The greatest pop icon of the century, Taylor Swift, has certainly become a household name in recent years.
She has recorded over ten albums, and treated her fans with countless tours featuring her masterpieces of lyrical songwriting to the world.
Most recently, her “Eras Tour,” has highlighted the several eras and genres of music she’s released since her debut album. As of 2023, the Eras Tour is on track to become the highest grossing concert tour of all time, earning an estimated $2.2 billion worldwide.
One of the most admirable traits of Taylor Swift’s musical genius lies within her personal values. Though it is not common within the music industry, she has had a longtime goal of owning her own music.
This core value, however, came crumbling down when her ex record company, Big Machine Records (BMR) sold the rights to her master recordings. BMR made a $300 million deal with music executive Scooter Braun, for the rights to Swift’s first six albums.
This came as a complete blindside to Swift, considering Braun had been connected to artists who had hurt her in the past, most notably, Kanye West. BMR seemed to throw all of their history with Swift out of the question, when Braun made his offer, leaving them with “300 million reasons to conveniently forget those conversations,” said Swift in a 2020 interview with Entertainment Tonight Canada.
Determined to stay true to what meant most to her, owning the rights to her own music, Swift denied an offer Braun later made to Swift to purchase back her stolen recordings. Instead, she opted to make one of the most powerful, bold, and influential decisions in the history of pop music.
Swift would go back into the studio, and re-record every last song she had lost, rebranding her new releases, “Taylor’s Version.”
Heading into 2023, Swift had already rereleased both her second album, Fearless, and fourth, Red, under her new mantra: (Taylor’s Version).
Riding the incredible success of her Era’s Tour, Swift has had the opportunity to rumor the release of more “Taylor’s Versions” to come.
In July 2023 Swift released her third Taylor’s Version, this time her third album, Speak Now. She announced it in Kansas City during one of her own shows.
To celebrate the release of this monumental milestone, Swift wore a brand new purple dress as a reference to the album’s colors, and joined the crowd to watch a brand new music video from the album.
At the end of the music video, as many fans would soon come to point out, an easter egg was hidden that would spark rumors as to what the next album to be released would be.
In the background of the video’s final shot was a street sign, labeled “1989 TV.”
This being a dead giveaway reference to Swift’s fifth album, 1989.
Fans had also speculated 1989 TV to be the next release for a while before this hint, as the last date of the Era’s Tour’s first US leg was scheduled to be on 8/9/23.
To nobody’s surprise, when 8/9 rolled around, Swift revealed to a roaring crowd of anxious fans that the rumors were true. The entire night was filled with clues and easter eggs, including new blue themed dresses for every quick change of the show. 1989 TV would be released only three months later, on October 27, 2023.
The next three months would be filled with nothing but quiet anticipation, instead, Swift filled the silence with excitement and never-ending hints for her fans.
One of these clues being her recent change in wardrobe. Swift has been seen wearing all blue, or black outfits.
To “Swifties,” color black has been an obvious call to her sixth stolen album, Reputation. The dark theme has been very fitting to the albums potential release, but many question how accurate this is considering 1989 TV has still yet to release.
Swift has also excited fans with a new relationship she has begun with Kansas City Chief’s TE Travis Kelce, after he reached out to her after watching her Era’s Tour.
Since then Swift has joined Kelce’s family at the Chief’s Arrowhead stadium to watch him play two football games.
There is no doubt Swift will continue to shock fans and keep them at the edge of their seat for years to come, especially throughout the rest of her Era’s tour dates that have now gone international.
