Swift is having her moment in the sun, ending 2023 on a truly high note.
TAYLOR Swift might be a testament to clichés like, “Success doesn’t happen overnight” and “Don’t let the haters get you down”.
But the multi award-winning, record-breaking and billionaire singer and songwriter, who was this week announced as TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year, is anything but banal.
No other musician in the world has had a more successful 2023 than the 33-year-old mogul.
Much of the “Bad Blood” hitmaker’s blockbuster year was attributed to the unprecedented success of her “Eras Tour”.
The global icon’s moment in the sun sees her end 2023 on a high note, which extends to the sale of millions and millions of albums throughout her illustrious career, including even more in 2023, alone.
Swift was also named 2023’s most-streamed artist by Spotify and Apple Music. This year, her net worth reached $1.1 billion (R21bn ), making her the first billionaire to make the cut solely based on music sales and performances.
These accolades now see the pop star’s success being compared to those of iconic musical legends such as Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and Madonna.
She has gone on to redefine music culture globally as she deploys the age old pop song to tell her story.
And it’s not just her music and performances which have earned the US musician riveting praise.
Swift’s song writing, which critics laud as honest and vulnerable – in contrast to other artists who are often criticised for having highly commercial sounds and superficial lyrics – has also been compared to the likes of that of Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney.
Her social media reach extends to hundreds of millions, making her one of the most followed stars in the world.
There are also at least 10 college classes devoted to her, including one at Harvard; with Swift’s work being compared to the likes of iconic poet William Wordsworth.
But apart from just her sound, lyrics, as well as her music streams and the legions of likes and interactions on social media from the “Swifties” – as they are affectionately known – it was arguably Swift’s “Eras Tour” that cemented her superstar status in 2023 and catapulted to new levels of fame.
Billed as a celebration of her 10 studio albums, Swift’s career-retrospective 66 dates tour across the Americas this year is projected to become the biggest of all time and the first to gross over $1bn.
It even resulted in her being named by “Forbes” as the fifth most powerful woman in the world and the most powerful woman in the entertainment industry.
For this monumental accolade, the publication cited estimates that her “Eras Tour” boosted the US economy by more than $5bn.
Punted as the “Taylor effect”, politicians from Thailand, Hungary and Chile, have implored her to perform in their countries as there is as an economic boom every time the pop star tours a new place, as hotels and restaurants experienced a surge in visitors.
Swift’s “The Eras Tour” movie, which was also released in October, was estimated to have raked in around $249 million in total, becoming the highest-grossing concert film of all time.
And with all the 2023 success under Swift’s belt, she admitted that it took a few hits – both literally and figuratively – to get to where she is.
“It feels like the breakthrough moment of my career, happening at 33,” she told Time for her Person of the Year cover story.
“And for the first time in my life, I was mentally tough enough to take what comes with that.”
Swift also acknowledged that she had many detractors along the way.
“I’ve been raised up and down the flagpole of public opinion so many times in the last 20 years. I’ve been given a tiara, then had it taken away.”
Swift’s long list of accomplishments and current state of bliss come after years of widespread scrutiny and criticism.
From her romantic relationships in the spotlight over the years, to claims of her faking her feminism for her own gain, her debacle with Kanye West and his ex-wife Kim Kardashian is perhaps one of the biggest challenges of her career so far.
In a now infamous moment, West interrupted the then 19-year-old Swift onstage at the 2009 VMAs while she was accepting the award for the Best Female Video for “You Belong With Me.”
“I’ma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time,” West said on stage during his interruption.
He then went on to write a song with vulgar lyrics about Swift, and claimed that she had consented to it.
Kardashian, who was married to the rapper at the time, also consequently released a video of a conversation between West and Swift, which appeared to indicate that she had been on board with the song.
Swift strongly denied this and, in her Time interview, she said of the incident: “Make no mistake, my career was taken away from me.”
She added: “You have a fully manufactured frame job, in an illegally recorded phone call, which Kim Kardashian edited and then put out to say to everyone that I was a liar.
“That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before. I moved to a foreign country.
“I didn’t leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to get on phone calls. I pushed away most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard.”
But like every other challenge that Swift has encountered in her almost two decade long career so far, she has managed to rise to the top, which was evident in her vast successes this year.
And, for 2024 and beyond, “Swifties” are expecting even more hits and iconic performances as the pop star continues to break barriers and forge new ground.
