‘What is Taylor Swift’s Billie Jean?’
The Pet Shop Boys’ singer Neil Tennant has criticised Taylor Swift’s music, saying that couldn’t understand her popularity.
It’s been difficult to avoid Swift’s music over the last month (or even the last year for that matter) after she released her new album The Tortured Poets Department.
Since its release last month, the record has become one of the fastest selling albums of 2024 so far, and landed the star her seventh number one album in Ireland.
But at the Guardian Live event ‘An Evening with Pet Shop Boys’, Tennant said her popularity “fascinates” him and that he couldn’t quite understand it.
He explained that he would expect better music from an artist as popular as Swift, and that her song’s didn’t compare to artists such as Michael Jackson, the Mirror reports.
He told those in attendance: “I was looking at the chart today and it is all Taylor Swift. She sorts of fascinates me as a phenomenon because she is so popular. But then I listen to the records and I think, ‘Where are the famous songs?’
“What is Taylor Swift’s Billie Jean? Shake It Off? I listened to that the other day and it is not Billie Jean, is it?”
Tennant said he likes Swift for the way her songs “bring people together”, explaining that the “one disappointing thing is the music, not the lyrics.”
The vocalist was also critical of the pop star’s habit of using her love life and break-ups as inspiration for her songs.
“To have a successful pop career now you have to have a series of relationships, which are amazing and then break up tragically,” he said.
“In the world of pop, people don’t write songs like ‘Karma Chameleon’ anymore.”
This isn’t the first time the Pet Shop Boys have been less than positive about Swift. Back in 2016, the duo labelled her the “Margaret Thatcher of pop music” due to the fact she “seems to be about economics.”
The Pet Shop Boys are one of the most successful British music acts of all time.
Best known for songs such as West End Girls, It’s A Sin and Go West, the duo – made up of Tennant and keyboardist Chris Lowe – are one of the most iconic artists of the 1980s, and have sold more than 50 million records worldwide.
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