By trademarking a number of bland phrases from her equally tasteless album 1989, pop star and budding megalomaniac Taylor Swift has inched even closer to world domination — her brand of music more conducive to mindless servitude than others.
The move is tactless, a befuddling Monsanto-esque strong-arm on something she didn’t even create, the antithesis to the type of good humor she’s always trying to project. While she’s at it she may as well trademark “good morning” or “hello.”
The phrases seized include: “This sick beat,” “Party like it’s 1989,” “‘Cause we never go out of style,” “Could show you incredible things,” and “Nice to meet you. Where you been?”
So if you’re looking to put one of these gut wrenching phrases on say a bar of soap or wind chime (yes, that is correct) then you better look elsewhere because Swift and a motley crew of lawyers are waiting in the clutches, ready to hammer you into the ground like a loose nail.
Her thievery tells us two things: (1) if you’re rich and famous you can buy anything, not limited to the earth and sky; and (2) that musicians aren’t musicians so much as they are brands, more in tune with the bottom line than actual music.
Taylor Swift had to have known that the lyrics party like it’s 1989 were a ripoff of Prince‘s party like it’s 1999, which is it what this so difficult to swallow. She’s sticking her hand in the creative cookie jar and getting upset when someone else does the same. And in a world where so often the haves take away from the have nots, it couldn’t be more a reason to scoff at something like this.
In truth it’s a shrewd business move because generally speaking musicians don’t make much money off music anymore, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying — indicative of the era in which we live. If it’s a surprise that this is happening then the next century will certainly be something to behold.
Taylor Swift is only doing what countless other greedy mongrels have done before. Hopefully this’ll show fans what lies beneath, and wake them up from the spell of blind adoration.
