'70s Rock Star Sparks Heated Debate After Claiming That Taylor Swift Has 'Ruined Music'

Taylor Swift's new extended album The Life of a Showgirl: Encore has been even more poorly received than the original version last year, and you can count Todd Rundgren among those who aren't impressed.

Who the heck is that? The 78-year-old rocker had a slew of hits in the 1970s, including "Hello It's Me" and "I Saw The Light," and also produced some of the most important rock albums of the era.

And as a multi-instrumentalist, he's definitely got some opinions, which he shared in a recent profile in New York Magazine's Vulture.

Suffice to say, he is not a fan of Ms. Swift, whom he called the "apotheosis of mediocrity" and mused that she may have "ruined music."

In the interview, Vulture asked Rundgren about arguably his most famous project, as producer of Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell.

That outside-the-box project made him a legend, and Rundgren has explained that his entire inspiration was to mock Bruce Springsteen.

So naturally, Vulture wondered who he'd make fun of if he were to make such a project today, to which he answered immediately: Taylor Swift.

Why?

"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."

Rundgren went on to say that the reason Swift is so huge is because of, uh, video games...

"The biggest artists in the world are female artists at this point, 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?'"

"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?'"

Yes, "music for girls" famously never existed before 1990. Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Donna Summer, the Motown girl groups—those were all holograms.

Anyway! Lest you think that Rundgren is just some sexist who hates women musicians, since that's how he made himself sound, he's not.

He said:

" Lady Gaga, she’s a real musician. She’s a classically trained piano player."

True! So what's his beef with Swift?

"Taylor Swift doesn’t do anything particularly great except grow hair. She’s not a great singer. She’s not a great songwriter. 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."

That sound you hear is Swifties worldwide having a psychotic break. And as Swift is arguably the most divisive artist we have nowadays, Rundgren's comments sparked quite a debate online.

Critically speaking—and internet discourse-wise—Swift isn't exactly at the top of her game at the moment, of course, and plenty of people agreed with Rundgren.

But many others were infuriated, not just by Rundgren's criticisms of Swift but due to the inherent sexism of his comments.

Over in the less dramatic r/music subReddit, people were a bit more restrained—but no more impressed with Rundgren's take.

"If anything ruined music (which is dubious because there’s so much incredible music being made every day) it’s shareholders, who gave have also ruined everything else." —u/BigPianoBoy

"There’s an argument to be made that men would rather blame a woman then admit they’ve lost touch with the youth." —u/Shepher27

"His moronic take both implies men don't listen to Taylor Swift and women don't play video games. Also that apparently, female pop stars didn't exist in the 80s and 90s..." —u/PolarBearOdyssey

Yeah, I dunno Todd... this one's not really holding much water.