Here are 20 ways Taylor Swift reshaped pop culture in her own image.

@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/full-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/full-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/full-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 600;
font-style: italic;
}@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/full-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/full-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/full-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 700;
font-style: normal;
}

@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Titlepiece’;
src: url(‘https://interactive.guim.co.uk/fonts/garnett/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://interactive.guim.co.uk/fonts/garnett/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://interactive.guim.co.uk/fonts/garnett/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 700;
font-style: normal;
}

@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 300;
font-style: normal;
}

@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 300;
font-style: italic;
}

@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 400;
font-style: normal;
}

@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 400;
font-style: italic;
}Here is the rewritten text in fluent, natural English:

“`css
@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 400;
font-style: italic;
}

@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 500;
font-style: normal;
}

@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 500;
font-style: italic;
}

@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 600;
font-style: normal;
}

@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 600;
font-style: italic;
}

@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 700;
font-style: normal;
}

@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 700;
font-style: italic;
}

@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 900;
font-style: normal;
}

@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 900;
font-style: italic;
}
“`ine-BlackItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);
font-weight: 900;
font-style: italic;
}

@font-face {
font-family: Guardian Titlepiece;
src: url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff2) format(“woff2”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff) format(“woff”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.ttf) format(“truetype”);
font-weight: 700;
font-style: normal;
}

#article-body > div .content–interactive-grid,
.content–interactive > div .content–interactive-grid,
#comment-body .content–interactive-grid,
[data-gu-name=”body”] .content–interactive-grid,
#feature-body .content–interactive-grid {
grid-column-gap: 0px;
grid-template-columns: 100%;
grid-template-areas:
“media”
“title”
“headline”
“standfirst”
“lines”
“meta”
“body”;
}

@media (min-width: 30em) {
#article-body > div .content–interactive-grid figure.element–immersive figcaption,
.content–interactive > div .content–interactive-grid figure.element–immersive figcaption,
#comment-body .content–interactive-grid figure.element–immersive figcaption,
[data-gu-name=”body”] .content–interactive-grid figure.element–immersive figcaption,
#feature-body .content–interactive-grid figure.element–immersive figcaption {
padding: 0 20px;
max-width: 620px;
}
}

@media (min-width: 46.25em) {
#article-body > div .content–interactive-grid,
.content–interactive > div .content–interactive-grid,
#comment-body .content–interactive-grid,
[data-gu-name=”body”] .content–interactive-grid,
#feature-body .content–interactive-grid {
grid-template-columns: 100%;
grid-column-gap: 10px;
grid-template-areas:
“title”
“headline”
“standfirst”
“media”
“lines”
“meta”
“body”;
}

#article-body > div .content–interactive-grid #maincontent,
.content–interactive > div .content–interactive-grid #maincontent,
#comment-body .content–interactive-grid #maincontent,
[data-gu-name=”body”] .content–interactive-grid #maincontent,
#feature-body .content–interactive-grid #maincontent {
padding-right: 80px;
}
}

@media (min-width: 61.25em) {
#article-body > div .content–interactive-grid,
.content–interactive > div .content–interactive-grid,
#comment-body .content–interactive-grid,
[data-gu-name=”body”] .content–interactive-grid,
#feature-body .content–interactive-grid {
grid-template-columns: 620px 300px;
grid-template-areas:
“title right-column”
“headline right-column”
“standfirst right-column”
“media right-column”
“lines right-column”
“meta right-column”
“body right-column”
“. right-column”;
}

@media (min-width: 71.25em) {
#article-body > div .content–interactive-grid,
.content–interactive > div .content–interactive-grid,
#comment-body .content–interactive-grid,
[data-gu-name=”body”] .content–interactive-grid,
#feature-body .content–interactive-grid {
grid-template-columns: 140px 1px 620px 300px;
grid-template-areas:
“title border headline right-column”
“. border standfirst right-column”
“. border media right-column”
“. border body right-column”
“. border . right-column”;
}

#article-body > div .content–interactive-grid .content__standfirst,
.content–interactive > div .content–interactive-grid .content__standfirst,
#comment-body .content–interactive-grid .content__standfirst,
[data-gu-name=”body”] .content–interactive-grid .content__standfirst,
#feature-body .content–interactive-grid .content__standfirst {
padding-bottom: 0;
}

#article-body > div .content–interactive-grid figure.element–immersive figcaption,
.content–interactive > div .content–interactive-grid figure.element–immersive figcaption,
#comment-body .content–interactive-grid figure.element–immersive figcaption,
[data-gu-name=”body”] .content–interactive-grid figure.element–immersive figcaption,
#feature-body .content–interactive-grid figure.element–immersive figcaption {
/ original content ends here /
}
}Immersive figcaption has 4px padding on top and no padding elsewhere.
In the article body, interactive content sections, comment sections, and feature body sections, elements with `[data-gu-name=”lines”]` and `[data-gu-name=”meta”]` are placed in grid area `2 / 1 / 5 / 2`.
For `[data-gu-name=”lines”]`, the height is set to `max-content` with a 5px top margin.
For `[data-gu-name=”meta”]`, the top margin is 18px.

On screens wider than 81.25em, the interactive grid uses columns of 219px, 1px, 620px, 80px, and 300px.

On iOS and Android, the standfirst text in article headers uses the font `Guardian Headline, Guardian Egyptian Web, Guardian Headline Full, Georgia, serif` with a weight of 500.
The article kicker section is displayed as a block, and its first letter is capitalized.
The `keyline-4` class has 12px top padding.
In the meta section, the byline author uses the same font family with a weight of 700, and links within it also have a weight of 700.
Images inside article figures have their inner container height set to `auto`.
When a figure with an atom is followed by a paragraph, the paragraph has no top margin.

If scripting is enabled, interactive articles and standard articles start with 0 opacity and hidden overflow. Once the `interactive-loaded` class is added, they fade in over 1 second and overflow becomes visible.

In dark mode (when the user’s system prefers dark and no light color scheme is set), link text and hover colors are dark, standfirst text, byline, and meta lines are white.
The article border becomes `#dcdcdc`, and the background is `#121212`.
All text inside layout sections (headings, paragraphs, spans, links) is forced to white.

