Todd Rundgren says Taylor Swift ruined music

The American musician and producer Rodd Rundgren is not happy with the current state of music and said in an interview with Vulture that artists like Taylor Swift ruined music. He also blamed video games for the fact that women have become the most successful music stars in recent years, arguing that boys started becoming more interested in playing video games from the 1990s onward than in learning how to play an instrument.

He said that when he produced Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell” in 1977, he was trying to mock the career of Bruce Springsteen, to a point he didn’t even care if it was successful. When asked who artist he would pick these days to do the same he chose Taylor.

Todd Rundgren explains why he believes Taylor Swift ruined music

“Taylor Swift, of course. There’s an argument to be made that she ruined music. It’s an understandable phenomenon. It’s just that, to me, Taylor Swift is the apotheosis of mediocrity.”

(This is) the era of the female artists. The biggest artists in the world are female artists… and that’s because of video games. Back in the ’90s, boys stopped spending money on music and started spending it on video games, and that left the music market with, ‘Well, where do we go here?’”

He continued:

“And they said, ‘Well, there’s all these young girls and they’ve got their allowances, too. Why don’t we start making music for young girls instead of Pearl Jam or something like that?’ So you got Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Pink and many artists of that ilk.”

“Lady Gaga, she’s a real musician. She’s a classically trained piano player. Taylor Swift doesn’t do anything particularly great except grow hair. She’s not a great singer, she’s not a great songwrite, she’s not a great dancer. She’s a role model for what was a very young generation of women, and now for those women’s daughters as well, because it’s mothers and daughters going to Taylor Swift shows,” Todd Rundgren said.

Some of Rundgren’s most famous songs are “I Saw the Light”, “Hello It’s Me”, “Bang the Drum All Day” and “Can We Still Be Friends?” As a producer he is best known for having produced New York Dolls’ debut album (1973), Grand Funk Railroad’s “We’re an American Band” (1973) and “Shinin’ On” (1974), Patti Smith “Wave” (1979), Psychedelic Furs “Forever Now” (1982) and XTC “Skylarking” (1986).