this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2024
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I don't get it. Her music is sometimes catchy but otherwise unremarkable, from the songs I've heard. How does she break all these records and accumulate so much fame and wealth?

She's pretty, but a lot of singer songwriters are, especially those with makeup and costume people, a support staff.

Is there something else to her that people like?

I'm confused about what makes her so apparently unique or phenomenal.

Update: there are so many things that make swift unique or phenomenal.

I've received tons of great answers from people that have helped me understand, like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle, many factors that makes swift different and consequently more successful than her peers.

Clever lyrics, top-tier production, sharing autobiographical and emotional points in her life very directly, apparent honesty with few or no public blemishes, creating a community of fans through Easter eggs and house parties and unconventional, but always personal methods, an early start supported by wealthy parents, she keeps winning against abusers, and her music itself is popular and fun.

Those are just a few of the puzzle pieces contributed here, and a dive into this post is a pretty good explanation of many of the factors that must be contributing to her phenomenal success and recognition, that set her apart from other pop stars, even pop stars who were phenoms in their own right.

This is a very educational post, thank you to everyone who has contributed.

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[–] [email protected] 238 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I wanted to chime in, since I'm in the unique situation of not being a "Swiftie" but still having an above-average knowledge of Taylor Swift due to being married to a Swiftie.

For starters, her songs are very relatable for women. Especially in women around her age, she was routinely writing songs that spoke to the emotions during each periods of their lives. My wife, for example, was in middle/high school when Taylor was releasing her romantic country songs, and met me right around when Taylor released Lover. This is all because Taylor is extremely autobiographical with her lyrics and was writing about what she was experiencing at the time. She wrote lovesongs in Speak Now because she was in high school and early college when she produced the album. She wrote Lover because she had met a man who, at the time, she perceived to be a man she could spend the rest of her life with. Since Red, very few of her songs are about hypothetical situations. Almost all of them are about her real experiences as a person and as a woman, with the exception of folklore and Evermore, and that speaks to women in a very strong way. Her lyrics and reasons behinds songs are deep, much deeper than most give her credit for.

Additionally, she is extremely good at marketing. Many of her songs and albums have Easter eggs in them that only true fans will be able to find. She also drops a lot of cryptic hints, which her fans love to dissect and interpret to try and predict major releases or announcements. It's just good fun for them, and it increases the hype significantly. Also, her concerts are not just live music, they're a whole show. The Eras concert is 3 hours long, and she is singing and running the entire time. She rarely lip-syncs - I say rarely because I've heard claims that she does but I have never seen it - and gives it her all every single concert. Her band and many of her dancers and support staff have been with her for a decade or more now, and they have continued to routinely put on shows to the best of their abilities without fail.

Finally, she is, most Swifties believe, a genuinely good person. The worst thing I've ever heard of her doing is loaning her private jet out to her friends and families which caused her to break the news because her jet was causing a lot of emissions. Beyond that, she seems to be a grounded woman who genuinely loves her fans and the people around her.

If you take nothing else away from this post, this is the most important fact: She is relatable to women. She sings about her lived experiences, many of which are relatable to her fans.

[–] [email protected] 60 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Thanks, I really appreciate your perspective.

A lot of what you said rings true and certainly fits in puzzle piece-wise with everything else

[–] [email protected] 35 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

My wife has just informed me of the latest Easter egg, to further explain the marketing prowess and give an example.

She has changed her profile picture to black and white, rather than full color. While trivial to non-Swift fans, this is a red alert to her die-hards. I haven't heard many of the theories yet (my wife often distills them down to the most reasonable for me, thankfully), but her favorite so far is that it is signaling her intent to release the "Taylor's version" (re-recording) of her album Reputation, which is one of her most popular albums and has a black and white theming. This is the kind of puzzles and theory crafting thst many Swift fans find so enthralling

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

Ha, okay, so there's a whole puzzle culture to everything she presents. Yes, that would attract a lot of people as well. Thanks

[–] [email protected] 88 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Think of a dish made by a world class chef, that food is probably exquisitely crafted using unique and fresh ingredients. There probably aren't that many people out there who truly appreciate it, and probably a lot who just think it's weird.

