With song titles like “Today Was a Fairytale” and “Enchanted,” it’s clear that Swift still has a penchant for the characters she grew up with. The newest addition to the Disney Dream Portraits campaign, shot by legendary photographer Annie Leibovitz, is an image of Swift as Rapunzel, the naive and complicated fairytale princess who lives high above the rest of the world in a tower. Her latest photo shoot for Disney Parks highlights the latter. Secondly, her chart-topping hits-and thirdly, her enviable head of hair. Taylor Swift is known for many things: Firstly, her (at times questionable) boy crazy behavior that inspires so much of her music. “At a certain point, if you chase two rabbits, you lose them both,” she explained to Rolling Stone. ‘Love you, mean it … but this is how it’s going to be’ĭespite the huge stable of fans who came to her through country, Swift made a conscious decision not to promote 1989 to that format. 58 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart - while staying at No. Handout/Postmedia News filesĮarlier this year, her label head Scott Borchetta at Big Machine Records (an independent, yet behemoth, label based in Nashville) begged Swift to put just three country songs on the record, which he deemed “extraordinary … the best album you’ve ever done.” She refused, with a reaction that could have been plucked from one of her songs: “Love you, mean it … but this is how it’s going to be.” The record’s first single, “Shake It Off,” peaked at No.
Swift wasn’t, like Parton, raised a Backwoods Barbie - her personal narrative is more prep school than poverty. Article content Will Swift follow a similar path to Parton or actually abandon country forever?īut will Swift, who leaned pop from the very start, follow a similar path or actually abandon the genre forever? If she did, it’s not like she’s leaving behind a particularly “country” storyline. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 1 on Canada’s iTunes - even though it was just eight seconds of accidentally uploaded white noise. This week, for instance, a song simply titled “Track 3” that was purportedly from 1989 quickly shot to No.
Country music colleague Blake Shelton recently pointed out that Swift is simply staying true to who she is as an evolving performer - and as the highest-selling digital artist of all time, she can pretty much do whatever she wants, as audiences will follow. Perhaps this is exactly why Swift is making her departure now, to capitalize on the freedom this landscape entails. Country music has returned to the mainstream thanks to the decline of rock radio, the rise of digital song sales and even the nascent influence of hip hop. Still, declaring an album “pop” is a dangerous choice for a Nashville-oriented artist today. ‘People squawked and complained and swore that I’d lost my mind and was abandoning country’ Words of a motivational speaker, sure, but also of a pioneer. “Try to be the first one up the mountain,” Parton croons of the last track of her latest record, Blue Smoke.
They’re experimenters who want to constantly improve their craft, and with that experimentation comes the chance of alienating some in favour of crossing borders and climbing charts. Article contentīut the most significant commonality is a limitless ambition and unwillingness to be confined within a genre, making them both well poised for crossover success: Forces to be reckoned with, cloaked in folksy vulnerability.