Not content with copywriting everyday phrases and words, pop starlet Taylor Swift has also gone around and started purchasing a whole lot of domain names.
To be more specific, she’s actually reportedly bought a pretty hefty collection of Swifty-related porn domains, including Taylorswift.porn and Taylorswift.adult. It’s a pretty damn smart decision, quickly snapping them up before others can use her name to brand adult content.
Basically, a whole range of new domains will be made available for public purchase on June 1, including .porn, .adult, .sucks, .fashion, .wtf and more. While there has traditionally been only 22 domains (.com, .net etc.) there will soon be closer to 600, with more are on the way.
A lot of companies have quickly rushed in to buy some of the more potentially-troublesome or controversial names, to avoid any potential problems in the future when trolls buy ’em all up. Microsoft Office have purchased office.porn and office.adult, for instance, according to the CEO of ICM Registry.
Don’t get your hopes up though. We can only assume that these links will now forever be left unused.
We recently heard the terrifying news that Taylor Swift had managed to start trademarking a whole range of lyrics from her last album 1989, including the phrase ” this sick beat ,” alongside “Party Like It’s 1989,” “Nice to Meet You. Where You Been?” and more. Needless to say, it’s caused something of a stir, and a lot of people aren’t happy with it.
Firstly, if you want to understand how trademarking something like that is possible, read this article in Time Money. It does a great job of explaining it.
There’s been a whole range of responses to the news, from many many people. But the best response so far has been from heavy metal artist Ben Norton, otherwise known as Peculate. Angry about Swifty’s trademark attempts, he penned a Facebook note and a parody protest song, This Sick Beat™:
The reception to his two-minutes of growling, howling metal and a simple yet somehow hilarious video clip, has been immense. Instantly going viral, it’s been featured everywhere from the Sydney Morning Herald to Billboard, from The AV Club to Time.
Check it out here
Taylor Swift, Tay, Swifty, T-Swizzle, Lemon Drizzle – whatever her current nickname is – is now in the running to top Australia’s “biggest music democracy,” the Triple J Hottest 100. Articles have exploded left, right and centre – all stemming from a *cough* ‘grassroots campaign’ from everyones favourite Buzzfeed. But why exactly is the debate so heated? Why should it matter if Taylor Swift tops, or even registers, on the Triple J Hottest 100?
One of the reasons this debate has ignited so much heat is because it has ensnared the two extremes of music fans and put them in a boxing ring. It’s pure, commercial pop vs. Triple J. Each of the warring parties would love nothing more than to draw blood. Countless Facebook comments are along the lines of ‘wouldn’t it be funny if Taylor Swift won, just to stick it to the hipsters’. Likewise, many Triple J fans want Taylor Swift unceremoniously booted merely because she is what they would describe as ‘putrid pop trash’. Neither are especially valid arguments or helpful to the debate. First rule of arguing – don’t make it personal.
This debate also has nothing to do with the quality of Shake It Off. Whether you think it is a superb masterpiece created by the Queen of Pop herself, or a pathetic excuse of a song that typifies everything that is wrong with contemporary music – it doesn’t matter. Maybe even Triple J presenters Matt & Alex love nothing more than to while away a lazy afternoon drinking cocktails and bopping to Shake It Off. Doesn’t matter. This is a matter of eligibility.
The emphasis and purpose of Triple J is giving support to emerging, upcoming, new Australian artists and those around the globe. It is almost unparalleled in being able to expose new talent to the masses of hungry music fans quickly. Taylor Swift can hardly be described as emerging. However, many will argue that she is eligible because chart-topping megastars such as Lorde, Gotye and Lily Allen still feature on the list. However, this is because Triple J supported them as upcoming artists, and continues to support them after they have made it.
