BBC OS Conversations: The Taylor Swift phenomenon
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 23 December 2023
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
There’s no doubt this has been Taylor Swift’s year. Just 34 years old, the American singer songwriter has been in the music industry for more than half her life. She’s a multi-award winning performer whose diehard fans have helped her break all sorts of records.
Time Magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year is also the most streamed female artist on Spotify and Apple and this week she achieved a record 90 weeks at number 1 on the US Billboard Artist 100 chart.
Swift’s Eras tour, which began in March this year and concludes at the end of 2024, has become the first to gross over $1 billion. Wherever Swift’s concerts land, they bring a big boost in the local economy.
Host James Reynolds hears about Swift’s appeal from those with a professional and personal interest in the singer-songwriter. They include the first full-time Taylor Swift reporter and also the professor who is about to start teaching a ‘Taylor Swift and her World’ course to students at Harvard University.
We also meet fans - or Swifties - from across four continents about why her songs are so special.
“I was in the southern most part of Africa,” says Agape, who is from Cape Town and currently studying in the UK. “But I felt, even in her song lyrics, like she was writing for me or about me.” A Boffin Media production in partnership with the BBC OS team.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Something mysterious, plagues County Mayo on the west coast of Ireland, and its legendary Gaelic football team. |
| 0:06.0 | Sometimes I think there's something sinister going on. |
| 0:09.0 | I believe in the curse. I think it's real. |
| 0:11.0 | Listen to the curious tale of the Mayo Curse on Amazing Sports Stories from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:18.0 | Search for Amazing Sports Stories wherever you get your BBC podcasts. |
| 0:22.0 | Hello, I'm James Reynolds. |
| 0:24.0 | Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:27.0 | In BBC OS conversations, we bring people together |
| 0:31.0 | around the globe to share their experiences and this time it's experts and |
| 0:35.7 | fans on the Taylor Swift phenomenon. It's hard to escape the face, the songs of Time Magazine's recently named person of the year. |
| 0:48.0 | The world's highest paid female performer may have started her career in the US as a country singer in Nashville but |
| 0:54.4 | her appeal to fans swifties crosses cultures and continents I was in like the |
| 1:00.6 | southern most parts of Africa but I felt like even in her song lyrics she was writing for me or about me |
| 1:06.2 | so I've just been able to connect with her and not only with Taylor Swifties across the whole world. |
| 1:18.0 | There is no doubt that this has been Taylor Swift's year. She's just 34 and the singer-songwriter has been the music industry for more than half of her life. |
| 1:24.0 | She is an awards-winning performer. |
| 1:26.0 | Can you count all the awards and her die-hard fans? |
| 1:29.4 | Four of whom, we'll hear from a little later, have helped her to break all sorts of records. Just this week |
| 1:35.2 | it was announced that she's now spent a record 90, that's 90 weeks at number one on |
| 1:40.9 | the US Billboard Artist 100 chart. |
| 1:44.0 | Her era tour, which began in March. |
| 1:46.4 | This year has already crossed off 66 dates in the US, |
... |
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