I don’t think Kayne was silly, and I didn’t need time to chill out.  The moment Kayne said those words, and Mike Meyers, standing next to him, turned even whiter and actually looked as if he had literally just shit his pants, stands out as one of my favorite moments of the dark Bush years. 

Since then, Kaybe has been able to do no wrong in my book, and that includes whatever in hell he did to the insipd Taylor Swift, which I forgot about already anyway, because, who cares?

I’m reminded of all the ways in which Obama has supposedly diminished the office of the Presidency, but I don’t remember him getting pissy at Hank Williams, Jr. or calling Ted Nugent the ruination of even a ten-minute time span.

W. is a thin-skinned fool who has clearly shown that his fastball is his best asset.  That he didn’t put himself on the team he owned was probably a result of none of his dad’s friends being mean enough to suggest it.

I’ve just gotta say, you’re on some kind of epic winning streak lately with the writing. This post is just awesome, also really dug the Sharron Angle piece in Slate.

“So, why would we work together?  Why would you reach across the aisle to a pumpkin assed forehead eyeball monster?  If the picture of us were true, our inability to solve problems would actually be quite sane and reasonable.  Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution or [a president who doesn’t care about black people]?”—Jon Stewart

I gotta say, you got me thinking about the Swift incident in a whole new light, I just thought he was incredibly rude but now that I understand he is cursed and this is all the work of the Gods I can just chill and enjoy when he does this again.

lol

Gratuitous jabs at Jon Stewart aside, I wonder if someone on Bush’s team read the Twitters and found out that many people, esp. after Taylor Swift, don’t have a high opinion of Kanye now, and decided Bush needed to get some of the love Swift got by reminding everyone that Kanye did something bad to him, too.  Republicans often operate on the theory that if someone says one unfair thing about you, you’re automatically absolved of all your own sins (see their continuing efforts to find an African-American racist to excuse their own racism against African-Americans)...this seems like a further application of that theory.  Not, of course, that I believe Kanye’s statement was unfair.

This has also been turned around (per the usual rightwing b-s) to “Kanye West is the real racist because he only calls out white people”. You can make an argument for the word “bullying” for the things he said to/about Taylor Swift. I won’t because I think she has just as much power in the entertainment industry as West does. But when you’re the goddamned president of the United States of America, the most powerful person on earth, your ass needs to learn how to take a dis from a rapper and ignore it.

Remember how the republicans called Bill Clinton a wuss for complaining about Sista Souljah? Funny, but I haven’t heard fathead limbaugh, beck or anyone on faux news accuse W. Bush of being a sissy for whining about Kanye West.

I like this post… but I’m a little sad that one of my fav ladies of mythology got compared to Kanye. There is no way that girl was as much of an arrogant ass as he is!

I can’t get upset at Taylor Swift for being upset—she was a 19-year-old kid who (by some accounts) was a Kanye West fan who got humiliated by him on national TV.  I can just imagine being 19 years old and having someone you admire come onstage while you’re getting an award and announce to everyone that you don’t deserve it.

He was right, but he was still an asshole.

The complete and utter overreaction makes me think this is about way, way more than being rude.  Also, whatever minor sympathy I had for her evaporated when she milked this to death.  Youth is no excuse after a certain point.

This is interesting from the point of view as someone with ADHD and whose children also do - it’s not that we’re right or wrong (quite often, we’re right), but we just find the most inopportune and embarrassing times to make our point.

It also explains why Kanye seems to veer from being a self-absorbed child to being a pretty sharp adult . .

Not only that, but he ruined the World Cup.

Part of the overreaction, of course, is that he’s right.  Twenty years from now, Taylor Swift will be, at best, remembered as a cultural embarrassment where most easy listening goes.  Beyonce will remain an icon.

Apparently, all of her songs are about what a perfect angel she is and how everyone else sucks. So she’s a hater and a coward, because she hides behind this sweet little girl crap.  Very Sarah Palin, that.

I can tell I’m getting older because when I look at the painting illustrating this post, instead of thinking it’s a sexy and dramatic scene, I think, “Ow, that’s really gonna hurt their backs!”

I hope the end result is that more people in the middle of the political spectrum learn or are reminded that W is a petty man who only cared about his rich friends.

So another thing that George W. Bush and Barack Obama have in common is that they have both spent time kvetching about Kanye West. I mean that’s a huge win for Mr. West, isn’t it? To have two presidents in a row both demean you?

Anyway I always thought the companion piece to Kanye’s post-Katrina moment was Wolf Blitzer’s “so black” comment which ... well here it is 5 years later and I still don’t get why he said that.

Because Kanye said what so desperately needed to be said back in aught-five, I will always hold a place for him in my heart. I may not be a fan of his music, and even if I don’t like Taylor Swift any more, I may have found what he did during her acceptance speech to be a bit obnoxious, I cannot hate that man. He said exactly what needed to be said during one of the most shameful moments of our nation’s history and bless him for doing so.

“a sexy and dramatic scene”

Cassandra is in the process of being kidnapped and raped by the Lesser Ajax.  Dramatic, yes, but sexy?

I agree with AnglScarlett.  I would have thought that a comedian like Mike Meyers would have the ... well.. comedic sense to realize how funny Kanye’s truth to power out burst really was.

As Amanda points out, Bush *doesn’t* care about the poor.  Or the middle class.  Or even the lower upper class.  In fact, if you’re not one of the top 2% you’re as faceless as the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis that he bombed the fuck out of.

Swift is a lightweight making pleasant lightweight music.  Hardly seems like a reason to attack her.  She’s pretty young still so the success has gone to her head, like it does to many young stars. At least she has callow youth to blame for her narcissism, unlike West.  In the week or two following his gaffe with her, Swift didn’t seem to think it was any big deal and seemed to handle it with class.  Somehow with time she’s let it expand in importance in her own mind.

Neither of West’s gaffes were important and surely overblown, but partly because they were hugely public gaffes, which the public always likes to see over and over.  I laughed my ass off over both.  My immediate reaction to the Bush one was, “No Kanye, you have it wrong.  Bush doesn’t care about poor people.  It doesn’t matter if they’re black or white.” 

Beyonce an icon?  Puleeze.  She’s just as overrated as Swift musically, and apparently a sweet person, also like Swift.

<quote>President Bush responds: “Yeah. I still feel that way as you read those words. I felt ‘em when I heard ‘em, felt ‘em when I wrote ‘em, and I felt ‘em when I’m listening to ‘em.</quote>

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, NO MORE APOSTROPHES!

Magnificently done, Amanda.  That’s epic insight, in every sense of the word.

This post is exemplifies why I read this blog. I couldn’t even name you a Kanye West song, nor a Taylor Swift song, for that matter, and I have no idea what West did/said to Swift or what award she won or who should have won it, but some Greek god nobody believes in anymore? That was brilliant. I forgive you the pictures of things you make with beets.

And <strike>despite</strike> because of his truth-saying abilities, he would be shunned.

The worst faux pas in modern society is speaking unwelcome truths.

