Last week, at SoFi Stadium on the outskirts of Los Angeles, Taylor Swift sang the song for three and a half hours and, noting the “bonus” given to the crowd at each performance, announced a re-recording of the single. their most successful album (“1989”, released a decade earlier) and which will be available from October.
Accompanied by his acoustic guitar, he sang a few songs and said goodbye. for now. It was the 53rd and final concert on the US leg of the Eraze Tour, which is on track to become one of the most influential in music history, at least in marketing and commercial terms.
Its Latin American leg will cover three shows in Mexico, Brazil and Rivera in November. and during 2024, Europe, Asia and Australia. It is estimated that ticket sales alone will reach $1.4 billion, surpassing the $853 million raised by Elton John for “Farewell, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” over several seasons, between 2017 and 2017’s Ed Sheeran. surpassing the $776 million for the “Divide Tour”. and 736 million a decade earlier in 2019 and with U2’s 360° Tour.
Taylor Swift’s shows are taking the music industry to a new level and upcoming tours, like Beyonce’s “Renaissance” or the one programmed by Bruce Springsteen, are on the way.
a city named after him
The initial signal came on March 17 in Glendale, Arizona. And the small town of 226,000 residents, to honor the singer and anticipate the uproar her presence would cause, decided that the city would bear her name for those days. “We are doing something very unusual to celebrate Taylor’s concerts starting here. We are well aware that she is one of the most influential artists of her generation and we want to write our love story for her and say hello to all Swifties, Mayor Jerry Weathers then announced.
“Taylor Swift is a religion. More than music, more than spectacle, more than songs and lyrics, more than video clips, it has become a religion for the hundreds of thousands of people (a quick count estimates around three million) who have attended it across the United States. Have marched. for 53 concerts of The Eraze Tour”, another history indicates.
beatlemania
Since then, Hurricane Taylor Swift has spread from coast to coast. Stars of entertainment, sports or politics, even those from other countries, defined themselves as “Swifties” in reference to the followers/followers of the Nashville singer. The New York Times summarized it this week: “The pop superstar’s tour, which is now wrapping up its opening leg in North America, has been a commercial and cultural giant.
Swift’s catalog of generation-defining hits and her savvy marketing savvy have helped her achieve a level of overwhelming demand and media saturation not seen since the heyday of Michael Jackson and Madonna in the 1980s, a domain which was largely accepted by the entertainment industry as impossible. Repeat. Fractured in the 21st century. For Billy Joel, who attended the show in Tampa, “the only thing comparable to this is the event that led to Beatlemania in its time.”
overall effect
Taylor Swift, whose personal earnings at the age of 34 already exceed $ 740 million according to the Forbes list, at the end of the American leg of the Eras Tour distributed a bonus of 55 million to its employees: musicians, dancers, sound Technicians, truck drivers and helpers got that unexpected gift. The record numbers (in music sales) and the commercial impact of the Eraze Tour are tremendous.
It is estimated that the touring movement will have an impact of $5 billion within the US GDP in 2023: a movement that includes not only ticket sales, but also sales, travel, hotels and restaurants. As soon as the tour was announced last November, the Ticketmaster site crashed within minutes, sparking consumer lawsuits (which also led to a Senate investigation).
21st century superstar
One definition of the Swift phenomenon was given by Renato Millone, professor of contemporary music at Berklee. Interviewed in Spanish media, she said: “There is an unusually strong bond between Taylor Swift and her fans, who grew up with her, involved in her struggles to be heard as a woman or to assert herself in the industry.” We are in front of a master mind. We will never know whether it is him or a group of people working for him. It doesn’t matter: he knows that quality, quality in the old fashioned way How to combine with the excellent cultivation of your public persona.
He has created a new concept of pop star, different from the model of 10 or 15 years ago. Think of someone like Britney Spears; We didn’t know then, nor, in fact, did we care what was behind the product they sold us. As if that weren’t enough, Swift knows how to read the market, which now demands the intimacy that pervades her production, the indie spirit: she has the best sound money can buy within her reach. Maybe, but she records it to make it look like she did it in her room. ,