There is no denying that Taylor Swift is the most ubiquitous name in the world right now. The Tortured Poets Department holds the record for the biggest Spotify debut of all time, while besting Swift’s first–week sales record by more than 600,000 sales. Her highly successful Eras Tour is still on its victory lap, finishing strong in its remaining European dates. The accompanying movie film is the highest–grossing concert film of all time, while her romance with Travis Kelce has dominated the gossip magazines this past year. Swiftmania has reached new heights, and she is unstoppable.
If you’ve been on Twitter in the past two months, you’ve probably heard the story of the Wicked Witch of the West by now, but if not, here’s how it goes. On May 17, Billie Eilish released her third studio album HIT ME HARD AND SOFT. Just one day before, Taylor Nation—Swift’s official fan account—announced that she was releasing three special digital albums of TTPD, each featuring one voice draft demo detailing her writing process. The Eilish camp responded with sped–up and slowed–down versions of all of HMHAS’s tracks, sealing the deal for a race to number one on the Billboard 200 albums chart. Swift ultimately won, securing a fifth week at the top, while Eilish spent the subsequent weeks sitting at a begrudging number two.
Once might be an accident, twice is a coincidence. When Charli xcx released her cultural phenomenon, BRAT, in early June, she too found herself in a chart race for number one on the UK Albums chart. Originally, Swift wasn’t even a player, and Charli was competing against the iconic rock band Bon Jovi. Yet, seemingly coinciding with Swift’s UK tour dates, the Swift camp released six UK–only digital albums on Thursday night, hours before the end of the tracking period for the week. Of course, it’s worth mentioning Charli also issued a deluxe release, Brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not, during the same week, further raising the stakes of the race. Yet, Swift again reigned supreme, and TTPD snatched another week in the UK, making it her longest–reigning number one album in the region.
All the players in the above two scenarios didn’t do anything particularly out of the ordinary, and the most devoted Swifties online will tell you that this is only friendly competition. They might have a point, but the internet backlash against Swift has been building up and, frankly, is worth examining. It begs the question: Has Taylor Swift become a victim of her own success?
One of the core issues behind the backlash is how Swift is redefining what it means for an album to have reissues and variants. Multiple artists have played around with various chart tactics in the past to gain an advantage on the music charts, such as discounting digital song sales, releasing exclusive CDs, and repackaging songs with sped–up, slowed–down, acapella, and instrumental versions, to name a few. Reissues and deluxe albums traditionally include a variety of bonus material; think Lady Gaga repackaging her debut The Fame with an entire conceptual EP The Fame Monster, serving as the yin and yang of a full project. This isn’t a new phenomenon, and the olden days “Tour t–shirt with CD bundle” served the same purpose as the modern–day “Espresso EP” filled with “Double Shot” and “Decaf” versions: boosting chart performance.
What’s unique about Swift is her team’s capitalist purist ideals. In the weeks before releasing TTPD, her team announced four vinyl variants: “The Manuscript,” “The Albatross,” “The Bolter,” and “The Black Dog,” each containing one additional track in the tracklist corresponding to the variant name. Fans thought they were getting an exclusive bonus track to their vinyl. Surprise! That wasn’t the case. All four of these songs were available following the release of the full Anthology album, released just two hours after the original. Subsequent digital–only variants follow the same practice: You’d have to buy the entire standard album to get one additional voice memo or acoustic track. Totaling up all the different editions, Swift and her team released 34 variants of The Tortured Poets Department, with who knows how many more as she has yet to do the same with the Anthology album.
It’s a fair argument to say that not everyone is a dedicated Swiftie and will buy all 34 editions. But still, enough of them are doing it that sustains this practice for the charts and also continues to shelve money to Swift at a moment’s notice. Swift has amassed a large enough fan base that any release of hers will be rapidly and exponentially consumed, and any criticism of such practices will be denounced as misogynistic. In reality, this exploitative practice asks fans to rebuy multiple versions of songs they will never listen to again for one bonus song at a delightful $4.99. (A standard iTunes purchase for a single song is $1.29.)
