`Where are the famous songs?'
The Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant is not a fan of megastar Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift's Eras Tour is the highest-grossing concert tour of all time, but the Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant isn't all that impressed by her music output to date.
In a Guardian Live event this week, the British singer casually dumped on Swift's global dominance, saying she hasn't reached the same heights as the late Michael Jackson.
“I was looking at the chart today and it is all Taylor Swift,” Tennant said during the panel (per Entertainment Weekly). “Taylor Swift sort of fascinates me as a phenomenon because she's so popular, and I sort of quite like the whole thing, but then when I listen to the records ... for a phenomenon as big (as her), where are the famous songs? What's Taylor Swift's Billie Jean?”
Pet Shop Boys keyboardist Chris Lowe, who was sitting next to him on stage, questioned his assessment asking: “Shake It Off?”
“Is it, though?” Tennant replied. “I listened to that the other day, and it's not Billie Jean, is it?”
Tennant did admit he likes how Swift has been able to find an audience with different generations of fans and conceded she's “got a great voice.”
“I like the fact that it brings all these people together, even multi-generational,” the West End Girls singer continued. “I just think the one disappointing thing is the music. Not even the lyrics, the music.”
Tennant's remarks follow fellow musician Courtney Love, who declared earlier this month that Swift “is not important.”
“She might be a safe space for girls, and she's probably the Madonna of now, but she's not interesting as an artist,” Love, 59, said.
But Swift's legion of fans aren't paying any attention to the criticism. Her new record, The Tortured Poets Department, has become the first album in Spotify's history to pick up a billion streams in a single week.
Tennant's comments are also clearly at odds with Swift's dominance on the singles charts. The 14-time Grammy winner has had a number of recent hits, including Cardigan from Folklore, Willow from Evermore, Anti-Hero from Midnights and Is It Over Now? from 1989 (Taylor's Version), which have all hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts in the past two years. She also landed a No. 1 hit with Cruel Summer (a song that came out in 2019) last year.