Whether you’re at a school dance, a social gathering amongst friends, or even shopping at your local mall- popular songs that go on to be ear worms play at all of these events. More than likely, with or without your consent, you’ve heard a Taylor Swift song.
Taylor Swift, the twentieth century’s most prolific singer/songwriter, has produced over 274 songs in the span of 20 years. With 12 albums after the recent release of The Life of a Showgirl, Swift has garnered over 86,171,359 monthly listeners on Spotify; and has made an estimated $1.6 billion from her music sales and her infamous Eras Tour.
$1.6 billion is a number most of us cannot even conceptualize. It is an impressive achievement to acquire that much money in less than two decades. Multiple other high-ranking individuals such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Bernard Arnault have billions of dollars as well. However, these men don’t try to hide under false pretenses. But, Swift has built a brand for herself, nay— a name for herself. But what separates her name from her brand? Is her brand… just a facade?
Throughout her discography, Swift attempts to relate to people such as you and I, writing songs about awkward teenage affection, new chapters in life, and the pressures of trying to succeed in life. A blatant truth stands between you and Swift though— one has a multi-million dollar brand, has tour tickets resell for thousands of dollars, and charters private jets; and one -most likely- does not.
In June of 2019, Scooter Braun bought Big Machine Record Labels, which in turn, bought the rights to Swift’s first six albums. “Outraged” by this, Swift vowed to re-record and re-release those albums. Fearless (Taylor’s Version) alone makes Swift an estimated $758,430 per month since the album was re-released. Red (Taylor’s Version) made an estimated $1,405,618 PER MONTH since its release.
Those are the numbers from only TWO of the FOUR re-releases. Swift sold Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) vinyl for $50.99.
In an interview with CBS Swift talked about the process of re-recording her first few albums.
“I think that artists deserve to own their work. I just feel very passionately about that.” Swift said.
If it was truly about owning her work, I would be more on board to support these new re-releases. BUT— she could have easily sold these albums for pennies on the dime, still made money, and got her art back. She didn’t do that. She sold the albums for almost double the original price without doubling the content.
Within the month of August, Swift announced her twelfth album: The Life of a Showgirl. This album contains 12 songs, yet already has six variants. These vinyls cost $29.99. Each variant, when announced, was only available in the store for 48 hours or “while supplies last.” Yet again, trying to make as much money as possible.
In 2023, the Eras Tour began its run. This tour produced $2.08 billion from just ticket sales. These tickets at face value ranged from $49 to $449. They were then resold for double, triple, even quadruple the price on various reselling websites.
Swift never came out with a way to stop bots from snatching tickets before real fans could. After the first sale, she made an Instagram story apologizing for the chaos. Nothing after, nothing since. Because of the major scalping, Texas and Michigan Law Makers enacted “Taylor Swift Bills.” These bills took further steps to ensure that more real fans could purchase tickets at their face value.
Because of the bots, Swift realized that many fans did not have the chance to see her live. Like she does best, she capitalized on this realization. In late August of 2023, Swift announced that her world tour would be coming to theaters. The prices for this movie were $19.89 for adults and $13.13 for children. These numbers are direct references to Swift and her music, which leads me to believe that her team set these high prices themselves.
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour had a global box office earning of well over $260 million. She directly negotiated with various movie theaters to take a share of 57% of the U.S. box office takings. The typical amount is around 40%. She then sold the streaming rights to Disney+ for $75 million.
Now, this is all coming from someone who would consider themself a fan of Taylor Swift’s music. The argument could be made that Swift isn’t shoving the variants down your throat, she isn’t forcing you to enter your credit card information for $1000 Eras tickets. However, her brand is being a small-town girl who just wanted to write stories about her life. I don’t think trying at every chance to obtain as much money as humanly possible is her brand. If you’re a fan of Taylor Swift, be cautious. Because at every step she is attempting to exploit your loyal fanship for her own capital gain.
