Taylor Swift: from “Country Music Princess” to female billionaire dominating the music industry
Taylor Swift: from “Country Music Princess” to female billionaire dominating the music industry
How did Taylor Swift go from “country music princess” to female billionaire dominating the music industry “The Music Industry”?
“Era of Taylor Swift” became the highest-grossing concert film in Vietnam after less than two weeks of release. With the resounding success of this film, the name Taylor Swift once again made waves in Vietnamese media. .
Taylor Alison Swift, born in 1989, is the most awarded female artist on the planet (with 1115 nominations and 562 awards), she owns the most awarded Pop album in history (1989) as well as the album Country music has won the most awards in history (Fearless). There has never been an artist or band in US history that has owned 6 albums with sales of more than 1 MILLION copies in the first week domestically like Taylor Swift.
In the era of streaming platforms, she continues to set records for vinyl sales, with nearly 700,000 copies sold in the first week of release of her album 1989 (Taylor’s Version), an estimated 15 There is 1 vinyl record sold this year in the US by Taylor Swift. Speaking of the streaming era, Taylor has no problem keeping up with the times, becoming the artist with the highest number of monthly listeners on Spotify, and holding countless streaming records for the day, week, month, and quarter. , years on the platform. Apple Music also recently honored her as Artist of the Year, and revealed that she is the most streamed female artist on their platform.
So how could a 16-year-old girl who composed and performed country music, a music genre not yet globally popular at that time, rise to become a dominant force in the music industry? Become a female billionaire with revenue solely from music?
From Taylor Swift to country music princess
Taylor Swift’s Childhood Days
Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, in West Reading, Pennsylvania. She grew up in a well-off “model” family, with her parents and younger brother. From a young age, Taylor demonstrated her poetic ability, winning a national poetry competition in 4th grade with the poem “Monster in My Closet”. Also this year, Taylor began going to New York City to take voice and acting classes.
Inspired by names in country music such as Shania Twain and Faith Hill, she expressed her passion for this music. At age 11, Taylor and her mother went to Nashville to send demo recordings to record labels, including karaoke renditions of songs by Dolly Parton and the Dixie Chicks. But she was rejected by many places, some of which considered her just another “Britney wannabe”. “Everyone there has the same goal as me. So, I asked myself, I need to think of a different direction” – Taylor shared.
She started learning to play the guitar at the age of 12, with the help of a kind neighbor who helped her compose her first song “Lucky You”. With the support of her parents, since 2003, Taylor began to have contracts with major record labels, including RCA Records. They decided to keep her in an artist development agreement and she began to practice music. Currently making many trips to Nashville with my mother. To help her further develop in the country music industry, when Taylor was 14 years old, her family moved to Tennessee. During a performance at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville in 2005, Taylor caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, director of DreamWorks Records, when he was preparing to found the independent record label Big Machine Records. She became one of the first people to sign with the label, and her father bought a 3% stake in the fledgling company for an estimated $120,000. It can be seen that Taylor’s family support during her pre-career period was huge, which is why family and love are quite familiar themes in many of her songs.
Rising in the country music industry
After signing with Big Machine, Taylor wrote and produced her self-titled debut album, released in 2006. The album spawned several chart-topping singles such as “Our Song” and “Teardrops On My Guitar”, especially “Our Song” when it reached No. 1 Hot Country Songs, helping Taylor become the youngest artist to have a self-composed song top the prestigious US music chart. The album also earned her many awards, Taylor was one of two recipients of the “Author/Artist of the Year” award from the Nashville Songwriters Association in 2007, becoming the youngest person to receive this award. . She was also nominated for “Best New Artist” at the Grammys – the biggest music awards on the planet. It can be said that her debut album “Taylor Swift” is a sure stepping stone to gradually bring her to her title of “country music princess”.
At the end of 2008, Taylor released “Fearless” – her second studio album. Immortal songs such as “Love Story” or “You Belong With Me” are all in this album, helping bring her name to the global public, contributing significantly to making country music more popular. . “Fearless” reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, and became the best-selling album of 2009 in the US. To promote the album, she embarked on her first concert tour, the Fearless Tour, which grossed $63 million. The album “Fearless” received the most prestigious award of the Grammys – “Album of the Year” – helping Taylor become the youngest artist to receive this award at that time, the album also received 3 more Grammys that night. , along with countless awards at other music awards ceremonies, and became the most awarded country music album in music history. At this point in her career, Taylor Swift was known to the public as the Princess of Country Music.
What does Taylor have besides “writing music for her ex?”
“Ex-lover” is probably a topic that is discussed a lot by the media and public opinion when talking about Taylor Swift, partly because this is a topic that Taylor mentioned quite a bit in her music, love affairs. Her official names, long and short, include 10 people in total: singer and actor Joe Jonas, actor Taylor Lautner, singer John Mayer, actor Jake Gyllenhaal, Conor Kennedy (nephew of former President Donald Trump). US President John F Kennedy), singer Harry Styles, DJ Calvin Harris, actor Tom Hiddleston, actor Joe Alwyn, and now football star Travis Kelce.
