(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
I feel it is protected to say that 2023 was the 12 months of Beyonce.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BEYONCE: It is due to you and your assist that I am doing precisely what I dreamed of doing my complete life, and I thanks.
(CHEERING)
BEYONCE: Thanks a lot for making my desires come true.
DETROW: And Taylor Swift.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TAYLOR SWIFT: We’re about to go on slightly journey collectively, and that journey goes to span 17 years of music. How does that sound?
DETROW: My co-host, Juana Summers, took a have a look at the famous person’s 12 months and requested the massive query – why, when you have got two achieved artists like this, do individuals really feel the necessity to evaluate them and make them compete?
JUANA SUMMERS, BYLINE: These two girls dominated the summer season. You had Beyonce’s “Renaissance.”
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: Renaissance, renaissance.
SUMMERS: And also you had Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SWIFT: (Singing) In case you love like that, blood runs chilly.
SUMMERS: On-line, it looks as if everybody was speaking about these excursions, and so they have been actually being mentioned within the media.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: Calling all Swifties. Your wildest desires are coming true.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #3: Nicely, it is time for a summer season renaissance right here within the U.S. Beyonce is…
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #4: Regardless of the warmth and the possibility for rain, Beyonce followers are piling into MetLife Stadium.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #5: Tonight, Taylor Swift is in her Levi’s period. The Silicon Valley hasn’t seen an occasion like this in years.
SWIFT: Are you prepared for it?
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #6: They’re prepared, and native economies can thank Swifties and the Beyhive for a summer season money enhance.
SUMMERS: The summer season frenzy of Beyonce and Taylor Swift was a significant success. Each launched movie variations of their excursions in theaters, which allowed individuals a front-row seat to expertise their artistry. And the movies elevated the unbelievable amount of cash the 2 made. Beyonce and Taylor Swift are financial powerhouses.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SUMMERS: The artists generated greater than $10 billion for the U.S. this 12 months. And past cash, in 2023, Beyonce broke the report for many Grammy wins, and Taylor Swift was named Time Journal’s Particular person of the Yr. They each triumphed this 12 months, and but, within the midst of their success, the query of who is best has come up time and again. The origin of Beyonce and Taylor Swift being pitted towards each other goes again to 2009 on the Video Music Awards. That 12 months, Taylor Swift received the award for Finest Feminine Video, and whereas she was in the course of her acceptance speech, Kanye West got here up on stage, and, nicely, this occurred.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KANYE WEST: I am actually comfortable for you. I will allow you to end, however Beyonce had among the finest movies of all time.
(APPLAUSE)
WEST: Among the best movies of all time.
(BOOING)
SUMMERS: Boos from the group, a shocked look from Beyonce, a popular culture scandal enjoying out in actual time. Later that evening, when Beyonce received the award for Finest Video of the Yr, she introduced Taylor Swift up on stage so she might end her speech.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BEYONCE: So I might like for Taylor to return out and have her second.
(APPLAUSE)
SUMMERS: Regardless of that, the controversy on the 2009 VMAs cemented years to return of evaluating these two artists. However this isn’t a brand new phenomenon – pitting girls towards one another within the music business. Nicki Minaj versus Lil’ Kim, Britney Spears versus Christina Aguilera, Cher versus Celine Dion – the record of comparisons goes on.
TAMMY KERNODLE: My worry is that we’re not going to see the true improvement of girls artists, and we will nonetheless have these aggressive tropes.
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SUMMERS: Conversations have been primarily enjoying out amongst followers on podcasts and on platforms like TikTok. Let’s take a take heed to a few of what was being mentioned.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Who’s extra well-known, Beyonce or Taylor Swift?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Taylor Swift.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Beyonce. She acquired more cash than Taylor.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Taylor Swift.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Why do you assume so?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Eras Tour.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: I do not need to put – I, like, am each of their greatest followers, so I do not need to put them towards one another. However I’ve to say Taylor.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: You are doing a disservice to Beyonce to match her to Taylor Swift as a result of Taylor is in one other galaxy. You’ll be able to’t inform me Beyonce has the identical quantity of hits, no options, as Taylor.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: No, she does.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: Take away the characteristic…
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #7: Who’s the larger artist, Taylor Swift or Beyonce?
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: Beyonce.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #7: Why?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #8: As a result of…
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #9: As a result of it is Beyonce.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #8: That is what I am saying. Like, what else? Like, no hate to T. Swizzle, however Bey Swizzle acquired it.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #7: Who do you assume is the larger artist, Taylor Swift or Beyonce?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #10: They’re each equally very gifted girls.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #7: That wasn’t the query.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #11: I would like for y’all to cease evaluating these two. I am simply aggravated that y’all do that anytime they’re in the identical neighborhood. Sure, they’re each on tour. Sure, they’re making thousands and thousands. Why do y’all acquired to match?
SUMMERS: All proper. It’s clear that Swifties and members of the Beyhive have very sturdy opinions about these artists. However as we simply heard, there are individuals questioning why each girls cannot coexist as particular person musicians. To unpack that query, I spoke to Tammy Kernodle, a professor of music at Miami College in Ohio.
There appears to be this impulse – you are taking these two girls who’re each having these unbelievable years – there’s this collective impulse that now we have to match the 2 of them. Why do you assume that’s?
KERNODLE: Now, that is such an attention-grabbing query, notably given the truth that once you have a look at the rankings of the highest excursions from 2023, nobody is speaking about Bruce Springsteen competing with Ed Sheeran or any of those male artists who’ve been recognized, you understand, in these prime excursions. Why is it that ladies are all the time pitted towards one another? And I feel it has rather a lot to do with the best way by which, you understand, we outline artistry, we outline acceptable area in sure social spheres, but additionally, in reference to music, whether or not girls will be throughout the narrative.
