Taylor Swift - The Record-Breaking Superstar

Taylor Alison Swift is one of the greatest phenomena of our era, not just musically but also in media, social, economic and even political terms, one of the most influential contemporary pop icons, capable of breaking one record after another despite remaining a deeply divisive figure.

Having started out very young and quickly established herself as a brilliant country prodigy, she has gradually absorbed elements of soft rock, electro-pop and indie-folk into her style, multiplying her success with every shift. Creative, charismatic, hyper-prolific, socially engaged and a symbol of female empowerment, she has also repeatedly stood out for her organizational and entrepreneurial skills, becoming one of the richest and most famous women on the planet.

Taylor Swift was born on December 13, 1989 in West Reading, Pennsylvania, to Scott Kingsley Smith, a former investment agent for Merrill Lynch who later ran his own financial firm, and Andrea Gardener Finley, a marketing manager for an investment fund. The hands-on experience gained by her parents would undoubtedly act as a driving force in shaping Taylor's "corporate" vision, partly explaining her managerial bent.

Her childhood unfolds in a comfortable setting: her well-off family invested in an estate used as a Christmas tree farm, which explains how deeply the flannel shirts and "cottage" aesthetic belong to her, an aesthetic we'll later find echoed in her pandemic-era albums, Folklore and Evermore.

Taylor begins showing an interest in music at a very young age, encouraged by her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Moehlenkamp Finlay, a former opera singer and TV host: she is among the first to pick up on her granddaughter's vocal talent, but she won't live to see her succeed. She dies in 2003 at age 74: the song "Marjorie," featured on the album Evermore, released in 2020, is dedicated to her. Taylor grows up in a rural, conservative environment, so country music permeates every moment of her days; as a result, young Taylor becomes a fan of the genre's most famous and representative female singers, not only all-time greats like Dolly Parton or Linda Ronstadt but also more contemporary names like LeAnn Rimes, Faith Hill, Shania Twain and the Dixie Chicks, artists capable of bringing a female perspective to the renewal of a world historically dominated by towering male figures.

The girl starts writing, first short stories and then songs, which she'd also like to sing. She enters several contests, and quite often wins them, sometimes earning the chance to open a major concert or sing the national anthem before a football game. At the same time, she takes singing lessons (with Brett Manning, a highly renowned vocal coach) and acting lessons, then guitar lessons too, and starts circulating her first home recordings.

Taylor is a pretty girl, and she gets the chance to pose for some shots for a well-known clothing brand's ad campaign, earning her a feature in Vanity Fair; meanwhile, one of her songs is included on a compilation put out by a cosmetics brand. She catches the eye of Dan Dymitrow, manager of Britney Spears, and soon after RCA signs her, though without letting her record her own songs for the time being. Her family seizes the opportunity and decides to move to Nashville, Tennessee, where the fourteen-year-old Taylor can find more opportunities, in an environment able to inspire her and put her in touch with professionals who can help her grow. Stifled at RCA, which won't let her release anything until she comes of age, Taylor terminates the contract and signs with Sony as a songwriter. Still no one considers her for recording her own songs, until, during a performance at the Bluebird Cafe, the historic venue on Music Row, Nashville's music district, she is noticed by Scott Borchetta, an experienced record executive on the hunt for new talent. Borchetta has just left Universal and intends to launch his own label, Big Machine Records. It's the turning point that kicks off Taylor Swift's career, before she's even turned 16. The year is 2005, and a handful of the songs she's writing will end up on her self-titled debut.

Era 1 – Taylor Swift (2006)

Taylor Swift is released by Big Machine on October 24, 2006, the result of the work of a team assembled around her with the goal of turning everything the young singer-songwriter has in mind into catchy, well-crafted songs. A special partnership develops with producer Nathan Chapman, a fixture throughout the early part of her career, an essential figure in shaping and enriching Taylor's ideas and turning them into her first hits.

Taylor Swift is a country-oriented album that leans hard toward pop, performed by a personality still in the process of taking shape but already able to give voice to the feelings of a generation. The singer-songwriter puts a teenager's thoughts down on paper, talks about her own experiences, observes her own slow transformations, both physical and inner, and decodes the universe of a teenage girl in the 2000s, with all its insecurities and fears, opening up to the world a personal diary in which her peers can see themselves reflected perfectly. Everything Swift will keep doing for a long stretch of her artistic journey is already in motion here. Meanwhile, for the first time, she gets to experience the recording studio as the main character, soaking up its secrets and dynamics.

The eleven songs included on the original version of Taylor Swift are all her own compositions, three of them co-written with songwriter Liz Rose. A debut that sells 39,000 copies in its first week, a solid result that fits into the logic of an American record industry that is changing and opening up to new energy coming from the teen world, the most famous example being Miley Cyrus. Scott Borchetta, the head of Big Machine Records, identifies in young Taylor the wave to ride in order to modernize the particularly conservative country music scene: it will turn out to be one of the smartest moves in the history of American music in recent decades.

The album is carried by songs about fleeting summer romances, sometimes only imagined, captured in the romantic ballads "Tim McGraw," "Teardrops On My Guitar" and "Our Song," which spends a full six weeks at number one on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart: thanks to this achievement, Swift becomes the youngest songwriter ever to hit that mark.

But Taylor Swift already reveals its author's more energetic side too, especially on "Should've Said No" and even more so on a "Picture To Burn" bolstered by electric guitars that open up new scenarios still to come. But even when faced with soft-rock surges, the instrumentation stays firmly tied to the country imagery, thanks to elements like banjo and fiddle, used in a way faithful to tradition. The peak of intensity comes with track number 5, "Cold As You," just the first in a long line of track-five songs that, in nearly every future album, will mark the most intense and personal moment, a track Taylor always chooses with particular care and no small sense of responsibility: it's probably the first song on each of her albums that the swifties — her most diehard fans — choose to listen to.

Her natural pop leanings show through clearly in songs with huge radio potential, like "I'm Only Me When I'm With You," "A Place In This World" and "The Outside," but despite already interesting writing, even if understandably marked by adolescent traits, Taylor Swift proves to be a still somewhat unripe work, perhaps deliberately naive, a final result skillfully steered by the experienced team that polished the arrangements.

Within the folds of these songs lie elements that will be more fully developed in the future, becoming a constant in the young songwriter's work: harmonies, melodies and structures will be skillfully replicated in later albums, but they already mark out, in a distinctive way, a style of writing that will become instantly recognizable over time. Listening to "Teardrops On My Guitar" in hindsight, one can spot a faint embryo of "All Too Well," just as the lyrics already show those snapshots of broken hearts, adolescent turmoil and boys who play with feelings, themes that will keep coming back, not only in the very first part of her career. On a strictly musical level, another constant emerges: an obsessive attention to building pleasing, reassuring melodies, propped up by killer choruses and sweeping, epic bridges, alternating between energetic and melancholic moments, with the latter prevailing for now, since at this stage Taylor's writing tends to highlight insecurities, flaws and small failures.

Taylor Swift is also very much a product of an era in which artists show a natural inclination to cross over between different genres, feeding off an appetite nourished by unlimited access to pretty much any musical source, past or present: from this point of view, Swift would go on to prove herself capable of absorbing and reworking a huge range of influences.

The success of the debut album allows Taylor to appear as a guest on numerous TV and radio shows and to tour the United States as an opening act for bigger artists, not to mention her many appearances at country music festivals. At the same time, she cultivates a symbiotic relationship with her fans, personally updating her blog and MySpace page and replying to everyone herself: back then, that was still a possible thing for her to do. A miniskirt, boots, shoulder-baring dresses, alternating with long, pale-toned low-cut gowns, immediately reveal themselves as unmistakable cornerstones of her look.

Taylor Swift, whose expanded edition will include five bonus tracks, had sold nearly six million physical copies in the United States alone by early 2024, picked up numerous awards on the country circuit, and in 2008 even earned the first of a long string of Grammy nominations, in the "Best New Artist" category, won that year by Amy Winehouse. On any hypothetical scale of values, Taylor Swift would end up dwarfed by everything its creator went on to make afterwards, but at the time it reached No. 5 on the US album sales chart, staying on the Billboard 200 for three straight years, 157 weeks — the longest run for a release put out in the 2000s. Swift also became the first female country artist to write or co-write every song on a debut album certified at least double platinum. It was immediately clear that this was the decade's great revelation.

