Why Is Taylor Swift So Popular?

[+ Lucky]

To me, she looks like a teen-aged girl prancing about a stage in her underwear. Why pay hundreds of dollars to see that?

[+ Charlie]

I was surprised to learn that my nephew's 36 year old wife, an educated, sophisticated mother of two young children, somehow scored a ticket, and is flying to L.A. on her own to see Swift's concert at SoFi Stadium. And her husband and friends seem to think that is perfectly normal.

[+ azdr0710]

Some of this frenzy feeds on itself. FOMO. As with trendy restaurants and glamorous hotels, some do it just to say they did it. 

[samhexum]

1 hour ago, Lucky said:

Why Is Taylor Swift So Popular?

 

42 minutes ago, Charlie said:

I was surprised to learn that my nephew's 36 year old wife, an educated, sophisticated mother of two young children, somehow scored a ticket, and is flying to L.A. on her own to see Swift's concert at SoFi Stadium. And her husband and friends seem to think that is perfectly normal.

 

24 minutes ago, azdr0710 said:

Some of this frenzy feeds on itself. FOMO. As with trendy restaurants and glamorous hotels, some do it just to say they did it. 

I haven't listened to new music in 20 years, preferring to stick to my old reliables, so while I've heard of her, I don't think I've ever heard any of her stuff.

However, I became a fan this week, when it was reported that she gave bonuses to EVERY person who worked on this tour, totaling $55 million.  Every truck driver (who transport sets, wardrobe, equipment) got $100,000.

[+ purplekow]

Her tour is likely to bring in over 1 billion dollars and generate billions in business along the way.   Nevertheless, the bonuses were particularly generous and particularly well reported upon.  

Edited August 5, 2023 by purplekow

[MikeBiDude]

Possible 5 BILLION DOLLAR  impact to North American economy..."bigger than Super Bowl".

'The Super Bowl doesn't compare to this': Who is causing such an economic boom? | CNN Business

WWW.CNN.COM

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Taylor Swift is wrapping up the first US leg of her Eras Tour. CNN’s Camila Bernal looks at the impact the...

 

[+ Lucky]

19 hours ago, MikeBiDude said:

Possible 5 BILLION DOLLAR  impact to North American economy..."bigger than Super Bowl".

'The Super Bowl doesn't compare to this': Who is causing such an economic boom? | CNN Business

WWW.CNN.COM

---

Taylor Swift is wrapping up the first US leg of her Eras Tour. CNN’s Camila Bernal looks at the impact the...

 

BUT WHY?

[+ Coolwave35]

I love her song writing. I love her musical hooks. I think her music is relevant, relatable and well produced. 
 

I’m a huge Swifty and spent $40k on tickets to The Eras Tour.  Every dime was wellllll worth it. 
 

You have 70,000 people singing every word to 3 hours of live music. It’s an experience unlike anything I’ve ever gotten to experience before. 

[samhexum]

1 hour ago, Coolwave35 said:

You have 70,000 people singing every word to 3 hours of live music. It’s an experience unlike anything I’ve ever gotten to experience before. 

You obviously never saw Perry Como in concert.

[+ Coolwave35]

41 minutes ago, samhexum said:

You obviously never saw Perry Como in concert.

I don’t know her. 

[samhexum]

9 minutes ago, Coolwave35 said:

I don’t know her. 

probably the most dynamic, electrifying singer of the 20th century.  youtube him sometime

[BuffaloKyle]

She is definitely popular with the truck drivers on her tour:

Taylor Swift gives $100k bonuses to Eras Tour truck drivers

NEWS.YAHOO.COM

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Caterers, truck drivers, riggers, dancers and more all reportedly received bonuses

 

[56harrisond]

Taylor Swift fans 'Shake It Off,' causing record-breaking seismic activity during Seattle shows | CNN

WWW.CNN.COM

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Taylor Swift fans are in their record-breaking era.

After two nights of earth-shaking dancing at Swift’s Seattle “Eras” tour concert at Lumen Field, enthusiastic Swifties caused seismic activity equivalent of a 2.3 magnitude earthquake.

[+ Lucky]

The NY Times tried to answer my question today. The article is behind a paywall and I don't know how to "gift" it here, so some excerpts;

The pop superstar’s tour, which is now finishing its initial North American leg with six nights at SoFi Stadium outside Los Angeles, has been both a business and a cultural juggernaut. Swift’s catalog of generation-defining hits and canny marketing sense have helped her achieve a level of white-hot demand and media saturation not seen since the 1980s heyday of Michael Jackson and Madonna — a dominance that the entertainment business had largely accepted as impossible to replicate in the fragmented 21st century.

