Taylor Swift

I always liked Taylor Swift, especially in her country days. My earliest experience of her music was “Speak Now”. It has one of my favorite songs of all time “Never grow up”, an acoustic guitar-led ballad about time, youth, growth, nostalgia, life. It’s beautiful and personal, it always made me reminisce about my life, my experiences, my childhood, simpler times when everything made sense. The lyrics are so descriptive and vivid, the guitar strings you along the different perspectives. How I wish I lived in a loop where youth is forever, time stands still and the smiles lasted an eternity. It’s an emotive song, it’s tragic, life goes on and we all grow up. The album also contains “Mine”, “Sparks fly”, “Dear John” and another favorite of mine “Mean”. Her writing always distinguished her from everybody else, she writes with a lot of feeling and from real life experience, you feel her words anchored in reality. I always liked Taylor Swift and when she released her fourth album “Red”, I went to the music store and purchased the CD. I loved “Red”, it had “Starlight”, “Begin Again”, “Everything has changed”, “Sad beautiful tragic”, “The Last Time”, “Holy Ground” and “Stay, stay, stay”. It also had your chart toppers like “22”, “I Knew You Were Trouble” and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”. It was great album, still love this album to this day, my last Taylor Swift album, I lost touch after “1989”, ironically, that’s when she really took off! She’s an icon now, selling stadiums is easy, topping charts is a given, platinum records automatic and four “Album of the year” Grammy awards – no one has ever done that period.

I always liked Taylor Swift, she’s the biggest gangster in the game, when she releases an album everyone else changes their release dates. She re-recorded her albums because the record company was playing hardball with her masters – ownership, they will never give you what’s due to you, exploitation is the name of the game. She took her publishing and re-recorded the music so she can own the masters. She redistributed the music as “Taylor’s version” and they sold better than before. She is the first billionaire with music as the primary source of income. The lesson? Ownership will make you a Billionaire. 14 Grammy awards and just about every conceivable award in music – Taylor Swift, the biggest gangster in the game.

Showtime Australia is having a Taylor Swift tribute show of different eras at the Joburg Theatre in April and Bronwen invited me for a meet and greet with the star of the show, Josette. She’s leaving for Australia in a couple of days to prepare for the show so it was imperative that I meet her. She’s pretty and she loves Taylor Swift. Her first experience of Taylor was at home on the internet, her broadband disappointing, she could only stream the first 15 seconds of “Teardrops on my guitar”, so she played it over and over again. Her favorite album is “Fearless” and the self-titled album. I love the fact that she has been with Taylor from the very beginning. The show is a blend of different eras, we had different costumes that dazzled with sequins to illustrate this. From the country days, to Red, to her current era. All in all, 7 eras, the show promises to be a great one. She’s enthused, there’s a sparkle in her eyes, she’ll be performing the music of a cultural icon and she’s still alive, Josette knows she has to bring it, there will be an expectation. She explained that she won’t go out of her way to be Taylor Swift, that’s not possible, she’s still alive, selling out stadiums in the process – no one is expecting that, she will perform as authentically as she can embodying Taylor’s stage presence and mannerisms and honoring her in the best possible way. It’s a tribute show of a cultural icon, one of the most influential people in the world, the biggest gangster in the game and Showtime Australia is behind it. This is going to be a great one, I can feel it.