Did Taylor Swift ruin Katy Perry’s career?

I’ve never liked Katy not even during her firework phase but to be fair I am not her target audience.

I liked “I kissed a girl” and that was the beginning and end of my fandom.

But she was at the very top. She had all of LA backing her and boom overnight it was gone.

Famous people can’t fail these days. There just too many ways to find an audience. But as far as being at the top of the pop game it looks like that is a wrap.

Katy aged out, she made music for kids and young teens and got too old to appeal to them. Unlike other pop stars she did not gradually mature her sound early enough. And when she tried to reinvent herself, it flopped. She's basically like Paula Abdul and Gwen Stefani. Had a good run but old too fast.

Her origins as a contemporary Christian pop singer, her early hipster homophobic songs and later gay pandering shows how disingenuous she is. While I find every pop star a phony built on PR marketing and cultivation of stans. Katy was more blatant than other examples. Ironically I prefer there be more Katys and Rihannas who are clearly mass marketed products than Beyonce or Taylor Swifts who are pretentious narcissists who want to be seen as artists and will stoop to stealing ideas and songs to just get Grammys.

She was at the country music awards wearing a zany dress (go figure!) and sounding ok I guess but seemed forced.

I don’t know. Maybe she will eventually get her footing again.

She looked pregnant at the CMAs by the way.

Taylor is ultimately a nerd and and outsider and someone who was not born with model looks so I think her brand comes from an authentic place. Even if commercialized.

Her moves are defensive in nature and justified imo. She is like a normal person who gets sick of being jerked around. It gets old.

I think Taylor Swift is a narcissist who's deeply insecure. I agree she is average in looks and her personality is bland which makes her relatable to suburban people. But her passive aggressive tactic of writing songs about failed relationships and weaponizing her fanbase to attack others shows an adolescent mentality. She needs to grow up and act her age.

A friend confessed to being a Swifty and recommended I check out her music.

I watched an interminable video that was supposed to be one song but there were multiple acting scenes interjected throughout. Shite.

Just sounds like earnest middle of the road music that could also pass for country lite. Let's cover the bases for boring music.

What am I missing?

She’s not writing music for deranged shut-in septuagenarians. so not sure that exactly her problem.

I don’t get the Taylor Swift adulation at all. I have Gen Z co-workers flying to Chicago to go to her show and heard the NY show tickets are selling for 10s of 1000s of dollars. A club that used to be a hipster hangout has Taylor Swift nights. Granted, I’m an old and only have a passing familiarity with her music as I don’t listen to top 40 radio anymore. I do like newer artists like Lana Del Ray and a lot of stuff you hear on KCRW and the like. I got why Gaga was popular and sort of get Beyoncé.

Am I missing something? Is she that good or just filling a void?

Taylor Swift and Beyonce have the most annoying stans who argue all day to convince you these two women are in fact geniuses and accuse of being misogynistic or racist if you criticize them. And these stans are grown ass Millennials and older Z women and gays who write articles on Rolling Stone and other websites praising them and applying identity politics to their music. Rarely discussing the actual quality of production, lyricism, singing, instruments and arrangements. It's why I can't take music journalism seriously anymore.

R9, hey I resemble that remark!

Still, her music just sounds so blah.

Lana Del Rey is actually creative and talented and does something different. While Taylor Swift is repetitive and juvenile.

Modern day good music isn't mainstream anymore. R&B, rock and soul is still good but it's not on the radio or promoted on Billboard.

Here is (pregnant?) Katy at the CMAs

Her shitty vocals ruined her career. And Taylor’s singing isn’t even any better.

Taylor was the one who just started the big feud with Drake. She has released 25 remixes of her single Anti-Hero in an effort to stay at #1 on the Hot 100 so she can block Drake's new song. Drake has been calling out her desperate tactics on Instagram. Taylor knows that she can't get organic hits anymore, so she resorts to these fraudulent tactics. She uses these feuds as a marketing gimmick to sell more records.

Katy seems just as cutthroat and insecure as Taylor. She went after Gaga, Britney and Taylor during her heyday. She's every bit as bad as Taylor.

No. Katy's career ended because she went too long in between albums, the downfall of Dr. Luke, and not cultivating as rabid a fanbase as her peers.

Chopping her hair to the pixie cut and the live-streaming of her meltdown were the final straws.

No. Lady Gaga did, starting with the "outlandish outfits" competition.

"My star soared (as Katy's tanked) in front of an international audience of tens of millions on a Sunday afternoon in 2015."

The godawful schlock from that 70s music thread is Mozart compared to the talentless and horrible bad mainstream music we have today. There is something to be said for there being no requirements to be a well known musician today: you don't have be an effective singer, a good writer, or a creative person in general anymore!

