the bleachers,” as she admits in “You Were Made For Me,” but she plays the game, and she plays it well. Thus the crux of my argument: Swift is able to play the game so well because she has so thoroughly intertwined her “product” and her image. Granted, her image is just as much as a product of any other — and we buy it when we consume information about her. But the reason she’s been able to actually MAKE MONEY isn’t simply because she has a sweet voice and writes catchy lyrics, which she obviously does. Listening to a Taylor Swift song is like listening to gossip; following Taylor Swift’s life is basically mapping the future of her next album. And while many musicians write autobiographically, Swift has turned the twinning of song and life into a sport for gossips, media analysts, other celebrities, and music fans to observe.

Swift’s off-key Grammy’s duet with Stevie Nicks soured my affection somewhat, as did her presence in the ABOMINABLE Valentine’s Day — she wasn’t that bad, but her agreement to appear in that movie, even if as a slight spoof on her alter “popular” ego, was ridiculous. My disdain for that movie knows no bounds. It’s like Paris “Ebola” Hilton — touch it and you’re infected, Jessica Biel/Alba/every other bland star.

But this new album — this new album is filled with juice. And here’s where Swift’s skill as game player becomes clear. Because her art is in inherently confessional, each song is a mini gossip column, and will provide weeks, months, YEARS of fodder. This makes the above Tweet about the identity behind Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” all the more compelling — Swift is basically making a dozen of her own “You’re So Vains” for each album. With previous albums, the identities of those involved in the songs were more obscure — a Jonas brother, sure, and some high school dufuses. But now that she’s famous and dates famous people and finds herself in famous-people frays, her songs call out exes and foes Taylor Lautner, John Mayer, and Kanye West.

Here’s Pop Eater on the specifics identities behind her songs:

‘Dear John,’ a song almost certainly about her brief relationship with Mayer. “Don’t you think I was too young to be messed with … Don’t you think nineteen’s too young to be played,” Swift sings on the track, which is accented with, per the Times, “pealing guitar licks, a hilarious and pointed reminder of Mr. Mayer, who’s a master of the style.”

She’s kinder to Lautner, the presumed subject of ‘Back to December.’ Of the track, Swift has said, “Whether it be good or bad or an apology, the person I wrote this song about deserves this. This is about a person who was incredible to me, just perfect to me in a relationship, and I was really careless with him. So, this is a song full of words that I would say to him that he deserves to hear.”

The problem, of course, and the difference between Swift’s “Dear John” and an iconic song like “You’re So Vain” is the amount of discretion. Swift has and will continue to receive a tremendous flurry of coverage not only for admitting to a fling with Mayer, but calling his self-obsessed ass OUT in song. Simon, on the other hand, has riden the supposed obscurity of the reference for DECADES. Warren Beatty? Mick Jagger? David Geffen? She even sold the knowledge of the true identity of its subjects of hundreds of thousands of dollars at an auction. That, readers, is how classic, enduring celebrity is done.

But that sort of esotericism does not work in contemporary media culture. Swift can’t be obscure in her references because people are too lazy, or their attention spans are too short, to actual cogitate on such things. Audiences want to believe they’re in on a secret, but that secret can’t be all that difficult to figure out — see the faux-secret/philosophy of Inception as a prime example, or the frustration with Lost when it got just *too* crazy. Swift’s thinly veiled references are just above a blind item — they titillate, but they, like her Twitter musings, also make her seem honest, transparent, pure, and open: the exact qualities we think we want in a celebrity. Take those qualities too far and you’ve got a reality celebrity; refuse to show them and you’ve got an Angelina Jolie, maligned by many as stuck-up and full of herself. (Where Kanye West lies in this continuum, I’ll leave to you?) For a celebrity to succeed, he/she must cultivate this fine balance of disclosure. Disclose too much? Tom Cruise, circa 2005. Disclose too little, or nothing at all? You’re an actor, not a star.

Swift has found this fine balance — mostly in song, but also in her “real” life, in which she is apparently “hanging out” with Jake Gyllenhaal. Dude’s nine year older than her, which I know isn’t much in the grand scheme of things, but that’d be like me dating one of my sophomore students. [When I queried Twitter as to what the two of them could possibly have to talk about, the best reply came from the hilarious @FaybelleineW: "I just see tumbleweeds, or a lot of 'i'm so not gay' necking."] No matter — he’s hanging out backstage while she does SNL; they’re making googily eyes at each other in Big Sur. No making out, no illicit drug use, no breaking up previous relationships. Just good, clean, American fun, which can be gossiped about both now and when she writes the song about it in a year’s time.

This week, she’s on the cover of People, which promises “the untold story” — which, if my swift perusal at the dentist office this morning is to be believed, are actually just her admitting that the songs on her album are about past loves. BIG EXCLUSIVE, PEOPLE. Nevertheless, People speaks to the minivan majority, and her presence on its cover (and the broadcast of “disclosure”) only strengthens her position. More than any movie star, Swift has taken up the mantle of “America’s Sweetheart,” and she’s done it by carefully knitting her products to her personal life, allowing disclosures in one to stand in for confessions in the other. While Ellen does tease her about Jakey G, most of the time, the only thing people want to talk about are these confessional songs — she needs very little extraneous gossip or extra-textual material (no need for scandal!) save to provide future fodder for songs.

The head of Swift’s record company has claimed “The facts say she is the undisputed best communicator that we’ve got. When she says something, when she sings something, when she feels something, it affects more people than anybody else.” I don’t know about that. But I do know that she’s managed to make it seem like when she sings something, it’s communicating something real and authentic about her life — something that can be interchanged freely with an interview, a paparazzi photo, whatever. Her songs are taken as an authentic disclosure and record of her life, and they manage to keep her balanced in fine equilibrium between satisfying and annoying levels of confession and accessibility. She’s may be the savior of the music industry, but she’s also an example of how the celebrity game can be played today — and to tremendous profit. It remains to be seen, however, how long she’ll be able to keep the equilibrium in tact. At what point does songwriting become overindulgent? Will men no longer agree to date her lest they are shunned, scorned, or pitied in her songs? Or is there no greater contemporary celebrity honor than to be such a subject? Swift is the closest we have to a “successful” celebrity today — by which I mean someone who is likable, actually makes money, and even gets good reviews. But again…..can it last? Do 25-year-olds kiss and tell? For her to survive the game, she’ll need to find a new strategy, lest her strategy becomes too transparently manipulative for us to stomach.