Veteran indie singer-songwriter Matt Nathanson is taking aim at Taylor Swift. During a recent appearance of the Sound Up! podcast with hosts former MTV personality Mark Goodman and music journalist Alan Light, Nathanson laid into Swift after Light referred to the "Fortnight" singer as an "artist."
"First of all, I take umbrage with Alan calling Taylor Swift an artist," Nathanson said as he signed on for his guest appearance.
"Ouch," Goodman reacted. "That's a whole other show."
"Yeah, that's it. But it's true. I mean, like she literally exists to sell things. So like, what she's doing is selling things. That's like what she does. The music is inconsequential to her business model," Nathanson added.
While Goodman tried to steer the conversation back to the topic of whether artists can release too much content, Nathanson wasn't done. "But you know how it works, Mark Goodman," he continued. "It's funny. It's like commerce masquerading as art is the new thing, just like commerce masquerading as politics is the new thing."
While Nathanson eventually did come back to the topic to discuss his strategy of releasing previously unreleased material via Patreon, he did swing back around to take some more shots at Swift.
Goodman challenged him about putting his music behind a paywall, noting that "music is commerce."
"No, music is art and commerce is where we go to get music heard by people," Nathanson shot back. "So, if we're going back to the Taylor Swift thing, literally that person exists solely and has relationships in her life solely to sell her product, which is yourself. I can't believe we're even having this discussion. You are a very intelligent person...It's like, 'Oh my God, water's wet. Rocks are hard. Taylor Swift is not about music."
While the conversation did return to the topic, and Nathanson's Help From My Friends tour with Switchfoot and Blue October, Goodman and Light left the door open to further discuss Swift in the future.
If it seems that there's bad blood between Nathanson and Swift, you're not wrong. Swift was accused of stealing a line from Nathanson's 2003 song "I Saw" in her song "All Too Well," which was included on her Red album. Swift sang the lyrics, "And I forget about you long enough to forget why I needed to," which is suspiciously close to Nathanson's line: "And I'll forget about you long enough to forget why I need to."
Swift was reportedly a fan of Nathanson and wrote some of his lyrics on her arm before concerts. At the time, in October 2012, Nathanson acknowledged the situation, in a tweet that has since been deleted, "She's definitely a fan... and now she's a thief."
Meanwhile, Swift continues to sell a lot of things. The Tortured Poets Department, the album featuring all three of Swift's current top 10 hits, is holding firm on top of the Billboard 200 for a second week on the chart dated May 11, with sales of 439,000 equivalent units in the U.S., according to Luminate. That's an 83% drop from its debut week, when the album sold a jaw-dropping 2.61 million units.
Even with the drop, TTPD had the biggest second week unit tally since 25 by Adele sold 1.162 million units in its second week in December 2015.
