Twice.\u00c2\u00a0 From London.<\/p>\n
First time I was in the shower.\u00c2\u00a0 When I listened to the message toweling off, I thought she said "Erica".\u00c2\u00a0 Listening again it was clear it was Ms. Swift, who sounded troubled, like there’d been a misunderstanding involving love.\u00c2\u00a0 And maybe that’s the case.\u00c2\u00a0 She felt I loved her, had I turned against her?<\/p>\n
That’s what she said when we finally spoke.\u00c2\u00a0 That she thought I got her.\u00c2\u00a0 And it frustrated her to think that I believed she used auto-tune.<\/p>\n
She denied it.\u00c2\u00a0 Emphatically.\u00c2\u00a0 As only as a nineteen year old can.\u00c2\u00a0 I believed her.\u00c2\u00a0 But it still didn’t address the underlying issue.\u00c2\u00a0 Could she sing?\u00c2\u00a0 Exactly how good a singer was she?<\/p>\n
I told her I couldn’t talk right now.\u00c2\u00a0 That I was rushing out to a doctor’s appointment.\u00c2\u00a0 If she wanted, we could speak about two hours hence, when I came back.\u00c2\u00a0 But there was the eight hour time difference, and the day was evaporating.\u00c2\u00a0 Although she’d left me her cell phone number, unfortunately one digit eaten by the machine, I told her to e-mail me with her address, and as soon as I got home I’d let her know, we could talk.<\/p>\n
But then doing the math, worried we’d be unable to connect, having to get up early to do interviews, Taylor got into it.\u00c2\u00a0 How she didn’t even know how to use auto-tune, had never used it.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, she admitted to fixing some mistakes in the studio.<\/p>\n
Then I asked her, what about those high-priced concert tickets online?\u00c2\u00a0 What was going on there?\u00c2\u00a0 I’d printed an e-mail saying in Philadelphia that tickets were going for far in excess of a hundred bucks and then, within minutes of my publishing said letter, the whole tour page disappeared online, replaced with dates that had already played as opposed to those coming up.<\/p>\n
She told me she had no idea.\u00c2\u00a0 She’d have to check into it.\u00c2\u00a0 And I ran out of my house and got behind the wheel.<\/p>\n
This was not the first contact I’d received from her camp.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d gotten a long e-mail from her father.\u00c2\u00a0 Not histrionic, not criticizing me, but also emphatically denying she’d been auto-tuned live.\u00c2\u00a0 That was off the record, but now since his daughter has weighed in…<\/p>\n
And maybe that was true.\u00c2\u00a0 Because she was so horrible in the opening of the CMAs.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, that’s a strong word to use.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just that she was so far from perfect, anywhere but on the note, on pitch.\u00c2\u00a0 She was definitely naked there.<\/p>\n
As she was during the first song on SNL.\u00c2\u00a0 Not the opening segment, wherein Taylor said, like many writers to me opined, that she was trying to imitate Phoebe from "Friends", but the full band number.\u00c2\u00a0 She wasn’t quite as bad as she was on the CMAs, but she was not up to the level of a professional.\u00c2\u00a0 The second song was better, but the backup vocals were covering up quite a bit.<\/p>\n
So, like I said.\u00c2\u00a0 Even if she didn’t use auto-tune, there was still the underlying issue, could she sing?\u00c2\u00a0 She admitted fixing things on record…<\/p>\n
Then, after my appointment, I got an e-mail from the guy who leases the audio equipment for her tour, one Everett Lybolt, GM of Sound Image.\u00c2\u00a0 This was pushing me over the edge. They protesteth too much!\u00c2\u00a0 Furthermore, Mr. Lybolt went on to criticize other performers on the CMAs for not being live.<\/p>\n
Who the fuck knows.<\/p>\n
Taylor said I could come to the gig, check all her equipment out.<\/p>\n
