On August 18, 2014, Taylor Swift decided to let the world in on the biggest secret of her career: pop.
Known for her country twang and “long list of ex-lovers,” Swift has been in the limelight for almost nine years now. Around 5 PM eastern time on the 18th, millions of “swifties” tuned in through Yahoo! to see what Swift had up her sleeve. With the announcement of a totally pop album (1989) to come in the fall, a new single and a music video, her website promptly crashed from an influx of views.
This kind of success is not rare for Swift. With a total of seven Grammy Awards, Swift has been at the forefront of music for quite some time. 1989 marks her third album with over one million downloads in its first week, which is, not surprisingly, a record. To generate first week sales, Swift added three extra songs to a deluxe version of 1989 as well as three voice memos straight off her phone and 13 prints of polaroids. First week sales like Swift’s (1.287 million) have not been seen since 2002 when Eminem’s, “The Eminem Show,” sold 1.33 million its first week. To top it off, 1989 is set to be the first platinum album of the year.
Swift’s secret is simple: social media. She connects with her fans almost daily through
Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr, and Swift even invited fans to her homes to preview the album before the release date, October 27. By meeting with people who love her music, almost obsessively, Swift created hysteria all across her fandom.
“I love her because she really loves what she does and expresses this through her music” explained sophomore Emily Anderson.
Between shutting down Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, appearing three times on Good Morning America, closing down Times Square and performing on top of a building while the Empire State Building lit up to the beat of 1989, Swift has made her fair share of guest appearances across the country. Set to appear on the CBS Thanksgiving Day Parade and Dick Clark’s New Year’s Eve special, it looks like the world will be seeing a lot more of Swift. Her millions of fans are totally fine with that.
Swift’s single “Shake It Off” completely took over radio stations and the Billboard 100 during its first week, with 544,000 downloads, the biggest of the year. A song that praises individuality and dancing to the beat of your own drum, “Shake It Off” is seriously relatable. Swift has been praised by her fans, but also by dozens of other celebrities. It seems as if the light has shifted from whom she’s writing about to the content and quality of her music.
Even though Swift has millions of people praising her work, there are still a few people that don’t like the switch to pop. Lovers of her country roots and hair flipping craze have not taken this redirection well.
“I feel like she’s trying to conform to what’s in, but she was better as country,” said sophomore Marisa Fitz. Swift’s music has been praised by TIME, Rolling Stone, and the New York Times, but people reject her new sound. They’re apprehensive to publicly support her switch to pop.
“I think people secretly still like her and like to jam out to her songs but people pretend that they don’t like her because of her new image,” explained Fitz.
Swift began in Nashville, Tennessee; and with 1989 and her move to the Tribeca neighborhood in Manhattan, New York some might even say she has forgotten where she came from. Even so, Swift will likely continue to break records and send thousands of people into a dazed craze with each album she creates. Like or not, Swift is one of the biggest music icons of the 21st century and she has the trophies to prove it.
