Photograph by Inez and Vinoodh for TIME
Taylor Swift was named “Person of the Year” by Time Magazine and gave a very interesting interview — I'll leave the link so you can access the magazine.
When it became known about the possibility of being Taylor Swift, an artist, let's say, the first person to come from the world of entertainment, I was ecstatic. I know there are some people who didn't have the same reaction and I understand, but Taylor Swift is the best thing 2023 has had!
The world is in chaos, we live in horrible times with wars happening. We can't do anything about this. It's heartbreaking! It is for this reason that Taylor Swift as person of the year is an ode to life, to celebration, to fraternity, to happiness. The year 2023 is hers!
But, do you really understand what Taylor Swift offered to her fans, detractors who became fans, people who did well without her and then became fans, or simply to her continuous defamers throughout the year 2023?
Me Yes! And I'm here to do a little review.
66 shows of “The Eras Tour”, each concert travels through her 10 albums, contains 46 songs and lasts 3h30; the re-recording of Speak Now (Taylor's version); the 1989 re-recording (Taylor's Version); the concert film “The Eras Tour”; she had 3 songs at number 1 on the Billboard charts for weeks; She was the most listened to artist on Spotify, Apple Music and other platforms and won VMS for best direction and song of the year with “Anti-Hero”. She grew the economy in all the cities she visited thanks to her fans, her “The Eras tour” is the most profitable concert of the year and possibly ever, surpassing a billion dollars, and she herself entered the billionaire lists.
In the interview, which was carried out over several weeks, I will highlight some passages.
"Swift’s accomplishments as an artist—culturally, critically, and commercially—are so legion that to recount them seems almost beside the point. As a pop star, she sits in rarefied company, alongside Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and Madonna; as a songwriter, she has been compared to Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, and Joni Mitchell.
...To discuss her movements felt like discussing politics or the weather—a language spoken so widely it needed no context. She became the main character of the world.
If you’re skeptical, consider it: How many conversations did you have about Taylor Swift this year? How many times did you see a photo of her while scrolling on your phone? Were you one of the people who made a pilgrimage to a city where she played? Did you buy a ticket to her concert film? Did you double-tap an Instagram post, or laugh at a tweet, or click on a headline about her? Did you find yourself humming “Cruel Summer” while waiting in line at the grocery store? Did a friend confess that they watched clips of the Eras Tour night after night on TikTok? Or did you?
Photograph by Inez and Vinoodh for TIME... There are at least 10 college classes devoted to her, including one at Harvard; the professor, Stephanie Burt, tells TIME she plans to compare Swift’s work to that of the poet William Wordsworth.
... Swift is that story’s architect and hero, protagonist and narrator.
...This was the year she perfected her craft—not just with her music, but in her position as the master storyteller of the modern era. The world, in turn, watched, clicked, cried, danced, sang along, swooned, caravanned to stadiums and movie theaters, let her work soundtrack their lives.(...) Here, she adopts a booming voice. “Are you not entertained?
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Standing in the arena, it’s not hard to understand why this is the biggest thing in the world. “Beatlemania and Thriller have nothing on these shows,” says Swift’s friend and collaborator Phoebe Bridgers.
Photograph by Inez and Vinoodh for TIME
I knew this tour was harder than anything I’d ever done before by a long shot,” Swift says. Each show spans over 180 minutes, including 40-plus songs from at least nine albums; there are 16 costume changes, pyrotechnics, an optical illusion in which she appears to dive into the stage and swim, and not one but two cottagecore worlds, which feature an abundance of moss."
Read More: Taylor Swift Shares Her Eras Tour Workout and Self-Care Regimen
Billboard wrote about the situation described in the interview given to Time magazine, related to Kanye West, his wife Kim Kardashian and the release of the album “Reputation”. Obviously the re-recording of "Reputation" (Taylor Version) was highlighted...
https://www.billboard.com/lists/taylor-swift-time-person-of-the-year-biggest-takeaways/
“Make no mistake — my career was taken away from me.”
Swift got straight to the point when talking about her age-old feud with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, which reached its climax in 2016 after Kim released snippets purported to be a phone conversation between her then-husband and the “Karma” singer regarding the lyric, “I made that b—h famous.” “You have a fully manufactured frame job, in an illegally recorded phone call, which Kim Kardashian edited and then put out to say to everyone that I was a liar,” Swift described the situation to TIME.
“That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before,” she continued. “I moved to a foreign country. I didn’t leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to get on phone calls. I pushed away most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard.”
She went on to release 2017’s Reputation partially in response to the scandal, an album she remembers as being met with uproar and skepticism. “I thought that moment of backlash was going to define me negatively for the rest of my life,” she told the magazine.
Speaking of Reputation, Swift did take a moment to tease that she’s already thinking about her next “Taylor’s Version” release. “It’s a goth-punk moment of female rage at being gaslit by an entire social structure,” she said of her 2017 album. “I think a lot of people see it and they’re just like, ‘Sick snakes and strobe lights.’”
As for the From the Vault tracks coming on the still unannounced Reputation (Taylor’s Version)? Swift teases they’re “fire.
Personally, what Kanye West did was horrible and I really like him. I love his discography, but this situation, after she wrote the song "Innocent", and presented him at the VMAs in 2015, and, he left, he allowed his wife to put up a fake video about Taylor Swift, and, didn't say anything!? He accepted that she was cancelled, there are no excuses! What Kim Kardashian did was very, very ugly. What I think, and it's just me saying this, but I realize I'm not the only one who thinks this, is that they should apologize publicly. Apologies sincere this time!
It could served to close the subject, even if it wouldn't change anything. It would change for many people!
She was cancelled at the highest point of her career, she was cancelled after the album “1989”!?
She came back with one of my favourite albums “Reputation”. It's interesting that she talks about “Goth-punk” because, musically, is not “Goth-punk”, but, I understand the internal concept, the revolt, the intensity of the music and the anger in the construction of the album. Only in this way I understand the connection to the “Goth-punk moment of a female Rage...”
2023 for me was the discovery of a huge artist, a journey, an excavation into her discography, a strange belonging to a group of millions of people, who do everything for Taylor Swift, her “Swifties”. I can say today that I am one of them and i am very proud to be.
Thank you, Taylor Swift!!!
