What to Make of Taylor Swift's Eras Tour and the Significance of It Becoming A Cultural Phenomenon
Is this something we’ve never seen before?
Jamie Mah @grahammah
This is not a subject I could ever have pictured myself wanting to write about. I am not a Taylor Swift fan. I wouldn't say I like her work; it's more that I don't know it at all. I know for certain that I cannot name one song in her catalog. With how popular she is, I somehow feel ashamed of this fact. Yet, even in light of my indifference to who she is and the work she's produced, I'm also fascinated by culture — precisely the why of things, like what to make of this massive moment and phenomenon she's having right now. Everything about it has caused me to wonder about a few narratives as all I see in features and on social media is Taylor Swift “This and That.“ I believe it is safe to say that her level of fandom has reached a new feverish height. Therefore, to satisfy this curiosity better, I'd like to dig into things.
What is going on?
Now it stands to reason that unless you've been living under a rock these past few months, you understand and know that Taylor Swift is currently in the midst of the first leg of her Eras Tour.
Let me be clear; it's not as if this is her first extensive tour; she's an icon of pop music who has been around since 2005. She's had massive tours before (five to be exact), most recently in 2018 for her album, Reputation. The fever and mania of a Taylor Swift tour is not new.
Her celebrity is as high as it comes. Few have ever been as popular as she is now. This, however, is not what I'm curious about. Big acts and artists come and go all the time. We've seen massive appeal from the likes of The Rolling Stones, Madonna, and U2 to Beyoncé. What I'm surprised to see with this Swift phenomenon is how wide-ranging it has become. I have a few ideas as to why.
She's hit her peak
For most athletes, this happens between the ages of 27–32. Think of Michael Jordan winning his first championship at 27 in 1991. It's when the mind and body merge with the best balance of athleticism and wisdom. For musicians, an artist's proverbial peak is somewhat different, as it isn't so much based on age per se but timing. Taylor understands this as she's acknowledged it as much in the past. More than most, she understands she owns the narrative and has a strong sense of how she wants her career to evolve.
Swift’s penchant for thank-you notes and thoughtful gestures may be a talisman against the fickleness of public opinion — or fate. She is an incessant worrier. “I’ve been watching ‘Behind the Music’ since I was five, and I became fascinated by career trajectories,” she told me. “Like” — she adopted a TV-announcer voice — “ ‘This artist peaked on their second album. This artist peaked on their third album. This artist peaked with every album. These are singles artists. These are album artists.’ ” She went on, “And I sometimes stress myself out wondering what my trajectory is — like, if I sleep in and wake up at 2 p.m., because I’m so tired from the night before, sometimes I’ll beat myself up, because what if I was supposed to wake up earlier that day and write a song?”
The context of this quote and the complexity of who she is at this time in her life distills emphatically what she understood of herself and what she wanted to achieve. The level of drive she possessed is here in full force. It's rather impressive for someone who was not yet 22. But it does render the understanding of what she had in store for herself down the line. We're witnessing it now.
To speak of what an artist's peak means, one has to picture how that unfolds for most. There are a couple of ways they can play out.
The Linear Negative Slope Trajectory: peaks earlier and spends the rest of their career trying (and failing) to recapture the magic. Most artists and groups fall along this trajectory. Oasis is an excellent example, with the massive success of their first two albums and the commercial failures of everything after.
The Linear Positive Slope Trajectory: gets continually better over the course of their career. You don't see this one in music very much, as any artist who keeps going long enough will eventually produce something that could be better. That said, the relatively short career of The Smiths did see them improving with each album.
The Bell Curve Trajectory: takes a little while to get going, hits their stride for a period of classic albums, then falls off again late career. This is the trajectory of many classic rock acts — The Rolling Stones come to mind. For a more modern example, there's Radiohead.
The Waveform Trajectory: inconsistent and unpredictable. Will follow up trash with masterpieces and vice versa. You also don't see this one a lot in music since artists generally build on what they did before rather than starting anew with each new project, although The Clash could be like this. Beck to a certain degree also.
The Reverse Bell Curve Trajectory: in which artists will start strong, fall into a creative rut, and then revitalize late in their careers. Neil Young is a good example.
Now, suppose we place Taylor Swift in one of these categories. In that case, she might be one of those rare artists who fit nicely and comfortably, in the Linear Positive Slope Trajectory, especially with the success of her last three albums. From everything I've read, Folklore and Evermore are the two albums that proved she could build a new sound and audience, while Midnights just sent her IP into the stratosphere.
From Hypebae:
According to Chart Data, “@taylorswift13 broke her own record for biggest streaming day for any artist on Spotify in 2023 on March 19 (67 million).” Swift has surpassed Rihanna, who had a total of 54 million streams in a single day. Swift’s major milestone comes just as she kicked off The Eras Tour, which has become the most-attended female concert in U.S. history, surpassing Madonna.
