Look What You Made Her Do: How Taylor Swift Became A Historic Global Supernova Juggernaut Of Epic Proportions And Positively Disrupted The F Out Of The Status Quo

Let’s talk about Taylor Swift… talk and talk, and talk. What hasn’t already been said? My assigning editor, who did this issue’s staggering, just-the-facts, straight up business piece, has taken to muttering, “Taylor IS Jesus. She’s just like Jesus…,” which might be just a little overstated and blasphemous. But, not since Prince, Michael Jackson or Madonna in their prime has an artist so completely dominated the conversation. Not just pop culture, either; though she shattered past touring records with a billion-dollar single-year trek that could do even bigger numbers next year.

Peggy Noonan waxed so rhapsodic in the Wall Street Journal about Taylor’s ability to bring people together, to create new business models, to offer a space where people can agree and come together, it was almost like she can walk on water.

Even as Pollstar goes to press, CNN reports Swift is the first living artist since Billboard combined their mono and stereo charts to put five albums into the Top 10 of its Top 200 Albums chart. She did it with 1989 (Taylor’s Version), folklore, Midnights, Lover and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version). [Prince accomplished this feat posthumously.]

Every day, another newsflash: Spotify’s most streamed artist, her concert film netting $92 million in its U.S. opening weekend en route to becoming the biggest concert film in history; seismic activity, registering 2.3 on the Richter scale from the cheers and stomping at Seattle’s Lumen Field this spring.

That earth quaking “thing” seems to follow the 33-year old songwriting superstar wherever she goes. When the onsale for this year’s “Eras Tour” turned into a total debacle, it wasn’t merely a software or server problem; it turned into a series of Congressional hearings about ticketing and the concert industry.

As with Apple Music, which wasn’t adequately paying the writers and artists, Swift took a stand. Meaningful action followed. With the streamers, it was about getting artists paid for their music; with Ticketmaster – which assured her it could withstand the onslaught of her hyper-engaged fans, but profoundly underestimated their passion and vigor, it was about getting tickets into the hands of her fans without trauma.

And because she is Taylor Swift, perhaps because so many Congressional and Senatorial grandchildren were disappointed, Washington, D.C., sat up and took notice. Taylor wanted action and resolution; now, things are on the verge of changing for the fans and the artists.

Swift, despite the goodie-goodie image that sometimes follows her, is one smart cookie who has been mastering how the game is played since posting on MySpace and reaching out to fans – even before she was a Big Machine recording artist. So intent on chasing her dream, she convinced her family to move to Tennessee from Pennsylvania, walking her tapes up and down Music Row and asking people to take her seriously as a baby-faced, not-quite-teen.

Liz Rose, a crack songwriter and mother of alt star Caitlin Rose, saw the determination. They began writing weekly at Sony/Tree, sculpting songs that spoke to the reality of what actual young girls who weren’t the hot ones were going through. Swift’s songs of heartbreak, disappointment, hope and even geekiness were real.

Instead of being a Hooters girl jailbait Lolita, Swift was that kid down the street. The difference was palpable, and it wasn’t long before the standard promo tour turned into key opening slots. Then Swift did what the male acts in those slots did: she moved into arenas and never looked back.

I mention that now, because she’s such a stadium-selling supernova, something she now does in multiples, it’s easy to not realize how hard she fought to stand her ground, to know what was right for her – and all of the little girls just like her. Indeed, all of the women who’d been just like her, plus the fathers of girls who were realizing that passive, baked-in misogyny is real.

And she was honest. She could write a catty song about that girl the boy who she loved was with; Bob Lefsetz, who constantly called her out, or unfaithful boyfriends; that’s life – and Taylor wasn’t pulling her punches. It made the audiences more rabid, more fomenting. The sparkly blond earworm farmer knew just how it felt, and was speaking truth for everyone who deserved to be heard instead of pushed aside.

My editor is muttering, “I told you … I told you … She’s Jesus.”

No, but she wants people to be included, to embrace baking and crafts and cats, girlfriends, sleepovers and living your life if those things make you happy. She wants to knee the patriarchy in its girded loins (“The Man”) so that more women can become “fearless leaders and alpha types.”

Instead of wasting time barking at people who can’t hear a dog whistle, she kept building her castles: diamond-certified albums, stadium tours that mushroomed into attendance records and things like six nights at LA’s SoFi stadium.

