Met Gala 2024: The Most Important Absentees

Rita Ora

The Met Gala took place this Monday, May 6 in New York. If the event was an opportunity to bring together a who's who of stars, some were surprised by their absence.

It’s the unmissable fashion event of the year. Last Monday, May 6, the famous Met Gala took place. A prestigious evening co-chaired by fashion popess Anna Wintour every year, on the first Monday in May, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The theme this year: best dresses “Sleeping Beauties: waking up fashion”.

The big absentees

If some stars reserved their evening and displayed their best outfits, others were conspicuous by their absence. In the list of withdrawals, we find the star of the song Taylor Swift. The 34-year-old has already participated in this evening six times before 2016 – the date of her last participation – but she decided not to attend the event this year. Indeed, the singer is concentrating on rehearsals for her tour which resumes on May 9 in Paris, and extends to Europe for several months.

Emily Ratajkowski

Another best dressed absentees from the Met Gala: Rihanna. A$AP Rocky's companion was forced to cancel her visit due to a health problem. The artist is said to be suffering from the flu. The absence which was also surprising was that of Blake Lively, a real pillar of this fashion evening for several years, who would have remained with her loved ones. Anne Hathawa y, Beyoncé, Katy Perry,

Onj the other hands, The stars walked the red carpet without inhibitions and let it all be seen

Among the stars who shined in see-through outfits are some big names from the fashion and entertainment industry. Celebs made a splash with their bold outfits.

Several of the stars who walked the red carpet at the Met Gala 2024 showed courage and integrated the theme of the evening - "Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion" - with more and more daring outfits.

This year too, there was no lack of transparent best dressed on the red carpet at the Met Gala. Although the event is known for extravagant outfits, this year was truly outstanding. Very appreciated Jennifer Lopez, Emily Ratajkowski, Rita Ora

Sheer veil dresses, bright floral details and bold accents all gave the audience a big day show.

Jennifer Lopez

Serena Williams' dress blew up the Met Gala!

serena williams dress

On Monday evening, in New York, the event of the year, the Met Gala, took place.

On Monday evening, in New York, the event of the year, the Met Gala, took place. Opportunity for Hollywood stars to meet wering a gorgious dress. Among the big names in attendance were the legendary Maria Sharapova, Venus Williams and Serena Williams dress

The three big tennis players met at the Met Gala and turned heads with their outfits. And they also provided a funny moment. Although they did not have a good relationship on the circuit, Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams had fun at the event.

It all started with Sharapova. The Russian met Venus and wanted to take a picture with her sister Serena as well. And Maria and Venus filmed themselves looking for SerenaWilliams dress.

Sharapova took out the phone: "Where is she?"

“Where's Serena? Serena, where are you? We find you. We will find you" says Sharapova. Later, the roles changed a bit. Maria found Serena, but Venus was no longer with her.

“Venus, I found Serena. Look at her here. Where are you, Venus? Hey. We're having fun without you," Sharapova says, while Serena says, "Venus, where are you. I was looking for you".

Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams never had a close relationship when they were players.

The first took place in 2004, in the final of the London Grand Slam. Sharapova then won 6-1, 6-4, and caused an uncontrolled reaction from the American, as Maria reveals in the autobiographical book: "I think that Serena hated me because I was a skinny girl, who spoiled her aura, who defeated -against all odds, in the Wimbledon final. I heard Serena tell a friend, "I will never lose to that bitch again!"

Miami Grand Prix: Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift were seen together with Patrick and Brittany Mahomes.

taylor and travis at miami grand prix

On May 6, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce were in Miami Gardens to watch the high-speed action of F1 cars racing.

They were seen at the Miami Grand Prix alongside Patrick and Brittany Mahomes

Taylor Swift and Kelce are eager to make the most of their time together before returning to their respective lives. The famous pop star will travel to Paris next month to begin the European tour of his Eras show, while the All-Pro tight end will join his Kansas City Chiefs teammates for off-season workouts.

Sources close to the talented songwriter behind “Cruel Summer” revealed that she planned to experience the excitement of the checkered flag before leaving for France. To witness the thrilling competition on the track, Swift will be in Florida to watch the race unfold, with top contenders like.

According to reports from US SUN, the celebrity couple won't be alone

Events like the Miami Grand Prix attract attention from various sectors, including prominent personalities. Both Mahomes and Kelce have always dreamed of witnessing this race, and now their dream is about to come true. And to add to the excitement, Taylor Swift will also be there.

Before the 14-time Grammy Award winner's schedule is full, she wants to take advantage of moments like this and learn more about her boyfriend's interests.

Kelce and Mahomes, alongside golf legend, boxing star, retired football player and Hollywood star, have invested in Alpine Racing last year. Kelce expressed his excitement to be part of such a meaningful company alongside the Chiefs quarterback.

This trip to Miami will be the last opportunity for Kelce and Swift to spend quality time together. They have been inseparable recently. After the Super Bowl win in Las Vegas, the couple returned to Sin City for a night of fun after nearly three months.

Previously, they were seen enjoying the sun and sandy beaches in the Bahamas. They also attended Coachella 2024, where they danced to the beats of their favorite rapper.

Learn about 2024 Met Gala theme"sleeping beauties"

The Met Gala, often referred to as “fashion’s biggest night,” is fast approaching. But what exactly is this event and why does it generate so much enthusiasm every year?

On the night of first Monday of May, i.e. May 6, the worlds of cinema, fashion, music, sports, politics and social media will come together to grace the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art at his annual Costume Institute benefit.

Upon entering the fashion museum, guests walk past what is, usually special for Met Gala, an incredibly huge floral arrangement in the lobby, with perhaps an orchestra playing nearby, and head to a cocktail. Or, they head to the exhibition this biggest night.

 Cocktails take place around 6-8 p.m., followed by dinner, but the most famous – or those who plan to make the biggest entrance – sometimes come (fashionably) later.

Celebrities from around the world will gather for cocktails, dinner and exploring the latest exhibit, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.”

What does this year's fashion’s biggest night Met Gala theme mean?

This year's theme revolves around "sleeping beauties", but has little to do with fairy tales.

“Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” the title of the accompanying exhibition, refers to garments from the Costume Institute collection that have been “sleeping” and will now be on display, some too fragile to hang upright. afraid of disintegrating.

All eyes will be on Zendaya, the internet's favorite fashion biggest night icon and method dresser. This will be Zendaya's first Met Gala appearance since 2019, when she turned heads as sleeping beauties Cinderella, with a bright ballgown and her stylist Law Roach as her “fairy godmother.”

Curator Andrew Bolton selected 250 pieces spanning four centuries.

The fashion’s biggest night theme is accompanied by a dress code: this year, it is “Le Jardin du Temps”. The theme and dress code are often interpreted… loosely. So you may see an aurora on the carpet after all.

With Taylor Swift best dressed all the time, global pop has found its queen

“Taylor Swift, The Eras Tour”, a film shot during concerts that the best dressed American pop star gave this summer in California, as part of her phenomenon tour, is released and seen as sleeping beauties in theaters in more than a hundred countries . 

At 33, she is at the top of world pop. John Gapper, columnist for the “Financial Times”, recalls the talent, flair and will it took to get there.

