A Dad's Review of Taylor Swift's '1989'

First of all, I know that I’m probably not Taylor Swift’s target demographic. She can’t possibly sell too many albums to married thirty-six-year-old dudes. Not counting those dudes who are buying the albums for their daughters, of course. So Taytay probably isn’t going to shed too many tears or pump too many fists over what I have to say.Also, I don’t think it’s fair to judge her music from my point-of-view. Every work has an audience, and I’m not her audience. So for me to listen with my ears is missing the point. Instead I’ll pretend I’m one of the roughly sixty trillion girls who go crazy for her and her music. (I’m not really going to pretend that I’m a teenage girl. That’s just creepy.)T-Swizzle’s latest release is called 1989. She should send an apology to the year 1989, and anything else that happened in 1989, because she’ll automatically dominate any Google search containing that number for the rest of eternity.And even though 1989 the year was a quarter of a century ago, 1989 the album brings a brand new Taylor Swift. Gone is the girl strumming along on her guitar and belting out songs that she wrote by herself. Her full-on transition to pop music is aided by two of the most prolific music producers in the business, and their influence is irrefutable. The New Taylor sounds more pop princess than young musician.Still, there’s plenty here that Taylorites will enjoy. And when an artist has been as deft in creating a relationship with her fans as Taylor has been, those fans will probably go anywhere she takes them.Now just a few general observations:She’s got some sort of red lips fetish or something. In one song she talks about “the red lip classic thing” that some boys like, and then in another song she’s talking about “cherry lips, crystal skies” and in yet another she sings about “red lips and rosy cheeks.” Looks like Chuck Berry’s not the only musician who owes a debt of gratitude to Maybelline.She’s a skank. No, not really. I’m kidding, pipe down. But checkout some of her lyrics. “Got a long list of ex lovers,” “I got that good girl faith and a tight little skirt,” “we were lying on your couch,” “his hands are in my hair, his clothes are in my room.” And it goes on from there. Damn, Taylor, you’re not a teeny-bopper anymore, we get it!She’s worldly. The first song is called "Welcome to New York" and she talks about “searching for a sound we hadn’t heard before” and “you can want who you want, boys and boys and girls and girls” and maybe my favorite line on the entire record: “everybody here was someone else before.”On one of her previous albums she told mean people that one day she was going to be living in a big old city, and now she is. Don’t worry though, she can handle it: “The lights are so bright, but they never blind me.”There’s no virtue in criticizing Ms. Swift. She’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but she’s also not trying to be. She knows her audience, she knows they trust her, and she’s betting that they’ll like the new side of her and her music.If not for my seventeen-year-old daughter, I’d probably never listen to Taylor Swift, and probably never miss her either.But my daughter likes her. And last night we got 1989 and went to the basement and listened to it together. My daughter’s excitement over that album reminded me of my own excitement over a new Pearl Jam album. She swore she’d listen to it a dozen times this week. She declared it awesome. She slept with it next to her in bed.As part of the deluxe version of the CD, Swift included some mock Polaroids with hand-written lyrics at the bottom as a little bonus for her fans. I showed my daughter Pearl Jam’s 1996 album No Code, which also came with an assortment of Polaroids. We shared enthusiasm.So in the end, 1989 actually reminds me of an old Pearl Jam song called "Not For You" in a couple of ways. First, the title of the song, since 1989 obviously isn’t for me. And second, in one of the lines of the song: “All that’s sacred, comes from youth.”I told my daughter I wanted to listen to the album so I could write a blog post about it. But really I just thought it’d be fun to spend some time with her, just the two of us, enjoying something she was excited about.I was right.Hey you, Blog Reader Person, how 'bout you do something nice and like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes?

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When Did Pearl Jam Fans Get so Old?