Ironically, Triple J heavyweight Vance Joy is in the running for the Hottest 100 but is also Taylor Swift’s supporting act on her global tour. But the difference is that Vance Joy was fostered, supported and honed by Triple J. In return, he has made time for countless interviews, created publicity and support for Triple J and headlined at Triple J festivals. Hence his success feeds directly back into support for emerging artists, and gives them a shot at what he’s achieved. Conversely, Taylor Swift has done approximately nothing for Triple J, and the host of young musicians it supports. She has been airlifted in from the top by hoards of fans that likely don’t understand the importance or background of the Hottest 100. The fact that she picked up Vance Joy is due to the success of Triple J in promoting his music.
We must also ask, what exactly is the point of this campaign to get Lemon Drizzle to the top? She has topped charts across the globe, is a millionaire and one of the most influential people in the world. She is being voted to the top by her fans for a kick and a laugh, encouraged by the ‘journalists’ at Buzzfeed. Now, potentially thousands of Taylor Swift fans around the world are now voting in an Australian countdown, who have no knowledge of what the countdown means in Australian culture and its importance. Triple J is a musical representation of the unspoken Australian tradition of supporting the underdog.
Whether Triple J takes this as a joke and allows her to enter, or whether it shuts down her campaign is yet to be seen as they refuse to comment while the votes are still being counted. But this year is now critical for setting a precedent. If Taylor Swift is allowed in this year, what is stopping the masses of Katy Perry ‘KatyCats’ or Lady GaGa’s ‘Little Monsters’ from infiltrating the countdown next year, just because they have the power of a global and obsessive fan base? Before long, it could be a minefield of Little Swizzlers or Kitty Monsters…
However, there is hope yet. Triple J may discount Shake It Off as it has not been played on the station this year and The Hottest 100 is a celebration of the music played and enjoyed by fans of the station. However, believe it or not, people have charted without any airplay before. Yet this came a result of the demographic of Triple J mutually enjoying a song enough to allow it to chart and hence still in the spirit of the countdown.
Another promising rule is that votes cannot be fostered by a commercial campaign. Whether commercial or not, the campaign cannot be classified as ‘grassroots’. Ordinary people generally run grassroots campaigns. The fact that Buzzfeed is a massive company that has a slew of almost 5 million likes on Facebook hardly classifies as a group of ordinary folk. In reality, it is a group of ‘journalists’ (I use that term liberally) who are able to foster a powerful campaign from the very top, and put it on 5 million newsfeeds. Hardly grassroots. It’s also hardly fair to those emerging, struggling artists who have absolutely zero chance of being the subject of a Buzzfeeds post – and hence a massive voting campaign.
Love her or hate her, The Hottest 100 is not a countdown Taylor Swift should be allowed to infiltrate. The millionaire pop princess is everything The Hottest 100 is not.
And please, don’t tell me to shake it off. Haters are going to hate for a reason.
What a fantastic year 2014 has been for terrible music. Triple J have put out their list of best albums yesterday, but we find ‘Worst Of’ lists to be infinitely more fun, so we here at Howl And Echoes would like to present our inaugural Album Anti-Awards for 2014!
Our lucky winners include:
The Tylenol ‘Cure For Insomnia’ Award
Coldplay – Ghost Stories
‘Coldplay are boring’ jokes are as old as Yellow, I know, but if they’re going to keep putting out musical sleeping pills like they have once again with Ghost Stories then I’m going to keep making them. Not one track on here is exciting in the slightest. Fitting that it’s called Ghost Stories, because I’m pretty sure we could get Chris Martin declared legally dead after this piss poor effort.
Furthermore, when Sticky Fingers walked through downtown Newtown for Australia Street, it was cool. When these assholes shamelessly ripped them off for A Sky Full Of Stars, with their lame-as-fuck fans filming the whole thing on their fucking smartphones like a bunch of pre-teen twats, it was a floating joke.
The Soulja Boy Award for Shittiest Contribution to Hip Hop
Riff Raff – Neon Icon
Riff Raff is an amalgam of burning garbage and bad facial hair. Open this album up to have your olfactory senses impossibly assaulted by the distinct smell of a trailer park. I can’t verify this with 100% certainty, but I have it on good authority that for every copy of Neon Icon sold, an endangered panda was punched in the face.
