Who’s got a big mouth?

{ February 5, 2010 @ 12:34 am } · { Uncategorized }

We all saw Taylor Swift’s less-than-perfect performance at the Grammy’s last Sunday. Apparently, she’s received a lot of flack for her off-key and, according to the New York Times, “painfully out of tune” performance.

We haven’t heard much from Swift regarding these criticisms, but one person who’s not keeping his mouth shut is the head of Swift’s record label, Scott Borchetta.

Borchetta has come to the defense of his young star.

“Maybe she’s not the best technical singer, but she’s probably the best emotional singer because everybody else who gets up there and is technically perfect, people don’t seem to want more of it,” he said to The Tennessean. “I think (the critics) are missing the whole voice of a generation that is happening right in front of them. … She’s an extraordinary songwriter and her vocal performances are getting better. …Maybe in that moment we didn’t have the best night. But in the same breath, maybe we did. And nobody is arguing with the awards.”

Scott Borchetta and Taylor Swift at last year's Grammy's

Photo by Rick Diamond

It’s perfectly all right to praise your singer, but it is definitely not okay to bash others. People don’t seem to want the technically perfect singers? I wonder if the technically perfect singers take offense to that. Also, there is a fine line between praising and gloating, and Borchetta seems really close to crossing that line. Maybe if he had said Swift was “one of the best emotional singers” rather than “the best emotional singer,” he wouldn’t have come off as a jerk tooting his own horn. Where was his publicist before this interview? He or she should have given Borchetta some pointers on tact.

His comments to The Tennessean were bad enough, but his comments regarding American Idol didn’t help matters either.

“This is not ‘American Idol,’” Borchetta said, referring to Swift’s Grammy performance. “This is not a competition of getting up and seeing who can sing the highest note. This is about a true artist and writer and communicator. It’s not about that technically perfect performance.”

Kelly Clarkson definitely took umbrage to that. In her blog, Clarkson chastised Borchetta for “lashing out at other artists” instead of learning a lesson from the experience.

Borchetta is the CEO of a record label. You would think he’d been working in the entertainment industry long enough to develop some tact. He may have ruined his chances of ever having a professional relationship with Clarkson and possibly other “technically perfect” artists because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

Borchetta’s publicist should have encouraged Borchetta to let the criticisms die down (which they would have in a couple of days). If Borchetta really wanted to say something, he should have just said it was an off night. That would have saved him and Swift from more criticism and scrutiny.

So what lesson did we learn from Borchetta’s screw-up? Watch what you say because it may come back to bite you…in unmentionable places.

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