Back in the late fifties and early sixties my mom was a teenager and liked the popular music of the time. The rock ‘n roll of those days is much tamer compared to what followed, but it still irritated the hell out of her father. I smile when I think of my grandpa yelling across the hall for her to “Turn that crap off!”I’m a handful of years younger today than my grandpa was back then, but rock ‘n roll still appeals to me, thankfully.I’ve been going to see Pearl Jam live for sixteen years. I saw them in Lincoln, Nebraska last week for the first time in three years. And as I stood among the general admission crowd, a few rows back from the stage, it occurred to me that Pearl Jam fans aren’t as young as they used to be.My infatuation with Pearl Jam began in 1998, when I was twenty. They’d already been around for seven or eight years, and I knew the ultra-popular songs that are still played on the radio today, but I wasn’t familiar with all of their work. As soon as I thoroughly listened to them, and especially when I saw them in a live show, I was hooked.At my third show in 1998, in Auburn Hills, Michigan, I distinctly remember the remarkable number of college-aged people in attendance. Of course there were a fair number of “old people” too, and my friends and I both admired them for their coolness, and tried to imagine whether we’d still be going to shows when we were “old.” But the crowd was predominantly young, probably 80% aged twenty-five or younger.Sometimes I’ll watch an old movie and see an actor for the first time. In the movie they’re twenty-two years old, fresh-faced, just beginning their careers. Then after the movie I look them up on IMDB and of course they lived to be eighty-five years old and they’ve been dead for twenty years!That’s what last week’s show in Lincoln was like!In my mind the Pearl Jam audience is young college students, enthusiastic about life, ready to rebel against something, and just waiting to spend a few hours jumping around and singing along with 20,000 of their closest friends.Somehow I forgot that we’ve all aged in the past sixteen years. I’ve been to more than a dozen shows since 1998, and obviously I look in the mirror everyday, but the stark difference really hit me last week.I listened to a guy near me talk about a promotion he got at the bank in Omaha where he works. A friend asked him what he’d be doing and he said, “Still selling mortgages, just getting paid more for it now.”Pearl Jam played at Metro in March 1992 with Smashing Pumpkins. How many mortgage bankers do you think were at that show?Turns out, time has marched on. It’s not 1998 anymore, and I’m not twenty years old anymore. And, of course, neither is the band. They cut their long hair years ago, and now, like the rest of us, they have less than they used to. And watching a couple of the guys on stage, I couldn’t help but notice that they, too, look older. Gone are the years where they’d play 120 shows. Now they play twenty or twenty-five shows per year.For a while I was bummed about how old everyone looked. As a friend from high school mentioned on my Facebook page, “Our days of being cool PJ fans are over. I felt that same feeling not to long ago. We are now like the hair metal fans were in our teen years.” Great, I’ve become like that guy who just can’t let go of how cool the band Ratt was in 1985.But then the show began.And I realized that it doesn’t matter. Of course I’m older. Time doesn’t stop. But like my wife said, “Fine wine, baby!”And young people still love Pearl Jam and rock ‘n roll. In Lincoln a five-year-old boy stood in the front row with his dad. A young James Franco-looking dude stood near us in the crowd, along with his friend, who was at his first Pearl Jam show. I’m hoping to bring my own kids the next time they play Alpine Valley, and I have no doubt that will be my favorite show ever.Pearl Jam plays tonight in Detroit and I’ll be there in the crowd, maybe feeling a little old. But with a good band—for a few hours—you can be young.Like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes.Want an e-mail every time I write something new? Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. I'm not going to send you a bunch of junk, and you can ditch me any time you want.

What Happened to Television Theme Songs?

I woke up this morning singing, “Maybe the world is blind/or just a little unkind.” If that doesn’t seem familiar to you, then let me give you a little refresher.Yes, it’s the theme song to Punky Brewster, the 1980s sitcom about the orphaned girl who finds a new and loving home with her foster father. I loved this show when I was a kid, not least because of its awesome theme song.(Also, it had an episode in which Punky scores some tickets to a Cubs 1984 playoff game. Spoiler alert: she gets to the park, finds out the tickets are bogus, and by some twist of fate ends up sitting in the Cubs dugout!)This happens to me every now and then. Out of the blue a television theme song will just pop into my head.“Boy the way Glenn Miller played…” (All in the Family)“Show me that smile again/Oooh, show me that smile…” (Growing Pains)“They’re creepy and they’re kooky/Mysterious and spooky…” (The Addams Family)“So no one told you life was gonna be this way…” (Friends)You’ll notice that all of those shows originally aired between the 1970s and 1990s, which brings me to my point. What happened to the catchy television intro theme song?Sitcoms used to always have theme songs, and from Gilligan’s Island to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, these songs were frequently catchy and people came to identify them with the show. The theme song sometimes seemed as important as any character on the show.Often the songs told the story of the show. However, lyrics weren’t always necessary. I can close my eyes and still hear some of the instrumental songs. The ER theme alone gave me confidence in those doctors. All those people on 90210 seemed so damn cool, and their rhythmic theme song sure didn’t hurt.Then at some point—probably in the past ten or fifteen years—the theme song virtually disappeared from network television. Most new shows don’t even bother with a theme song.Modern Family made a half-hearted effort at a theme song, but really just has a musical ten second intro more than a song. Same with How I Met your Mother, Mike & Molly and 2 Broke Girls. Parks and Recreation and 30 Rock do marginally better.So what happened? Why are networks so down on the theme song?There are a few reasons.First, by forgoing the theme song, the show has a little bit more time to develop the story. This seems like a valid point, but I’m not the first to point out that much of what is on television is plain crap. At least the folks who produced Family Matters realized that they could have a decent theme song and still have time to produce a crappy show.Second, there are financial considerations. If the show gains some time by not having a theme song, and they don’t use that time to tell the story, then maybe they can squeeze in another commercial. The fabulous 1970s show, The Fall Guy, devoted a full 100 seconds to its memorable intro, yet somehow lasted for five years, so I doubt another Buick commercial is really going to make or break a show.Third, producers are worried that if they delay the beginning of the show at all, viewers might turn to something else.I see their point, but I think they’ve got it wrong. I don’t think people are going to surf away from a show, but in the age of the DVR, it’s more likely they’ll just fast forward through it.And maybe that’s part of the problem. We now live in a time when we don’t even have to watch commercials. If we’re not going to watch the theme song, then why should a show have one?Luckily, there are a few shows in recent years that haven’t given up on trying to make a musical impression off the bat. Rescue Me, Nip/Tuck, The Americans, and Downton Abbey all have memorable intros that I’ve made a point to watch, even in the age of DVR.(Is it a coincidence that none of those shows are on regular networks?)Still, most shows today don’t have theme songs, and I think they’re missing out on the chance to achieve greatness and immortality.By the way, if you like what you're reading here, you should like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes.Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.