Sweet fuck on a crust, Riff Raff sings with the sweet, slithery lilt of somebody who masturbates in public and he raps like he’s reciting your order at a McDonalds drive thru. If you bought this album you are telling the world that there is a good chance that you are poorly educated. Enjoy this GIF of his internationally-televised humiliation:
The 2014-15 Philadelphia 76ers award for Worst Output by a Group
5 Seconds Of Summer – 5 Seconds Of Summer
This is ear-scaldingly bad boy band music. 5 Seconds Of Summer create music to initiate a gag reflex to.Their vanilla-ness makes their forefathers in groups like Boyzone and Westlife look like a bunch of Hells Angels by comparison and the irritating way they abbreviate their name to 5SOS and cite people like Blink-182 as an influence when clearly their influences were just monkey shit and the lost souls of 12-year-old girls is especially grating.
This was Australia’s completely unnecessary, shit-haircutted answer to One Direction, scorch the Earth if they ever get anywhere near that level.
The Scott Stapp Award for Biggest Affront to Rock and Roll:
Nickelback – No Fixed Address
I don’t know what’s more annoying, the fact that Nickelback were pretentious enough to name this album No Fixed Address as though they’re some ‘children of the Earth’ motherfuckers or that they aren’t actually homeless and broke like their rivals for ‘most talentless people to ever pick up guitars’, Creed.
Edge Of A Revolution is Nickelback’s neckbearded attempt at writing an anti-establishment song and it’s so unintentionally funny you might break a rib laughing. The whole album is icepick lobotomy level dumb, because their fans are all shameless morons and are somehow that easily impressed. They should stop loving Nickelback and start loving themselves, shit.
The Michael Richards Award for “Biggest Fall From Grace”
Robin Thicke – Paula
Last year Robin Thicke gave us a terrible song with date rape lyrics and also Emily Ratajkowski from atop Pharrell Williams’ shoulders and people loved him for it. This year he gave us his first album post-divorce and named it after his ex-wife in what may be the least efficient way to get yourself a restraining order. Also, you can rearrange the entire track list to make perhaps the creepiest stalk-iest, threaten-iest letter ever, here look:
Worst Album by a Female Artist:
Taylor Swift – 1989
1989 was regarded as Taylor Swift’s departure from country pop into just regular pop, the difference between the two probably like comparing two puddles of urine to see which one contains less sexually transmittable diseases per square inch. She could have called this album Pumpkin Spice Latte Roshe Run Butterfly Tattoo and nobody would have batted a fake eyelash.
From the incessant whine that is Blank Space to the pantomime twerking nightmare of Shake It Off, this entire album was so fucking boring, so fucking terrible, and yet pretty much the majority of the female population continue to eat her shit up like it’s Froot Loops and MD. Inexplicable. Not even God can help you if you’re a fan of Taylor Swift in 2014.
Worst Album by a Male Artist:
Ed Sheeran – X
Apparently this album is called ‘X’ but pronounced ‘Multiply’. To that end, I propose that ‘Ed Sheeran’ now be pronounced ‘Utter shitbag’ for such pretentious assfacery. The fact that Ed is a soulless ginger aside, have you ever heard something as interminably bland as this album?
It’s like eating cardboard cereal with water instead of milk, for fuck sake. Don’t was apparently not everybody’s simultaneous reaction to Ed Sheeran announcing this album, but about Taylor Swift. If they ever reconcile their differences and collaborate for a joint album I will put my hand up for a rocket ride directly into the sun, just to be sure that monstrosity couldn’t ever hurt me.
