Sprinkler Splashes to Fireplace Ashes: Taylor Swift's Infinite Versatility
“Taylor Swift shortened her career last night…Yes, her dream came true, she made it, she’s a star, but the real test is longevity…Will Taylor Swift be performing with the stars of the 2030s? Doubtful.” So said renowned hater-slash-critic Bob Lefsetz in a cutting review of Swift’s performance of “Rhiannon” with Stevie Nicks at the 2010 Grammy Awards (which then inspired the Grammy-winning song “Mean” on Swift’s third album, Speak Now).
Lefsetz was later proven extremely wrong – on October 21, 2022, Swift released her tenth studio album, Midnights, her twelfth album total when counting her re-recorded Taylor’s Version albums, and broke countless records, not only for her own career, but the music industry in general. She was the first artist to accumulate one billion streams in just one week on Spotify, and she occupied the entire top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, being the first artist to ever do so, and also being the reason that a male artist was not present at all on the list for the first time ever.
Swift’s everlasting relevance lies in her ability to constantly reinvent herself. This makes her body of work a cinematic experience: a visual, sonic, and emotional investment. Swift has not only written and performed in nearly every genre, but has succeeded and broken ground in each. Known as “eras,” each album rollout means the unveiling of a new Taylor, who acts as a protagonist in the story the album tells.
Art by Kate Rispoli
The Taylor in her first three albums, Taylor Swift, Fearless, and Speak Now is the down-to-earth girl-next-door, self-effacing heroine straight out of an early 2000s teen drama. Red Taylor is nostalgic, heartbroken, and experiencing the beautiful chaos of being twenty-two years old. 1989 Taylor gets a haircut, moves to Manhattan, and muddles through a toxic but thrilling situationship through the lens of her Polaroid camera. Reputation Taylor has finally found true love in her darkest time as she plots revenge on those who have scorned her. Lover Taylor is swept up in the addictive high of love, and wants to advocate for those whose love has been infringed upon by ruling powers. Folklore and Evermore Taylor is a witch who’s been alive for hundreds of years, living in the forest and reflecting on love affairs from her past by her fireplace. Midnights Taylor is reflective to a fault, able to look at things with clarity and hindsight, but it often leaves her sleep-deprived and lonely.
The cinematic quality of her work is then further layered with literal work in the film industry: she’s acted from a young age, lending her talents to cameos in Valentine’s Day, The Giver, The Lorax, even an episode of New Girl. She now dabbles in the filmmaking process itself, through writing and directing her own music videos. Upon the release of Red (Taylor’s Version) in November 2021, Swift released the critically-acclaimed, award-winning All Too Well: The Short Film, a long-form video for her magnum opus song “All Too Well (10 Minute Version).”
Megan Riley ‘24, a self-proclaimed lifelong Swiftie, believes the distinction between eras is important, as it gives Swift’s fan base an opportunity to “scrapbook and itemize their own lives” and experiences. Riley says she often looks back on her own life according to which Taylor Swift album was her favorite at the time. “1989 is my favorite because it was all I listened to in middle school. It reminds me of my friends going on dates for the first time, going to school dances, being a preteen girl, which I love, because I feel like I’ve been one for twenty years now.”
Distinction between eras is ultimately what got Lauren Carter ‘24 back into Swift’s music after losing touch with her for a few years. “I loved her as a kid. Speak Now was one of the first albums I ever listened to all the way through,” Carter says. When Swift released Folklore during the summer of 2020, it was a total departure from the radio-friendly pop that had dominated her catalog preceding it. This shift in genre appealed to Carter, and made her want to revisit the eras she’d missed. “I like sad, folk-y music. Folklore is about heartbreak but not in the way she wrote about it before. It’s more about internal struggle.” After falling in love with Folklore, then getting to college and befriending several diehard Swifties, Carter came to appreciate the “rebellious, young energy” of Swift’s older works, too.
Ultimately, with any case of fandom, the obsession certainly has a lot to do with the talent of the artist themselves. Yet the majority of it pertains to the consumer’s personal experience. Swift’s constant growth and evolution while remaining authentic makes her continuously relevant and relatable, as there’s always something new to pull from her work. She has a song for every conceivable mood, situation, and genre. Putting her music on shuffle might mean one song sounds polar opposite from the next, but the throughline is the constant truth and poetic sharpness–and yes, there’s even a place for, “You’re so gorgeous, I can’t say anything to your face, ‘cause look at your face.”
So, to give my own answer to Bob Lefsetz’s question from all those years ago: Will Taylor Swift be performing with the stars of the 2030s? I think we now know the real answer all too well.