Now think of pizza. It's relatively cheap and broadly appealing. It wouldn't be put in the same class as the food prepared by the chef, but a lot more of it gets consumed.

Taylor Swift is talented, pretty, affable, has a superior work ethic, and makes music that's catchy and easily digestible. Like pizza, her music appeals to the broadest group of people.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 9 months ago (25 children)

I like this explanation, but I feel like there are plenty of other artists who fit into that category.

Is it just random that they had to pick one brand of pizza to go crazy over do you think?

[–] [email protected] 31 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The pizza has been carefully crafted by teams of experts to appeal to the largest audience.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 9 months ago (2 children)

As someone who couldn't name a single Swift song up until a couple of months ago — From what I read she writes the vast majority of her songs, which is exceptionally rare for pop stars; especially from such a young age... The songs may be simplistic and formulaic, but the lyrics are decent for the age they were written at, and the work ethic and genre jumping is impressive. The most admirable thing about her is how she's screwing venture capitalists by re-recording all the songs she wrote. I hope she starts redistributing all that wealth she's extracting.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Ok just don't forget she came from money and had opportunities:

She traveled there with her mother at age eleven to visit record labels

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (5 children)

She is a damn fine businesswoman. She was able to use social media to have a relationship with her followers and build a large audience. That's one of the main reasons she became famous.

Also, there have been a couple of situations that benefited her fame, such as the Kanye incident

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

Luck and timing are big factors. There are many talented artists out there that work hard and make the kind of music that (in theory) should appeal to a large audience but never make it. Either at all or not to the level of Taylor Swift. If you make the right music at the right time, your chances increase but you still need luck.

Edit: what I've heard of Taylor is that she's very good in making the right music at the right time. The songs fit the trends in music. But I've never listened much to her, so I don't know for sure if its correct

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (8 children)

My brother is a swiftie and seems to think that her talent is above and beyond a standard artists talent. One thing that is praised is how much range she has covered across her albums.

I'm personally not a fan, and to me she seems overrated, but I also have to recognize the mass following and legitimate consistency in the music quality. She's not like a Katy Perry recycling the same tune.

So I think she's like a really nice pizza, appealing but always good quality, always fresh.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (6 children)

I disagree with this. She’s a pretty amazing song writer, which is really uncommon for pop stars. I can see why someone would think she’s more like pizza if you only listen to the hits, but if you actually sit down and listen to a whole album you’ll find that there aren’t many songs that are just flat-out bad. Actually, one my favorites by her is a B side. You can actually track her progress as a musician from fairly generic country artist to someone who has a really unique and uncomplicated sound. I mean, I get why people go for the “simple = easy”, but that’s simply not the case. It’s really difficult to write a song that is as clean and as well put together as she does and still have it be good. To continue your food metaphor, Taylor would be like sushi; there doesn’t have to be a ton of ingredients to be incredibly delicious.

Then you also have to consider that she’s Gen Z, has been doing this for 18 years, and has managed to stay fairly relevant most of that time. Like she really is the only Gen Z pop star who has managed to stay in the limelight without dropping out of being a complete tool (Justin Bieber).

You also have to consider that for a long time she had a carefully crafted public image as a champion of the LGBTQ+ community. Whether she actually is or isn’t doesn’t really matter (I personally think it’s a lot of rainbow-washing) when you have bops like “You Need to Calm Down”. Or the fact that she features a bunch of trans people in the video she directed for “Lavender Haze”.

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[–] [email protected] 86 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (10 children)

-Very skilled songwriter. I don't necessarily like all her stuff but I legitimately think she's the best songwriter (meaning, composing music and writing lyrics) of her generation. Probably since Bruce Springsteen or Billy Joel.

