Other than being aware of her music growing up, one of the first memories I have was attending a sold-out showing to Valentine's Day. The theater was filled with lots of couples on dates, but it was also filled with teenagers my age. While I was convinced at the time it was the star-studded cast that might've attracted young adults to the movie, I look back and think now that it was all about Taylor. For a few reasons: that theater has never been that packed since (excluding superhero movies), and every time Taylor showed up on-screen, those different groups of girls were in full-fangirl mode - not just when her character's boyfriend (Taylor Lautner) was on-screen but also when she had tiny moments of her own. I was in the middle of Taylor's influence and didn't even quite realize it.
And, that's how the next several years of my life went: Taylor could be heard in every retail store, on the drives to and from school, seen on award shows and in movies or tv shows, but it all kind of remained in my peripheral vision.
Fast forward to 2017, and I was briefly hyped for the Look What You Made Me Do music video. When it was finally released, I didn't understand all of the references or why it was considered a comeback of sorts from her fans. Again, I wrote it off.
Then one day, when I was down on my luck or anxiety or depression that made me feel like crap about writing and making something out of nothing, I came across one of her Making Of videos. She collaborated with AT&T and made a whole web series of videos behind the scenes making her sixth album reputation. Video after video showed of her songwriting process from working out the song acoustically on her piano to writer's block and lightning strikes of ideas. Her songs morphed into something it might not have started out as, and I didn't suddenly feel as insecure about what I was trying to do.
We all hear about artists who struggle to create, and we even go through that difficult process ourselves, but it was a relief to see someone my age not find the creative cycle easily. As she practiced the same melody over and over look distressed and confused, something within me went: Hey, I do when I'm writing; I'm confused and stumped but keep trying anyways. And that my friends was how I fell into this rabbit hole. I didn't just stop at watching one video or hearing one song, I committed to full fangirl mode.
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The media tearing someone down as fast as they build them up is not new. However, the additional pressure of the internet and social media has warped people's appetites for The Next Big Star. Young women, specifically, are put on pedestals and also expected to be 'just like one of us'. They have to be sophisticated but meme-worthy; an activist in all of the right ways or just shut up and act/sing/etc; maintain an innocent virgin persona or they're a slut; talented enough to be considered a valid artist and aloof enough to not take degrading jokes about them too seriously. It's quite the tall order, and honestly, one look at the headlines centered on Taylor makes my head spin: The fact that the industry remains sexist with slut-shaming. Or that she deserved Kayne's famous song to discredit her and Amber Rose's success. Even when she was celebrated for winning a sexual assault trial, some still shamed her for being one of Time Magazine's Silence Breakers. Many more headlines could be listed here but then we'd be here forever.
After taking a deeper look at the news about Taylor from different perspectives, I didn't realize how much I let the media color my own opinion of her. I thought I just listened to her music, but then it sunk in how much judgment I had about how many boyfriends she had, the beef between her and Katy Perry, or the whole Kanye West debacle. I re-watched Look What Made You Do from a satirical lens to realize that too many outside sources can make people believe whatever they want: "she plays the victim, she's a serial dater, she's an image control freak, she's fake" and only gives you a slice of who they are (which was the big inspiration behind reputation). This isn't to say that Taylor is perfect and can do no wrong, but just that her public image does absorb a lot of public dissent of both constructive criticism and misogynistic attacks.
In spite of success, I remain the same person. In spite of success, I remain the same songwriter. When I was twelve years old and started writing songs, I was writing songs about my life. Just because more people are interested in the subject matter of those songs now, I'm going to continue write about my life, and I guess people are going to continue to speculate about it, and I'll continue to not say who the song is about.What I came to love about Taylor was her unwavering personality and work ethic. Her confidence of wanting to be a singer/songwriter since she was a teenager earned her a songwriting contract at age 13, where she worked from the bottom to the top even as studio heads said that nobody wanted to listen to a teenage country star. With Taylor Swift, Speak Now and Fearless she proved them wrong and worked so hard she earned a lifetime achievement award at age 19. She kept the train rolling with Red. And then she moved from country to pop with 1989. After producing hit after hit, she became the first woman in Grammy history to win two Album of the Year awards (the first for Fearless). And then she broke multiple records despite the mixed reviews for Reputation. All of this is not just luck or happenstance; it's hard work and talent.
