The deplorable state of the current (live) music industry (using Taylor Swift as an example) | Coast Is Clear

Well, first of all I wish you all Happy New Year and hope you all got along well. Which is exactly what you want if the year number is increased by 1 after approx. 365 days. 🙂 What I would also like for 2025 (among many other things): that Taylor Swift would no longer be presented so omnipresent on all possible channels (even Arte). She's well respected even in indie circles, which I could understand a little bit until a while ago, but since she's basically just going around in circles musically and delivering uninspired things, the hype has been getting to me . But that's just me, tastes are different.

Actually, my slightly different posting today isn't supposed to be specifically about her, even if she does serve as an example of a sad trend in the live industry. The British YouTube channel Wings of Pegasus For several years now, we have been thoroughly and objectively (and therefore ruthlessly) investigating which singers' performances are still live today, how much autotune and pitch correction are now used everywhere to make the sound of today's (live) music more and more “perfect”. and thus make it more interchangeable.

Due to popular demand, Fil from WoP went on Taylor's era tour a few times and found out that some of the songs are completely playback (including the music), some others Taylor at least doesn't sing live and when she does, her voice is accompanied by live music. Autotune kept on track. In the end, you pay more for the show and the surroundings, not really for real live music. Pretty sad. As I said, it's not necessarily about Taylor as such, as this trend of “semi/pseudo-live” music has also affected many other acts and is now practically the industry standard.

I can only recommend the Wings of Pegasus channel to everyone (if you want to know what's going on everywhere and who's tricking where (and who isn't)). And Taylor should just shorten her shows from just under 4 to 2 hours and play them completely live, that would be something.

As I said, Fil has made several videos on the subject of Taylor, all of which are enlightening (and entertaining):