Connect with us

CELEBRITY

Person of the Year Taylor Swift: She persevered. She never gave up. She came back stronger. Than she ever was … Read more

Published

on

 

She persevered.
She never gave up.
She came back stronger.
Than she ever was before.

2023Person of the Year Taylor Swift: She persevered. She never gave up. She came back stronger. Than she ever was ... Read more

Taylor Swift is telling me a story, and when Taylor Swift tells you a story, you listen, because you know it’s going to be good—not only because she’s had an extraordinary life, but because she’s an extraordinary storyteller. This one is about a time she got her heart broken, although not in the way you might expect.

She was 17, she says, and she had booked the biggest opportunity of her life so far—a highly coveted slot opening for country superstar Kenny Chesney on tour. “This was going to change my career,” she remembers. “I was so excited.” But a couple weeks later, Swift arrived home to find her mother Andrea sitting on the front steps of their house. “She was weeping,” Swift says. “Her head was in her hands as if there head was in her hands as if there had been a family emergency.” Through sobs, Andrea told her daughter that Chesney’s tour had been sponsored by a beer company. Taylor was too young to join. “I was devastated,” Swift says.

 

2023Person of the Year Taylor Swift: She persevered. She never gave up. She came back stronger. Than she ever was ... Read more
But some months later, at Swift’s 18th birthday party, she saw Chesney’s promoter. He handed her a card from Chesney that read, as Swift recalls, “I’m sorry that you couldn’t come on the tour, so I wanted to make it up to you.” With the note was a check. “It was for more money than I’d ever seen in my life,” Swift says. “I was able to pay my band bonuses. I was able to pay for my tour buses. I was able to fuel my dreams.”

Listening to Swift share this, on a clear fall afternoon in her New York City apartment, I’m struck by how satisfying the story is. There are high stakes at the outset; there are details, vivid and sensory; there’s a twist that flips the action on its head; and there’s a happy ending for its hero. It takes her only about 30 seconds to recount this, but those 30 seconds contain an entire narrative world.

 

2023Person of the Year Taylor Swift: She persevered. She never gave up. She came back stronger. Than she ever was ... Read more
I’m not surprised. Swift has a preternatural skill for finding the story. Her anecdote about Chesney symbolizes a larger narrative in Swift’s life, one about redemption—where our protagonist discovers new happiness not despite challenges, but because of them. Swift, as we’ll discuss, took a few hits to get here. “I’ve been raised up and down the flagpole of public opinion so many times in the last 20 years,” she says as we tuck into a cozy den off the kitchen to talk, and she kicks off her shoes and curls up onto the sofa. “I’ve been given a tiara, then had it taken away.” She is seemingly unguarded in conversation, reflective about both where she’s been and where she finds herself now. After all, while she’s long been one of the biggest entertainers in the world, this year is different. “year is different. “It feels like the breakthrough moment of my career, happening at 33,” she says. “And for the first time in my life, I was mentally tough enough to take what comes with that.” This is her story—even if she’s now so high that it’s hard to believe she was ever low.

Swift’s accomplishments as an artist—culturally, critically, and commercially—are so legion that to recount them seems almost beside the point. As a pop star, she sits in rarefied company, alongside Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and Madonna; as a songwriter, she has been compared to Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, and Joni Mitchell. As a businesswoman, she has built an empire worth, by some estimates, over $1 billion. And as a celebrity—who by dint of being a woman is scrutinized for everything from whom she dates to what she wears—she has long commanded constant attention and knows how to use it. (“I don’t give Taylor advice about being famous,” Stevie Nicks tells me. “She doesn’t need it.”) But this year, something shifted. To discuss her movements felt like discussing politics or the weather—a language spoken so widely it needed no context. She became the main character of the world.

 

2023Person of the Year Taylor Swift: She persevered. She never gave up. She came back stronger. Than she ever was ... Read more

If you’re skeptical, consider it: How many conversations did you have about Taylor Swift this year? How many times did you see a photo of her while scrolling on your phone? Were you one of the people who made a pilgrimage to a city where she played? Did you buy a ticket to her concert film? Did you double-tap an Instagram post, or laugh at a tweet, or click on a headline about her? Did you find yourself humming “Cruel Summer” while waiting in line at the grocery store? Did a friend confess that they watched clips of the Eras Tour night after night on TikTok? Or did you?

