the problem here isn’t a white woman releasing a cottagecore album and being compared to hozier, it’s how hozier’s previous work and political messages that were specifically written to be about non-white and/or non-Western communities are ignored in favour of what white audiences can consume. Jackboot Jump was about state violence, and it specifically draws attention to non-American events when most artists would refuse to even acknowledge it. Foreigners God and Run are about Irish colonialism by the English. Be is about inhumane immigration conditions. Nina Cried Power was a long tribute to historical activists and Black artists. these are absolutely definitive as part of that canon of work, but they are ultimately ignored in favour of songs that can be pitch-shifted to create a ~wlw love song~
this is obviously a larger issue than swift vs hozier, but it is emblematic of how white audiences consume and, in turn, ignore media that makes them uncomfortable or challenges their paradigms of systemic privilege. the problem is that when creators of colour make political narratives about ourselves, we are ignored; when white creators take time to include radical political narratives about BIPOC, they are are cherry-picked or overlooked for messages that are more palatable. artists that take inspiration from radically progressive politics and use them in their works are constantly watered down when they make white liberal audiences uncomfortable.
hozier’s music is reduced to “forest king fae wizard” because it’s more comfortable to consume and reckon with and relate to, and because it’s easier to draw similarities to another conventional white artist singing about conventional white middle-class womanhood than accept the revolutionary messages and acknowledge the sheer depth of influence that Black artists and activists have had
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