Rihanna also feuded with other pop girls too. All of these pop stars have huge egos and can't share the spotlight. They just play nice and innocent and people buy into their phoniness. Some like Nicki Minaj have a fanbase because of their bitchiness.

R3, I agree with you. I find Rihanna and Katy far more pleasing than Beyonce or Taylor or post-Fame Monster Gaga. The latter are convinced they are the epitome of avant-garde pretentiousness while the former know their primary role as pop stars is to entertain. It's not coincidental that Katy flopped when she transitioned into "artistry". And Gaga started flopping musically (aside from the fluke known as A Star is Born) when she became way too convinced about her own talents.

Rihanna is another one that has a mediocre voice. How did this happen to modern pop music?

If Rihanna sang all of Sia's songs, I would actually like those songs. Rihanna's voice is just a level before goat-sounding. Sia is like a dead seal.

R11, go to Reddit's popheads thread if you want to be bombarded by deranged pop stans for every single female pop star on the planet (and some male ones too like Bad Bunny and Harry Styles). Someone on there was bragging that they wrote an entire report on how Taylor Swift has dealt with so much of sexism throughout her entire career and how she is an amazing feminist. Please, her feminism is about as deep as Madonna's: "feminism for me, not for thee!".

Someone on *their*

God damnit, I'm too tired to spell things correctly today, fuck it.

I don't think someone has to be a technically skilled singer to be effective at all, but there is absolutely nothing emotional or evocative about Rihanna's voice. Or any modern singers. They all sound homogenized and bland. Ronnie Spector (one of my favorite singers ever) had not much range and a very thin voice, but you FELT everything she sang down to your deepest core.

Taylor (or whoever writes her songs) is leagues above 99% of the other pop girlies. It's not even disputable at this point. Katy could never write Happiness or Tolerate It or Marjorie or.... That's just three random songs from one album. She couldn't even create something like No Body, No Crime or Blank Space. Katy's music after Teenage Dream (with the exception of some of Witness and maybe Dark Horse) is pure garbage.

The smartest thing Swift did was deciding to cater to 5 year old kids. Those fans will take forever to grow up and they will continue to obsessively stream her music throughout their teenaged years (which are ending now). It will be interesting to see if her fans stick with her into adulthood.

Taylor definitely has better lyrics than Rihanna, Katy and Beyonce. I don't understand how Beyonce has such awful lyrics despite use of over 50 songwriters on her albums and she gets Grammy noms for this. Rihanna and Katy's poor lyrics don't annoy me because they make bubblegum music. Taylor is like Mariah Carey, writes girly and petty lyrics that seem adolescent but you know that's her. Lana Del Rey and Jill Scott are great songwriters but they're not pop.

Some white girl.

I wonder if Taylor will remain childfree or cave in and get a surrogate or adopt.

The pixie cut killed Katy's career.

I had forgotten Katy Perry existed until I saw those crappy Skip The Dishes commercials.

I'm not a fan of Taylor Swift's music but I appreciate what she's doing. As I said, not my cup of tea, but her output comes across as more organic and less as of a product of focus group sessions and guest appearances ("collaborations") du jour. I don't think she's really chasing trends as such.

Gaga was the last one who I (briefly) got excited about upon her arrival on the scene. She was probably the last genuine pop diva that emerged from the music industry before it all went streaming in the early-to-mid 2010's and 90% identical sounding with the same people, writers, producers, and guest vocalists appearing on almost every song in the Top 40.

Lady Gaga and Beyonce became really overexposed, the pubic got so sick of both of them by the early 2010s. This is where Miley, Kesha, Rihanna, Katy and Nicki really took over with their fun party girl pop. Beyonce quickly retreated and decided to go the mysterious route by randomly dropping albums and pushing high-budget music video visuals and live spectacle to the forefront, she copied Madonna's playbook and hopped on the rising PBR&B and Soundcloud trap sound. Gaga found her passion in Hollywood acting and music became a side gig for her.

TS was country pop and had a girl-next-door and teen prodigy image. She was always savvy, using MySpace to cultivate a fandom and interacting with them. I think during that 1989 era, she was serious about going mainstream pop and even changed her style to be more sexual. But everything after has been attempts at artsy award-bait albums similar to what Beyonce has been doing.

On the male side, I found The Weeknd very interesting with his House of Balloons mixtape, he barely showed his face and let his music speak but quickly sold out and made a rehash of MJ-style synthpop with corny lyrics. I think Chris Brown and Justin Bieber destroyed their own promising careers as successors to Usher but they never reached their full potential because they had talent early on but the fame got to their heads so early and the drugs and their trashy backgrounds came out too soon.

All of Taylor Swift's songs are about a white girl not getting what she wants.

Which makes this Ticketmaster thing doubly hilarious.

R17 summed it up. That Vigilante song is about Scooter's wife. I really do wonder how much longer Taylor's victim shtick will last? It's not working for her bff Selena anymore.

