Could 2023 Have Been the Year That Solidified Taylor Swift’s Iconic Status in the Entertainment Industry? Here’s Our Take
2023, hands down, was a year that belonged to Taylor Swift a little more than it did to anyone else. The 34-year-old pop star was long referred to as the ‘Mother of the Music Industry’ by her fierce fandom, but this past year she forced the whole of the proud anti-Swift population to bow down to her as she sold hundreds of thousands of tickets to her earthquake-causing Eras Tour.
She also saw her fans in theaters with her record-breaking concert film, infiltrated the NFL as a frowned-upon WAG, became a billionaire, and made her way to the cover of Time Magazine as the 2023 Person of the Year.
For anyone not yet versed by the phenomenon that is Taylor Swift, if you are presuming a person of such stature must walk on air all day long, well, let me, a loud and proud Swifte, tell you: Taylor Swift climbed the stardom stairs while gleefully trading friendship bracelets with her friends and fans alike. A practice that reflects her humble personality and one that has become a conventional practice at her enthralling and ever-sold-out concerts.
Enough with emotional ranting; we are backing up our declaration of awarding the sole ownership of 2023 to Taylor Swift with facts and figures below.
Here’s how Taylor Swift became an icon of the entertainment industry in 2023:
Taylor Swift thrived in 2023 without dropping new music—a remarkable feat in itself
In an age where artists swear by consistency in releasing new work — be it movies, TV shows, or music — to keep their fandom from wandering away, Taylor Swift has no such worries to deal with. The singer knows the generation of fans that she raised over the years will stick to her side no matter how long she takes to put out new breakup or falling-in-love songs for them to scream and cry to.
Taylor, however, did not take advantage of the fact in any sense. Not keeping Swifties completely parched until April 2024, when she released her new album, Taylor provided them with two re-recorded albums: Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) and 1989 (Taylor’s Version) in 2023. Swifties, for their part, not caring about the music offerings having negligible new material, sent the albums soaring to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.
For those who may not know, the Cruel Summer singer started re-recording her first six albums to rightfully own her music after they were infamously sold by Scooter Braun in 2020. Swift became the flag bearer of artistic ownership following the said move.
Besides reigning atop the album sales Billboard chart, Taylor was named 2023’s most streamed artist globally, with the music streaming platform’s data suggesting her music earned more than 26.1 billion streams before the Spotify Wrapped for 2023 was released. By taking the top spot, Swift dethroned Bad Bunny, who held the No. 1 Spotify artist position for three consecutive years since 2020.
Again, bear in mind Swift did not release new music last year. The record only affirms the assertions that credit the musician’s songs with being evergreen.
Taylor Swift redefined cinema with $249 million Eras Tour film
When Swift came out with the Eras Tour film toward the end of 2023, it was like a fan fest for disheartened Swifties who could not secure tickets to the pop star’s live show dates. The movie, for lack of a better word, offered a concert-like experience to the fans at a much cheaper rate and rid them of the hassle of having to sort plane tickets and accommodations in an alien city.
No wonder the Eras Tour movie became the highest-grossing concert film to date, beating Justin Bieber’s 2011 Never Say Never movie. Since its premiere, the film has collected more than $178 million in domestic sales and over $249 million globally, per Box Office Mojo.
And talking about the ongoing global music tour itself that made up the material of the said film, as of December 13, 2023, the tour had earned $1.04 billion in ticket sales, per Pollstar. Fans who couldn’t make it inside the concert venues were precisely seen camping out in parking lots to hear Swift sing many of her new and old tracks.
As a result, not only is Swift reported to have taken billions of dollars home after the conclusion of the Eras Tour this year, but the singer, per the Washington Post, is estimated to have contributed $5.7 billion to the US economy by the time she wraps up the tour.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia announced this summer that Taylor Swift helped boost travel and tourism in the region when she brought her Eras Tour to the city — a sentiment echoed by other U.S. cities that welcomed Swift and her crew.
In light of the economic boosts the U.S. cities received thanks to Taylor, politicians from countries like Canada and Chile reached out to the singer via social media, urging her to include them in her list of tour stops. When did we last witness world leaders championing a pop star’s success? Nothing recent comes to mind.
And all this business was sure to funnel substantial cash into Swift’s personal account as well, and funnel it did, as Forbes declared in October 2023 that the 14-time Grammy winner’s net worth had touched the $1.1 billion mark. The net worth becomes even more significant when it’s taken into account that all the money Swift makes is from her music alone. She does not have fashion lines, beauty brands, or alcohol businesses of her own, nor does she endorse any of them for other brands in the market.
Time Magazine named Taylor Swift as the 2023 Person of the Year
“This is the proudest and happiest I’ve ever felt, and the most creatively fulfilled and free I’ve ever been,” Swift told journalist Sam Lansky after beating out the likes of King Charles to secure Time Magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year title.
Time, which had honored Swift with the Silence Breakers title in 2017, said of the pop star in 2023 that she was picked as their frontrunner for the aforementioned title because she “achieved a kind of nuclear fusion,” proficiently threading art with commerce.
By reviewing Taylor Swift’s achievements in 2023, one thing is clear: Her accomplishments and influence on the entertainment industry have been unparalleled. With her record-breaking albums paired with live and screen offerings, Swift not only managed to captivate the audience but also shaped the cultural and economic landscapes of the globe.
Swift’s success last year is a reflection of her remarkable talent and strategic vision—the latter of which she has been consistently criticized for but has remained nonchalant as any true influential figure must.
With half of 2024 already gone by, Swift has only reaffirmed her impact on the world with her newest endeavors.
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