The base margin is 10px, and column width padding is 10%.
On screens wider than 23.4375em, column width padding increases to 15%.
On screens wider than 30em, the margin becomes 20px.
On screens wider than 46.25em, column width padding is 30% and the grid width is 740px.@media (min-width: 61.25em) {
:root {
–gridWidth: 980px;
}
}
@media (min-width: 71.25em) {
:root {
–gridWidth: 1140px;
}
}
@media (min-width: 81.25em) {
:root {
–gridWidth: 1300px;
}
}

:root:root {
–byline: #ffffff;
–byline-anchor: #ffffff;
–article-link-border: #606060;
–article-link-text: #121212;
–article-link-text-hover: #121212;
–article-link-border-hover: #121212;
–video-background: #121212;
–dateline: #dcdcdc;
–standfirst-text: #ffffff;
–article-meta-lines: #ffffff;
}

:root:root article {
–article-border: #121212;
–article-background: #ffffff;
–share-button: #ffffff;
–share-button-hover: #121212;
–article-text: #121212;
–byline-anchor: #ffffff;
–follow-icon-fill: #ffffff;
–follow-text: #ffffff;
–mobile-colour: #ffffff;
}

:root[data-app-os=”android”] {
–androidTop: 58px;
}

:root[data-app-os=”ios”] {
–iosBottomToolbar: 50px;
–iosTopToolbar: 20px;
–iosLvh: calc(100vh – var(–iosTopToolbar));
}

@media (min-height: 670px) {
:root[data-app-os=”ios”] {
–iosBottomToolbar: 84px;
–iosTopToolbar: 44px;
}
}

@media (min-height: 800px) {
:root[data-app-os=”ios”] {
–iosTopToolbar: 94px;
}
}

.credits-wrapper {
padding: 20px;
}

.credits-wrapper .left-col,
.credits-wrapper .right-col {
display: contents;
}

@media (min-width: 61.25em) {
.credits-wrapper {
border-top: 1px solid var(–article-border);
padding: 40px;
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: 1fr 1fr;
}

.credits-wrapper .left-col,
.credits-wrapper .right-col {
display: block;
}

.credits-wrapper .right-col {
position: relative;
}

.credits-wrapper .right-col:after {
content: “”;
position: absolute;
top: -40px;
left: -2px;
height: calc(100% + 80px);
width: 3px;
background-color: #fff;
z-index: 10;
}
}

.credits-wrapper p {
font-style: italic;
color: #121212;
font-family: “Guardian Text Egyptian Web”, Georgia, serif;
line-height: 130%;
margin-bottom: 0;
max-width: 420px;
}

.credits-wrapper p:first-of-type {
font-style: normal;
}

.credits-wrapper p strong {
font-style: normal;
font-weight: 400;
}

.credits-wrapper p a {
color: #121212;
}

.pagination-container {
position: fixed;
right: 10px;
top: 50%;
transform: translateY(-50%);
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
gap: 8px;
z-index: 100;
transition: opacity 0.3s ease;
opacity: 1;
}

.pagination-container.hide {
opacity: 0;
pointer-events: none;
}

@media (min-width: 46.25em) {
.pagination-container {
right: calc((100vw – var(–gridWidth)) / 2 + 11px);
}
}

.pagination-container .pagination-dot {
width: 7px;
height: 14px;
border-radius: 4px;
border: none;
background-color: #121212b3;
border: 1px solid rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.7);
cursor: pointer;
padding: 0;
position: relative;
transition: transform 0.3s ease, opacity 0.3s ease;
}

@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) {
.pagination-container .pagination-dot {
transition: none;
}
}

@media (min-width: 61.25em) {
.pagination-container .pagination-dot {
height: 22px;
}
}

.pagination-container .pagination-dot .pagination-label {
transform: scaleX(0);
position: absolute;
height: 0;
display: block;
overflow: hidden;
transform-origin: right;
opacity: 0;
transition: transform 0.3s ease, opacity 0.3s ease;
white-space: nowrap;
font-family: “Guardian Text Sans Web”, “Helvetica Neue”, Helvetica, Arial, “Lucida Grande”, sans-serif;
font-size: 15px;
color: #121212;
background-color: #fff;
right: 14px;
padding: 1px 8px 2px;
top: 0;
border-radius: 3px;
}

@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) {
.pagination-container .pagination-dot .pagination-label {
transition: none;
}
}

.pagination-container .pagination-dot .pagination-label p {
opacity: 0;
transition: opacity 0.3s ease;
transition-delay: 0.2s;
}

@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) {
.pagination-container .pagination-dot .pagination-label p {
transition: none;
}
}

.pagination-container .pagination-dot:hover,
.pagination-container .pagination-dot.active {
cursor: pointer;
background-color: #fff;
border: 1px solid rgba(18, 18, 18, 0.7);
}

@media (min-width: 61.25em) {
.pagination-container .pagination-dot:hover .pagination-label,
.pagination-container .pagination-dot.animate .pagination-label {
transform: scaleX(1);
opacity: 1;
height: unset;
}

.pagination-container .pagination-dot:hover .pagination-label p,
.pagination-container .pagination-dot.animate .pagination-label p {
opacity: 1;
}
}

.layout-header {
position: relative;
}

.layout-header *:not(.layout-header-media) {
position: relative;
z-index: 2;
}

.layout-header .layout-header-media {
background-color: #121212;
position: sticky;
inset: 0;
height: 100vh;
margin: 0 calcHere’s the rewritten version in fluent, natural English:

“`css
(var(–margin) * -1)
}

@media (min-width: 61.25em) {
.layout-header .layout-header-media {
border-bottom: 1px solid var(–article-border);
}
}

.layout-header .layout-header-media video {
width: 100%;
height: 100vh;
object-fit: cover;
background-color: #000;
}

.layout-header .layout-header-media:after {
content: “”;
position: absolute;
inset: 0;
z-index: 10;
background: #000;
opacity: 0;
pointer-events: none;
transition: opacity 1s ease;
}

@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) {
.layout-header .layout-header-media:after {
transition: none;
}
}