Katie pretty much jumped the shark when she sang with drag queens and that weird looking backpack boy on SNL

R32, When I was 16 I met and got an official "Supremes" PR photo signed by Cindy Birdsong. But my friends and I didn't know who she was yet. We just looked at each other after she left and said, "Hey! She's not Florence!"

HOLY FUCK ARE YOU SERIOUS THAT SONG IS ABOUT SCOOTER’S WIFE?

Please tell me this is true. Omg I will die. Taylor is a mafia donness if this is true. And it’s all because these people would not stop fucking with her.

Not believing that claim but would be amazing if true.

[quote]I wonder if Taylor will remain childfree or cave in and get a surrogate or adopt.

Having a child will be the kiss of death for her career.

[quote] Anyhoo,

The only thing I hate more than being asked to care about pop stars' petty feuds with one another is someone who actually still says "Anyhoo" like a mug-cradling frau.

[quote]Katie pretty much jumped the shark when she sang with drag queens and that weird looking backpack boy on SNL

People knew Katy Perry as a fun pop singer with a big rack.

She decided to cut her hair and go woke, which nobody asked for.

[quote]All of Taylor Swift's songs are about a white girl not getting what she wants.

So? All of Nicki Minaj's songs are about her big fat ass and her loose sloppy pussy.

R32 what an utterly shit song and performance. Seems she has only herself to blame for her decline.

The reason I think Taylor Swift and Rihanna managed to survive into the 2020s was their high level of engagement with fans and emphasis on relatability. If you noticed many of the current day pop artists are famous for their social media and seeming like one of us. Social media really helped Justin Bieber, Post Malone, The Weeknd, Doja Cat, Billie Eilish, Harry Styles, Shawn Mendes, SZA, Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez. And Rihanna and TS were always active on social media and their problematic relationships helped make them feel more realistic.

Katy, Beyonce, Gaga, Britney, J. Lo, Justin Timberlake, Usher, etc are very old-school type of pop stars who are clearly packaged and keep a sort of distanced vibe from the public. They were part of the aspirational and elitist marketing that was commonplace in the 20th century but the 2010s ushered a more anarchist and anti-elitist mentality where teens and young adults want artists to be messy, mediocre and unpretentious.

And for further proof, Britney is popular again because she's a hot mess.

R47, Gaga and Taylor are the ones who actually really changed the game with social media. Taylor built and engaged her fanbase via myspace while Gaga was the one who started that whole "I'm just like you!" thing.

Beyonce's emphasis on "I'm not like you", that Tiffany diamonds fiasco and still refusal to do interviews or promote her new stuff is what hurt her IMHO. It may have worked in the 2010s but come 2020s with the rising income inequality and growing resentment towards Hollywood celeb culture. The elitism and flaunting of wealth and privilege is just not endearing to people anymore. TS engages her audience a lot and promotes her music, she keeps her style simple and her songs based on universal emotions even if they're sappy or uninspired.

[quote]The elitism and flaunting of wealth and privilege is just not endearing to people anymore.

Hillary being shown on TV at fundraisers with Beyoncé in LA during the last weeks of the 2016 campaign, while avoiding PA, MI, and WI… was a big reason people felt she was elitist and out of touch, and voted against her.

Taylor queerbaits a lot.

R6 Not born with model looks? She looks more modelish than any other pop star. She's tall and skinny, maybe not a model face, but which pop star has it?

[quote] Gaga was the one who started that whole "I'm just like you!" thing.

How exactly? I only remember her wearing neat dresses and looking like she’d been styled by drunk and bling art school undergraduates. Nothing was relatable about her. She’s maybe since toned it down by I always thought she looked like a the village idiot.

* MEAT dresses

R41 I think it's more of a revenge fantasy. You don't need to be married to Scooter to know that he's a prick.

R53 well she was skinny because of an eating disorder. And whatever she did to her eyes didn't hurt either.

R54, it was her schtick. Remember that whole "little monsters" crap and "love yourself" shit? She was constantly peddling that. And her fans ate it up. And this translated via social media. Someone on DL posted an article about how Lady Gaga really changed the relationship of celebs with fans. Wish I could find it.

R51, thanks for contributing the stupid-ass, QAnon, Trumpanzee, pinhead opinion. You can call the nurse and have her bring you your meds now.

Taylor is a "woke" super feminist and it doesn't hurt her career. Most people just see what they want to see and have confirmation bias. Besides, "woke" is just the 21st century version of the term "politically correct." Also, "woke" and "politically correct" mean different things to different people.

Katy cutting her hair and singing with drag queens (oh my god, the horror!) didn't ruin her career. Most stars are not huge for too long. Only a select few can stay huge for years and years.

Hillary still won the popular vote, though. Trump's alleged appeal to the working class was greatly exaggerated and largely bullshit.

