Taylor Swift’s Unbelievable Rise: From Country Princess to Billionaire Queen—How America’s Sweetheart Took Over the Music Industry and Shattered Records! Inside the Untold Story of Swift’s Meteoric Transformation, Secret Power Moves, and the Fortune That Made Her the Most Influential Woman in Music—Exclusive Details Revealed!

How did Taylor Swift go from “country music princess” to female billionaire dominating the music industry “The Music Industry”?

“The Epochs of Taylor Swift” became the highest-grossing concert film in Vietnam after less than two weeks of premiere, with the resounding success of this film, the name Taylor Swift once again rose to the waves of Vietnamese media.

Taylor Alison Swift, born in 1989, is the most awarded female artist on the planet (with 1115 nominations and 562 awards), she owns the most award-winning Pop album in history (1989) as well as the most award-winning country album in history (Fearless). No artist or band in U.S. history has owned as many as 6 albums that have sold more than 1 MILLION copies in the first week domestically like Taylor Swift.

In the era of streaming platforms, she continued to set records for vinyl sales, with nearly 700,000 copies sold in the first week of her 1989 album (Taylor’s Version), with an estimated 1 in 15 vinyl records sold this year in the U.S. by Taylor Swift. Referring to the streaming era, Taylor is also unharmed by keeping up with the times, becoming the artist with the highest monthly listeners on Spotify, and holding countless streaming records in days, weeks, months, quarters, and years on this platform. Apple Music also recently named her Artist of the Year, and revealed that she is the most streamed female artist on their platform.

It can be said that Taylor Swift sweeps in every measure of success, whether it is appreciation from critics, or sales, streaming, touring,… Journalist Barbara Walters once made a famous comment in Bloomberg Businessweek magazine in 2014: “Taylor Swift IS the music industry”; And in 2023, that saying has been proven to be the right statement. After 17 years in the profession, Taylor Swift is at the peak of her career more than ever.

Journalist Barbara Walters, 2014

So how did a 16-year-old girl who composed and performed country music, a genre of music that was not yet popular globally at that time, rise to become a dominant force in the music industry, become a female billionaire with revenue made only from music?

From Taylor Swift to Country Princess

Taylor Swift’s Childhood Days

Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, in West Reading, Pennsylvania. She grew up in a well-off “model” family, along with her parents and younger brother. From a young age, Taylor showed her poetry ability, when she won the national poetry writing contest in grade 4, with the poem “Monster in My Closet”. In the same year, Taylor began to travel to New York City to take voice training and acting classes.

Inspired by country music names such as Shania Twain and Faith Hill, she expressed her passion for this genre. At the age of 11, Taylor and her mother traveled to Nashville to send demo recordings to record labels, including karaoke performances of songs by Dolly Parton and the Dixie Chicks. But she has been rejected by many places, some of which say that she is just a “Britney wannabe”. “Everyone there has the same goals as me. So, I asked myself, I need to think of a different direction,” Taylor shared.

She began learning to play the guitar at the age of 12, and with the help of a kind neighbor, helped her compose her first song “Lucky You”. With the support of her parents, in 2003, Taylor began to have contracts with major record labels, including RCA Records, they decided to keep her in an artist development agreement and she began making many trips to Nashville with her mother. In order to help her grow further in the country music industry, when Taylor was 14 years old, her family moved to Tennessee. On a concert night at Bluebird Cafe in Nashville in 2005, Taylor caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, the director of DreamWorks Records, as he was preparing to start his independent record label, Big Machine Records. She became one of the first to sign with the company, and her father bought back a 3 percent stake in the fledgling company for an estimated $120,000. It can be seen that the support of her family during Taylor’s pre-career period is huge, which is why family and friendship are quite familiar themes in many of her songs.

Rising in the country music industry

After signing with Big Machine, Taylor began writing and producing her debut album of the same name, which was released in 2006. The album produced many chart-topping singles such as “Our Song” and “Teardrops On My Guitar”, especially “Our Song” which reached No. 1 Hot Country Songs, making Taylor the youngest artist to have a self-written song topping the prestigious U.S. music charts. The album has also earned her numerous awards, with Taylor being one of two recipients of the Nashville Musicians Association’s “Artist/Artist of the Year” award in 2007, becoming the youngest recipient of the award. She was also nominated for “Best New Artist” at the Grammys – the largest music award on the planet. It can be said that her debut album “Taylor Swift” is a solid stepping stone to gradually bring her to the title of “princess of country music”.