If I can’t attack someone for promoting catty, passive-aggressive mediocrity, I would want to quit life. Sorry. She sucks. Sucking is not okay, not if you’re going to preen like you’re Cinderella had a baby with Mother Mary.

Sucking is not okay, not if you’re going to preen like you’re Cinderella had a baby with Mother Mary.

And be paid MORE than handsomely to do so.

As far as music for tweens goes though, I’d much rather my little sisters listened to Taylor Swift than say, the pussy cat dolls. Plus I just can’t forgive Kanye for Gold-digger.

Great post, Amanda! To be honest, Kanye is an ass. But I find his inability to just keep his opinions to himself every once in a while sort of endearing. And he was right about Bush.

Also, I find it somewhat comforting that at least there’s one thing that Bush feels bad about. I sure wish he looked back at one, just one, of his many failures and crimes and realized how wrong he was, but that’s clearly not going to happen. So if that one thing that Bush is going to admit feeling bad about has to be something so trivial as a rapper dissing him on TV, I’ll take it. I hope that it keeps him up at night. At least something is. It’s not that I think the pain is making him grow as a human being or some such bullshit. It’s pure schadenfreude. I enjoy seeing the epic butthurt, the puzzled furrowing of the chimp-y brow, the distressed toddler act, all of it. Thank you, Kanye!

He was right, but he was still an asshole.

It’s a terrible burden.  Trust me.

There’s a lot of not caring in Bush. Singling out black people was perhaps a little off the mark, since Bush does care about a handful of black people.  But he was wound up.  I’m not going to stomp him on a technicality.

Nope.

“Why did George Bush let NO drown?”
“Because George Bush don’t care about black people.”

“Why did George Bush not move on breast cancer research?”
“Because George Bush don’t care about women.”

“Why did George Bush play games with AIDs funding?”
“Because George Bush don’t care about gay people.”

It’s not unfair at all - that’s not saying he hates black people, women, or gays, nor is it not sayin he might like THIS black person, THIS woman, or THIS gay.  But as a faceless crowd, he’s indifferent to their suffering.

It’s not that I think the pain is making him grow as a human being or some such bullshit. It’s pure schadenfreude. I enjoy seeing the epic butthurt, the puzzled furrowing of the chimp-y brow, the distressed toddler act, all of it. Thank you, Kanye!

I wonder if Bush actually grasps that a lot of people around the world, really and truely and sincerely, want to see him in the dock at Geneva as a war criminal?

Also, Taylor Swift is awful. And the outrage about Kanye had more than a whiff of “big bad black man attacks white, innocent girl next door.” Should he have stormed on stage to drunkenly rant at a teenager? Well, no. He probably should’ve utilized his mad social networking skills to kvetch about it later all over the internets. But that’s part of his curse!

I wonder if Bush actually grasps that a lot of people around the world, really and truely and sincerely, want to see him in the dock at Geneva as a war criminal?

No way. Whatever it is in him that’s making it impossible for him to care about black people, or women, or gays, or Iraqis, or even members of his own party and his colleagues when their houses get destroyed - whatever that is in his personality, it’s making it impossible for him to understand how that could be true.

As long as we’re all on board the Taylor Swift hate wagon, I’ll point out that her song “You Belong with Me” may be the most perfect example of NiceGal™ism (it’s like NiceGuy™ism but without the implicit threat) I’ve ever heard.

Also, as others have pointed out, kudos to Matt Lauer for calling Bush out on this shit.

MATT LAUER:
I wonder if some people are going to read that, now that you’ve written it, and they might give you some heat for that. And the reason is this–

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:
Don’t care.

MATT LAUER:
Well, here’s the reason. You’re not saying that the worst moment in you’re Presidency was watching the misery in Louisiana. You’re saying it was when someone insulted you because of that.

I think the whole awards schtic is stupid and found West’s knocking of a sweet but insipid singer to be just fucked up - that’s who wins those awards.  And no, Beyonce is no icon.  Icon? Aretha, Tina Turner, Left Eye Lopez.  Beyonce?  Yeah, right.  Every time you say something musically overblown like that, I lose respect for you and your musical opinions (which is a shame cause you aren’t usually so off).

At Babieca, I have a similar response to that song, but it doesn’t go all the way there - she says belong WITH while Nice Guy-ism would say TO.  That song is also terribly annoying.

I think one source of the bizarrely widespread view that Kanye is some sort of unique moral monster (which has been said, e.g. in the hip-hop press, since “The College Dropout”) is that he cops to self-doubt, confusion, mistakes, etc. 

In American social and political culture, to admit to wrongdoing is about the worst way, from a strategic point of view, to weather the fall-out from your wrongdoing.  Far better to bluster, get aggressive, act like you’re the victim, and so on.  And of course the same goes, by and large, in organizations and often even in families.  Kanye is no more arrogant, say, than any other astronomically successful pop musician.  But precisely because he tempers that arrogance with self-consciousness, he is vulnerable.  He makes himself a target.

The wages of a culture built around ‘masculinity’.

The worst faux pas in modern society is speaking unwelcome truths.

Better believe it. With few exceptions, I don’t generally look to celebrities for such truths, but once in a while one hits the nail on the head or at least (as in West’s case) gets close.

When it comes to Taylor Swift, when I see her photos I always suspect that that she’s not a real human but rather a synthespian like the one from this movie. I don’t know enough about her or her music to hate her, but I find her very weird in an “uncanny valley” sort of way.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, NO MORE APOSTROPHES!

How else are are his mouth-breathing fans supposed to know that Little Lord Bush of Kennebunkport is the kind of down-home guy they’d like to have a (“non-alcoholic”) beer with?

I wonder if Bush actually grasps that a lot of people around the world, really and truely and sincerely, want to see him in the dock at Geneva as a war criminal?

It’s doubtful that the self-centred and incurious prick has ever possessed that level of awareness, even without the bubble of privilege and denial with which he’s been surrounded. Prince Bush is the sort of superficial and entitled prat who defines a person’s worth by important characteristics like golf swings and tie knots.

Taylor Swift annoys a lot of people.  It’s not hard to figure out why.  She fulfills the standards for young women almost perfectly while calling attention to the fact that those standards are set lower than they would be for men*—one of Taylor Swift’s selling points is that she will never be bigger than Jesus.  She’s got a fetching little squeak of voice and she’s excruciatingly pretty in a limited way.  To look at her or listen to her is to realize that she’s allowed her success because she lacks the kind of talent which demands to be recognized. 

She is no Beyonce.  That goes without saying.  But that doesn’t mean she sucks.  She peddles her marshmallows to girls who are going through a time of their lives when they’re permitted few methods of attack (or even of response) which aren’t covert.  So, that’s who she’s talking to.  In order to maintain her appeal she has to stay true to the facts on the ground as these girls understand them.  And admittedly, her appeal is a fragile appeal, which, one expects, will soon fade.  That being the case, I think she might be spared some of the fire she draws.  She’s making the most of her moment.  Her moment will pass.

