Alice Hudson - Taylor Swift: A Life in Music

S ince emerging on the country-pop scene with 2006s self-titled debut album, Taylor Swift has established herself as one of the hottest acts on the planet, constantly evolving as an artist while breaking chart records and dominating awards ceremonies. Shes an inspiration to a new generation of artists too, not only for her music but for her work in empowering musicians, in particular her ongoing re-recording of her back catalogue to gain legal control of her music.

By the age of 24, Taylor had released four multiplatinum-selling studio albums, undertaken three sell-out world tours and amassed a gigantic fortune. In May 2012, Forbes named her the worlds highest paid celebrity under 30 beating Justin Bieber and Rihanna with earnings in the previous 12 months topping US$57 million, whilst in 2014, Billboard put her at the top of its annual Money Makers list.

Unsurprisingly, it didnt take long for the awards to start piling up. In 2008 Taylor won New Female Vocalist Of The Year at the Academy Of Country Music Awards, the first of an incredible eight categories shes won at the awards to date. The same year, she cleaned up at the American Music Awards, winning five of the prestigious categories, including Artist Of The Year since then shes become the most decorated artist in the history of the awards, with a staggering 34 so far. In 2009, aged just 20, she became the youngest person in history to take the gong for Album Of The Year at the Grammy Awards for Fearless . Shes won Album Of The Year twice since, for 1989 (2016) and Folklore (2021), and few would bet against her adding to her Grammy haul at future ceremonies. And thats just the start BRIT Awards, MTV Awards, Peoples Choice Awards. Taylor ran out of space on the mantlepiece long ago!

Since Red , shes somehow raised the stakes. Her 2014 album, 1989 , saw her country roots set aside in favour of stadium-ready synth pop and became an enormous hit, selling over 10 million copies worldwide and featuring a string of international No. 1 singles. Taylor followed it up with the dramatic electro-pop of 2017s Reputation and a record-breaking tour before the altogether brighter Lover , the worlds best-selling album of 2019 and the last in her 12-year contract with the record label Big Machine. While promoting Lover , Taylor revealed that Big Machine had refused to let her buy the masters of her back catalogue, saying that she had to record an entirely new album for them before theyd sell to her. Taylor refused and in October 2020, Big Machine sold her masters for a reported $300 million the following month, Taylor began to take back control by starting the process of re-recording her back catalogue.

As if that wasnt enough to keep her busy, 2020 saw Taylor release two entirely new albums the mature, folk-tinged Folklore and Evermore that became the most critically-acclaimed albums of her career while setting new streaming records. Taylor was named the highest-paid musician in the US and highest-paid solo musician worldwide in 2020. Since then, her re-recordings of Fearless and Red have been released, which have seen Taylor expanding on the original albums, adding songs written at the time and revamping tracks, most notably with Red s fan-favourite All Too Well, which was extended to its original 10-minute length and, when released as a single in November 2021, became the longest song ever to top the US Billboard chart.

As her fame has increased, Taylor has had to deal with an enormous amount of scrutiny from the media and fans alike. When Vogue asked her in 2012 if she ever got freaked out, she initially responded, This is what Ive wanted to do my whole life. However, she then quickly added, But you know what does freak me out? When is the other shoe going to drop? I am so happy right now. So I am always living in fear. This cant be real, right? This cant really be my life.

But since then, the pressure on Taylor has become truly staggering and overwhelming. Her personal life has been made public, with her relationships endlessly discussed in celebrity magazines and on social media. Her business dealings are a matter of public record. Shes been put under pressure to talk about her political views in the press. Supposed disagreements with other musicians (Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Kanye West) have been the subject of hot gossip, however minor (or even untrue) the spats may have been. Taylor confided to The Guardian s Laura Snapes back in 2019 that the stress nearly broke her. Every domino fell It became really terrifying for anyone to even know where I was. And I felt completely incapable of doing or saying anything publicly, at all. Even about my music. I always said I wouldnt talk about what was happening personally, because that was a personal time I just need some things that are mine Just some things.

The burden of such huge fame comes with a personal cost, but Taylor has been grounded enough to weather the storm. In recent years, shes thrown herself into making increasingly mature, contemplative music while being more guarded when it comes to her personal life. In 2020, Taylor and Paul McCartney (one of the few musicians on the planet qualified to give her advice on dealing with fame) had a conversation for Rolling Stone , in which Taylor talked about the song Peace, from Folklore , reflecting, Being in the relationship I am in now, I have definitely made decisions that have made my life feel more like a real life and less like just a storyline to be commented on in tabloids. Whether thats deciding where to live, who to hang out with, when to not take a picture the idea of privacy feels so strange to try to explain, but its really just trying to find bits of normalcy.