I never even heard of Taylor Swift, let alone heard any of her songs before last night.
Saw her win the award, and my first reaction was, WTF?. Who? What? Why? How?
I thought Kanye jumping onstage and interupting her speech was funny. Both funny because he was interupting an acceptance speech - let's face folks NOBODY BUT THE PEOPLE GETTING THANKED IN THESE GIVES A RATS ASS - and funny because you could see Kanye sticking his foot into his big mouth again. Good stuff.
I think part of the reason that some people get all upset about this is that they take these events and awards too seriously. They aren't serious. They aren't important. They aren't accurate. The winners are so often not "the best". They aren't lasting. It is entertainment fluff. Garbage really. So the "winners" getting all serious and thanking their agent and god and blah, blah, blah, is insanely BORING.
Bunch of self-centered, pompus, ego-driven, over-competitive, jerks. The whole lot of them. Why would I care when one jerk steps all over the "moment" of someone taking the event waaaaay too seriously. Yes, that means you Taylor.
And besides, it wouldn't have been so bad for Swift if MTV (and their terrible, terrible production team) hadn't cut her off after Kanye handed the mic back to her.
As for the music: Beyonce's song is silly, but kinda catchy and the dancing was good. Swift's song, which was performed later - was pedestrian, sappy and boring. And since her singing voice has little distinctive character, we are all left with, who cares and why is this special again?
Kanye is a high level musical talent that runs rings around Swift.
The world, the numbers, and music-supporters everywhere disagree.
from wiki:
Signed to Big Machine Records in late 2006, she has released two studio albums, 9 singles, and several music videos. Additionally, Swift has issued two EPs including a Christmas EP and a compilation EP.
Swift became the first solo female artist to score 5 top 10 hits from a debut album since the album chart was first published in 1964.[1] According to Nielsen SoundScan, Fearless and Taylor Swift are among the Top 10 bestselling albums of 2008, which ranked at #3 and #6 respectively. Swift was the bestselling album artist of 2008 in all popular music formats with 4,003,000 copies sold in the United States.[2]
The first single from the second album, "Love Story" eventually reached #4 and became Swift's highest charted single on Billboard Hot 100 and Canadian Hot 100 at the time, as well as the first country song to reach Number One the Mainstream Top 40 chart. [3] The song has already distinguished itself as the country song with the most paid downloads in history, tops the 3 million mark in paid downloads on the week ending March 15, 2009.[4] The song was also released in several countries, and charted at #1 on Australian ARIA Singles Chart. It was Swift's first international single. Since then, "You Belong with Me" peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week of August 22, 2009, becoming her highest charting single.[5]
As of the week ending January 11, 2009, Swift became the first country artist to reach the 2 million paid download mark with three different songs.[6] Her album "Fearless" produced six top twenty hits, making her the fourth female to acheive this feat.
She has sold over 10 million albums and 30 million records, as of 9th September 2009.
from wiki:
The following is a comprehensive listing of official releases by Kanye West, an American rapper, singer, and producer. He has released four studio albums, one DVD, and fifteen singles on Def Jam Recordings.
He has also sold nearly 11 million albums in the United States and over 16 million worldwide.
West's debut album, The College Dropout, was released in February 2004 and it produced five singles, including U.S. Billboard Hot 100 #1 single "Slow Jamz", featuring rapper Twista and R&B singer Jamie Foxx, and the Grammy Award winner "Jesus Walks". The album reached #2 in the U.S., and has sold over four million copies and been certified 2x Platinum by the RIAA. West's second album, Late Registration, debuted at #1 on the U.S. Billboard 200 albums charts, and the U.S. Rap Album Charts, with just under 900,000 sales in its first week, the most first week sales in the history of West's record label, Def Jam. Late Registration produced the #1 single "Gold Digger", with Jamie Foxx, and the award winning singles "Touch the Sky", with rapper Lupe Fiasco, and "Diamonds from Sierra Leone", with rapper Jay-Z. Late Registration is one of very few rap albums to receive a 5/5 from Rolling Stone magazine. The critically acclaimed album has sold over 6 million copies, and has gained five multi-platinum certifications, including 3x Platinum from the RIAA. West's third album, Graduation, sold over 950,000 sales in its first week, breaking the previous record set by West's last album. Graduation held the U.S. #1 spot for over a month, also reaching #1 in the UK.. It spawned two Grammy Award winning singles, the #1 single "Stronger" and the top ten single "Good Life" with T-Pain. West's fourth album went in a controversially new direction, singing rather than rapping. The album, 808s & Heartbreak, was a third consecutive #1 for West. It spawned two top three singles, "Love Lockdown" and "Heartless", which topped the U.S. Airplay charts for three straight weeks.
Swift has outsold West 3-1 since she got her first record contract in late 2006. Barely out of high school, she is destined to be a country-pop music queen for as long as she likes. Talented and intelligent, and soooooooooooo much more mature than Kanye by all appearances, she's the real deal. She composes, writes well, sings great and knows how to entertain a crowd.
Kanye, riding too many years of repetitively boring rap MUZAK in which he mostly leans on more-talented guest artists to make his records palatable, is fading fast into a downward spiral of drugs and alcohol. Had he any exceptional talent or creativity, or even manners, he would have shown it by now. What he
has shown is racism, rudeness, and jealousy.
