How Taylor Swift became Person of the Year

American singer Taylor Swift became Time magazine’s Person of the Year. The list of contenders for this title this year included Russian President Vladimir Putin (he had already been awarded it in 2007), Chinese President Xi Jinping, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the new King of Great Britain Charles III and the Barbie doll, which became the heroine of the box office film of the year. Igor Gavrilov – about the advantages of Taylor Swift over competitors.

“As a businesswoman, she has built an empire that, by some estimates, is worth more than a billion dollars,” states Sam Lansky in a Time Magazine cover story about the most important people of the past year. It is known that Taylor Swift has sold $400 million worth of her music in various formats, and concerts brought her $370 million. Also in 2023, the film “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” was released in theaters about her world tour, which covered five continents and will continue and in 2024. At the same time, the film was produced by Swift’s own company, which entered into direct agreements with cinemas, bypassing intermediaries.

Bloomberg Economics estimates that the singer’s concerts in 2023 brought US GDP $4.3 billion. Concerts are not only about playing music, but also about many jobs, electricity, logistics, insurance, taxes, etc. You won’t immediately remember when This is the last time the media so actively discussed the economics of a pop artist’s tour. When an aura of not only a cultural, but also an economic phenomenon is created around a singer, it is impossible not to pay attention to it. And added to this are little things like the news of a micro-earthquake caused by a Taylor Swift concert in Seattle.

The PR people who made the world talk about Taylor Swift as something more than a pop phenomenon deserve her special thanks, and they certainly got it. Like all members of the singer’s huge team. The total amount of bonuses that the singer issued to her associates was $55 million. Only the drivers of trailers with her equipment received a bonus of $100 thousand each.

The re-released 2014 album “1989” also helped Taylor Swift get rich. She not only publishes new albums, but also completely re-records old ones in order to control the hit soundtracks (in the original versions they belonged to the Big Machine record company). Songs from the re-released album “1989” again flew into the American charts, effectively blocking the opportunity for many young and not so young artists to get into serious positions. With such marketing pressure, it could not have been otherwise.

“Swift? Russia has been switched off!” – one of the most common jokes on social networks about the current “Person of the Year”. Seriously, Taylor Swift has never been particularly popular in Russia. In those days when Western stadium stars still came to us on tour, the possibility of her coming was not the first thing they talked about. This fact is one of the features of domestic taste.

“As a pop star, she is in small company alongside Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and Madonna; as a songwriter, she has been compared to Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell,” Time gushes in its cover story. This would never even occur to the average domestic music consumer. And we’re not even talking about his conservative taste. Billie Eilish, Ed Sheeran, Imagine Dragons and Harry Styles are loved here no less than throughout the world. It’s just that the Taylor Swift phenomenon is too rooted in American soil, her first achievements were too connected with country culture, which is not at all “sold” in Russia. Taylor Swift has not had a single hit that would have been hot enough on local FM radio, and her songs do not occupy a key place in the soundtrack in any of our favorite films. A common comment on Russian-language social networks is: “I know who it is, but I don’t remember a single song of hers.” And the point here is not only that she was not promoted enough here, but that her repertoire for the Russian ear is too flat and insipid, she couldn’t really hook anyone here with anything. The fact that Swift was recognized as “Person of the Year” is important not because we love her or not, but because in a year overloaded with politics, the magazine put in first place not a politician, but a man of art who wants to conquer or defeat no one, except him competitors in the charts. But this is a bloodless victory.