In 2007, a still-underage Taylor Swift makes the customary foray into Christmas-themed records, recording a six-track EP that includes four absolute classics ("Last Christmas" by George Michael, "Santa Baby", "Silent Night", "White Christmas") and two original tracks ("Christmases When You Were Mine" and "Christmas Must Be Something More") which turn out to be the most interesting of the lot.

The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection is a skippable country-pop EP produced by Nathan Chapman: it reaches No. 20 on the American chart, selling over a million copies, which is nothing to scoff at. It's also a project designed to broadcast to the world the Catholic faith of this young girl from Pennsylvania everyone was by then talking about.

A few months later, in July 2008, Big Machine floods the market with another EP, Beautiful Eyes, featuring alternate versions of "Should've Said No", "Teardrops On My Guitar" and "Picture To Burn", plus the single "I'm Only Me When I'm With You" (already included as a bonus track on the deluxe edition of the debut album) and the previously unreleased "Beautiful Eyes" and "I Heart?", written by the songwriter before 2006. Despite being a barely promoted EP, Beautiful Eyes reaches No. 9 on the general chart and No. 1 on the American country chart, actually taking over the top spot from Taylor's own debut, meaning she finds herself occupying the top two positions of the same chart for the first time — something that would happen to her again more than once in the future. After two stopgap EPs, fans are itching for new music: they'll only have to wait a few more weeks, and the result will exceed any reasonable expectation…

Era 2 – Fearless (2008)

Every promise sketched out in the debut finds its fullest realisation in Fearless, released on November 11, 2008, made once again with Nathan Chapman firmly at the helm and Liz Rose co-writing four songs, backing a voice and a pen that are no longer those of a kid, but are starting to pick up new shades. Fearless is a concept record about love and falling in love, one that on the one hand keeps a strong country root while, at the same time, looking more and more decisively toward pop, as you can tell from its biggest hits, the ubiquitous "Love Story", "You Belong With Me" and the title track itself. The first entry into the upper reaches of the US singles sales charts is secured precisely by "Love Story", eight-times platinum and, believe it or not, the best-selling country single of all time.

The deepest, most intimate and personal track is confirmed to be No. 5, "White Horse", but Taylor's secret diary once again becomes an open book pretty much everywhere, with its author writing, more or less transparently, about (the end of) her first relationships of real significance, sometimes imagined but nearly always real, as in the case of the one with Joe Jonas of the Jonas Brothers, recounted in "Forever & Always". Fearless also makes room for the first of a very long line of featured guests, country singer Colbie Caillat, who appears on "Breathe".

Fearless will be a massive success, Taylor's first true bestseller, spending a full eleven weeks at No. 1 on the US sales charts, an absolute record for a female country artist. Fearless is the best-selling album in the United States in 2009, and makes it inevitable that Taylor Swift will headline her first American tour. The young singer wins no fewer than four Grammy Awards, in the categories "Album Of The Year", "Best Country Album", "Best Country Song" and "Best Female Country Vocal Performance" (the latter two for her performance of "White Horse"), plus five American Music Awards (including "Artist Of The Year" and "Favorite Country Album"). Fearless is also named "Album Of The Year" by the Country Music Association, for which Taylor has the honour of becoming the youngest artist ever to be named "Entertainer Of The Year". In 2009, Taylor is named "Artist Of The Year" by the prestigious music magazine Billboard.

At the MTV Video Music Awards ceremony, however, an unforeseeable event occurs that will leave an indelible mark on the relationship between Taylor Swift and rap superstar Kanye West. During the presentation of the "Best Female Video" award, won by "You Belong With Me", Kanye West jumps on stage, snatches the microphone out of Taylor's hands and declares — in a less-than-respectful way toward the actual winner — that the award should rightfully have gone to Beyoncé, who was sitting in the audience. Shock and disbelief are written all over Swift's face: she's still little more than a teenager, and she finds herself being treated that way by one of the artists she considered among her idols. This certainly won't be the last chapter in the personal saga between the two: we'll come back to it later. Meanwhile, the "Fearless Tour" runs from April 2009 to July 2010 and covers pretty much every corner of North America, with a few stops in Australia, Japan and the Bahamas. In Europe, for now, Swift performs only in the UK.

In 2009 Taylor gets the chance to duet with singer-songwriter John Mayer (with whom she'll have a brief relationship that will go on to inspire track 5 of her next album) on "Half Of My Heart", writes songs for singer Kellie Pickler, for Boston emo-pop band Boys Like Girls, and for the soundtrack of the film "Hannah Montana: The Movie", in which she also appears in a brief cameo. She writes and records "Today Was A Fairytale" for the soundtrack of "Valentine's Day" (released in Italy as "Appuntamento con l'amore"), an ensemble film in which Taylor makes her acting debut, even going on to win an award, the "Teen Choice Award" for "Choice Breakout Female". "Today Was A Fairytale", which reaches No. 2 on the US singles sales chart (as well as No. 1 in Canada and No. 3 in Australia), opens the soundtrack, which also features "Jump Than Fall", previously released on the Platinum Edition of "Fearless". While filming the movie she has a brief flirtation with one of its stars, Taylor Lautner, with whom she shares a passionate on-screen kiss. Swift will later also appear in an episode of "CSI", but these are only the first of a long string of commitments that will often put her in front of the camera.

Era 3 – Speak Now (2010)

The proverbial difficult third album, Speak Now, hits stores on October 25, 2010. Every song is written solely by Taylor, forming a kind of concept piece about the experiences that mark the passage from adolescence into adulthood. The title expresses a desire to speak her mind, unfiltered, kicking off a process through which Swift would gradually shed the image of a green teenager, allowing herself some very personal admissions, especially — and this will remain a constant in her songwriting — about the relationships of those months (whether real or imagined, the narrator will always leave a veil of mystery). Taylor shows her most intimate, and at the same time most vulnerable, side, angrily pointing the finger at those who caused her pain, getting a fair few things off her chest and loudly proclaiming her own truths.

Musically, Speak Now reveals a hunger for novelty, as well as a determination to experiment with new directions: the country roots – still very much present – are far more cross-pollinated than on the two previous records, with a greater role for electric guitars, lending some tracks a distinctly "rock" character. That's particularly true of "Better Than Revenge," the first of a long series of revenge songs Swift would go on to write over the years, and the angriest moment on the record (reportedly aimed at Camilla Belle, who dated Joe Jonas right after his breakup with Taylor), but also of "Sparks Fly" and "The Story Of Us," songs that inevitably invite comparisons to early Avril Lavigne, but which are actually more influenced by the close friendship Swift had at the time with Haley Williams, singer of Paramore.

There's also room for arrangements dense with grandeur ("Haunted") and for a number of melancholy ballads: "Back To December" (probably dedicated to actor Taylor Lautner), "Enchanted" (this one reportedly for Adam Young of Owl City), "Never Grow Up," "Innocent" and "Last Kiss." Track number 5, "Dear John," is this time a genuine open letter addressed to singer-songwriter John Mayer, accused of having hurt her, manipulated her and played with her feelings: somewhere between disappointed and disgusted, Swift recounts another failed relationship, this one with someone much older than her, who had pursued her under the pretext of proposing a collaboration.

Taylor doesn't leave her roots behind, and country still takes center stage on Speak Now thanks to "Mean," an invective against the music critics who had tried to cut her down to size in those months, in particular Bob Lefsetz, writer of one of the most widely read country-music blogs. "Mean" would go on to win two prestigious Grammy Awards, in the categories "Best Country Solo Performance" and "Best Country Song," though by this point it's getting genuinely hard to keep track of the dense run of accolades piling up for Swift's work. The original edition of Speak Now closes with the stirring "Long Live," a love letter to the band backing her, a song about gratitude and, at the same time, a prediction of what her artistic future would become: a woman at the center of the universe.

With this lineup Taylor takes on a massive world tour spanning four continents, from February 2011 to March of the following year, drawing over 1.6 million spectators for a total gross of nearly 124 million dollars. In Europe she performs in March 2011 in Brussels, Rotterdam, Oslo, Oberhausen, Paris, Madrid, Birmingham, Belfast, Dublin, Manchester, London, and for the first time in Italy too, at the Mediolanum Forum in Milan, in front of 3,421 spectators, on the night of March 15, with opening act Emma Marrone. The tour would be captured on the live album Speak Now World Tour Live, released on November 21, 2011 and containing sixteen tracks. The same package also includes a DVD (or Blu-ray) with excerpts from several shows on the tour.

