Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but the President-elect of Chile has spoken out in support of Taylor Swift, in her current Twitter spat with rock singer Damon Albarn.
Wow. That’s a lot to take in. This feels like one of those moments where we need the screeching record sound, with a voiceover of “You’re probably wondering how I got into this mess.”
So here’s the deal: We’ll try to sum this up as easily as possible, but it’s probably going to take some Twitter streams down below to really make sense of it.
First off, you need to know who Damon Albarn is. If you’re a rock fan, you might know the name as the former lead singer of the band Blur, and one of the leaders of the weird virtual band, Gorillaz. So, in the music business, the British singer is a fairly big deal.
Fast forward to this week, and Albarn is featured in a Los Angeles Times article, mostly focusing on his solo work. And in that piece, Albarn has the following exchange with the writer:
You think a lot of modern musicians are relying on sound and attitude?
Name me someone who’s not.She may not be to your taste, but Taylor Swift is an excellent songwriter.
She doesn’t write her own songs.Of course she does. Co-writes some of them.
That doesn’t count. I know what co-writing is. Co-writing is very different to writing. I’m not hating on anybody, I’m just saying there’s a big difference between a songwriter and a songwriter who co-writes. Doesn’t mean that the outcome can’t be really great. And some of the greatest singers — I mean, Ella Fitzgerald never wrote a song in her life. When I sing, I have to close my eyes and just be in there. I suppose I’m a traditionalist in that sense. A really interesting songwriter is Billie Eilish and her brother. I’m more attracted to that than to Taylor Swift. It’s just darker — less endlessly upbeat. Way more minor and odd. I think she’s exceptional.
And oh boy has that set off a firestorm. If you know anything about Taylor Swift and her fans on Twitter, it’s that you probably shouldn’t make comments like that.
So where does the President-elect of Chile, Gabriel Boric Font, come into play on this? We’ll get to that below. Let’s dive into the Twitter portion of this debate.