Swift has broken several records in the last few months, especially after releasing her latest album, Midnights. Thanks to the LP, in October 2022, she become the first artist to simultaneously occupy the entire top 10 on Billboard’s Hot 100 song chart with Anti-Hero leading on the list. The single became her ninth №1 in her music career.
To say that we haven’t seen this before would be ridiculous. We’ve had massive pop stars and groups before. The most notable of which comes to mind is Elvis Presley in 1956, at the apex of his fame. The Beatles in 1964, after their massive Ed Sullivan appearance where over 70 million watched, a number that’s just jaw-dropping for a Sunday night talk show. To put it into context, that’s over two-thirds of how many watched last year’s Superbowl. Then there’s Michael Jackson’s Thriller year of 1983, which I’m hoping isn’t something I should have to explain as to how big that was.
So yeah, we’ve had massive pop stars before. Madonna, Prince, the Spice Girls, and Beyoncé are probably the only other four who have been at or near the current level Taylor finds herself. But for a lot of those artists, their fame had shelf lives. Not all were the same, and several floundered soon after. In the case of Elvis, he’d peak by 1958, get drafted into war, make shitty movies, get fat and never be the same again. The Beatles would release massive records a few times after that Sullivan appearance, but by 1969, they were done. Michael Jackson’s career would crater within ten years of Thriller; Prince would go through a lengthy legal battle with his record label in the early 90s, forcing him to go by a dumb symbol during a time when his star appeal was on a definite downward trajectory. The Spice Girls were a quick five-year run of a band, which only leaves Madonna and Beyoncé as notable examples of artists who found a way to remain relevant while also putting out great work. But not to bemoan either of their legendary careers, I don’t know if even they had this type of fanbase or loyalty, which is to say that yes, we’ve seen big before, but at this level, for such a lengthy period (Swift has been around for 17 years!) with a wattage that seems to be growing with no end in sight — that to me is what is new here.
From The Guardian:
The amazing thing is not that I like Swift, but that anyone still cares about her. It’s hard to do that 18 years into a recording career.
At this stage of their career the Rolling Stones were putting out Emotional Rescue, Dylan was releasing Street Legal, Bowie did Let’s Dance (nice, but hardly culturally dominant), Springsteen was past Tunnel of Love and no longer vital to anyone under 30. R.E.M released Up, which no one cared about, even at the time, and U2 were about to hit the Pop phase
Of recent artists, only Drake, Kanye West and Beyoncé have really had the level of long-ongoing cultural vitality as Swift, and I am nowhere hip enough to be part of the Beyhive. And even Beyoncé doesn’t have the popularity of Swift; among women artists, Swift is miles in front.
Then there’s the new wrinkle of her fame, how she’s won over the hetero-male crowd. Part of this stems from the fact that she’s an incredible brand manager. As much as it was probably due to her admiration of his talents as a musician, she understood that working with The National’s Aaron Dressner would lend her credibility with indie rock enthusiasts. As I’m sure many of you were, I was surprised by the collaboration, but I also wasn’t if that makes any sense.
This, again, shows how much she understands her narrative. If you went to a Taylor Swift show in 2015 during her 1989 tour, you’d have Dads with their daughters, Moms with their daughters, girls in their 20s, and members of the LGBTQ community. Now you have NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers embracing and dancing at one of her shows.
Where that change began was in 2020 with Folklore, her third Grammy Album of the Year. To grapple with what that Grammy win signifies, she is now one of only four artists to have won it three times, in a list that includes: Frank Sinatra, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, and now Taylor freaking Swift. Say what you will about the Grammy’s; that’s an impressive company.
She knows how to mobilize the internet and social media
Her start and rise to fame coincided with the advent of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and texting. She is the poster child of the digital and social media age. She understands that creating a show for the internet, one that’s 44 songs, three hours and 15 minutes long, and is earmarked with two memorable acoustic songs per show, is a way to capture a global audience and narrative. By developing a curiosity about what she played tonight?; she creates immense online virality. This, she knows, keeps people interested and clamoring for more.
To distinguish what all this means, during the early stages of this US leg of her Eras tour, she stopped in Philadelphia, where over 10,000 extra fans — who were unable to secure seats to see her at Lincoln Financial Field, a stadium of around 67,000 — stood outside and sang along for the entire show. This is wild on so many levels, but probably only possible and probable due to the nature of our connected world. Fans everywhere can share intimate videos of what they see and react in real-time to her phenomenon. Again, this isn’t new; we’ve had smartphones for over 16 years now, yet this feels different even in light of our technology. Bigger. More intense. Something that comes along but once in a generation.