Many people who don’t actually listen to Taylor’s music and are somewhat influenced by the “she only writes music about her ex” headlines will easily make the same assumption. But her music touches on more issues than they think. It’s family and friends, the growing up process, the struggles in life, and politics.
As mentioned above, family is a theme that appears a lot in Taylor’s songs, “The Best Day” is a typical example, the song pays tribute to her mother who has always been by her side through all the hardships. difficult times, and mentions his father and younger brother near the end of the song. “Never Grow Up” is a song about the time she watched her younger brother grow up, and she reflects on her own growth process and the difficulties of being an adult. Taylor’s friends have also become main characters in some of her songs, such as her high school best friend Abigail who was the inspiration for the song “Fifteen”.
In recent years, Taylor Swift has been more vocal about political issues, both directly and through music. Issues such as gender equality (song “The Man”), youth voting (song “Only The Young”), support for the LGBTQ+ community (song “You Need To Calm Down”), difficulties The hardships of the frontline forces fighting the Covid epidemic (the song “Epiphany”).. are some of the painful political and social issues that she brought into her music. In the documentary “Miss Americana”, she shared why early in her career she faced pressure from public opinion and from the record company, that she had to maintain a “good girl” image and not become famous. She has a reputation for politics, but this opinion changed when she realized her voice would have an impact on the public and especially the youth, and that she should fight for the values she believes in.
In addition to the above topics, she also has many hits about self-love, difficulties in the life of a young adult, personal fears and complexes, betrayal and revenge. All are extremely familiar and close to many people, which is also the reason many people can see themselves in the music she composes.
Besides music, what does Taylor do?
Taylor’s compassion and rich soul are shown not only through her music, but also through her actions with those around her. She has always been known as a famous person who diligently does charity work. For many years in a row, she has been honored on DoSomething.org as the celebrity who donates the largest amount of money to charity of the year. She has provided financial support to cancer patients, victims of sexual harassment, disaster relief organizations, food banks along the way on her Eras Tour, and more. .
As for her own friends, Taylor helped Kesha with a $250,000 settlement in her 2014 high-profile lawsuit, and recently helped Sophie Turner, allowing her and her children to live in her New York City apartment after Sophie’s divorce from Joe Jonas. Taylor also always has boundless love for her fans, helping many fans with financial difficulties, such as supporting college tuition for a poor student, or buying a house for a pregnant friend. housing. She has also invited fans from all over the world to her home many times and let them listen to her new album before its release date. And vice versa, she also went to their homes or hospitals to visit fans with serious illnesses and gave them VIP tickets to her tour. She also wrote the song Ronan for a boy who passed away from cancer just days before his fourth birthday. Taylor was inspired by a blog post by Maya Thompson, Ronan’s mother, to compose the song. , she also credited Maya as a co-writer on the song, and all proceeds from this song were donated to charitable causes to raise awareness and the fight against cancer.
People who “storm” Taylor Swift’s life
Drama with the Kim family – Kanye West
“I swear I don’t love the drama, it loves me”
Although Taylor Swift herself does not actively seek trouble, trouble still finds her in many different ways.
Everything started from the moment Taylor received an award at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2009 and rapper Kanye West (Ye) grabbed the mic, not to congratulate her but to protest her receiving the award. Taylor Swift, then 19 years old, was shocked by the actions of her senior Kanye and stood dumbfounded for a long time. The incident also had a significant impact on Taylor’s psychology afterward. It seemed like the relationship between the two had healed when Kanye apologized to Taylor, the two went to dinner together, and in 2015 Kanye even sent Taylor a rose after she went on stage to present an award. for him at that year’s VMAs; However, Kanye released the song Famous with the offensive lyric “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex // Why? I made that bitch famous”, along with the MV with images of nude wax statues of many artists in the world, including of course Taylor, and she gave a critical response to the lyrics. sing this.
Immediately, Kanye’s wife at that time, Kim Kardashian, posted a clip recording the call between Kanye and Taylor about the song, however, the clip was cropped to steer public opinion that Taylor was a liar. The media at that time was like a “bee’s nest”, divided into factions, but it can be seen that the plot twist “good girl went bad” was loved by many people, so Taylor had to receive countless criticisms from the media and the community. same network. The hashtag #TaylorSwiftIsOverParty spread across social networks, and culminated when Kim posted a tweet “Wait it’s legit National Snake Day?!?!? They have holidays for everyone, I mean everything these days!” with the implication that “Taylor is as cunning as a poisonous snake”, leading to many people dropping snake icons all over Taylor Swift’s social media platforms.
