Swift Speaks Her Mind

Swift basically gave a bullish outlook for the music business, saying that people will always buy music if the music promises a lifelong bond rather than a summer fling.

“There are always going to be those artists who break through on an emotional level and end up in people’s lives forever,” she said.

She added that artists will need to add the element of surprise to keep fans’ interest.

“In the YouTube generation we live in, I walked out onstage every night of my stadium tour last year knowing almost every fan had already seen the show online,” she wrote. “To continue to show them something they had never seen before, I brought out dozens of special guest performers to sing their hits with me. My generation was raised being able to flip channels if we get bored … We want to be caught off guard, delighted, left in awe.”

She added that some things are quickly becoming obsolete, such as the autograph in the world of selfies.

One of Swift’s friends, an actress, told her she lost a movie part to someone who had more Twitter followers.

“I see this becoming a trend in the music industry,” she said. “For me, this dates back to 2005 when I walked into my first record-label meetings, explaining to them that I had been communicating directly with my fans on this new site called Myspace. In the future, artists will get record deals because they have fans – not the other way around.”

That may already be happening.