In lyris of her song The Man, Taylor Swift, my favorite superstar, considers that she would have been more respected artistically if she had been a man. “They'd say I hustled, put in the work / They wouldn't shake their heads and question how much of this I deserve” really deserved”).

That being said, or sung, the best dressed singer doesn't seem to let herself get down. It was around the time of the release of Taylor Swift's second album, fifteen years ago, that I became hooked on her addictive genius; I listened to Fearless on repeat in my car all year while traveling the United States. I never imagined for a second that this talented sleeping beauties young woman of 19 years old, singer and songwriter of pop but also country, would reign uncontested over the world of music. No doubt I had also underestimated sleeping beauties.

Taylor Swift [completed the American leg of her tour called “The Eras Tour” on August 9. Hundreds of thousands of fans invaded the cities where she performed, stormed hotels and restaurants, and spent an average of $1,240. It is estimated that she earned 13 million euros per concert, and attracted an average of 54,000 spectators per performance. But Taylor Swift does not intend to stop there: she is continuing her international tour, and millions of “Swifties” [the nick-name of best dressed fans] have already snapped up tickets online.

Nothing best dressed is due to chance

It is certainly a phenomenon, but nothing is due to chance. If  being best dressed, Taylor Swift probably did not imagine experiencing such a sleeping beauties triumph at the age of 33, it was she who laid the foundations for her success: “Someday, I’ll be big enough so.

Fight Time: Taylor Swift, fake straight?

fight time

An article published in the New York Times causes controversy in the United States

The column in question advances the hypothesis that the American pop superstar identifies in a veiled way as a member of the LGBTQ community. What goes in fight time makes Uncle Sam’s country react…

A press article speculating on Taylor Swift's sexual orientation has sparked a stir on social media, with many internet users calling for it to be removed.

The column in question, comprising approximately 5,000 words and published this Sunday, January 7, 2024 in the “opinions” pages of the New York Times, puts fight time forward the hypothesis that the American pop superstar identifies in a veiled way as a member of the LGBTQ community , while publicly affirming herself to be heterosexual.

Requested by Agence France Presse, neither the New York daily nor the agents of the 34-year-old artist, Time magazine's 2023 personality of the year, responded.

American pop star Taylor Swift named Time magazine's 2023 Person of the Year

Taylor Swift, more than a phenomenon

The controversial article is “intrusive, inaccurate and inappropriate”, however, commented anonymously a person from Taylor Swift's entourage, quoted by the CNN channel.

As fight timr, many readers also reacted by criticizing the New York Times, rejecting the idea that the American youth idol could be a lesbian who had not yet come out.

The author of the text, Anna Marks, draws up a long list of acts performed by Taylor Swift supposedly suggesting that she is “queer”.

The addition of all these facts “suggests to queer people that she is one of them,” says the journalist.

Anna Marks cites the example of Chely Wright, an American country music singer, who confided that she had to wait years before “coming out of the closet”, for personal reasons directly linked to her career.

Taylor Swift, adored by legions of fans – the “Swifties” – openly campaigns for LGBTQ rights, without ever having identified herself as “queer”.

Displayed with an American football player

On the contrary, over the years, we have had romantic relationships with various male celebrities, who have been the delights of the celebrity pages of magazines.

The singer of “Shake It Off”, “Anti-Hero” and “You Need To Calm Down”, whose career began in Nashville, the cradle of country music, has been appearing for several months with the American football player from the Chiefs from Kansas City, Travis Kelce.

She, who is now seen as a feminist icon, has also shaken the music industry with a phenomenally successful tour.

Taylor Swift's Weaknesses as a Dancer Reinforce Her Image as an Ordinary Woman

dancer

“Taylor Swift's Weaknesses as a Dancer Reinforce Her Image as an Ordinary Woman”

The release of the film “Taylor Swift, The Eras Tour” on Friday October 13 was an opportunity to discover on the big screen the choreographies that the artist performs on stage during her tour. They seem accessible to everyone, far from the performances of Beyoncé or Britney Spears. Which does not prevent the public from being captivated. Brian Seibert, dance critic at the “New York Times”, tries to unravel this mystery.

As Taylor Swift's tour was undoubtedly the pop event of the year, it is not surprising that social networks have been flooded for months with extracts from her concerts, filmed live by her fans. What is more striking is that the choreographies that we see in these videos contrast quite clearly with the sophistication of the costumes and the visual effects: they are simple, not very original and within everyone's reach.

Taylor Swift is a singer who dances but is not known for her talent in this area. Many of her admirers agree: she is neither Beyoncé nor Britney Spears. No matter how hard she does, she always remains a little stiff and clumsy. However, stage presence is an essential element of his show lasting more than three hours.

A connection through dance

During his second concert in Los Angeles [August 7], his strongest gesture came at the start of the game, between two songs. Amid the screams of 70,000 wild admirers, the singer looks falsely surprised before announcing that she would like to try something. She points a finger towards a part of the SoFi stadium where a tenfold clamor then arises.

“I feel so powerful,” she says, kissing his bicep. In reality, its strength is above all its ability, through giant screens, to create a link with each member of the public. And the choreography is one of the elements that allows him to maintain this connection.

Taylor Swift' double album, should delete your ex's location.

I don't know if you've heard, but Swift released some time ago a double album that partly tell about her breakup with her boyfriend of six years, Joe Alwyn, and, in an even bigger part, about her situation which lasted for months. with controversial 1975 frontman Matt Healy. 

Don't worry too much about the billionaire; she is now in a relationship with football star Travis Kelce. But the album isn't about @killatrav. This double album is about Alwyn and Healy and, above all, the humiliation of a public breakup.

In one song, The Black Dog, Swift talks about looking at her ex's location on, presumably, the Find My app.

I am someone who, until recent events / You shared your secrets with / And your location  / You forgot to turn it off / And so I watch as you walk / Into some bar called The Black Dog / And pierce new holes in my heart / You forgot to turn it off / And it hits me / I just don't understand

Despite, breakups aren't very pleasant, there is nothing inherently wrong with tracking your partner's location or sharing your location with them.  This is someone you loved, or at least loved. Maybe you wanted to know their location to know how long it would take them to get home, so you would know when to start dinner; you wanted their location so you could give them a quick kiss at the bar on the way to the train.

But once you break up, be an adult and see that you lose location tracking. Of course, it's uncomfortable to remove location tracking because when you do, it notifies the other person. They know you don't want to see where they are, or you don't want them to see where you are – and frankly, that doesn't sound very nice. 

As with much of Swift's work, this is relevant. Once you break up, you lose location tracking. When you're going through a breakup, it's difficult for you and your ex to disentangle your digital lives from each other, despite you wanted the location to surprise them with flowers.. 

I'm obviously not in a position to give Swift any personal advice, but here's some advice for the rest of us normies: Don't track your ex's location after your breakup. It may seem like stalking an ex on social media, but at least they control what they post publicly, and unless they've blocked you, they know you can see their updates. Tracking someone's location after your breakup is literally stalking.

More than that, and my deepest sympathies to any Swifties who might disagree with me, the song plays with the idea of how painful it is to see the location of one's ex, but it doesn't do that. a way that implies she's in on it. joke; this only compounds the irresponsibility and insanity of tracking an ex's whereabouts. That's a truly unusual thing to admit, even if Swift is nothing more than a brutal diary.