“Fearless Tour”, grossed $63 million

In late 2008, Taylor released “Fearless”, her second studio album. Timeless songs such as “Love Story” or “You Belong With Me” are all included in this album, helping to bring her name to the global public, contributing significantly to making country music more popular. “Fearless” reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200, and became the best-selling album of 2009 in the United States. To promote the album, she embarked on her first tour called the Fearless Tour, which grossed US$63 million. The album “Fearless” received the Grammys’ most prestigious award – “Album of the Year” – making Taylor the youngest artist to receive this award at the time, the album also received 3 more Grammys that night, along with countless awards at other music awards. and became the most award-winning country music album in music history. At this point in her career, Taylor Swift was known to the public as the Princess of Country Music.

Taylor has nothing but “write music for his ex”

“Ex-lover” is probably a topic that is talked about a lot by the media and the public when it comes to Taylor Swift, partly because this is a topic that Taylor mentions quite a bit in her music, her official love affairs, long and short, including 10 people in total: singer-actor Joe Jonas, actor Taylor Lautner, singer John Mayer, actor Jake Gyllenhaal, Conor Kennedy (nephew of former U.S. President John F Kennedy), singer Harry Styles, DJ Calvin Harris, actor Tom Hiddleston, actor Joe Alwyn, and currently rugby star Travis Kelce.

As an artist who participates in the process of composing all her songs, it is only natural that she shares her feelings and experiences in music, just like many other artists also share about their love lives in their music. However, Taylor Swift was labeled by the media as a “mass dater” and jokes “be careful, Taylor Swift will write a song about you” became popular. Spanning nearly 20 years of an adult’s career, it is completely normal to fall in love and compose music about that experience, however, because the topic of celebrity dating has never ceased to be hot, the constant “digging” of her private life by the press has inadvertently painted an image of “a girl who travels around the world to collect men but can’t keep them”, an image that Taylor himself later sarcastically repainted in his hit Blank Space (2014).

The image of “crazy ex-girlfriend” is full of satire in the hit Blank Space

Many people who don’t really listen to Taylor’s music and are somewhat influenced by the headlines “she only writes music about her ex” will easily make the same statement. But her music touches more problems than they think. It’s family and friends, it’s the process of growing up, it’s the struggles in life, and it’s politics.

Themes in Taylor’s music

As mentioned above, family is a recurring theme in Taylor’s song, “The Best Day” is a typical example, the song pays tribute to her mother who has always been by her side through difficult times, and there is a mention of her father and brother near the end of the song. “Never Grow Up” is a song about the time she watched her younger brother grow up, and she reflects on her own growth process, the difficulties of being an adult. Taylor’s friends have also become the main characters in some of her songs, such as her best friend from high school Abigail who was the inspiration for the song “Fifteen”.

Taylor Swift received the Milestone Award with her mother Andrea Swift

In recent years, Taylor Swift has been more vocal on political issues, both speaking directly and sharing through music. Issues such as gender equality (song “The Man”), young people going to vote (song “Only The Young”), supporting the LGBTQ+ community (song “You Need To Calm Down”), the hardships of frontline forces fighting the Covid epidemic (song “Epiphany”),.. are some of the painful political and social issues that she brings into her music. In the documentary “Miss Americana”, she once shared the reason she faced pressure from the public and from the label early in her career, that she had to keep a “good girl” image and not speak out about politics, but this opinion changed when she realized that her voice would have an impact on the public and especially young people, and she should fight for the values she believes in.

Taylor Swift Supports LGBTQ+ Community in “You Need To Calm Down”

In addition to the above themes, she also has many hits about self-love, the difficulties in the life of a young adult person, the fears and guilt of herself, betrayal and revenge,.. All of them are extremely familiar and close to many people, which is also the reason why many people can see themselves in the music she composes.

What else does Taylor do besides music?

