SAWANT: No one does music like Taylor Swift
Column: Sincerely Rue
Speaking from personal experience, almost nothing else bonds two people faster than when one person finds out that the other person is a Swiftie, too. Besides creating genius lyrics to go with the best music you have ever heard, Taylor Swift has also created a tight-knit community of fans that very few artists have been able to so far.
Fans who stream her “Taylor’s Version” re-recordings of albums such as Red and Fearless (screw you, Scooter Braun), fans who dissect her lyrics and press interviews to connect the stories in her songs, fans who theorize on her words and posts to figure out what she has coming next, fans who host listening parties for the release of her albums, fans who consistently send new music to the tops of charts and fill her arms with Grammy awards. The list goes on.
Frankly speaking, there is a Swift song suitable for everyone. While a lot of artists tend to find a sound they like and build their career around it, Swift's strength is in her words. Her songs tell stories using the most beautiful collection of words you would not even think of putting together in the first place. And while her words themselves are poetic, her sound has developed throughout the years, too.
The musical transition Swift has made from her career-beginning country sounds to a more alternative and indie flow currently is honestly impressive. Each album offers something different than the last, so one of them is bound to appeal to even the most adamantly anti-Swift individual (even if they refuse to ever admit it).
Also, a lot of us have grown up listening to her music. Even if you were not a Swift fan back then, you at least knew the classics like “Love Story” or “I Knew You Were Trouble.” This nostalgia factor of her older albums effectively etches them into cultural history.
Even with all her successes, she certainly was not simply handed all of them. For most of her career, Swift has been the subject of misogyny and chronic belittling — classic treatment for a successful woman in a public-facing, multi-billion-dollar industry.
People love to joke that all she does is write about her failed relationships because she cannot keep a man. Meanwhile, people do not acknowledge the fact that a lot of artists use past relationships as inspiration for their songs — this fact should not be attributed solely to Swift. People use various methods to vent their relationship frustrations, whether through journaling, ranting to friends or something else related. Swift is just good at writing it in a song against a catchy tune.
When Swift did not appreciate the usage of her name in Kanye West’s song “Famous,” in which he took credit for her fame, it became an internet trend to hate on her after she tried to defend herself for feeling that way. In defending herself, Swift was criticized, and her reputation was questioned. You would never see the public turn so quickly on a man like this if he stood up for himself the way Swift did, a clear display of misogyny within the music industry.
Ironically enough, Swift was already the owner of multiple awards (for the songs people loved to make fun of) long before Kanye ever appeared in the picture, but I digress.
Following the release of her 10th original studio album, "Midnights," I have seen people label it anything from “mainstream” to “way too millennial.” Swift is mainstream, and she is a millennial, but why use it as an insult, especially since there are so many other mainstream, millennial artists out there too?
In general, the media loves to look at her life under a microscope, poke fun at her past relationships and judge the content of her songs. If anything though, Swift has leveraged this unfair attention and positioned herself to be an influential feminist among fans.
Despite all the hate, though, she has managed to collect award after award, top charts and make millions upon millions of dollars. The tight-knit community she has created and empowered by rising above all of it ensures she stays there as a big “screw you” to everyone who loves to hate on her. What she has created is incredibly special when you think about it in those terms.
She is also one of the only artists I know who consistently gives back to her fans. Her level of interaction with them is almost unparalleled. Take her secret sessions for example. Swift personally invites groups of fans to her home where they get to listen to unreleased music.
In these sessions, there is an unwritten, mutually accepted rule between those invited to the secret sessions and those who were not — no one leaks the songs out of respect for Swift's work. It is so easy for someone to record the session and spoil a song, but it is a beautiful thing that the Swiftie community can have this one thing without ruining it. No other artist that I know of goes to such lengths to connect with their fans.
At the end of the day, Swift is a global personality who has made a huge impression on culture. So regardless of your opinions of her, everyone should be able to admit no one does music like Taylor Swift.
Rujuta Sawant is a Rutgers Business School junior majoring in business analytics and information technology and minoring in political science. Her column, "Sincerely Rue," runs on alternate Mondays.
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