Taylor Swift is the biggest thing since I stopped caring what the next big thing is. I might never have noticed except that my 11-year-old daughter has now officially schooled me.
Phoebe is an exceptionally sheltered child. Her mother is an ex-punk-rocker-turned-strident-Waldorfie. We forbade any screen time—no TV, no computers, and certainly no iPod. This is ironic, since pop culture literally paid our mortgage for many years back when I was a music critic in the post-Nirvana '90s. As I recall, music started to suck about the time I became a father, and I’d happily traded in my backstage pass. In my new role, I saw how messed up our culture is by age fetishism: Adults want to be kids and kids want to be adults, no one is ever happy where they’re at, and the media plays a huge part in this game.
More to the point, some girls are getting their periods at age 8 these days. At Wal-Mart, they sell “No Boundaries” thong underwear for 9-year-olds. My anachronistic father-knows-best remedy for this has been a form of denial, of course, but one that’s easy to rationalize for a G-rated audience. “Most of your life you’ll have adult privileges and problems,” I tell Phoebe. “Be a kid while you can.”
But my daughter doesn’t want to be a kid anymore. She idolizes a leggy 19-year-old pop star. Turns out even our quasi-Amish parenting couldn’t keep Swift’s music out of our daughter’s ears. Last year, she was the best-selling artist of any genre. She’s the only country musician ever to put a song at No. 1 on the Billboard mainstream Top 40, and she’s done it twice within a year of graduating from high school (“Love Story” and “You Belong With Me”). Forbes ranks her among the 70 most powerful entertainers in the world.
I know that the mainstream world Swift rules is full of inappropriate underthings and screwed-up priorities, so I have to wonder: Is she too grown up for Phoebe? My 11-year-old prepubescent "Waldork" (Phoebe's word) is fully hooked on Swift’s saccharine, grammatically progressive high-school love songs like “Fifteen” ("When you're 15, and someone tells you they love you, you're gonna believe them"). Is Swift teaching my daughter to define herself by her relationships to bad boys and the frustrating quest for Prince Charming? Should fairy-tale romance be on such heavy rotation in my preteen daughter’s playlist? I decided to further investigate, coincidentally earning maximum Cool Dad Points, by taking Phoebe to see the final concert in Taylor Swift’s 2009 “Fearless” tour.
Starring in her first headlining tour, Swift seemed caught in a perfect moment. I’ve never seen an artist spend so much time between songs just standing there grinning, apparently soaking in the sellout crowd of 15,000. The 19-year-old was awkward in a charming, unselfconscious way. She took head-banging to a whole new level with those 20-inch-long blond ringlets. I gather she’s been too busy writing and performing to take professional dance lessons; as she pranced and jigged, she was as loose-hipped as a dog shaking after a bath, all elbows and knees, as exuberant as a sophomore in sweats, singing into a hairbrush in her bedroom. “She’s a kook!” said Phoebe approvingly. “Just like in her videos!”
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Comments
Kids listen to pop music,
By: buggie | Tue, 10/20/2009 - 20:24
Kids listen to pop music, it's what they do. I was obsessed with it since my dad bought me Thriller when I was 5. When I was 10 I was into Debbie Gibson and Tiffany- songs about boys, and when I was 11, I was into New Kids on the Block- boys, with songs about girls. But by the time I was 14, I was listening to progressive rock and "grunge." I don't think kids should ever be sheltered from popular music, whether it be Taylor Swift or the latest indie band...unless it's really have an obvious negative impact for some weird reason...it gives kids an identity and something to relate to other kids with, and exposes them ideas that aren't their parents'. Sometimes an 11 year-old needs a 20 year-old to look up to. It's natural.
And news for Dad...by 11, your daughter already likes boys, Taylor Swift or otherwise. And I don't know anything about Taylor Swift's stage show, but unless she's running around exposing a Walmart thong, the two aren't related.
You really should correct this article.
By: Ford | Tue, 10/20/2009 - 12:48
I believe you are confusing a newer Billboard chart with the familiar old one. You say, “the Billboard mainstream Top 40”, which sounds to ordinary readers (and to you, apparently) like the traditional top 40 songs on the Billboard pop chart, and source of the original American Top 40. The Billboard piece you quote is referring to their recent “Billboard Mainstream Top 40” (note the capitalization), which started in 1992, charting only designated “Mainstream” radio (thus excluding Lonestar). Yes, Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton (separately and together), Lonestar, and Eddie Rabbitt all had number one pop hits. Taylor Swift is not the only country musician “ever” to have a crossover number one, just the only one to reach number one on this very specific chart. Why not clarify the sentence?
http://www.billboard.com/news/lady-gaga-makes-mainstream-top-40-history-...
Country hits in the Top 40?
By: heisenbeis | Mon, 10/19/2009 - 17:02
Shelly,
I know it seems incredible, doesn't it? I mean "The Gambler"? "9 to 5"? Or That silly windshield wiper song?
But Billboard says so themselves:
"As if you needed further proof that Taylor Swift is a bona fide crossover artist, her "Love Story" (Big Machine) is the first country song to top the Mainstream Top 40 chart in that tally's history. This is Swift's third song to appear on this survey. "Teardrops on My Guitar" peaked at No. 7 in February 2008 and "Our Song" went to No. 18 in May 2008. Shania Twain had a No. 3 hit on the Mainstream Top 40 chart in 1998 with "You're Still the One" and LeAnn Rimes reached No. 4 in October 1997 with "How Do I Live."
—Billboard.com, 2.19.09 (http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/chart-beat-bonus/chart-beat-flo-rida-atla...)
to a parent
By: fsu07 | Mon, 10/19/2009 - 11:04
As someone who is only barely older than Ms. Swift, I find that her songs have all the maturity of a 13 year old girl. Would it not be better to teach your child that fairytales are only stories and that there is no such thing as happily ever after? Anyone who has ever been in a relationship (minus the high school mentality)knows that relationships do not just happen, and in fact require work and commitment. The author says that his daughter is sheltered, so was I. And yet, it was explained to me, that while I may like and have fun with Disney movies and fairytales, they are not real.
My feeling about pop music
By: fsilber | Mon, 10/19/2009 - 06:37
My feeling about pop music is that there's too much Country and not enough Western.
11-year-old girls are hard
By: Mizz.Givens | Sun, 10/18/2009 - 22:51
I have one, too. And she's tough. She loves Selena Gomez (Wizards of Waverly Place) and Taylor Swift, too. She also likes YouTube and wants the latest cell phone. We're pretty square parents, so we are careful about what she gets to take in, and she sure doesn't get the new phone, because as we explain to her, over and over, the phone is for emergencies, not to impress her friends (raggedy friends, if I'm getting annoyed, which I often do).
"She’s the only country musician ever to put a song at No. 1..."
By: Shelly | Sat, 10/17/2009 - 17:10
...on the Billboard mainstream Top 40." Really? If Wikipedia is to be trusted on this topic, Kenny Rogers, Eddie Rabbitt, and Lonestar, among others, have had mainstream #1 hits.
Swift Kick
By: DKMO | Fri, 10/16/2009 - 13:41
thanx