Is Taylor Swift exploiting her fans?
NPR Music critic Ann Powers says no.
NPR Music critic Stephen Thompson says yes … but with an asterisk. He says, "All pop stars exploit their fans."
Let's review the facts:
Taylor Swift released her album The Life of a Showgirl on October 3. To date she has offered 38 variants of that album. If you bought all of them, it would cost you $377. That's a lowball estimate.
Many of those variants were only available for 24 hours – with a countdown clock on Swift's website and all. Talk about pressure!
But that limited availability also offers her fans two things: bragging rights for owning something rare and exclusive and … re-sale value. Take a Swift vinyl variant I own, the 2023 Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions vinyl. It's currently selling for upwards of $559. If you look at other Swift-adjacent collectibles you start seeing even more outlandish price tags. Right now, you can buy a Papa John's pizza box with Swift's 2012 Red album cover printed on the top for a whopping $513 on ebay. I repeat – a cardboard pizza box.
Like the NFL, MLB, or NBA, "Taylor Swift" is an entire industry unto itself. Trading cards and all.
Here's the thing about modern pop stardom: eventually your name is a product. For many pop stars, that has meant slapping their name on a beauty line and posting endlessly about it on social media. Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez, and Rihanna all have makeup brands. Rihanna's Fenty Beauty made her a billionaire.
In this way, Swift is different. She made her billion through music sales (physical albums, touring, concert films, etc.) alone. And that is remarkable, because as Thompson puts it, "the music industry is extremely broken for most working musicians. You have a shrinking middle class [of artists]." Because of streaming, it's more and more difficult to make a living wage from your music itself.
Swift is far, FAR and away from nearly every other musician, but she is singular as a pop star in her insistence on being a working musician. It makes one ask: can I knock Taylor Swift for finding a way to actually sell 3.4 million copies of her album in a single week? That is after all the life of a business woman, baby!
But what is Swift actually selling in this album? That leads Thompson to another theory as to why many find Swift's business strategy so unsettling, "There is a level of fame at which your ability to craft art that speaks to everyday people gets called into question." He notes how Swift has for nearly two decades made herself relatable to her fans. And on Showgirl, Swift longs for a simple life while going to war with her haters in armor made by Gucci. Powers adds, in Swift's latest era – her billionaire era – "I think that it's harder for people to not feel exploited when they're buying something within this narrative than they would when they were buying something in her 'I'm opening my heart, and I'm this vulnerable woman [era].'"
Buying into the simple life of a billionaire is dizzying.
And that brings us to the music itself. Is it worth the money? Powers says, "I still think this album is more enjoyable and think it will last longer than some people do." But, she concludes, "I would encourage people to draw an internal line. Think about how you are receiving this work, what your relationship is with the artists you admire, and maybe walk yourself back from making a purchase that's more habitual or status driven than actually rewarding you in any way. I think it's just a good moment to kind of confront how you practice consumerism."
The digital version of this episode was written by Barton Girdwood and edited by Neena Pathak & Kristian Monroe.
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