I’ve mentioned before about how I’m detached from many of the songs, films, and TV which we consider to be popular culture. With this in mind, I listened to some Taylor Swift songs while I was working the other day.

I’m not a Taylor Swift fan and, indeed, could only name one of her songs before this test – it was Shake it Off in case you were wondering. I do know, however, that she’s incredibly popular and probably the number one pop artist in the world right now. So what did I learn from this experiment?

I’m not going to be a Taylor Swift fan. I’m not her target market and, as professional as the songs are, they didn’t hook me in. Her lyrics aren’t necessarily going to resonate with an apparently white middle aged man from London in the UK.

I completely understand why she’s popular. She has a team of writers with strong experience in writing successful and popular music. There is a manufactured air to what she does which means she can produce at scale and replicate successful songs.

She changes her approach like all the best artists. Bowie was the greatest in understanding how to shift his music and image to bend and shift the pop music genre. Over the course of the songs I listened to over 2-3 hours there were ballads, dance, country, rock, and pop.

Her music is incredibly simple. It’s based on simple chords and 4/4 beats which run between 90 to 130 bpm. Her lyrics are smart, well-written and, again, I can understand why I’m not her target audience. Interestingly, I did ask some generative AI to produce what a Taylor Swift song might sound like and, even underproduced, it was possible to understand the structure of how the song would work – it produced a simple I–V–vi–IV progression which she has used in at least 10 of her songs.

I completely understand why it’s appealing and people enjoy it; it just doesn’t do it for me. To flick this to a work context, try taking a look at your learning offer and whether there are people who will never be fans of what you do.

Some people (like me) will not want to engage with the mass produced content you have and will want to personalise it and want things outside of the ‘normal’.

If you shift your offer and engaging with the latest trends it might be losing people.

The simplistic might not be what people want and they will seek out the more complex and involved.

Learning isn’t Taylor Swift songs but, in a world where people have freedom to choose so much of their digital content, it’s seems totally reasonable to see how it relates to the digital content you produce for learning.

And before you say it, I KNOW the music I listen to is niche, outside the norm and highly eclectic!