*I’m not talking about the standards for thinness or the standards for prettiness or the standards for people-pleasing and inoffensiveness—those standards are set higher than they would be for men.  I’m talking about the standards for achievement, especially for achievement of an artistic/creative sort.  Those standards are set lower, to the extent that sometimes much of the draw a female cultural figure exerts can be credited to the fact that she’s not all that good at what she does.  Just as Swift’s prettiness gets celebrated partly on the basis that it’s the kind of prettiness which often doesn’t last, more is made of her talent than her talent strictly deserves, because it’s the kind of talent which depends on youth and verve instead of experience and technique.  (Or, at least, this is the impression she conveys—perhaps deliberately.)  Experience and knowledge and technique are adult things—and Taylor Swift is playing the role of an adult-who-is-not-quite-an-adult, and, in that respect, she occupies familiar feminine territory.  On those grounds she gets to say: “Oh gee, I’m really not that ambitious or interested in success and I’m not that interested in collecting prizes.  I’m actually just goofing around, so none of this is serious, so there’s no reason for anybody to be threatened by me.”  One might argue that this aspect of femininity ought no longer to exist and that women ought no longer to be able to make use of this set of tactics.  I’m not a huge fan of them myself.  All the same I find it hard to condemn women who wrap themselves up in this veil and decide to play this game.  If they’re equipped so as to play it and win, why not?  It’s not like it’s the kind of victory which can be earth-shaking or permanent.  JMO.

For all the people defending Swift because her music is empty and harmless, please read Amanda’s #14 link

@19 - Well geez, not in that context.  But without knowing the story was non-consensual, I could see it as sexy.

Taylor Swift is awful.

Nah, her music is too bland to be awful.  It’s unobtrusive, unremarkable, and just boring.  It is not deserving of being called ‘awful’.  ‘Awful’ things inspire a negative reactions.  Taylor Swift fails to inspire any reaction whatsoever.  It is perfect muzak for an elevator or a supermarket.

Beyonce will remain an icon.

LOL.  Sure, in the same way as Taylor Swift will be - an icon on the elevator speakers.  Twenty years from now we’ll be treated to easy listening arrangements of both of their songs over the speakers at the mall.

Kanye on the other hand, had me since “Diamonds from Sierra Leone.”  Calling out Bush?  Saw it when it happened - loved it (and the look on Mike Myers’s face was priceless).  Speaking out of turn at an awards show?  Who cares.  It’s an effing awards show celebrating mediocre music.

And no, Beyonce is no icon.  Icon? Aretha, Tina Turner, Left Eye Lopez.  Beyonce?  Yeah, right.

helen w. h.: what is your definition of “icon”?  I can’t think of a measure of cultural significance or influence that puts Lisa Lopes is in a completely different class than Beyonce Knowles.

Someone really should tell Taylor Swift how Romeo and Juliet ends.

coates disappoints me 7 times out of ten. the statement wasn’t silly

For all the people defending Swift because her music is empty and harmless, please read Amanda’s #14 link

I’ve already spent too much time on this, and I don’t want to come across as offensive.  But…I have to ask: where is it written that it’s verboten for women to profit from their associations with men?  For one thing, if women were never to profit—in any way—from their associations with men, their associations with men would all turn out to be detrimental, and that would be bad.  For another, men profit from their associations with women all the time.  An obvious example is the “arm candy” phenomenon: the way men pick out women who are good-looking in a bankable way so that they can impress other men.  The extent to which men are able to impress other men can easily translate, pro or con, into money.  There are reputable thinkers out there who will try to tell you that this is a profound tenet of evolutionary biology and there are other reputable thinkers out there (though sometimes they are the same people) who will tell you that it’s one of the bases of civilization—remove that prop and the whole house starts to fall.  That’s how deeply engrained that puppy is.  And then there’s the immense amount of unpaid labor performed by women, from which men tend to benefit.  And then there’s the fact that men who are engaged in creative pursuits have always regarded the women around them as resource caches—one of the more accepted ways of putting this is that a given woman is, or was, a male artist’s muse or inspiration, which is the polite way of saying that she was the raw material for his work.  Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but also not necessarily a good one.  There are women of whom it has proven the ruin (Zelda Fitzgerald comes to mind).  I’m not one of those who can recognize all this and still be cut to the quick by Taylor Swift’s tendency to kiss and tell, I’m just not.  But that’s just me.  YMMV.

When it comes to Taylor Swift, when I see her photos I always suspect that that she’s not a real human but rather a synthespian like the one from this movie. I don’t know enough about her or her music to hate her, but I find her very weird in an ”uncanny valley” sort of way.

This is because she was generated in a lab by renegade scientists working for Focus on the Family, with the mission to create their idea of the perfect woman: lithe, blonde, teenage, “angelic” for no particularly reason and for some reason squinty.  But definitely with a regenerating hymen. 

Ironically, she was made out of stem cells that were redirected from actual research programs by the funding cut-off instituted under Bush.  The timing of her exposure to the public is no mistake.  She looked like a teenager, but was fresh out of the growing chamber.

There’s an important thing that I feel people in this thread are just not giving enough consideration, which is that while racism is important, music awards are stupid.  Being rude over racism can be excused; hell, being polite about racism is often unexcusable.

Being rude over a music award?  That’s just being an asshole.

***And then everyone acted like he took a dump on the floor instead of just said what everyone was thinking at an inopportune moment.  And then the target of the truth bomb proceeded to hold a major league grudge, and act like this is the worst thing that ever happened. ***

You seem to be saying that just because he dropped a truth bomb that he didn’t take a dump on the floor. Quite frankly you can do both at the same time and that’s exactly what he did. The manner and place of him dropping that truth bomb left a huge steaming dump on the stage that Beyonce had to clean up later.

And quite frankly, in 20 years none of those three will be remembered. They are all purveyors of completely disposable music.

Speaking of being an asshole, Kayne’s new song makes a toast to them. Let’s have a toast for the douchebags, the assholes, and the scumbags says Kayne. Amen, brother!

I think it’s funny that he commits a supposed social faux pas and the world gasps. Oh, poor Taylor Swift! Oh please. It’s not like she’s a six year old who mean ol’ Kayne made cry. She’s legally an adult, fer chissakes. Her response to the incident made me dislike her, whereas before that I had no opinion of her. Writing vapid songs about Kayne’s remarks is not classy. It’s boring.

As for his comments about Bush. Well, he was right. What else is there to say? I mean, what can possibly be said to refute that? I’m right pleased that somebody said it aloud because it needed to be said.

Kayne *is* an asshole, but that’s what I like about him. Amanda, I think you’re so right about him. He’s cursed! It makes so much sense.

Being rude over a music award?  That’s just being an asshole.

Especially over such a celebration of mediocrity as the Grammys.  I mean, seriously.  Look at the crappiest song/artist who’s nominated for something, and the odds are that they’re the ones who will get awarded.  There’s even less reason to take the Grammys seriously than the Oscars.

But without knowing the story was non-consensual, I could see it as sexy.

Sorry.  but Cassandra was, after all, a Trojan, and this is how the Trojan War ends—with rape and murder by the victors.  The Lesser Ajax gets what he has coming in the end, though—Athena wasn’t very happy with the desecration of her temple and the rape of her priestess . . .

Y’all need to be fair to W.