Her epic career-retrospective tour recounting her artistic “eras,” which played 66 dates across the Americas this year, is projected to become the biggest of all time and the first to gross over a billion dollars; analysts talked about the “Taylor effect,” as politicians from Thailand, Hungary, and Chile implored her to play their countries. Cities, stadiums, and streets were renamed for her. Every time she came to a new place, a mini economic boom took place as hotels and restaurants saw a surge of visitors. In releasing her concert movie, Swift bypassed studios and streamers, instead forging an unusual pact with AMC, giving the theater chain its highest single-day ticket sales in history. There are at least 10 college classes devoted to her, including one at Harvard; the professor, Stephanie Burt, tells TIME she plans to compare Swift’s work to that of the poet William Wordsworth. Friendship bracelets traded by her fans at concerts became a hot accessory, with one line in a song causing as much as a 500% increase in sales at craft stores. When Swift started dating Travis Kelce, the Kansas City Chief and two-time Super Bowl champion, his games saw a massive increase in viewership. (Yes, she somehow made one of America’s most popular things—football—even more popular.) And then there’s her critically hailed songbook—a catalog so beloved that as she rereleases it, she’s often breaking chart records she herself set. She’s the last monoculture left in our stratified world.

It’s hard to see history when you’re in the middle of it, harder still to distinguish Swift’s impact on the culture from her celebrity, which emits so much light it can be blinding. But something unusual is happening with Swift, without a contemporary precedent. She deploys the most efficient medium of the day—the pop song—to tell her story. Yet over time, she has harnessed the power of the media, both traditional and new, to create something wholly unique—a narrative world, in which her music is just one piece in an interactive, shape-shifting story. Swift is that story’s architect and hero, protagonist and narrator.

2023Person of the Year Taylor Swift: She persevered. She never gave up. She came back stronger. Than she ever was ... Read more

This was the year she perfected her craft—not just with her music, but in her position as the master storyteller of the modern era. The world, in turn, watched, clicked, cried, danced, sang along, swooned, caravanned to stadiums and movie theaters, let her work soundtrack their lives. For Swift, it’s a peak. “This is the proudest and happiest I’ve ever felt, and the most creatively fulfilled and free I’ve ever been,” Swift tells me. “Ultimately, we can convolute it all we want, or try to overcomplicate it, but there’s only one question.” Here, she adopts a booming voice. “Are you not entertained?”

A few months before I sit with Swift in New York, on a summer night in Santa Clara, Calif., which has been temporarily renamed Swiftie Clara in her honor, I am in a stadium with nearly 70,000 other people having a religious experience. The crowd is rapturous and Swift beatific as she gazes out at us, all high on the same drug. Her fans are singularly passionate, not just in the venue but also online, as they analyze clues, hints, and secret messages in everything from her choreography to her costumes—some deliberately planted, others not. (“Taylor Swift fans are the modern-day equivalent of those cults who would consistently have inaccurate rapture predictions like once a month,” as one viral tweet noted.)

Standing in the arena, it’s not hard to understand why this is the biggest thing in the world. “Beatlemania and Thriller have nothing on these shows,” says Swift’s friend and collaborator Phoebe Bridgers. Fans in Argentina pitched tents outside the venue for months to get prime spots, with some quitting their jobs to commit to fandom full time. Across the U.S., others lined up for days, while those who didn’t get in “Taylor-gated” in nearby parking lots so they could pick up the sound. When tickets went on sale last year, Ticketmaster crashed. Although 4.1 million tickets were sold for the 2023 shows—including over 2 million on the first day, a new record—scalpers jacked up prices on the secondary market to more than $22,000. Multiple fans filed
lawsuits. The Justice Department moved forward with an investigation. The Senate held a hearing. Given these stakes, Swift had to deliver.

