I find Taylor’s rise and rise super interesting. I think she learned faster than everyone that Twitter is terrible for popstars and she’s pivoted into online spaces that have given her a healthy distance from her fans while being still on the pulse of what’s happening. The deluge of content also helps when so many of her peers have guttered out. The fanbase is fed, happy and seen, others want that experience.
Taylor Swift - 1989 (Taylor's Version) + Re-Recordings
- Thread starter Babyface
- Start date
Yall better hide your faves in July. This classic is finally getting justice globally.
he/him
Speak Now Taylor’s Version is going to be for the girls that were in the trenches defending her on here in 2010/11. That vs Teenage Dream rate, I’m still shaking.
That said, doing Sparks Fly as a surprise song not at my date? Dead to me.
That said, doing Sparks Fly as a surprise song not at my date? Dead to me.
For real. It might be a bit off-topic discussion, but right now the Industry reminds me of reading about the late 90s\early2000 teen acts and how they (Britney, Nsync) were dropping Albums one after the other because they needed to capitalize while the fans were "young" and willing to go ahead.
The disponibility and access to music now make it easy for people to find something, listen to it to death and then move to another thing without much investment. You just need to lurk on Spotify. And people are consuming more music than ever.
When you keep a constant flow of content, it makes it easy that people can be aware of your presence and you won't just "fade" away. Of course there's also a discussion about oversaturating the public and so on but... Taylor is a Mastermind (lol). That's why I find something like Midnights to be a great thing after Folkmore, because it opens the horizon a little for anyone who decided to listen for the first time because of the "cabin music". She keeps expanding her fanbase without a sign of things slowing down, without alienating people and it is fascinating.
I mean, Drake is not the only one if we're taking it as a real-study, but right now he's a great case of Diminishing Returns; there's no urge for a Drake record since he keeps failing to deliver something and people are well-aware that he could be doing better.
Ironically one of my first thoughts was Ariana since people tried hard to discredit her and "people will be tired of her!!!" yet she kept getting bigger and better. Rihanna was also dropping records yearly and kept getting bigger (as a singles artist mainly, but still, she built the legacy of being THE hitmaker this way).
We can trace this "strategy" back to artists releasing mixtapes, free music and everything that built them solid ground before their rise to stardom, but the main discussion is the idea of labels and "the big machine" rejecting this method and going for "let the public miss them! Comeback narrative!" and then failing to promote said comebacks. Taylor might not be 100% terminally online and goes on hiding for a few months between cycles, but she's also making sure her presence is known.
Ironically one of my first thoughts was Ariana since people tried hard to discredit her and "people will be tired of her!!!" yet she kept getting bigger and better. Rihanna was also dropping records yearly and kept getting bigger (as a singles artist mainly, but still, she built the legacy of being THE hitmaker this way).
We can trace this "strategy" back to artists releasing mixtapes, free music and everything that built them solid ground before their rise to stardom, but the main discussion is the idea of labels and "the big machine" rejecting this method and going for "let the public miss them! Comeback narrative!" and then failing to promote said comebacks. Taylor might not be 100% terminally online and goes on hiding for a few months between cycles, but she's also making sure her presence is known.
On the topic of her meteoric success, I also think it can be hard to remember a time before she was this omnipresent but she really wasn’t seeing stupid levels of success until at least 1989, despite Red’s singles being a new high for her. I remember when Speak Now originally came out, she was big but still in the same weight class as her peers, if that makes sense. What specifically continues to boggle my mind is how she’s managed to build on each era. Like you really can’t credit one’s success without the one before it, where a lot of artists tend to either jump drastically forward or stumble backwards from one project to the next or maybe worse, stagnate. She’s managed to only go upwards, consistently, for almost two decades. I’d say that the jump from Fearless to Speak Now was probably the smallest (not artistically, but commercially) but she still hit the million milestone during the first week as a country artist on her third album, so it’s still wild to think about. Like how has she managed to just continue to build?
What should be and probably will be studied is how she’s cultivated this unwavering relationship with her fans. How she’s solidified herself with guaranteed support in such a fickle climate is simply unparalleled. Both from a business perspective but also a personal one. Her fans love her deep and I’m not naive enough to think I actually know her but I do think she’d like, give me a hug and be genuinely nice to me if I was ever so lucky to have the chance to meet her. We’ve seen her physically put in the work since she was a literal teenager to build this base and while I don’t think it’s fair to expect that from every artist, it’s a big part of why Taylor is where she’s at. She’s also generally a bit psychotic so there’s always that as well
What should be and probably will be studied is how she’s cultivated this unwavering relationship with her fans. How she’s solidified herself with guaranteed support in such a fickle climate is simply unparalleled. Both from a business perspective but also a personal one. Her fans love her deep and I’m not naive enough to think I actually know her but I do think she’d like, give me a hug and be genuinely nice to me if I was ever so lucky to have the chance to meet her. We’ve seen her physically put in the work since she was a literal teenager to build this base and while I don’t think it’s fair to expect that from every artist, it’s a big part of why Taylor is where she’s at. She’s also generally a bit psychotic so there’s always that as well
I mean she has been giving us the dream back catalogue reissue treatment (whilst in her constant prime) that any fan of any artist / band could ever dream of.
he/him
I mean, yes, but also Drake hasn't fallen into the opportunity to completely re-tool his public persona under a more sympathetic lens via something like his entire life's work being bought from under him by people out to see him fail.