In September 2012 Taylor releases the single "Ronan," written after reading the heartbreaking story of the death, from cancer, of a four-year-old boy. Since Swift drew on an account written in a blog by Ronan's mother, Maya Thompson, she decided to credit her as a co-writer of the lyrics. Proceeds from sales would be donated to several organizations dedicated to cancer research.

Era 4 – Red (2012)

On October 22, 2012 comes Red, which adds new pieces to the ongoing transformation of Taylor's artistic identity, by now a figure of international standing increasingly shifting her axis toward pop influences, though not pop alone. The change also comes through a reshuffle of her production team: after a first attempt at recording the new songs with Nathan Chapman, Taylor isn't fully satisfied with the results and decides to bring in new collaborators.

A breath of fresh air is already perceptible in the drumbeat driving the opening "State Of Grace," a polished soft-rock track marked by guitars that evoke the epic scale of U2. The banjo that opens the second track, "Red," is almost immediately swallowed up by a pop-rock momentum that announces Swift's completed metamorphosis from chrysalis to butterfly: country recedes into the background, replaced by an "arena-ready" attitude. The turning-point track is "I Knew You Were Trouble," the first truly pop hit Taylor Swift ever recorded, with that one word, "Trouble," becoming iconic, repeated three times in a row in the chorus, and a completely new structure, driven by powerful guitars, a muscular bassline and the use of electronics. Co-writers of this track and two others (the carefree party pop song "22" – her age at the time – and "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together") are the two Swedish producers Max Martin and Shellback, who can be identified as the architects of Taylor Swift's modernist turn.

But the moment on Red destined to remain forever carved in stone is the towering electro-acoustic ballad "All Too Well," which, speaking of U2, could be seen as Taylor Swift's own "One," built on a breathtaking crescendo. "All Too Well" is an account of her relationship with actor Jake Gyllenhaal: once again Taylor turns a disappointment, a failed romance, into a hugely successful song, forging a bond with her audience, who in turn recognize themselves in the whirlwind of situations and emotions described in the lyrics. The song, re-recorded a few years later in an extended ten-minute version and accompanied by a short film she directed herself, would go on to win a Grammy Award in the "Best Video" category. Another flirtation seems to be the subject of the bold "Treacherous," reportedly inspired by Dan Wilson, the singer of Semisonic, while assorted acoustic melancholy surfaces on "I Almost Do" and "Sad Beautiful Tragic."

On the whole, the second half of the album never quite reaches the heights of the first: from the breezy "Stay Stay Stay" to the pounding, repetitive "Holy Ground," from the last backward glances toward country on "Starlight" and "Begin Again" to the forgettable features from superstar Ed Sheeran ("Everything Has Changed") and Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol ("The Last Time"), both credited as co-writers of their respective tracks without adding much of real value, Red doesn't deliver any further major thrills.

The deluxe edition includes bonus tracks that would not have been out of place on the core tracklist: among them, "Come Back, Be Here" would soon find a special place in fans' hearts, and the acoustic version of "State Of Grace" shows just how far a Swift song can travel starting from nothing more than a simple guitar line and a voice.

Number 1 in 42 countries, with over 1.2 million copies sold in its first week of release in the United States alone, Red brings Swift to the top of the British chart for the first time. "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" would become her first number 1 on the American singles chart, and "I Knew You Were Trouble" would turn into a hit practically everywhere. The album would receive three Grammy nominations, but this time would walk away empty-handed. Taylor would nonetheless take home an American Music Award in 2012 in the "Best Female Country Artist" category and another in 2013 for "Artist Of The Year," continuing to sweep up awards at every country-oriented ceremony. The tour supporting the album would run from March 2013 to June 2014, selling 1.7 million tickets for a total gross of around 150 million dollars, the richest tour ever mounted by a country-identified artist, if it's still possible to describe Taylor Swift that way. In the first half of February she performs in Europe, stopping in London (five nights at the O2 Arena) and Berlin (one date at the O2 World). All the North American dates of the tour are opened by Ed Sheeran, a pairing that would play a decisive role in the global breakthrough of the English singer, who was at the time touring behind his debut album.

At the same time, Swift is writing songs for film. For the soundtrack of "The Hunger Games," which in 2012 would top the US album sales chart, she writes and records the tracks "Eyes Open" and "Safe & Sound," the latter winning a Grammy Award in the "Best Song Written for Visual Media" category. Together with Jack Antonoff (more on him later) she writes and produces "Sweeter Than Fiction," featured on the soundtrack of the film "One Chance" (2013), released in Italy under the title "One Chance – L'opera della mia vita." Taylor appears as a guest on songs by rapper B.o.B. and by Tim McGraw (the very same country singer who inspired the title of her very first single), lends her voice to one of the characters in "The Lorax" (2012), makes a cameo appearance in the sitcom "New Girl" (2013), and acts in the film "The Giver" (2014), released in Italy under the title "The Giver – Il mondo di Jonas." During these years Swift is a fixture of the tabloid press, thanks to the relationships attributed to her, among others with actor Jake Gyllenhaal, pop singer Harry Styles", and a descendant of the Kennedy family, Conor. We'll find traces of almost all of them in some of the most famous songs Taylor would go on to write in the years that followed.

1989, the title chosen for Taylor Swift's fifth album, released on October 27, 2014, carries an important double meaning: on one hand it represents her birth year, signaling in that sense a fresh new start, while at the same time it invokes the meaning of a decade – the Eighties – that occupies a very specific place in the collective imagination, the decade of sequins, dance floors, electro-pop. And indeed 1989 establishes itself as the start-up of Taylor Swift's second artistic life, built with a decisive reliance on electronics and with the aim of reconverting the image of the young country-pop diva into a mainstream superstar. An aim that, in hindsight, can be considered fully achieved, given that 1989 would become the best-selling album of Taylor Swift's career, definitively turning her into one of the biggest brands in contemporary music business. Pop officially becomes Taylor's new field of action, in this case pop drawn from the eighties, though translated into the present for the consumption of new generations, without ever sliding into mere revivalism. Despite the sudden stylistic shift, Swift's songwriting remains instantly recognizable, and the new sound fits perfectly with the messages she sends to her fans. To ease the transition, this time she writes most of the material together with Max Martin and Shellback, also embarking on what would become a hugely successful collaboration (for now limited to two songs) with Jack Antonoff, besides surrounding herself with a large team drawn from the mainstream pop world, which notably includes Ali Payami and Imogen Heap.

1989 is a watershed album in Taylor's career, one that pushes her towards ever more challenging creative horizons – a work that's both simple and modern, packed with instantly catchy choruses, memorable bridges and lyrics perfect for being scribbled into the diaries of teenage girls the world over. With songs this strong, there's no avoiding the top of the sales charts: at least four of these tracks will remain etched into popular memory, starting with "Shake It Off" and "Style", the latter dedicated to her ex Harry Styles, another relationship gone up in smoke but crowned by a song written about it. Another super-hit is "Blank Space", for years her most-streamed track, written as a witty comeback to those who accuse her of being a man-eater, but at the same time a jab at the press that speculates about and pries into her private life. "Blank Space" spent seven weeks atop the US singles chart, knocking "Shake It Off" off the top spot: never before had a woman managed to replace herself at number one. Another hit is "Bad Blood", a dig aimed at her former friend Katy Perry, accused of "stealing" dancers and stage crew to put together her own tour. Later re-recorded as a duet with Kendrick Lamar, "Bad Blood" was accompanied by a music video, awarded a Grammy, that is approaching two billion views on YouTube. Numbers that match the 1.2 million copies sold in the US alone in its first week: at a time of generalised crisis for the record industry, that's a figure testifying to a popularity no other contemporary artist can truly boast.

In the economy of 1989, guitars no longer take centre stage, dethroned by synths and beats. You can hear it from the opening notes of "Welcome To New York", a celebration of her recent move to the Big Apple. It's a pop sound that comes across as dazzling (as on "How You Get The Girl" and "I Know Places"), while often retaining a deep melancholy streak (as on "Wildest Dreams", close to the signature style of Lana Del Rey). "This Love" revives her collaboration with Nathan Chapman, a moment that somehow keeps her tied to her roots, a stretch of refined sweetness matching the bright elegance of "Clean". The deluxe edition adds three more fan favourites: "Wonderland", "You Are In Love" and "New Romantics".

