Taylor Swift has wrapped up her 18-month Eras tour with a final concert in Canada. We take a look at multiple aspects of her record-breaking tour from its sheer economic impact, or “Taylornomics”, to criticism that Swift portrays a hollow version of feminism and to what she can teach the music industry.
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Welcome to the Music World, where it's time for a farewell of sorts. Taylor Swift has
00:04just concluded her 18-month Aeros tour with a final concert in Vancouver, Canada. For
00:11more on this, Solange Moujean joins me in the studio. Solange, you're taking a deep
00:15dive into Swift mania for us. For example, if one's not a big Taylor Swift fan, why
00:21would we care? Are we making too much of this?
00:23Well, if you were a Swifty, you'd probably quote one of her lyrics and say, let the haters
00:28hate, hate, hate, and just shake it off. But jesting aside about all the Taylor love, there
00:34are a number of interesting angles about this global phenomenon that is Taylor Swift, even
00:38for those that are not fans of hers. Of course, there's Taylor economics, or how she has boosted
00:43economies by millions worldwide. There are also societal discussions here about how her
00:49shows have been religious-like experiences for many people, how they've created a sense
00:54of community for some, but also how they've led to questions of feminism, questions of
00:59female rage, of representation. There is also a whole other music industry aspect about
01:04how Swift has altered the concert experience or may alter it in the future. But before
01:09we jump into all of that, let's crunch the numbers. The Aeros tour was announced in November
01:142022 and began in March last year with a U.S. leg and then a global one. Overall, Swift
01:20held 149 shows. She traveled to 53 cities on five continents and sang to over 10 million
01:27fans. Now, the Swift team does not communicate how much money they made on tickets, but it
01:32is thought to have brought in a $2 billion range in ticket sales, making it by far the
01:39biggest tour in history when it comes to revenue. Not only has it propelled Swift into the billionaire
01:44stratosphere in her own right, but it has also created this thing, the Swiftonomics,
01:49for all of that extra revenue. Now, this is harder to quantify than her actual revenue,
01:54but the Japanese bank Nomura estimated that just the U.S. leg generated $5 billion in
02:01consumer spending. The magazine The Economist wonders if Swift is the imperfect capitalist.
02:08They say she probably earned about $10 million per show for herself, but she could have raked
02:13in actually five times more that had she selected more American cities and fewer ones abroad
02:18where ticket prices are often considerably lower, as we see in that graph there. They
02:23say, The Economist says that the prize of highest median ticket went to Indianapolis,
02:30where it was over $1,300. That's the face value. The resale there was $10 grand. But
02:36beyond those astronomical figures, there's also a trend. Unlike other megastars like
02:40Beyonce or Elton John, Swift's resale prices grew as the tour went on. Usually, it's actually
02:46quite the opposite. But here, demand grew, with Swift's fans not wanting to miss out
02:50on this cultural experience or this once-in-an-era show.
02:54All right. Well, let's talk about the fans' solange, because for Swifties, this is more
02:59than just a concert, isn't it? Yeah. Swift concerts are, for many Swifties,
03:03akin to a religious experience. Not only have there been testimonies of sort of trance-like
03:08states, of memory blackouts, but these concerts are quite ritualistic in and of themselves.
03:14One of those rituals is screaming, take me to church, Taylor, during the Don't Blame
03:18Me song. Other rituals include double claps during musical bridges or special shout-outs
03:23like F the Patriarchy, Facts, Sydney. It's insider stuff that Swifties love.
03:29There are also tailgating gatherings. They're called Taygatings, where fans sing lyrics
03:34together outside the concerts. Some 40,000 people in Munich who didn't have tickets,
03:39they gathered on a hill outside the venue to partake in the era's show from outside
03:43the arena. And, of course, there's the trading of friendship bracelets, of getting
03:46all bedazzled, like fans did just before the last show.
03:50Love her, and thank you so much for empowering young women. I think she's great.
03:55Just, like, everybody here, and, like, trading bracelets, and, like, their relationships
03:58is so awesome. Just a sense of community is something that
04:00really is amazing. Walking down the street today, I saw so many people just, like, come
04:05up to us and, like, just wanted to trade bracelets and just, like, speak with one another.
04:10Now, this sense of community has a lot to do with Swift's audience. Many of them are
04:14millennials, Gen Z, teen girls. And here, there's much talk about how Swift is, for
04:19many of them, a feminist icon. She's a role model. Not only is she the embodiment of a
04:24successful career woman, but she's also created an image of herself as someone who sets her
04:29own terms, be it in the re-recording of her albums so that she could get the rights to
04:33them back, be it in the endorsing of candidates that she believes in, like Kamala Harris,
04:39be it in expressing, in very sort of intimate and personal ways, her experiences and her
04:43emotions. All right. And let's talk about Taylor Swift's
04:46authenticity or lack thereof. Yeah. Last December, right in the midst of
04:51the Eras tour, Swift was named the Time Person of the Year. And on that occasion, Hannah
04:56Williams of the New Statement wrote an article that went viral about Swift's embodiment of
05:02feminism. And she argued that it's empowering, but it is also hollow and crafted, that it's
05:08a careful staging of authenticity, because she argues that Swift's feminism never goes
05:12beyond the serving of herself or the serving of Taylor Swift. She says, quote, Swift's
05:17recordings could have been a demand for collective change in the music industry, but in reality,
05:22they seem a little more than an exercise in egotism, greed, and repackaging as empowerment.
05:28Another example of this criticism over Swift is how she copyrighted the terms Female Rage,
05:35the musical for the second leg of her Eras tour. Some critics say that Swift has painted
05:41a very white, non-inclusive, and privileged image of what anger is for women. Meanwhile,
05:47others say, that's not it at all. Wait a minute. She's helping paint a multifaceted portrayal
05:52of womanhood and that women can be expressed and can express themselves in many ways. And
05:57that, and then sort of by taking, talking about rage and patriarchy, she's bringing
06:03such ideas back to the table in a mainstream way.
06:05All right. And finally, Solange, there's been much talk about how Swift's tour has altered
06:11the music industry and what the future holds.
06:15Yeah. Not only has there been a ton of speculation about what Swift will do next and whether
06:19she'll use this trademark term, Female Rage, the musical, in a film, in theatre, or not
06:24at all, but there's also been a lot of digging into what works so well here and why. So the
06:29music industry can reproduce this actually for other artists in the future. For Swift
06:34alone accounts, get this, for 2% of the U.S. market. That is bigger than genres like jazz.
06:41And here executives have learned that three hour plus, three and a half hour plus shows,
06:46they work, especially those that with strong entertainment elements. They also help justify
06:52the hefty price tag of the tickets as people live, like them as a lived in experience.
06:58The industry has also seen how to create a following for other musicians by launching
07:02those acts mid-concert like Swift did for Sabrina Carpenter and Gracie Abrams, who saw
07:08their Spotify numbers skyrocket after playing with her on stage. Music execs say that Swift
07:14has given them a formula of sorts about how to create the next generation of stars. She's
07:18been a wake up call as well about the need to focus better on what women want from concerts.
07:24And finally, many say that Swift, her success is a reminder of the global desire to take
07:30a break, that the world needs to take a break and they want to have alongside thousands
07:34of other people a moment of joy and have it be in unison.
07:38All right. Well, I have to take the Swifties word for it, having not been to the Errors
07:42tour myself.
07:43Me neither, but I've read quite a bit about it. Sounds like it was a lot of fun.
07:48Indeed. Thank you very much, Solange Moujean, for that.