Berliner Boersenzeitung - Taylor Swift: music's record-breaking, money-raking, headline-making deity

EUR -
AED 4.26841
AFN 80.362394
ALL 97.542216
AMD 446.735356
ANG 2.080099
AOA 1065.794205
ARS 1481.767207
AUD 1.776887
AWG 2.092071
AZN 1.980459
BAM 1.954642
BBD 2.348809
BDT 141.226338
BGN 1.956132
BHD 0.43834
BIF 3466.946195
BMD 1.162261
BND 1.493215
BOB 8.038238
BRL 6.486005
BSD 1.163311
BTN 100.147673
BWP 15.618748
BYN 3.807045
BYR 22780.325028
BZD 2.336716
CAD 1.596076
CDF 3354.287055
CHF 0.932981
CLF 0.029194
CLP 1120.296341
CNY 8.342655
CNH 8.346165
COP 4674.330945
CRC 587.052233
CUC 1.162261
CUP 30.799929
CVE 110.199718
CZK 24.634179
DJF 206.947405
DKK 7.463699
DOP 70.258379
DZD 151.514244
EGP 57.439973
ERN 17.433922
ETB 161.636047
FJD 2.620788
FKP 0.866445
GBP 0.86668
GEL 3.150183
GGP 0.866445
GHS 12.127816
GIP 0.866445
GMD 83.106172
GNF 10094.020343
GTQ 8.931709
GYD 243.385819
HKD 9.121487
HNL 30.445964
HRK 7.532663
HTG 152.739518
HUF 398.923459
IDR 18977.696027
ILS 3.908598
IMP 0.866445
INR 100.127437
IQD 1523.897249
IRR 48945.741055
ISK 142.354235
JEP 0.866445
JMD 186.029797
JOD 0.824089
JPY 172.932309
KES 150.300962
KGS 101.640213
KHR 4662.238109
KMF 491.989694
KPW 1046.035344
KRW 1616.942576
KWD 0.355234
KYD 0.969426
KZT 620.152624
LAK 25087.138481
LBP 104232.653
LKR 350.972086
LRD 233.241828
LSL 20.596898
LTL 3.431856
LVL 0.703041
LYD 6.327252
MAD 10.519168
MDL 19.788278
MGA 5176.933206
MKD 61.523554
MMK 2440.413019
MNT 4167.702022
MOP 9.404829
MRU 46.275587
MUR 53.119698
MVR 17.903172
MWK 2017.205016
MXN 21.777182
MYR 4.935007
MZN 74.338683
NAD 20.596898
NGN 1779.387897
NIO 42.814637
NOK 11.838157
NPR 160.236077
NZD 1.94976
OMR 0.446995
PAB 1.163311
PEN 4.140847
PGK 4.817146
PHP 66.377189
PKR 331.310933
PLN 4.244785
PYG 9003.666265
QAR 4.229694
RON 5.072695
RSD 117.080642
RUB 91.375869
RWF 1681.00418
SAR 4.36165
SBD 9.64543
SCR 17.082281
SDG 697.942292
SEK 11.245095
SGD 1.492813
SHP 0.913355
SLE 26.62005
SLL 24372.046713
SOS 664.806172
SRD 43.245469
STD 24056.466061
STN 24.485495
SVC 10.17897
SYP 15111.55544
SZL 20.592801
THB 37.628259
TJS 11.196867
TMT 4.079538
TND 3.419874
TOP 2.722137
TRY 46.947496
TTD 7.897322
TWD 34.181766
TZS 3030.404801
UAH 48.58252
UGX 4168.530579
USD 1.162261
UYU 46.882227
UZS 14725.276806
VES 135.943958
VND 30404.760344
VUV 139.226821
WST 3.076392
XAF 655.568644
XAG 0.030448
XAU 0.000347
XCD 3.14107
XCG 2.096558
XDR 0.815317
XOF 655.568644
XPF 119.331742
YER 280.163552
ZAR 20.586499
ZMK 10461.752209
ZMW 26.785133
ZWL 374.247723
  • CMSC

    0.0900

    22.314

    +0.4%

  • CMSD

    0.0250

    22.285

    +0.11%

  • RBGPF

    0.0000

    69.04

    0%

  • SCS

    0.0400

    10.74

    +0.37%

  • RELX

    0.0300

    53

    +0.06%

  • RIO

    -0.1400

    59.33

    -0.24%

  • GSK

    0.1300

    41.45

    +0.31%

  • NGG

    0.2700

    71.48

    +0.38%

  • BP

    0.1750

    30.4

    +0.58%

  • BTI

    0.7150

    48.215

    +1.48%

  • BCC

    0.7900

    91.02

    +0.87%

  • JRI

    0.0200

    13.13

    +0.15%

  • VOD

    0.0100

    9.85

    +0.1%

  • BCE

    -0.0600

    22.445

    -0.27%

  • RYCEF

    0.1000

    12

    +0.83%

  • AZN

    -0.1200

    73.71

    -0.16%

Taylor Swift: music's record-breaking, money-raking, headline-making deity
Taylor Swift: music's record-breaking, money-raking, headline-making deity / Photo: Valerie Macon - AFP

Taylor Swift: music's record-breaking, money-raking, headline-making deity

Her name is ubiquitous, her output prolific, her tour a golden goose, her every move a headline. And nearly two decades into her career, her star simply keeps rising.

