Todd Rundgren Says Taylor Swift "Ruined Music" and Only Excels at Growing Hair

Rock legend Todd Rundgren did not hold back in a new Vulture interview, saying Taylor Swift“ruined music”and calling her the“apotheosis of mediocrity.”He also claimed Swift“doesn’t do anything particularly great except grow hair,”while praising Lady Gaga as a classically trained pianist and a real musician. Rundgren’s larger theory is that the music industry shifted toward young female audiences in the’90s after boys redirected their spending to video games, which he says paved the way for Swift’s dominance.

The timing is wild, because Swift was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame earlier this year. Her catalog includes critically beloved albums like 1989, folklore, and evermore, even if 2025’s The Life of a Showgirl isn’t considered her strongest work. Rundgren, meanwhile, is a Rock&Roll Hall of Famer with a decades-long legacy as both an artist and producer, so his opinion carries weight with a certain generation of music fans.

The reaction online has been exactly what you’d expect: Swifties in the replies, older rock fans nodding along, and everyone else caught in the middle debating whether this is honest criticism or old-school gatekeeping. It’s the generational music argument, rebooted for 2026.

Whose side are you on? Is Rundgren spitting facts or just out of touch? Sound off in the comments.