Taylor’s compassion and rich soul are not only shown through music, but also through her actions with those around her. Until now, she has always been known as a celebrity who is diligent in charity, for many years she has been honored on the DoSomething.org page, being the celebrity who spends the largest amount of charity money in the year. She has provided financial support to cancer patients, victims of sexual harassment, disaster relief organizations, food banks along her Eras Tour, and more.

Taylor visits a young fan at New York Cancer Center

With her own friends, too, Taylor assisted Kesha with $250,000 in a high-profile lawsuit in 2014, and recently helped Sophie Turner, letting her mother and daughter live in her New York City apartment after Sophie’s divorce from Joe Jonas. Taylor also always has boundless love for her fans, helping many fans with financial difficulties, such as supporting college tuition for a poor student, or buying a house for a homeless pregnant friend. She has also invited fans from all over the world to her home many times and played the new album to them before the release date. And vice versa, she has also been to her home, or hospital, to visit her fans who are seriously ill, and at the same time give them VIP tickets to her tours. She also wrote the song Ronan for a boy who died of cancer just days before his fourth birthday, Taylor was inspired by the blog of Maya Thompson, Ronan’s mother, to compose the song, which she also credits Maya as a co-writer. and all proceeds from this song are donated to charity to raise awareness and fight against cancer. Thanking her fans has always been Taylor’s catchphrase whenever she receives an award or achieves something, building a strong relationship with fans from the beginning of her career is an important factor in having a “strong” fandom like Swifties is now.

The people who “stormed” Taylor Swift’s life

Drama with the Kim family – Kanye West

“I swear I don’t love the drama, it loves me”

Although Taylor Swift herself does not actively seek trouble, trouble still comes to her in many different ways.

It all started from the moment Taylor accepted the award at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2009 and was snatched from the mic by rapper Kanye West (Ye), not to congratulate but to protest against her receiving the award. Taylor Swift at the age of 19 was shocked by the actions of her senior, Kanye, and stood silent for a long time, the incident also had a significant impact on Taylor’s psychology after that. It seemed that the relationship between the two was healed when Kanye apologized to Taylor, the two went out to dinner together, and in 2015 Kanye even sent a rose to Taylor after she went on stage to award him at the VMAs that year; however, Kanye released the song Famous with the offensive lyric “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex // Why? I made that bitch famous”, along with the MV with images of nude wax statues of many artists in the world, including Taylor’s, of course, and she had a critical response to the lyrics.

Kanye West slammed Taylor’s mic at the 2009 VMAs

Immediately, Kanye’s wife at the time, Kim Kardashian, posted a clip of the call between Kanye and Taylor about the song, however, the clip was cut to sway public opinion that Taylor was a liar. The media at that time was no different from “bees breaking the hive”, dividing factions, but it can be seen that the plot twist “good girl gone bad” is loved by many people, so Taylor had to receive countless criticisms from the media and the online community. The hashtag #TaylorSwiftIsOverParty rampant on social media, culminating when Kim posted a tweet “Wait it’s legit National Snake Day?!?!? They have holidays for everybody, I mean everything these days!” with the implication that “Taylor is as cunning as a poisonous snake”, leading to many people dropping snake icons all over Taylor Swift’s social media platforms.

Kim Kardashian implies Taylor Swift is “snake” on Twitter

She went into hiding for a year afterwards, and wiped out social media, posting only one snake video, before making a spectacular comeback with Look What You Made Me Do, paving the way for a reputation album. This single quickly topped many charts, surpassing the then super hit Despacito on Billboard. A few days after the release of the song, she released a viral MV, with countless “easter eggs” and hidden messages in it, one of the most prominent images from the MV must be mentioned the image of the “king snake”, Taylor Swift sitting on a throne with countless snakes around; then the image of Taylor standing at the top of the tower, below are all the other “old Taylors”, trying to climb to the top without being able to, closing with a lyric “I’m sorry, but the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, cause she’s dead”.

The image of Taylor standing at the top of the tower, below is all the other “old Taylors”

This snake image also became a theme throughout the reputation stadium tour, which was the highest-grossing tour in North America at the time. From an image used as a “weapon” against her, Taylor Swift has made it her brand, the giant snake Karyn is nearly 20 meters tall on the reputation tour stage has become an unforgettable symbol in the eyes of the public.

