The Red tour was, in all senses of the word, colossal. The North American leg of the tour alone was seven months long, and its shows included a raft of eye-catching features, including LED lights, multi-level stages and Jumbotron screens. Joining her on the road were 15 dancers, four back-up singers and a seven-piece band. There were hydraulics, confetti showers and more costume changes than anyone could remember. Most importantly, though, there were thousands and thousands of screaming fans who went home delighted by the show they had witnessed.
The North American leg ended with Taylor feeling under the weather. At her final concert, in Nashville, she was suffering from a cold. ‘It was a struggle,’ she told the New Yorker. ‘I found it a little bit easier to sing than to talk, which was, like, a miracle.’ When she was about to sing ‘Sparks Fly’, she suddenly realised she had to leave the stage to take care of something. ‘I’m sorry, guys, but I just really have to blow my nose,’ she told the fans. ‘I swear I’m gonna do this really fast, can you please scream to fill the awkward silence, please?’ The 14,000-strong crowd obliged with a loud scream, and when she returned she continued the performance in style.
Throughout the tour, Taylor had shown her class. This applied away from the stage as much as on it. A seven-year-old fan called Grace Markel was caught in a traffic accident as she journeyed to Taylor’s concert in Columbia in August 2013. As she and her father Will stepped out of a taxi at the venue, Grace was hit by a speeding SUV driven by an uninsured driver on a suspended licence. It was a nasty accident: young Grace suffered skull fractures, a left orbital fracture, numerous head lacerations, a severe concussion and road rash over her face and body. She spent two days at Children’s Mercy Hospital before she was allowed home. Naturally, she had missed the concert and was enormously upset.
The following month, she got to see Taylor at a subsequent concert – and the singer made it an even better experience when she agreed to meet Grace backstage just before the show. Grace’s mother, Amy, was impressed with the star’s attitude. ‘Taylor greeted Grace by her name and immediately knelt down and hugged her,’ she told People magazine. ‘She told Grace she had a cold and asked Grace to sing extra loud to help her out.’ Taylor also autographed the sleeve of the girl’s Taylor Swift shirt with “I heart Grace! Taylor.” A classy piece of public relations from the Swift camp, yet those closest to Taylor are adamant that her charitable endeavours come from the heart.
Meanwhile, the awards just kept on coming. She faced a humorous ‘repeat episode’ of the much-discussed Kanye West incident at the Peoples’ Choice Awards in 2013. She looked very sleek in a plunging white gown as she walked to the stage to collect her award in the Favourite Country Artist category. But then the host, Olivia Munn, jokingly fought Taylor for the gong, pretending that the song ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’ was written about her. As tension mounted in the hall, Taylor did her best to smile through the incident. She said: ‘This always happens to me … God!’ Munn told her to get used to it, saying, ‘This is your lot in life now, Taylor.’
Eventually, Munn relinquished the award and allowed Taylor her moment in the spotlight. She said: ‘I want to thank the fans, because this is a fan-voted award and I absolutely love you with all of my heart. I want to thank radio and I want to thank the fans for calling radio and being, like, “Play her music” – thank you for doing that.’ She continued: ‘You guys have blown my mind with what you’ve done for this album Red and I just want to thank you for caring about my music and for caring about me. Thank you so much you guys, I love you.’ She also presented an award herself at the ceremony, handing over the gong for Favourite Movie, which went to The Hunger Games. As awards season gathered pace, she was excited to be nominated for a Golden Globe, but watched as the British star Adele was named as the winner instead.
In February she was awarded a Grammy for ‘Safe & Sound’, a song written for The Hunger Games soundtrack. She had opened the ceremony with a lively performance of ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’. All night she was on form, eschewing the industry-cool behaviour of so many attendees and instead dancing and celebrating wildly as other acts performed or received their own gongs. Alongside her friend Claire Kislinger, she made for quite a merry sight. Eagle-eyed viewers might have spotted the diamond bracelet she was sporting. It was made by a pediatric cancer patient called Jaimin, who designed it especially for Taylor. It was given a bright and sparkling look because, said the designer, ‘Taylor sparkles’.
Which she surely does: as the gong season rolled on, she flew to Britain to perform at the BRIT Awards, where she was also up for an award, namely the hotly contested International Female Solo Artist. The annual ceremony has been the scene of many huge production performances in recent years from the likes of Take That and Lady Gaga. However, the appearance that made the biggest indent on musical minds was that of Adele in 2011, when she sang ‘Someone Like You’ accompanied by nothing more than a single pianist. This approach then became the style to emulate.
Therefore it is a brave artist who turns back to the pyrotechnics at the BRITS. Taylor appeared in a wedding-dress-style floor-length gown, but stripped it off midway through to reveal the minimalist, racy black lace number lingering underneath. Surrounded by dancers and visual effects, she even dry-humped one of the male dancers and writhed suggestively on the floor. Later, she partied with the actress Carey Mulligan and her husband Marcus Mumford of the award-winning band Mumford & Sons. She also danced with Rizzle Kicks singer Jordan Stephens.
