Todd Rundgren: Taylor Swift is not a great singer, songwriter or dancer

This story is going to be so similar to when Martin Scorsese said, several times, that Marvel was ruining the movie industry and then all of the MCU fans threw tantrums about “who is Martin Scorsese anyway” and “he’s super-old and he’s never done anything as important as a Marvel movie!” Well, Todd Rundgren is a 78 year old American music legend. He’s had tons of hits, he’s considered one of the founders of prog-rock. He’s also a legendary music producer. You get the idea – he’s a music elder who still follows what’s happening in music to this day and he has opinions. Well, Todd shared those opinions late last week, coincidentally around the same time that Taylor Swift dropped four new songs for The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore. Those songs were not well-received, not even by the most loyal Swifties. So, that gives an added dimension to what Rundgren had to say about Taylor and the Swiftication of pop music.

Few major artists are willing (dumb enough?) to criticize recent Cleveland devotee Taylor Swift in public, lest they incur the cursed wrath of her loyal fan base (or the pop star herself). However, Todd Rundgren, secure in his status as one of the last great rock curmudgeons, has absolutely nothing to lose. The singer-songwriter-producer recently spoke with Vulture’s Devon Ivie for a winding conversation about his career, from touring with Ringo Starr to his history with various members of the Band. Eventually, talk steered toward Rundgren’s production work on Meat Loaf’s seminal 1977 album Bat Out of Hell, which he has admitted he saw “as a spoof of Bruce Springsteen.” So, if Rundgren produced that album now, who would be his target?

“Taylor Swift, of course,” he told Ivie. (Full disclosure: I previously worked with Ivie at Vulture.) “There’s an argument to be made that she ruined music. It’s an understandable phenomenon. It’s just that, to me, Taylor Swift is the apotheosis of mediocrity.” Rundgren then went on a winding and extremely nonsensical tangent about how the biggest artists in the world are currently women because boys in the ‘90s started spending money on video games instead of music? Not sure about that one, Todd! “That left the music market with, ‘Well, where do we go here?’” said Rundgren. “And they said, ‘Well, there’s all these young girls and they’ve got their allowances, too.’”

By the end of his reply, he had again brought it back to Swift: “Taylor Swift doesn’t do anything particularly great except grow hair,” he added. “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.”

[From Pitchfork]

For what it’s worth, men do buy and stream music too, and the male equivalent of Taylor is quite simply Drake. Drake, who churns out half-assed and unnecessary albums because he’s bored and wants attention. Drake, whose fans obsess over his streaming numbers rather than quality or lyricism. Drake, who leans heavily into gimmicks rather than artistry. Sound familiar to anyone in Swiftyworld? So, yeah – Rundgren sounds like a curmudgeon and I’m sure the Swifties will complain… except they’re too busy trying to force themselves to say one nice thing about Taylor’s dogsh-t new songs.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.