But let’s say you aren’t disturbed about the cash–grabbing prospects of a billionaire. After all, it is your money, free to spend however you wish. What should bother you, at least, is Swift’s (or at least her team’s) duplicitous nature with other female artists. For a girl who has once sang “We all got crowns,” she seems less than excited about sharing hers with another woman, even for one week. There was no reason for Swift to block Eilish, a younger artist coming off of a semi–sophomore slump. Swift releasing UK–only variants during BRAT’s debut week also seems targeted and too convenient timing when early predictions start shifting towards Swift’s favor.
Defenders of this argument will point out that if Swift can remain at number one, then she has every right to take it. One might even point out that she “graciously” allowed Dua Lipa’s Radical Optimism and Gracie Abrams’ The Secret of Us to hit number one in the UK for one week. Furthermore, Eilish’s comments about excessive vinyl production were interpreted as a dig into Swift’s release practices with Midnights. But as a woman whose messaging is about uplifting other women, as she has famously done in her acceptance speech for the Woman of the Decade Award at the 2019 Billboard Women in Music Awards, her actions don’t match her messaging. Is her allowing other women to be chart–toppers meant to be a sign of her “grace,” or should it be a representation of strong women in music? Why can’t she allow other women to lead, unless she’s the one leading them?
It’s even more peculiar when we consider the fact that Charli xcx opened for Swift’s Reputation Stadium Tour a few years back. Yet, it took one album for the two to launch into a full–on cold war. This also wouldn’t be the first time Swift gave the cold shoulder to an artist she previously purported to support—Olivia Rodrigo tends to come up within the same conversation due to a sampling dispute. Rodrigo, who was a massive fan of Swift, had to give a large part of the royalties of “deju vu” to the Swift camp for sounding “similar” to “Cruel Summer,” even if the similarities border on inspiration rather than direct sampling. While Charli has openly addressed that she has no beef with Swift, this still doesn’t rule out any potential foul play from an artist that wanted to support other female artists.
These concerns are great and commonly delved into as fodder for the everyday Stan Twitter debate. What I, as a semi–dedicated Swiftie, am more concerned about is what’s next in store. Swift still has two more albums left to rerecord—reputation and her self–titled debut. There are already reports of her creating TS12, ready for release next year. Bearing in mind, she has released eight projects since 2020, with all of them breaking one record after the other, usually all her own prior achievements.
All of this would be grand and dandy if the quality of all of these projects had matched the caliber of the sales and records. folklore and evermore certainly did, and Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version) captured the magic that made the original albums highlights of her career. Somewhere along the line, corners are being cut. Midnights was decent, but TTPD sounded like a folklore/evermore rehash with none of its original soul. 1989 (Taylor’s Version) saw a myriad of production issues and a lack of depth that the original blockbuster had. The Eras Tour film alone had three separate cuts, with the full version only found on Disney+.
What’s worse is that Swift will continue to be rewarded for her efforts, however little they are. With no one else capable of matching any of Swift’s caliber at this time, there is the risk of being complacent in one’s artistry. What made her a star in the first place were her daring bold choices to expand her craft. Her transition into pop in 1989 was her letting go of her country past, and folklore redefined her abilities as a songwriter, especially after the lukewarm reception of Lover. Other stars, like Charli xcx, can capture the cultural zeitgeist by being unabashedly and unafraid to fail. Even Charli’s “chart–boosting behavior,” like her remixes with Addison Rae, Robyn, and Lorde, adds to her artistry and makes her a more well–rounded and exciting artist; Swift’s features, like Post Malone and Lana Del Rey, are relegated to background singers.
I’m sure Swifties encountering this article will attempt to find my information online in an attempt to call me out for being a “woman hater” or someone who is on the “Taylor hate train.” I’m not. Swift makes music that I enjoy that encapsulates formative experiences growing up. I’m worried that an artist so culturally relevant is normalizing behavior we normally would call out and dare them to do better. If you’re at the top all the time, then who is going to give you the reality check that you sorely need? That is the question I don’t have the answer to, but I sure hope Taylor Alison Swift can find an answer. Otherwise, it’s only a matter of time before the Swiftmania spacecraft falls back down.