In October 2013, she set a record when she won a prestigious country music industry award for the sixth time. The Nashville Songwriters Association International named her Songwriter/Artist of the Year for the sixth year running. Previously, the only artists to equal her were the five-time winners Alan Jackson and Vince Gill. Her exceptional standing is heightened by the fact that she is the youngest artist ever to win the award.
She was thrilled by the honour and took the opportunity to announce that she would open her own school. The Taylor Swift Education Center will open at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville. The establishment will be spread across two floors and three classrooms. It has come into being as the result of a generous $4 million donation that she gave back in 2012. Through the school, she hopes children will be given a better chance than her to nurture their musical roots. ‘In school, I was taught a certain amount about music, a certain amount about theatre, and that interest sparked something in me. It made me look elsewhere to learn much more about it,’ said Taylor. ‘I think, for me, it’s just going to be so interesting to see Nashville continue to be this hub for music, and this hub for music education.’
Taylor has also become something of an ambassador for Nashville. She has even convinced Ed Sheeran of its charms. ‘Oh, I definitely did,’ she told news agency Associated Press. ‘Ed loves Nashville. You know, so many people live here now. It’s really exciting, because nobody who comes here … doesn’t like it, and it just makes me proud to live here and it makes me proud to make music here and I love it. I just love it becoming such an exciting place to live.’ She sometimes has to pinch herself to remember the days before she first visited Nashville, when she was waging a campaign to persuade her parents to take her there so she could have a crack at building just the sort of career she now enjoys.
Taylor had won so many awards over the years that an internet joke had been created on the matter. Photographs of her looking – or at least trying to look – shocked as her name was announced at various ceremonies became an internet ‘meme’, loosely titled ‘Taylor Swift’s surprised face’. However, while awards bashes are enjoyable and receiving honours at them a thrill, there is always a sense that industry politics might be behind some of the selections. Artists measure their success in many different ways, but an authentic yardstick remains the number of records sold. In January 2013, Taylor became the first artist since The Beatles to spend six weeks or more at number one in the Billboard charts wi
th three consecutive studio albums. There was – and can be – no arguing with such a fact.
Another important sales stat came days later when the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) released its figures for 2012. The data revealed that Taylor had earned the year’s highest album certification, scoring triple-platinum certification for ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’, with several other singles hitting platinum status.
She released a single called ‘Sweeter Than Fiction’ in the autumn of 2013. It was taken from the movie soundtrack for the film One Chance. The track has a levity and a dreamy tone that makes it feel like a throwback to her earlier years. The film is based on the life of Britain’s Got Talent winner Paul Potts, and Taylor said she has been inspired by Potts. ‘Getting to see the struggles and triumphs of someone who never stopped chasing what he was after really inspired me,’ she said. ‘It’s a beautiful movie and I just wanted to share it with everybody.’
Having set the bar so high with Red, there is all the more fascination over what Taylor’s next album will sound like. A restless artist, she is determined to bring an original feel to the music, while remaining true to her goal of singing about real-life, authentic experiences. ‘I think the goal for the next album is to continue to change, and never change in the same way twice,’ she told Associated Press. ‘How do I write these figurative diary entries in ways that I’ve never written them before and to a sonic backdrop that I’ve never explored before? It’s my fifth album, which is crazy to think about, but I think what I’m noticing about it so far is it’s definitely taking a different turn than anything I’ve done before.’
So she will continue to write about her own life, covering her feelings about relationships with the trademark honesty that has served her so well. Some have criticised her for this, turning her into a caricature of a needy or vengeful woman scorned. Taylor is having none of this accusation – and in addressing it, she shows that her feminist pride is alive and well. ‘For a female to write about her feelings,’ she told the Sydney Morning Herald, ‘and then be portrayed as some clingy, insane, desperate girlfriend in need of making you marry her and have kids with her, I think that’s taking something that potentially should be celebrated – a woman writing about her feelings in a confessional way – and turning it and twisting it into something that is frankly a little sexist.’
With regards to the openness of her lyrics, Taylor was once asked whether there was a line she would not cross when songwriting. Was there, she was asked, a part of her psyche or experience that she would consider too intimate to express lyrically? ‘I don’t think that I’ve ever experienced that line before,’ she said. It is the prospect of such honest songwriting that keeps her feeling fresh and enthusiastic about her craft. Having already released four albums, she has written and recorded dozens of songs. This is not to mention the many tracks she will have written and cast aside. ‘The reason why I keep doing it is because it’s like a message in a bottle,’ she said. ‘You can put this message in a bottle, throw it out into the ocean and maybe someday the person that you wrote that song about is going to hear it and understand exactly how you felt. I think that’s what keeps drawing me to songwriting: the spontaneity of how you can get an idea at four in the morning or while walking through the airport, and also the fact that it’s conveying a message to someone that’s more real than what you had the courage to say in person.’
