Lover or hate her: why is taylor so tricky?
As the singer turns 30, we look at why she’s so popular/not so popular at the same time…
You know how some people are like Marmite? Taylor Swift is milk: she’s a people-pleaser, cats love her… but she can turn sour very, very quickly. Yep, there’s no doubt about it: in the world of celeb popularity, Taylor is tricky.
But why? She’s one of the best-selling music artists of all time, ranked first more than once in Forbes’ Celebrity 100, has sold more than 50million albums worldwide, and has an estimated net worth of $360m. True, she won over the critics with her seventh album Lover, released in August, but there’s something undeniably cloying about the singer – with detractors labelling her “problematic” and “calculating”.
Now, as she hits the big 3-0 this month (happy birthday, Tay-tay!), heat asks: what’s the problem with Taylor?
Woe is Me!
Rewind to 2006, when a freshfaced 16-year-old Taylor entered the country charts. Her hair was cork-screw curly; the guitar, acoustic; and the cowboy boots weren’t ironic. She was Southern belle-meets-disney princess – and, over the years, she wore the tiara well, pining for her Romeo. But then something shifted – prompted, in part, by that infamous moment in 2009, when Kanye West stormed the stage at the VMAS and interrupted her acceptance speech.
From then on, Taylor was forever the “victim”, always the one being hurt by friends, lovers, the music industry at large (she pulled her music from Spotify for three years in 2014, saying they didn’t pay her enough royalties). Her run of perpetual victimhood was still going strong last month, when she posted on social media to rally fans against producers Scooter Braun and Scott Borchetta, who own her back catalogue and were preventing her from performing her old songs at the American Music Awards.
Yes, it was shockingly unfair. But her pleas to fans to let Scott and Scooter “know how you feel about this” got a bit too much – with many people urging her to “check her privilege”, while Scooter publicly begged Tay to take their battle away from Instagram, after his family received “numerous death threats”. The singer was eventually allowed to perform her old hits, but at what cost?
Look What You Made her do
Moving away from the “poor me” antics, there’s another tricky label that’s forever stalked Tay: disingenuousness. In 2016, she hit out at Kanye (him again), after he rapped on his single Famous, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex. I made that bitch famous…” Not the most inspired lyric, but after Taylor voiced her outrage, Kim Kardashian piped up, releasing a phone recording in which Taylor appeared to pre-approve the line – and thanked Kanye for asking her. Awkward.
Taylor immediately retreated from public view to lick her wounds. Then, the following year, she was back with some bite and a vengeful new sound. “I’m sorry, the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now,” she hissed in her comeback single Look What
You Made Me Do. “Why? Oh, ’cause she’s dead.” For some, it was a powerful move to take ownership of her “snakey” reputation, especially when she took the serpent motif and ran with it. But again, some yelled, “Fake!” It was edgy, but it all seemed a bit performative – especially since Taylor “dressed up” as all her past incarnations in the video. Was she just dressing up again?
Then, of course, came this year’s You Need To Calm Down. In the song and video, Taylor put on a very public display of solidarity with the LGBT community, drowning the bubblegum pink screen with high-profile LGBT stars. For some, it was celebratory and euphoric, for others, it felt a little too Pr-managed. It harked back to Taylor’s #squadgoals days – when, during her 1989 album and tour, she was purposefully becoming “cooler” and “edgier” by surrounding herself with supermodels and actresses.
Love & hate Story
The big question is: does Taylor deserve her bad, ahem, Reputation? After all, it’s not her fault that – as a tall, attractive, white woman – she’s not the most appealing underdog. Sure, she’s slagged off a lot of her “long-list of ex-lovers” in song, but you don’t see Adele or Ed Sheeran getting flak. Likewise, she tends to avoid interviews, choosing instead to connect with fans via social media, but Beyoncé does that too, and without being criticised. So, why is she so damn divisive? In the end, it’s a matter of personal taste – diehard fans cry, “Fake news!” at negative stories, her detractors just scream, “Fake!”
Us? We veer between the two – enjoying her music, but also finding her a bit tricky. Either way, she’s milking it. n
the big question is: does she deserve her reputation?