The event that led to Taylor Swift’s decision to re-record 6 albums

Shortly before the end of the label tour, Taylor announced that she would be signing with a new label – Republic Records, UMG – and leaving her old label Big Machine Records after many years together. She also shared that in the contract with the new label, she will have the right to own her original recordings (master recordings). This is a rarity in the music industry because for most artists, the label will be the owner of their masters, as well as Taylor herself, Big Machine Records owns the rights to her first six albums.

In her announcement, she also thanked Big Machine president Scott Borchetta, who signed Taylor when she was just 15 years old, and Scott reciprocated. It seemed that the relationship between the two sides was still good, until the news broke in the press: “Scooter Braun acquires Big Machine Records, along with Taylor Swift’s entire album, for more than $300 million.” Taylor Swift posted a letter on social media, sharing that Scooter Braun was behind her cyberbullying incidents (as evidenced by Justin Bieber posting photos on Instagram with Kanye and Scooter after the incident of the song “Famous” with the caption Taylor, Scooter was Justin’s manager at the time). And now he has deprived her of the fruits of her life’s work.

“This is Scooter Braun, bullying me on social media at my worst time. He’s going to own all of my music,” Taylor said in his letter.

“This is the worst scenario for me,” Taylor said, after revealing that she had tried to negotiate the acquisition of her own master album, but was given the condition that, with each subsequent album she released under Big Machine, she would have the right to buy back one of her old albums. Unable to accept being caught in this loop, Taylor chose to leave, she also anticipated that her albums would be sold by Scott, which she could not predict who would buy them.

Many negotiations took place after that, but none came to fruition. Taylor Swift was adamant that she didn’t want Scooter to profit from her art, so she announced her decision to re-record all of her first six albums, calling them Taylor’s Version. This isn’t the first time an artist has done this, but the massive success of Taylor’s Version albums is certainly unprecedented. Her relentless struggle against injustice in the music industry has inspired countless artists, especially young and emerging artists, to be more aware of the contracts they will sign.

“Taylor’s Version” albums to date

Rising from the ashes: From a country princess to the woman who dominated the music industry

Transforming with Pop

After the success of her first three country albums, Taylor Swift began experimenting with pure Pop songs, first on the album Red, with global hits such as “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” (WANEGBT), “I Knew You Were Trouble” or “22”.

“We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” tại RED Tour

The single that paved the way for Red’s album, WANEGBT, became Taylor’s first No. 1 hit in the United States, rose to number one on the iTunes charts after only 50 minutes of its release, being the fastest-selling song in digital history, registering the Guinness World Record at the time. These vibrant, catchy Pop hits once again elevated Taylor’s global fame. Taylor’s album Red follows Taylor’s string of sales achievements, opening at number one on Billboard with 1.21 million copies in the first week in the United States, making her the first female artist in history to have two albums to do so, continuing to be registered in Guinness World Records. The album was also critically acclaimed, brought home many awards, and received 4 Grammys nominations that year, including “Album of the Year”. The Red Tour grossed more than $150 million, making it the highest-grossing tour by a country artist in history.

1989 – milestone with Taylor Swift’s Pop

Such a resounding success, but this is just Taylor Swift trying her hand at Pop, “Red” itself is still a country music album. It wasn’t until 2014 that she really transformed and officially switched to Pop, with her first Pop album, “1989”.

1989 Photoshoot album

The name of the album is the year of her birth, and Taylor says she chose the name with the meaning of her own rebirth. It can be said that the success of this album is one of the notable milestones in the history of the music industry. “1989” opened with 1.28 million copies in its first week in the United States, Taylor went on to earn a Guinness World Record when she became the first artist to have three albums that sold more than a million copies in her first week on the shelves. The album brought in three Billboard No. 1 singles, “Shake It Off”, “Blank Space”, and “Bad Blood”, all three songs with music videos with billions of views on Youtube. With the MV “Blank Space” becoming the fastest video to reach 1 billion views on the Vevo system.

“1989” earned Taylor numerous awards: three prestigious Grammys including “Album of the Year”, making her the first female artist in history to take home the trophy twice, four MTV Video Music Awards in 2015, Billboard’s “Woman of the Year” award, “Dick Clark for Excellence” at the American Music Awards AMAs, and the BMI Pop Awards honored her with “The Taylor Swift Award”, only two artists in history to be awarded by BMI to their own names, Michael Jackson and Taylor Swift, and those are just a few of the outstanding awards. Not long after, “1989” became the most awarded Pop album in history.