Among the long list of accolades 1989 has picked up over time are two Grammy Awards, for "Album Of The Year" (making her the first woman to win it twice) and "Best Pop Vocal Album", a Brit Award for "Best International Female Solo Artist" and a couple of MTV Video Music Awards, thanks to the video for "Bad Blood". In 2014 Taylor was named Billboard's "Woman Of The Year" for the second time, something that had never happened before. The 1989 World Tour, running from May to December 2015, once again touched four continents, totalling almost 2.3 million spectators and overall takings of more than 250 million dollars, making it the highest-grossing tour of 2015. In the second half of June it stopped in Europe, with dates in Cologne, Amsterdam, Glasgow, Manchester, London and Dublin.

The level of fame Taylor has reached allows her to become increasingly active in social causes and to wage important battles on behalf of musicians as a group. Her decision to pull her entire catalogue from streaming platforms forces Apple Music to pay artists even during the three-month trial period offered to potential new users. It's a victory that, for the first time, casts her as a figure capable of overturning certain practices widespread within the record business, and it's only a first taste of what's to come with the battle over ownership of the rights to her own masters – but we'll get to that later.

At the end of 2014, to mark her 25th birthday, the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles dedicates a solo exhibition to her that will stay open for almost a year: hardly a common occurrence for a singer still so young. From March 2015 to June 2016 she will be in a relationship with Calvin Harris: together they write the song "This Is What You Came From", a hit for Harris featuring Rihanna. Taylor records "I Don't Wanna Live Forever" with Zayn Malik (former member of One Direction) for the soundtrack of "Fifty Shades Darker" (2017), and wins a Country Music Association Award for "Song Of The Year" with "Better Man", a track she wrote for the country band Little Big Town.

Meanwhile, superstar Taylor Swift finds herself a victim of media overexposure, against a backdrop that includes a lawsuit she wins against American DJ David Mueller, found guilty of groping her backstage at a radio event – an episode that will help fuel the nascent #MeToo movement. Nor do things improve with Kanye West; quite the opposite – in April 2016 the rap superstar releases the track "Famous", which contains the line "I made that bitch famous", unmistakably aimed at Taylor. West will later claim that Swift authorised him to use that line, even thanking him for giving her a heads-up; West's wife, Kim Kardashian, will even release a phone recording in which Taylor and Kanye discuss the matter on friendly terms. Swift, on the other hand, has always maintained that the recording was doctored, and that she never gave the go-ahead to use that line in the song. Was it all staged to put the people involved on the front pages of the tabloids? We'll never know: when it comes to Taylor Swift and the world around her, the line between reality and fiction is sometimes extremely thin. Her detractors, not without reason, accuse her of being a cynical manipulator.

That said, once the demanding promotional tour behind 1989 is over, and worn down by the relentless pressure of the mass media – according to some, even a victim of a genuine emotional breakdown – Taylor decides to disappear from the scene for about a year, retreating into a kind of self-imposed isolation. Rumour has it that a new romance has blossomed, one she wants to devote herself to: after a brief flirtation with English actor Tom Hiddleston, she begins a relationship that will prove longer-lasting than usual, with another British actor, Joe Alwyn. After a year away from the spotlight, public opinion seems less obsessed with her image, the American tabloids ease off their morbid fixation, the pressure drops and, as a result, so does the stress. Taylor is writing new songs, through which she intends to tell her side of the story on many matters, answering everyone head-on. What emerges is an album far harder in sound than 1989, a record with the flavour of revenge running through it.

Era 6 – Reputation (2017)

Kanye West, following the old feud we've already touched on, called Taylor Swift a "snake" in a series of tweets: it's that very snake that becomes the symbol of Reputation, her "urban" album, released on 10 November 2017. It's the most aggressive project Taylor has ever produced, the vehicle through which she fires off scornful lines at those who have helped tarnish her reputation – hence the title.

Once again we find ourselves looking at a personal diary that anyone can read, unfiltered. Taylor vents her anger from the very first notes of the seismic "…Ready For It", uncharted territory for her: a credibly rapped verse, a flow that sticks almost constantly to the same note, as does the bass, creating a sense of disorientation, before the melody emerges on the chorus, underscored by an effective EDM backbone. Taylor is back, tougher than before, trading pastel tones for black nail polish and leather outfits, perfect for redefining the image of a woman finally sure of herself, ready to give back blow for blow. The carefree, bubblegum innocence of 1989 is replaced by heavier makeup and defiant stares, a decisive restyling, both sonically and aesthetically, through which Taylor challenges her "enemy" Kanye on his own turf, given that Swift's official entry into hip-hop territory is confirmed by "End Game", the second track on the tracklist, a collaboration (less successful than the track before it) with rapper Future (who also serves as producer) and a barely-there Ed Sheeran.

"I Did Something Bad" and "Look What You Made Me Do" (her first single to hit number 1 on the UK charts) play a decisive role in setting the mood of Reputation, together with "…Ready For It" defining the fierce sound of the album's first half, where what comes through are sounds drawn from club culture, a scratchy, at times even violent electronic palette – at least for anyone who still pictures her as the young country starlet.

The outfit tailored for her by the Max Martin-Shellback duo pushes the electro-pop of 1989 even further, modernising and thickening it. But in the second half of the record, largely helmed by Jack Antonoff, Reputation tends to drift back towards more conventionally pop territory ("Gorgeous", "Getaway Car", the party song "This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things"), a somewhat disorienting shift in direction. The apparent internal inconsistency of Reputation is the result of indecision over which path to take, as if Taylor wanted to change direction but without risking a truly radical overhaul. This is the project's main flaw, one judged too harshly and hastily by much of the public and critics alike. Reputation is in fact regarded by many as one of Swift's weaker efforts, while in reality there's plenty of interest to be found, beyond the tracks already mentioned, among the grooves of a "Dress" that anticipates the nocturnal atmospheres explored more fully a few years later on Midnights, a "Call It What You Want" that takes a first tentative step towards dream-pop (more on that later), and a "Don't Blame Me" that edges her towards Lady Gaga territory.

Despite the criticism, Reputation will still turn out to be the best-selling album of the year in the US, but above all it will prove a regenerating therapy for Swift, bolstered by the massive Reputation Stadium Tour, which becomes the highest-grossing North American tour in history, helping launch rising stars Camila Cabello and Charli XCX into orbit, chosen as opening acts for nearly every date. The stadium format allows for the sale of almost 2.9 million tickets, driving overall earnings past 345 million dollars. The tour, entirely sold out, stops in Europe in June 2018 for six nights – two at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester, two at Croke Park in Dublin, two at Wembley Stadium in London – and will be immortalised in the concert film "Reputation Stadium Tour", released on Netflix on 31 December 2018. The film captures the show performed on the evening of 6 October 2018 at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington in front of roughly 105,000 spectators.

Reputation is nominated for the Grammy Award for "Album Of The Year", an award that ultimately goes to Daft Punk for the era-defining "Random Access Memories". At the 2018 American Music Awards Taylor wins four prizes, becoming the most awarded woman in the show's history, overtaking Whitney Houston. Now a bona fide global superstar, Swift is firmly determined to defend her artistic freedom. She can afford to do so because she has achieved total independence from any outside influence: she's a successful woman who has no need to chase further fame or money, and so can afford to loudly press her legitimate demands. The spirit of rebellion running through Reputation clashes with the squeaky-clean image Taylor had maintained until just a few months earlier, one that Scott Borchetta would have preferred to preserve, keeping Swift from taking political stances (the kind of anti-Republican positions that once tore the Dixie Chicks apart) or from clearly siding with causes that inevitably divide public opinion, such as LGBTQ++ rights. But Taylor's nature is different: she aspires to full control over the entire creative process, free from outside dictates, and when she asks her label to let her buy full ownership of the masters of her albums, the request is denied.

Among the breaks with the past that Reputation helps bring about is, therefore, also the split with manager Scott Borchetta and his Big Machine Records. Taylor Swift ends her contract with the label that launched her and signs with another one, Republic, a subsidiary of Universal. The dispute with Big Machine isn't easy to sum up, and when Swift is denied the right to buy full ownership of her own catalogue, the singer-songwriter makes a decision unlike anything seen before, an unprecedented legal and commercial move: to re-record her first six albums from scratch, all the ones released under her first label, in order to regain full control over them. These will be genuine new albums, rebranded as "Taylor's Version", with different artwork and numerous previously unreleased tracks – works that will go on to set further sales records and mark a truly epoch-making shift in the music business.

