Dmillions of albums sold. Fourteen Grammy Awards. Named personality of the year by the weekly Time in 2023. A world tour in twenty countries. Admirers designated by his own name, the “Swifties”. There’s no escaping Taylor Swift.
Also read the survey (2023): Article reserved for our subscribers Country music, surprise guest of the American presidential campaign
Add to your selections
After the staggering economic fallout from his concerts, it is now his political role which is driving the discussions. She could attract her audience if she revealed her vote in the presidential election in November. The singing star has not yet spoken out about this election, but she has already publicly supported the Democratic Party in 2018 and Joe Biden during the 2020 election. This position always appears paradoxical for an artist whose career began in country music.
Now a pop star, she began to break away from the world of country with her album Red in 2012 and came out with 1989, two years later. However, it remains linked to this genre. His youth spent in Nashville, Mecca of country music, and his trajectory to New York thus became the narrative thread of his national and global rise. If Taylor Swift’s political positions stand out, going so far as to be accused of treachery by the right, it is because her political silence until 2018 and her roots in country music rather invited the right to bring her closer to the historic conservatism of this musical genre.
Also read the chronicle (2018) | Article reserved for our subscribers “Taylor Swift launched into an anti-Trump fight with a strategy worthy of Machiavelli”
Add to your selections
When it flooded the music market in the United States in the 1920s, country was immediately described as the music of the white, rural population of the South. Until today, this has indeed encouraged conservatives to mobilize it to rally the white vote, as the segregationist governor of Alabama, George Wallace, did in the 1960s and 1970s. This political exploitation of the country explains why we often associate artists and their audiences with conservatism and nationalism.
You need to know who listens to Taylor Swift
This is why it appears contradictory that Taylor Swift supports Joe Biden and makes a speech defending the rights of racial and sexual minorities and protecting the right to abortion. Country music, however, is stirred by the same currents that run through American society. If it has its share of artists claiming to be conservative, musicians of the same generation as Taylor Swift claim similar positions on the rights of women and minorities.
Since the 1990s, when the country industry began to target a more diverse and national audience, it has nevertheless been customary for country musicians with a very large audience not to come out for the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. Famous artists like Dolly Parton thus put forward opinions against racism or even homophobia, but do not take sides so as not to alienate a loyal part of their audience.
You have 57.2% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
