TORTURED TAYLOR// THE PHENOMENA OF TAYLOR SWIFT //
Taylor Swift performing at The Eras Tour • Illustrated by Kitty Pilgrim-Morris
I must confess I have been a Taylor Swift hater in the past. Maybe ‘hater’ is too strong of a word, but I’ve definitely expressed a lot of confusion and disbelief at the fact she is as big as she is - I simply couldn’t get my head around the success of what was, in my humble opinion, pretty average music sung by a pretty average voice, with pretty average dance routines and Disney-Channel-esque costumes. Embarrassing as it may be to admit, I didn’t consider Taylor Swift ‘cool enough’ to spend my time listening to her - not I, priding myself as I do on my music taste and knowledge! What a narrow world view to have.
The whole nature of guilty pleasures has started to feel more than a little bit silly; if something is mainstream and popular, it’s most likely because it’s pretty good. I’m not better than anyone else by considering myself ‘too cool’ for pop music. After watching her Netflix documentary, Miss Americana, I guess I warmed to her a bit; her passion and knack for songwriting is undeniable. A lot of her songs may not be my cup of tea, and there is still a certain same-ness across her body of work, but she is a masterful lyricist. Her biggest talent, however, is probably her ability to brand-build; to curate a world of ‘Easter eggs’ and songs that are connected by little winks to each other, weaving in Swift’s personal life until her discography feels more centred around the ‘lore’ of her social and romantic life rather than trying to push any real musical boundaries. Take Miss Americana for example; being executive producer for an informative film about yourself stretches the definition of documentary - I would argue it’s more accurate to describe it as propaganda.
None of the above is a criticism, however. Sure, I don’t find any of it particularly creatively interesting, but at the end of the day I am sitting and writing this article in my childhood bedroom because I can’t afford to move out of my parents’ house, while Taylor Swift is sitting upon her billion-dollar business empire. I think she’s doing pretty okay.
With two of my close friends being major Swifties, I’ve tried a couple of times to earnestly listen to her music in camaraderie, but could never stick with it - I’ve had marginally more luck with her newest album, The Tortured Poet’s Department. More than a handful of songs from the album have firmly lodged themselves in my head. On the track Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me, Swift sings ‘[I] put narcotics in all of my songs and that’s why you’re still singing along’ - and it certainly feels that way. While the album is still musically shallow and pretty samey, since its release I’ve found my thumb stretching for it upon opening Spotify a surprising amount of times. Something about her lyrics and melodies scratch my brain, a real dopamine mine.
While trivial compared to other polarising issues in the world today, polarising is indeed what opinions on Taylor Swift have become. ‘Swifties’ can be incredibly intense in their encyclopaedic knowledge about Swift’s life and their vehement defence of her against any criticism - of which there is no shortage. Critics accuse her of being ‘boy crazy’, calculated, ruining the music industry, and of being simply irritating.
The side of the negative discourse that is actually very valid, regarding her insanely excessive private jet use and resulting carbon footprint, isn’t even the leading argument. If anything, her careless attitude towards the environment is used as evidence for her character assassination, rather than being discussed as a systemic issue within the music industry and across the super-rich. Yes, Taylor Swift has the highest jet usage, but Jay-Z and boxer Floyd Mayweather aren’t far behind. The disproportionate critique of her CO2 emissions begs the question - what is the real issue here? Could it be… sexism? Swift’s countless male peers that have also made a career by singing about their love life, such as Ed Sheeran and Bruno Mars, never receive the same criticism.
Swift described in a 2020 interview with CBS how ‘there’s a different vocabulary for men and women in the music industry… a man does something, it’s strategic. A woman does the same thing, it’s calculated. A man is allowed to react, a woman can only overreact’. When accepting Billboards first ever Woman of the Decade award in 2019, she expressed the following in her speech: They’re saying I’m dating too much in my 20s? Okay, I’ll stop, I’ll just be single. For years. Now they’re saying my album Red is filled with too many breakup songs? Okay, okay, I’ll make one about New York and deciding that really my life is more fun with just my friends. Oh, they’re saying my music is changing too much for me to stay in country music? All right. Okay, here’s an entire genre shift and a pop album called 1989. Now it’s that I’m showing you too many pictures of me and my friends, okay, I can stop doing that too. Now I’m actually a calculated manipulator rather than a smart business woman? Okay I’ll disappear from public view for years. Now I’m being cast as a villain to you? Okay, here’s an album called Reputation and there are lots of snakes everywhere. In the last ten years I have watched as women in this industry are criticised and measured up to each other and picked at for their bodies, their romantic lives, their fashion. Have you ever heard someone say about a male artist - “I really like his songs but I don’t know what it is, there’s just something about him I don’t like!”? No - that criticism is reserved for us.
Swift is a truly unique phenomena - so intertwined is her music career with her place in popular culture, that one cannot really separate the two. Her music cannot be critiqued using normal criteria, because to do so would neglect a huge factor in her success - her cultural significance and commentary, the ‘lore’ behind her lyrics, the way her fans feel included in the Swiftie club. Taylor Swift epitomises girlhood, and much of the slander directed towards her is, I believe, rooted in prejudice against girlhood itself, and the finding of it to be cringe, childish and lame. Ever since the Kanye scandal at the 2009 VMA Awards, where Kanye ambushed Swift onstage and publicly humiliated her by saying Beyonce should have won, Swift has been portrayed as (and not exactly fought against) being the underdog. While sometimes accurate - things have been undeniably challenging for Swift in the public eye - it’s been an excellent PR strategy. Everyone loves an underdog! But I don’t know many underdogs who have sold out stadium tours, are the second biggest streaming artist on the planet, and have a net worth of over a billion.
While, as Swift said herself, the term ‘calculated’ is often reserved as an insult for women, used in the place of ‘strategic’ or ‘assertive’, she certainly does have an intensely intricate marketing strategy. A true princess of capitalism, Swift definitely takes advantage of her fans' undying love for her as a means to make more money, with ridiculously overpriced merch and endless limited edition vinyls at exponentially staggering prices. Tickets for the cinema screened version of the Eras Tour were £19.89, in reference to her 2014 album and birth year, 1989. Deemed by her fans as a ‘cute’ little nod to her discography, I call that daylight robbery. And back to the private jet use - yes, it is only slightly worse than her male counterparts who receive nowhere near the same amount of grief, but there is no excuse to be so utterly irresponsible about her damage to the planet. Being a business woman, rather than artist, is perhaps a more accurate term for what she does; but regardless, there is no denying that she does it very well. While I love how much my friends love and connect to Swift and her music, I can’t say I’ll be becoming a Swiftie anytime soon.
Author: Kitty Pilgrim-Morris
28/04/2024