From The New York Times:
And so I started listening. And listening more. And I started staying up all night refreshing apps for last-minute access to the “Taypocalypse.” And then I went to the show with my daughter. And now I, too, cannot calm down.
Swiftmania is a very different kind of high from what I experienced listening to music as a teenager — a high that is worth the pain. It’s not just the plethora of songs to discover but the nonstop Swiftie culture itself — the constant access to the music, the news, the scrolling for swag, the shout-outs on the street, the sharing of songs and lines of poetic code via text or passed bracelet — a party that is raging all day and all night.
When I was growing up, I had the Indigo Girls, Tori Amos and Ani DiFranco, singers for whom a troubled inside matched a raw, edgy outside. But there was nobody who held forth on righteous anger from the inside of a sparkly bodysuit — who suffered as I did but whose confident prowl could make me walk a bit taller. My singers would sit outside the party and complain with you, but when you got your courage up, they weren’t going to go inside, ready for it. Ms. Swift doesn’t force you to choose, because she is both the lucky one you want to be and every bit the antihero you are inside.
The best part of this excerpt and this op-ed from fellow New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is the timing, as both dropped while I’ve slowly been making my way through this column. Their work dovetails with my favorite sports columnist and media mogul Bill Simmons, who, just a few short weeks ago, spent over 20 minutes with Nathan Hubbard (former CEO of Ticketmaster) debating everything Taylor Swift and this Eras tour. All three prove that I wasn’t wrong to have felt that pinged sensation to explore what was happening as they, too, sought answers.
They’d landed within the Taylor Swift vortex, as I had, yet, for me, it wasn’t and still isn’t about the music, but more so the appeal this woman has for so many. Music can overpower and ingratiate within us the most awesome of emotions, and those rare artists have the power to wield incredible sways for their audience. Taylor Swift has captured the zeitgeist with her music, which is astounding. I’m not a fan, but I can appreciate greatness when I see it.
Is it sustainable?
If history indicates what’s to come for Taylor, then no, her fame and music will drop off at some point. It has too. A lackluster album will come out eventually. She’s smart and savvy but not perfect. Nevertheless, if we’ve learned anything from our world today, she will find a way to stay high for a very long time. I doubt she’ll shave her head and lose her mind, like Britney, or contort her face and undergo copious amounts of plastic surgery like Madonna or Michael Jackson. She comes across as grounded and normal, whatever that means, and she’s not yet 34, so children could be in her immediate future.
Pop music churns out new stars and brands all the time. A select few blow up, then fade away. Taylor Swift might be the rare exception of someone beating the odds, on her terms, through ingenuity and crafty songwriting. It seems that it’s more about the music for her than anything—the writing process. I can get behind that.
What have I learned?
However you want to categorize it, most current popular music is not of my ilk. I’m a psychedelic rock and roll kind of guy. I’m driven more by melody and less by lyrics, which makes me more of an anomaly than most. Taylor’s brand is positioned precisely by what she writes in her songs. I’ve listened to much of her work while writing this column and can see why she’s famous. The hooks are there. Folklore is good. It’s the closest work she’s produced that I could see myself listening to. Will that happen? Probably not. But I don’t need to like her music to appreciate who she is and what she’s produced. I want to see her live. That I will admit. At the end of the day, this is probably why I wanted to write this column in the first place. I’m a huge music enthusiast. The rock genre I love, I’m a bit of a fanatic. One of my favorite groups, the Osees, played here in Vancouver just last week. I’ve seen them over 12 times. I attend live shows more than just about anyone, probably 40 per year on average. So I get the fandom. The love for that one artist or group whom you can’t wait to see live. I’m that guy. I’ll pay the extra amount to see The Cure or the Smashing Pumpkins up close. So when I saw the constant mania this Eras tour produced, right from the opening days tickets went on sale, I couldn’t help but become fascinated by how personal and rabid her fans were. It seemed psychotic in some ways, even borderline obsessive. This ultimately caused me to want to learn more.
What was it about this woman that she could do this to people?
While researching this column and the information I’ve provided above, I scratched that itch. I get it. She’s not the best singer in the world nor the most beautiful. She’s imperfect and has had her heart broken numerous times. She feels impersonal yet more normal than you’d expect. Young girls want to be her while everyone else reveres her. She’s relatable, and that counts more than I’d ever imagined.
The whole spectacle has me in wonder. I’ve learned that this moment she’s having now is scarce and that even a nonfan such as myself can be lured to the phenomenon that she is. Like an accident we can’t take our eyes off of, Taylor’s got the world’s attention right now. I’m happy to tune in.