.layout-header .layout-header-media.opacity-media:after {
opacity: 0.7;
}

.layout-header .layout-header-furniture {
margin-top: calc((100vh – 1px) * -1);
}

.layout-header .layout-header-furniture [data-gu-name=”title”],
.layout-header .layout-header-furniture [data-gu-name=”lines”] {
display: none;
}

.layout-header .layout-header-furniture > p {
margin-bottom: 0;
padding-bottom: 24px;
}

.layout-header .layout-header-furniture [data-gu-name=”headline”] {
–guardian-header-height: 145px;
–headline-height: 230px;
overflow: hidden;
margin-top: calc(100vh – var(–guardian-header-height) – var(–headline-height));
}

.layout-header .layout-header-furniture [data-gu-name=”headline”] > div > div {
padding-bottom: 14px;
}

.layout-header .layout-header-furniture [data-gu-name=”headline”] h1 {
color: #fff;
margin-bottom: 40vh;
padding-top: 4px;
width: 76vw;
position: relative;
font-family: Guardian Headline Full, Guardian Egyptian Web, Georgia, serif;
font-weight: 400;
line-height: 100%;
display: block;
font-size: 48px;
padding-bottom: 8px;
}

@media (min-width: 61.25em) {
.layout-header .layout-header-furniture [data-gu-name=”headline”] h1 {
padding-top: 2px;
}
}

.layout-header .layout-header-furniture [data-gu-name=”headline”] h1:before {
content: “”;
height: 4px;
width: 100%;
background-color: #fff;
position: absolute;
top: 0;
left: 0;
}

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}Where it all began
View image in fullscreen
2:18
How Taylor Swift’s debut single has shaped 20 years of her pop stardom – video

Released 20 years ago, Taylor Swift’s debut single is, on the surface, a tribute to the power of music. It’s about how hearing a song by your favorite artist can take you back to the memories tied to first hearing it. She named it Tim McGraw after one of her favorite country singers, with a message aimed at an ex-boyfriend who had left her: “When you think Tim McGraw,” she sang, “I hope you think of me.” The strength of Swift’s songwriting and her immediate impact as a pop star mean that’s what most of us think of when we hear Tim McGraw now. From the very start, we could see Swift’s ability to reshape culture in her own image—a talent that, two decades later, has made her one of the biggest pop stars in history.

The polished 36-year-old showgirl we know today might seem worlds apart from that country teen with her corkscrew curls and cowboy boots. But if you look past the slightly folksy southern twang in her debut single, that song contains almost everything we’ve come to know about Swift as an artist. The foundations are all there.No 21st-century pop star has written about love better than her. She builds her scenes with the kind of intimate details that became her signature—the little black dress that later made way for that scarf she left at an ex’s sister’s house; the moon over the lake that set the stage for all those kisses in the rain; the cars parked on back roads where the young couple had secret meetups, leading up to the moment they hit the brakes too soon. But we can also see her confident way of flipping tired old stories. From the very first line, when she remembers her lover telling her “the way my blue eyes shined put those Georgia stars to shame,” she fires back: “That’s a lie.”

Swift knows she tells better stories than anyone else. From day one, she also understood the power of being the one who gets to tell the story. Here, she rewrote the small-town southern romance; years later, she tore apart the man-eater stereotype on Blank Space and brought the “mad” woman to life on The Last Great American Dynasty. In Tim McGraw, after the guy leaves, she writes him a letter telling him how he should remember their time together, and leaves it on his doorstep—boldly writing her own fate. He may have gone, but in true Swift style, she gets the last word: the enemies who later inspired songs like Mean, Bad Blood, and Look What You Made Me Do never stood a chance. She also knows how to make time work for her, flipping the timeline of their relationship—from past memories to present pain to future nostalgia—to take full control of the story. You might hear a song from your past and get a vague warm, fuzzy feeling. Swift is a beautiful freak who remembers it from every angle, all too well.

From the start, Swift showed us exactly who she was, revealing the natural focus that helped create the defining pop songs of our time—and a career that turned her into a legend, making her the lens through which we understand so much of pop, pop culture, womanhood, the music industry, and so much more. Here are the 20 ways she remade the world in her own image. Laura Snapes
Image credits: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic; Big Machine Records

She escaped growing pains
Growing pains have always been a rite of passage for teen-girl pop stars—just as much as No. 1 singles and big-budget videos. In a more manufactured era, obsolescence was built in: eventually, you’d rebel against the system that controlled you, and eventually, it would spit you out.

Swift understood that staying in control would protect her. She knew that writing her own songs would create a real, personal connection with fans—one she carefully deepened in real life—that no label would dare mess with. From 2008, when she released her second album, Fearless, her management became a family business. Being the flagship success of a small label, Big Machine, also gave her the freedom to grow on her own terms; label head Scott Borchetta even encouraged it, suggesting that 2010’s biting Speak Now shouldn’t be named Enchanted, after a lovestruck song of the same name, because she was no longer writing about “fairytales and high school.” Every corkscrew curl, princess dress, and bowler hat was her own choice; she marked her growth through her genre evolution, from country to emo to sleek pop. As she said in 2015: “As far as the need to rebel against the idea of you, or the image of you: like, I feel no need to burn down the house I built by hand. I can make additions to it. I can redecorate. But I built this.”

You could argue it came at a cost. Interviews with the teenage Swift reveal someone acutely aware of the price of stepping out of line: in high school, she described her refusal to party as a choice “between being popular or not messing my life up”; she didn’t drink until she turned 21 (“I knew I couldn’t get away with it until then”) and knew that after you mess up once, “people are going to be waiting for you to mess up again.” In 2009, one profile writerNoted: “Self-preservation is one of Swift’s favorite phrases.” Several of the older, unreleased songs she brought back as bonus “From the Vault” tracks on her Taylor’s Version re-recordings focused on her fear of being replaced by younger models. That level of control and perfection is just as unsustainable as, say, the pretense around Britney’s virginity. You could see how it might have contributed to the disordered eating Swift dealt with in the mid-2010s, and how unbearable it must have been when she lost control of the narrative for a few years around that time.