“1989” brought Taylor 03 prestigious Grammys including “Album of the Year”

At the end of 2015, Taylor launched the world tour “The 1989 World Tour”, which grossed $250 million, becoming the highest-grossing tour of 2015, topping the list of the highest grossing of the decade. This was a turning point in Taylor’s career, bringing her to a new peak in terms of coverage, up to this point, the public no longer referred to her as the “Princess of Country Music”, but as “Global Superstar”.

Reaching out with Alternative

Taylor continued to pursue Pop music in the next two albums, “reputation” and “Lover”, both of which were also commercial successes, however, an incident occurred that caused the “Lover” era to be interrupted, which was the global Covid pandemic. The tour for this album was delayed for months, and finally had to be canceled, as the pandemic continued with unpredictable conditions in many countries.

But the pandemic also did not stop her creativity and passion for work, on July 23, 2020, Taylor suddenly announced on social networks, that she would release her new album, called folklore, at midnight on the same day. The announcement has shocked the online community, when this is completely unprecedented, usually she will always have a long time to prepare for the release and promotion of the album, from the time of announcement to the time of release up to several months, and not only for Taylor but many other artists as well. The release of such a surprise album is really a breath of fresh air.

And it’s not the only surprise, as she continues to transform again with a new genre, Alternative. The album was immediately received with an extremely positive attitude from the public and critics. Despite not being the most popular genre, and a surprise release with no prior promotion, “folklore” still sold more than two million copies worldwide in its first week, while breaking many records for streaming music online.

Taylor Swift thông báo album “folklore”

Taylor really pushed her songwriting abilities to the fullest on this album, as she really focused on the art and was no longer bound by industry standards about how songs should be hits, or be able to perform on tour. Not only that, just 5 months later, she continued to unexpectedly release her second album of the year, “evermore”, which she called “sister album” with “folklore”, she felt that her songwriting inspiration was still abundant, so she continued rather than wanting to stop with just one album.

It can be said that “folklore” and “evermore” are the pinnacle of scholarship in Taylor Swift’s music career. And this was further proven when “folklore” convincingly won the prestigious “Album of the Year” award at the Grammys, making her the first female artist in history to do this three times. These two albums have also become a spiritual healing medicine for many people during that time of crisis, having to isolate society.

“folklore” wins the prestigious “Album of the Year” award at the Grammys

Branding & Marketing: The “card” that helps make female music billionaire Taylor Swift

Not only has creativity and non-stop songwriting ability in music, Taylor is also extremely connoisseurs in branding and promoting her image.

In each era of each album, Taylor will always have very typical images according to the theme of that era, from hairstyles, makeup, to fashion. This is also evident in her artworks, a prime example of which is the snake image – an image that was once used as a weapon to bully her online – which Taylor herself used as a theme throughout the “reputation” era, from wearing rings, to wearing rings, necklaces, and many other jewelry in the shape of snakes, to wearing clothes with snake patterns, transforming into the snake queen in the music video, and bringing giant snakes to the stage of the Reputation Tour – the highest-grossing tour in North American history at that time. From a negative to a tool to earn hundreds of millions of dollars, it was an excellent move from Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift with Karyn – the giant serpent on the reputation tour stage

The relationship between Taylor and her fan community is also “one-of-a-kind”. Not only promoting music simply, Taylor has always sought to release “hints”, “clues” in her posts, images, lyrics, or MVs, or funny quizzes, word puzzles, so that fans are excited while waiting for the album to be released, typically the puzzle fever to “unlock” the new song title in the 1989 album (Taylor’s Version), every time the keyword “Taylor Swift” is searched on Google, a mini-game will appear for users to play, and Swifties worldwide has worked together to solve a total of 33 million puzzles in less than 24 hours. The way she promotes the Midnights album is also extremely creative, taking advantage of the media power of Tik Tok, every three days, she posts a clip of Tik Tok filming the bingo lottery, revealing the names of each song in this album one by one.

