Taylor Swift scored the cover of the new issue of Time Magazine. Time seems to be doing more and more “celebrity” and “entertainer” covers lately, or is that just me? In any case, I do think Swifty is deserving of a Time cover, moreso than nearly any other person in the music industry. She’s a rare pop star still making money the old-fashioned way, with people actually purchasing her music and lining up to for her concerts. She’s one of the best-selling artists of all time and she’s a marketing genius. I think it’s fine that she got a Time cover. You can read the full Time Mag piece here and here are some highlights.
She has no musical role models? “We’re taught to find examples for the way we want our lives to wind up. But I can’t find anyone, really, who’s had the same career trajectory as mine. So when I’m in an optimistic place I hope that my life won’t match anyone else’s life trajectory, either, going forward. I do have female role models in the sense of actresses like Mariska Hargitay. I think she has a beautiful life, and an incredible career, and I think she’s built that for herself. She’s one of the highest paid actresses—actors in general, women or men—on television, and she’s been playing this very strong female character for, what, 15 years now, something like that. And Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa. I really love her business, and how she sticks to who she is, and how people relate to it. In other industries, I have female role models. I just struggle to find a woman in music who hasn’t been completely picked apart by the media, or scrutinized and criticized for aging, or criticized for fighting aging—it just seems to be much more difficult to be a woman in music and to grow older. I just really hope that I will choose to do it as gracefully as possible.
She’s comfortable with being seen as a role model: “I don’t find a struggle with that balance, being looked at as a role model, because I think it’s a very obvious and natural thing for people to see you as, when you’re a singer. I’ve always felt very comfortable with it, for some reason. That in particular hasn’t been one of my struggles… But it’s the same thing as living your life based on what your grandkids will say one day… I don’t make it as much about the millions of people who would be disappointed if I were to have some sort of meltdown or scandal or something that made everyone feel like my character wasn’t what they thought it was. I think more about the people in my life that would disappoint: my mom, my dad, my kids, if I ever have them. And that way it’s not as much pressure as thinking about the millions of little minds that you must be shaping. I’m trying to live my life with some sort of thoughtfulness put into my actions, but it’s not because I feel like I’m the president of the International Babysitters Club.
On the gossip that she doesn’t write her own music: “I haven’t heard any of the people I respect in the music industry or in journalism, saying that they think I don’t write my own songs. I think, when I put out Speak Now, which was my third album, and I decided I was just going to write it entirely on my own, to me that was enough of a statement. I felt like I could move on from that. I felt like I had proved my point. That was when I felt free to collaborate with whoever I wanted, because if you actually listen to the music, you can tell that the lyrics are written by the same person. And it’s not a ghostwriter. It’s not some weird, you know—everyone’s got those weird Shakespeare theories that someone else did all his stuff for him. Not to ever compare yourself to Shakespeare. But people need to poke holes in things because of their own stuff. It’s not about me.”
That criticism and feminism: “And we all know it’s a feminist issue. My friend Ed [Sheeran], no one questions whether he writes everything. In the beginning, I liked to think that we were all on the same playing field. And then it became pretty obvious to me that when you have people sort of questioning the validity of a female songwriter, or making it seem like it’s somehow unacceptable to write songs about your real emotions—that it somehow makes you irrational and overemotional—seeing that over the years changed my view. It’s a little discouraging that females have to work so much harder to prove that they do their own things. I see Nicki Minaj and Iggy Azalea having to prove that they write their own raps or their own lyrics, and it makes me sad, because they shouldn’t have to justify it.”
Being a female celebrity & having her body picked over: “I refuse to buy into these comparisons, because you don’t see it happening to men… If we continue to show young girls that they are being compared to other girls, we’re doing ourselves a huge disservice as a society. I surround myself with smart, beautiful, passionate, driven, ambitious women. Other women who are killing it should motivate you, thrill you, challenge you and inspire you rather than threaten you and make you feel like you’re immediately being compared to them. The only thing I compare myself to is me, two years ago, or me one year ago… You just try to lead by example, and you hope, someday, that if we talk about feminism enough, maybe we’ll start to actually see it make a difference in the way young girls perceive themselves and each other.
I like the way she speaks in this interview, even if I don’t agree with everything she’s saying. She’s has moments where she can be very wry, right? Like, “it’s not because I feel like I’m the president of the International Babysitters Club.” That’s a really great line. I’ve said this before, and I’ll keep saying it – we’re seeing a Tay-Tay in transition. Her thoughts on feminism and the music industry and fame are still not fully formed, but they’re evolving in an interesting direction. But I also think it’s strange that she could not name one woman in the music industry that she would consider a role model, because everyone woman gets criticized, according to Taylor. So, she can only have a role model who never gets criticized? Someone who is always perfect?
Photos courtesy of Martin Schoeller for TIME, Fame/Flynet.
