The Taylor Swift phenomenon
A little while ago, Taylor Swift got married. After decades of taking us through selected moments of her personal life, she finally tied the knot. With her boyfriend of 3 years, three-time Super Bowl Champion Travis Kelce — least he could achieve. A few months back, a meme spread across social media with Kelce stating he never argued with his then-fiancée, with a comment below noting that no one would when your combined net worth is $1.67 billion — and you only account for the .07… The point is Taylor Swift finally — and officially — found a companion.
I will admit: I never quite got what the whole Taylor Swift fuss was about. She obviously looks like the full package: she can write, she can sing, she can play guitar, she can dance, she’s gorgeous and handles interviews gracefully. But does she have Aretha Franklin’s presence? Or Freddie Mercury’s songwriting ability? Or Madonna’s dancing skills? Not quite, in my opinion. Regardless, she has been steadily breaking record upon record for years, slowly surpassing every legendary artist before her, including the aforementioned Madonna or the Beatles… So, what gives?
And by that I mean, how could one explain such a phenomenon? Hype alone doesn’t quite cut it: you can be trendy for a while, but not for years the way Taylor Swift has. She’s not Avril Lavigne, who was huge for a minute; she’s not even Alanis Morissette, who arguably redefined rock but then somewhat faded away. The best potential comparison one could make is Adele, whose enduring career is stellar in its own right, but even she doesn’t have the same global impact Swift has.
Why is that?
As I was complaining about failing to understand this conundrum to a friend and fellow music lover (albeit of a more experimental kind), he mentioned a Swiftie he knew who could perhaps better explain this movement — because it is one — from the inside. And so I had a chat with this lovely lady, who happens to do something very serious for a living — and loves Taylor Swift. What transpired from our conversation, which I hadn’t personally experienced for reasons that will become obvious in a minute, is that what the singer has achieved more than anything is building a community. Of like-minded individuals, more to the point of young ladies facing the challenges of teenage, young adulthood and now full-on adulthood — and trying to face them as best they can.
Swift’s discography effectively takes us on a journey, from teen country to first breakups, then from global pop to more personal folky albums around Covid, and finally to extremely polished electro-pop in recent years… This obviously mirrors the young lady’s life and growth, just as it does many of her fans. Indeed, people hop on at different steps of that journey — and enjoy different phases: my newfound friend became a Swiftie with the album 1989, i.e. right as the singer crossed over to pop and therefore to another artistic identity. And she found the music all the more personal as it seemed to mirror some of her personal hurdles: such is Taylor’s talent that she manages to create a connection with millions of people, regardless their particular circumstances.
Which brings us to what is perhaps the key to this musical empire: the words. As it happens, I don’t focus on song lyrics all that much (not even when it comes to Freddie Mercury’s) — the person I was speaking to did. And so I missed many a poetic reference in Taylor Swift’s writing, as she seems to be particularly prone to that. There are nods to classical writers and poets, all sorts of figures of speech and deeper allusions, even when the topic of a given song seems asinine. All the while managing to be hyper-relatable despite the fact that she goes for coffee on a private jet. The recent Eras tour (on which said jet got quite a bit of mileage) is the embodiment of this biographical study of sorts: Swift essentially took the audience through the different phases of her story, highlighting changes along the way, without hesitating to paint a pretty real picture of specific situations or feelings. Including some where she’s not exactly the hero, best example of that being the aptly named “Anti-Hero”, a song my first-born listened to obsessively when she was 3…
Through sheer consistency, output volume, touring, extremely smart information sharing on record and onstage, Swift managed to do what very few artists (or personalities in general) ever achieve: she created a community. Swifties are not just fans, they share a bond based on similar experiences as well as feelings and a worldview that is the one Swift expresses so very well. That of a 21st-century young woman navigating what it means to be strong and independent while managing the many forms of societal backlash that come with it. With a grace that can only stem from bona fide brilliance.
There you have it: the genius of Taylor Swift may not lie in her melodies, but rather in her lyrics. And not just any particular song, more like this growing feeling that you understand her — and feel understood in the process. What some might call “world building”.
May Taylor Swift and her world live happily ever after!