Taylor’s connection with fans was further clarified during The Eras Tour. Understanding the needs of fans because she has not had the opportunity to tour for 5 years, as well as many albums that have never been performed, she decided to continuously perform 45 songs in a show that lasted more than 3 hours.

Perhaps many of you in Vietnam have also had the opportunity to go to see the movie tour at the theater, and witness the professionalism in both the audio and visual parts of this tour. Every detail of the image on the big screen, to the visuals on the stage, is meticulously invested, the stage itself is also a screen, used very cleverly to create an extremely gorgeous visual effect. In particular, there is the creative visual deception, when Taylor jumps down the stage, and the whole stage shows Taylor swimming towards the big screen.

The massive stage of The Eras Tour

Taylor’s powerful dancers also contributed equally to this performance, not only showing off their beautiful choreography, they were also tried as actors, playing the characters in her songs. And of course, the star of the show, lead actress Taylor Swift, performed her role excellently, singing and dancing for more than 3 hours, always full of energy until the last song.

And at each show, she will perform 2 “surprise songs”, which is a tradition between her and her fans, these surprise songs are not fixed in the setlist, and will be randomly selected by her for each show, so that fans have the opportunity to listen to their favorite songs but not named in the performance setlist. Taylor also listens to the wishes of fans on social media, and seeks to please her fans, making the relationship between her and fans even stronger. It is her understanding of fans, along with hard work, focus, and persistent creativity that has made her an unstoppable force in the music industry.

Taylor and the dancers said goodbye to the audience before the end of the show

More than just music

Taylor Swift’s influence on the economy

Taylor Swift’s influence is not only within the music industry, but extends to the economy as a whole.

Analysts estimate that the Eras Tour will surpass the $1 billion mark in sales by March 2024, and if this becomes a reality, Taylor Swift will reach the biggest milestone in tour history, surpassing Elton John’s years-long farewell tour. But that’s only the surface, as The Eras Tour is estimated to generate $5 billion in consumer spending in the U.S. alone. “If Taylor Swift is considered an economy, she will surpass 50 countries in the world,” said Dan Fleetwood, president of QuestionPro Research and Insights.

QuestionPro’s estimate of the impact of the Eras Tour on the domestic economy

Typically, every $100 spent on live performances will generate about $300 spent on things like hotels, food, and transportation. But for the Eras Tour, the Swifties — Taylor Swift’s fan community, are taking this to the next level, with spending around $1,300-$1,500 on things like clothing, merchandise, food and travel — boosting the local economy by hundreds of millions of dollars over the weekend alone. The governor of Illinois (USA) noted that Taylor Swift has revived the state’s tourism industry after just three nights in Chicago. She was even mentioned in a report by the US Federal Reserve, which credited her as the one who boosted the national tourism industry.

Not only that, Taylor Swift continues to provide much-needed impetus to the American economy as her new film sets a new box office record. AMC Theaters estimates that “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” earned between $95 million and $97 million in ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada, beating Justin Bieber’s 2011 blockbuster “Never Say Never,” which grossed $73 million, becoming the best opening grossing ever for a concert film. during the weekend of its premiere.

Fighting for equal rights for artists

As an artist, and also aware of her influence, Taylor Swift has always sought to fight for equal rights for her colleagues, especially new and young artists.

The first can be mentioned the struggle between her and the big names in the industry, namely Apple Music and Spotify. In 2015, a few days after the launch of the new Apple Music platform, it was confirmed that Taylor Swift’s hugely successful album “1989” would not be available on the platform. Taylor later sent a letter to Apple on her Tumblr page, detailing exactly why she didn’t provide her album.

She raised the issue of Apple not paying any royalties to artists or labels during the first three-month free trial period on Apple Music. Taylor said in the letter, “Three months is a long period of unpaid time, and it’s unfair to ask anyone to work unpaid… We don’t ask Apple to provide free iPhones. Please don’t ask us to provide music to Apple without remuneration.” She also made it clear that this is not her personal financial problem: “This is not about me… “This is about new artists or bands who have just released their first song and won’t get paid for its success.” It was this letter that caused Apply’s management to change its mind, and change its policy shortly afterwards.

