Most of us remember the screaming girls, some who passed out, some who peed their pants, when Elvis hit the stage, or when the Beatles showed up in America. During the 50's, Elvis had a bigger following than any other musician. Then came the Beatles and everyone took a back seat. And now, more than a half century later, no musician in the world is bigger than Taylor Swift
As I've stated (or quoted) in some of my previous posts discussing music, the magic of a musician is to sing songs that let the fans feel as if they are being let into their personal lives. The Beach Boys and the Beatles understood that, and used it to their advantage. But compared to Swift, they aren't even close. Swift started writing songs in her bedroom, on a Christmas tree farm in a small town outside of Reading, PA. The gangly, skinny girl taught herself to play guitar and piano. She wrote songs about her feelings, even when she was nine-years-old, and continues doing the same right to this day. Every song is about her personal life (or dreams) and what she has gone through...falling in love, breakups, heartache, pulling it together, finding happiness because of experiences, etc. She writes her own music (or has a co-writer work with her), both lyrics and melodies. And within the civilized world, every little girl, teen girl, and adult girl relates to her songs. When she was in Tokyo, the huge crowd sang every song along with her because they knew every word, even though it was not in their own language...sometimes drowning her out on stage...even her most obscure songs (she's written or co-written 221 songs, and released 62 songs on her albums)
She has a 150-million-dollar budget for her shows, that includes stage design and fabrication of props, the construction of platforms, specialized lighting rigs, advanced sound systems, and other technical elements, as well as an enormous staff and her entourage of band members, dancers, and backup singers, technicians, etc. She has over 100 semi-trucks that transport her stage equipment, and she has two groups of professional stage builders – one for setting up production for her next concert (takes about a week to put together), and another group to tear down the previous stage equipment after the show is over and start setting up the next. After the stage is set up, they have to run a couple of days' worth of practice to work out the bugs before a concert. It's a huge ordeal. And that budget does not include her two private jets (some of the biggest in the world). Her staff loves her as she's extremely generous and always throwing them bonuses and treats them the way people should be treated. She always gives them props at the end of her shows so they get the limelight for a bit (in one video, I can see a guy mouth the words "wow" as he can't believe the crowd, and they are screaming for him
(As a side note, I've always wondered what it would be like to be on a stage with thousands of adoring fans. Barbara Walters once asked Garth Brooks what is what like to play in front of tens of thousands of fans. I'll never forget his answer, because it made Walters blush. He said, "It's like a two-hour orgasm, but ten times stronger"...LOL)
One of Taylor's concerts cost about 20 million to produce and brings in an average of 93 million per show. Her tickets sell out months before she gets there and when touring big cities like Tokyo, Sydney, Singapore, Paris, and London, she does four shows in four days, each bringing in nearly 100,000 fans. Most tickets go for around a thousand dollars, but good seats are 5-7 thousand, and premier seats much more than that, and I've seen some ticket prices around 30,000 dollars. When fans go to her shows, they receive a wristband that has LED lights which are run by a computer behind the scenes to change color to match the mood of the song or to add to the excitement
Someone the other day wrote on this board, "cut Taylor some slack", as football fans don't want to hear about her and many (especially those who don't have a teenage girl at home) don't know how big she is in the world. What they don't realize is that Taylor is so much bigger than Kelce, that it's ridicously funny. Hardcore football fanatics know who Kelce Travis is, but well over several billion in this world know (and love) Taylor Swift. The fact that she can watch his games and be down to earth with his family is actually incredible. She is not like many pop stars who get naked or near naked in shows, swing from a canon ball, dance with a giant penis, and covered with tattoos, or always in trouble with drugs and other illegal activities. She's just a small-town, girl next door. Who is a marketing wizard and financial genius who has figured out how to make billions of dollars with her music, as she knows her audience and knows how to put on a grand show for her fans
My vote: Swift is bigger now than the Beatles were in the 60's, or Elvis in the 50's
Interestingly, when Travis Kelce went to a Taylor Swift concert in Sydney or Perth (I can't remember) and was seen walking along an aisle, when a group of girls recognized him, and they squatted and screamed just like when girls saw the Beatles for the first time. Travis waved to them and laughed because he couldn't believe it
Here is one of Taylor's concerts – a closing number in Seattle. Interestingly, the owners of the stadium in Seattle were a little worried about the building, and seismologists set up earthquake equipment to measure any vibration. They were worried that the concert could generate up to a 1.0 earthquake. They were wrong...and shocked as it generated a 2.3 magnitude earthquake. And yes, when she's 40 feet in the air on a revolving stage, she's tethered...not to mention, she's in the center for the most stable part of the platform, and also because they have muscle men in pits below to catch her in case something went terribly wrong and if she wasn't in the center, she'd be hanging out over the crowd. Even when it's back down to floor level, the guys walk along her path in the pits on both sides in case she were to fall. Oh yeah, it's the 1989 World Tour, not because it was 1989, but because that is when she was born. She really puts on a production
