The serious business of pop music
It will be 60 years in June since the Beatles toured New Zealand and brought the exciting new phenomenon known as Beatlemania with them. Some readers may even have distant memories of screaming at the concerts, screaming at the airport or joining a crowd to scream outside a hotel. That is what Beatlemania meant. It was a mass fad, a collective teenage delusion, but it was mostly treated as harmless fun despite the occasional arched eyebrow from older generations, including those who wrote editorials in newspapers. It was a break from post-war conservatism and gestured to generational change to come.
Even the stars thought their time in the limelight would be brief. “The Beatles themselves regard their careers as gay, but short,” a reporter wrote in The Press when the “four ordinary, natural boys” landed in Christchurch. How times have changed: the Beatles are remembered but that earlier meaning of “gay” has long since been abandoned. They are more than remembered, of course. They remain one of the most influential and enduring cultural products of the 20th century.
Which brings us to Taylor Swift. Swiftmania skipped New Zealand and we can leave the ratepayers of Auckland to argue about whether Eden Park should have been available for the gigantic stage production Swift takes with her, or whether Mt Eden residents deserved peace and quiet and a good night’s sleep. Instead, Swiftmania hit Australia in a big way. Her seven concerts were reportedly worth $320 million to the Australian economy and were seen by 600,000 people. The Beatles played half-hour sets in town halls but Swift played for three and a half hours in stadiums.
Her global Eras tour is already the highest-grossing concert tour of all time and it is still only halfway through. Yet there is a subset of the population that regards coverage of Swift and her impact, both economic and cultural, as trivial. There is a sense that news about Swift is somehow unserious, just as there is a belief that the media themselves are preoccupied with things that are unserious, or to use that ubiquitous but hideous word, “woke”. You may have seen some of this in response to the devastating likely closure of Newshub.
At its worst, a view that Swift is somehow unserious is not simply ageist and culturally disconnected, but it is also misogynistic. It doubts that a woman’s economic and cultural influence could possibly be so important, especially as her audience is predominantly young and female.
In an article published by the Harvard Gazette in 2023, simply titled “So what exactly makes Taylor Swift so great?”, poet Stephanie Burt has some answers.
It’s really about the songs, Burt says. It’s about songs that convey feelings and tell stories. It’s about words. Burt estimates that Swift’s entire body of songwriting so far has “a larger number of words than any body of comparable hit songs by a comparable songwriter, except for someone like Bob Dylan”.
It was controversial when Dylan deservedly won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Now imagine the uproar if Swift did.
Swift even has political clout. An endorsement from Swift could make or break Joe Biden’s chances against Donald Trump, as a Newsweek poll found that 18% of respondents were likely to vote for a candidate Swift backed.
In the Harvard Gazette article, Alexandra Gold, a clinical fellow in psychology at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, talks about Swift’s social and emotional bond with her fans, her relatability, and the way her life story maps onto those of her listeners. Her business sense, and her independence, is another key part of that story.
“Overall, she’s been really important for identity development and growth for a lot of people,” Gold says.
We saw the relatability, identification and emotional bond in Australia last month. You couldn’t miss it. The fan community that forms around Swift has its own life. But there was another part to it, which is that Swift is a role model, “a great example of someone who sticks to their values and shows their fan base that they can reach their goals, whatever they may be”.
That might sound hokey to some of us but it isn’t. We live in dark times in which solutions to our shared problems seem more and more impossible. Many of us are losing trust in institutions and official information. We feel helpless about war, climate change and economic conditions, to pick just three. Some light and hope is vital, along with entertainment. Will her meaning last, though? Is it real? Feel free to check back in 60 years.
An endorsement from Taylor Swift could make or break Joe Biden’s chances against Donald Trump.