V. The Merchants of Cool: How Rebellion Was Repackaged
PBS’s 2001 documentary Merchants of Cool nailed it before the full collapse. The film exposed how marketing agencies studied youth culture like scientists in a lab—how they mined teenage rebellion, bottled it, and sold it back as MTV branding. The system didn’t fight dissent-it bought it. Cool was no longer something you made; it was something you wore. Punk was polished. Hip-hop was harnessed. Emo became eyeliner. Authenticity became an aesthetic, not a principle.
VI. The Plastic Gospel of Taylor Swift
Look at the landscape today. Music is a product line. Each song is a TikTok trend waiting to happen. Artists are now brands-diversified across perfume lines, dating apps, and crypto ventures. Stadiums pack 70,000 people in to watch a show designed by an algorithm. Behind the scenes, songwriting teams-yes, teams-assemble lyrics like Lego bricks: hook, verse, pre-chorus, drop. Repeat. The artist is often just the face. The body. The commodity.
And who better symbolizes this plastic perfection than Taylor Swift?
This isn’t personal. It’s structural. Taylor Swift is the apotheosis of capitalism in music. She is not a person; she is an empire. The “Eras Tour” alone has grossed over $1 billion in revenue, with single-night merchandise profits reportedly reaching $2 million per stadium. Her concerts are not shows-they are branded events, complete with QR-coded wristbands, themed outfits, VIP seating packages, fan “eras” kits, and perfectly choreographed social media moments designed for virality. Every note is backed by a business model.
Her songs, presented as raw diary entries of a self-made woman, are anything but solitary creations. Behind nearly every hit stands a legion of songwriters and producers. Her “diary-like” songs are crafted by industrial songwriting teams: Max Martin, Shellback, Jack Antonoff, Aaron Dessner, Liz Rose, Joel Little. Engineers of emotion. Songs are optimized for streams, virality, and demographic segmentation. These are the names behind the curtain-pop engineers who sculpt sound with precision, targeting dopamine hits, stream counts, and “repeat value” more than meaning. Swift’s writing credits often include these collaborators, crafting songs that are market-optimized more than soul-expressed.
Even her “independent” streak-re-recording her albums as a stand against label ownership-is framed as rebellion but functions as rebranding. Fans now buy two versions of the same album, thinking they are supporting artistic freedom while fueling a billionaire’s campaign to reclaim her catalog. It’s brilliant. And completely hollow.
Swift represents the triumph of image over message, spectacle over soul. She sings of personal drama while avoiding the world’s pain. When Gaza burned, when children were bombed, when singers from every moral tradition should have raised their voice-there was silence. Not just from Swift, but from an entire industry.
Why?
Because music no longer serves truth. It serves the brand.
When Israel unleashed its campaign of destruction on Gaza-flattening hospitals, killing journalists, starving a population-it was not just politicians and media who remained complicit through silence. It was music. The art form once synonymous with protest. Where were the protest songs? Where was the wave of artist defiance, the musical equivalent of Muhammad Ali refusing to fight in Vietnam? Instead, there were Instagram filters and vague calls for peace. Even Muslim artists stayed quiet, their conscience choked by the velvet rope of industry access. Too afraid to lose endorsements, or bookings, or “Western approval.” Careers mattered more than children’s lives.
VII. The Betrayal of the Rebels
Even worse was the silence from those who once made their name as rebels. Where was Bob Dylan-the poet laureate of protest? The man who wrote “Masters of War” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’”-what happened to that voice when Gaza was on fire? Quiet as a mouse.
Where was Eddie Vedder, whose voice once roared against war, against Bush, against the corporate state? Where was Sting, who gave us “Russians” and dared to question superpower brutality? Where were the Rolling Stones, those gods of counterculture, who once told us we couldn’t always get what we wanted, but might just find what we need? Apparently, we didn’t need truth this time.
And what about Neil Young-forever the protester, who once told us that Southern Man doesn’t need him around anyhow? When the children of Gaza cried out, he stayed silent. And Bono, the crown prince of global activism, who turned suffering into spectacle with U2’s stadium-sized moralism-he too vanished into vagueness. The band that once asked, “How long to sing this song?” when Bloody Sunday spilled Catholic blood in Derry, now had no lyrics for Gaza.
These weren’t just omissions. They were betrayals.
Because when the artists who taught us to rage fall silent, their absence becomes louder than the bombs. Their silence becomes complicity. Because if the Gaza genocide doesn’t deserve a song, then what does? The truth is-they didn’t want to lose access. To be branded. To be boycotted not by principle, but by sponsors.
