Jonathan Allen, writing for Vox:
I charged a Taylor Swift ticket to my man card. And it was worth it.
She’s a class act who puts on a great show and manages to deliver messages about self-worth and self-empowerment while touching on universal struggles that anyone can relate to, no matter their demographic. Yeah, I’m proud to call myself a Taylor Swift fan.
The other day, as I was finishing up with a patient, the subject of music came up.[1] My patient was a 40-something year-old male, and we shared with each other our musical preferences. Being the well-rounded music nerd that I am, I mentioned Pearl Jam and Third Eye Blind—obvious favorites for the average 40-something male, right? We also agreed on the absolute mastery of the art exhibited by Elton John in his early 70’s albums such as Tumbleweed Connection. We talked a bit about new music too.
Just as it always does, a discussion of modern pop music has to include my two cents about modern electric bass guitar. And I can’t talk about bass guitar without mentioning something about Taylor Swift.
Somewhat perplexingly, as soon as I mentioned being a fan Taylor Swift,[2] the conversation changed. It wasn’t awkward or anything, but after Taylor Swift came up, my patient made it abundantly clear that my musical tastes were suspect.[3] It is almost as if he couldn’t believe that a 20-something year-old male like myself could appreciate Taylor Swift?
I suppose the notion that a guy liking a girl pop star is just, on the most superficial of levels, somewhat emasculating. I don’t subscribe to that theory myself, but I think my patient did. And that’s a real shame, because as a fan of roots-style bass guitar in pop music, I look no further than Amos Heller, Tae’s touring bassist since 2007.
Oh well. Why does my patient gotta be so mean?
My J-O-B is a nice one, but I don’t enjoy it nearly as much as I do talking about non-dental things like music, or movies, or technology. ↩
More precisely, I said I would up and quit my J-O-B job for the opportunity to go play bass for her 🎸 ↩
He also insinuated that my professional skills must be suspect too, since I liked Taylor Swift. We ell oh ell’d together at that. ↩