Ah, Taylor. I don’t even have to write her last name and you already know who I’m referring to.
Unless you’re just getting back from a year-long sabbatical during which you traversed the steppes of Uzbekistan with nothing but a backpack and no phone, you probably well aware that Ms. Swift just dropped a new album. And it’s…just okay. It’s nothing to write home about, especially when compared to her masterful previous works, and the lyricism seems to have regressed significantly. I’ll probably write a full review of the album in the next week or so, but I wanted to touch on one of the biggest talking points that’s come up during this album cycle. And it’s probably the talking point that’s been driving me the most bananapants.
Which is just how hilariously clueless the general public is when it comes to music.
Okay, that might have sounded a bit mean coming from a bitch with a music degree and decades of experience, so let me reword it a little nicer — the vast majority of the population has no idea how music theory actually works, especially in the context of copyright law. Now I’m not a lawyer, but I do know a little bit about what can be copyrighted and what can’t. Still, I want to focus more on the music side of things rather than the law side, because that’s the more fun side, right?
Anyways, let’s start here — you got these songs. There’s the questionable Charli XCX diss track, “Actually Romantic.” Among the many complaints about the song, particularly that it’s disproportionately mean-spirited, is the observation that it sounds suspiciously like the 1988 Pixies single “Where Is My Mind?” Then you have “Wood,” Tay’s tacky ode to her man’s…manhood, which people have said sounds suspiciously like the legendary Jackson 5 hit “I Want You Back.” And the song I consider lyrically the strongest of this batch, her title track collab with my current celebrity girl-crush, Sabrina Carpenter, shares a similar feeling to “Cool” by the Jonas Brothers, who were famously her associates early in her career. So what the fuck, Taylor? Are we blatantly ripping off other artists now?
And here’s the part where I get to say “Well, ACKSHUALLY” and defend Taylor’s compositional choices (even if some of the lyrical choices are much harder to defend — looking at you again, “Wood”).
In the Western music tradition, you’ve got 12 notes: A through G, plus the sharps/flats in between. It’s important to note that out of these 12 notes, only a handful sound good together. Those notes that sound good together form the “key” of any given song. The key is essentially the artist’s palette of colors. Those are the notes you can put in your song that will actually sound like they fit in the song. Anything outside of the key will sound off and even unsettling at times. That being said, you can use notes that don’t fit into the key, but it takes a certain degree of finesse and theory knowledge to pull off nicely. But for the most part, you’ve got maybe seven notes to work with, which, ya know, ain’t a lot.
Let’s get to chord progressions. What is a chord progression? Well, have you ever listened to “Poker Face” by Lady Gaga and Luis Fonsi’s “Despacito” back to back? Even though the genres of the songs are completely different, the “vibe” is still eerily similar. And that is because they share the same chord progression. There are many, many more examples. “Africa” by Toto. “One of Us” by Joan Osborne. “Peace of Mind” by Boston. “Fuckin’ Problems” by A$AP Rocky. “Alone” by my freaking favorite band of all time, Heart. And that’s just one famous chord progression. The progression the Beatles used in “Twist and Shout” was practically ubiquitous in the 50s and 60s, and the blues as a genre likely wouldn’t even exist without the 12-bar progression we know and love. And — this is important — you cannot copyright a chord progression. If I wanted to write a song that uses the exact same chord progression as Taylor’s “Love Story,” I could — and I have. Heck, she has even plagiarized herself in this regard. Go listen to “Shake It Off” and “Eldest Daughter” one after the other and tell me the latter doesn’t sound like a more somber, slowed down version of the first. That’s because they use the same three-chord progression.
Did Tay lift the chord progressions for her new songs from preexisting songs? There’s a chance, but even if she did, you have to remember that musicians have been gleaning ideas from each other for time immemorial. Everyone is influenced by someone. But there’s also a decent chance she just sat down at her piano or with a guitar and those are the chords that naturally came out. Because, like I mentioned earlier, they just sound good together. Our ears are conditioned since birth to listen for patterns in music, and you’re so used to hearing a V chord resolve into a I chord (that’s historically the most common way to end a musical phrase — the authentic cadence). So when you go to write a song, that’s what you naturally gravitate toward.
There is a great deal of discourse around the supposed lack of originality on this album, but I don’t think that’s a fair critique. I think there are plenty of valid critiques when it comes to this album, but I don’t think this is one of them. You could argue that Taylor opened herself up to more scrutiny in this area when she went after Olivia Rodrigo for rights on a song that only marginally sounded like hers (and like, only if you squint). At the same time, I don’t like any criticism of “copying” in songwriting unless it’s a particularly egregious example. Music, at the end of the day, is a social art, and musicians are going to keep borrowing from each other like they always have. As one of my favorite writers, Austin Kleon, says, it’s okay to “steal like an artist.” I’m allowed to have influences. You’re allowed to have influences.
And so is Taylor.
JESSA JOYCE 