How Taylor Swift has ruled her career with an iron fist… since she was 9

But above all, Taylor Swift is a true businesswoman who disrupts the codes of the music world and who orchestrates a well-crafted business strategy. Latest news to date, the release on October 13 of her first film “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour”, a documentary on her sixth and current “Eras” tour. The feature film was so anticipated that the premieres of several other films were postponed. “The Eras Tour” grossed $2.8 million in the United States and more than $123.5 million worldwide in the first weekend alone. A cherry on the cake of Taylor Swift who literally embodies the “American dream”.

The will, at nine years old already

Born in the small town of Reading, Pennsylvania, Taylor Swift had a father who was a financial advisor and a stay-at-home mother who took care of her and her little brother Austin. The family is practicing Catholic, and the young girl goes to church every Sunday where she sings in the choir alongside her grandmother, a former opera singer. “She was one of my first inspirations.”, explains Taylor Swift. At nine years old, she won a national poetry competition with her poem A Monster In My Closet and participated in his first musical comedies. The little girl regularly went to Broadway to take singing and acting lessons and passed several auditions in New York, but without success. Taylor Swift then became interested in country music and sang on weekends at local festivals, cafes and hospitals. At just eleven years old, she convinced her mother to take her to Nashville, Tennessee, on vacation to meet with music labels. However, she understands that “everyone in this town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So I kept telling myself that I had to find a way to differentiate myself.”. The following year, she learned to play guitar and wrote her first song lucky you with its low level.

“She is the only one to reconcile Republicans and Democrats in the USA”: Taylor Swift, businesswoman who succeeds where others fail

At 14, his father was transferred to Nashville and the whole family moved: “My parents saw that it was really an obsession, that I wasn’t going to give up and that it wasn’t a teenage whim. They were thrown in there […] We had no idea what we were doing. My parents bought me a book about the music industry.” Taylor Swift began her artistic development with RCA Records, which she left at the age of 15, the label wishing to wait until she was of age to release her first album when she felt ready: “I wanted to take the opportunity to record what I was going through into an album.”

Taylor Swift was one of the first artists on the Big Machine Records label, with whom she produced her self-titled debut album in 2006. Then everything came together. Now a country music star, she releases a second album Fearless, the best-selling album in the United States in 2009, and embarked on its first world tour.

“She dominates every sector of the music industry”

Today, the pop star is on her tenth album. “She dominates all sectors of the music industryanalyzes Christophe Pirenne, professor of history of pop music and cultural policies at ULiège. Taylor Swift is present both in streaming and on the radio and she is the one who sells the most CDs and vinyls, including among teenagers! Against all expectations, it is number one in sales in independent music stores, often associated with a sophisticated and older clientele.”

Unlike most pop stars like Beyoncé or Miley Cyrus, who are sometimes surrounded by more than twenty different people to write a song, she composes herself and highlights this more romantic model: “The music you listen to, I write it.”. “She has surrounded herself with an excellent marketing team and, unlike many other superstars, manages to maintain close ties with her fans.supports Isabelle Schuiling, professor of marketing at the Louvain School of Management at UCLouvain.

Every day, Taylor Swift gets a little closer to becoming the first billionaire singer thanks to her music alone, with her personal fortune estimated by the magazine Forbes at $740 million.

“Artists should own their work”

Like many young artists, Taylor Swift signed in 2006 with the label Big Machine Records, which accompanied her on her first six albums. But in 2019, the label was bought by Scooter Braun, a music industry mogul who is also the manager of Justin Bieber and Kanye West. That’s too much control for Taylor Swift, who is convinced that “artists should own their work”. Determined, she sued Scooter Braun in order to buy out her contract, but lost it, American law not being in her favor. Never mind, she decides… to re-record all her albums. By changing some musical arrangements, these become new works to which the singer this time has the rights. Before her, Prince, George Michael, Jay-Z and Kanye West had already fought to get their recordings back. But none had thought of producing a new version.

In a few dates

December 13, 1989: Born in Reading, Pennsylvania

2006: Release of her first album “Taylor Swift”

2009: First world tour “Fearless Tour”

2021: Taylor Swift begins re-recording her first albums to reclaim the rights

October 13, 2023: Release of her first film “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour”