Opinion: You may not be a Swiftie... but be glad your daughter is

According to Spotify Wrapped, Taylor Swift was the most-streamed artist of 2023 globally. Here's why that's a great thing. Photo / AP

OPINION

Happy International Taylor Swift Month to all those who celebrate! You might well think December is the time the world observes Christmas, but I am here to tell you that actually, it is now when the world observes the magnificence of a 33-year-old from Pennsylvania with the middle name Alison. To wit: last week, Swift was named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, an honour previously bestowed on such luminaries as Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King Jr and Pope John Paul II.

Now you may think: what has Taylor Swift done that could possibly match the achievements of these men? How can a woman who sings about failed relationships with Harry Styles and feuds with Katy Perry have earned a place on a list with such inspirational humans? And I am here to tell you – because she’s changing the way your daughter thinks about herself for the better.

Swift is loved by millions - nay, billions. Her songs are not just your standard girl power fare, the type that were previously always written by men (Wannabe, the hit that broke the Spice Girls, was actually the work of two blokes). No. Swift writes music that makes you feel less ashamed to be yourself, songs that own perfectly appropriate female responses to bad behaviour that have, in the past, been dismissed as “hysteria”. And she does it while refusing to make money for anyone other than herself. She is, in short, the real deal. A very good thing. She is modelling behaviour to your daughter that you should really, really be encouraging.

For her legions of fans, Swift is more than just a pop star; she is an idol of empowerment and a role model for women, young and old, worldwide. Photo / TAS2023, Getty Images

But the most interesting thing about the cultural phenomenon that is Taylor Swift is the number of blokes who feel the need to tell us they “don’t get it”. “I don’t get it,” says middle-aged man after middle-aged man, without ever for a moment considering the possibility that they’re not meant to. That it’s not for them. That there might be an artist who exists in the world to please people other than themselves. Then there’s the blokes who complain that they don’t find her attractive, as if the only point of female pop stars is to titillate men. I tell you, I think Taylor Swift looks incredible, but she could turn up at Wembley Stadium dressed in a bin bag and I wouldn’t give a damn, because the best thing about Swift, I think, is not the way she looks, but the way she makes people feel. Seen. Happy. Empowered. You cannot put a price on that, but thank God Swift tries to. It’s refreshing to see a woman who firmly knows her worth, and wow – what worth.

This was the year that Swift very deservedly became a billionaire, in part thanks to her phenomenally successful Eras tour, which will reach these shores next summer. Official tickets go for up to £600 ($1230), but unofficial ones are on the internet for 10 times that amount. There’s also a film of the concert, which was released in cinemas in October via a deal that Swift did directly with movie theatres, cutting out the usual go-between with studios and, in the process, netting herself even more cash.

The film had the biggest opening for a concert movie ever, grossing over £100 million ($205m) in one weekend. It’s Swift’s birthday on Wednesday, and do you know how Tay-Tay has decided to celebrate it? By getting us to part with more of our money! That’s not quite how she described it when she announced on social media her plans to make the film available for home rental on the day she turns 34, but you can bet your bottom dollar it was the motivation behind it. And good for her, I say.

I find Swift’s financial acumen hugely admirable. It’s rare to see a woman unapologetically owning her power, and on such a grand and global scale. Take her stand with the man who bought the master recordings of some of her old albums back in 2019. Scooter Braun is an entrepreneur and music executive who thought he would make a pretty penny off Swift’s talent when she left her previous record company, as has become commonplace in the industry nowadays. Swift was having none of it and re-recorded the albums so she would once again have ownership of them. Then there was her refusal to have her music up on Spotify for free, in protest of how badly the streaming giant paid artists. “Music is art, and art is important and rare,” wrote Swift in a 2014 piece for the Wall Street Journal. “Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for.”

When I was young, I was not listening to pop stars who wrote op-eds for the Wall Street Journal. It was all boy bands and rippling hunks whose posters you would tear out of Smash Hits and pin to your bedroom wall. That young girls nowadays have a strong, independent female to listen to – one who values her worth – is absolutely brilliant.

And yet, the other weekend, I found myself talking to a dad who was adamant his daughters would never listen to Taylor Swift. Not under his roof. “She’s just a money-making machine!” he complained. “She brings out all her albums on cassette, CD and vinyl, knowing that all of her young fans will buy every version, even without being able to listen to them. She’s not a true artist!”

It’s hard to imagine him saying the same thing about, say, David Bowie, who in 1997 sold “Bowie bonds” to generate cash from his back catalogue. Or the Rolling Stones, whose financial savvy make Goldman Sachs look like a building society. Ask yourself: Why is it okay for these men to make vast amounts of money from their work, and not Taylor Swift? Fair enough if you don’t like her music – you don’t have to, and there are plenty of other artists out there to listen to – but remember this before you start rubbishing her: even if you’re not a Swiftie, you should be damn glad your daughter is.