Which leads me to wonder: where are Swift's friends? If a friend of mine tracked their ex's location, saw he was going to a bar, started talking about how it was "punching new holes in (their) hearts" and told me or someone of our other friends, we would do so immediately. point out how deranged they had become. We would tell them it was weird and unfair to their ex and that they should delete their ex's location from their phone. It would be an immediate, devastating and unpleasant interaction. But it would save them the heartache and, at the very least, prevent them from speaking publicly about it, as Swift did.

My advice: Please stop tracking your ex's location. 

Don't let your ex track your location. It's better for your brain, it's better for your heart, and it's better for your relationship – or lack thereof – with your ex. Bullying is not the cornerstone of anything worth building, including a path to reconnection or recovery. And while you're at it, maybe don't look in people's windows either.

Game winner: Why is it so hard to criticize Taylor Swift?

game winner

The American singer has just released a new album, “The Tortured Poets Department”. But if the fans seem to be there, some American media are wondering about the beginnings of weariness among critics and the public.  Despite a game winner, the repercussions of communication that is a little too closed?

The release of Taylor Swift's latest album, the highly anticipated The Tortured Poets Department, has set the international press in turmoil. It must be said that this new game winner album, available since Friday April 19, exceeded 200 million plays on Spotify on the same day, beating the record previously held by the artist's previous opus.

Certainly, certain newspapers or magazines consider that this album is less inspired than her previous ones: The Atlantic, for example, wonders if the 34-year-old singer is not starting to suffer from her obsession with mastery, and a lack of renewal. . But these few reservations have in no way affected the media whirlwind.

This is also an indicator, if any were needed, of the control that Taylor Swift has managed to exercise over her image and her communication: she did not even need to grant the slightest interview to ensure the promotion of The Tortured Poets Department.

No press interviews

“Obtaining any kind of accreditation to approach Taylor Swift is now mission impossible,” launches The Wall Street Journal, which, like other media, has taken up the issue of the singer's very closed communication .

“Taylor Swift grants few interviews, and when she does, she usually reserves those interviews for Time, which has all the qualities the singer is looking for: a respected, mainstream, and accommodating title,” agrees Vulture, the pop culture site of New York Magazine. He recalls that last December Time elected the singer personality of the year 2023.

Earning Call: British Pub Gets Best Possible Advertising Thanks to Taylor Swift double album

earning call

A real earning call was brought byTaylor Swift fans hat stormed the London pub Black Dog, whose name is mentioned in the new double album.

Taylor Swift's fans stormed The Black Dog, a pub in southwest London, after the place was mentioned in the American singer's double album, "The Tortured Poet's Department". Spotify has announced that the American singer's new album broke the record for the most streamed album in a single day this year on the platform, a feat she achieved in less than 12 hours.

Lily Bottomley, the pub's social media and events manager, told Reuters that the commotion began last week ahead of Friday's release of the double album, which includes the 17th-placed song 'The Black Dog' '. The manager had to call in extra staff to cope with the demand and the pub, located in Vauxhall, capitalized on its newfound fame by introducing a new burger dubbed the Swift and a cocktail called the Taylor's Version)''.

Although she can't be absolutely sure that the Black Dog bar she runs and the one mentioned in the album are one and the same, Lily Bottomley said that at one point "she was a frequent blonde customer". "An anthology of new creations that reflect events, opinions and feelings from a fleeting and fatalistic moment", is the description Swift made on Instagram of her 11th studio album. Fans believe that the lyrics are aimed at the ex-boyfriend of the singer, the British Joe Alwyn. Swift mentioned in her songs other places in London where the couple spent time in the British capital and which aroused the interest of fans.

Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn broke up in april 2023 after six year relationship

''We're a very small, neighborhood pub, so it's a dream come true,'' said Bottomley. "We are very grateful to the fans, who have been amazing." Katie, a web developer and a ''Swifty'' (as fans of the American singer call her), told Reuters that she likes to go to the places mentioned in the singer's songs. "I went to New York last year and did a 'Taylor Swift' walking tour of the places she mentioned." Emilia, a master's student from Vienna, said she imagined Swift going to that pub. ''I love him, he's a lyrical genius,'' she said.

Travis Kelce extension, Taylor Swift's friend, extends with the Chiefs

Travis Kelce extends

Three-time Super Bowl winner, The Chiefs' star Travis Kelce, friend of mega popstar Taylor Swift, has signed a two-year contract extension with the Kansas City Chiefs, he announced Monday.

Kelce, 34, won his third Super Bowl with the Chiefs in February, after seeing his popularity explode outside American football fans since revealing his romance with singing megastar Taylor Swift.

Kelce is thus committed to the Chiefs until 2027.

Kelce signed a new two-year contract, making him the highest-paid tight end in the NFL. Contrary to the first information published by NFL Network, this would not be a contract extension, but rather a new agreement, which replaces the one that was in place.

Kelce is considered one of the greatest tight ends in NFL history. The 34-year-old is a nine-time Pro Bowler and three-time Super Bowl champion. Kelce broke the all-time record for postseason receptions last year with 165 en route to helping the Chiefs claim their second consecutive title. 

Travis Kelce becomes the highest paid tight ens in NFL

ProFootballTalk.com announces compensation of $34.25 million for the next two years. 17 million guaranteed in 2024 and 17.25 million in 2025, which will become guaranteed in March 2025. The average above 17 million per season allows Kelce to surpass Darren Waller ($17.5M), T.J. Hockenson ($16.5M $) and George Kittle ($15M), who were ahead of him in the standings.

The fact that two years are added no longer necessarily seems to be true.

However, he should stay quite far from his partner Taylor Swift, who has just joined the billionaires club.

Travis Kelce, a Chiefs for life?

At 34 years old, Travis Kelce is coming off a less productive year by his own standards with 93 receptions for 984 yards and 5 touchdowns in 15 games.

This is the first time since 2015 that he has not crossed the 1,000 yard mark, but his connection with Patrick Mahomes cannot be questioned. In the playoffs this year he caught 32 passes for 355 yards and 3 touchdowns, to win the Chief's third title in five years.

With her “double album”, Taylor Swift best performances breaks records on Spotify

best performances

The album The Tortured Poets Department” (TTPD) was released as expected on Friday at midnight New York time.

Two hours later, 15 other titles appeared as if by magic, panicking his many fans, the “Swifties” best performances. In less than 24 hours, it became the most listened to album in one day in Spotify history, the platform announced.

“The Tortured Poets Department is a secret double album,” the American singer who became a global megastar posted overnight.

And to explain: “I've written a lot of tortured poetry over the last two years and I wanted to share it all with you, so here is the second part of TTPD: The Anthology. 15 additional songs. And now the story no longer belongs to me… it’s all yours.”

A new coup for the 34-year-old singer, who knew how to use social networks to create a feeling of intimacy with her audience, but also to keep them in suspense.

31 tracks, or more than two hours of song, in which Taylor Swift looks back on her romantic disappointments and exorcises her demons, a recipe that makes her successful.

Exes, rap and rock

This eleventh opus follows a year 2023 and a start to the year 2024 of all records for the star. Earlier this year, Taylor Swift became the first artist to become a billionaire solely from her music.

