a taylor swift studies quick hit

can she save music, critics ask. i never ask.

A popular online meme right now is: “Taylor Swift is the music industry.” If I understand this Ted Gioia open letter right, he wants her to do to make that meme real:

An Open Letter to Taylor Swift

His actual call to action here is a bit vague but I take this to be the money quote:

The people behind it were not business executives. They weren’t investors or financiers. The four people who founded United Artists were the three most popular movie stars in Hollywood (Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks) and the most famous director (D.W. Griffith).

(You can read a little more about United Artists here. There’s also a MUBI series!)

Anyway… my main thoughts on this are:

• If you want to talk Taylor Swift into doing something, this is probably the right approach, rhetorically speaking. No guilt tripping.

• Taylor kicking the movies studios to the curb and distributing her tour documentary herself with AMC is a big sign that she just doesn’t need anybody if they’re not playing ball with her. She has the money and …