Cameron Adams: ‘Woke’ pop stars should just shut up and sing
Has Taylor Swift learnt nothing from Katy Perry’s pro-Hillary Clinton woke-burn? Pop and politics rarely work. But that hasn’t stopped Swift from schooling us on how to be LGBTQ allies, writes Cameron Adams.
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This week Taylor Swift has been labelled both a powerful champion and shameless exploiter of the LGBTQ community.
Swift’s new rainbow-coloured video You Need To Calm Down shoehorns in a parade of gay, lesbian and transgender figures and features the lyric “control your urges to scream about all the people you hate, ‘cause shade never made anybody less gay.”
However depending on which blog you read, she’s an ally who is raising awareness of political issues facing the LGBTQ community (the video ends asking fans to sign a petition to push the equality act through the US government) or she’s a heterosexual woman co-opting the gay pride to sell her new record (she name-checks the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation — or GLAAD in the song’s lyrics).
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Maybe there’s a little from column a and column b in the Tay for Gay approach.
The fact the video features Swift recruiting former enemy Katy Perry for a strategic hug to prove their bad blood has been purified does mix her messages — Swift is smart enough to know a marketing opportunity when she sees it.
They were never going to make up without it selling something.
Taylor Swift is the latest example of the danger of pop superstars getting political — or “woke”.
And it rarely works — in some quarters this week Swift has copped flak usually reserved for Israel Folau or Margaret Court — by lending her voice to a cause.
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Ironically her ex-nemesis Katy Perry suffered major woke-burn when she threw her support behind Hillary Clinton before Donald Trump’s victory. She instantly alienated a huge portion of her fanbase who just wanted her to shut up and sing about fireworks and cherry ChapSticks.
The turbo wokeness of the campaign behind Perry’s last album Witness — including a four day, 24 hour live stream on You Tube where she addressed everything from cultural appropriation to science to transgender issues (via guest Caitlyn Jenner) to political activism and even having a therapy session on film — has been partially blamed for the record derailing her chart domination.
The fact the songs weren’t great (“Swish Swish bish” anyone?) also did not help.
Perry learned a valuable lesson. She has reverted back to pure, unwoke pop and tapped into the family-friendly demographic on American Idol.
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Swift was crucified during her last album cycle for staying silent on Trump, after previously being vocal about feminism and seemingly wanting to use her platform to inspire people to do more than shaking it off.
While she’s a lapsed country star, Swift still has a massive conservative fanbase in America and it seemed like smart business to be woke in private.
However Swift’s new era has seen her firmly rallying her millions of fans on social media to be politically active.
Last year she told her 118 million Instagram followers she was endorsing two Democratic candidates in the US midterms, based on their actions on LGBTQ equality and acknowledged the “systemic racism” in America. She’s also made six figure donations to an equality project in the US.
It’s a bold move — and she’s already experiencing the backlash that everyone in Team Swift would have warned her about. The truth is she’s at the stage in her career where she can comfortably afford to shed a few fans — she is probably hoping her belated wokery will gain her some new ones as well as opening minds in her existing audience.
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Swift says her new album Lover will feature lyrics where she is “standing up and speaking out”. That comes at a cost, but it’s one a multi-millionaire can afford.
There’s a precedence for this — people generally hate politics invading any part of pop culture or sport and particularly in music.
Look at U2. There’s a legion of people who still complain about Bono being a multi-millionaire preaching to them about poverty, regardless of what charity work he’s done or that the end goal is to make the world a better place. They just didn’t have Facebook back in the Live Aid days to vent about it like they do now.
Madonna has made a career of poking the bear — drilling down on hot button issues from racism to religion rather than just singing about sex, love and dancing. Nearly 40 years into her career her new album has lyrics that have triggered all the people she knew they’d trigger. Mission accomplished.
Surviving backlash is Madonna’s default setting — she’s long given zero effs what anyone thinks and still remains one of the most successful artists of all time, in both record sales and concert tickets. But will Swift be able to develop a thick skin fast?
Because Madonna still cops it. This week there’s people on Twitter stating that her wearing an eye patch is “appropriating disability” and if that she doesn’t need her eye maybe she should donate it to someone who does. Yes, we’ve reached peak woke folks.
Cameron Adams is News Corp Australia’s National Music Writer.
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