Taylor Swift continues to make history and is chosen as Person of the Year by TIME magazine. The title, which has always been reserved for politicians or businessmen, makes the artist the first person to be selected for her achievements in the arts: “In a divided world where too many institutions are failing, Taylor Swift found a way to transcend the borders and be a source of light. “No one else on the planet today can move so many people so well.”
According to the magazine, talking about Swift has become like talking about politics or the weather, a “language so widespread” that “it doesn’t need context,” having become “the protagonist of the world.” «As a pop star, she occupies a privileged place alongside Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and Madonna; As a songwriter, she has been compared to Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell,” TIME states. In addition, Taylor Swift has offered her first interview in more than two years, reviewing her artistic career and reflecting on the movements that have led her to be the most relevant artist of this generation.
“It’s the proudest and happiest I’ve ever felt, and the most creatively fulfilled and free I’ve ever been,” Taylor Swift answers in retrospect of everything that has happened in 2023, from the publication of two of her re-recordings to the beginning of a tour that is on track to have the highest grossing in history. “Ultimately, we can convolute it all we want or try to overcomplicate it, but there’s only one question: Aren’t you entertained?”
The Eras Tour lasts 3 and a half hours per concert, where he sings up to more than 40 songs. “I knew this tour was much more difficult than anything she had done before,” the artist confesses, acknowledging that she was rehearsing for six months. «Every day I would go on the tape singing the setlist out loud. “I ran for the up-tempo songs and trotted for the ballads,” says Swift. “I know I’m going to go on that stage whether I’m sick, injured, heartbroken, uncomfortable or stressed,” she says. «Now it is part of my identity as a human being. “If someone buys a ticket to my concert, I will perform unless there is some kind of force majeure.”
Taylor Swift also remembers the cancellation she suffered in 2016 due to her dispute with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian and the theft of her music by Scooter Braun in 2019: “It doesn’t escape me that the two big catalysts for all of this were two horrible things that happened to me. The first was being canceled within a hair’s breadth of my life and sanity. The second was that someone who hates me took away my life’s work. The truth is that Swift has always tried to reinvent herself, whether for one reason or another. “I realized that all the record companies were trying to replace me,” she says of it. «Instead, I thought about replacing myself with a new me. “It’s harder to hit the dot if the dot is moving,” she says.
The artist also recounts how she frames the strategy as a coping mechanism, which led her to embark on the re-recording process to own her music: “I was meeting Kelly Clarkson and she was like, ‘Re-record it.’ My father also encouraged me. I looked at them and said: ‘How am I going to do it? “No one wants to do their homework again if, on the way to school, the wind blows away your work.” We all already know the end of the story. «It all depends on how you deal with the loss. “I respond to extreme pain with rebellion,” Swift declares.
Now, TIME’s Person of the Year has a completely different mentality, the result of experience and success: “I have learned that there is no point in actively trying to defeat your enemies. “The garbage ends up dissolving itself.” But she is also aware that fame rises and falls. “Nothing is permanent, so I take great care to be grateful for every second that I can dedicate to this at this level, because it has been taken from me before,” she comments bluntly. «I have learned one thing: My response to anything that happens, good or bad, is to keep doing things. “Continue making art.”
Taylor Swift is the first woman to appear on TIME’s Person of the Year cover twice since the franchise began in 1927. Swift was also named Person of the Year in 2017, when she was recognized as one of the Silence Breakers who inspired women to report inappropriate sexual behavior. Additionally, aside from being the first person selected for her achievements in the arts, she is only the fourth person born in the last 50 years to earn such a distinction.
Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) is TIME’s 2023 Person of the Year https://t.co/oyjR55azCZ pic.twitter.com/m2qbIbd5TX
— TIME (@TIME) December 6, 2023
Time Magazine: We’d like to name you Person of the Yea-
Me: Can I bring my cat. https://t.co/SOhkYKSTwG
—Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) December 6, 2023
