We know what the fans think about Taylor Swift and we know what the music press thinks.
They adore her.
But what about music legends and Rock and Roll Hall of Famers?
Most artists who begin as teenage sensations don’t draw much attention from them, but as she began to dominate the music industry, everyone seemed to weigh in on Swift.
Here is a compilation of opinions:
Ringo Starr (The Beatles): “I love Taylor Swift, that’s just how I am. I love her.” (ABC, 2020)
Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters): “I’m officially obsessed — she might want to get a restraining order. I’m all about Swift. I’m going to dedicate this song to Taylor Swift, how about that? This one goes out to my opening band, Taylor Swift.” (2015, BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend, MTV)
Stevie Nicks: "Taylor reminds me of myself in her determination and her childlike nature. It's an innocence that's so special and so rare. This girl writes the songs that make the whole world sing, like Neil Diamond or Elton John. She sings, she writes, she performs, she plays great guitar. Taylor can do ballads that could be considered pop or rock and then switch back into country. When I turned 20 years old, I had just made the serious decision to never be a dental assistant. Taylor just turned 20, and she's won four Grammys." (Time, 2010)
Damon Albarn (Blur, Gorillaz): “She doesn’t write her own songs...co-writing is very different to writing... A really interesting songwriter is Billie Eilish and her brother. I’m more attracted to that than to Taylor Swift.” (Los Angeles Times, January 2022). After Swift challenged him on Twitter, he posted, “I had a conversation about songwriting and sadly it was reduced to clickbait. I apologize unreservedly and unconditionally. The last thing I would want to do is discredit your songwriting. I hope you understand.”
Mike Scott (The Waterboys): “I think Taylor Swift is the best songwriter active in the world right now, at least in Western culture that I know about. I think she’s the number one. I remember Damon Albarn quite recently dissed her and said she didn’t write her own songs. I thought, “You silly twit… You should be apologising to her. She’s light years ahead of you.’” (Big Issue, May 2022)
Keith Richards (The Rolling Stones): “Good luck, girl — wish her well while it lasts… I’ve just been around too long to be picking the bones out of kids. It wouldn’t be fair of me, and I’ve always been an opinionated bastard anyway. And I never did really like pop music — even when I became pop music, I was listening to the blues and jazz and not interested in the hits. (Wall Street Journal, 2018)
Neil Young: "I like Taylor Swift. I like listening to her. I kind of like watching her respond to all the attacks. I like the ways she's defining herself. So I keep my eye on it." (June 2011, Country Music Hall of Fame press conference)
Steven Tyler (Aerosmith): “She is an incredible entity—it's unreal what that woman is. She reminds me of the wonder around Madonna. Your average person thinks Madonna's singing ‘Like a Virgin,’ but if you look at what she endured in this man's-world music business of ripoffs, scoundrels, and bastards, she's doing it like that. She's a phenomenon. She's like a beautiful guitar that's got beautiful strings, and when they're strummed they sing these notes, but if you lean it up against the amp it starts feeding back. If you lean Taylor up against her audience—and she's singing and they're screaming—it's a complete circuit. It's like a feedback loop.” (2015, GQ)
Steve Earle: “I’ve listened to the new Taylor Swift record a lot. It’s a really good record! She’s a real songwriter. And I didn’t know. It wasn’t like I avoided it; I don’t stay all that plugged in…I saw Taylor do “Mean” that night at the Grammys, and I went “Oh!” She’s writing about herself, and every teenage girl in the world can relate to it because they’ve experienced that too. That’s the job, man. And I’ve kind of been a fan ever since.” (Chicago Reader, 2015)
Joni Mitchell (on the prospect of Swift playing her in a film): “I’ve never heard Taylor’s music. I’ve seen her. Physically, she looks similarly, small-hipped and high cheekbones. I can see why they cast her. I don’t know what her music sounds like, but I do know this — that if she’s going to sing and play me, good luck.” (Rolling Stone, 2015)
Billy Joel: “Taylor is also a very talented girl and she’s productive and keeps coming up with great concepts and songs and she’s huge. You have to give her high marks. She knows music and she knows how to write. She’s like that generation’s Beatles.” (USA Today, 2021)
Madonna: "It's good to have princesses. It means there's lots of pretty dresses around. I like Taylor Swift. I think she writes some really catchy pop songs. I can't get them out of my head." Swift responding on Tumblr: "Thanks now I'm dead."
Smokey Robinson: "She’s so popular, and she’s so in demand, and her feet are on the ground." (Grammys, 2023)
Bruce Springsteen: "[Swift's] audience experiences her songwriting very, very personally, and I think she's speaking to a large part of them very personally. As far as craft, [her songs are] really, really well-built and well-made; they're very, very sturdy, and the records are too. I admire the modern record-making craft and modern songwriting. It's not necessarily something I'm driving around listening to in my car 24-7 — I'm too old, I tend to listen to older music." (Variety, 2017)
First Published: June 14, 2023, 9:30 a.m.
Updated: June 14, 2023, 6:30 p.m.