He did say that he just doesn’t understand poor people.  That doesn’t mean he hates them.  At least not actively.

“No children are going to go hungry in this state. You’d think the governor would have heard if there are pockets of hunger in Texas.”

His refusal to become informed about anything is utterly sincere.  He often praised programs that helped people right before he gutted the shit out of their budgets or put corporate whores in charge of them.  He really was and continues to be blind to the fact that he is the ultimate legacy and beneficiary of the old-boys’-network that continually employed him and bailed him out. 

Black people should use their connections as he used his!  His mom said they were better off in the Astrodome!  And if people were suffering in New Orleans, surely he—as President no less—would have heard about it.

It wasn’t at the Grammys that Kanye West went onstage, it was at the MTV Video Awards, which did indeed award Beyonce the Video of the Year award later that night.

I honestly think it’s really funny to have a bunch of people so assured that the classic youth music that came out when they were young and before is truly classic, but all of it now is garbage.  People thought that of the music you cherish when it came out, too.  I’m old enough to remember when people claimed hip hop was a flash in the pan and would disappear in no time and be completely forgotten. Whoops!

rea, are you unaware that some of us haven’t thought about the Iliad since middle school, if at all?  To a person for whom this painting has no context, it’s pretty easy to miss its non consensual nature.

Yeah, they were basically giving Swift the Miss Congeniality award.  Except she’s not, so that’s funny, too.

Especially over such a celebration of mediocrity as the Grammys.  I mean, seriously.  Look at the crappiest song/artist who’s nominated for something, and the odds are that they’re the ones who will get awarded.  There’s even less reason to take the Grammys seriously than the Oscars.

Agreed, but the “Imma let you finish” incident took place at the MTV Video Music Awards, which are even more vapid and pointless than the Grammys.

I thought it was Miley Cyrus who was being marketed as Jesus’ niece, not Taylor Swift.  But hey it’s certainly OK to dislike her music or even country music as a whole.  I didn’t find the Atlantic article linked in #14 particularly useful.  Among other things the author complains that Swift doesn’t write like Joni Mitchell.  No shit Sherlock.  Brad Paisley doesn’t write like Bob Dylan or Phil Ochs either but his songs are still fun.

Amanda, while as a 20-something year old, I do happen to think the 90s had better music than the 00s but I realise, logically thats because I am a whole lot more critical now. I also think that there is good music being made now, but Kanye West, Beyonce Knowles and Taylor Swift aren’t making any of it.

Agreed, but the “Imma let you finish” incident took place at the MTV Video Music Awards, which are even more vapid and pointless than the Grammys.

Holy shit!  Seriously, why would anyone care that Beyonce didn’t win, then?  Jesus.

I’m old enough to remember when people claimed hip hop was a flash in the pan and would disappear in no time and be completely forgotten. Whoops!

Comment #55: Amanda Marcotte

NEW WAVE WILL NEVER DIE!!!!!

Come back Flock of Seagulls, we need you now!

Popular, corporate-driven music is almost always going to be lesser to independent and alternative music. If you were to compare Creed to The Cure, then the 90’s were shit compared to the 80s. If you compare Belly to Huey Lewis and the News, then the 90’s were better than the 80s. If you compare works by The Film School to Celine Dion, than the 00’s were better than the 90s, and if you compared Taylor Swift to Liz Phair’s early stuff, then the 90’s kick the snot out of the 00’s.

He probably should’ve utilized his mad social networking skills to kvetch about it later all over the internets.

Kvetch about Beyonce winning what I assume is a more prestigious award that night? Admittedly, he may not have understood that “Best Female Video” does not mean the best music video by a woman, or even the best video dealing with traditional female concerns.

there is good music being made now, but Kanye West, Beyonce Knowles and Taylor Swift aren’t making any of it.

So who is making good pop music now?

@65: you’re in Lady Gaga territory here, I believe.

Honestly, I would quibble that Beyonce is making VERY good pop music; Kanye is not making pop music at all, he’s making R&B;or hip-hop (depending on your definitions of both); and Swift is just completely lacking in any distinguishing characteristic whatsoever.

When you hear Beyonce, you KNOW it’s Beyonce. JT sounds like JT. When I hear some kind of saccharine, vaguely you-go-girl nonsense being sung by Breathy Girl Voice, well, that could be Taylor Swift, or it could be Jessica Simpson, or it could be Miley Cyrus, or whoever that one is that won American Idol…something Clarkson? 

Whether any of them will be around in 20 years, who knows. But just right now, by the standards of, “what doesn’t make me want to stab myself in the ear,” that is my take.

“Come back Flock of Seagulls, we need you now!”

Flock of Seagulls’ Mike Score: Best. Haircut. Evah!...

mamram—A cursory glance at the poppier stuff in my iTunes that has been created in the last few years, I would say look up The New Pornographers, The Film School, The Rosebuds, Broken Bells, Vampire Weekend, TV on the Radio, The Helio Sequence, Death Cab for Cutie, The Shins,  and Belle & Sebastian. This is in no way all-encompassing, but if you plug those artists into Pandora, you might find yourself with a new lease on life.

Forgot to say earlier:  When I began thinking of “You Belong to Me” as a psycho stalker song I enjoyed it more.

Someone really should tell Taylor Swift how Romeo and Juliet ends.

“He said he was his Romeo and she was his Juliet, and the next thing you know he tried to commit murder suicide by arsenic.”

@66
I basically agree with everything you said.  I probably consider pop music a much larger category that overlaps with whatever else you could call West’s or Swift’s music. 

When I hear somebody say something like, “there is good music being made, but Beyonce (or whichever artist said person doesn’t like) isn’t making any of it,” I expect it to be backed up by one of the following thoughts:

A) That the only good pop music is Lady Gaga pop music, which seems to be a surprisingly common attitude, but in this case is just baloney.  Gaga’s music is perfectly fine, but is in no way so superior to Beyonce’s (in fact I consider it far less musically interesting) that you could call one “good” and the other not. 

B) That pop music is categorically disqualified from being considered “good music,” which is like somebody hating on my wine pick and later revealing that they don’t like wine at all.

So I guess I was asking because I was curious if there was some other reason that a person would say that while there is good music out there, Beyonce just does not qualify.

Next, Amanda will post her analysis of the song “Gold Digger”.

But seriously, on the Bush remark, I think there’s actually a personal/political thing going on here. A lot of non-racist conservatives feel they PERSONALLY care about the welfare of black people, but the IDEOLOGY does not do anything to serve their interests. And I bet it was the phrasing of West’s remark—not “George Bush hasn’t done anything for black people” but “George Bush doesn’t care about black people”, which ticked him off. Conservatives like to think that it’s possible to care about people while, in sadness rather than in anger, allowing the government and powerful entities to screw them over. It isn’t, but this gets at the outrage.

As for the Taylor Swift thing, I’m sorry, if you can’t abide by the wrong people sometimes winning, you shouldn’t attend awards shows. As vapid as her music is, he had no right to be up there and I share Obama’s assessment of him.

Isn’t it kind of oxymoronic or something to have MTV giving out “Video Music Awards,” when they don’t show any music videos?  Way past time to change the name, there.

