It goes without saying that Taylor Swift will continue to have no trouble breaking records and selling her music/self through various platforms (whether that’s through touring, Target “exclusives,” etc). But, for the first time since her seemingly ceaseless ascent, 2024 seemed to mark a year during which she wasn’t quite as “unchallenged.” And yes, it’s in part due to what is now being called the “holy trinity” in pop: Charli XCX, Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter (though someone ought to remind that the true holy trinity already appeared at the 2003 VMAs). But it also doesn’t feel like a coincidence that Swift is starting to “take a dive” the same year she’s turning thirty-five (as of December 13th).
The music industry, despite all the “strides” it has made, still hasn’t quite “transcended” to a point where women over thirty are deemed as “sellable” as they once were. Indeed, the faceless suits behind “the business” would argue that it’s already “generous” enough that female pop stars aren’t “Logan’s Run’d” a.k.a. put to death at the age of thirty (in the book version, the age is twenty-one, mind you). Though they essentially were before OG pop stars like Cher and Madonna started pushing the boundaries, with the former famously causing a stir for appearing in her iconic “age inappropriate,” er, ensemble (created by none other than Bob Mackie) for the “If I Could Turn Back Time” video in 1989. The year Cher turned forty-three.
These two women were the pioneers of defying the unspoken rule that women were expected to “put themselves out to pasture,” to borrow a term used by Madonna herself in a 1992 interview with Jonathan Ross. Except that, unlike Cher, Madonna never retreated from the spotlight, having been a consistent presence/hitmaker in pop culture from the outset of her career. Cher, on the other hand, had her various lows/bouts with “uncoolness” after her “peak” with Sonny Bono in the 1970s, including, but not limited to, appearing on Lori Davis hair care infomercials—appropriately spoofed on SNL at the time.
Of course, Madonna also hit a public (not artistic) nadir from 1992-1993, though it was for something far more avant-garde than being in an infomercial. That is to say, releasing a raunchy coffee table book called Sex. Paired with an album called Erotica and an erotic thriller called Body of Evidence, the masses officially couldn’t handle Madonna’s “infinite” sexuality. Granted, they probably couldn’t handle it because 1) she was doing it in a way that allowed her to be the one in control of her sexual fantasies, rather than allowing a man to dictate how she was seen and what she was doing and 2) she was becoming of that “certain age” category.
As a matter of fact, in 1993, a British magazine, Smash Hits, had the audacity to proclaim in a headline, “Calm down Grandma” of Madonna performing during The Girlie Show. She was thirty-five at the time. And while Madonna has broken down some barriers in the ageism-against-women category, the deeply-ingrained prejudice toward “old” women remains. To the point where Swift already “jokingly” noted that she’s a “geriatric pop star” and that most women her age in the pop star realm are already sent to the proverbial “elephant graveyard.” At the time she said this to Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, she was thirty-two. The same age that Charli XCX, 2024’s inarguable “it” girl/pop star, has made her bona fide breakout into the mainstream. To the extent that she has managed to do the formerly unthinkable: secure more Grammy nominations for Brat than Swift could for The Tortured Poets Department (the former might have narrowly eked TTPD out with seven nominations to the latter’s six, but it’s a pretty big deal for someone who has scarcely ever been so acknowledged by the Recording Academy).
And even before Brat came along to knock the latter’s (limp Matty Healy) dick in the dirt critically, commercially and culturally, it was apparent that it wasn’t getting the same kind of unanimous praise as just two years prior with Midnights. In fact, one review in particular for Paste magazine was markedly unforgiving (to the extent that the writer knew that it was best to keep their name anonymous to avoid the wrath of any toxic fandom elements).
But regardless of more noticeable critical reluctance to hail TTPD as a triumph, it was inevitable the album would climb to the top of the charts, along with its lead single, “Fortnight” featuring Post Malone. Unfortunately (for her), Swift’s album would soon be followed by standouts of the year, including Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft, Charli’s Brat (and later, Brat and It’s Completely Different but Also Still Brat), Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet, Kendrick Lamar’s GNX and Wicked: The Soundtrack. In years prior, Swift never had such a difficult time being the lone musician to command the domain of chart success. And it’s clear she was feeling it enough this year to hedge her bets with strategically timed releases of different versions of TTPD that blocked artists like Eilish and XCX from the top of the charts. In fact, her gambit seemed so obvious to many that those same listeners speculated that when Eilish appeared on the remix of XCX’s “Guess,” the lyrics, “You wanna guess what me and Billie have been talkin’ about” was low-key shade aimed at Swift.
As mentioned, Swift is still an irrefutable success. At least in terms of the numbers game. The “units moved” game. But, as one article from The Guardian put it earlier this year, “Taylor Swift may have captured the charts, but Charli XCX captured the zeitgeist.” And, in the current epoch, one could argue that’s the bigger mark of success and relevance—not just “capturing” the zeitgeist, but full-stop being it. In many ways, it appears as though Swift has let that definition of success slip away from her in her ongoing bid to be “the best” at everything, musically speaking.
At the end of 2023, there was no question of Swift’s dominance and continued reign over the monoculture when she graced three different cover versions of Time for their “Person of the Year” issue. Riding high on the fresh hype of The Eras Tour, Swift looks self-assured in her place as “the undisputed queen” of the business. But with the end of 2024 (along with the end of her tour), that same level of assurance doesn’t seem quite as “in the bag.” Especially with a new crop of reigning “queens” that all appear to go in direct defiance of Swift’s overly polished and perfectionist image.
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