[quote] She’s not writing music for deranged shut-in septuagenarians

Sure she is!

Income inequality has always been a problem in the US. And people always hate on celebs. None of this shit is new - only the social media bullhorn. Mainstream music is just creatively exhausted.

The real evil elites are Rupert Murdock and other conservative business people, not annoying Hollywood celebrities.

[Quote] Mainstream music is just creatively exhausted.

Same goes for Hollywood. Especially when it comes to the movie side of things.

I used to be into the whole economic populism thing, but I've come to realize that most people advocating for it are either nuts or grifters.

Then there are the MAGA types who are in a whole different league of crazy, evil and grifting.

These days, I'm an economically moderate and socially liberal Democrat who loves Democracy.

There will always be social and economic problems. You just have to make the best of it. Do not let it drive you to start advocating for nutty garbage to fix those problems.

Horny straight guys are a small portion of Katy Perry's audience (and she still appeals to them.) Her target demographic is largely tween/teenage girls and gay men. I just think she peaked early (like most stars) and then a slow slide since Prism. She's still fairly relevant.

Beyonce is still pretty big as well.

[quote] Taylor is a "woke" super feminist and it doesn't hurt her career

Taylor doesn't practice "woke" feminism. She's just a typical upper middle-class (and now 1 percenter) white feminist. Not too different from Madonna's brand of feminism.

I will never understand the appeal of Taylor Swift.

R69, for what it's worth, you should be thankful you don't live in an East/Souteast Asian country. She is even bigger in that region than she is here and that's saying something. Her number one country on youtube is The Philliphines, beating out America, even though it has only a third of the population. Glad I don't live there!

What meltdown, r17? I don't listen to the music of Swift or Perry but Perry seems more obnoxious.

R71 Katy had a meltdown on Big Brother (of all places).

WTF was she doing on Big Brother? Was she already a has-been when it happened? I thought she'd made enough money to never do a show like that?

"Do you ever feel like a plastic bag, drifting through the wind, waiting to start again?" Huh?

R74 I always hated Fireworks before i paid attention to the terrible lyrics.

Katy Perry is happy being a wife and mother to Orlando Bloom and raising their child.

Taylor Swift is still performing like a song and dance jukebox singing about all the loves who wronged her. After some point you think she would realize she's the common denominator in all her failed relationships.

Taylor's career< Orlando Bloom's dick

Another reason I don't like Taylor is her phony support for gays while shielding her relationship with Karlie Kloss. If you're closeted, you're not exactly helping.

R77 oh God you're [italic]one of those[/italic]

No Katy Perry just isn’t very good and her fans got sick of her.

R75, the lyrics are laughable. Someone had to be paid to write THAT?!

I think the only reason Katy Perry had any success is because Britney had a meltdown and was out of it for awhile. She was like a dollar tree pop star. The lyrics were always awful and the music was bad too. Her singing was bellowing.

R69, You must not be a pre-teen, tween, or teen girl, then. She speaks their language, understands their concerns, and sings her own compositions, showing them that their own angsty poems and Kim McAfee dreams are of worth. And has literally communicated with them since the beginning of her career.

R77 Karlie was already dating her current husband when the supposed dating Taylor happened. If she was so closeted, they wouldn't held hands in public. More like straight girls behavior.

R80 maybe the person who wrote that song was an American Beauty fan.

I mean, interestingly, they both kind of started out as singer/songwriters. But KT was a bit more edgier than TS. TS I feel has really built up the reliability / read my diary/ I date famous hot guys / queerbaity persona through the decade, which has pretty strong staying power. I will say, justice for Witness. I thought it was a good album. I don't hate Katy, and I do like some of her songs, but they don't feel "real" like a ts song feels if that makes sense.

Katy never really had long-term staying power.

Taylor is the worst. Nothing turns me off of a guy like hearing how much he loves Taylor Swift.

What exactly did she do to all these people OP? Especially Jake..

Silly as it seems I think the short hair really hurt her, she was no longer a sex symbol. She doesn't have a fan base like P!nk for example who people never thought was sexy so she had nowhere else to go. I think she is Repug too.

R84, I think the writer just put a bunch of words together in a jar and did a random drawing.

R86 hearing people refer to themselves as "Swifties" is a massive trigger warning.

I try with Taylor Swift but ALL the best production in the world can't make her voice sound musical. I suspect she is tone deaf.

By the way Katy Perry is even MORE tone deaf.

R88, no, Katy is definitely not a Republican. She publicly announced her support for Clinton in 2016.

Katy Perry was more of an image and a sexy fun personality. Cutting her hair and trying to do songs about social justice issues were all terrible moves.

Her whole album with that swish song is terrible

I like the version with Brazilian granny babe.

She’s lucky she ever had a career.