How the artist’s influence extends beyond her songs and the music industry

I confess: I’ve never heard a Taylor Swift song.

 

 

I can’t name or hum one of her tunes. I do know that she is a billion-dollar music machine, a smart and savvy businesswoman, a symbol of women’s empowerment and an inspiration to young women everywhere.

The “Swift effect” has become a force in both U.S. domestic politics and international relations. She’s a billionaire with millions of followers who idolize her. Governments court her to schedule concerts in their country. Her relationship with Travis Kelce, a star professional football player whose team is heading to the Super Bowl, has elevated Swift to new heights of obsession — and not of the good type. Their relationship has become one of the weirdest conspiracy theories to make the rounds — allegedly a ploy to secure U.S. President Joe Biden a second term.

Swift’s bio is a great story. Born in Pennsylvania in 1989, she quickly showed musical talent and signed an artist development deal at 13. She pressed her family to move to Nashville to advance her career; they did so when she was 14 and she soon signed a songwriting contract with Sony. Her first album, “Taylor Swift,” was released in 2006. It topped the Country Music charts — 24 weeks as No. 1 — and spent nearly 5½ years on the Billboard 200.

 

 

 

After a series of hit records, she moved to New York and transitioned to pop music, a move that did not hurt her appeal or her sales. In 2019, her music catalog was sold to a publishing company, whose founder, Scooter Braun, Swift claimed had bullied her early in her career. She has since re-recorded and re-released all those early albums.

Swift has shown a ferocious commitment to her independence, refusing to let others define her music, her career or limit her choices. She has not shied away from fights when confronted — along with Braun, she’s squared off against Kanye West, his former wife Kim Kardashian and Katy Perry, among others — and has displayed a maturity and equanimity that few have matched, especially given the scrutiny that comes with the spotlight.

This is all good fodder for the arts and culture section, but we need serious material to warrant space on the opinion page. This brings us to the “Swift effect,” a phenomenon that manifests in two ways: economic benefits and soft power.

The economic benefits are easy to see. Swift’s Eras tour last year sold 4.35 million tickets over 60 dates and was the first musical tour to generate $1 billion in revenue. The tour continues this year and is expected to earn another billion. The film from that show, “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” earned more than $260 million worldwide and has become the top-grossing concert film of all time.

Swift herself is thought to have made more than $2 billion last year, according to Billboard. The Washington Post reckons those earnings exceeded the annual economic output of 42 nations in 2022.

 

She’s not the only one to benefit. Legions of loyal fans travel to the concerts and spend lots of money in the process. The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia credits Swift for lifting hotel occupation rates in the city to pre-pandemic levels. Two concerts in Denver are estimated to have contributed $140 million to Colorado’s gross domestic product. Six shows in Los Angeles generated $320 million, creating 3,300 jobs, $20 million in sales and local sales tax and another $9 million in hotel room taxes. The U.S. Travel Association estimates that the 2023 tour had an economic impact of at least $10 billion.

No wonder, then, that foreign governments were eager to get her to schedule shows in their countries when Swift announced last year that she was extending the tour. She received an invitation from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — after members of Parliament complained that the initial schedule, which included no dates in the country, was a “snub”; Swift subsequently added nine shows in Toronto and Vancouver — as well as the president of Chile, the mayor of Budapest and the leader of a Thai opposition party.

Writing in Semafor last year, J.D. Capelouto argued that “the tour has become such a cultural juggernaut that simply hosting a show gives a city bragging rights and its own news cycle.” He concluded that “Right now, it feels like the No. 1 sign of global clout is whether Taylor Swift is coming to town.”

Dan Drezner, the iconoclastic international relations professor who, among other things, wrote a very serious and thoughtful book about how his field would assess a zombie apocalypse, is a Swift fan. For him, having a Swift concert is a “prestige competition” like the space race or hosting a major sporting event like the Olympics or the World Cup. There is “the soft power benefit of signaling to other countries that Taylor Swift is cool with performing there.”

Theorizing then goes off the rails. If Swift’s stamp of approval is one thing in international relations, it is quite another for some in the fever swamps of U.S. politics. You’d think that a blonde popstar falling for the hunky pro football player of a flyover state is the quintessential conservative trope: classic gender roles and the idealized social order.

Yet the far right sees this romance as part of a plot to help Joe Biden win the 2024 presidential election. They reason like this:

Swift is dating Travis Kelce, record-setting tight end for the Super Bowl-bound Kansas City Chiefs. Kelce is a free-spirited iconoclast who has done public service announcements that encouraged people to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Combine that record with Swift’s support for Democratic candidates in her home state of Tennessee and Donald Trump’s backers are convinced that the NFL is in the tank for the Chiefs.

A right-wing radio host explained that “The NFL is totally RIGGED for the Kansas City Chiefs, Taylor Swift, Mr. Pfizer (Travis Kelce). … Calling it now: KC wins, goes to Super Bowl, Swift comes out at the halftime show and ‘endorses’ Joe Biden with Kelce at midfield.”

In one especially nefarious telling, Swift is a Pentagon PSYOP, or psychological operation. For proof, a Fox news host showed a clip from a 2019 NATO conference that identified Swift as “a powerful influencer.” The Pentagon has dismissed the charge, taking the idea more seriously than it deserves to be.

This fever was sparked by news that Swift’s appearance at Chief’s games had taken NFL viewership to the highest levels since last year’s Super Bowl, as millions of girls and women tuned in with hopes of catching a glimpse of their heroine. According to one estimate, Swift’s relationship with Kelce and her appearances generated $331.5 million in equivalent brand value for the Chiefs and the NFL. This, exploded Stephen Miller, architect of Trump’s most extreme immigration policies, “is not organic.”

It’s not, but neither was the seismic activity — the equivalent of a magnitude 2.3 earthquake — triggered by 70,000 dancing fans at her Seattle concert. Demonizing her and antagonizing her fans, taunting that elemental force, doesn’t seem smart. Even Newt Gingrich, the Republican firebrand who relishes a fight, doesn’t think going after her is good politics.

For once, I agree with him. It is remarkable that a young woman whose creativity, passion and independence, admired by publics and courted by governments from Chile to Canada, is the target of such animus. The contortions required to make a case against her are silly, if not desperate.

If I knew any Taylor Swift songs, I’d end this with a pithy reference to one of her songs. A quick Wikipedia search yielded two: She can taunt her critics with “I bet you think about me” and they can shrug off any responsibility for such idiocy with “Look what you made me do.” (And no, I can’t hum either song.)