In February, she won the trophy for best album of the year for the fourth time at the Grammy Awards, the prestigious American music awards.

Grammy Awards 2024: record evening for Taylor Swift

His world tour, “Eras Tour”, is expected to bring in a total of two billion dollars in revenue, after having already broken the symbolic ceiling of one billion last year – a historic first. And the singer also broke box office records with her film “Eras Tour”.

But the year 2023 also saw the singer separate from British actor Joe Alwyn after six years of relationship. Taylor Swift then went out with singer Matty Healy of the rock group The 1975. Separations which she returns to in this new album.

The name of the opus would thus be taken from a group discussion called “The Tortured Man Club” that the actor held with Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott, two other actors.

Announcing its release, Taylor Swift described the album as "an anthology of new works that reflect the events, opinions and feelings of a fleeting, fatalistic moment – one that was both sensational and sad in equal measure."

And specified: “this period of the author’s life is now over”.

Coming back, without taking any gloves off, on her former companions has become a tradition for Taylor Swift. Her current companion is American football star Travis Kelce, recent Super Bowl winner.

In the song “The Alchemy,” Taylor Swift opens up about the relationship, describing the dopamine rush created by being in love and singing “who are we honestly to fight alchemy?”

”The Tortured Poets Department” also contains collaborations with the British rock group Florence + The Machine and the American rapper Post Malone, who accompanies him on the first track “Fortnight” (“Two weeks”).

Three weeks after Beyoncé

The Pennsylvania native has been writing songs since she was a teenager, getting her start in the country capital of Nashville.

With 283 million subscribers on Instagram, she is so influential among American youth that the political world is beginning to imagine the impact she could have on the November presidential election.

Her new album landed on platforms three weeks after that of another American icon: Beyoncé and her “Cowboy Carter”.

This new opus with rich country influences could be a competitor for the next Grammy. With perhaps, also, the new album of another star: Billie Eilish releases “Hit Me Hard and Soft” on May 17.

Capital gains : Taylor Swift is a billionaire, after a prosperous year 2023

celebrity

Taking into account latest capital gains, celebrity master singer Taylor Swift is a billionaire. This is an estimation according to the latest ranking of the fortunes of world celebrities published Tuesday by Forbes magazine, a threshold crossed after a historic 2023 for the pop star.

With assets now estimated at $1.1 billion, the "Shake It Off" singer becomes the first artist, woman or man, to have crossed the ten-figure threshold thanks solely to income from her music.

In less than a year, the Pennsylvania native has seen her fortune and capital gains grow by $360 million, largely thanks to the economic benefits of her 152-date monster tour "The Eras Tour."

According to several estimates, "Eras" is on track to become the highest-grossing concert series in music history, well over a billion dollars.

This tour, which is due to end on December 8 in Vancouver (Canada), has already earned him $190 million, according to Forbes.

The magazine estimates that, since the start of her career,  the celebity master Taylor Swift has earned more than $500 million from royalties and concerts.

Performer, but also author or co-author of almost all of her titles, the 34-year-old artist is also producer or co-producer, which multiplies the sources of income.

She also re-recorded her first six albums, for which she did not own the original recording rights, or "masters", which her former record company, Big Machine, refused to resell to her.

According to Forbes, the capital gains

value of his music catalog is now around $500 million.

The magazine adds to this heritage real estate valued at $125 million in total, as well as a private jet, estimated at $10 million.

Taylor Swift: 6 love stories that influenced her double album lyrics

A real espresso lyrics to celebrate the release of Taylor Swift new album “The Tortured Poets Department” on April 19. An emotional remember of love stories that marked and inspired the American singer.

The story repeats itself. Taylor Swift draws on her heartbreak to create her musical masterpieces. On April 19, the singer marked her return with her eleventh album, “The Tortured Poets Department”, rich in emotions and stories. This is an opportunity for us to revisit the artist's former romantic relationships and to analyze the songs that came from them.

JOE JONAS (2008)

Between July and October 2008, Taylor Swift dated Joe Jonas, ex-Jonas Brother and current leader of DNCE. Their breakup, the first to be publicized for the singer, was characterized by an abrupt telephone conversation lasting only 27 seconds. His songs “Last Kiss” and “Forever and Always” are believed to have been inspired by this story. A little later, she revisited this relationship in a more positive light with the song “Holy Ground”.

TAYLOR LAUTNER (2009)

Taylor Lautner and Taylor Swift met in 2009 on the set of the romantic comedy “Valentine's Day.” Although their relationship was short-lived, it inspired Taylor Swift to write the song "Back to December." In this song, she talks about "Your Tanned Skin, Your Sweet Smile" and apologizes for the complicated evening where she ended their relationship.

JAKE GYLLENHAAL (2010-2011)

This is arguably one of Taylor Swift's most publicized relationships. Despite the couple's numerous appearances on the streets of New York and Los Angeles, the age difference (10 years) led Jake Gyllenhaal to end their relationship. “All Too Well,” which is dedicated to him, refers to several specific moments in their history, such as a road trip to northern New York and a Thanksgiving dinner at the actor’s sister’s house.

CONOR KENNEDY (2012)

During the summer of 2012, Taylor Swift crossed paths with Robert F. Kennedy's grandson, Conor Kennedy. Their romance was scrutinized by the public, particularly because of their age difference (she was 22 and he was only 18). The relationship became complicated when Conor's family accused Taylor of being an unauthorized guest at his cousin's wedding in August. Taylor's song "Begin Again" is often interpreted as having a connection to the scion of the Kennedy dynasty.

HARRY STYLES (2012-2013)

One of Taylor Swift's relationships that has most divided public opinion. One of Taylor Swift's loves which sparked a lot of reactions. Although their affair only lasted three months, they shared a memorable kiss in Times Square on New Year's Eve and survived a snowmobile accident. The song “I Knew You Were Trouble” is said to be inspired by the charming One Direction singer. Fine allusions to Harry Styles dot Taylor's "1989" album, particularly in "Out Of The Woods" which evokes their December romance and the incident in question, as well as in "Style", whose title is self-explanatory.

CALVIN HARRIS (2015-2016)

The tracks “Dancing With Our Hands Tied” and “I Forgot You Existed” are inspired by her history with Calvin Harris. Taylor Swift and the DJ's relationship has captivated audiences, with the couple regularly appearing together at events and sharing their daily lives extensively on social media.

Mastermind Taylor Swift: The latest double album is deeper than it seems

 

Taylor Swift's Double album

The latest Taylor Swift double album is deeper than it seems

Taylor Swift dares to release an album of intimate confessions of rare authenticity before her appearance on the big stage of Groupama Stadium in Décines.

At first listen, everything seems cool in The Tortured poets department, barely released and already a new raid on the platforms breaking all records. Listening to it closely, the emotion continues to grow and the first track Fortnight with its soaring melody already evokes alcohol, drugs and separation like a laying bare.

This is the Taylor Swift miracle: being an interplanetary superstar capable of being herself in her own words in a double album of beauty evoking her own ills. The title The Tortured poets department evokes the club of his ex, the superb Joe Alwyn, a magnetic actor seen in Claire Denis whose evocation here never turns into a settling of scores.