Still, Swift made it to young adulthood without directly causing scandal or rebellion. You get the sense that her unmatched polish may have pushed the press, as her innocent image faded, to look for anything to criticize her for—and they ended up with… her very normal number of boyfriends. The weak nature of those accusations highlighted a rigged game that no amount of perfection could beat. But Swift got further than most, and paved the way for those after her to define themselves on their own terms. LS

Image credits: Ethan Miller/Getty Images

She led the traditional vanguard.

View image in fullscreen: Max Martin and Jack Antonoff.

If you want to understand Swift, just think about Apple—yes, the computer company. Apple, famously, has rarely invented anything. Its reputation for quality, easy-to-use products has almost made it anti-innovation. When things like touchscreen smartphones or tablets first hit the market, Apple didn’t rush to release its own version. Instead, it waited until those products were familiar, and then released best-in-class versions.

Swift works in a similar way. She tends to change slowly. When it comes to producers, she started out working with Nashville veteran Nathan Chapman, then made a few songs on her 2012 album Red with Max Martin and Shellback, two of the era’s top producers. Together, they added tinny synths and light dubstep drops—the popular sound from a few years earlier. On 2014’s 1989, she mostly worked with Martin and Shellback, but also made a few songs with Jack Antonoff, a then-unknown who had scored a megahit, We Are Young, with his band Fun a few years earlier. In 2017, Reputation was another split between Antonoff and Martin/Shellback. But on songs like Ready for It and I Did Something Bad, she basically offered a more mainstream-friendly version of the harsh electronic sound that her then-nemesis Kanye West (now Ye) had used on his culture-shifting 2013 album Yeezus.

Versions of this story repeat throughout Swift’s career. With each album, she almost always moves her sound forward a little, but she’s rarely, if ever, the first to work with a new face or a new style. This is, in many ways, the opposite of how pop stars as big as Swift used to work. Madonna and Michael Jackson—two of the only musicians who have ever reached the same level of cultural saturation and interest—tended to look to the underground for inspiration in music, fashion, and aesthetics, and then made those underground styles commercially successful. (Think Madonna turning the ballroom culture that her backup dancers came from into Vogue, one of her most unforgettable hits.) Swift’s strategy deeply reflects her time: one where it pays to avoid risk and give people exactly what they want, when they want it. Shaad D’Souza

Image credits: Matt Sayles, Invision/AP

She reclaimed cringe.

View image in fullscreen: In the lead-up to the 2020 US election, an entire news cycle was spent guessing whether Swift would endorse a presidential candidate. She confirmed her support for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the cutest way possible: with a tray of homemade cookies. Swift is cringe, but she is free: directing cheesy videos herself, selling references from her own songs—like cardigans and red scarves—as merchandise, hosting fan parties at her house, and writing the worst Instagram captions ever. (She saved one of the most groan-worthy for her engagement announcement, writing: “Your English teacher and yourThe gym teachers are getting married. And while it feels odd for Swift—who’s known for loving her sourdough starter—to poke fun at “wine moms” in her songs, maybe it actually boosts her credibility: there’s nothing more awkward than lacking self-awareness. — Owen Myers

She made competency a flex
Even though Swift’s songs are full of messy emotions, she runs her career with military precision. As a kid, while her friends watched the Disney Channel, she studied episodes of VH1’s Behind the Music and figured out that artists went off the rails when “they lost their level of self-awareness.” That made her fiercely focused on ambition and execution. As a teenager, she outsmarted Nashville veterans, challenging industry norms and knowing exactly how to play the game to get ahead. When people criticized her singing or dancing, she got better. When enemies came after her, she got wiser: “I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time,” she sang on Look What You Made Me Do. From big ideas to tiny details, Swift is a one-person watchdog over her own career. Sure, total professional excellence is also a very Beyoncé thing—but she doesn’t show her hand the same way. Swift wrote the 21st-century playbook for elite pop stardom, and she wants us to know it. — LS

She bent formats to her will
Swift understands streaming better than almost anyone else in her field. Even though she was slow to embrace it, by the 2020s she had become a master of the format: deluxe editions of 2022’s Midnights and 2024’s The Tortured Poets Department, each basically doubling the original length, came out just hours after the originals. Streaming is all about volume when it comes to breaking records; adding tracks this way encourages repeat listens without fans getting tired or bored. And it’s a very linear medium: Tortured Poets and The Life of a Showgirl each placed their single as track one, so it would get the most plays and become the default hit.

When it comes to understanding format—and how it relates to commercial success—Swift has long been ahead of the game. Among pop stars, she popularized selling vinyl records with exclusive covers to boost chart positions, something only superstar rappers had done before. CD copies of her 2019 album Lover came with an exclusive notebook containing snippets from her personal diaries—but fans had to buy four copies to read all the pages. (Similarly, Reputation’s CDs came with one of two exclusive magazines, and 1989’s deluxe edition came with a random set of Polaroid-style photos.)

Swift was also smart about format early in her career. Seemingly aware that country music has a much bigger audience in the US than overseas, she bundled international editions of her 2008 breakthrough album Fearless with singles from her debut, while some songs from 2010’s Speak Now were redone with pop mixes for the international market. She also seemed to take the advertising advice to meet customers where they are, selling copies of her fourth album Red at Papa John’s pizzerias.

Of course, all of this was small compared to Taylor’s Versions, her massive album re-recording project, which let her bring older music back into the spotlight and market it to new fans. The re-recorded albums also included new, previously unreleased songs, giving existing fans an extra reason to buy albums they already owned. Since Swift started releasing the Taylor’s Versions, other artists in tough contract situations, like JoJo, have followed her lead, while some have done it just for fun: Hilary Duff packaged her new album with new recordings of hits like Come Clean. In short, Swift turned what wasOnce seen as a desperate business move, it’s now a clever marketing strategy.
Image credits: Jane Barlow/PA

She set new melodic standards
View image in fullscreen: Gracie Abrams, Maisie Peters, and Holly Humberstone.