And to Taylor's credit, I'm not sure if Aubrey would have navigated such as skillfully. I want to be clear, I agree Taylor is charting new territory in terms of success.
But I think I'm trying to say sometimes it's just not that complicated. Sometimes things are serendipity - that the course of history is determined by random events.
The latter half of her career, if anything, feels like a lesson that trying to plan ahead just doesn't work. The miscalculation of reputation led to diminished returns. The miscalculation of Lover in response led to even more diminished returns.
Lover felt like overexposure - where Aubrey finds himself now - to where more frequent releases may not have re-balanced scales. It shouldn't be lost how the saga involving her masters really reconfigured the paradigm around her to someone that can be easily rooted for, which often fairly or unfairly escaped her as years went on.
And I get why this conversation may be a bit sticky, because it can sometimes read as giving those who bought them 'credit' for what followed, but it should be clear her reaction to the unexpected is what led to the success she's now had.
She planned to always have her catalog of hits to fall back on, and that didn't work out when having them stolen from her. She planned to be able to tour to cushion any commercial shortfalls of Lover, and then COVID happened and that didn't work out.
Imagine how much of this catalog renaissance we'd be missing out on if she was still committed to the idea of being anti-streaming and keeping her discography off of it.
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This is truly what I believe course corrected her career and permanently altered it. Folklore and evermore absolutely helped immensely, but it’s been the re-recordings and the awe at the monumental undertaking in doing so that has shifted attention in a way that I don’t think would’ve happened otherwise. Just like we probably wouldn’t have gotten folklore and evermore if the pandemic hadn’t happened, I don’t think we’d be where we’re at today if scooby snack hadn’t made that fatal (for him) decision. Like it’s genuinely hard for me to picture who Taylor Swift as an artist would be today without the re-recordings project and the whole eras branding. It’s made people revisit her work and has also introduced so many new people to the brilliance of her catalogue in a way they never would’ve made time for, say, during the Lover era. You’re absolutely right in that it gave people a reason to root for her. Her fans win with all of the new material being released, she wins, it was actually such a perfect storm. I never could’ve imagined it would turn out this well back in 2019, honestly.
I think one thing attributable to her finding new peaks is she’s always gone out on the road and toured, and that kind of work builds incredible loyalty. It took a global pandemic to stop her for a few years. Yes, folklore and evermore broadened the audience, the re-recordings gave her the fight and purpose she’s always needed, but I always think the Reputation Stadium Tour is an undersold moment for keeping the Swifities themselves happy and fed.
I'm getting a little maxed out on Taylor right now, tbh. Yes, she's bigger than ever. Yes, she has cool friends. Yes, she's may or may not be dating a super edgy dude(!!!!). It's beginning to feel like 1989 era overload all over again. I mean, there were 3 separate Taylor threads on Page 1 yesterday alone.
I love the (massive amount of) music, but that + everything else right now is starting to feel a bit chaotic.
I love the (massive amount of) music, but that + everything else right now is starting to feel a bit chaotic.
100%. Taylor has always had a strong relationship with her fans, but I've always felt like the reputation era was a pretty instrumental period for it...there's a reason so many twitter swifties are so attached to that era. She wasn't doing interviews or making the effort to be in the public eye nearly as much as she was in previous eras, but she was talking to fans constantly on tumblr, picking fans online for meet & greets, etc. I feel like an even stronger bond formed with her fans around then.
And on the topic of the re-recordings, one of my favorite parts of it is that she gets to reframe the narrative around these albums. Yes, she's always gotten praise, but there was some misogyny and undermining of her talent in her early career (she talked during the Lover era about how she hated her songwriting being diminished to a 'trick' to boys that wronged her, rather than a craft and skillset), and with society's progression combined with her building up her critical reception, it's really cool to see this music looked at with less of a skeptical frame than it might have been before by some.
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It's just interesting to think about how few shows she planned to do for Lover (17 with technically only 4 in the US -- 2 in LA and 2 in Boston) when she easily could've gone on another worldwide stadium run. And, if she had, would the future tours have had enough demand for them to all be stadiums too? It's very difficult to maintain that level of touring status consistently as many artists have demonstrated.
She had talked or mentioned something about her mum's health being the reason at the moment, right? Why she couldn't or wouldn't do a long tour that year?
Yes she mentioned family health obligations as a reason for not touring the album in traditional length
I don't know. Obviously it's hard to track and quantify these things but if I had to pinpoint a moment where it seemed like she accessed this new echelon... Red's re-recording seems to fit the bill. Fearless performed fine and probably along the lines of how we all expected the re-recordings to perform, but Red felt like a shockwave. It was like the final ingredient. Her work in 2020 broadening her audience, the critical reappraisal of her back catalogue seemingly reaching a zenith, COVID making everyone nostalgic... and here comes the album that expanded her audience the first time, rose her up to being considered a popstar, more or less solidified the entire autumnal Starbucks aesthetic as a known thing, and held the perfect mix of massive pop songs and deep cut critic fodder. You combine that with the flex that was "All Too Well" and it was just a pure lightning strike that... kind of took us all by surprise at the time before we realised the circumstances.
But yeah, now it seems to be snowballing thing where the new thing does well because the last thing did well. Part of me wouldn't even be surprised if Speak Now manages to challenge or even beat the original's first week sales.
But yeah, now it seems to be snowballing thing where the new thing does well because the last thing did well. Part of me wouldn't even be surprised if Speak Now manages to challenge or even beat the original's first week sales.
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