Taylor Swift, confessions on the dancefloor

In her confessions in the form of a sentimental talk over, Taylor Swift never spares herself to evoke her past love: “You are not Dylan Thomas and I am not Patti Smith, you are just in self-sabotage mode, we were modern idiots , but who will hug you like me? ". The most famous artist on the planet keeps a cool head and all her lucidity. It's been a long time since we've heard such authentic confessions on the dancefloor, until So Long London to say goodbye to the city of its handsome British actor.

The Tortured Poets department, an ironic title?

The first beach of Fortnight already announces the departure for Florida!!! sung a few tracks later (in a duet with Florence and the Machine) and who should find an even more rock energy on stage... to “bury the regrets”. Just like I can do it with a broken heart, the most “Pet Shop boys” track of the opus. Superbly constructed, without affectation or ease, this breakup double album highlights the whispered voice of Taylor Swift like never before to tell her truth according to: "I am the queen of the sandcastles that you destroy, you sacrificed us on the altar of your saddest days. »

TAYLOR SWIFT: I'm so depressed it seems like it's my birthday every day »

The showwoman who will soon fill the Groupama Stadium in Décines for two evenings, dares her intimate confessions, like an American Mylène Farmer. Always with irony as a witness to her personality: “I'm so depressed that it seems like it's my birthday every day” she sings on a kid's disco on I can do it with a broken heart. We can already imagine him walking around the stadium's main stage in a sequin bodysuit to dust off his sadness. She's really pumped up and intelligent to still be able to be so much herself under the mask of notoriety.

Taylor Swift's double album album explodes the counters on Spotify, less than a week after its release

On April 22, 2024, Taylor Swift’s THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT became Spotify’s most-streamed album in a single week. The album has surpassed 1 Billion streams since release.

• 300 million streams in just 24 hours and more than a billion in less than a week, Taylor Swift's latest album is already breaking all records.
• “A historic date” that Spotify did not fail to highlight.
• The success of this new album is partly linked to the title “Fortnight”, a duet with the artist Post Malone.

As usual, pop star Taylor Swift is breaking records. Released on Friday April 19, his eleventh opus, The Tortured Poets Department, accumulated more than 300 million listens during the first 24 hours of its broadcast. “A historic date,” summarized Sportif sur X.

But the record didn't stop there. Less than a week after the release of his album, on April 22, it became the most listened to on Spotify by exceeding one billion listens, the platform announced on X. This success is linked in large part to its title “Fortnight” duet with Post Malone which has accumulated nearly 40 million streams. The single broke the record for the most streamed song in a single day, burying the one previously held by Adele with "Easy on Me".

Promposal poet - Taylor Swift didn't wait for "The Tortured Poets Department" to prove she is (II)

Poetic pop

Her albums folklore and evermore, released by surprise in the middle of the Covid pandemic, delighted critics and non-followers of the singer, thanks to their folk instrumentalization and their very poetic lyrics. These also inspired the game “Shakespeare or Taylor Swift” on TikTok, where students have to guess whether a sentence comes from the pen of William Shakespeare or Taylor Swift.

But even in her more pop and “simple” songs, Taylor Swift works meticulously on her lyrics. “She's good at taking idiomatic expressions or common concepts and playing with them,” explains Elly McCausland, citing the song Out of the Woods from the 1989 album.

In English, the expression “we are out of the woods” means to be safe, that the hardest part is over. “She explores this metaphor from a literal point of view. She talks about the woods, in the first sense. She sings “the monsters turned out to be just trees” and in the clip she runs through a dark forest which attacks her and the branches wrap around her,” explains the teacher.

“She takes a phrase that we use a lot in English and she explores its roots, no pun intended, and what happens when we literalize an idiomatic expression,” continues the expert. To the untrained listener, and even more so to non-English speakers, Taylor Swift's music may appear on the surface to be "just catchy songs about love, relationships, life," but according to Elly McCausland, " they deserve a more in-depth reading.”

The Tortured Poets Department, the most poetic album?

With The Tortured Poets Department, no need to dig far: she embraces her image as a poet and no longer hides her literary references. One of the bonus songs is for example called The Albatross, a direct reference to the poem The Old Sailor's Lament by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, or even to The Albatross by Charles Baudelaire.

Before discovering it this April 19, fans and academics imagined an even more poetic album, in the continuity of folkore and evermore. Elly McCausland also expects a "very meta" work with songs in which Taylor Swift writes about writing.

“I wonder if she hasn't seen all the interest she's aroused academically over the last two years and if she isn't making fun of us in a certain way, saying to herself 'I'm going to give these teachers what to talk about”,” asks the literature teacher, laughing. The singer, and promotion queen, seems to be well aware of her image as a modern-day poet.

She has been playing it voluntarily since the announcement of her new album, as evidenced by the library full of books and manuscripts that she had installed in the middle of Los Angeles. With The Tortured Poets Department, Taylor Swift seeks to show her talents as a writer as much as to have them listened to. As she writes so well: “Anything goes in love and poetry.” And in communication too.

Promposal Double Album - Taylor Swift didn't wait for "The Tortured Poets Department" to prove she is (I)

With a name like that - The Department of Tortured Poets in the language of Molière - the tone is set. Taylor Swift released her highly anticipated new album, The Tortured Poets Department, this Friday, April 19. The opportunity for the American singer to remind us that she is more than a pop star: she is a poet.

For her new album, Taylor Swift sets up a library in Los Angeles (and hides clues there)

Taylor Swift has always identified herself as a songwriter first, before being a singer. She now calls herself a poet by signing the promotional messages for her album “the president of the Department of Tortured Poets”. But she didn’t wait for her new album to write songs comparable to poems in verse or prose. From the start of her career in 2005, Taylor Swift was noted for her talents as a lyricist.

So much so that today, several universities, including the prestigious Harvard and Stanford, offer courses in analyzing the lyrics of his songs, in the same way as great texts of literature.

Taylor Swift, star of literary studies

Elly McCausland, professor of English literature at Ghent University in Belgium, and creator of the site Swifterature, is the first to give a course on Taylor Swift in Europe. For her, calling the star a poet is not surprising. “If we go back several centuries, poetry was an oral medium, spoken before being written, and often set to music. In a way, Taylor Swift returns to the roots of poetry,” she told HuffPost in the video at the top of the article.

Although all songwriters can, in some sense, be considered poets, Taylor Swift is a particularly relevant subject of study for literature teachers. Already, because she gives them a lot of material with her 243 songs (according to Rolling Stone counts), all of which she wrote or co-wrote.

But it is above all his refined writing style, without seeming to be so, which is well suited to analysis. Elly McCausland, for example, highlights her use of complex English vocabulary and literary techniques that are often associated with classical poetry. “She uses a lot of metaphors and comparisons, what we call figurative language,” notes the professor. But she does it in a way that we don't even think about it. It's subtle. His songs are made of layers, and when you peel them back, you find lots of interesting ideas. »

(to be continued)

Taylor Swift workout routine: Apparently references to her love story with Fernando Alonso

Every time the American pop star releases a new song or album, everyone wonders who the lyrics are about.

