How Taylor Swift became the voice of a generation
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 19 January 2023
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This year, Taylor Swift is set to embark on her biggest and most expensive world tour. Fans flew into a frenzy when tickets went on sale after several thousand couldn’t get hold of them following technical difficulties. What is it about the pop princess that has the power to influence an entire generation and their politics?
This podcast was brought to you thanks to the support of readers of The Times and The Sunday Times. Subscribe today: thetimes.co.uk/storiesofourtimes.
Guest: Charlotte Ivers, Sunday Times columnist and Times Radio political correspondent.
Host: Manveen Rana.
Clips: NBC, PBS, BBC, ABC, Billboard, Fox, ET, SVT, CNBC, TikTok.
Music excerpts:
Love Story/Better Than Revenge - Taylor Swift, Big Machine Records, LLC.
Blank Space/New Romantics - Max Martin, Taylor Swift, Shellback, Big Machine Records, LLC.
Outta the Woods - Jack Antonoff, Taylor Swift, Big Machine Records, LLC.
Betty/Delicate/Man/You Need to Calm Down/Only the Young - Taylor Swift, Universal Music Group.
This podcast was brought to you thanks to subscribers of The Times and The Sunday Times. To enjoy unlimited digital access to all our journalism subscribe here.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Here in the UK, we sell amazing products and services the whole world once. |
| 0:04.4 | At the Black Farmer in Devon, our producers enjoyed on both sides of the Atlantic. |
| 0:09.8 | We're McKinnon and Saunders from Manchester and our puppets are watched on six continents. |
| 0:14.8 | So whether you're new to exporting or experienced, |
| 0:17.4 | explore global growth for your business with free support from the UK government, |
| 0:21.6 | access information, training, events and expert advice to help you find new customers overseas, |
| 0:27.2 | visit great.cup.uk to get started. |
| 0:57.4 | Surprise guest as the door opens, the crowd gasps. |
| 1:07.4 | In walks a star so famous, they can't quite believe she's real. |
| 1:13.4 | She coolly sips a drink, takes a guitar and asks, |
| 1:17.8 | is it OK if I sing? |
| 1:22.4 | The crowd goes wild. |
| 1:27.2 | Because the surprise guest at another band's concert is a woman whose own tour tickets are so |
| 1:34.0 | sought after that they sent the internet into meltdown. |
| 1:38.9 | We had 14 million people hit the site, including bots. We did sell over 2 million tickets that day. |
| 1:45.5 | We could have filled 900 stadiums. |
| 1:55.7 | Taylor Swift is more than a pop star. She's a global phenomenon. |
| 2:01.3 | Ticket sales for her latest US tour alone will make her more than $500 million, |
| 2:07.6 | a record sum for a female artist. But then, Taylor Swift is used to breaking records. |
| 2:15.1 | And just one day of sales became the top-selling album of the year. |
| 2:18.8 | Already. Yeah, and just one day of sales of the whole year. |
| 2:24.4 | So how did she become one of the biggest and most influential artists in modern music? |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Times, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Times and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.