Without Googling, name the last 10 Grammy winners for Best Pop Song (or whatever it’s called).

Thought so.

Oh, and speaking of Cassandra, check out Marion Zimmer Bradley’s “The Firebrand” if you haven’t already.  Good book.

Mighty Ponygirl, I guess I meant more of an apples to apples comparison.  Comparing Death Cab et al to Beyonce doesn’t really make sense, since indie pop and dance pop are two different genres.

Not to say that everybody has to like dance pop as a genre, but like I said earlier, insulting a specific artist when it’s really the genre that you don’t like is like insulting somebody’s wine selection without mentioning that you don’t like any wine period.

But without knowing the story was non-consensual, I could see it as sexy.

To be fair, Locrian Ajax claimed he was framed by Agamemnon and was exonerated for the crime after swearing an oath that he did not rape Cassandra. Athena was less than convinced.

Agamemnon did end up with Cassandra, but it didn’t work out too well for him. Her either. In fact it ended up pretty shitty for all involved.

I’m old enough to remember when people claimed hip hop was a flash in the pan and would disappear in no time and be completely forgotten. Whoops!

By the way, I’m not sure you really are. If you were precocious, you started listening to pop music seriously at age 9 or so, which would have been 1986. By then, hip-hop had been seriously popular for almost a decade (the first mainstream rap I remember was probably “Rapper’s Delight”, which came out in 1979; Blondie released “Rapture” feat. Fab Five Freddie in 1980, Run D.M.C. released their first album in 1984 and had a huge hit with MTV airplay with “King of Rock” in 1985, and “6 in the Mornin’” came out in 1986.

The fact that rap had been a mainstream pop idiom for about seven years when you probably started seriously listening to pop music suggests that anyone who was still saying it was a “flash in the pan” at that point hadn’t been paying attention. We didn’t necessarily know how big it was going to be, but it had already established that it had staying power.

I’m Amanda’s age and would make the same observation, it was, to be sure, something that very clueless people said.

“The fact that rap had been a mainstream pop idiom for about seven years when you probably started seriously listening to pop music suggests that anyone who was still saying it was a “flash in the pan” at that point hadn’t been paying attention.”

The sworn enemies of popular culture are seldom those who pay attention to the current state of whatever gets their knickers in a twist, in my experience.

I remember being told (in my conservative protestant church) in the ‘70s that Rock was on its way out — at least 20-years after it had already become a staple, not to mention that it’s still going today.

These anti-cultural pronouncements are propaganda meant for the flock, and their accuracy is immaterial to the aims of those making the statements… (...kinda works like the “modern” Republican Party and its wingnut, libertarian, and teabagger branches…)

You know, I have a twisted sort of respect for Miley Cyrus, who, even though I don’t like her music, seems to have this amusing tendency to ooze honesty around the edges of her image by persisting in being an ordinary, hormonal teenager despite the marketing. If she doesn’t pull a Lohan, she’ll be alright. (I felt much the same about Christina Aguilera—unlike Britney Spears, she had no illusions about her poptart role and reveled in honest skankiness. Britney, on the other hand, made largely crap music until she stopped pretending to hide it. There’s a reason her music got better as it got trashier.)

But Taylor Swift is a cipher. She’s kind of what you’d get if you lobotomized Pink—no edge, no personality, and only minimal talent to back up the excessive confessionalness of her music. I mean, I did feel sort of bad for her (especially since Beyonce, being one of the most powerful women in pop music, had a literal truckload of awards already), but I have to agree that Kanye had a point.

The real problem is that Kanye is kind of a dick, or at least a major cloud cuckoolander. Maybe it has something to do with losing his mom so young, or maybe he’s just strange to begin with, but although his George Bush outburst was probably appropriate given the message and the platform, the whole Taylor Swift thing was wrong time, wrong place, and most importantly, wrong guy. (Chuck D for some reason comes to mind as the Right Guy, but he’s far too over for the VMAs. He’s also, like, smart and honest and shit.)

MikeEss:

I made the mistake of picking up a copy of the American Spectator once in which one of the columnists gushed in a most unseemly manner about the “death” of rock’n'roll. I can only imagine how stained his pearls were from being clutched.

@60: Have you heard the Power remix? HAVE YOU HEARD THE POWER REMIX? Kanye is still producing some of the most fun & catchy hip-hop out there, despite his unfortunate collaborations with Bieber and Drake.

Please, Beyonce?  Neither her, nor Swift, nor West have any cultural heft.  But Amanda dissing a 19 yo is pretty ludicrous.

Obama classifying West as a jackass pretty much nailed it.

NEW WAVE WILL NEVER DIE!!!!!

And it didn’t!

Come one and all to the 80s prom on December 3rd!

http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=153440831363728

Kanye West is an arrogant prick.  I can’t believe you’d defend him like this.

By the way, I’m not sure you really are. If you were precocious, you started listening to pop music seriously at age 9 or so, which would have been 1986. By then, hip-hop had been seriously popular for almost a decade

The first year a rap song was a Billboard Top 100 song was 1990, IIRC.  “Bust A Move” and “Ice Ice Baby” were it. 

We all like to believe we remember the hipper parts of our youth, but alas, my in depth research into the 80s has revealed that most of the songs I “remember” as being cool then were actually not as popular as, say, Hall and Oates.

And the point being, to reiterate what people said, the complainers are rarely tuned in enough to know much more.

I recall how “Ice Ice Baby” was really the first time that the mainstream media had a discussion about sampling.  Things moved a lot slower back then.

I do it just to see people who need to toughen up a little whine. It’s a real thrill, Nedved.

Pop music is not necessarily dance music. There is a crossover, obviously, so people like Lady Gaga are doing what Madonna did in the 80’s, but if you want good pop/dance music, that’s an entirely different question than just “what’s the good pop music today,” and I direct your attention to groups like Ratatat, Memory Tapes, and MGMT

Amanda, the top 40, by the 1980’s, was certainly not completely representative of what people were listening to. MTV played the **** out of “King of Rock”. It had a pop-culture icon, the late Larry “Bud” Melman, in the video.

And there were plenty of MTV “hits”—not just rap songs—that didn’t hit the charts. Madonna’s “Into the Groove”, for instance, was a hugely popular song with lots of MTV airplay that never charted.

And you are also wrong about “Bust a Move” and “Ice Ice Baby” being the first rap “hits”. Here are a few examples.

“Rapper’s Delight” 1979—charted at #36
“Rapture” 1980—#1
“The Message” 1982—#62
“Walk this Way” 1986—#4
“You Gotta Fight for Your Right to Party” 1986—#7
“Wipe Out” 1987—#12

Sady Doyle and Amanda Hess have a good chat about Taylor Swift here, which focuses a lot more on the portrayal of (other) women in Swift’s songs than on the kissing-and-telling aspect featured in The Atlantic piece.

I recall how “Ice Ice Baby” was really the first time that the mainstream media had a discussion about sampling.  Things moved a lot slower back then.