Once you know about the “T-Drop,” you’ll start noticing it everywhere. The hosts of the Switched on Pop podcast came up with this term to describe Taylor Swift’s habit of unexpectedly dropping into her lower register, adding a sly twist to her melodies—especially when they’re already dripping with sarcasm. Take her deliciously drawn-out delivery of “drunk and grumbling on about how I … can’t … sing” in Mean.

Her followers love using the T-drop as a way to showcase their ultra-specific, Swift-like imagery. Recent hits from Gracie Abrams, Maisie Peters, and Holly Humberstone (pictured) rely on this technique. These singers capture Swift’s emotion, but not her talent for quirky, instantly memorable imagery that’s a bit odd or even outright strange: “Sexy baby,” “grinning like a devil,” or even “this sick beat.”

Image credits: Ian West/PA; Roy Rochlin; Viktor Szymanowicz/Anadolu via Getty Images

She made game day for the girls
View image in fullscreen: On September 24, 2023, Swift attended her first Kansas City Chiefs game to support her boyfriend, star tight end Travis Kelce.

“It’s like these two cultural giants—the NFL and Taylor Swift—were coming together,” says Bryan Graham, the Guardian’s deputy US sports editor. Swift was no longer just in the stands; she was firmly in the executive suites of stadiums, marking what Ella Brockway, assistant US sports editor, calls “a different level of celebrity in sports than we’ve seen before.” Swift’s entry into the NFL world may have been driven by love, but it also helped that it came with a chance to expand her personal brand.

What does Taylor Swift mean to the NFL?
BG: For years, the NFL has been trying hard to attract women, going back to 2009 when they started celebrating breast cancer awareness month and selling pink merchandise. So when they embraced her with lots of cutaway shots during games, especially in the 2023-24 season, it made perfect sense. It felt like a gift from heaven for the NFL.

EB: The first day she came to a game was the most fun. I had a lot of Swift update accounts on my timeline sharing things like football explainers for confused fans. But the second game was when I realized this story was going to change the NFL season. It was a Monday night game against the New York Jets, and she brought Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. ESPN was tweeting highlights of Swift walking through the tunnel at MetLife Stadium.

BG: This is the American equivalent of the royal family. The idea of “the cheerleader and the quarterback” fits into the mythology of her music, going back to You Belong With Me. Her relationship with Kelce felt like that fantasy coming to life.

Were more female fans tuning in to watch the Chiefs when Swift was at the game?
BG: There was a huge increase in female viewership.

EB: The NFL has had a few years of controversy over domestic violence issues among players, and Swift helped them attract a female audience. She wore all this vintage Chiefs merch to the games, and then the NFL started changing its merchandise and partnering with designers. So if you wanted a Chiefs shirt, it could be something that women in their twenties would actually want to wear, instead of just a Chiefs logo in pink.

Swift’s romance with Kelce happened at the same time she reached a new peak of superstardom with the Eras tour.
EB: She was clever enough to figure out how to own this other world at the same time and break into a new market. There were still some “Brads and Chads,” as she called them, who were annoyed by her presence. But I think the longer she stayed around, the more people thought, “OK, this girl can hang.”

Why do you think she chose Travis and Jason Kelce’s podcast New Heights to announce The Life of a Showgirl?
BG: It’s kind of…It’s a flex. It’s couple goals: lifting each other up and promoting each other’s work. I think that was probably the easiest decision of the whole rollout. It’s like, “I already have this property in the family. Why would I go to someone else?” A big part of American sports business over the last 15 years has been about athletes skipping traditional media and telling their own stories.

Will she ever do the Super Bowl halftime show?

BG: Well, artists don’t get paid to perform, and they usually do it to promote a tour. She didn’t need much help selling tickets for the Eras tour. The NFL would definitely need her more than she needs them.

The Eras tour also showed off her own athleticism.

EB: Travis has said they were drawn to each other partly because they’re both athletes in a way, and she told Time magazine about doing the whole set while running on a treadmill. I don’t think she saw herself as an athlete back during the Fearless tour, but that’s definitely changed as stadium shows became her thing.

Image Credits: Ezra Shaw, Getty Images

She exposed the music business

View image in fullscreen: Scooter Braun and Scott Borchetta.

As a young pop fan in the late 90s, my knowledge of the music industry was limited to: Virgin Records (the Spice Girls’ label) and Simon Fuller (their manager). That’s nothing compared to the advanced industry know-how any tween Swiftie has today, thanks to her very public stance on artist rights—especially her own.

In 2014, Swift removed her back catalog from Spotify to protest the idea that music should be free. (She put it back in 2017.) A year later, she got credit for pushing Apple Music to back down from not paying royalties during its free three-month trial. Even though independent labels and trade groups had also refused to accept Apple’s terms, they didn’t get the same public recognition for their efforts.

In 2018, Swift left Big Machine, the label she signed with as a teenager, for Universal Music Group (UMG). The deal let her own the rights to her master recordings. She also demanded that if UMG sold its Spotify shares, the money would go to its artists without being used to pay off debts. (As of April, artists are benefiting from that deal.)

In 2019, Big Machine sold the master recording rights to Swift’s first six albums to industry executive Scooter Braun. Swift called it her “worst case scenario,” claiming Braun had bullied her along with his clients Ye and Justin Bieber. Soon after, she said in a TV interview that she planned to re-record those first six albums to take back ownership. I admit, when I interviewed her right after that, I didn’t ask about it because it seemed like such a crazy idea. What an idiot.

With note-for-note copies, the Taylor’s Version re-recordings were huge successes, often charting higher than the originals (even though they generally sounded worse) and inspiring the billion-dollar Eras tour. They completely ruined Braun’s investment—as the songwriter on those masters, Swift could block their use in soundtracks, insist directors use her new versions, and push streaming platforms to prioritize them. They also raised widespread awareness of the nitty-gritty details of the music industry. After that, many young female artists signed nearly unprecedented debut-album deals that let them own their masters, including Olivia Rodrigo, Ice Spice, and Maggie Rogers. Zara Larsson bought hers from her old label to start her own.