As for Spotify, Taylor withdrew all of his music from the platform at the end of 2014, for the same reason. “Music is art, art is very important and rare. Important and rare things are valuable. Things of value must be paid. In my opinion, music shouldn’t be free… I hope artists won’t have to underestimate themselves or underestimate their art,” Taylor said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. She had been away from the streaming service for three years, officially returning in 2017, a few months before the release of her “reputation” album. In 2018, in a contract with her current label, Republic Records of Universal Music Group (UMG), she made a provision that UMG would hand over to its artists a portion of Spotify’s profits in the future.

This was followed by her struggle to own the masters of the first 6 albums, as mentioned above, the resounding success of the re-recorded albums, as well as the public speaking out about the terms of the contract, which raised the awareness of the public and especially the artist a lot on these important issues. as well as inspiring them to fight for their rights.

Fighting for gender equality

Not only for the artist, Taylor also fights relentlessly for women and gender equality, starting from expressing her opinion in her own music, with songs like “The Man” or “Mad Woman”. She also shared in many interviews about the discrimination and double standards of the media and public opinion towards female artists, their dating lives, and the fact that they write music about their exes, compared to men.

The famous lawsuit between Taylor and DJ David Mueller is a good example of her struggle and voice. During a 2013 meeting, Taylor was groped and sexually harassed by David, Taylor’s security team then met with the person in person at the chicken wing and accused him of harassment, which led to his being fired by the radio station he was working for. In 2015, this person filed a defamation lawsuit against Taylor Swift, saying that he never harassed her, alleging that due to false statements he suffered unjustifiable damage, lost his job, had his image damaged, and was unreasonably banned from all of Taylor’s shows. The trial of this lawsuit took place in August 2017, with the appearance of both Taylor and David, Taylor also countersued David for sexual assault, seeking a symbolic $1 in damages. The trial ended with a victory for Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift in the trial of the sexual assault lawsuit

In a statement made by Taylor after the trial, she revealed that the reason for filing the lawsuit was to empower other victims of sexual assault. In the statement, she also pledged to donate to organizations that help fund legal costs for victims of sexual assault who want to protect themselves. The details of this incident were also shared by Taylor herself in her documentary “Miss Americana”.

In addition, the film also deals with women’s struggles with public appearance standards. This is the first time Taylor has revealed that she has experienced an eating disorder, “… When I look at a photo of myself I feel like my belly is too big, or… Someone said I looked like I was pregnant… That will make me go hungry a little bit – I’m going to stop eating.” “If you’re thin enough then you won’t get the buttocks that people want, but if you have enough weight to have a butt then your belly won’t be flat enough. It’s really impossible.” – she shared about the unrealistic standards of the female body. “I used to think it was normal to feel like I was about to faint after every show. But I’ve realized that it’s not like that, if you eat well, you’re going to have more energy, you’re going to be healthier, and you can perform all these shows without feeling so bad.”

At the moment, Taylor is more confident in herself than ever, and she has found a better way to take care of herself, and hopes her lessons will inspire many other women as well.

As a billionaire rising from music, Taylor Swift has become a prominent figure of this generation. Throughout her journey from a country girl to her global superstar, through the lessons she has experienced, from her struggles in life, to how she is passionate about working and appreciating her family, friends, colleagues, as well as her fans, We can learn a lot.

She inspires everyone, especially young people, that we need to be strong, hardworking, trying, loving ourselves and those close to us, so that when we reach our goals, we will realize that, we and those companions, have helped us reach that destination.

Let me conclude with an excerpt of Taylor Swift’s speech when she received her honorary doctorate at New York University in 2022. The excerpt probably sums up Taylor’s nearly twenty years in the profession:

“In life, you will inevitably have the following: misrepresentation, mistrusting the wrong person, reacting carelessly, overreacting, hurting unworthy people, overthinking, not thinking at all, self-sabotage, creating a reality where only your experience exists, ruining the good moments of yourself and others, denying any wrongdoing, not trying to correct it, then feeling very guilty, letting that guilt gnaw at you, hit the bottom, start to deal with the pain you have caused, try to do better next time, and so on. And I’m not going to lie, these mistakes will cost you a lot. But loss doesn’t just mean loss. Many times in life, when we lose a lot of things, we also gain a lot of things.”

Taylor Swift received an honorary doctorate from New York University, 2022