The Era(s) of Taylor Swift

The first time Taylor began to appear on my radar was in the late 2000s when she was just becoming popular in the United States as a country musician and it was easy to ignore her as yet another white, all-American girl. Then the songs started becoming crossover hits and I began noticing her music, as more and more of her singles acquired favourite status in my personal playlist.

The extraordinary popularity and influence of Taylor Swift underscores the nature of celebrity in the contemporary era. This kind of historically unprecedented reach by a star is made possible by new technologies and new patterns of consumption — something the 20th-century mass media industries could only have dreamt of.

Taylor is an active, skilled user of social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram where her followers reach hundreds of millions. Her album sales, online streaming statistics and other indices of popularity have amassed astonishing numbers and routinely keep breaking records previously held by the likes of The Beatles, Barbara Streisand and Drake. On Spotify, she has 100.6 million monthly listeners, second only to The Weeknd (now known as Abel Tesfaye).

Taylor Swift is not unique in her achievements. Beyoncé is another female artist who just wrapped up a world tour that was spectacularly successful and grossed record amounts. Selena Gomez has many more followers on Instagram. Many others are redefining relationships with their fans and embarking on new modes of creative expression at this moment in time when the avenues for a new kind of global exposure have become available.

The thing about Taylor, however, is that she encapsulates many singular traits in one persona — a flair for crafting exquisite songs, a magnetic stage presence as a performer, and a savvy business sense. It’s rare enough to find any one of these talents in an individual, let alone all three together.

At 33 years of age, she is an artist at the prime of her career and is pushing creative and commercial boundaries in a way that few others are. Always hard at work, always planning the next surprise for her fans, writing and recording songs at a dizzying pace, and now even directing her own music videos, like a mastermind. All of this with her signature goofy charm.

For every diehard fan of Taylor’s, there is a hater out there who is not content to simply dislike her music but relishes attacking every aspect of her career and personality. She has been cancelled and campaigned against, most notably after Kanye West chose her as a target. The media loves conjuring up and dissecting many more ‘feuds’ between her and other artists. Her famous battle with recording industry executive Scooter Braun led to her re-recording her early music in a quest to own the rights to it.

She has spoken out about the misogyny and double standards female musicians face and how her own artistic credibility routinely gets questioned. Compared to the touchingly young and naive Taylor of the early years, she now comes across as a confident, mature performer, just as her voice has also become richer and her face even more striking.

She wields extraordinary clout within the music industry and has used it to advocate for artists’ rights. When fans appropriate the term ‘capitalist queen’ for her, they don’t mean it as a criticism but as an unabashed acknowledgement and celebration of the commercial success she has earned. She is now the second-richest female musician in the US, second only to Rihanna whose makeup line contributes substantially to her fortune.

All the marketing aside, at the heart of Taylor’s enormous popularity is her music, especially her ability to pen lyrics that move, inspire, and connect with her listeners across ages. I would hesitate to describe their appeal as being ‘universal’ since there are plenty of demographic groups within and outside the US who have very different relationships and expectations from mainstream cultural production.

She writes songs about relationships in their tender beginnings and in the bitterness of falling apart, about romance and friendships, fame and vulnerability, about emotions both whimsical and most profound. Her power as a storyteller is to transform her own experiences into characters and situations that so many of us can see ourselves in, without airbrushing any of her own insecurities.

From the very start of her career, Taylor paid special attention to her fan base which is overwhelmingly female, and has built an extraordinary relationship with them, where they feel like they are seen by her and receive her personal attention. She has invited them to her home, showed up at theirs, thrown listening parties for them, and surprised them with her knowledge of their lives gleaned from social media. Even now that she has become ultra-famous, she continues to engage with them online and occasionally responds to their words, jokes and trends by incorporating them into her own routines.

Swifties are, in return, known for being unfailingly nice to each other and being very protective of her — one of the terms they use to refer to her is ‘Mother’, something that confuses many outsiders but which simply means she is a female artist they look up to. I have been touched by the outrage they have shown in recent weeks when paparazzi and casual onlookers have been invading her privacy and by their reminders that real, old-school Swifties have never treated her like a zoo animal to be gawked at.

Many commentators also note how well-behaved audiences at Taylor’s concerts are and the camaraderie they display with each other. In her review of an Eras Tour show, Tyler Foggatt in The New Yorker describes the atmosphere as “a sanctum of gleeful femininity”. She notes how “anyone can write family-friendly music; only Taylor Swift can turn the Philadelphia Eagles’ stadium into a safe space”.

I feel satisfied knowing that the biggest global superstar is a woman who models a kind of femininity that is not overly sexualised or unapproachable, who for all her glamour and wealth still comes across as being likeable and earnest. She has a killer sense of style but is also unafraid to be silly, self-deprecating, and cute. It is certainly a carefully curated public persona, but the fact that kindness and consideration play such a central role in it is still remarkable.

Everyone who has worked with Taylor describes her as a thorough professional, praising her work ethic and talent, and it is refreshing to see a track record unmarred by accounts of bad behaviour — something not many contemporary celebrities can claim. Cynics will see them as PR stunts, but actions like handing out generous bonuses for all crew members — from backup dancers to truck drivers — at the end of the Eras Tour in the US shows her putting her money where her mouth is. I respect her for that.

I do worry about over-exposure and the insane hype that her every action now gives rise to. My daughter is dismayed by the coverage currently being given to a rumoured romance between Taylor and football star Travis Kelce, all based on one single meeting. “Why can’t they leave her alone?” she wonders.

When it’s not just publications like E! News, but also the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times all jumping on the bandwagon and running stories about that encounter, one can tell. The race to cash in on the power of celebrity is going to hit many more lows.

There is me, who must sing along to every Taylor Swift song, occasionally fumbling a lyric here and there, and my daughter, who remembers all the lyrics perfectly but prefers to listen quietly.

I infected her with my enthusiasm for ‘Getaway Car’. She first introduced me to ‘Enchanted’. We fell in love with ‘You’re On Your Own, Kid’ and ‘Right Where You Left Me’ together. Our list of shared favourites playing on heavy rotation changes every week.

Then there is the masterpiece ‘All Too Well’, listening to which is a near-sacred experience in our household. 10 minutes of sheer perfection and emotions flying all over the place.

My husband is a bit bemused by it all but is respectful, knowing what it is to feel passionately about music. After months of Taylor Swift playing constantly around him, he now has his own favourite songs.