Why did Taylor Swift stop singing in a country accent?
5/6/20261 hr 8 min
On today’s episode, we’re tackling a question from a listener named Joel: Why do singers lose their accents when they sing?
Our guest this week is New Yorker writer Kelefa Sanneh. In this wide-ranging conversation, we explore identity in country music, why Taylor Swift stopped singing with a twang, how Drake changed the way people think about authenticity in hip-hop, and why Adele and Harry Styles don’t sound British when they sing.
Want to hear all the music from this episode? Check out our newsletter for a playlist.
Check out Kelefa’s book Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsDevin Joseph· Host0:00
Hey. What's up, y'all? It's Devon. Just a heads-up, we have a No Such Thing listener survey out right now that you can take. It's your opportunity to tell us what you like about the show, what you would like for us to change about the show, as we're thinking about programming for season three of No Such Thing. This is something we're gonna be paying very close attention to. So you can take that survey by either clicking the link in our show notes or going to nosuchthing.show. All right. Enjoy today's episode.
Speaker 10:30
[gentle music] Kaleidoscope.
Manny Fidel· Host0:41
I'm Manny.
Noah Friedman· Host0:43
I'm Noah.
Devin Joseph· Host0:44
And this is Devon, and this is No Such Thing, the show where we settle our dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the research. On today's episode, why did Taylor Swift stop singing in a country accent?
Manny Fidel· Host0:56
[laughs] Oh, that's good.
Noah Friedman· Host0:57
That's it. Yeah, that's it.
Devin Joseph· Host0:58
We explore authenticity in popular music.
Speaker 41:02
[gentle music] There's no, no such thing. No such thing. No such thing. No such thing. No such thing.
Speaker 11:14
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.
Manny Fidel· Host1:26
I know you've been sitting on a good business idea. Consider this a