Era 7 – Lover (2019)

After the relative commercial disappointment of Reputation, two years later Taylor Swift returns to the more comfortable sound of 1989, the album that preceded it. For Lover, Taylor once again profoundly redefines her image: after the decisive foray into all-black mode, the color palette shifts back to more relaxed, springtime pastel tones that open the listening experience up to - once again - electro-pop atmospheres. It's the first time Swift reverses course so sharply, driven by the awareness that she could reach an even wider audience by reverting to the reassuring formula of her most acclaimed album. A sunny dimension also dictated by the newfound serenity stemming from the first relationship of her life to prove stable and lasting.

Lover, released on August 23, 2019, fails to replicate the excellent craftsmanship of 1989, even though it contains some top-tier cuts, among them "Cruel Summer," co-written with St. Vincent, which however would only become a true hit five years later, when it established itself as the signature song of the Eras Tour, topping charts worldwide and earning the title of Taylor Swift's most-streamed song, taking the record previously held by "Blank Space."

Other standout tracks include the more subdued "Lover" (in the verse you can clearly pick up on echoes of Mazzy Star, as well as certain Sixties atmospheres) and "The Archer," a tense electronic ballad that rightfully ranks among her absolute must-haves. With the breezy "The Man," Taylor attempts to write an overtly feminist song, while "Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince" is one of her performances that comes closest (not the first time, nor the last, with Jack Antonoff's help) to the style of her friend Lana Del Rey.

The bubblegum pop dimension is underlined by songs such as "Paper Rings," "I Forgot That You Existed," "London Boy," "You Need To Calm Down" and "Me!" (featuring Brendon Urie of Panic! At The Disco), a parade that however never quite matches her best moments. Refined synth touches emerge in "False God," while the only folk-leaning echoes remain tucked away in "Soon You'll Get Better," a duet with the Chicks, and "It's Nice To Have A Friend," which - perhaps still unknowingly - foreshadows more minimal artistic turns that would arrive much sooner than expected.

In 2019, Lover is the best-selling album of the year in the United States, as well as the best-selling album worldwide among those made by solo artists. The album and its singles receive three Grammy nominations, without winning any; it does however take home three MTV Video Music Awards, including Video Of The Year, awarded to "You Need To Calm Down": Swift thus becomes the first female artist (and the second artist overall) to win that award for a video she directed herself. Despite the success achieved, the production of Lover ends up feeling almost too polished, leaving the impression of an artist at the end of a cycle, intent on picking back up a narrative that already seemed closed and filed away, steering clear of the risks she used to take in the past.

With the added issue that such a glossy, sugary record offers easy ammunition to critics who can't stand the ever-present Swift: the extraordinary success of some of these songs will help cement her, in the collective imagination, as an eternal hit-generating machine, but one catering only to teenage girls who see themselves reflected in the stories she tells. Taylor has turned thirty: it's time to grow up and plan more mature, more challenging productions. The pandemic will arrive in early 2020 to cancel the dates scheduled for the Lover world tour, giving her the chance to move up the timeline for her next turning point, which will arrive wrapped in the melancholy melodies composed at the piano in her New York apartment.

Era 8 – Folklore (2020)

In 2020, while the world suddenly finds itself locked indoors by decree, Taylor Swift surprise-releases, with no advance notice, two albums within the span of a few months, both conceived alongside a small circle of trusted collaborators, among whom Aaron Dessner of the National this time takes on a leading role. We're looking at a sharp new change in stylistic direction, encouraged by the social distancing imposed by health authorities during the pandemic: the result is a return to essentials, to simplicity, distilled into a soft chamber-pop with clear indie-folk leanings, in which Taylor no longer limits herself to recounting her own personal experiences, but looks outward at the world around her.

Folklore, released on July 24, 2020, could have been Taylor Swift's Waterloo, given how far removed it was from fan expectations and how devoid it was of any potential hit or radio hook; instead, against all odds, it not only receives an overwhelming reception, but for many becomes her most accomplished and high-quality project, sparking curiosity and winning over, for the first time, the attention of the indie crowd, who up until then had snubbed her, dismissing her as a mere disposable, passing, overrated pop phenomenon.

Taylor completes Folklore within a matter of weeks: the goal is to release it as quickly as possible so everyone can hear it while it's still embedded within the surreal reality that inspired it. Despite its shadowy, autumnal, reflective mood, steeped in introspection and deeply intimate, born out of the complicated period the world is going through, and made remotely through the constant exchange of files with the rest of her team, Folklore becomes one of Taylor Swift's most successful albums.

Unlike what happened with Reputation, this time the singer-songwriter tackles an aesthetic and stylistic shift in a truly complete and radical way, a bold choice that in this case meets with unanimous approval from both critics and the public. Folklore is a cohesive, consistent, extremely refined work, convincing both in its writing and in its musical choices, with minimal arrangements (mostly piano and guitars, with occasional touches of electronics and orchestration) that bring it close (also thanks to Dessner's valuable presence) to the distinctive traits of the National's sound. Taylor looks to the great singer-songwriters of the past (Carole King often emerges as a reference point) while immersing herself in the contemporary, handling dream-pop atmospheres that carry her toward the dense melancholy of Beach House on "This Is Me Trying," or fearlessly duetting with a monument of the independent scene, Bon Iver, a guest on the emotionally charged ballad "Exile." These two tracks in particular are the unmissable highlights of Folklore, but the entire tracklist lines up a series of songs that would have made the fortune of any indie-folk act, with "Illicit Affairs" and "August" standing out as other memorable moments. The William Bowery credited on some of the songs is the pseudonym behind which actor Joe Alwyn, Swift's then-boyfriend, is hiding.

Despite the absence of a proper promotional campaign and a supporting tour, Folklore becomes the best-selling album of 2020 in the United States, widely recognized as the most representative record of the isolation experienced during the pandemic, with some even dubbing it "the quarantine album." It wins the Grammy Award for Album Of The Year (Swift's third win in that category) and three American Music Awards, while Taylor also earns a Golden Globe nomination for "Bombalurina," a song written and performed for the film adaptation of the musical "Cats" (2019).

At the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, "Miss Americana" is presented, a documentary recounting the key moments in Taylor Swift's life and artistic journey, from her beginnings up to the release of "Lover," a must-watch both for fans (the diehard swifties) and for anyone looking to get to know her better. Another unmissable watch for anyone wanting to step into her world is the documentary "Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions," directed and produced by Swift herself, released on November 25, 2020 on the Disney+ platform and centered on a stunning performance by Swift, backed only by Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff (plus a remote link-up with Justin Vernon during the performance of the duet "Exile"), interspersed with fascinating mutual interviews revealing the behind-the-scenes story that led to the making of the album and the development of each individual song. The performances recorded on this occasion would be collected in an expanded edition of Folklore, released in April 2023, titled, fittingly, Folklore: The Long Pond Sessions.

Era 9 – Evermore (2020)

Released just five months later, on December 11, 2020, Evermore is not Folklore's poor twin, nor a collection of leftovers, and you can tell just from listening to a "Champagne Problems" elegantly carried by piano, a "Gold Rush" enlivened by soft beats (and vocal flourishes that once again recall Lana Del Rey), and the aching "Tolerate It," a delicate ballad steeped in the pain of a love coming to an end, one of the many troubled relationships recounted in Taylor Swift's songs. Evermore is elevated by three duets, with National, Bon Iver and Haim, and shares with Folklore the same intimate spirit, the same introversion, a consequence of the difficult historical period in which it was conceived. An album that is even more the product of an unexpected creative freedom and a newly reached compositional maturity, made by the same team behind Folklore, who in this case were able to benefit from working in close contact.

While in some ways Evermore leans toward even more minimal solutions, shedding some of the electronic layering of Folklore, it also shows greater stylistic range, thanks both to its many guests and to a less oppressive outlook, born of the sense that the worst of the pandemic might be starting to lift. All of this comes through in the uptempo cadences of "No Body, No Crime" (that country influence returning again), in the indie approach that pervades the enveloping "Cowboy Like Me" (the backing vocals belong to Marcus Mumford), in the pop that resurfaces assertively within the folds of "Long Story Short," and in the electronic experimentation that lends strength to the melancholy of "Closure."