But this increased awareness led some fans to see labels owning masters as always shady, rather than standard practice in exchange for financial advances. It also gave some artists unrealistic expectations, like Rina Sawayama, a British-Japanese pop star, who protested against her label Dirty Hit owning her masters.Her label mate (and former label director) Matty Healy from The 1975 laughed while others mocked Asian accents on a 2023 podcast. His comments faced widespread criticism, but there was nothing shady about a label owning a young artist’s music. Swift has exceptional bargaining power—most artists don’t earn enough to have that kind of leverage, but they might now expect it.

Masters hadn’t gotten this much attention since Prince protested Warner Bros owning his in 1995. Swift created the most business-savvy group of fans and artists in history, and in turn, a safeguard against exploitation. Headlines that used to stay in music trade magazines are now mainstream news. The rise of licensing deals means many artists get their rights back after a certain period. And last May, Swift got her masters back: Braun had sold them to a private equity firm, which then sold them to her. Announcing the news, Swift described the saga as a kind of destined mission: “Every time a new artist tells me they negotiated to own their master recordings in their record contract because of this fight, I’m reminded of how important it was for all of this to happen.” LS

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She redefined album ‘eras’

Swift was far from the first pop star to reinvent herself with each album, but she was arguably the first to turn the idea of separate “eras” into a marketing tool. With her Eras tour, she turned a concept that fans had owned into a key part of her business model. Now, she sells the same cardigan in a new color scheme with each new album and re-releases old merch with new photos. She even updated the Eras tour halfway through to include a new Era (and naturally, the Disney+ film of the tour was also updated). Other artists have since adopted the idea—turning the dreaded “greatest hits” tour, once a sign that an artist was past their prime, into a show of strength. SDS

Image credits: Matt Sayles/AP; Beth Garrabrant; Xavi Torrent/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

She turned fans into detectives

Since her 2006 debut, Swift, inspired by the (then Dixie) Chicks, left secret coded messages about her songs’ subjects in the liner notes of her albums. This got Swifties used to treating her work like the Rosetta Stone and deepened the bond between them. Starting with 2017’s Reputation, Swift moved the trick from liner notes to visuals, filling her videos, outfits, social media posts, tours, and interviews with clues about her plans. Although articles decoding Swift’s Easter eggs are now a staple of entertainment media—the world’s biggest ongoing treasure hunt—they’ve still kept that sense of intimacy on a massive scale. Fans who crack the codes feel deeply validated for their understanding, and the endless speculation is free publicity beyond any marketer’s wildest dreams. LS

Image credits: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

She rewired pop criticism

In many ways, 2015 doesn’t seem that long ago—until you remember that year, US indie bible Pitchfork decided to review now-disgraced rock star Ryan Adams’ full-album cover of Swift’s 2014 album 1989, without having reviewed the original. The idea of poptimism—that pop deserves as much critical attention as rock—was a decade old, but old snobberies still lingered. Swift’s move from country to pop made her impossible to ignore and showed a wide audience the consistent quality of her songwriting. Emerging young female critics, like Tavi Gevinson, founder of Rookie magazine, knew that the emotional and technical skill in Swift’s work meant it should be treated like scripture. As her fame grew and her fanbase became louder, cynical critics realized they had to take Swift seriously if they wanted to be taken seriously themselves. As web traffic dropped, Swift coverage quickly became a reliable moneymaker for online publications.Amid all the frothy, celebrity-focused coverage, any negative reviews made their authors targets. Things reached a boiling point when Pitchfork gave Swift’s 2020 album Folklore a very high 8.0—which still brought down the record’s otherwise perfect score on the review aggregator Metacritic. The critic was doxxed, creating a culture of fear that led U.S. publication Paste to publish their sharply negative review of 2024’s The Tortured Poets Department without a byline, citing concerns for the writer’s safety.

Lately, some high-profile critics have said all this has made criticism weak. Honestly, I don’t know what they’re reading—and speaking from my own experience, I think the Swifties have calmed down—but the idea has stuck: that once critics wouldn’t write about her, and now they can’t.

LS
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She made pop star style feel normal

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In a celebrity world where A-listers are always trying to outdo each other with attention-grabbing outfits and museum-worthy vintage pieces, Swift’s style stands out for being different. Aside from a few memorable missteps (a “This is my fight song” tee with a leather harness, or the Sesame Street color palette of ME!), her style is notable for how harmless it is, how it seems to lack a clear sense of taste, and how she can make the most expensive designer clothes look like they came from the mall. Has she ever truly wowed? That’s debatable. That’s exactly what fascinates Lauren Sherman, a fashion reporter for Puck.

You once called Taylor Swift’s style “Anthropologie girl gone wild.” How come?

Taylor Swift didn’t have a typical college experience, and even though she’s in her mid-30s, she still dresses like a popular college girl would. Lately, she’s been wearing more polished clothes and designer brands, but they still feel like a costume. I never really like what she’s wearing, even when it’s nice.

She wore a couture Schiaparelli gown to accept her Album of the Year Grammy for Midnights. It looked much less “designer” than it did on the runway. She’s very polished, but she’s not sophisticated.

When she announced her engagement, she wore a very feminine Ralph Lauren dress. It cost $400 and sold out immediately. Why did she choose something so down-to-earth for that moment? There’s been a lot of talk about her not wearing expensive clothes on purpose to connect with her fans. I’m not sure that’s it. I think she might just think, “I want to buy what I like, and I don’t care how much it costs because I’m a normal person.” I thought that dress was one of the best things she’s ever worn.

What are her iconic looks? Does she have a “Rihanna in Guo Pei at the Met” moment?

Definitely not. I think the closest she came was when she wore a red sweater with curly hair at a Kelce football game. Or when she wore the Area crystal jeans. But she’s not a fashion person. I think her clothes brand her the same way her writing does: as a normal girl you can relate to.

Are there any style risks you’d like to see her take?

I’d love for her to look a little less costume-like, but I don’t know how that would happen. I think that’s just who she is. She was really into SSENSE for a couple of weeks and wore that Jean Paul Gaultier top. That felt like a fashion risk without leaving her comfort zone.

