Research Project - The Text: The Irreducible Plural

ART 540 Taylor Swift

    I chose to present Taylor Swift given that A. there are some connections with my final project (musical elements) and B. I feel like her lyrics + visuals best represent the prompt. 
    Looking at the connections between Taylor Swift (her lyrics, her storytelling, etc.) and my final project (burned CDs) is that each album is pertinent to certain times in life. For Taylor Swift, we see her life unfold throughout the duration of her teens + adulthood, where she explores topics such as love, friendships, family, and more; this is done through a couple of genres as well. Her first 4 albums were country albums, and this shows her transition from being a teenager to navigating adulthood. Over the course of these albums, she incorporates more pop songs into her albums. She officially shifts to a pop singer with her 5th album and continues this for her 6th and 7th album. These 3 albums have shown her maturity given her composure regarding gossip and personal affairs. Her 8th and 9th album, still with hints of pop, have shifted to indie-folk. Given that she was at peace with her life, her lyrics strayed away from elements of her life and instead went to creating stories and singing them. The burned CDs I have separate different aspects of my life in different genres as well. I have a total of 4 genres burned (genres is not the right word I'm looking for but I'm not sure how else best to describe it): Divorced Dad Rock, Country music - particularly sad songs, Power Ballads, and Spanish songs. For me, this doesn't show growth but rather having different ways of living simultaneously. Divorced Dad Rock and sad country music was evident on my dad's side of the family, and power ballads and Spanish songs were evident on my mom's side of the family. 
    As for matching the prompt, her discography spans over a decade so of course there will be changes in her music/style. These changes are important to highlight seeing how she's persevered through challenges. She doesn't explicitly state her life changes. For signs, they were coincidences in her life that aligned with her lyrics. For symbols, she uses them to have control of her future (to hint for fans what to expect from her, but her biggest use of symbolism was to use hate symbols directed as her and rebrand them to her benefit for her Reputation album). For language, we see repetitions from her older lyrics in her more recent lyrics as a way to see how her perspective of life has changed. 

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