Underscoring yet another super-prolific period for Taylor are two bonus tracks included on the deluxe edition, "Right Where You Left Me" and "It's Time To Go," no less accomplished than the songs on the original release. On the first of the two, Taylor plays with her voice, managing to channel a mix of Lucinda Williams and Stevie Nicks in the verse, and even Kate Bush in the vocalizations of the chorus.

Sorrowful and tormented, Evermore – together with Folklore – wipes the slate clean of everything Taylor Swift had represented up to that point, including the subject matter, no longer focused on her personal experiences but instead tuned to observing the world around her and leaning more heavily into flights of imagination. An enviable one-two punch that stands as the astonishing result of a creative tunnel capable of producing so many stylistically cohesive songs in such a remarkably short span, blowing apart any commercial logic in the process. Evermore would of course prove another massive success, even if its numbers would fall short of those achieved by Folklore.

Thanks to Evermore, Taylor Swift wins another American Music Award, in the "Favorite Pop/Rock Album" category, and an ARIA Music Award (the Australian Grammy) for "Best International Artist," while also taking home (once again) a Grammy Award nomination for "Album Of The Year" and a Juno Award (the Canadian Grammy) nomination for "International Album Of The Year."

Meanwhile, the pandemic has reshuffled people's priorities, now more preoccupied with the concrete struggles of a painful everyday life than with the dynamics of gossip. Taylor is thus able to ease the pressure of the mass media, living her private life with relative peace of mind. Even her look changes, becoming simpler, less constructed. Her artistic and creative trajectory is approaching the peak of her career; the moment to step back out into the world draws near, and a new strain of pop will soon shape her songwriting.

Era 10 – Midnights (2022)

An ideal mediation between the electro-pop of the 1989/Reputation/Lover trilogy and the lockdown reflections of the 2020 pairing Folklore/Evermore, the songs on Midnights, released on October 21, 2022, are steeped in a nocturnal amniotic fluid that oozes sensuality. Swift channels Billie Eilish on "Vigilante Shit," one of her most successful and unsettling revenge songs, interrogates her latest would-be seducer on the propulsive "Question...?," leads us by the hand through the dark streets of New York on "Maroon," lands another hit with "Anti-Hero," duets with Lana Del Rey on "Snow On The Beach," and takes home, for the fourth time in her career, the "Album Of The Year" title at the Grammy Awards — an all-time record.

Midnights marks a return to pop, but a pop less indebted to Eighties glitter, one that reveals a more serene songwriting voice, capable of winning over an ever-growing number of listeners, many of whom had just been won over by the indie-folk projects of two years earlier. Midnights is followed by two subsequent expanded editions, the first of which, the "3 a.m. Edition," was released within a matter of hours, and the second, "The Til Dawn Edition," on May 26, 2023, featuring a new version of "Snow On The Beach" with a bigger role for Lana Del Rey (justified in part by a controversy stirred up by Lana's fans) and a reworked "Karma" featuring Ice Spice.

Musically, the seductive mood of Midnights perfectly recreates that mix of feelings you get stepping out of a club, when the euphoria (while the now-muffled kick drum is still just about audible through the wall) dissolves into melancholy as the night winds down. That faint sense of solitude that walks you home, after hours spent immersed in the comforting warmth of bodies moving in unison. Listen to "You're On Your Own, Kid" and tell me you don't feel all of that. On the following "Midnight Rain," we picture the lone protagonist heading home, in the dead of night, in the rain, wrapped in a normalized form of Dubstep, her voice processed through pitch manipulation, drawing on the work of James Blake, while the lyrics reveal the wreck of a relationship, caused by the two people's diverging attitudes. It's yet another signal Taylor sends out, with Joe Alwyn as its subject, someone who never cared for the glamorous evenings Swift inevitably finds herself swept up in. The impression is that this relationship, too, is drawing to a close.

In the United States, Midnights is Taylor Swift's fifth album to surpass a million copies in its first week, reaching the top of the sales charts across much of the world and helping make her, in 2021, the highest-earning musician. Six more American Music Awards follow, along with two consecutive "Video Of The Year" wins at the MTV Video Music Awards, in 2022 for "All Too Well: The Short Film" (which also wins a Grammy Award) and in 2023 for "Anti-Hero." At the start of 2024, Taylor takes home two more Grammy Awards, both for Midnights, one of them for "Album Of The Year," making her the first artist in history to win it four times.

All of this happens right in the middle of the re-recording campaign for her first six albums, while for over a year Swift tours the world with the pyrotechnic Eras Tour, one of the most spectacular and lavish shows ever staged, designed to represent every era of her career, blending together no fewer than nine different sets within the same concert, each devoted to a chapter of her discography. Every night, over three and a half hours pack in more than forty songs, for a show that will also reach Italy, at Milan's Stadio Meazza, on July 13 and 14, 2024. Taylor Swift allows herself no breaks, continuing to smash one record after another: thanks to Midnights, in 2023 she wins – among other things – a staggering nine MTV Video Music Awards, a feat previously achieved only by Peter Gabriel, who won ten in 1987. That December, Time names her "Person Of The Year," an honor never before bestowed on anyone from the world of entertainment.

Among the notable collaborations of recent years, Swift lends her voice to "Renegade" and "Birch" by Big Red Machine, the project of friends Aaron Dessner and Bon Iver, to "Gasoline" by Haim, to "The Joker And The Queen" by Ed Sheeran, and to "The Alcott" by The National. For the soundtrack of the film "Where The Crawdads Sing" (2022), she writes and performs "Carolina," which earns a nomination at both the Golden Globes ("Best Original Song") and the Grammy Awards ("Best Song Written for Visual Media"). In 2023, Taylor is the most-streamed artist across all the major platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music), and the first artist to have the best-selling album of the year across three different decades (2009, 2015 and 2023).

Taylor's Versions

In order to regain full ownership of the masters of the first six albums of her career, those released under Big Machine Records, in 2021 Taylor launched a re-recording campaign (with changes that are sometimes obvious, sometimes barely perceptible) that would lead to the release of the so-called Taylor's Version of Fearless (April 2021), Red (November 2021), Speak Now (July 2023) and 1989 (October 2023). All of the new versions are enriched with bonus tracks (re-recorded for the occasion) and previously unreleased songs written during the same period as the original tracklist.

Her success is truly enormous across the whole world, allowing her to keep smashing one record after another, some of which she already held herself. The re-recorded version of "Love Story" for the Taylor's Version of Fearless makes Swift the second artist in history, after Dolly Parton, to reach number one on the US country singles charts with both the original version and the re-recording of the same song. The long version of "All Too Well," included on the Taylor's Version of Red, becomes the longest song to ever top the American singles chart. Taylor Swift also becomes the woman with the most albums to reach the top of the Billboard chart, an achievement she has pulled off twelve times, surpassing the record held by Barbra Streisand. The Taylor's Version of 1989 becomes her sixth album to sell more than a million copies in its first week; on its release day (October 27, 2023), Swift becomes the most-streamed artist in a single day in the history of the Spotify platform (which in many regions struggles to handle the massive surge), and 1989 (Taylor's Version) becomes the most-streamed album in a single day in 2023, snatching the record – wouldn't you know it – from Midnights. Debuting at number one in practically every corner of the globe (Italy included), in the United States it also becomes Swift's best-selling album in its "first week," beating her previous record, set by none other than the original version of 1989. It had been eight years, since Adele's "25," since an album had sold so much in its first week of release.

These sensational results create a pull effect across the American artist's entire discography, which for months and months remains firmly planted at the top of charts worldwide. Every one of Taylor Swift's albums, except her self-titled debut, spends extremely long stretches inside the top 50 in both the United States and Britain throughout 2023, and it's not unusual to find three or four of them in the top 10 at once. In Australia, in the week following the Eras Tour's stop there, all of the top eight spots on the best-selling albums chart are occupied by Taylor Swift records. In the first week after the release of Midnights, the American singles top 10 is entirely occupied by ten songs from the album. It's an unstoppable, unprecedented success, and it puts Taylor firmly back at the center of attention for mass media around the world. Starting in 2023 she enters a relationship with American football player Travis Kelce, and whenever she shows up in the stands to watch her boyfriend play, the cameras linger on her, often trying to catch some phrase she says to the people around her. On January 7, 2024, at the Golden Globes ceremony, everyone seems exclusively interested in Taylor, who is present as a nominee for the box-office results of the blockbuster concert film about the Eras Tour. For days, rather than the winning actors, what gets talked about is an unfortunate joke aimed at Taylor by the event's host.