Like I’m really going to do that.\u00c2\u00a0 Like it would prove anything.\u00c2\u00a0 And I never wanted to be a member of the CIA.<\/p>\n
And then I get home to a hanging tag from FedEx.\u00c2\u00a0 My new laptop has finally arrived from China.\u00c2\u00a0 I missed the delivery by fifteen minutes.\u00c2\u00a0 I call the delivery service, asking for a resend, and while I’m being transferred between operators, another person is looking for me.\u00c2\u00a0 But they hang up, then ring again.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s Taylor.\u00c2\u00a0 Who I tell to hold.<\/p>\n
This was unexpected.\u00c2\u00a0 I figured she’d accomplished her mission.<\/p>\n
But she wanted to get back to me with information on the tour dates.\u00c2\u00a0 As a reader had informed me, the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia does not use Ticketmaster, Comcast sells the tickets.\u00c2\u00a0 And isn’t it funny now that Comcast has joined the Ticketmaster\/Live Nation clusterfuck, with Irving supposedly offloading assets to the Roberts-controlled venture so the merger can go through.<\/p>\n
Taylor told me her site had been hacked.\u00c2\u00a0 That the link should have been to comcasttix.com.\u00c2\u00a0 But the hackers had redirected buyers to gotthetix.com.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why ducats for her show were priced far in excess of a hundred dollars.\u00c2\u00a0 She implied that this had been discovered days ago, but in any event, she said it had now been fixed. Anyway, if you go back to her tour page now, the spring dates have reappeared.\u00c2\u00a0 With Philadelphia and most other markets being shown as being sold out.<\/p>\n
The truth?<\/p>\n
Who the fuck knows.<\/p>\n
But there’s your story.<\/p>\n
But what about our earlier conversation.\u00c2\u00a0 About Taylor’s singing?<\/p>\n
I told her she was quite good in the skits on SNL.\u00c2\u00a0 And she was.\u00c2\u00a0 Best non-actor guest host in recent times.\u00c2\u00a0 But I told her, like that CMA opening, the first song…her voice was not good.<\/p>\n
Taylor laughed.\u00c2\u00a0 Said she could handle being criticized for having a bad voice, for missing notes.\u00c2\u00a0 But she couldn’t live with being criticized for being inauthentic.<\/p>\n
Those songs are written in real time.\u00c2\u00a0 About real people.\u00c2\u00a0 Her cowriters edit more than contribute.\u00c2\u00a0 Her next album she’s not planning to write with anyone.\u00c2\u00a0 Not now, anyway.<\/p>\n
And speaking of collaboration, she said she’s got no manager.\u00c2\u00a0 That she and her team have weekly meetings, where they go over career details.\u00c2\u00a0 If she’s on the road, she’s conferenced in.\u00c2\u00a0 The decisions are hers.<\/p>\n
Like playing Gillette Stadium?<\/p>\n
Absolutely.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s something she always wanted to do.\u00c2\u00a0 She figures she’ll do two or three stadium gigs next summer, that’s all.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s salivating over building the show, deciding who will appear with her.<\/p>\n
As for SNL, the call came through William Morris.\u00c2\u00a0 They phoned and told her to hold for Lorne Michaels.\u00c2\u00a0 Her heart was palpitating, she didn’t figure it was about hosting SNL, and when she got the word, she was flying.<\/p>\n
Then we discussed her career.\u00c2\u00a0 And music.<\/p>\n
I felt I was getting some stock answers.\u00c2\u00a0 As I listened, I put myself in her shoes, wondered what it must feel like to get asked the same damn thing again and again.\u00c2\u00a0 But I wanted to know.\u00c2\u00a0 Did she see herself as a singer, an actress or..?<\/p>\n
Definitely a singer.\u00c2\u00a0 With a body of work that delineated the various periods of her life. Her first album was about being 13-16.\u00c2\u00a0 Her second…<\/p>\n