I wonder how much the persistent talk about the flash-in-the-pan-ness of hip-hop all through the late 70s - mid-90s had to do with the fact that hip-hop just moved and evolved too fast for the media covering it? The whole outward expression of the culture of hip-hop (fashion, music, graffiti, dance moves) changed seemingly from day to day, because all of it was really grassroots and from the street up, not dictated from the runways or the recording studios. And that also meant that artists who were in one day seemed to be completely out of favor the next.  So you had a situation where a new youth culture was emerging and the artists representing it appeared to not have the same longevity as the artists in rock music, which was still the established paradigm at the time. I bet the music journalists, used to the classic rock acts sticking around for decades, were thinking “well, these guys come and go every day, the fans are fickle, so this whole thing will be over in a few years.”

So all the talk about “this rap thing is going way, like, tomorrow!!” was all about the mainstream culture and media trying and failing to catch up with the hip-hop explosion, combined with racism, classism, and the general fear and distrust of grassroots youth movements. And I am no hip-hop head, but I distinctly remember that when I moved to the US in 1991, all that talk was still very much going in, even in NYC. Just because there were hip-hop hits in the late 1970s, doesn’t mean that there wasn’t any wishful thinking in certain quarters about pop culture going back to “normal” in the 1990s.

Dilan at #72

Its like the two sides of conservatism are the Walrus and the Carpenter. The Walrus really did care about those delicious delicious oysters.

But Amanda dissing a 19 yo is pretty ludicrous.

Obama classifying West as a jackass pretty much nailed it.

Hmm, gotta cosign this. Amanda, being a hipster doesn’t have to mean hating on very young women in the defense of asshole men! What did Swift ever do to you? I initially read the “curse” thing as tongue-in-cheek—I didn’t think everyone would pile so gleefully into getting their hate-on for every blond woman currently in pop music. Sheesh.

Kanye on Bush; speaking truth to power. Kanye on Swift? Being an ignorant drunk dickface to a teenager. Please don’t pretend it’s all genuinely part of the same Cassandra-esque “curse of truth.” Since when is a man’s asshole behavior excused by “it’s a curse!”? West isn’t all that, he’s just loud and occasionally correct. A stopped clock is right twice a day, and all that.

I want to clarify that when I referred to music as disposable that I didn’t mean it was necessarily bad, just that it isn’t memorable. Music can be perfectly pleasant without being memorable. I don’t think anyone will remember “Put A Ring On It”, “Gold Digger”, or whatever Taylor Swift’s big hit is in 20 years. That doesn’t mean they are bad…just not memorable.

Perfect example: Madonna vs. Mariah Carey. Two of the most successful singers ever. I know the names and hooks to a number of Madonna songs, whereas I don’t know the hook, or the name of a single Mariah Carey song. They are both talented, but Mariah is the very definition of forgettable.

Hah, I had this conversation with my mother (a Dubya-lover despite knowing nothing about him and not ever wanting to pay attention either. You just can’t sway her from voting the same as her parents) last night, where I said, “Uh, SO MUCH WORSE HAPPENED TO DUBYA THAN THAT.”

I LOVE this post and think the Cassandra curse is very apt for Kanye. It makes me like him more. I do appreciate someone who calls people out on their shit, but most of the world does not. And even though I thought it was rude of him to bust into the speech back in the day, uh… hah, he was proven right. (Though really, I didn’t think either video was all that and a bag o’ chips.)

Also, I can’t fucking stand Taylor Swift any more. What a little asshole. I thought the whole “Innocent” thing was cloying and annoying and warped (really, must we cover this again a year later? Let it go, girl, be the bigger person), and then she did an entire album of it? Ugh. Jake Gyllenhall better kiss her ass to kingdom come, but she’s probably plotting songs against him already. She ruined her sweet n’ innocent rep with that one to be more of a psycho stalker. I guess we should have figured that one out from “You Belong With Me.”

So, Team Kanye. You just keep shining on, you crazy diamond.

The acts that have been proffered here as eminently more memorable than Swift, West and Beyonce* in 20 years are not even household names *today*, which has to be at least a tenet of memorability. The groups mentioned may have a Velvet Underground-esque influence on other artists, but what’s being said is that the general public will remember music from this era that does not break sales/tour revenue records, they’d largely never heard of, and “classic” stations will never put on rotation. Could someone name a pop artist that is a recurring presence on the top 40 and radio that they believe will be remembered? What does rememberance entail… being tapped for a few car commercials?

*I’m discussing the metrics for prediction, I do not believe that Swift’s music will stand the test of time, nor is it meant to, as bekabot explains.

Also, I can’t fucking stand Taylor Swift any more. What a little asshole. I thought the whole “Innocent” thing was cloying and annoying and warped (really, must we cover this again a year later? Let it go, girl, be the bigger person), and then she did an entire album of it?

Bear in mind, Ashlee Simpson did a bunch of songs about her Saturday Night Live screwup too.

This is, like so much in music, a form of marketing. Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian have both made records, but they’d sell a lot more copies if they sang about making a sex tape or having it released. After John Lennon died, both George Harrison and Paul McCartney (along with Elton John) put out tribute songs. If something puts you in the news and you can sing about it, it increases sales. Taylor Swift is just following a well-trodden path.

By the way, if someone wants to say something more interesting about Taylor Swift and Kanye West, the racial angle—black “ghetto thug” type violating young white innocent woman, and society reacting to it just like Mississippi would have in 1914—is a better place to go, it seems to me.

Just gotta say, when Kanye said his piece on the benefit show I was living in a Super 8 motel a couple blocks from the Astrodome.  Whole place erupted in applause when he said it.

Atheist, A Feminist -

That was a better article.  I especially liked this line from Sady:

It’s a very strange cosmology, in which morality is determined not by The Good or utility but by How Nice You Were To Taylor. Or, really, How Much You Like Taylor For She Is A Beautiful Princess.

And this from Amanda Hess, talking about the revenge song:

So everyone is empowered … to be awful in this scenario.

And I think I will start describing myself as a “scheming evil mattress harpy” because that sounds so much more exciting than “untergeeky game and food buff”.

I can’t believe that any discussion of the ego of Kanye West wouldn’t include any links to his insane, absurd blog or to his appearance on South Park.  The man may or may not be an icon, but he’s certainly going to be much more than a historical footnote.

http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/224099/im-going-home

@SporkeyO

A “scheming evil mattress harpy” certainly sounds like a fun role to me.  This line from Sady:

But, like: Taylor Swift is “Twilight.” It’s this totally idealized romantic narrative that fourteen-year-olds can project themselves into which is unrelated to the realities of relationships.

pretty much sums up how I feel about Taylor Swift (or Twilight, to get really recursive).  I dislike an awful lot about both, but a lot of the criticism, mostly deserved, still rubs me a bit the wrong way because “what girls like” is important and valuable, and while I wish they/we would like better stuff sometimes, I (sorta unfortunately!) cannot speak for all women.

The Katrina telethon incident aside, I’m not convinced that Kanye is compelled to speak truth as much as he is compelled to seek attention. I remember watching the VMA clip and laughing my head off. I mean, here’s a guy who took the fact that his favourite singer didn’t win a worthless award -a situation that would barely register as a very minor bummer in most people’s day - as an egregious injustice requiring immediate redress.

