Taylor Swift has long been a familiar name to music audiences around the world, with almost 200 hundred songs released. However, ever since her first single, "Tim McGraw" in 2006 until now, after almost 2 decades, her influence has not decreased at all. In fact, she is making history with the Eras Tour right now, breaking multiple records: Having 10 albums on the Billboard charts at the same time, the most sold tickets by an artist in a single day, etc... It is suggested that everywhere the Eras Tour took place, the economy there would be positively affected. But why has Taylor Swift been and still continues to be a global music icon with an ever-growing fandom almost 20 years into her career?
Photo by Omid Armin on Unsplash
Her Music Never Gets Old, and she Keeps Giving us More
Taylor is exceptionally known for great songwriting skills, which makes her, at 14 years old, the youngest person in Sony's history to sign a music publishing deal with the company. Success after success, she never stops making new music, constantly blessing our playlist with soulful and ever-changing songs.
Throughout almost 20 years in the music industry, Taylor Swift has released 10 studio albums, 2 re-rerecorded studio albums, 5 extended plays and 3 live albums, totalling to more than 200 million records sold worldwide. As the audience, we can see a part of her life journey written in poetic and heart-touching lyrics and, most importantly, relate, one way or another.
The Eras Tour proves that her music never gets old because as she revisits songs from years ago, fans show that they have always kept the songs on their minds and in their hearts. At one point, she even got 10 albums on the Billboard charts at the same time. If that is not impressive enough, Taylor Swift also made history by becoming the first artist to dominate all songs in the top 10 Billboard when Midnights came out.
She Is A Role Model And Known For a Great Personality
There are hardly any celebrities who never received hate or were not involved in some kind of drama, so it would be impossible to say Taylor Swift has a drama-free career, but she has never let that stop her as a musician and a good person. Fans show love for her personality when she is on tour and interacting with them in real life. Taylor Swift also knows how to express appreciation for her fans whenever she can in speeches and on social media. She sometimes replies to fans' comments and posts on social media, giving them advice or just simply how she understands their problems too.
One of the most popular incidents recently was when Taylor Swift defended a fan from security guards during a concert performance in Philadelphia and eventually offered to give her a free ticket for another show as redemption. Her act got an incredible amount of positive reaction from fans as well as people on the Internet in general.
Her Songs Appear In Numerous Popular Movies
There are many ways to promote an artist's songs, and as long as they reach a large audience, they are somewhat guaranteed exposure to an extent. The rest depends significantly on the song quality. In Taylor Swift's case, her songs are always promising, and they appear in a lot of iconic movies, which bring them to a wider audience population. Let's look at the iconic movies that Taylor Swift's songs made even more iconic.
"Safe and Sound" - Hunger Games
The song was written for the film and featured in the movie, but eventually the song itself also received a lot of attention just for the music. It also won Best Song Written For Visual Media at the 55th Annual Grammy Awards.
"I Don't Wanna Live Forever" - Fifty Shades Darker
Taylor Swift worked with Zayn Malik on the recording of this song as it was the soundtrack for the Fifty Shades Darker movie. The song gained international commercial success and became the highest-peaking song in the Fifty Shades series.
"Crazier" - Hannah Montana The Movie
The song was featured in the movie Hannah Movie and there was even a scene of Taylor Swift singing the song in the movie. It eventually peaked at number 17 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S and was one of the most best-selling singles of 2016.
"Cruel Summer", "False God", "Lover", "The Way I Loved You (Taylor's Version)", "This Love(Taylor's Version)",... - The Summer I Turned Pretty
The movie is about teenage love that was starting to sparkle between Belly and two friends whom she had known forever. Many of Taylor Swift's songs capture the emotions in the story perfectly and successfully contribute to the delivery of the character and storyline.
The Eras Tour: Proof that Taylor Swift's Music and Her Fans' Love For Her Are Only Going Up
First, let's do a recap on what the Eras Tour is. "I'm going back on tour...The tour is called the Eras Tour, and it's a journey through all of the musical eras of my career." - Taylor Swift announced on Good Morning America.
She started off the tour in states around the U.S and it quickly became an international sensation: Ticket Master wrote that "Over 3.5 million people pre-registered for TaylorSwiftTix Presale powered by Verified Fan". And The Eras Tour has not failed to exceed beyond fans' great expectations, with each show consisting of around 40 songs going on for as long as 3.5 hours, with the addition of surprise songs at times.
Photo by Raphael Lovaski on Unsplash
The Eras Tour is still going on right now, and the heat does not seem to lighten at all. Let's look at some highlights of the tour throughout the last few months.
"The Rainiest Show That Ever Rained Showed"
During her show in Massachusetts, the rain started pouring heavily, but instead of leaving the stage and postponing the performance, the "Anti-hero" singer kept the show going. Fans were touched that she did not cut the show short at all and ended up performing for the whole 3.5 hours through 40+ songs. What caught the Internet's attention was that, besides the crowds inside the stadium, there were enormous crowds outside on the street singing along despite the torrential rain.
If one does not know how to make their idol happy, Taylor Swift fans certainly will know the answer.
Interesting Ways That Cities Celebrated Taylor Swift As She Arrived For The Eras Tour
The city of Glendale, Arizona was renamed Swift City.
The mayor of Tampa, Florida gifted Taylor with a key to the city and received a special invitation to be the city's mayor for one day.
The mayor of Minneapolis announced the plan to rename the city "Swiftieapolis".
Minnesota's Governor "sent out a proclamation naming June 23 and 24 Taylor Swift Days" (Billboard).
The city of Las Vegas represented all of Taylor Swift's albums on their Gateway Arches.