“The only thing I can compare it to is the phenomenon of Beatlemania,” said Billy Joel, who attended Swift’s show in Tampa, Fla., with his wife and young daughters.

Although Swift, 33, and her promoters do not publicly report box-office figures, the trade publication Pollstar estimated that she has been selling about $14 million in tickets each night. By the end of the full world tour, which is booked with 146 stadium dates well into 2024, Swift’s sales could reach $1.4 billion or more — exceeding Elton John’s $939 million for his multiyear farewell tour, the current record-holder.

Swift has now had more No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 over the course of her career than any other woman, surpassing Barbra Streisand. With the tour lifting Swift’s entire body of work, she has placed 10 albums on that chart this year and is the first living artist since the trumpeter and bandleader Herb Alpert in 1966 to have four titles in the Top 10 at the same time.

But how did a concert tour become so much more: fodder for gossip columns, the subject of weather reports, a boon for friendship-bracelet beads — the unofficial currency of Swiftie fandom — and the reason nobody could get a hotel room in Cincinnati at the end of June?

 

“She is the best C.E.O., and best chief marketing officer, in the history of music,” said Nathan Hubbard, a longtime music and ticketing executive who co-hosts a Swift podcast. “She is following people like Bono, Jay-Z and Madonna, who were acutely aware of their brands. But of all of them, Taylor is the first one to be natively online.”

The Taylorpalooza extends to every level of the news media, which began the coverage cycle by chronicling Swift’s ticketing fiasco last November, when fans — and scalpers’ bots — crushed Ticketmaster’s systems, leading to a heated Senate Judiciary hearing. Since then, seemingly no nugget of Swift news has escaped coverage, from the stars in the stands to oddities like a Seattle concert that, according to one researcher, shook the ground with an intensity equivalent to a 2.3-magnitude earthquake.

Music critics have portrayed the Eras Tour as showing Swift at the top of her game as a media-savvy, big-tent talent, a pop star with a knack for grand spectacle as well as the polished artistry of a classic songwriter.

Shania Twain, the country-pop star whose career in some ways prefigured Swift’s, caught the Las Vegas stop of the Eras Tour, a 44-plus song production that goes as long as three and a half hours. She praised Swift’s “beautiful balance” of high-tech stagecraft and intimate performance segments. “I have to applaud her,” Twain said in a telephone interview. “As a performer, I know that work that goes into it.”

The power of Swift’s fan army — and fear of crossing the star, or even appearing to — has kept nearly all of the press about the tour sunny. Though some fans (and parents) balked at the ticket prices and challenges of securing seats, most frustration was directed squarely at Ticketmaster, not Swift. After a few weeks of headlines romantically linking Swift with a frontman some fans considered to be problematic, reports spread in the celebrity pages that they had split. (Swift’s representatives declined to comment for this article.)

For fans, the shows are a pilgrimage, and a rediscovery of the joys of mass gatherings. Flights are packed with Swifties, and travelers trade stories and compare outfits — drawn from looks associated with Swift “eras” — in stadium corridors and parking lots. In Kansas City, the comedian Nikki Glaser was attending her eighth show, a commitment that she estimated has cost her $25,000.

“This year I decided not to freeze my eggs,” Glaser said. “I’m going to put that money toward the thing I love most in the world, which is Taylor Swift.”

More: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/05/arts/music/taylor-swift-eras-tour.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Music

Personally, I'd rather watch Harry Styles.

 

[caramelsub]

I wasn’t a fan of her when she was country, but as soon as she turned pop with the “1989” album, I became one. I always thought she came across as sheltered in her country days. Her pop albums are very catchy. I think she is very talented musically, particularly when it comes to writing songs. Some critics have called her voice mediocre or average. But I think she makes up for her lack of range or vocal power by her great songwriting.

Edited August 7, 2023 by caramelsub

[BSR]

I'm sure I've heard her songs playing in the background because her music is everywhere, but I couldn't name a single TS song to save my life.  I do like her generosity to her crew, which seems to have come as a very pleasant surprise to all recipients.  Maybe I'll look up her songs one day.

[+ Charlie]

On 8/5/2023 at 8:01 AM, Charlie said:

I was surprised to learn that my nephew's 36 year old wife, an educated, sophisticated mother of two young children, somehow scored a ticket, and is flying to L.A. on her own to see Swift's concert at SoFi Stadium. And her husband and friends seem to think that is perfectly normal.

When I mentioned this to two straight female friends of mine yesterday, one unmarried and 55 and the other married and 73, both of them said they would have done the same if they could! Obviously, I am missing something important about the TS phenomenon.

[MikeBiDude]

24 minutes ago, Charlie said:

When I mentioned this to two straight female friends of mine yesterday, one unmarried and 55 and the other married and 73, both of them said they would have done the same if they could! Obviously, I am missing something important about the TS phenomenon.