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She thrived on negativity

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Maybe aside from Drake, no pop star has made more money by turning lemons into lemonade. When critics said the teenage Swift didn’t write her own songs, she wrote 2010’s brilliant Speak Now entirely alone. Kanye West interrupting her MTV awards speech made her a household name. The media criticizing her for having too many boyfriends gave us Blank Space. Losing to West in the PR game inspired Reputation, her best album. Her industry rival buying the rights to her first six albums inspired the TTaylor Swift’s re-recordings were the final blow, and in turn, the Eras Tour—which made over $1 billion—allowed her to buy back her masters. I’d love to know if she’s ultimately grateful for any of those setbacks. At least last year, when critics gave her album The Life of a Showgirl mixed reviews, she said it plainly: “The rule of show business is, if it’s the first week of my album release and you’re saying either my name or my album title, you’re helping.” More recently, she shared that she tells young songwriters criticism is a gift: “Make art about it.”

She turned her publicist into a star

In October 2023, Swift was on the red carpet for the premiere of The Eras Tour film. When photographers clamored for her attention, she paused and pointed to her publicist, Tree Paine. “You see that redhead? She’ll tell me what to do.”

The idea that anyone could truly control pop’s ultimate strategist seems a bit ridiculous. But Paine is the tough one who lets her boss play the role of sunshine and rainbows. Despite her heartfelt songwriting, Swift is a fortress, and Paine is the only one with the key—she can raise the drawbridge whenever she wants.

Since Swift hired her in 2014, Paine has become the mastermind behind the mastermind. Besides granting only very selective Swift interviews to the media, Paine is deeply tuned into online chatter. She played a key role in the Taylor vs. Kim vs. Ye feud, but no gossip is too small for Paine to fight over: she didn’t just push back at DeuxMoi for posting rumors that Swift and her ex Joe Alwyn were secretly married—she accused them of causing “pain and trauma.” When Swift seemed to ignore Céline Dion on stage at the 2024 Grammys, Paine and her team reportedly scrambled to get a photo of the two singers together, smoothing over the controversy. At the Eras Tour, she was in the pit every night, telling photographers how to shoot the singer: over the shoulder.

Along with Beyoncé’s ever-present longtime publicist, Yvette Noel-Schure, Paine has become a star in her own right. This reflects a time when fans are more aware of the people who help shape their favorite celebrities’ images (think Law Roach, Terrence O’Connor, Aidan Zamiri). Fans love Paine’s designer outfits, no-nonsense attitude, and calm confidence. A photo of Paine getting Swift water has nearly a million views, while the Wall Street Journal has written over 2,000 words analyzing her strategic genius. She has a strong claim to being pop’s biggest power publicist since Liz Rosenberg represented the diva trio of Madonna, Cher, and Stevie Nicks in the ’80s and ’90s. The difference is that Paine focuses on just one star.

She gave the competition a boost

Around 2014—when her album 1989 made her the biggest pop star in the world for the first time—Swift stopped being pop’s favorite newcomer and was finally recognized as the artistic and commercial powerhouse she had been for years. With that shift, Swift accepted her role as someone who could lift careers: she supported rising pop stars like Troye Sivan and brought Charli XCX and Camila Cabello on her Reputation tour, performing “Shake It Off” with them each night. Think of it as a generous version of the famous “Drake co-sign”—where, in the 2010s, the rapper would remix songs by unknown artists and turn them into hits, giving him some credit for their success. Swift’s Midas touch might be more beneficial in the long run, and it’s highly sought after: many of the artists who opened the Eras Tour, like Sabrina Carpenter and Gracie Abrams, now sell out arenas themselves.She turned dating into a cultural milestone.

For years, Swift was pop’s ultimate romantic—bold enough to rewrite Romeo & Juliet with a happy ending, or to write a whole song about the Kennedy family (Starlight) while dating one, then perform it for them. Over time, her take on love grew more complicated. On 2017’s Reputation, she sang about new love, but also about feeling stuck in singledom due to obstacles beyond her control. On 2020’s Folklore, she wrote about missed connections with exes she still thought about.

By 2022’s Midnights, Swift seemed unsure about the traditional idea of “settling down” that she once sang about. In several songs, she expressed discomfort with the thought of getting married if it meant losing her independence. She also criticized how narrow society’s view of womanhood still is: “All they keep askin’ me / Is if I’m gonna be your bride,” she sang on Lavender Haze. “The only kind of girl they see / Is a one-night or a wife.”

This shift—from fairy-tale romance to questioning whether marriage is even possible—mirrors what many women around Swift’s age go through. Even though she’s probably never used a dating app, the bleakness of Midnights and its follow-up, The Tortured Poets Department (released after her longest relationship ended, where she admits she’s “down bad crying at the gym”), feels similar to how many of my single female friends talk about their love lives. For years, Swift was pop’s ultimate pessimist about heterosexual romance, putting aside the romantic ideals she helped create.

In a way, the emotional breakdowns on Tortured Poets made Swift more relatable again, after years of her work feeling increasingly distant. Suddenly, she was a romantic beginner like many of her fans, trying to figure out why what seemed like true love went wrong so fast. Then she did something else that reminded me of my friends in their mid-30s. Almost overnight, she found a new dream guy in American football player Kelce, fulfilling the romantic fantasies that seemed out of reach just a few years earlier. Swift’s romantic journey is very specific to millennial women—she could have chosen a life without marriage, but ultimately didn’t. By capturing that journey in her songs, she basically turned the millennial dating experience into a cultural landmark.

She shook up the charts.

Every new Swift release comes with a flood of CD, vinyl, cassette, and digital versions, all helping her stay on top of the charts. Many artists do this, but Swift—who drops limited editions through a tricky system of timed releases and exclusive retailers, which frustrates many fans—has mastered the art of gaming the charts, often at others’ expense. When it looked like Billie Eilish might beat The Tortured Poets Department in 2024, Swift released three digital versions to keep the top spot. Charli xcx’s Brat almost did the same in the UK, so Swift released six UK-only album versions in the last few hours of chart eligibility and stayed at No. 1. Lana Del Rey has said Swift once told her she “wants [success] more than anyone”—and it’s clear she knows how to get it.

She broke the indie/pop divide.

Swift and Aaron Dessner.