Taylor's  fans have interpreted  new album 'The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology' asrelated to  the love story between the pop star and Fernando Alonso, the Aston Martin driver

 Since the release of Taylor Swift's 11th album, many fans have wondered who it is dedicated to, with some inferring that one of the 31 tracks is dedicated to Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso , who is rumored to have had a relationship with Taylor Swift in the past.

About a year ago, many rumors spread that there was a love relationship between Taylor Swift and Fernando Alonso.

The story between Taylor Swift and the sports star, exposed by the artist's new track? "I'm an Aston Martin that you drove straight into the abyss, then ran and hid"

Although the rumors were denied by both parties, suspicions among fans always remained.

An answer for those who still believed that despite the fact that there was nothing official, the relationship between the two world stars was still consummated, came with the release of the new album of the pop star from the United States of America.

The reference to the two-time Formula 1 world champion, fans believe, is in the following lyrics: "Little talk, long walks, I pretend I don't care what you've done / I'm an Aston Martin you drove straight into the abyss, then you ran and hid," writes Corriere Dello Sport.

Alonso has now joked about the situation by featuring in a TikTok video on the official AstonMartinF1 page in which he is seen listening to the song and putting his finger to his lips.

US presidential election 2024: why Taylor Swift worries Donald Trump supporters

Donald Trump's entourage fears that singer Taylor Swift and her companion, at the height of their fame, will support Joe Biden. And they see with anguish the arrival of February 11, the date of the Super Bowl final, the biggest television event of the year across the Atlantic, where the couple has arranged to meet.

Taylor Swift delighted millions of Americans on Sunday, January 28, when she went down to the pitch at the Baltimore stadium to kiss her darling Travis Kelce. The bearded receiver for the Kansas City Chiefs had just propelled his team to the final of the NFL championship, the professional American football league.

On February 11, in Las Vegas, the Chiefs will play their sixth Super Bowl, the fourth since 2019, against the San Francisco 49ers. The global pop star — 29 billion streams on Spotify in 2023 — has promised to attend the sporting event of the year. To join her champion, the defending champion, she will skip her mega world tour and return home from Japan.

Assailed by conservative channel Fox News

All the spotlight will then be on the most glamorous couple of the moment. And this gives fear to those around Donald Trump. Since the start of the week, the former President's zealots, seeking revenge on Joe Biden in the November 5 presidential election, have been firing on all cylinders. Don't get involved in politics, Jeanine Pirro, one of the star hosts of Fox News, said on air on Monday. Sean Hannity, another top conservative and Trump confidant, suggested he think twice.

This is because in 2020, Swift had thrown her already considerable weight behind Joe Biden, born like her – but 47 years earlier – in Pennsylvania. Last September, registrations of new voters more than doubled after the singer with 279 million followers on Instagram launched a call to do so on the Vote.org platform. Kelce stood out during Covid by resolutely committing to vaccination.

Swift and Kelce accused of being agents on mission

Above all, Trump fears that the couple – who never say a word – will invest in the campaign, which is what Democratic strategists dream of. Because they can move voters: football and country music – from which the singer-songwriter comes straight – particularly resonate with the popular electorate, who have united behind the populist billionaire.

So much so that Jesse Waters, yet another Fox host never behind on a plot, insinuated that Swift and Kelce are government and Pfizer agents engaged in psychological warfare, and that their romance is a fabrication of the Democratic Party .

Volunteer lawyers: 5 THINGS TAYLOR SWIFT CAN TEACH YOU ABOUT MANAGING YOUR CAREER (II)

Defend your own interests

In 2014, Taylor Swift removed her songs from Spotify to protest the almost non-existent remuneration of artists on the platform. Ten years later, she won her fight and is the most listened to artist on Spotify.

It just goes to show that it’s not by letting yourself eat the wool off your back that you build your fortune. Online music streaming services had immense power over the music industry, but Taylor certainly wasn't going to wait for his due.

DISTURB, TAKE RISKS, SAVE YOURSELF: THE SAD TRUTH IS THAT YOUR BOSS IS NOT GOING TO DO IT FOR YOU.

What would Taylor Swift do in your place? She would openly discuss her salary and working conditions with her colleagues, so that they can give themselves the means to defend their rights if necessary. She would also not hesitate to speak with her managers if something did not suit her or did not respect her collective agreement.

Vulnerability (assumed) pays off

Taylor doesn't have Whitney Houston's voice and she dances about as well as me. Her strength is rather in being an outstanding melodist and transforming her moods into powerful song lyrics, which give everyone the impression of being the heroes of a romantic comedy. Casually, she’s a unique talent and Taylor Swift knows how to sell herself as “the singer-songwriter we can relate to”.

Yes Madam! Tay-tay has a completely jet-set social life, and yet she goes through the same heartaches as us. Like us, she sometimes cries in bed, hates her ex and feels inadequate.

What would Taylor Swift do in your place? She would fully embrace her emotions at work while kindly replacing anyone who labels her as an emotional woman. She would also show empathy towards her colleagues, would know the power of humor at work and would not hesitate to use it.

And privilege… it helps

You'll tell me that if there's anything that helps you become a #girlboss, it's being born on an idyllic Christmas tree farm, with a father who has the means to invest in our first record label and a mother who can dedicate herself full-time to supporting our dream career. Being thin, blonde with blue eyes and perfectly matching American beauty standards can't hurt either.

BUT DO YOU KNOW WHAT? NOT BEING A 1% FIREWORKER SHOULD NEVER PREVENT US FROM CONDUCTING OUR CAREERS AS IF WE WERE ONE.

The best lesson to learn from the way Taylor Swift conducts her career is that the best place to invest all our energy and our rage to win is, in a very selfish way, in ourselves.

Volunteer lawyers: 5 THINGS TAYLOR SWIFT CAN TEACH YOU ABOUT MANAGING YOUR CAREER (I)

AT 34, TAYLOR SWIFT DOMINATES THE MUSIC INDUSTRY,  SHE IS A BILLIONAIRE, AND HER TOURS HAVE MORE IMPACT ON THE ECONOMY OF AMERICAN CITIES THAN THE SUPER BOWL.

Probably helped by her privileged childhood, surrounded by her devoted parents (I'll come back to that), Taylor Swift has developed a self-confidence that is disturbing and... which we should all draw inspiration from!

From her pre-adolescence, she knocked on the doors of record companies, she took to all the stages and composed her own songs. The idea of waiting to perfect his art before starting out, or that of giving up after a refusal, does not seem to have crossed his mind.

It’s an attitude that many people find difficult to adopt for themselves (and to appreciate without cringing in others!) and yet, self-esteem always pays off. If, as a child, you ever sang in your room, with the window open, hoping that the head of Universal records would pass by by chance, be captivated by your talent and come ring your parents' doorbell to get you to sign a management contract , Do you see what I'm talking about.

YOUR HUMILITY, ALTHOUGH IT IS A GREAT QUALITY, COULD ALSO LEAD YOU TO UNDERESTIMATE YOURSELF.

What would Taylor Swift do in your place? Taylor would apply for this position that appeals to her, even if she does not have all the required qualifications. And after getting the job, she would dare to negotiate a raise – because she deserves it. Are we refusing it to him? She would consider new professional opportunities in an environment that recognizes the value of her work.

Social networks: the crux of the matter

You could say that Taylor Swift got lucky, timing-wise. Myspace, then Tumblr, appeared exactly when she needed them. She was lucky, of course, but she also sensed from the start the great opportunity that social networks offered, even before we understood where it was all going.