As I've stated (or quoted) in some of my previous posts discussing music, the magic of a musician is to sing songs that let the fans feel as if they are being let into their personal lives. The Beach Boys and the Beatles understood that, and used it to their advantage. But compared to Swift, they aren't even close. Swift started writing songs in her bedroom, on a Christmas tree farm in a small town outside of Reading, PA. The gangly, skinny girl taught herself to play guitar and piano. She wrote songs about her feelings, even when she was nine-years-old, and continues doing the same right to this day. Every song is about her personal life (or dreams) and what she has gone through...falling in love, breakups, heartache, pulling it together, finding happiness because of experiences, etc. She writes her own music (or has a co-writer work with her), both lyrics and melodies. And within the civilized world, every little girl, teen girl, and adult girl relates to her songs. When she was in Tokyo, the huge crowd sang every song along with her because they knew every word, even though it was not in their own language...sometimes drowning her out on stage...even her most obscure songs (she's written or co-written 221 songs, and released 62 songs on her albums)
She has a 150-million-dollar budget for her shows, that includes stage design and fabrication of props, the construction of platforms, specialized lighting rigs, advanced sound systems, and other technical elements, as well as an enormous staff and her entourage of band members, dancers, and backup singers, technicians, etc. She has over 100 semi-trucks that transport her stage equipment, and she has two groups of professional stage builders – one for setting up production for her next concert (takes about a week to put together), and another group to tear down the previous stage equipment after the show is over and start setting up the next. After the stage is set up, they have to run a couple of days' worth of practice to work out the bugs before a concert. It's a huge ordeal. And that budget does not include her two private jets (some of the biggest in the world). Her staff loves her as she's extremely generous and always throwing them bonuses and treats them the way people should be treated. She always gives them props at the end of her shows so they get the limelight for a bit (in one video, I can see a guy mouth the words "wow" as he can't believe the crowd, and they are screaming for him
(As a side note, I've always wondered what it would be like to be on a stage with thousands of adoring fans. Barbara Walters once asked Garth Brooks what is what like to play in front of tens of thousands of fans. I'll never forget his answer, because it made Walters blush. He said, "It's like a two-hour orgasm, but ten times stronger"...LOL)
One of Taylor's concerts cost about 20 million to produce and brings in an average of 93 million per show. Her tickets sell out months before she gets there and when touring big cities like Tokyo, Sydney, Singapore, Paris, and London, she does four shows in four days, each bringing in nearly 100,000 fans. Most tickets go for around a thousand dollars, but good seats are 5-7 thousand, and premier seats much more than that, and I've seen some ticket prices around 30,000 dollars. When fans go to her shows, they receive a wristband that has LED lights which are run by a computer behind the scenes to change color to match the mood of the song or to add to the excitement
Someone the other day wrote on this board, "cut Taylor some slack", as football fans don't want to hear about her and many (especially those who don't have a teenage girl at home) don't know how big she is in the world. What they don't realize is that Taylor is so much bigger than Kelce, that it's ridicously funny. Hardcore football fanatics know who Kelce Travis is, but well over several billion in this world know (and love) Taylor Swift. The fact that she can watch his games and be down to earth with his family is actually incredible. She is not like many pop stars who get naked or near naked in shows, swing from a canon ball, dance with a giant penis, and covered with tattoos, or always in trouble with drugs and other illegal activities. She's just a small-town, girl next door. Who is a marketing wizard and financial genius who has figured out how to make billions of dollars with her music, as she knows her audience and knows how to put on a grand show for her fans
My vote: Swift is bigger now than the Beatles were in the 60's, or Elvis in the 50's
Can you imagine the smell of estrogen in the air in Ed Sullivan's auditorium after the Beatles sang
Interestingly, when Travis Kelce went to a Taylor Swift concert in Sydney or Perth (I can't remember) and was seen walking along an aisle, when a group of girls recognized him, and they squatted and screamed just like when girls saw the Beatles for the first time. Travis waved to them and laughed because he couldn't believe it
Here is one of Taylor's concerts – a closing number in Seattle. Interestingly, the owners of the stadium in Seattle were a little worried about the building, and seismologists set up earthquake equipment to measure any vibration. They were worried that the concert could generate up to a 1.0 earthquake. They were wrong...and shocked as it generated a 2.3 magnitude earthquake. And yes, when she's 40 feet in the air on a revolving stage, she's tethered...not to mention, she's in the center for the most stable part of the platform, and also because they have muscle men in pits below to catch her in case something went terribly wrong and if she wasn't in the center, she'd be hanging out over the crowd. Even when it's back down to floor level, the guys walk along her path in the pits on both sides in case she were to fall. Oh yeah, it's the 1989 World Tour, not because it was 1989, but because that is when she was born. She really puts on a production