Swift has always been as mainstream as it gets. Her early albums were big, bright pop-country hits that referenced major stars (Tim McGraw) and classic literature (Romeo & Juliet on Love Story). The first signs of experimentation came on 2012’s Red, when she started adding synths to herMusic—and even that record took a jab at an ex who liked listening to indie music. Centrism was her thing; when she wrote an album about her glamorous new life in New York City, 2014’s 1989, she made sure to ground her pop sound in 80s music, as if to keep less adventurous listeners on board.

But 1989 had an unexpected impact. Its massive success forced nearly everyone to pay attention to Swift, even alternative music fans who weren’t used to following the Billboard charts. As Swift got older, her own hang-ups about alternative music seemed to fade too—slowly at first, then all at once. In 2019, Lover included nods to Mazzy Star’s Fade Into You, Chromatics, Lana Del Rey, and Blood Orange.

Then, during the pandemic, came indie Swift. Her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, produced by the National’s Aaron Dessner, got rave reviews and fully established Swift as a songwriter in the eyes of more highbrow fans. It turned Dessner into an A-list producer overnight: he’s since worked with a new generation of pop stars like Gracie Abrams, Laufey, and Noah Kahan, as well as established artists like Ed Sheeran and Florence + the Machine. Meanwhile, Swift made music with the National, Phoebe Bridgers, and Hayley Williams of Paramore. Swift stopped positioning herself against the indie world and found a way to bring it into her own universe—opening up an entirely new market for herself in the process.

Image credits: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

She set the narrative

Like many other stars of her kind, Swift rarely does traditional interviews anymore. Almost all information about her life and career released to the public comes through Swift’s official channels, and she’s trained fans to see her word as gospel. When she does make media appearances, it’s calculated: she spoke to Variety, a Hollywood trade magazine, about her ambition to become a director; she announced last year’s The Life of a Showgirl on New Heights, a podcast hosted by her fiancé Kelce. In each interview, Swift shared information specifically designed to position herself and her career at that moment.

Sometimes, what she shares is contradictory: when Swift released a 10-minute version of her 2012 song All Too Well in 2021, she told fans it came from a jam session with her band where she basically ad-libbed the song on the spot, even though the song’s co-writer Liz Rose had said there was never officially a 10-minute version. Instead, she and Swift had trimmed the song down from a pile of ideas Swift brought to her. Plus, ATW10 clearly shows Swift’s post-Folklore songwriting style, as well as a mention of a keychain that says “Fuck the patriarchy”—hardly common in 2010. But it’s hard to argue with the narrative when Swift keeps things so tightly controlled. Call it Public Relations (Taylor’s Version).

Image credits: Julien de Rosa/AFP/Getty Images; YouTube/New Heights

She revived monoculture

Streaming and social media have split up the age of shared entertainment. What seems like the biggest thing in the world to you—Marvel movies, Joe Rogan—might mean nothing to the person next to you on the bus scrolling through K-pop fan cams. Swift has risen above this fragmentation to become the default pop star.

You could argue that’s because her career started before this new cultural reality, but plenty of old-school pop stars failed to make that leap. Swift’s lasting songwriting, strategy, and gossip factor kept her star bright. She’s maturing on her own terms, but still stays relevant to new, young fans: the Taylor’s Version re-recordings let Swifties who were too young to remember the original releases feel a sense of involvement and ownership. The resulting Eras tour, showcasing (almost) every Swift album, naturally reflected the emotional weight of how many generations of fans had grown up with her work. Her music is accessible to everyone (and, importantly, approved by parents). Little kids can dance to it.It’s a ready-made belief system for young fans who are still figuring themselves out. It’s so detailed that hardcore fans analyze it like the Zapruder film, and so well-made that even old-school classic rock fans respect her. I’m often amazed at how casual music fans—people who don’t usually get into fandom—call themselves Swifties.

Her presence and influence have made her so powerful that streaming platforms and even governments have to bow to her. That means she gets to set the rules. To watch the music video for last year’s The Fate of Ophelia on its release weekend, you had to buy a movie ticket. She’s become a Disney-like empire all on her own. It’s Swift’s world, and we’re just living in it.

LS
Image credits: Emma McIntyre/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

The next 20 years?
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1:58
Guardian writers on what the next 20 years might look like for Taylor Swift

Few A-list female pop stars have kept their careers at the top as long as Swift has, and even fewer have gone beyond that. (Even Madonna’s peak started to fade just over 20 years in.) So what’s next? Swift’s wedding to Kelce seems to be on the horizon. Maybe her song for the Toy Story 5 soundtrack hints at wanting an Oscar—or gets her fans hoping she’ll return to country music. She probably won’t do another Eras-scale tour anytime soon, but that could open the door for smaller, more intimate live shows. Our critics share what they think Swift will do next—and what they hope she will.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs based on the topic 20 ways Taylor Swift reshaped pop culture in her own image covering beginner to advanced perspectives

BeginnerLevel Questions

1 What does it mean that Taylor Swift reshaped pop culture in her own image
It means she didnt just follow trendsshe changed how the music industry fan culture and even business deals work often setting new rules that other artists now follow

2 What is the biggest single way she changed the music industry
Rerecording her first six albums She did this to own her master recordings which forced the industry to rethink how artists control their work

3 How did she change how artists release albums
She popularized the surprise album drop and the vault track strategyhiding unreleased songs on rerecordings She also turned album releases into massive cultural events with Easter eggs and countdowns

4 Did she change how fans interact with artists
Yes She pioneered direct personal engagement on social media setting a new standard for fanartist relationships

5 What is a Taylors Version and why does it matter
A Taylors Version is her rerecorded album It matters because it gave her legal ownership of her music and it inspired other artists to fight for their rights

IntermediateLevel Questions

6 How did she change the concert experience
She turned tours into immersive fanfirst events The Eras Tour broke records by being a threehour 44song career retrospective making concerts feel like a shared movie or festival

7 What is the Easter egg culture she created
She hides clues in music videos social media posts and outfits Fans decode them to predict album themes or release datesturning fandom into a puzzlesolving community

8 How did she influence the way artists handle bad press
She stopped hiding from controversy Instead of staying silent she wrote songs directly addressing feuds turning personal drama into charttopping hits

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