-Very attractive and a good performer

-Well connected in the music industry let her get an early start/inside track

-obsessed with being popular. I don't mean that in a negative way, but her primary objective with her music is to please as many people as possible. I think the documentary "Miss Americana" on Netflix explains that very well-at one point she straight up says "I just want people to like me" or something like that. That means her music/career has always focused on mass appeal as opposed to making more... limited-appeal music like most artists do at some point in their career

-she's kept a remarkably clean image even through being famous for close to two decades. It's very telling that the worst thing her haters can say about her is "but her plane uses a lot of carbon!" This means parents let kids listen to her, brands love her as a sponsor, nobody boycotts her, etc.

-one last thing, I think people love her songs because they feel like they're true. Her songs have a very intimate, almost confessional quality that a lot of artists strive for buy often comes off as fake.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (7 children)

She's just lately a decent songwriter. For most of her career, her songs were written for her by the heavy hitters behind virtually every top 100 hit. Her producer/mixer/writer Jack Antonoff still does most of the heavy lifting.

I am tired of seeing the sentiment that she's some brilliant songwriter--she really only kind of plays the guitar. The reality is that if anyone is made to be a billionaire, and work with one of the best musical minds of our time (Antonoff), and collaborate with the other top song writers/ghost writers, of course, a decade later, they'll be able to write songs. It was never some innate talent of hers, or else the songs she truly did write early in her career would have been the hits, instead of the mutually agreed upon worst on the album.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (4 children)

By early in her career do you mean when she was like 18? I'm not saying she hasn't had a lot of help. But I disagree with the idea that she's just a figurehead. She is listed as a writer for pretty much all her songs, and you can usually tell a Taylor Swift song just by the sound/lyrics, which isnt something i can say for a lot of pop artists. If it was Antonoff the whole time then Bleachers would be more popular (relative to Swift).

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 9 months ago (17 children)

I used to dislike Taylor Swift along with all other contemporary pop stars. Maybe even a little bit more, because she had the audacity to call herself Country: Spitting in the face of personal heroes like Kristofferson, Nelson, and Cash.

Then I stopped being an edgy teenager, Swift released Shake it Off, and I had to recognize it was a fun song to dance to. In an ironic kind of way of course, but nevertheless.

And then, in 2015, Ryan Adams released his cover album of Swift's 1989, playing every single song on the album in a folksy way. I dug it. And with it, I had to appreciate that Taylor Swift is one hell of a songwriter: I loved the songs, I just don't love the sound of pop music all that much. That's personal taste, not everything I dislike is bad.

Then Ryan Adams fell from grace with metoo, so fuck him. At least it triggered Father John Misty to publish (and later remove) his legendary covers of Swift in the style of the Velvet Underground.

Fast forward to 2020, and Taylor Swift dabbles with music I can actually enjoy listening to with her album folklore. Pretty cool. I actually got my expectations up for her next album, evermore, low-key hoping that it would be musically inspired by the Battle of Evermore. Sadly I was wrong, but again, it's a matter of personal preferences.

What matters more is the fact that she's reinventing herself from album to album - she's successful in one formula, and she just ditches it and moves on to something different. And every time she does it, she seems to be even more successful than the last time. Her growth as an artist is astonishing.

Finally, she's just cool. Fuck the labels - she'll just casually re-records her entire discography in order to take back control of her songs. She's caught up in all kinds of stupid celebrity drama, but it tends to be the rest of the industry falling over like toddlers trying to drag her into shit for PR while she acts like the only adult in the room. She also scores points for casually hanging out with Billy Bragg and encouraging people to vote and shit.

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I'm personally not a fan. But I am a fan of her making the right-wing nut jobs apoplectic.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That is 100% my favorite part of her career, besides the f*** you record labels, i'm re-recording my entire catalog, which is pretty cool

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (3 children)

She also is helping bring down the Ticketmaster monopoly. That's where she earned my respect.