In her early days, she spent hours online every day responding to every post and comment. She made each admirer feel like she was their friend and sharing their vulnerability. Little by little, she opened accounts on all platforms and did not lack creativity to establish her presence on the web.

While avoiding talking about her private life in interviews, she hid clues about her networks and the covers of her albums, arousing the curiosity of Internet users. Genius. By establishing direct communication between herself and her customers, she has created an audience with unfailing loyalty.

What would Taylor Swift do in your place? She would maintain connections with her former colleagues and classmates on social media (just the less heavy ones), where she would also talk about her career progression and projects. She would keep her LinkedIn account up to date with her latest accomplishments and interact with the companies and professionals that interest her. In short, yes, “flexing” online is “cringe”, but you may be one step away from the opportunity of your dreams.

(to be continued)

 

No Allergy Popstar… How Taylor Swift became a global icon

Thanks to a keen sense of timing and artistic transformation, the 34-year-old American singer has established herself as one of the biggest musical stars of the last twenty years. From country to pop, from indie folk to slick business, its growing popularity owes nothing to chance.

It’s a snowball that never stops growing. Taylor Swift ended 2023 as the biggest music star in the world, named Person Of The Year by Time magazine, and the most streamed artist of the year on Spotify streaming platforms. and Apple Music, having broken the historic record for the number of number one albums sold by a singer... The native of Reading, Pennsylvania, becomes at 34 the juggernaut she always wanted to be, after twenty years of career and of gradual ascension.

A revenge for the one who had difficulty overcoming her image as a purely American superstar and who found many pitfalls on her path. Thanks to a formidable sense of timing and, all the same, a talent for writing songs, here she is attacking the year 2024 with a new costume built to last.

Massive and sincere support from the public

Such success cannot be built from scratch. To remain so high for so long, massive and sincere support from the public is necessary, because promotion, radio hype and presence on social networks can hardly compensate for artistic failure.

Its first asset is therefore its songs. Then, it's her ability to change gear quickly, to be able to identify what aesthetic is requested by the public, as when she abandoned her early country with the album Red, released in 2012, to embrace less divisive pop. . In doing so, she gradually put aside her image as the darling of conservative white America to expand her territory, confirming this shift with the following album, 1989, released in 2014.

For years, she navigated between the need to satisfy her less progressive base, while making herself a generational icon, in fact walling herself in a political silence which served her commercially. After being reluctant to condemn Donald Trump in 2016, she decided to call for Democratic votes in 2018 in the midterm elections. There, his audience exploded.

Control everything

Taylor Swift is a singer, of course, but also a businesswoman. She knows how to capture the times, she understood that the overflow of danceable electronic music from the early 2010s frustrated a public lacking more pop artists capable of making them dance.

In 2020, during successive confinements, she released two albums almost in quick succession, Folklore and Evermore, more anchored in indie pop and folk sounds, softer, more in line with the global need to dress up the long days spent at home.

Sweep away the humiliations

In 2023, Taylor Swift has struck a very big blow. She, who had lost part of the rights to two of her old albums, simply re-recorded them identically, legally re-appropriating their content and at the same time putting the spotlight back on her back catalog. An extremely clever and lucrative strategy which has considerably increased its listening scores.

WATCH MASTERS PORTRAIT : Taylor Swift - “America’s little girl” who became a worldwide star (III)

 this is a follow-up of a previous post

In 2020, she committed to Joe Biden, without however participating in his campaign events. She also posted various messages to call for a vote. These prompted thousands of registrations on the electoral lists. Michael Francis Taylor, author of the book Taylor Swift: The Life, Loves and Music of a Global Sensation, published by New Haven Publishing, considers it “possible” that it will influence the 2024 presidential election.

Taylor Swift has also shown herself to be committed to gender equality, demanding better justice for women victims of sexual violence. In 2017, she obtained the conviction of a DJ who had sexually assaulted her. "I'm sorry to everyone who wasn't believed, because I don't know what would have happened to me if people hadn't believed my story when I revealed what happened to me." , she says during a concert in 2018.

A real business woman

But whether for his music or his image, his success also (and above all?) owes to his business and marketing acumen. As her biographer, Michael Francis Taylor, explains: “She runs everything she does and she has a marketing genius unparalleled in the music industry. » “She owns her titles and controls her songs from writing to production and marketing. She controls the entire chain, which is very rare,” adds Gaël Sanquer of NRJ.

A unique situation which allows her to go to war with entertainment giants such as Spotify (which she boycotted for years deploring remuneration considered too low for artists), Apple Music or Ticketmaster (she said she was "out of control"). her” concerning the failures of the platform to sell tickets for her concerts).

In 2019, she entered into conflict with her ex-producer, Scooter Braun, denouncing his “tyrannical control”. Since then, Taylor Swift has had her first albums re-recorded, in order to recover the rights. A “Taylor’s Version” notice is added to the titles she has republished. Three years earlier, she was already ironic by answering “have a good lawyer” to the question asked by Vogue “what advice would you give to someone wanting to become a singer?” ".

An omnipresent control, observed by the head of NRJ Gaël Sanquer on the occasion of his upcoming tour in France in May and June 2024. While the radio launched a competition in February to offer tickets for the Parisian concerts of the star, “Taylor Swift's team wanted to validate everything, from the poster campaigns to the comments made on the air to announce the competition, to the word,” he says. “It was unprecedented to see such a level of control. »

His Eras tour, which has already gone down in history as one of the most lucrative ever, is no exception to the rule. Months of rehearsals took place and everything was fine-tuned. Taylor Swift even produced a film about this tour which will be broadcast around the world at the end of 2023.

A feature film that became the highest-grossing concert film of all time and broke Justin Bieber's record. One again.

WATCH MASTERS PORTRAIT : Taylor Swift - “America’s little girl” who became a worldwide star (II)

 this is a lollow-up of a previous post

A strong bond with his fans

The latter formed themselves into a true community. They call themselves the Swifties. “It’s a very big and very caring community,” says Sandra, herself a Swiftie, who for example sends Christmas cards to other fans with whom she communicates on Instagram. “Friendship bracelets” are an example of these exchanges between “Swifties”. Mentioned in a Taylor Swift song in 2022, they have become a symbol of fans who give them to each other during the star's concerts.

While her media appearances have become rarer, Taylor Swift has built a whole strategy to appear close to her fans, going as far as sending Christmas gifts to admirers, for example, or going to a store with customers shopping. buy his album.

She uses Instagram a lot, where she is followed by 280 million people, making her one of the most followed artists on the platform. Photos of her cats, of her birthday… She appears as a “girl next door”, that is to say the one who could be your neighbor. Far from the superstar that she is, however. Taylor Swift is also very present on Twitter, where she comments and likes certain posts from her fans. Enough to maintain their loyalty despite the artist's changes in musical registers.

A musical shift

Between the artist's first album and his latest songs, the difference is obvious. In 2008, Taylor Swift released her second album, and still mixes pop and country sounds. The song Love Story, the album's main single, has already established itself as one of its main international hits.