Meanwhile, Taylor Swift has also become an object of study, and we're talking academic study. All over the globe, university courses are springing up to analyze her world, examining aspects tied to marketing, communications, financial results and even psychological implications. She's often cited as a business model and invoked even by top-tier international managers as an example to follow when discussing market analysis. Even in Italy, where John Elkann referenced her in a letter addressed to Exor shareholders.

Taylor Swift's net worth, calculated solely on the basis of earnings from her musical career, was estimated at the start of 2024 to be around $1.1 billion. But the fallout from the phenomenon doesn't just benefit her own pockets: the announcement of the Eras Tour dates, besides crashing several websites (hardly a novelty in the world of major American stars), is said to have boosted US GDP by a couple of percentage points. The American leg of the tour alone is estimated to have generated over four and a half billion dollars in economic activity: the total amount spent on ticket purchases, domestic flights, hotels, restaurants, and miscellaneous expenses. Better than any expansionary economic policy!

In some cases, the obsession with Taylor Swift veers into the absurd. Still during the Eras Tour, the singer's private flight between Australia and Singapore was reportedly tracked by an average of six thousand people through flight-tracking websites. It's well known that university student Jack Sweeney was reported for stalking by Swift's legal team in December 2023, for providing information about the popstar's movements (and those of other celebrities) while also calculating the emissions generated by her private jet, another reason Taylor has faced no small amount of criticism.

Issues around her safety and security have certainly arisen, although in mid-April 2024 we find her at the Coachella Festival right in the middle of the crowd, probably surrounded by well-positioned bodyguards (first and foremost, her boyfriend Travis Kelce). A visibly delighted Taylor watches some of the sets on the main stages, including those of Bleachers, the band of her friend Jack Antonoff, and that of Ice Spice, joining in the general euphoria when "Karma," one of the duets included on Midnights, is performed. Moments of relaxation just weeks before the European leg of the Eras Tour and only a few days before her hugely anticipated new release.

Era 11 – The Tortured Poets Department (2024)

Announced as a surprise on February 4, 2024, during the 2024 Grammy Awards ceremony, right as fans were anxiously awaiting news of the release date for the Taylor's Version of Reputation, The Tortured Poets Department, Taylor Swift's eleventh album, was released worldwide on Friday, April 19, with an unexpected twist: the tracklist, originally announced at sixteen songs (plus one bonus track for each of the four deluxe editions initially planned), swelled to thirty-one (!), fifteen of which are gathered into an extended version carrying the suffix "The Anthology," a two-hour double album that takes on the shape of a monumental, definitive work. It's a long and tormented therapy session in which the singer-songwriter processes two breakups, the one with actor Joe Alwyn, a relationship that collapsed after six years of hard-won happiness, and the one with The 1975 singer Matthew Healy, a brief flirtation that played out last summer. A genuine sublimation of pain, carried out by laying bare – in more detail than ever before – wounds and disappointments, without any filter, decoding events through dozens of poems written on pages soaked in tears.

This time around, Taylor takes the melancholic intimacy of Folklore and Evermore and dresses it in the nocturnal garb of Midnights, upping the dream-pop quotient. To pull this off, she stays within her own comfort zone, handing co-production duties to the two musicians who helped shape her previous three albums, Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, who split the prestigious task evenly, also collaborating with Swift on the writing of nearly every track. Antonoff tends to lift the songs by livening up their rhythm with soft beats ("Fortnight," "Down Bad" and the title track rank among the most effective), while Dessner takes charge of many of the most aching, minimal moments, often accompanying Taylor with elegant piano parts ("Chloe Or Sam Or Sophia Or Marcus," "How Did It End?," "Cassandra," "Robin" and "The Manuscript" all turn out to be precious gems), or weaving in subtle guitar lines and handling the arrangements, which feature plenty of string work, with obsessive attention to detail. The team also includes Post Malone and Florence Welch, who take the lead in the duets "Fortnight" and "Florida!," plus Glenn Kotche on drums for a handful of songs, Bryce Dessner, who backs up his twin brother's work on a couple of occasions, Thomas Bartlett (also known under the alias Doveman and for his time in The Gloaming) and James McAlister, formerly of Ester Drang and later a member of Sufjan Stevens's band.

Taylor's songwriting has grown exponentially in recent years, and now it becomes even more imposing, dense and overflowing, with every single line packed with words worth analyzing, a wordiness that at times recalls the Alanis Morissette of "Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie" (the resemblance is striking on "But Daddy I Love You"), compressed into effective verses, infectious choruses and epic bridges capable of retaining their full force even when immersed in the sophisticated, emotional, minimalist chamber-pop orchestrated by Dessner, who takes the lead especially in the second half of the record.

Danceable electropop appears only rarely, usually when Antonoff takes the wheel ("My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys," aimed, you guessed it, at you-know-who…), though here it's transformed into an adult pop sound tailored for fans who are growing up right alongside Swift. One of these tracks, the seemingly breezy "I Can Do It With A Broken Heart," actually conceals a deeply pained lyric, in which Taylor reveals to the world just how hard it was to face the massive Eras Tour stage with all that energy while her heart was shattered by a love falling apart, as she was going through a difficult time. She even says that at times she would have preferred to die, in bursts of theatrical doom that fit perfectly with the "tortured poets" iconography. On "I Hate It Here," another open-hearted confession, Swift writes about the recurring urge to run away, toward places where she could find her peace again, far from prying eyes. It's left to the listener to decide whether to read these as thoughts that truly belonged to her, or as the script of a skillfully crafted fiction.

While "The Smallest Man On Earth" and "Peter" (the Peter Pan syndrome, take that too, Healy…) are both aimed squarely at the frontman of The 1975 (go look up the unmistakable lyrics), the songwriter doesn't pull any punches with Alwyn either, hitting him with sharp or fatalistic lines, as happens in the moving "loml" and in "So Long, London," the fateful track five. A couple of bitter lines are also reserved for Kim Kardashian ("thanK you aIMee"), a nod to the long-running feud that has pitted Taylor against Kanye West for years.

On a couple of occasions, the songwriter lets in a sliver of light, in the form of explicit dedications to her boyfriend Travis Kelce, "The Alchemy" and "So High School," the project's only indie-rock impulse. What emerges is an ocean of fragility: that newly minted billionaire, who on the Eras Tour stage is portrayed as a Marvel superhero, may well carry far more scars than we could ever imagine. She nonetheless remains the popstar who, better than anyone else, has known how to read (and exploit the tools offered by) modern times for profit, once again crafting an album that fits perfectly with this precise moment in her life.

The Tortured Poets Department confirms Taylor Swift's dominant position within today's pop culture, a supremacy bolstered by a level of hyper-prolificacy unmatched anywhere in the world at the same level of quality, one that today leaves any potential rival in the dust. In an age ruled by individualism, her personal traumas and heartaches have the power to become a collective experience, enriched by references and metaphors through which Taylor Swift reveals her own growth as an author, even at the risk of occasionally leaving her audience behind, somewhere between Dylan Thomas and Stevie Nicks, between Clara Bow and an Aston Martin (is racing driver Fernando Alonso involved somehow?), between the Chelsea Hotel and a song by Blue Nile.

As widely expected, The Tortured Poets Department shoots straight to the top of sales charts worldwide, becoming the first album in history to surpass three hundred million streams in a single day on Spotify (and no album had even come close to two hundred million before...), overtaking — of all records — Swift's own previous album, Midnights. Within a mere twelve hours it also becomes the album with the most same-day streams on both Amazon Music and Apple Music. But the records aren't confined to streaming alone: The Tortured Poets Department is the best-selling album of all time in pre-order; in the US alone, on its first day of release, April 19, 2024, it sells the equivalent of 1.6 million units: 1.4 million of those are physical copies, six hundred thousand of which are vinyl.

In its first week, in the US alone, it reaches the remarkable figure of 2.6 million equivalent units: 1.9 million physical copies, 859,000 of them vinyl. The Tortured Poets Department becomes Swift's fourteenth album (out of fifteen total) to reach number one on the American charts, and her twelfth to top the UK charts, making her the greatest solo artist of all time, equaling the record held by Madonna. It also becomes the first album in history to surpass one billion Spotify streams within its first week of release. The previous record belonged to "Midnights"...