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 9 months ago (3 children)

In a word: marketing. In two words: relentless marketing.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Her dad owned the record company. They are rich. $$$$

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (9 children)

The reason is that her dad is quite rich and was a stock broker.

He invested heavily in the label that had his daughter under contract, being able to dictate what the label was focusing on and on top he has thrown another Million on her, to start the journey.

So to sum it up a huge tone of money, contacts and knowledge about how to run a business by her father.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 9 months ago (10 children)

Both of her parents worked in finance and upper middle class, but not "quite rich". He invested in a 3% stake in the label, approximately $120,000. That is big money for most but not ultra rich money. Even today they are worth the low millions.

Contacts, enough money to launch a career, business acumen, hard work, and luck have been most of it.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Never said ultra rich and by any means someone who is able to take over a million out of their pocket to Kickstart anything is rich.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

Taylor's dad got her daughter a label to help make her a star, but I think that Taylor might not have done as well if she went through typical music industry channels. Taylor wasn't a Rebecca Black kind of artist; she wrote a lot of her own music and was able to define her image as herself at a time when that wasn't common at that time.

Keep in mind she came up around the time the music industry has lost most of its revenue due to streaming. The music industry would have commonly invested in Taylor like artists a decade or two ago, but the economics of doing that wasn't there. Self promotion and funding also wasn't that uncommon, a lot of the rap around that time came out under the same model of artists promoting their own work before getting signed; Taylor just had more resources.

But even then, daddy buying an label would explain a one hit wonder, or maybe even a good album or two. It wouldn't explain Taylor's sustained success. Money only goes so far.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The music industry has been a racket for nearly 100 years. Music doesn't get popular because people like it, it gets popular because it's promoted. Way back when, promoters would pay radio stations to play their music to encourage sales. The methods are slightly different now, but it's still the same kind of old boy's club telling people what they like.

Taylor Swift understood the industry she was getting into, and was very adept at exploiting it.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This is true, but not everything that gets promoted gets popular. A lot also flunks.

Taylor Swift just happens to hit a sweet spot that appeals to a lot of people.

And music has a self-reinforcing spiral. People listen to music from artists that they like, and which their peers like.

So a popular artist could theoretically release an album without any promotion and it would still become popular, just because people will be curious to listen to the new songs from an artist that they already like (of course, record labels will always heavily promote work from their popular artists to make them even more popular).

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (8 children)

Her songs are produced by the CIA and contain subliminal messages that make her irresistible.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago

Yvan Eht Nioj

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

CIA are here and down voting you. Stay frosty.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Don't really see her as being massively more popular than people like Michael Jackson or Madonna at their peak. She's like 18 years into her career at this point, like a snowball accumulating more and more fans.

Of course it helps that she had rich parents to be able to grease the wheels in the early stages of her career.

The music is alright. There's a decent amount of it, and it's fairly varied. It's called pop for a reason.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

You are asking an infinitely difficult question of why she is so incredibly popular, I don't think I can tell you why she's more popular than, say, Beyoncé. Except maybe that she is more consistent. That said, I'll give you my perspective on why I like Taylor Swift.

I'm a dude and my music taste is pretty diverse but I mostly grew up listening to metal and punk. That said, when I left my ex (for the second time). It felt really good to listen to We are never ever getting back together on repeat. Most breakups I've had, had songs that have helped me through and leaving a toxic relationship... It just felt really good to repeatedly sing those words over and over.

I don't know if it's actually true but I'm a guitarist and I've heard the phrase "Taylor Swift is the Beatles of the 21st century" meaning her music releases currently have the largest impact on guitar sales and popularity. If for nothing else, I respect her a lot for performing live with a guitar. She doesn't do anything crazy but you don't have to have crazy guitar skills to make good music. I personally enjoy learning her songs every now and then because a) they are relatively straightforward to learn but still encompass nice playful elements, b) I am mostly interested in becoming a better singer nowadays and her songs are definitely challenging for me to sing.