My 92 year old dad wanted to go to her concert with my brother!

[samhexum]

25 minutes ago, Charlie said:

When I mentioned this to two straight female friends of mine yesterday, one unmarried and 55 and the other married and 73, both of them said they would have done the same if they could! Obviously, I am missing something important about the TS phenomenon.

I wouldn't worry about it.  I've read that she's told friends she doesn't understand the @Charlie phenomenon, either.

[kingsley88]

I first heard of Taylor Swift back in 2009 when I was in my 20s and simply connected with her songs. I'm not a diehard fan but would definitely go to her concert if I'm able to get a regular ticket. I missed out last Nov 2022 since I wasn't lucky enough to get a presale code. 

[Pipe1940]

On 5/8/2023 at 9:57, Lucky said:

Para mí, parece una adolescente haciendo cabriolas sobre un escenario en ropa interior. ¿Por qué pagar cientos de dólares para ver eso?

Have you already listened to all their albums to say that?  It's very easy to criticize something you don't know.  Taylor is a great composer of various musical genres.  From the country rock album "Speak Now", the pop of "1989", the dark synth pop of "Reputation" to the wonderful indie folk masterpiece "Folklore".  I personally became a fan of her at the beginning of this year.  The news about her concerts caught my attention so I started listening to all of her albums on Spotify and fell in love with her as an artist.  She's not my favorite artist, but she deserves the recognition she's gotten.  She is not a mediocre pop singer where others have made her career, such as Britney Spears, whom I adore her, but come on, others maked her career, wrote her songs and her only skill was her dancing. Taylor doesn't have the best voice nor is dancing her best skill, but it is her music that has managed to captivate millions of people around the world.  Maybe you should give it a chance to listen and learn more about her music.

[caramelsub]

2 hours ago, Pipe1940 said:

Have you already listened to all their albums to say that?  It's very easy to criticize something you don't know.  Taylor is a great composer of various musical genres.  From the country rock album "Speak Now", the pop of "1989", the dark synth pop of "Reputation" to the wonderful indie folk masterpiece "Folklore".  I personally became a fan of her at the beginning of this year.  The news about her concerts caught my attention so I started listening to all of her albums on Spotify and fell in love with her as an artist.  She's not my favorite artist, but she deserves the recognition she's gotten.  She is not a mediocre pop singer where others have made her career, such as Britney Spears, whom I adore her, but come on, others maked her career, wrote her songs and her only skill was her dancing. Taylor doesn't have the best voice nor is dancing her best skill, but it is her music that has managed to captivate millions of people around the world.  Maybe you should give it a chance to listen and learn more about her music.

I will admit I’m a diehard Britney fan. So I’m slightly biased here. People always criticize her for being manufactured, when she is in fact not. It was a different time in the 90s. Pop singers didn’t really have to write their own songs, as long as they could sing. Britney had great vocals early on in her career, and had to audition for three record companies covering a Whitney Houston song “I have nothing.” She was rejected by two and one said yes. She had a barbie doll image and can dance, yes that helped her but she was extremely talented as an underage teenager. Where as Taylor her real talent lies in her songwriting. Plus her dad was a rich financier and made business dealings with record companies in order for Taylor to become famous as a country singer. So in reality Taylor’s career was bought for her and Britney who literally grew up in the country in Louisiana worked her way up from nothing to the point of having songwriters, producers, and choreographers clamoring to collaborate with her. Britney is the true rags to riches story.

[marylander1940]

On 8/5/2023 at 9:57 AM, Lucky said:

To me, she looks like a teen-aged girl prancing about a stage in her underwear. Why pay hundreds of dollars to see that?

I'm sure your parents and grandparents also were surprised about your musical taste and other choices you've made in your life. 

[Marc in Calif]

On 8/6/2023 at 9:00 AM, samhexum said:

probably the most dynamic, electrifying singer of the 20th century.  youtube him sometime

Those two words have NEVER been applied to Perry Como. However, he did record for the Dynamic label. 🤓

To the contrary: the words mellow and soothing can be found in many descriptions and reviews of his singing. 

[Marc in Calif]

On 8/6/2023 at 4:08 PM, Lucky said:

from the New York Times:

“She is the best C.E.O., and best chief marketing officer, in the history of music,” said Nathan Hubbard, a longtime music and ticketing executive who co-hosts a Swift podcast. “She is following people like Bono, Jay-Z and Madonna, who were acutely aware of their brands. But of all of them, Taylor is the first one to be natively online.”

So it's official. The ultimate reasons for her fame are simply marketing and social media. I could have told you that! 😎

Edited October 9, 2023 by Marc in Calif