She's also developed a personal relationship with her fans - giving out hand-picked Christmas presents to hanging out with Swifties in her houses to party over unreleased albums; she performs at wedding receptions and surprises veterans for private concerts. In return, her fandom is truly nice (from what I've encountered so far) with layered conversations about what certain songs mean, towards whom, when she's made mistakes or been misunderstood. Gearing up for her next album is like waiting for the next Harry Potter book, trying to decipher what Instagram posts and messages mean. Her albums are the Marvel Cinematic Universe of easter eggs about her life, so that gives us a lot to debate and celebrate.
What I love about Taylor, as much as anything else, is her music. Musicians draw on their private lives and personal growth for their albums, and Swift is no different. She transitions between her earlier ideas of adolescence to moving to New York and trying new things. Her values have grown from love as perfect fairy tales to complicated and messy trials where no one is the wiser. The way she plays with imagery and delves into her parts of her life like opening a diary is what makes fans listen deeper and closer, and relate to what she's saying. Beyond the reputation, she is someone that is worth listening to and admiring. I'm glad I finally started doing both.
Favorite Songs
but this changes all the time sooooo....
Long Live
For her third album Speak Now, Taylor decided to write all of her own songs, following a lot of criticism and online debate that she had ghostwriters for her first two albums. The tone of the album blurs the lines between country with strong elements of pop and pop-rock, as the songs lean into airing out publicly-known situations (the VMAs incident with Kanye West on Innocent), a music critic's review of her (out of tune) performance with Steve Nicks at the Grammys (Mean), and making the transition as a teenager grow up. Long Live is one of my favorites as Taylor looks back on her career in an anthem to her fans and band.
All Too Well
Maybe we got lost in translation, maybe I asked for too much
And maybe this thing was a masterpiece 'til you tore it all up.
Running scared, I was there, I remember it all too well.
Hey, you call me up again just to break me like a promise.
So casually cruel in the name of being honest
I'm a crumpled up piece of paper lying here
'Cause I remember it all, all, all too well.
It's always impossible to not scream-sing along.
And maybe this thing was a masterpiece 'til you tore it all up.
Running scared, I was there, I remember it all too well.
Hey, you call me up again just to break me like a promise.
So casually cruel in the name of being honest
I'm a crumpled up piece of paper lying here
'Cause I remember it all, all, all too well.
It's always impossible to not scream-sing along.
Fifteen
I heard this song when I was a teenager, but had I deeply listened to it, I think I would've liked Taylor sooner. Fifteen perfectly describes what teenagers go through having crushes, not fitting in, and trying to make it through high school but feeling pressure to find your place in the world. It not only shows the foresight of Taylor trying to tell record studios that young adults want to listen to someone their age, but how prophetic it was that those fans who felt validated from her songs and have grown up alongside her.Clean
Taking the criticism from Red that the tone wasn't sonically cohesive, she decided to go full steam ahead on doing just that with her fifth album. 1989 is the album that cemented Taylor even further into the mainstream landscape. Not a single track wavers away from pop. There's plenty of bombastic songs to choose from, including deluxe tracks. But I went with one of the softer tracks Clean, which alludes to the feeling of freedom and cleansing after leaving a bad relationship but can also read as healing from an addiction and leaving a toxic situation. The way that listeners can connect to the songs and story to their own experiences is what makes her music endure and grabs so many fans' attention.
Dancing With Our Hands Tied
One of my favorite writing choices Taylor makes with her songs is evolving the imagery, and therefore, adding to the story of what happened or is happening. In previous songs, she has used dancing to describe falling in love (Enchanted), as a sacred space in a relationship (Holy Ground), and to defy the haters (Shake It Off). In this one, she captures a painful moment of being in love with someone and yet knowing it's not going to last forever. It's nearly impossible for me to pick a song from Reputation because that album owns me...However, I absolutely love Dancing With Our Hands Tied.
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