  1. Both folklore and evermore are really nice albums imo. Very nice and tasteful music. Last year I had a phase where I was having trouble finding music. I was sick of extreme metal, I was sick of hardcore techno, and I listened to so much leftist folk and folk punk that I grew sick of it. All the music I listened to was always fast, intense and challenging. I just wanted nice songs that I can sing along to with real instrumentation. I realised I don't mind pop music but I like real instruments because they feel more real to me (fwiw lol, please don't take this as hatred for electronics, I also love techno as stated above). Well folklore and evermore offer just that for me. Nice songs with real instruments and beautiful instrumentation. I prefer folklore for being darker but evermore uses more guitar which I also like. My fav songs out of the 2 albums:

Folklore

  • cardigan
  • mirrorball
  • this is me trying
  • invisible string

Evermore

  • willow
  • champagne problems
  • 'tis the damn season

I still want to express that I don't always like her lyric writing. She uses brand names a bunch and I also feel like there are often references to American things which I just don't know about.

Also, while I like folklore and evermore, I find them borderline impossible to listen to all the way through. All the songs basically strike the same mood, it's nice relaxing music, but there's not a big emotional arc throughout the albums for me. I tend to stop listening to evermore once I reach "no body, no crime"... God that song is awful lol.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm not a huge fan or anything, but I think she's a really talented musician and really good at managing her fame. She keeps a strong relationship with her fans, her music spans numerous genres, and her father is a wealth manager.

Watching her Tiny Desk concert helped me get more into her music so I could enjoy it with my daughter.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago (6 children)

I'll sum up some answers that made things click for me

  1. She writes songs spanning many emotions.

  2. Her albums span multiple genres. (I've only heard pop and country, but I'm not a fan.)

  3. She is hard working, prolific, and puts on a show.

So with that combination it seems she has something for everyone. Personally, I only know one TS song, but it's catchy as hell. So there's no song that I hate that happens to TS song either.

About point 2.: I'm a Paul Simon fan and he spans multiple genres, but I wouldn't expect non-fans to know that.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (10 children)
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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (8 children)

Taylor for me is extremely emotional and autobiographical. I connect emotionally with her songs in a way that allows me to feel what she's feeling. Music is emotional and usually has a message, but for me her music does make me feel more.

Which makes sense, I always loved pink Floyd for their art and what they were trying to say, I usually am an emotional person, and I think for a lot of people that's why she's popular.

You have an emotion you're working through? She's got a song for it.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Sure didn't expect her to be compared with Floyd.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (5 children)

Kanye interrupted her acceptance speech with some crazy shit.

From there on, it was just maintaining the momentum.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I'm definitely not a swiftie, but she does have some catchy music, and Shake it off was the default song for getting my kids out of bad moods and over bad days.

I also used to think she was a catty bitch for the way she was caught on camera making a face when Selena Gomez was with Bieber. However since then I've heard her speak about things she cares about and I appreciate her passion and that she's against the things I'm generally against, she definitely seems to care and motivate her swifties to care about the right things, and that makes me tend to support her.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Just commenting to let you know that you are not alone in your confusion.

To me, most of her songs are pleasant but forgetable.

She seems like just one of many female Pop artists with a bit of girl-next-door charm. Maybe that charm is her appeal?

Maybe she is a witch?

Who knows.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Under the Influence has an episode about her marketing.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (16 children)

She makes music that a lot of people really like. Often times because they relate. It sounds like it’s not your kind of music, and that’s fine. Not really any more to it.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Things go viral sometimes and it snowballs. The more famous you are, the more famous you can become. She's also good enough at being an entertainer to keep riding the wave of increased fame, with added resources the bigger she gets.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (6 children)

I understand a lot of you seem to just not like Taylor Swift, which is not at all where I'm coming from.

The songs of hers that I hear and I like are fun pop songs, but I don't understand why her fun pop songs win twice as many awards as any other artist, and 20 times as much or more of most artists

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