However, her playing around with styles for the new album has also pushed her closer to her roots. While Taylor fears that she might one day stand still as an artist, refusing to broach new genres, she also tends to resist change for change’s sake. She has seen – to her despair – such an approach from other artists. ‘The most terrible let-down as a listener for me is when I’m listening to a song and I see what they were trying to do,’ she told the New Yorker. Like, where there’s a dance break that doesn’t make any sense, there’s a rap that shouldn’t be there, there’s like a beat change that’s, like, the coolest, hippest thing this six months – but it has nothing to do with the feeling, it has nothing to do with the emotion, it has nothing to do with the lyric. I never want to put things in songs just because that might make them popular, like, on the more rhythmic stations or in dance clubs.’ Expectant fans will not have to wait long for the new album, if her words in November 2013 are anything to go by. ‘I’ve got a lot of time to write more, but it’s really looking promising so far … It’s way ahead of schedule,’ she told Rolling Stone. ‘So I’m really stoked for you to hear it.’
She was as excited for her fans as she was for herself. Taylor is protective and proud of her fans. In an era where fans of bands such as One Direction and acts such as Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga have been known to send death threats to people perceived to have ‘wronged’ their heroes, Taylor feels the Swifties are of a different and higher calibre. ‘I just feel so proud that my fans are always nice to other fans,’ she told the Digital Spy website. ‘They don’t say hateful things. They don’t say they’re going to set people on fire or anything. They’re not sending death threats to other people.’
The countless dramas that seem to erupt among Beliebers, 1D fans and other fanbases seem largely to elude the Swifty community. They had plenty to smile about as this book went to press. So did Taylor. In the winter of 2013, she had a royal engagement, which could have gone by quietly and formally. However, as it turned out, the evening would make headlines around the world. The Winter Whites charity gala in London was held to raise funds for the homeless charity Centrepoint. Held at Kensington Palace, the climax of the evening came when veteran rocker Jon Bon Jovi took to the stage with his acoustic guitar. He began to sing his signature hit, the anthem that is ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’. No surprise there – but then Prince William and Taylor joined him at the microphone.
Taylor led the Duke of Cambridge to the stage and they stood either side of Bon Jovi as he sang the first verse. Taylor danced enthusiastically, while William stood looking fairly awkward. (Though, by the somewhat traditional standards of the British monarchy, he was doing fairly well.) As the two joined in on the chorus, Taylor even managed a heart sign with her hands on the word ‘love’. Considering the occasion and who she was sharing the stage with, Taylor was commendably matter-of-fact about the experience. She even offered a double high-five to William – an offer he happily accepted. She then encouraged Bon Jovi, who was at risk of taking the song into a prolonged instrumental section, to bring it back to the chorus. She was doing a duet with the future King of England, while directing one of rock music’s most legendary figures. Yet she treated the occasion as if this was what she did most nights of the week.
The entire episode was as surreal as it was brilliant. Rumours soon spread that she was planning to buy property in London and move to the capital. She had just won four awards at the American Music Awards, including Artist of the Year and Favourite Female Artist in both the pop/rock and country categories. The fourth award she picked up on the night was for the best country album, for Red. As she collected it she said: ‘This validates that if you voted for this, that we are heartbroken in the same way and we fall in love the same way and we’re happy in the same way, and if you listen to this, we’re on the same page … we’re pretty much in it together.’
Her income for 2013 was set to be higher than the $60 million she is reported to have made in 2012 – a figure which equalled the income of Beatles legend Sir Paul McCartney for the same year. What an exciting 12 months it was for Taylor. Throughout the year, she must have paused whenever she could to try to make sense of where she had come from. It is tempting to consider that the process which took her to fame was some sort of master plan, with Taylor and her parents treading a carefully considered path and pooling their respective talents: Taylor’s creativity; her father’s business nous; her mother’s poise and determination. Yet, while there is truth to such a narrative, Taylor and the Swifts were, to a large extent, busking it. Asked by NPR whether she had always
been convinced she would make it, Taylor replied: ‘No, actually.’ She added: ‘I was never convinced I was going to make it. And I look back – my mom and I reminisce about this all the time, because we had no idea what we were doing. My parents bought books on what the music industry was like. They had no idea what the music industry entailed and what was involved with it.’
Some of Taylor’s greatest admirers in the industry argue that her songwriting is her richest talent. Many composers, particularly in the country music world, have found that their ability improves as they grow older. Life experience can wither a songwriter’s connection with the youth-driven world of pop. In the wise, knowing sphere of country music, experience only enriches the craft. In the future, Taylor wants to draw more on her creativity than her performance. ‘When I’m 40 and nobody wants to see me in a sparkly dress any more, I’ll be like: “Cool, I’ll just go in the studio and write songs for kids.” It’s looking like a good pension plan.’
It is, but there’s a lot of water yet to flow under the bridge before then. And right now, the world can’t get enough of Taylor Swift. She’s a force to be reckoned with in today’s music industry, and it looks like she’s here to stay.
On the stupidity of being in love …
Taylor Swift Page 16