In July 2024, while the long (three and a half months!) European leg of the Eras Tour is underway, Taylor Swift turns out to be the most awarded artist at the 2024 Kids' Choice Awards, the accolades handed out by US network Nickelodeon to the year's standout personalities in TV, film, music, literature and social media, as voted by the channel's viewers. Taylor Swift wins in the categories "Favorite Female Artist", "Favorite Global Music Star" and "Favorite Ticket Of The Year", the latter dedicated to the best tour of the year.

This marks Swift's third win in the "Favorite Female Artist" category (after 2010 and 2023), achieved this time by beating out competition from Ariana Grande (a five-time winner in the past), Beyoncé, Billie Eilish (awarded Best Song), Cardi B, Miley Cyrus, Olivia Rodrigo (awarded Best Album) and Selena Gomez. The award for best male artist goes to Post Malone, who this year recorded the hit duet with Taylor Swift "Fortnight"; the year's best male sports personality award went to Travis Kelce, American football star and Taylor Swift's current partner.

Era 12 – The Life Of A Showgirl (2012)

Welcome to the Orange Era!

This is the color that defines the twelfth album (sixteenth if you count the Taylor's Versions) by Taylor Swift, a color choice foreshadowed by some of the stage outfits worn by the American singer-songwriter during the Eras Tour, a detail that didn't escape the most attentive fans, who were quick to speculate and have now had their theories confirmed. A relaxing color, that of sunsets, of spritzes, perfect for reflecting the happy period Swift is going through, rich not only in professional and financial triumphs but personal ones too, with a finally stable relationship — the one with American football star Travis Kelce, which will lead the couple to their already-announced wedding in 2026.

The Life Of A Showgirl, released on October 3, 2025, was written and recorded during breaks in the European leg of the Eras Tour, over the summer of the previous year, when — though worn out by an extremely long and grueling tour — Taylor was already planning her next artistic step: with all the very young new starlets out there, minimizing her time off the radar keeps the daily scroll from leaving her behind. To speed things along she turned to the tried-and-tested duo Max Martin and Shellback, co-producers and co-writers of the entire album alongside Swift — two famed Swedish producers who had already put their stamp on the blockbusters "1989" and "Reputation", the two records that shifted Taylor's stylistic center of gravity away from her country and soft-rock beginnings toward the electropop that made her an untouchable icon.

These are, then, songs that reflect life "away from home", that set out to explore the world — both physical and interior — hidden behind the scenes of a "showgirl", meant here as any sufficiently successful woman in showbiz. What happens to the star of the moment once the show is over, when the lights go down and the audience files out of the hall, when the artist changes out of her costume, wipes off her makeup, and retreats into a depersonalizing (if extremely expensive) hotel room, left alone with herself and her thoughts. From this quick description it's clear that the end result could hardly be the glittering, hyper-danceable record that the pre-release promotional campaign seemed to promise. This is not Taylor Swift's "Confessions On A Dancefloor", nor is it some reissue of the Abba sound — rather, it's a collection of songs that only partly urge you onto the dancefloor, with no liberating shout to be found, but rather the usual diary-like introspection that Taylor has by now accustomed the whole world to.

Not that anything here fails to work, mind you — we're talking about a formally flawless pop record, on which Taylor, after four albums without a single potential chart-smashing hit (only "Anti-Hero", from "Midnights", could aspire to such a role), pulls at least two or three out of her hat, starting with "Opalite", which lodges itself in your head instantly, with a killer chorus laid over a beat straight out of Daft Punk, ready to go toe-to-toe with anyone for the title of best pop song of 2025 — and just when you'd expect a guitar solo in the bridge, you get only Taylor's own vocalizing, intent on filling every available space with herself. No less infectious are "CANCELLED!", the track that comes closest to what we might call soft-rock (joined in that lane by "Actually Romantic" and "Ruin The Friendship" — we like it when the bass pulses and you can actually hear guitars), and some clever touches that enrich "Wi$h Li$t", a successful evolution of "Glitch" (found on the ultra-late-night version of "Midnights").

But the track chosen as the lead single, embraced with open arms by fans as the new Swiftian instant classic, is "The Fate Of Ophelia", with Shakespearean references (nothing new there — remember "Love Story"?) woven through the lyrics, and an opening built on a drum roll reminiscent of the intro to "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac, a choice that reads as a personal tribute to Stevie Nicks, the first "showgirl" to strut down this orange-hued carpet, vaguely echoed too in the vocal phrasing. The second is Elizabeth Taylor, the legendary Hollywood star with unforgettable films to her name, holidays in Portofino (the mayor thanks her for the shout-out and reciprocates with an official invitation), seven husbands and eight marriages, title character of the track in which the propulsive beats reminiscent of the "Reputation" era start to emerge (no coincidence, given the choice of co-producers). There's also dancing to be had in the vaguely seventies funk of "Wood" (anyone say Jackson 5?) and, slowing the tempo down, in the insipid "Honey", a faded relative of certain passages from "Folklore" and "Midnights".

As we were saying, there are plenty of reflective moments, starting with fresh invective hurled at longtime nemesis Scott Borchetta in "Father Figure" (close in mood to "The Tortured Poets Department", complete with an interpolation of the identically titled song by George Michael, credited among the writers — the George Michael Foundation says thanks), followed by "Eldest Sister", a soft acoustic ballad built around piano and guitar, which occupies the strategic track five slot on the tracklist, the one that always carries special significance for fans.

It's impossible not to mention the much-discussed dissing with Charli XCX. The English popstar, on the celebrated "BRAT", had aimed fiery lyrics at Taylor in "Sympathy Is A Knife", stating she didn't appreciate her presence backstage with her boyfriend's band — he has since become her husband, George Daniel, drummer of The 1975 — while Swift was dating singer Matthew Healy at the time. Charli XCX even admitted to crossing her fingers hoping Swift and Healy would soon break up, which duly happened. In "Actually Romantic" Taylor fires back with the line "I heard you call me Boring Barbie / when the coke's got you brave". Judging by how enthusiastically Taylor was dancing during Charli's performance at the latest Grammy Awards, though, there don't seem to be any real hard feelings — it looks more like a carefully calculated dissing.

Another popstar who's dominated the charts in recent months, Sabrina Carpenter, instead serves as a sparring partner on the steady-paced closing track, which ties together some of the album's recurring themes. It's a bit of a missed opportunity: everyone was expecting fireworks from two chart-topping queens, but what comes out is the usual Swift-overshadows-everyone routine, much like what happened on her duet with Lana Del Rey, "Snow On The Beach", which was even re-recorded following protests from Lana's fans. With the curtain falling amid the applause captured at the final date of the Eras Tour, it's clear that The Life Of A Showgirl will be just as beloved by fans as it will be dismissed as superfluous and bland by detractors, who'll find a thousand reasons to pick it apart: from the near plagiarism of Pixies heard in the chord sequence underpinning "Actually Romantic", to the list of rich-people possessions the protagonist would gladly trade for a peaceful life, a couple of kids and a driveway with a basketball hoop (the middle-class dream voiced in "Wi$h Li$t" — though it's easy to say that when you've got two billion dollars in the bank...), from the overly adolescent lines of "Ruin The Friendship" to the overly crude ones in "Wood".

What's missing this time is Taylor's distinctive lyricism: her "private diary narrative" feels diluted by the idyllic period she's living through, as if (and this does seem to be simply a fact) an artist can only give their best during the more complicated moments of their life. Too much happiness to conceive of a "masterpiece"? More than anything, The Life Of A Showgirl comes across as the album we didn't need from Taylor Swift right now, a sudden throwback to the past at the very moment she'd managed to win over the indie crowd. Many would have preferred to see a real appetite for exploration, for the unexpected and disorienting choice — instead, the record-breaking superstar retreats into a comfort zone at precisely the moment she no longer needed to.

The results will certainly follow — it's all too easy to predict this will be the best-selling album of the year — but Taylor Swift likely reached the peak of her career between 2020 and 2024, say between the release of "Folklore" and the end of the Eras Tour. It will be extremely difficult for anyone — even for her — to replicate everything she managed to achieve within the span of those five years, even though from now on she could easily stop recording altogether and plan an endless string of concerts around the world, cementing an unchallenged success that today — regardless of how any future album turns out — looks increasingly unstoppable and beyond the reach of any potential competitor.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google