So I asked her what her favorite album was.\u00c2\u00a0 Not because I was making a list, but because I wanted to know where she was coming from.<\/p>\n
She thought for a moment, then said Shania Twain’s "Come On Over".<\/p>\n
I said Mutt Lange was the best living record producer, a true master.\u00c2\u00a0 But had she ever listened to Joni Mitchell?<\/p>\n
There was some hesitation.\u00c2\u00a0 Then Taylor said no.<\/p>\n
I told her to buy "Blue" tonight.\u00c2\u00a0 Quoted her some lines from "A Case Of\u00c2\u00a0 You".<\/p>\n
And quoting that classic number, I went on to recite lines from Jackson Browne’s "The Late Show".\u00c2\u00a0 Told her I didn’t want to overload her, but she should buy "Late For The Sky" too.<\/p>\n
Taylor told me she’d seen Jackson live acoustic.<\/p>\n
I guess I wanted to know if Taylor Swift wanted to be a star or an artist.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why I wanted to know her favorite album, I wanted to know her hopes and dreams.\u00c2\u00a0 Did she need to be in the spotlight, or was it about the work, testing limits?<\/p>\n
She’s the one who’s got to figure it out.<\/p>\n
Right now, she’s the biggest star in America.\u00c2\u00a0 Trumping U2, Springsteen, even Kenny Chesney and the Stones.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s all based on these songs.\u00c2\u00a0 Straight from the heart. That’s why the little girls relate.<\/p>\n
One day those girls will be women.\u00c2\u00a0 A cusp where Taylor Swift is presently residing.\u00c2\u00a0 Will she make the wrong choices?<\/p>\n
I told her you can’t say yes to everything.\u00c2\u00a0 You can make some mistakes, but too many wrong steps can crimp your career.<\/p>\n
Then again, I’m fifty six and she’s nineteen.\u00c2\u00a0 Growing up is about taking chances, making mistakes.\u00c2\u00a0 But I didn’t want her to listen to oldsters, telling her what to do, telling her it didn’t make any difference as they skimmed from her pond.<\/p>\n
We talked about Louis Messina and American Express.\u00c2\u00a0 This was not some backwoods bimbo, an uneducated nitwit who was clueless when it came to business, but she knew only so much of the inner workings.\u00c2\u00a0 But that which she did speak about she had a command of.\u00c2\u00a0 When I broke new ground, she could follow.\u00c2\u00a0 Taylor Swift is smart.<\/p>\n
So where does that leave us?<\/p>\n
Did Taylor Swift work me?<\/p>\n
I’ve been worked before.\u00c2\u00a0 I recognize it when I see it.\u00c2\u00a0 Tommy Lee insisting I print his e-mail before he responds again.\u00c2\u00a0 He was looking for publicity.\u00c2\u00a0 Taylor seemed to need set the record straight.\u00c2\u00a0 For herself.<\/p>\n
Then again, there’s an entire career in the balance.<\/p>\n
But songs trump singing all day long.\u00c2\u00a0 Anybody can sing, especially in this auto-tune era. But being able to write a great song, one that grabs fans lyrically and melodically, that’s truly tough.\u00c2\u00a0 And Taylor Swift has accomplished that.<\/p>\n
So, I’m a huge fan of the albums.<\/p>\n
And I’m convinced she’s vocally challenged.\u00c2\u00a0 But the way Taylor handled that in our conversation, by not skipping a beat, by admitting she’s less than perfect, that she can handle the criticism, won me over.<\/p>\n
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Twice.\u00c2\u00a0 From London. First time I was in the shower.\u00c2\u00a0 When I listened to the message toweling off, I thought she said "Erica".\u00c2\u00a0 Listening again it was clear it was Ms. Swift, who sounded troubled, like there’d been a misunderstanding involving love.\u00c2\u00a0 And maybe that’s the case.\u00c2\u00a0 She felt I loved her, had I turned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-CU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2412\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}