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 (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)

Yoga festival watched by 150 million people around the world

 A yoga festival was watched by 150 million people worldwide / The audience, eight times larger than that of the Grammy Awards, according to the organizers

The festival, which included guided meditations by renowned Indian guru Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, featured an all-night music and dance performance to celebrate one of the most important dates in the spiritual calendar, the Isha Foundation said in a statement. the organizer of the event, founded by Sadhguru.

The Isha Yoga Centre, a huge complex in the city of Coimbatore in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, was the venue for the mega-event, which was broadcast worldwide in 22 languages and, for the first time in its history, was projected onto some cinema screens in India.

According to the online broadcasts, "this year's audience of 150 million viewers was eight times larger than that of the Grammy Awards (16.9 million people in 2024)," the release states.