Taylor Swift

Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989. It was not until 12 years later that she first picked up the guitar to write her own songs. By 2004, she had already signed with Sony/ATV as a songwriter. The next year, she signed with Big Machine Records and scored her first top 40 hit “Tim Mcgraw.” Her debut album Taylor Swift was released shortly after. 

Discography

To date, Swift has ten studio albums and two re-recordings. Five of these albums were released in the last four years. These albums went from staggering genre shifts to songs written in the perspective of characters she created. 

• Debut (2006) and Fearless (2008) both maintained the country-pop genre. 

• Speak Now (2010) covered some pop-rock but still stayed true to the genre of her original albums. 

• Red (2012) started going mainly into the pop genre but still included a fair amount of pop country songs. 

• By the time she released 1989 (2014), she had gone completely techno-pop. 

• Reputation (2017) is when she first broke her streak of releasing an album every other year. This was her comeback album and her darkest theme yet. 

• Lover (2019) completely turned this dark narrative around with an album full of color and love songs. 

• Folklore (2020) and Evermore (2020) are what Swift considers sister albums. These albums are fully alternative/indie. Many of the songs include magical stories, such as “The Last Great American Dynasty,” which is based off of her Rhode Island house. 

• Fearless (Taylors Version) (2021) and Red (Taylors Version) (2021) are both re-recordings of past albums, complete with vault songs that have never been heard before. 

• Midnights (2022) is synth-pop and marks her tenth original album. 

Success: tours, awards, and more

Swift has paved her way to becoming one of the most influential artists of all time. She has accumulated three Album of the Year awards, 12 Grammys, and 46 total nominations. 

She has completed five world tours for her albums: Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989, and Reputation. On March 17, 2023 she started her sixth tour The Eras Tour. Once she completes this tour, all the shows together will have raked in well over a billion dollars. 

For other moments of her career, she has been the performer at two of the official Victoria's Secret runway shows. She was also invited to speak at the 2022 New York University’s graduation commencement where she received an honorary doctorate of fine arts. 

Why does she rerecord?

Taylor has re-recorded two albums so far. She will continue to re-record every album that was released before Lover (2019), which will make a total of six. 

In 2019, when executive Scooter Braun bought her former label, Big Machine Records, he then sold the songs to a private equity company for $300 million. Swift was very disappointed that she was not sold the masters (the recordings) to her own songs. It worked out though because she owns the actual songs and lyrics, just not those original recordings. 

By re-recording, she is able to own her masters and have the ability to grant how the music is used in areas like advertising and television. She and her team will also be the ones receiving the revenue of the songs. She has not yet re-recorded 1989, but she released Wildest Dreams (Taylor’s Version) because it was trending on TikTok. She wanted people to use the version she owned. She also recorded This Love (Taylor’s Version) for the popular Prime video series The Summer I Turned Pretty. 

Adversity

Swift has had her fair share of struggles throughout her career and time as an artist. 

At the 2009 VMAs when she won Best Music Video for her song “You Belong With Me,” rapper Kanye West interrupted her speech and said she was undeserving of the title. She was only 17 years old at this time.

Due to the media's criticism about her body, she developed an eating disorder at age 18. By 2015, she had become very unhealthy. Swift thought it was normal to feel like passing out after her performances. She references her struggles by singing “I hosted parties and starved my body, like I’d be saved by a perfect kiss” in her 2022 song “You’re On Your Own Kid.” She has gotten much healthier since.  

Swift went to court when a former DJ David Mueller sexually assaulted her. She won the trial on August 14, 2017. She ended up suing him for only $1 because it was not about the money to her; it was the principle of the issue. She then pledged to donate to organizations supporting sexual assault victims.

In 2016, Swift was involved in a public feud with other celebrities regarding hateful lyrics written about her. She ended up disappearing from the media for a year. She later expresses that she was “tired of fighting for other people's respect.” Her 2017 album Reputation marks the end of her hiatus. 

Giving back

Swift is not a stranger to activism and donating considerable portions of her wealth.

In 2011, she held a benefit concert in Nashville that drew in $750,000 for tornado victims in the South. 

In 2015, she gave all “Wildest Dreams” music video proceeds (797 million views) to APFA. She gave 500,000 to Tennessee flood victims when she was just 20 years old, and $1,000,000 to Nashville tornado victims several years later. 

Swift has a tremendous feminist impact, including speeches and uplifting victims of gender-based violence. She continues to speak about how, in the music industry, being a woman makes earning success much harder. This is communicated through her song “The Man” in the lyrics: “I'm so sick of running as fast as I can, wondering if I'd get there quicker if I was a man.”

Personal impact

“I listen to Taylor Swift every single day,” said junior Aubree Wood, who claims Swift is her favorite artist. 

“My earliest memory is when the song ‘You Belong with Me’ came out, and I’ve been a Swiftie ever since,” explained senior Corrina Ugland.  

“I love the way that she can tell a whole story through a song,” said freshman Lainey Murray. 

For me personally, I remember when “22” came out, and I told everybody-even my kindergarten teacher-that it was the best song ever.