Worst Album of 2014
U2 – Songs Of Innocence
Fuck you, Bono. Fuck you, the rest of U2. And fuck you, Apple, for giving my iTunes the digital equivalent of a surprise prostate examination and then leaving the rubber glove in there in the form of U2’s clownfuck dreadful free album. An album that every person on the planet with iTunes suddenly found in their library, regardless of whether they wanted it, and which IS STILL JUST SITTING THERE LIKE A SMUG PRICK BECAUSE I CAN’T GET RID OF IT NO MATTER HOW HARD I TRY!
Understandably, a lot of people were as pissed as I am. Apple then put their pathetic spin on the whole farce, claiming that 81 million people had ‘experienced’ U2’s new album, which was about as impressive as claiming that they were responsible for 81 million people experiencing the human papillomavirus.
Make no mistake about it, there is a special place in the Seventh Circle of Hell for people who pull the kind of dick move Apple did on consumers in foisting this album upon us, but the fact that U2 did so and simultaneously used the good name of Joey Ramone, an old school punk who would have exactly zero time for this kind of commercialistic bullshit, is what makes me the angriest.
And fuck me if Rolling Stone didn’t give it five stars and lose any and all respect from me.
God is dead.
This week, Taylor Swift’s latest album 1989 went platinum. It’s the one and only album that has done that in 2014. In fact, it was the fastest selling album in a week since Eminem’s blistering 2002 release The Eminem Show.
Also, separately, everyone just freaked out because Swift’s music was pulled from Spotify. ERMAGERD. WORLD CRISIS. EBOLA? FUCK THAT. SWIFT LEFT SPOTIFY!
Let’s break it down.
Fact 1: Taylor Swift removes music off Spotify, a FREE streaming service
Fact 2: Taylor Swift’s album went platinum
Fact 3: If her music was on Spotify, a MUCH smaller number of people would have bought it.
There you go. Mystery fucking solved.
Swift went on to say that “music should not be free,” which is interesting too, but I’ll save that for another rant. (and this)
I’m not sure why everyone is up in arms about the fact that albums aren’t going platinum anymore. Considering the direction that the music industry has been heading in for the better part of a decade, it should come as no surprise.
Album sales don’t bring in anywhere near as much income as they used to (unless of course you’re Taylor Swift) but this isn’t shocking or new. Artists, labels, publicists, touring agencies and more have all dramatically shifted their roles within the music industry. They’ve made contingency plans.
In case you hadn’t noticed, bands are constantly on tour these days, because that’s where they make their money. We all use streaming services, many of us illegally download and even the legal downloads cost a fraction of what CDs used to. Where we spend money is on concerts: tickets, merch, etc. So why is it a big deal that albums aren’t going platinum? Surely a better judge of a band’s financial success would be to look at their tour earnings.
Alt-J are touring Australia three times in eight months!
I don’t understand the phenomenon that is Taylor Swift. I can understand Bieber fever. I can understand One Direction. I was a pre-teen girl once, after all. I can understand Beyonce and Katy Perry and all that. But Taylor Swift?
Quite simply, she and her music is BORING. BORING BORING BOR-ZZZZZZZ sorry I fell asleep even just thinking about it. She doesn’t need to be provocative or controversial in order to be interesting. There’s other options, you know.
Apparently, she prides herself on the fact that she is boring and lame and uninteresting. SMH recently described her as “refreshingly prim and proper.”
I’m sorry, refreshingly prim and proper? Seriously? Fuck, she’s so starched, so stifled. She’s so dry that you need to listen to her in the rain.
Her music, like that of Ed Sheeran, Vance Joy and like John Mayer and James Blunt before them, is so brain-numbingly bland and sleep-inducing that the only reason I can justify them being so rich and popular is that they are actually the cure for insomnia.
Looks like someone played 1989 to this little ducky
Anyway, I just don’t get it. I don’t get why she’s so popular or why people don’t understand an incredibly clear marketing technique such as removing music from a free service, in order to make people pay for it.
Good modern pop:
More good modern pop:
More good modern pop:
Okay now listen to this and tell me you don’t fall asleep.