Actually, the Taylor Swift video has been getting a lot of play on channels that play country videos, and there are quite a few. You may not watch them but I do so I have seen it too much since I don't like Taylor Swift since she uses homophobia to get a laugh in one of her songs.
But honestly way more more of the music students around here ask to learn Taylor Swift songs than Beyonce songs.
I guess that it is a matter of perspective where you are and what you watch and listen to. You may not be seeing or hearing Taylor Swift but a lot of other people are since country is a very large market in the music industry.

I love the baby. that is so great. but the glee episode? well.. I just wish my oldest son would watch.

brought tears to my eyes.

The problem with Kayne West has never been that any of his opinions are themselves objectionable or even incorrect, but rather his tendency to express those opinions in socially frowned-upon ways

Who would expect Kanye West to have a highly developed appreciation for things country? Unless there was a problem getting the votes counted properly (as in Afghanistan and Iran), then Taylor Swift got the most votes, that means she is the winner, period, and Kanye should have eaten it --- the same way we all so often do at awards ceremonies.

(Remember how Crash won Best Picture Oscar instead of Brokeback Mountain? Did Ang Lee get up and complain, "How can my picture win Best Screenplay and Best Director but not win Best Picture?")

Kanye forgot that the whole music world includes more than hip-hop. He also forgot his manners and common decency.

You know I agree with you bil. When I saw the drama, I'd never seen either video, so I looked them both up on YouTube and was impressed with Beyonce's -the camera angles, the costumes, the choreography all worked. I don't know if it's the best of the year, or of the decade (as kanye said), but then I went and saw Swift's and was like, um, really? This won?

Here in France they call it "culte bébé," or "Baby worship." There are movies that come out each year with the basic point "babies are awesome," advertisements that have nothing to do with baby stuff that feature babies prominently (Renault's current ads, up everywhere in the city, show naked babies and the name of one of their cars. That's it), and everywhere people dote on babies. It's gross and it definitely doesn't exist in the US. Score 1 team America!

But what we do have is "culte lycée," or "high school worship." And that was Swift's video. It was every stupid cliche about high school that you could possibly fit into 3 minutes, with the sappy "I love you" signs at the end. It was cheap and manipulative pseudo-art. I was sitting next to Alberto when I looked them up and showed him. He said something like "cool" for beyonce's video, but for swift's he was like, "Do Americans ever stop living in high school?"

In other words, Beyonce's video was cool, and Swift's was an international embarrassment. Kanye was right. This isn't like "Crash" and "brokeback Mountain," because even though I preferred Brokeback Mountain, Crash was at least oscar-winning caliber. Taylor Swift winning proved, once again, that the contest was a sham.

Yeah, Kanye was impolite, but artists should be. The thing that annoyed me the most about Adam Lambert was how he didn't say "This contest is bullshit" when Kris Allen won but instead smiled, hugged, and then politely swayed to Kris's music right after he lost. He's supposed to be the next Morrissey or Bowie? Would Morrissey have just smiled like a cow at that point? No, he would have left the stage and then bad-talked AI to anyone in the press willing to listen. Because he took his work seriously.

MTV obviously liked Kanye's behavior as well - the video was the first thing you fell on when you went to their site the next day. It's all part of the show.

Yeah, Kanye was impolite, but artists should be.

Since when? ... and Sayz who? ... does the title of "artist" bestow a license to violate common civility? We are not talking about artistic freedom, such as Maplethorpe photographing a crucifix in the toilet --- we are talking about public figures treating each other decently face-to-face in real time.

If your attitude becomes common, Alex, can you picture the type of world that will be the consequence? It won't be pretty.

Had Kanye wanted to say, "This contest is bullshit" then that would have been fine --- but he should have waited until Swift had completed her acceptance speech. The minute she was through, Kanye could have and would have had the press crawling all over him backstage. But taking the microphone from her onstage for him to express his personal view was wrong.