Edited by – Geetanjali Roy
Whether you like her music or not, think of her as an icon or a crazy cat lady ranting about heartbreak, side with her or Kanye on their legendary feud, there is no denying it — you can’t be oblivious to Taylor Swift. With her latest albums’ groundbreaking success, here’s a run-through of the repeating sequences of Taylor falling from the top and finding her way back up to it, time and again.
She’s recycled the same breakup song again.
She is so overrated.
She is a man hater and a serial dater.
She’s manipulative and uses men to write songs.
Her fanatical fancult will justify everything she does.
A year ago, these contemptuous criticisms levelled against Taylor Swift wouldn’t have bothered me. I’m not your everyday Swiftie, enamoured by her brilliant songwriting and captivating bridges. It was actually a sound byte from her 2020 documentary Miss Americana, making the rounds on the internet that stayed with me: “We do exist in this society where women in entertainment are discarded in an elephant graveyard at 35. Everyone is a shiny new toy for like two years. The female artists have reinvented themselves 20 times more than the male artists. They have to or else you’re out of a job.”
Then earlier this year, I accidently fell down a rabbit hole after listening to ‘New Years’ Day’, the closing track on her fiery sixth studio album, reputation. Searching up and listening to her previous albums, I realised Taylor Alison Swift has reinvented herself and remained relevant during her career, more times than you have probably showered this week. Fascinated, I found myself connecting with the tumultuous ups and downs of life through music, a lot of which centred around her individual struggles. Of course, it’s evident from the immensity of her fanbase that I wasn’t alone in this.
Inspired by her grandmother Marjorie, (yes, the one you heard about in Evermore!) an opera singer, Taylor moved to Nashville, Tennessee in her early teens to become a country artist. After struggling to find a label, she co-wrote her debut album with just 13 songs, which became her ‘lucky number’ according to fans. This era of the debut album paired with its successor, Grammy winning Fearless, transports you to the world of unrequited high school crushes and country boots, acoustic guitar instrumentals and memories of your ‘love story’ which did or didn’t happen. Songs from this time include ‘Picture to Burn’ and ‘Fifteen’ which are often overlooked in favour of her more recent, much grander hits.
Throw in a ton of sparkle and an electric guitar, and you’re in the Speak Now era, (allegedly the next Taylor’s Version) reminiscent of Taylor’s ‘open letters’ to the people she had loved or hurt. This album cover was also the first to have an ‘easter egg’, Taylor’s legacy of leaving hints and clues in her art to anticipate her upcoming work. With overarching themes of magic and young love, this album has something of a Bridgerton vibe, if you know what I mean (the title song is basically made for Kathony shippers).
This brings us to one of her most vulnerable albums, Red, which she described as the world of a heartbroken person. Don’t feel too bad though; without it we wouldn’t have masterpieces like ‘All Too Well’ and ‘State of Grace’. Artistically, this helped her transition from country into synth pop and try out newer sounds, which characterised her fifth chart-breaking studio album ‘1989’. Inspired by 80s music and songwriting, themed around boldness, limitless potential and ‘being whoever you truly want to be’ as she suggested, this era saw Taylor Swift transforming into pop star as we know her. Her songwriting is brave and vulnerable, chronicling the fast-paced changes in her life, like moving alone to New York and starting over, dreams most of us have dreamt.
With the grandeur of her successes came the bitter public scrutiny and slut shaming. Her life became a spectacle for those who wanted drama, while tabloids used it for hits. Then, she was gone. Swift physically disappeared for a year — a major feat for a globally known and immediately recognisable star— returning with a completely new look for reputation, when no one was ready for it. This time, themes included the colours black and gold, revenge in retrograde and snakes the size of stadiums. Basically, she made a comeback stronger than a 90’s trend. And Taylor, if you’re reading this (which of course you are), we need that Getaway Car music video stat.
If reputation was glimmering darkness, her next era could only be described as daylight — that is what her next album Lover felt like. If you fancy a British accent and the rush of new love, this album is exactly what you need. During this pink and yellow era, Taylor wrote about falling in love with her boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, in London. Taylor, previously careful to stay mostly politically neutral, made her views on current issues known in this album, with songs and music videos in support of the queer community and against patriarchal double standards.
The pandemic hit. While the rest of us were barely surviving, Swift was busy making another Album of the Year, folklore. Based on mystical worlds she read and dreamt about, this album saw Taylor, almost eponymous with mainstream pop, switching surprisingly to folk music and traditional instruments. Her songwriting, relatable as always, gave us lyrics like, “I thought all of my cages were mental, so I got wasted like all my potential” which was one of the many lines that got me asking myself where she found my diary. Its surprise sister album evermore, following shortly after, gave us some of the most captivating yet heart wrenching stories written as songs, taking you back to brown-green cardigans and the smell of rain and forests.
While we still haven’t recovered from these, Swift released her new album, Midnights two weeks ago which sees her shifting gears once again, with bridges that make vulnerability look easy and starry nights which make you want to be awake for all the wrong reasons. With a return to pop, she demonstrates how even heavy issues like self-loathing and body dysmorphia can be artistically grappled with in all genres, painting our nights midnight blue with this reinvention. As she pointed out, till the music industry is still “tolerating female artists like her”, they will strive to go the extra mile and require reinvention every time, because society expects nothing less. Queer and female artists are often required to incorporate performativity into their music to stay relevant and ‘interesting’ to an audience, an expectation most mainstream male artists are exempted from. This tends to create the single narrative of many such artists such as she ‘just sings about breakup songs’ and leads to them and their art being misunderstood.
As for Taylor, along with all this, she has also been re-recording her older albums in an effort to own all her music, filling old and newer fans like me, with nostalgia. This is one of the few instances where artists have spoken up about rights regarding ownership of their work, proving once again that she is truly a mastermind. Just to be clear, this brief Taylor-cation is not an attempt to ‘convert’ you into a fan, but if you, by chance, fall down the same rabbit hole, I’ll gladly meet you there.