It’s the most amusing/occasionally disturbing side effect of being surrounded by people who do nothing except tell you how wonderful you are all day. It’s what allowed Elvis to rifle through desk drawers in the Oval Office, and what allowed Michael Jackson to believe there was nothing odd about having pajama parties with kids well into his 40s, and what allows Madonna to think everyone else is nuts for not hopping on the Kaballah bandwagon just because she said so.

He’s not cursed to speak the truth, he’s just spoiled…. damn funny to watch though.

It was tongue in cheek. I’m just one of those 33-year-old kids with the snark and the ironic T-shirts and the iPods. My assessment of Kanye West contains multitudes. As Jennifer said, shine on.

Brass, perhaps. But next you’ll be telling me Apollo isn’t real, and I will be forced to complain about you on Fox News.

Would Fox be receptive to tales of religious persecution that don’t involve Christians being driven to the depths of despair by hearing “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”?

Sorry.  but Cassandra was, after all, a Trojan, and this is how the Trojan War ends—with rape and murder by the victors.

Which is different from every war ever - how?

Is Taylor Swift generally considered pretty? Really? I’m always been out of touch, but this is even worse than I expected. Am I the only one who thinks she looks a bit like the result of unprotected sex between brother and sister? Nobody else sees her and thinks ‘inbreeding’ and maybe also childhood malnutrition? I have to check my perceptions with other people more often. Seemingly the voices in my head are not as infallible as I thought they were.

I absolutely loved the Anti-Bush outburst and Taylor Swift is the epitome of “MEH”.  I propose a “Kanye’s law” wherein somebody does something Truthy or revealing in a natural way and everybody goes Bat-fucking-shitloving-douchenozzle insane. IE, Kanye’s remarks, the Wardrobe malfunction, Everything Olbermann or Maddow says nowadays, Obama “Wants to change America” ad nauseum, extra nauseous.

DAN @111:
You and me both. Mine get me seriously in trouble…

Ya know, I never thought I’d see Amanda doing a pileon on a young woman in service of defending her love of a brutally sexist pop star.

The Greek curse thing is funny as hell, but that’s because it steps outside of traditional morality and into Greek morality, where heroes aren’t supposed to be admirable, just extreme.  But cutting back into tired defenses of two misogynists—Beyonce “Make Love In This Club” Knowles and Kanye “Gold Digger” West—when they ripped into a third who at least has the excuse of youth . . . wow.

This is one of the few articles here on Pandagon where the comments detract, rather than add.

Um, what do you mean, “they ripped into?” Beyonce didn’t do anything to her, was visibly embarrassed as it happened, and graciously gave Swift time to give her acceptance speech when she did recieve an award for “Best Video.” Was there a diss track later on that I missed?

@43 - Left-Eye Lopez was an icon in that people who had no idea about her music recognized her - much like Boy George, Cyndi Lopper, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Lady Gaga, etc.  I do not put Left-Eye Lopez in the talent category of any of those people I just listed, but people who only listened to jazz or country knew who she was on sight.

Beyonce is not an icon.  She has talent, but lacks presence or definition or history.  As she is young, it is quite posible she might Become an icon if she develops a stronger presence, a more unique image or her talent has greater staying power than seems likely at this point.

It may be true that there was an questionable overreaction to Kanye’s rudeness but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t super rude all on its own, as well as being nonsensical since my understanding is that, in theory anyway, the VMA’s are voted on by fans so he was basically saying the fans have it wrong instead of some corporate entity has it wrong.

Beyonce is an icon, there is no doubt but I wouldn’t be so sure that Swift is just going to fade away as an embarrassment, she does write her own stuff which is a big deal in the country world where things are done by, and sound like, they are done by committee, if she causes young country artists to follow suit I think its a good thing and may just make her an icon in the long run if she keeps writing songs.  I saw her on the Crossroads thing where she sang with Def Leppard, I was amazed at how well her voice fit with those songs.  I think she’s a good singer and and a good songwriter which bodes well for her.  I’m not saying I would buy her albums and sit around and listen to them but there is a lot of stuff I don’t listen to that I can still recognize as good.

Dan @110:
I wouldn’t have put it quite that way; but, no, you are not alone.  I’d say Cache Valleyeseque (or is that Cash Valley, I always forget) for those familiar with UT.

while I wish they/we would like better stuff sometimes, I (sorta unfortunately!) cannot speak for all women.

Yeah, at heart I know this.  I kinda feel the same way, in that “well, just some people like that stuff” kinda way.  I mean, I have my VC Andrews guilty pleasure, and I’m far into adulthood.  But then again, when I was teenager, I went to a high school that was populated with the type of people that Sady was talking about.  And there were a lot of girls who bought into that “boyfriend dumped me/he’s dating a slut”.  I really, really detested that kind of thinking, even at that age, because it made no sense.  I can understand being hurt that your boyfriend dumped you, but his new girlfriend had nothing to do with your relationship (for the most part - I’m not including cheating in this).  I’d try to walk friends through that line of thinking - “It’s not like you won him in a ring toss and one day just left him somewhere and someone else picked him up.  He’s a person.  If you’re going to be mad at someone, be mad at him.  He’s the one who dumped you, and it was his choice not to date you.”  With a good, comforting side dose of “he doesn’t know how lucky he was” and “well, it’s his loss” and other things.  By senior year, many of my friends stopped doing that.

And Kanye reminds me of a person who when they say one thing, and other people agree and applaud them for it, keep trying to say stuff even if it’s really, really stupid and still expect applause.  Or like a person who has lost their brain-to-mouth filter, who occasionally says the right thing at the right time, but more often than not, doesn’t.  He was right about Bush, but then again, anyone could have said that at any time, and they’d still be right.  But to do that to a pop signer that will probably be replaced in 5 years with The Next Big (And Younger) Perfectly Genetically Engineered Pop Star while she’s accepting her award?  That’s kinda dumb.  He didn’t have to interrupt the awards to do that.

Beyonce is not an icon.  She has talent, but lacks presence or definition or history.  As she is young, it is quite posible she might Become an icon if she develops a stronger presence, a more unique image or her talent has greater staying power than seems likely at this point.

@115: Well, she’s been making number one singles for a decade at this point—as opposed to Lady Gaga who has only had a significant presence for the past two years.  I’d suspect that she is pretty recognizable to many people who aren’t familiar with her music because of her acting, but obviously it’s all a matter of opinion.

I quite agree with you Amanda.  Kanye West was absolutely right—so right that people are desperately focussing on ‘how dare you call him a racist’ rather than address the truth of what he said.  It is of course true that black people aren’t the only people George Bush doesn’t care about: George Bush doesn’t care.  But it was just as true that it was black people who were suffering most directly in he shadow of his uncaring gaze and he couldn’t not point it out.  May he never get better, whatever his faults.

You don’t have to crap on Taylor Swift to say something in defense of Kanye West.

You don’t have to crap on Taylor Swift to say something in defense of Kanye West.