 

In the grand narrative of Swift’s life, as she rose this year, her foes’ fortunes also seemed to turn. Over the summer, it was reported that several of Braun’s key clients—chief among them Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande—were no longer being managed by his company, while West’s antisemitic and other offensive remarks led to his losing key endorsement deals. Swift knows firsthand that fame is a seesaw. “Nothing is permanent,” she says. “So I’m very careful to be grateful every second that I get to be doing this at this level, because I’ve had it taken away from me before. There is one thing I’ve learned: My response to anything that happens, good or bad, is to keep making things. Keep making art.” She considers. “But I’ve also learned there’s no point in actively trying to quote unquote defeat your enemies,” she says. “Trash takes itself out every single time.”

 

 

 

 

BREAKING: Elon Musk responds harshly to Taylor Swift’s criticism. “I’d rather drink sewage than watch your performance”. Taylor’s reaction surprised everyone… see more
CELEBRITY5 hours ago

BREAKING: Elon Musk responds harshly to Taylor Swift’s criticism. “I’d rather drink sewage than watch your performance”. Taylor’s reaction surprised everyone… see more

Exciting News: George and Laura Bush joyfully welcome their grandson, a precious addition to their family, named in honor of his great-grandfathers. See more adorable photos and discover the special meaning behind his name!
CELEBRITY3 days ago

Exciting News: George and Laura Bush joyfully welcome their grandson, a precious addition to their family, named in honor of his great-grandfathers. See more adorable photos and discover the special meaning behind his name!

He isn’t afraid to show his love for her publicly: “Be my life partner” — Travis Kelce brings joy to the NFL world as he finally proposes to Taylor Swift with a $12 Million Ring. The proposal reportedly took place in a private and intimate setting with close friends and family present to share in the joyous occasion…
CELEBRITY3 days ago

He isn’t afraid to show his love for her publicly: “Be my life partner” — Travis Kelce brings joy to the NFL world as he finally proposes to Taylor Swift with a $12 Million Ring. The proposal reportedly took place in a private and intimate setting with close friends and family present to share in the joyous occasion…

Exciting news: “A Different World” Spin-Off Series About Dwayne and Whitley’s Daughter Being in College continue reading...
CELEBRITY3 days ago

Exciting news: “A Different World” Spin-Off Series About Dwayne and Whitley’s Daughter Being in College continue reading…

NEWS5 days ago

Princess Charlotte in Tears as Palace Reveals Princess Kate’s Cancer Diagnosis: “I Am Terrified and Heartbroken… My Mother Has…” See more below

NEWS6 days ago

Shocking News Early Hours Today-Prince William decided to announce the saddest news that leaves fans in tears: “My wife it’s been dealing with….See more 👇

Are there any other power couple in survival other than this 5 Couples That Met on The Show That Are Still Together (& 6 That Split Up)... See more 👇👇
CELEBRITY6 days ago

Are there any other power couple in survival other than this 5 Couples That Met on The Show That Are Still Together (& 6 That Split Up)… See more 👇👇

Breaking: 1 hours ago, King Charles briefly hospitalized amid treatment for... See more 👇👇
NEWS6 days ago

Breaking: 1 hours ago, King Charles briefly hospitalized amid treatment for… See more 👇👇

CELEBRITY6 days ago

Boxing World tragedy: Muhammed Ali boxing legend, lost his daughter Laila Ali life while giving birth in a Canadian hospital. This is coming hours after boxing great George Foreman lost his life at 76. Laila Ali was a professional boxer who competed from 1999 to 2007. During her career, she held the WBC, WIBA, IWBF and IBA. The 47year old retired undefeated…see more below👇👇👇

Breaking: In an exclusive interview that’s sending shockwaves across the world, Maye Musk, the 75-year-old mother of the billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk, has finally set the record straight about her son. Continue reading
CELEBRITY1 week ago

Breaking: In an exclusive interview that’s sending shockwaves across the world, Maye Musk, the 75-year-old mother of the billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk, has finally set the record straight about her son. Continue reading

Just in: Serena Williams Caught in Scandal: Alleged Affair with Ex Sends Shockwaves….More Details Below
CELEBRITY1 week ago

Just in: Serena Williams Caught in Scandal: Alleged Affair with Ex Sends Shockwaves….More Details Below

CELEBRITY1 week ago

CELEBRITY Simone Biles…’We are 2 weeks today’ “How do you rate us; are we doing good?”…SEE 10 MORE PHOTOS

Copyright © 2024 Liveatop