Todd Rundgren is a) not afraid to speak his mind and b) not a Taylor Swift fan. We already learned this when, last year, he told MusicRadar “I have yet to be convinced by any song that AI has come up with. Everything sounds like Taylor frickin’ Swift!’”
Now the Bat Out of Hell producer and solo star has risked the wrath of Swift’s army of admirers, telling Vulture that “There’s an argument to be made that Taylor Swift ruined music”, before labelling the world’s most successful songwriter and performer “to me, the apotheosis of mediocrity”.
And Rundgren has a theory about Swift’s apparently baffling success, and it’s all the fault of videogames.
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“Back in the ’90s, boys stopped spending money on music and started spending it on videogames, and that left the music market with, ‘Well, where do we go here?’”, said 78-year-old Rundgren.
“And they said, ‘Well, there’s all these young girls and they’ve got their allowances, too. Why don’t we start making music for young girls instead of Pearl Jam or something like that?’”
Not that Rundgren has it in for all female musicians. Just Swift, really. “Lady Gaga, she’s a real musician. She’s a classically trained piano player,” Rundgren allowed.
“Taylor Swift doesn’t do anything particularly great except grow hair. She’s not a great singer. She’s not a great songwriter. She’s not a great dancer.
“She’s a role model for what was a very young generation of women, and now for those women’s daughters as well, because it’s mothers and daughters going to Taylor Swift shows.”
Last night, Taylor Swift collected her 33rd VMA award, to add to her 14 Grammys, 40 AMAs and 49 Billboard Music Awards. Meanwhile, Todd Rundgren is currently on his Damned If I Do tour.
What do you think? Fearless truth-speaking from an artist and producer who knows his stuff, or the misguided ramblings of an ‘experienced’ artist? Let us know below…