Country is still at the center of his music, with a banjo omnipresent throughout the song. She won an MTV award the following year and became the first country artist to receive an award at this ceremony. However, we especially remember Kanye West, who cut her off in the middle of her speech to say that Beyoncé “made one of the best music videos of all time”.

But little by little, over the course of the albums, country fades to give way to pop. The transition took place in 2012, with his album RED, and was confirmed in 2014, with his fifth album, 1989. The pop title Shake it off, whose clip has been seen more than 3 billion times on YouTube, became a planetary tube.

This winning pop turn allowed him to establish himself internationally, and particularly in Europe. “Taylor Swift already had a lot of success in the United States in the country register. But this genre is not at all suited to France or Europe. She had a fierce desire to conquer this international audience, hence this musical shift from country to pop music,” rewinds Gaël Sanquer, from NRJ, when the radio began to broadcast it in 2012.

From “little girl of America” to committed artist

Another shift beyond his music, that of his image. For a long time, Taylor Swift was perceived as “America’s little girl”. A smooth image of a good girl that has stuck to her for a long time, she who has been widely criticized for her love life and her multiple boyfriends. “I became the person everyone wanted me to be,” she confides during the documentary Miss Americana, broadcast on Netflix.

“I’m just a 22-year-old singer. People don’t want to know my political opinions, they just want to hear me sing about breakups and feelings,” she said when the media asked her about her political opinions.

Until she decided to break this image and get involved in politics. In 2018, she posted a long message on Instagram, where she committed to LGBT+ rights and where she supported the Democratic candidates in her state for the midterm elections. A hard blow for the Republicans who made him a symbol of conservative America, country music being a traditionally conservative environment.

(to be continued) 

WATCH MASTERS PORTRAIT : Taylor Swift - “America’s little girl” who became a worldwide star (I)

Successes across the world, concerts that break all records... American singer Taylor Swift, from a country background, has become a music legend in just a few years. An ascent due in particular to his artistic sense and impeccable mastery of his career. Discover the first episode of our series dedicated to Taylor Swift.

You only have to align a few numbers to realize the status of music icon obtained by Taylor Swift in the United States and around the world. Four Grammy awards for the best album of the year (a record which places her ahead of Frank Sinatra, Paul Simon or Stevie Wonder), a fortune estimated at 1.1 billion dollars according to Forbes (one of "the rare artists to achieving this status solely through music and stage"), a place at the top of the American charts for 68 consecutive weeks (beating Elvis Presley's record)… The list could go on for a long time.

The woman who was named Personality of the Year 2023 by the prestigious Time magazine is a unique artist in the United States, thanks to a career that owes nothing to chance.

A “very authentic” artist

From her first album, released in 2006 and simply titled Taylor Swift, the singer, barely 16 years old, rose to the rank of young American country star. The album was written in high school by Taylor Swift. Nothing surprising for the one who learned the guitar at 10 years old and who, even as a child, “was singing all the time”, as her father, a financial advisor, told UDaily. At school, as she later explained in several interviews, Taylor Swift was ostracized by her classmates and took refuge in writing songs.

The teenager, who was born in 1989 in Pennsylvania, auditioned in New York to play in Broadway musicals, but without success. At age 13, she moved with her family near Nashville, the country capital, where her parents hoped she could be successful. A successful bet since she signed her first contract as an author and composer with Sony/ATV Tree Music Publishing, becoming the youngest artist to sign on this label. Already a first record.

Her first album contains one of the recipes that will make Taylor Swift successful throughout her career: it addresses her intimate thoughts and her romantic relationships, from happiness to betrayals. A common thread that allows its fans to find themselves in these universal stories.

“Since the beginning, I have identified with the songs she writes,” explains Sandra, a fan of the artist, born the same year and the same month as Taylor Swift and therefore aged, like the singer, 34 years old. “I feel like I’ve grown and evolved with her. These words mean a lot to me. She excels at sharing her personal experience with millions of people,” says the woman who has an Instagram account dedicated to her favorite singer and began following Taylor Swift in 2009. “There is a very authentic side. Her songs are almost a diary that takes people with her,” also underlines Gaël Sanquer, deputy director of musical media for the NRJ group.

A proximity supported by the storytelling talents of Taylor Swift. “I write all my songs,” the artist confirmed on Twitter in 2022. She also composes most of them and plays many instruments (drums, piano, banjo, etc.). “When I have an idea, I record a voice memo singing the melody, or I write the lyrics in the notes on my cell phone,” she detailed in 2016 in an interview for Vogue. Enough to add to this authentic side, appreciated by his fans.

(to be continued)

How Taylor Swift rules her career with an iron fist

Far from being afraid of Friday the 13th, Taylor Swift has made her favorite number a marketing argument. Born on December 13, the American singer could only choose this date to offer her fans an experience like no other. 

That of a concert lasting almost 3 hours to experience like in a stadium, but in a cinema. The Eras Tour Film will be broadcast in 90 countries including France while this record-breaking tour, which could rake in a billion dollars, will only arrive in Europe next spring with six performances in France.

Stronger than Tom Cruise at the box office

In the United States and Canada, demand was such that the film's release was brought forward by a day. The announcement was made by the star in person after a preview which was even attended by Beyoncé. With more than $100 million raised in pre-sales, The Eras Tour is already the highest-grossing concert film in history. A successful feat also thanks to a higher price than a usual cinema ticket. 19.89 dollars for adults, 13.13 dollars for children and seniors, which the Swifties harmed by the Ticketmaster bug did not hesitate to pay when the ticket office opened.

Variety predicts that Taylor Swift should enter the top 10 box office of the year across the Atlantic, doing better than Mission: Impossible 7 with Tom Cruise, Indiana Jones 5 with Harrison Ford and Fast X with Vin Diesel. Some films, including the new romantic comedy by and with Meg Ryan, have changed their release dates to avoid facing it in theaters. 

The American publication even describes the 33-year-old as the "savior" of an industry deprived of its autumn blockbusters like Dune 2, postponed due to the strike in Hollywood. “Ticket sales rival those of a major film. This is an unexpected boost in revenue that we need,” comments the owner of a cinema chain.

Question of rights at stake: Standoff between Taylor Swift and her former record company (II)

After several years of fighting against his record company Warner Bros, of which he called himself the “slave”, he was finally freed from his contract in 1996.

“If you don't control your masters, they control you,” he told Rolling Stone magazine in 1996.

In many contracts, the producer is designated as the owner of the masters, in return for taking financial risk.

As in the case of Taylor Swift, who made her first commitment at 15 when she was unknown, the balance of power at the time of signing the contract is often favorable to the record company.

Some artists have nevertheless obtained control of their recordings, notably Rihanna, U2 or Jay-Z, often by buying them back at a high price once they have become famous.

Some young artists have also achieved this more recently, including rapper XXXTentacion, murdered in 2018.

“Signing and keeping the biggest artists in the world, or even a newcomer that the record companies are snapping up, has become much more expensive,” says Larry Miller, director of the music economics program at the New York University (NYU).

“Some houses are sometimes ready to do things contrary to the way their economic model works,” according to him.

The record companies nonetheless retain overall control, thanks to their ability to “make” a star.

If producing music is now accessible to everyone, recognizes Larry Miller, “there is a big difference between being a talent to be discovered and having an army of people working to make you the greatest artist.”