No statement, no show biz “take that,” just growing her music; moving away from the pop/country that earned her those Academy of Country Music and Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year Awards into a more glittering purely pop cocktail. Shimmering, sweeping, percussive in all the right places, the hits kept dropping – “Shake It Off,” “We Are Never Getting Back Together,” “Bad Blood,” “Love Story,” “Mean” and the silky “All Too Well,” which now has its own 10-minute reinvention that’s nominated for a Grammy.

That ability to distil life is giving new verve to some of those older songs. But “Cruel Summer,” from 2019’s Lover, has taken on a life of its own. Easily the biggest song of a career spent cranking out coming of age and reckoning with disappointment anthem after anthem.

Like every teenager, she grew up. If a certain segment of America wanted her frozen in amber, she outgrew that aw-shucks kid whose speech for Best Female Video at 2009’s MTV Video Music Awards was interrupted and wrote a song to still the waters (“Innocent”).

She was self-possessed and willing to stand up for her art; when her label sold her masters, she decided to re-record all those albums and allow the songs to grow up. More nuanced, less awkward, it allowed new generations to experience Swift in “real time,” while giving the girls and young women who’ve been on the 17-year journey new wind for their sails.

That move has spawned what is being called “the Taylor Swift clause” in record deals: the clauses were always there, but now there are excruciating long periods of time before being allowed to re-record your own material. Something says she’ll find a way to help others with this, too.

It’s why, when she negotiated her deal with Universal, she stipulated that if they sell their Spotify stock, the money goes to the artists instead of being applied to their recoupable balance. As she posted on her Instagram at the time, “There was one condition which meant more to me than any other deal point. As part of my new contract with Universal Music Group, I asked that any sale of their Spotify shares result in a distribution of money to their artists, non-recoupable.”

She’s not looking to be a saint, she’s just trying to do the right thing. Whether it’s tying into food banks in every city on “Eras” or during the pandemic quietly paying the salaries for all the employees at Grimey’s New + PreLoved Music in Nashville, she gives quietly, and generously.

For now, the young woman who had her every growing-up-dating disaster play out in public has fashioned a tour that embraces all of the phases of her career. Yes, she’s explored EDM (clandestinely co-writing and singing on Rihanna’s “This Is What You Came For”), Americana (folklore), worked with the indie-tastic National’s Aaron Desner and Jack Antonoff, plucked Ed Sheeran, Shawn Mendes, HAIM and Camila Cabello for tour support and watched them turn into superstars. Even this year’s surprise guests Ice Spice, GAYLE and Gracie Abrams are emerging.

It’s not about merch, although demand was so torrid, they opened booths outside the stadiums in the days before her concerts. It’s not about ancillary product deals: there is no vodka, no line of sunglasses, truck or car commercials, not even that ubiquitous red lip franchised for easy application. Nor are there restaurants, bars or cruises. Just her, the music and the fans.

Those fans who couldn’t get tickets, or even the families that couldn’t afford to take everyone to the shows in part spurred the movie. Showings of “The Eras Tour” were filled with little kids, teens, free spirits, LGBTQ+ fans of all ages, all dressed up for their (super)heroine. Dancing, singing, cheering in the aisles, it’s as if they were experiencing the three-hour show with all the songs, all the sweeping production.

Swift gets it, gets being left out, how much getting to be part of the fun matters. That’s the point of so much of what she does.

Certainly in that realm of “my feminism is we, not me,” she and Beyoncé joined forces to remove the cat-fighting trope the media’s been leaning into by supporting each other at their respective movie premieres. Gracious, lovely, respectful: how it should be.
In a world that’s increasingly strident, aggressive, even bullying, Swift – and her friends – have built a space where people embrace joy instead of rancor, cads are called out, dressing for revenge is a prowl and song cycles are now recognized as chapters in a grown woman’s life.

To see that honesty evolve in real time, some of America’s most prestigious universities, including Harvard, the University of Texas, Berklee and Stanford, are teaching major curriculum on Taylor, as cultural anthropology, English lit extension or sociological studies. Even Gannett, the notoriously stingy newspaper chain, has found the money to hire a reporter dedicated to “the Taylor Swift beat.”

To say she copes graciously with being in the public eye is an understatement. Even the NFL has benefited from her recent interest in the Kansas City Chiefs. “The Swift Effect,” as it’s dubbed, saw the Chiefs/Bears game viewed by 25 million people, many young women who’ve never cared before.

It’s crazy. And just maybe beatific. It’s hard to say if Taylor – just named TIME’s Person of the Year and now on the cover of PEOPLE as their Most Intriguing – is an agent of the rapture. But quite possibly with all the quiet lifts, the massive shows, the squad goals we can aspire to she may be heaven sent?