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Let The Games Begin: Understanding the Global Phenomenon of Taylor Swift | Karolina Kowalska
from Issue 9 Games
Let The Games Begin: Understanding the Global Phenomenon of Taylor Swift
Note: this text was written before Taylor Swift’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, was released.
Late last year, nobody could have predicted the response from fans and media alike when this celebrity updates account tweeted a picture of Taylor Swift snacking on a post-football game meal with the caption, “Taylor Swift was eating a piece of chicken with ketchup and seemingly ranch.” Early Halloween costumes of the seemingly ranch condiment emerged. The Kraft Heinz Company confidently jumped on the viral wagon and released a limited edition of their signature dressing in honor of the picture. Or maybe we should have seen that coming? This frenzy that took over social media for a good portion of the week may seem perplexing to an outsider, but for Swifties (as fans of the singer are dubbed), these are routine incidents. It takes merely a casual photograph for Swift not only to become the topic of fervent discussions, but also to impact the revenue of an international food company. In the past three years, Taylor Swift’s influence and global appeal have reached incomparable heights. Album sales, concert attendance, and streaming numbers all continue to exceed the audiences’ wildest dreams with no signs of slowing down. While this unquestionable success puts Swift in a league of her own, a question arises: what makes her star shine so bright?
Despite debuting in 2005 with her selftitled country album, never before has Taylor Swift’s fame been so explicitly unchallenged – with each new record, her popularity grows bigger. Even artists with equally impressive industry experience have a hard time matching this level of unwavering success. A simple comparison of likes left on her Instagram posts speaks volumes about her reach: the announcement of her last pre-pandemic album (Lover, 2019) received a little over 2 million likes, while her latest album announcement (The Tortured Poets Department, 2024) amounted to a whopping 14.6 million likes. While one might argue that Internet influence alone cannot be the measure of an artist’s worth, this devotion certainly illustrates the development of Swift’s fame – from an undeniably successful and popular musician to what her Spotify biography deems “the rarest of pop phenomena.” When I went looking for a reason, among countless other factors, I actually found three major ones: the release of pandemic-time sister albums folklore and evermore (2020), the endeavor of rerecording her masters (2021-), and the global musical pilgrimage that is the Eras Tour (2023-).
A stylistic departure from Swift’s previous body of work, 2020’s albums folklore and evermore offered richly told escapism in the midst of the pandemic. Lyrically poignant, not only did this poetic venture win Swift record-breaking number of awards, but it also reintroduced her art to people who still associated her with the country banjo of “Mean” and the catchy chorus of the pop smash hit “Shake It Off.” Stories of isolation, regret, and heartbreak intertwined with eulogies celebrating life and rebirth, making the records staples of the time of quarantine. Yet their storytelling is so universal in its message that the albums cannot be shoehorned strictly into the time of social distancing. However, the records’ storytelling is not the sole reason for the enticing novelty. Both folklore and evermore were surprise releases, announced hours before their streaming premieres. It was a move which prior to the pandemic was unthinkable for the highly calculated marketing strategies of Swift’s team. The general disbelief at the releases combined with their uncharted sounds and melancholic lyrics established folklore and evermore as the introductory act to Swift’s era of sophisticated artistic expression.
It is impossible to overstate the cultural impact of the indie sound and vivid storytelling of the two records. The intricate lyricism with equal acclaim from both the devoted amateurs and key music industry players granted Swift unparalleled nominations and awards. Hailed as Album of the Year at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, folklore became the representative record of a time of fear, isolation, and longing, while evermore’s extension into Swift’s narrative remains a fan favorite.
The undertaking of re-recording her back catalog has undoubtedly augmented Swift’s constant presence in the global arena. After parting ways with her original record label Big Machine Records in 2019, the musician found herself in a dispute over the ownership of her first six albums. The legal argument concluded in the sale of the music to a third party. Consequently, Swift was rendered unable to profit off of her work, e.g. through licensing or streaming. To reclaim the rights to her masters, she set out on an ambitious project of re-recording all of her first six albums released between 2005 and 2017, and, in true Swift fashion, she did so with overwhelming success. The re-recording process began in 2021 with the release of Fearless (Taylor’s Version).
