Not so Swift: Taylor Swift’s undeserved status
Taylor Swift has been in the Billboard 100 for 98 weeks. Most people would say that she is the most popular music artist right now, and they’d be right. But being at the top of the charts for so long, any artist is bound to get some hate.
I am one of those haters.
Swift started off as a country artist, releasing her first album “Taylor Swift” under Big Machine Records in 2006. She made the switch to pop music with her album “Red” in 2012. As she has cranked out new albums every few years, her song quality has steadily decreased. The lyrics and beats have grown progressively worse, repetitive and lazy.
Despite the lack of good songs, her media attention has been on the rise. Every day in the media it’s “Taylor Swift this” and “Taylor Swift that,” — constant fanfare for someone who doesn’t deserve it.
Swift has become just as much of a media influencer as a musician. Her fans are completely obsessed with her. They want to know everything about her and think that she loves them back. Swift plays into this dynamic with her strong media presence and networking events at her private residence. She strongly plays into the obsessed fans’ interactions, stating that she loves them on many occasions.
The Eras Tour is Swift’s latest live music endeavor. The main pull of the tour is that she goes through all her musical “eras,” segmenting the concert to focus on each one. Swift turned the August 2023 show in Inglewood, California into a movie shown in theaters. The tour and movie grossed a combined $1.7 billion, with 85% of the profits going to Swift’s pockets. It seems like she’s milking the tour for all the profit she can get. The tour has made Swift into a large talking point in the media, but not all the attention is positive.
Ticketmaster, an online ticket distributor, had some issues with their site and queue system. Being so popular, Swift naturally had millions of fans trying to get tickets to her shows. Ticketmaster couldn’t handle the sheer number of fans, allowing too many people in the presale program and leaving few tickets for the general public.
That wasn’t the end of Swift’s concert trouble era. In 2021, a fan attending a Travis Scott concert died in a crowd rush. The rapper was then heavily scrutinized by the media for not responding more directly to the death, even though it was caused by rabid fans. In Swift’s case, a fan in Brazil suffered a heat stroke and died. The show happened during a major heatwave, and with all the bodies in the venue, it was too hot. Swift postponed the next show, but the damage was done.
After the untimely death, Swift, or possibly her PR team, released a story on Instagram apologizing for the incident, receiving little to no backlash: a stark contrast from Scott. Her reactions to both the Ticketmaster debacle and the fan’s death show how she and her PR team are able to get her out of any trouble she gets in. She apologized in the form of an Instagram story which only stayed up for 24 hours. In doing so, she apologized and simultaneously made it easier for people to forget these unfortunate incidents faster.
The songs she performs at the concerts sound the same and use similar lyrics both to each other as well as other popular contemporary songs. She rhymes “car” and “bar” in seven different songs, and “blue” with “you” or “do” in eight. Her most egregious song writing failure is in the song “Shake it off,” where she says “You could’ve been getting down to this sick beat.” She then lays down a beat that is not sick. In fact, it’s plain boring.
Swift is the epitome of a boring pop star. She gets undeserved attention for mediocre music, even through all the hardships she causes her fans go through to get concert tickets and her decent achievements. She is a master with her words and how she addresses her fans, and they love her. Next time you pick up your phone and see a notification about the last thing Swift ate, ask yourself why you should care.