Text size:

We're talking, of course, about Taylor Swift.

After a year of shattering records, including staging the first billion-dollar-tour ever, music's reigning deity made history yet again Sunday, winning a fourth Grammy for Album of the Year, the most by any artist.

In surpassing stiff competition to win the prestigious award, the 34-year-old broke the tie she had been in with true stalwarts of the American songbook -- Frank Sinatra, Paul Simon and Stevie Wonder -- to claim the record.

"I would love to tell you that this is the best moment in my life," she said while accepting the night's top prize, but said that it was a comparable feeling to seemingly smaller moments like finishing a song.

"For me, the award is the work," said Swift, who also won the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album.

"Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to do what I 100 percent love so much! Mind blown!"

Swift is set to play a series of shows on her Eras Tour this week in Tokyo; the conversation-commanding global odyssey has already become the first to rake in more than a billion dollars.

It's set to eventually bring in an estimated $2 billion in revenue -- a staggering total.

With hundreds of millions of social media followers and a staunchly loyal fan base, she can move any dial with the tiniest of efforts, which has politicos -- and conspiracy theorists -- opining on her potential impact on the upcoming presidential election.

"You could not live in the United States and not have heard about Taylor Swift," said Kristin Lieb, an expert at Emerson College on pop, gender and branding.

"She's worked through Madonna's playbook and is now writing the early pages of the next one... it's incredible."

- Person of the year -

By some estimates, her sprawling empire is worth more than $1 billion, and the massive $93.2 million opening this fall of her tour-documenting film was but another jewel on the artist's crown.

And Swift's blossoming romance with Kansas City Chiefs football player Travis Kelce has also brought the NFL a whole new wave of fans, as Swifties track the couple's every move.

The wall-to-wall attention is not new for the singer-songwriter, who since her teenage years has seen her dating life broadcast to the world.

After all her success in 2023, Time Magazine honored Swift in its annual year-end issue as Person of the Year, calling her a "rare person who is both the writer and hero of her own story."

- Ownership -

Swift -- who was born in Pennsylvania on December 13, 1989 -- began writing songs professionally as a teenager, signing with Nashville's Big Machine Records as a country artist.

After her eponymous debut drew her a solid fan base, Swift's sophomore album "Fearless" (2008) catapulted her into the mainstream, and earned her a first Grammy for Album of the Year in 2010.

Her next albums "Speak Now" (2010) and "Red" (2012) saw her lean harder into rock and electronic influences.

By her fifth studio album, "1989," Swift had gone full pop -- and she won her second Album of the Year gramophone.

The years that followed grew increasingly taxing, she said in Time recently, as the public grew weary of constant attention on her at a moment before US society had re-examined its hyperfixation on and criticism of young female celebrities.

Her media-hyped feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian didn't help.

The difficult moment coincided with the fulfillment of her deal with Big Machine Records.

Swift decided it was time to move on and signed a major new deal with Universal that granted more agency and ownership of her own work.

But her relationship with Big Machine haunted her, as the sale of her song catalog to a private equity firm triggered a massive dispute over musicians' rights -- and a bold new era of Swift's career.

- 'Taylor's Version' -

Her cunning next move was a huge risk that perhaps only an artist of her stature and wealth could take: Swift decided she would re-record her first six albums to own their rights, urging her fans to listen to "Taylor's Version" instead of previous releases.

It worked.

Swift has sweetened her versions with previously unreleased tracks -- like the 10-minute version of "All Too Well" -- delighting ardent fans, bringing new Swifties into the fold, and earning her renewed respect within the industry.

Simultaneously, Swift has also released four albums of new work starting with 2019's "Lover," in close collaboration with in-demand Grammy-winning producer Jack Antonoff.

In the early days of the pandemic, she dropped twin folk-pop albums, "Folklore" and "Evermore," which saw her take an atmospheric turn with an emphasis on storytelling. "Folklore" won her the third Album of the Year Grammy.

With "Midnights," she returned to the arena pop vibes of her earlier hits, setting the stage for her catalog-spanning Eras Tour.

And now fans have a brand-new album to look forward to: Swift said onstage Sunday that she was dropping "The Tortured Poets Department" on April 19.

"I'm going to go and post the cover right now backstage," she said, as her declaration started going viral.

"Thank you, I love you!"

(L.Kaufmann--BBZ)