Chart Junkie

Let’s just start by saying this is my opinion. If you do a search for Aria Charts week of 22nd Nov, and you will see Taylor Swift straight to number one. The song ” All to Well” (Taylors Version). The song is a 10-minute version. and in my opinion, is an average song, and is really just background noise.

Check the chart out here

She has no less than 12 songs in the top 50. That’s 24% of the chart.

WTF is going on? because she doesn’t hold the rights to the original recordings she has re-recorded her music and re-released it, so when you see a Taylor Swift song there will be two versions, the original and Taylors version. I don’t care that she has re-released her music, but to flood the market with your songs stops and prevents other artists from getting accolades and rewards for their hard work.

You have to ask why is she doing this for what reason? If it’s just to own the rights, cool, great, mint, you did it! But in this case, the charts are based on sales and downloads, so she re-releases her music, to her many fans, downloads the new tracks to hear Taylors version, but really there’s no difference.

Taylor has not just re-released one or two tracks, it’s her whole back catalog. So this is going to continue for a long time.

What Taylor has done, I believe is for greed, the money Taylor will be making from what she has done will be huge, and it set’s a precedent for other artists to do the same. I am not against ownership, I think artists should own their rights, but if you give up those rights, you should not be able to redo everything so you short-change the current owner. Let’s be clear on this, this is not a copyright of the lyrics, but ownership of the actual recording, the production, etc.

On PopRock Radio we play a number of Taylor’s tracks, no one can argue that her music doesn’t sell, it does, and she’s doing it a second time. I don’t think she needs the money, I don’t think she is doing it to find fame, she is already famous. I think she is doing it to be relevant.

During covid, other artists have released music and managed to stay relevant or to find an audience, and Taylor just re-releases music to her huge fan base. I really think she is a chart junkie and needs that presence, otherwise, people will forget her. Fans are fickle they will jump to the next big thing, it’s just human nature.

How can anyone compete with the juggernaut that is Taylor Swift? How can new artists compete, well luckily we play new music from new and exciting artists? Should Commercial radio Stations be made to play more local artists? More Australian Content? I think it’s a social conscious to play and promote local bands, and hopefully, just hopefully one of those bands will get at least one song in the top 50.

As always leave a comment below,