And oftentimes, what has occurred, notably within the historical past of common music in America, is that there is solely been area for one lady, and she or he needs to be an distinctive lady. And the best way by which that exceptionalism is measured or marked regularly adjustments, in accordance with style of music, generally race, generally technology. You realize, it simply varies. However arduous and quick, there’s solely been area for one lady.
SUMMERS: And I imply, that is clearly a phenomenon in our tradition that didn’t begin with Beyonce and Taylor. It didn’t begin in 2023. It dates again many years, centuries even. Can you are taking us via a few of the historical past of how now we have ended up pitting girls towards one another within the music business?
KERNODLE: One of many earliest examples of this I can draw on comes from jazz and particularly, once you see how pianist Mary Lou Williams…
(SOUNDBITE OF MARY LOU WILLIAMS’ “THE MAN I LOVE”)
KERNODLE: …Was usually pitted towards pianist Hazel Scott…
(SOUNDBITE OF HAZEL SCOTT’S “THE WHITE KEYS AND THE BLACK KEYS”)
KERNODLE: …In the course of the Nineteen Thirties and ’40s – each very consummate, proficient, genre-bending, extraordinary musicians however each working throughout the jazz paradigm as pianist. And whereas that is acceptable, you understand, there’s nonetheless this contested area about them. And so there are literal critiques of data, and there is literal commentary by jazz journalists the place they are saying, you understand, Hazel Scott must take heed to this Mary Lou Williams report to know what actual jazz is.
So this query of competitors is one about who will get to outline what’s genuine in sound and musicianship in a style, proper? So there’s this fixed pitting feminine artists towards one another. Typically it is wrapped up solely in sound and expertise and musicianship, and different occasions, it is simply primarily based in petty observations that, earlier than the arrival of social media, have been simply easy conversations that we, as followers, may need had amongst ourselves. However now they get amplified into larger, you understand, narratives.
SUMMERS: We’re having a dialog about arguably two of the largest and most iconic feminine artists of our day, however I need to convey the dialog, if I can, again to the boys once more, for the second. And the purpose you made earlier is that this sort of comparability doesn’t occur between male artists of the identical caliber. Why do you assume that’s?
KERNODLE: As a result of all the pieces about our public sphere has been outlined in masculinity – our language, our mind-set politically, economically, socially and in addition culturally. We have now but to totally untap, actually, what are the roles of girls because it pertains to cultural expression? And so we nonetheless in some methods have appeared to male voices because the progenitors, because the definers, because the tastemakers because it pertains to a lot of our social tradition. And to allow them to exist in an area the place it may be multiple of them, and what they will additionally exist in is a state of mediocrity. Ladies can’t. So we all the time should be distinctive, it doesn’t matter what, in an effort to rise to the highest.
SUMMERS: One other factor that strikes me after we speak about this so-called rivalry between Beyonce and Taylor Swift is the truth that it has all the time appeared to be nonexistent on their half and a creation of individuals exterior to them. I imply, these are two girls who’ve, through the years, outwardly supported each other. I imply, when Taylor Swift was named Time’s Particular person of the Yr for 2023, she stated this – and I am quoting her right here – clearly, it’s extremely profitable for the media and stan (ph) tradition to pit two girls towards one another, even when these two artists in query refuse to take part in that dialogue. What did you make of that?
KERNODLE: It is precisely true. It’s extra profitable to fire up, you understand, so-called rivalries or tensions between artists as a result of what it does is it requires us to assert positions. It additionally causes for us to talk with our greenbacks. And so the individuals who profit from this will not be these two artists, so to talk, though we do see of their case, you understand, the financial residuals of this. However extra so, it fuels an business that is all the time been primarily based in controversy in some kind of means. The cultural business thrives off of that as a result of what it allows is their continuous manufacturing and dissemination of tradition with out us scrutinizing – what are their practices? – with out us scrutinizing, you understand – what’s the exploitation and the manipulation that’s happening?
SUMMERS: So Tammy, I need to finish by asking you for options. How will we get away from this narrative, this concept that there can solely be one, that distinctive lady? What will we do?
KERNODLE: I feel it is accountable journalism. I feel that is sort of the place it begins. It is accountable journalism. I feel it additionally requires individuals like me who write and educate and analysis in these areas to proceed to light up – what are these historic narratives? – as a result of after we perceive that ladies artists have been current via all of those totally different progressive ages of change and musical evolution, then we will perceive that this has all the time been an inclusive dialog and that ladies didn’t maintain a trivial place in these subcultures and these ecosystems that encompass the music. We simply should hold telling the story. We have now to maintain uncovering historic narratives.
SUMMERS: That was Tammy Kernodle, professor of music at Miami College in Ohio. Thanks a lot.
KERNODLE: Thanks.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “LONDON BOY”)
SWIFT: (Singing) I really like my hometown as a lot as Motown. I really like SoCal. And you understand I really like Springsteen, light blue denims, Tennessee whiskey. However one thing occurred. I heard him laughing. I noticed the dimples first, after which I heard the accent. After which I heard the accent. They are saying house is the place the center is, however that is not the place mine lives. You realize I really like a London boy. I get pleasure from strolling Camden Market within the afternoon. He likes my American smile, like a baby when our eyes meet…
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “CUFF IT”)
BEYONCE: (Singing) I really feel like falling in love. I am within the temper to roll one thing up. I would like some drink in my cup. Hey, I am within the temper to drag one thing up. I need to go lacking. I would like a prescription. I need to go greater. Can I sit on prime of you? I need to go the place no one’s been. Have you ever ever had enjoyable like this earlier than? We going to roll up tonight.
DETROW: That was Taylor Swift and Beyonce.
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