She is everywhere, performing hits, concerts, records, magazine covers and above all has very loyal fans across the planet: it is of course Taylor Swift.
After a year of all records, she made pop history again on Sunday by winning a fourth Grammy for the prestigious title of best album.
The 34-year-old artist thus does better than American music legends like Frank Sinatra, Paul Simon or Stevie Wonder.
“I would like to tell you that this is the best moment of my life, but I also feel happy when I finish a song,” she reacted on Sunday. “Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to do what I love so much! I’m blown away!”
Also rewarded with the prize for best pop album, she took the opportunity to sign a marketing coup, announcing the release of a new opus on April 19, entitled “The Tortured Poets Department”.
American singer Taylor Swift awarded the Grammy Award for Album of the Year for “Midnights”, February 4, 2024 in Los Angeles / VALERIE MACON / AFP
Nearly 20 years after getting started, nothing seems to be stopping her. His “Eras Tour” is expected to garner a total of two billion dollars in revenue after having already broken the symbolic ceiling of the billion collected last year, a first in the history of music.
With her hundreds of millions of subscribers on social networks and her base of devoted “Swifties”, she can swing the scales of opinion without much effort, so much so that politicians are speculating about her potential influence on the presidential election. November American.
“A Madonna”
“You can’t live in the United States without having heard of Taylor Swift,” laughs Kristin Lieb, specialist in pop, brands and gender issues at Emerson College.
American singer Taylor Swift in concert in Inglewood, California, August 7, 2023 / Michael Tran / AFP/Archives
“She took every tip in a Madonna’s playbook and started writing her own book. It’s amazing!”
His empire is estimated to be worth more than a billion dollars. The American superstar’s concert film took home more than $93 million in its first weekend this fall.
The NFL, the professional American football league, has gained legions of new fans thanks to the highly publicized love story between the singer and Travis Kelce, star of the Kansas City Chiefs.
Since his adolescence, the artist has been used to seeing his private life exposed.
And all the successes achieved in 2023 have earned the pop star the title of Personality of the Year by Time magazine, a title generally awarded to Volodymyr Zelensky, Martin Luther King or Greta Thunberg. Taylor Swift is that “rare character who is both the writer and the heroine of her own story,” praised the magazine.
Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift, January 28, 2024 in Baltimore, Maryland / Patrick Smith / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP
The singer made her professional debut as a teenager, signing with Nashville record label Big Machine Records as a country artist.
Her first album, soberly called “Taylor Swift”, earned her a solid base of supporters, but it was “Fearless”, her second country/pop album released in 2008, which propelled her into popular culture, with titles like “Love Story” or “You Belong with Me”.
In the following albums, “Speak Now” (2010) and “Red” (2012), Taylor Swift borrowed more from rock and electro influences. His fifth opus, “1989” is completely pop.
“Version Taylor”
The megastar recently explained in Time that the following years were not easy, evoking an era that had not yet called into question the treatment reserved for young famous women, scrutinized, criticized at the slightest suspicion of misstep .
The cover of Time with Taylor Swift, the magazine’s Person of the Year / Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin / TIME / TIME Person of the Year/AFP/Archives
His dispute with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian didn’t help. “All the hyenas came running to shoot at the target,” she remembers.
Another delicate turning point was the moment in 2018 when the star reached the end of his contract with Big Machine and joined Universal without the rights to his previous albums.
She took to the public arena her fight to regain ownership of the recordings of her first six opuses after the takeover of her former record company.
She sharply attacked her former manager Scooter Braun, founder of the company which had acquired her catalog, calling him a “manipulator” who had taken advantage of her professionally in her early days.
Taylor Swift decided to re-record the first six records, inviting the “Swifties” to listen to the “Taylor version” of her works.
A bold but successful bet. She embellished the new recordings with unreleased tracks, such as a ten-minute version of “All Too Well”, which brought joy to her early fans, won over new admirers, and won the admiration of the music industry.
At the same time, the artist released four new albums, “Lover”, produced with producer Jack Antonoff, “Folklore”, “Evermore” and “Midnights”.