As of early 2024, four out of six albums have received the Taylor’s Version treatment (as the re-recordings are dubbed): each amounting to even greater commercial success. Exceptional sales continue to astound the industry, since the music remains virtually unchanged from the original “stolen” versions. An additional incentive that Swift offers on each of the records is the inclusion of songs “From The Vault” – singles that originally never made it to the album slates but were written at the time of their conception. Praised for their timelessness, Swift’s decade-old albums find new audiences in a generation of fans introduced to her work through the recent re-recordings. Given that the entire process began barely three years ago, this temporal proximity of each album’s release allows for a close inspection of Swift’s work, whose genre-hopping evolution is a testament to her versatility as an artist.
Known for her playful tendency to string her fans along on a journey of carefully placed easter eggs and clues, Swift remains faithful to her usual antics during the re-recording process. Dropping hints in Instagram post captions, sparkling rumors by emphasizing the dominant color of an outfit, or cryptically smirking while leaving a recording studio, the artist plays her usual game of speculation, maximizing downthe-rabbit-hole fan engagement. While Swifties theorize, Swift plots, and the game continues to amuse both sides: “Cause you know I love the players and you love the game.”
In the post-pandemic landscape of Swift’s impressive endeavors, none contribute to her industrious superiority and raging popularity quite as much as the world tour she embarked on in 2023. Upon the release of her 2019 studio album Lover, the songwriter was forced to cancel the planned international Lover Fest Tour scheduled for 2020 due to the pandemic. In hindsight, the 16 planned shows (including the singer’s first appearance in Poland at the Open’er Music Festival in Gdynia) grow pale in comparison to what eventually became the 152 monumental performances of the Eras Tour (2023-). Named after each of Swift’s musical ‘eras’ – a mash of themes, aesthetics, colors, and sounds, each encompassing one of her records – the shows are over 3-hour-long spectacles of performative might. Each night thousands of devout fans gather both inside and outside the sold-out stadiums and millions of people tune in for amateur livestreams on various social media platforms.
Even before the very first show in March 2023, the tour garnered considerable media attention. Upon its announcement, “astronomical demand” forced Swift’s team to continuously add new dates – from the original 27 to 62 US shows, and, eventually, revealing plans for international legs of the tour. Even some of the world leaders, such as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, publicly invited Swift to tour in their countries. Buying a ticket became synonymous with winning the lottery due to the Ticketmaster platform’s inability to satisfy this overwhelming demand. The sales fiasco even made its way to Congress, prompting a political debate on the viability of the Ticketmaster/Live Nation Entertainment monopoly, with figures such as President Joe Biden voicing their concerns.
Once the tour kicked off, it quickly became apparent that, just like anything Swift does, its impact would be immense. Each hosting city has welcomed the musician. For example, Las Vegas lit up its Gateway Arches in the colors of the ten Eras. While Tampa presented the singer with a key to the city, some cities went as far as to rename itself for the duration of Swift’s visit – e.g. Minneapolis became Swiftieapolis. Eagle-eyed Varsovians surely noticed the singer’s name light-projected on the facade of the PGE National Stadium on the eve of the announcement of international show dates, among them, three upcoming Warsaw shows in August 2024.
Aside from this cultural frenzy that rocked America (and beyond!), the Eras Tour has made a significant impact on the economy. It has already been announced as the highest-grossing tour of all time, earning Swift a billion-dollar profit to date, over half of which the musician distributed in the form of bonuses for her team and crew. Additionally, so far, the tour has also boosted the US economy by over 4 billion dollars, mostly in the hospitality area, with experts dubbing this fiscal boom “The TSwift Lift.” With the first North American leg of the tour concluded, Swift now sets her sights on conquering the rest of the world: the Eras Tour is certainly going to leave a similar impression worldwide. Are you ready for it?
In the last four years, Taylor Swift’s stardom has risen to previously uncharted levels, not only impacting the music industry, but also flooding unrelated areas, such as Internet culture, or even the economy. Despite worries about aging and fading from the limelight voiced in the 2019 documentary Miss Americana, Swift is undoubtedly enjoying a golden age of her hard-earned success, and it looks as if her star shines too bright to fade any time soon. We may never truly know if it was indeed the ranch, but the craze surrounding Swift is sure to deliver another seemingly engrossing viral moment in no time.
