(blog article)
For over a year, the media all over the world have been buzzing about this topic — ‘The Eras Tour’ by Taylor Swift, the highest-grossing concert tour of all time. The artist put on an indeed spectacular show celebrating her music of a 20-year career. What exactly made this event stand out so much in a cultural aspect?
It is a diverse and cohesive storyline of Taylor evolving as an artist, a celebrity, a woman and a human being. So called ‘the Eras’ — are Taylor Swift’s 11 studio albums, each marked with its own distinct sonical, lyrical and visual aesthetic. Moreover, artist’s candidness about her personal experiences and feelings in her lyrics makes her whole discography extremely relatable to the audience of any age, gender or nationality.
Debut (‘Taylor Swift’): 2006-2008
It all started with a 17-year-old Taylor releasing her self-titled debut country album from Nashville, Tennessee. The pure and a little childish record covers the experiences of a typical American teenager enjoying her cowboy boots and acoustic guitar, and trying to find her place in this world.
‘Fearless’: 2008-2010
A country record with absolute hits that made Taylor famous: ‘You belong with me’ and ‘Love story.’ Still girlish, naïve and innocent, Swift explores the feelings of her first love and heartbreak, dreams about fairytales and princes, and making the world a better place for everyone.
‘Speak Now’: 2010-2012
In this slightly whimsical record, the artist starts to mix country music with pop-rock, signifying her professional and personal growth. Having already endured negative aspects of the music industry and stardom, Taylor lost some of her naivety. However, she still believes in enchanting love fairytales and tries to see goodness in others.
‘Red’: 2012-2014
Less country, more pop and rock. Usually associated with autumn, this era gives listeners an immersive experience of cozy sweaters, red scarves, pumpkin spice lattes and feelings of deep longing and heartbreak. Taylor opens up about her early adulthood, creating a cohesive sound production and lyrical narrative throughout the whole album.
‘1989’: 2014-2017
A pivotal era in Taylor’s career. ‘1989,’ is her full transition into pop music, which brought her unprecedented success. With catchy melodies, synth sounds and energetic beats, she crafted the era that is often referred to as ‘pop perfection.’ Listeners got a glimpse of how it feels to be a global superstar in your mid-20s.
‘Reputation’: 2017-2019
The previous era was exciting, but also exhausting for Swift. She dealt with eating disorder, colossal stress from touring and several major scandals and slander aimed at her. She indeed lost her good reputation — and decided to write an album about it. With fresh electropop and EDM sounds, cyber-punk and grunge visuals and aggressive lyrics, Taylor showed the world she has a backbone and is capable of handling it all. During this era, the audience gets to know how, despite the death of her reputation, Taylor got happier, healthier and found her true love.
‘Lover’: 2019-2020
This love-themed era stands out with its dreamy and pastel-colored visual aesthetic. Although there are some deeply romantic songs on this album, Taylor focuses more on expressing her political views, topics of misogyny, discrimination and mental health, once again, using electropop and synth-pop production.
‘Folklore’: 2020
The pandemic disrupted professional flow for artists, including Taylor Swift — she could not tour. So, instead, locked up in a recording studio cabin, she wrote an experimental indie-folk album, which helped her to reach wider audiences, break false stereotypes about her and show-off her lyrical skills. For this album, Taylor created a whole fictional storyline about a teenage love-triangle and characters` experiences throughout their lifetime.
‘Evermore’: 2020-2022
As a sonical and musical continuation of ‘folklore’, this album deeper explores topics of loss in human relationships. Listeners experience these songs like strolls through the chilly forest, wrapped up in a vintage coat. With these eras, Swift established her unique and masterful lyricism, and ability to swiftly transition through different genres.
‘Midnights’: 2022-2024
In this era, Taylor came back to pop music and interpolated sounds of bedroom pop and dream pop in it. The narrative of the lyrics being the artists` thoughts during her sleepless midnights, interwoven with exquisite 1970s-themed visuals, fabricates into the aesthetic of crying in a bathroom at a disco-party, while wearing the most glittering and shimmering outfit ever. This era lifted Taylor to the highest peak of her career.
‘The Tortured Poets Department’: 2024
While being the busiest artist, re-recording her music and touring around the world, Taylor Swift managed to write a drastically different double-album, consisting of 31 full-length songs. Acronymized ‘TTPD’, the album is full of raw, honest, painful, blatant lyrics, wrapped in calming sounds of folk-pop and chamber pop. The artist has never been so open about her mental health, painful experiences and struggles with romantic relationships and fame.
Obviously, it is a marvelous career worth celebrating. Without a doubt, no other artist reinvented themselves as much as Taylor Swift did and continues to do so.
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