Thank you! That’s what I was trying to get at. No need to start mocking a 19-year-old for being skinny and inbred and stupid and whatever else shit people want to sling. Is this a thing we do at Pandagon now? (Next thing we’re gonna be all “LOL Beiber’s a girl” aren’t we? It’s easy to hate on silly kid pop stars isn’t it? Ridiculous.)

@SporkeyO

And Kanye reminds me of a person who when they say one thing, and other people agree and applaud them for it, keep trying to say stuff even if it’s really, really stupid and still expect applause.  [...]  But to do that to a pop signer that will probably be replaced in 5 years with The Next Big (And Younger) Perfectly Genetically Engineered Pop Star while she’s accepting her award?  That’s kinda dumb.  He didn’t have to interrupt the awards to do that.

I agree with this for the most part.  At the same time, though, the way award shows draw artists to them (to get awards or to stand by and watch other people get awards) is by being innately spaces for self-promotion and, to a lesser extent, promotion of peers.  So, I have a hard time really getting too upset that Kanye’s self-promotion/promotion of Beyonce interrupted Taylor Swift’s self-promotion.  Was it rude?  I’m not 100% certain that the word applies here.  It would certainly be rude outside of the venue, but….  Was it dumb?  Well, that would mainly depend on how much it helped/hurt Kanye and Beyonce.  If it helped more than it hurt, then Kanye used the opportunity for promotion well and was (basically) smart about it.  If it hurt more than it helped, then it was pretty fucking stupid.

The problem I have with this mock defense is that Kanye West IS George W. Bush, which I think is most aptly demonstrated by this quote from a December 2006 Essence article.

“If it wasn’t for race mixing there’d be no video girls. Me and most of our friends like mutts a lot. Yeah, in the hood they call ‘em mutts.”

West grew up in the suburbs with a mother who held a doctorate and worked for a university. He knows as much about the hood as Bush knows about being a cowboy or a fighter pilot. They might know folks who do those things, and they may be able to wear the outfit from time to time, but they’re both just posturing, pretending to ability and experience that isn’t theirs. West himself has already proven he doesn’t care about black people, unless we don’t count women as people.

That said, to address the tangential argument going on here: Beyonce is an icon. There isn’t a spot on this Earth inhabited by people able to receive electromagnetic communication where more than one person doesn’t know who she is. It’s not fair, because Missy is clearly the greater talent, but in it’s own way that make sense since Kanye’s not as good as Timbaland (or the Neptunes).

It’s not fair, because Missy is clearly the greater talent

Yeah, but they are apples and oranges.  It’s hard to make a meaningful comparison.

There’s an important thing that I feel people in this thread are just not giving enough consideration, which is that while racism is important, music awards are stupid.  Being rude over racism can be excused; hell, being polite about racism is often unexcusable.

Being rude over a music award?  That’s just being an asshole.

Reprinted for truth.

That being said, I clicked through some of the links at that Atlantic article, and came up with more articles that confirm the thrust of Amanda’s analysis of Swift and West.

Taylor Swift is actually super creepy, and has internalized the worst ideas about what roles young women should play

Kanye West has no filter

I still think West was way, way wrong to shit all over Swift for accepting a fucking Video Music Award, and while there’s a really funny line in his retelling of it (“I didn’t want to let them say that the aliens built the pyramids, you know?”), his explanation of how he’d seen this thing happen so many times over the years makes me think he was (perhaps unconsciously) being a bully.  Why that moment, then?  Who’s it going to be easier to pull that shit on, Taylor Swift or some Uwe Boll type?

Also, while Swift seems to have become the musical equivalent of Twilight, there’s one song that I’ve heard of hers that I actually like:  Fifteen.  Unlike the songs from this last album, it’s telling girls that there’s a whole world out there that they have only the smallest inkling about, and that worrying about a boy isn’t the end all/be all that it seems to them at that age.

I disagree mamram. Both artists mostly produce dance-oriented pop singles - of course the trappings are different with Beyonce more R&B;and Missy more hip-hop - and both broke in ‘97 (Missy solo and Beyonce with D.C.) with the trajectory of their careers being worthy of comparison. I suppose it could be argued that there is a distinction to be made because Missy composes more of her own music, but that’s part of my point.

Point taken.  I don’t disagree that, as far as what their music showcases, Missy is the more talented of the two, I just look for different things when evaluating their music.  Which might partly be because I expect more out of a Missy Elliot song, which maybe goes to your point as well.

“Inbreeding”? Seriously? I’m sorry, I’ve seen the picture of those two strange-looking Afrikaner twins, as well as Carlos II of Spain (the worst case of Habsburg lip on record, and severely broken in a gazillion other ways). Taylor Swift doesn’t look anything like that; if anything, the person she most resembles that I can think of is Joss Stone. Besides—bloody hell, who fucking cares? Bringing hick stereotypes into it is rather unnecessary considering how many other reasons there are to complain about her.

Well, that’s the point—since her music is disliked, now we get to use conservative tribal memes.  Woo!

Seriously is someone who considers the insipid Smiths to be geniuses, even though they can’t sing, attacking Taylor Swift? Yes she is no Emmy Lou Harris but who is. You have to be a dush to get on stage like Kanye did.

PatrickNM:

Weak-ass troll. Emmy Lou Harris is way, way, WAY out of Taylor Swift’s league. Anyone who shares a billing with Mark Knopfler is a bit of alright in my book. (Also, your opinion of the Smiths is your opinion, but you’re still a troll.)

Kanye was an asshole and saying so is not racist, a lot of things are racist, that’s not one of them. Anybody remember that moment at the Oscars some months back, where a white female producer rudely interrupted the black director (whom she didn’t get along with)? That woman was also an asshole in a very similar fashion.

So there you go, black male asshole and white female asshole, everyone happy? I’m thinking no.

Did anyone actually say that calling him an asshole is racist?

My husband and I have been calling West “Cassandra” since the Taylor Swift thing.  Also, the Holy Fool.

Mockery was not the intent when I mentioned inbreeding and childhood malnutrition in comment #110. Honestly, I don’t think it’s appropriate to mock anyone inflicted by either, precisely because neither is a choice. I studied and dealt with the effects of both inbreeding and early malnutrition when I was doing development work, and Taylor Swift’s features gave me a feeling of deja-vu. If I wanted to mock her, I would have done so on the basis of the music she writes and sings. Res ipsa loquitur.

Selena, yes, several commenters pointed to racial overtones in the outrage, which, upon consideration, is certainly possible for some, I mean racists are always going to be racists, but I think the majority of the anti-Kanye sentiment is not racist.

Dan2108, you may be right about the inbreeding, but wrong about the lack of nutrition:

I met her at the EOD
She sank her dew claws into me

We stepped out to watch the tide come in
She said a little swim would do some wonders for your skin
I shed my old self, slipped into the sea

One glance was all it took
She gave me the Innsmouth look

So there you go, black male asshole and white female asshole, everyone happy? I’m thinking no.

Actually, your example demonstrates quite explicitly how much of a role racism plays in the complaints about Kanye. People DIDN’T make a big deal out of the lady at the academy awards who did the EXACT same thing Kanye did. It wasn’t the basis for endless screeds from every barely closeted racist asshole in the country.