Taylor Swift has many famous admirers including former Beatle Paul McCartney, whose handwritten note to her quoting lyrics from Blackbird is framed and hangs in one of the bathrooms of her $50M Tribeca compound.
The Who co-founder Pete Townshend joined the growing chorus of legendary rockers, including Billy Joel, declaring the 34-year-old pop star to be on par with The Beatles.
‘I’m a song dreamer in a sense,’ the 79-year-old Grammy winner told the What It Takes podcast on July 20.
‘So I love the great songwriters of my father’s era, Gershwin and so on. And also the great songwriters of today, past The Beatles, and all the rest of them to Taylor Swift.’
Pete continued: ‘I love what she does, too. Not that she’s necessarily absolutely always to my taste, but I just love the fact that she seems to love it [and] that she seems to be having so much fun. That’s what I identify with.’
Taylor Swift has many famous admirers including former Beatle Paul McCartney, whose handwritten note to her quoting lyrics from Blackbird is framed and hangs in one of the bathrooms of her $50M Tribeca compound (pictured September 11)
Townshend’s comments came six months after he praised Taylor for her $1.039B-grossing, 149-date The Eras Tour, which creates a ‘place where people feel really, really, really safe.’
‘And what I think was happening in the sixties – the late sixties, early seventies – was a discovery that it was safe to blend a music event, to allow yourself to unfold, to relax into the mood of the event,’ the Chiswick-born Brit recalled to ComicBook.com.
‘It could be that it was heavy music like Led Zeppelin, or parts of what The Who were doing. But it could also be the gentleness of great R&B like Sly and the Family Stone, but also more gentle music like Joni Mitchell, like Crosby Stills and Nash. There was a cross-section of music which, brought together in festival events, had the effect of making people feel together.’
And when Swift’s underhanded ex-manager Scooter Braun – who’s since retired from the music industry – sold the rights to the first six of her master recordings, Pete publicly sympathized with her.
‘Watching Taylor Swift go through what she’s putting herself through at the moment is heartbreaking,’ Townshend told Rolling Stone in 2019.
‘She doesn’t own the f***ing music. She doesn’t own the words. I think she has a financial right to it, but she shouldn’t screw herself up about this stuff.’
The 14-time Grammy winner – who gets 92.2M monthly listeners on Spotify – has just two more archival albums (Taylor Swift and Reputation) to re-record.
Taylor is currently enjoying a much-needed break from her Eras Tour, which doesn’t resume until October 18–20 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, FL.
The Who co-founder Pete Townshend joined the growing chorus of legendary rockers, including Billy Joel, declaring the 34-year-old pop star to be on par with The Beatles (pictured August 15)
The 79-year-old Grammy winner (pictured July 5) told the What It Takes podcast: ‘I’m a song dreamer in a sense, so I love the great songwriters of my father’s era, Gershwin and so on. And also the great songwriters of today, past The Beatles, and all the rest of them to Taylor Swift’
![Pete continued: 'I love what she does, too. Not that she's necessarily absolutely always to my taste, but I just love the fact that she seems to love it [and] that she seems to be having so much fun. That's what I identify with' (pictured September 11)](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/09/23/21/90008537-13883183-Pete_continued_I_love_what_she_does_too_Not_that_she_s_necessari-a-59_1727121959635.jpg "70s rock legend compares Taylor Swift to The Beatles 7")
Pete continued: ‘I love what she does, too. Not that she’s necessarily absolutely always to my taste, but I just love the fact that she seems to love it [and] that she seems to be having so much fun. That’s what I identify with’ (pictured September 11)
Townshend’s comments came six months after he praised Taylor for her $1.039B-grossing, 149-date The Eras Tour, which creates a ‘place where people feel really, really, really safe’ (pictured August 15)
The Chiswick-born Brit recalled to ComicBook.com: ‘And what I think was happening in the sixties – the late sixties, early seventies – was a discovery that it was safe to blend a music event, to allow yourself to unfold, to relax into the mood of the event’
And when Swift’s underhanded ex-manager Scooter Braun (pictured December 6) – who’s since retired from the music industry – sold the rights to the first six of her master recordings, Pete publicly sympathized with her
Townshend told Rolling Stone in 2019: ‘Watching Taylor Swift go through what she’s putting herself through at the moment is heartbreaking. She doesn’t own the f***ing music. She doesn’t own the words. I think she has a financial right to it, but she shouldn’t screw herself up about this stuff’ (pictured September 11)
Meanwhile, the Tony-winning Tommy creator recently co-produced and played guitar on British rock band The Wild Things’ concept album Afterglow, which dropped on September 13.
Pete wrote the foreword to Mark Wilkerson’s 236-page book Hollywood Dream: The Thunderclap Newman Story, which hits US shelves October 1 and UK shelves November 14.
Townshend will celebrate the launch of new teaching space The Townshend Studio during An Evening with Pete Townsend happening October 10 at the University of West London.
The Quadrophenia: A Mod Ballet writer is next scheduled to perform in Rachel Fuller’s The Seeker happening November 6 at Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London.
The Tony-winning Tommy creator recently co-produced and played guitar on British rock band The Wild Things’ concept album Afterglow, which dropped on September 13
Pete is next scheduled to perform in Rachel Fuller’s The Seeker happening November 6 at Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London
For his work with The Who, Townshend was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001, and Kennedy Center Honors in 2008 (pictured in 1985)
The Quadrophenia: A Mod Ballet writer and frontman Roger Daltrey – who’ve sold over 100M records – dropped their 12th studio album Who in 2019 and concluded The Who Hits Back Tour a year ago (pictured in 2022)
The production is described as ‘a unique musical and graphic reinvention of Hermann Hesse’s classic novel, Siddhartha, which became a global phenomenon in the 1960s.’
For his work with The Who, Pete was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001, and Kennedy Center Honors in 2008.
Townshend and frontman Roger Daltrey – who’ve sold over 100M records – dropped their 12th studio album Who in 2019 and concluded The Who Hits Back Tour a year ago.
The self-taught musician is best known for guitar but he’s also proficient in keyboard, banjo, accordion, harmonica, ukulele, mandolin, violin, synthesizer, bass guitar, and drums.
