New Article on TaraElla

There is a new article on TaraElla on Hubpages.

TaraElla started writing and performing music at a young age. At the age of 16 in 2003, she began writing music aimed at the audience 'out there'. She first wrote and performed dance music, but decided her passion with pop ballads and country should guide her instead soon after. However, the initial reception was not very well. In an age where ballads had become much less radio friendly, it was difficult for her to gain an audience.

As she continued to write music but was met with little mainstream success, she also started developing another passion of hers - starting cultural movements. She began writing material about her vision for the future of popular culture, material which would eventually make its way into her books. Ironically, it was from here that she first got noticed. Over the past few years, TaraElla has gained more followers, some who describe her as a 'visionary'. From there, her music also grew in popularity. Today, TaraElla has more than 2500 fans on facebook, which is more than many prominent Australian musicians, some of whom TaraElla herself actually are a fan of (e.g. Kate Alexa, Kate DeAraugo).

Some people may think that TaraElla is simply a musician who failed to be noticed on her music alone, and therefore raised awareness of her existence by lending her voice to cultural movements instead, and gaining an audience to her music from there. But that's the wrong way to look at the TaraElla story.

Read the whole article here.

We Respond to Criticism About TaraElla

Liberals and conservatives have said nice things about TaraElla. But some from both camps have criticised her cultural campaigns too.

For conservatives, it's about her stance on marriage equality and her pro-welfare stance. They say that she can't be truly pro-family if she wants to 'destroy marriage'. But we would rather argue that gay marriages don't destroy marriage. On the other hand, conservatives have been fixated so much on the free market that they are decidedly anti-welfare, but TaraElla's pro-welfare stance may actually benefit families much more.

For liberals, it's generally about her views on cheating, divorce, drugs and alcohol. She has been called a prohibitionist at times. However, she is just promoting the clean living lifestyle in her sincere belief of it. She is not forcing it on others, and there is no prohibitionist stance in her politics at all.

TaraElla on Reinvention

Taraella recently spoke about her image reinvention based around the Liberal Culture concept. She said she picked this concept as her latest personal theme because it was something she deeply believed in and cared about. Her previous images have been based around the 'Self Made Star thing', family values and multicultural tolerance.

Beauty Heading Towards Top 10?

Beauty is now climbing up the charts at Truthboard, and is now at number 11.

Will she crack the top 10 next week?

Update 1/11/10: Beauty actually slipped one spot to 12 this week, but there's still hope.

TaraElla - A Third Front on the Cultural Wars?

This is a recent article journalist Kelly Moore wrote on TaraElla:

Permissive liberals and tradition-following conservatives have been fighting a battle to control our culture for decades. It arguably started in the 1960s. In the five decades that this fight has been going on, however, neither team seems to have won.

Now, to make things even more complicated, a third front seems to have opened in this cultural war. This camp is committed to traditional ideals like a strong family and a clean cut image, yet support the liberal worldview of tolerance, internationalism and interfaith and interracial peace initiatives. Many of them are the offspring of moderate conservatives from the baby boomer generation, although converts from other camps are also present. One of the reasons for the emergence of this camp is clear: the conservative movement has become ever more conservative and guided by religious fundamentalism, whilst Generation Y has grown up to be socially liberal over matters like racial equality and tolerance of gay people. Whilst the minority of Y'ers who grew up in households of religious fundamentalism will mostly still cling to strict conservatism, other Y'ers who grew up in traditional families that are more moderate often blend in their support for family values with typical Generation Y values of tolerance and acceptance. The results can be interesting - many support gay marriage, but are pro-life, for example.

Take TaraElla, a writer/artist and rising icon in this new camp. She wishes to make clean living and commitment popular again for her generation, yet she is a strong supporter of multiculturalism and gay rights. She has faced opposition from both conventional liberals who have even labeled her a 'new type of cultural war adversary', as well as religious conservatives for her interfaith initiatives and support for gay rights.

Only time will tell how successful this new cultural group will be. Who knows - this may even spell the end of the cultural wars itself. But let's not be optimistic before things have time to unfold, as the conventional cultural war camps still have a lot of pull.

Read the original article at Associated Content.

Interview with TaraElla

You have championed for so many things in the past 2 years. What's you're overall theme?
My overall goal is to let all people who wish to have a happy family-based life to be able to do so. Therefore, things as diverse as society helping couples' commitment, anti-racism and anti-gay and lesbian discrimination, interfaith and intercultural harmony, restoring the reputation of government welfare in people's minds all come into play. In addition, I don't believe it is a good thing for the corporate masses to control the entire media, therefore I believe in the importance of encouraging self-made stars to do their thing.

How did you come to believe in the things you believe in?
Just from my experience. I mean, I value the family, and there are too many things tearing families apart nowadays out there. This needs to be fixed. In my experience these are the things that need to be fixed out there.

Recently there has been controversy regarding your seeming embrace of social conservatism. Why do you think that is?
First I have to clarify something - I am not embracing what I used to hate. I am not somebody who would do that. But what is 'conservative' and what is not is changing now. I mean, the Swedish conservatives voted for equal marriage just recently, and American conservatives have put out a good conservative case for equal marriage - that's exactly my case of equal marriage. I am still a liberal, but liberal values and conservative ideas seem to have come together more and more and it is an encouraging trend. Plus conservative liberals are doing something else that's equally important - they are paying attention to the importance of family and defending it against fads like sexual prosmiscurity. There's a lot in there for me to embrace, as you can see.

You have a new single, Beauty. Can you please tell us more about that?
It's about how the little things in life can remind you of how beautiful life can be. Life has been a struggle for many people including myself.

So do your songs relate to your cultural message?
Yes and no. I mean, not every song is about my cultural values. But then, culture is a coming together of many aspects of life. I am not a political party and I don't put out slogans every day about what I believe in. Everything I do may not be about promoting what I believe in, but everything I do is about drawing a picture of life in the way I believe it should be.

Compared to many other people, we don't know much about your personal life. What's it like?
I think we should all have a degree of privacy, for example I don't like discussing my own family and dragging them into what I do. That said, everything I do reflects on my personal life too. It is from there that I draw my inspiration for my work. And through my work you will get to know an idea of how my personal life is.

TaraElla supports Imperative to Care

TaraElla said on her LJ a few days ago that doctors should have an imperative to care, and not leave patients dying just because they are seen to have cause their own illness.

Read the whole thing here.