How Taylor Swift became the voice of a generation
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 28 October 2023
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Friday was a big day for Taylor Swift. She released the reimagined version of her 2014 album 1989, and was declared a billionaire by business news outlet Bloomberg. So this weekend we're listening back to our conversation with The Sunday Times' resident Swiftie, Charlotte Ivers.
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.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | 2020 has been a good year for Taylor Swift. |
| 0:05.8 | She's embarked on the launch of her ERAs Stadium Tour, |
| 0:08.8 | with 146 performances spanning five continents. |
| 0:14.5 | And then, earlier this month, came the world premiere of her blockbuster movie titled The Same. |
| 0:22.8 | Welcome to the Ayrn't Tour! |
| 0:26.6 | You'd be forgiven for thinking she wouldn't have time for much else, |
| 0:31.1 | but you'd be mistaken. |
| 0:34.0 | In a bid to clawback intellectual property rights for her 2014 album, 1989, |
| 0:40.9 | Swift has re-recorded it as Taylor's version, |
| 0:45.2 | part of a project to reclaim her back catalogue. |
| 0:48.6 | It's a mean thing, just a personal thing. |
| 0:50.5 | I, since I was a teenager, I wanted to own my music, |
| 0:54.2 | and the way to do it was to re-record my albums. |
| 1:02.3 | Friday's hotly anticipated 1989 album re-release gives us the perfect excuse, if one was needed, |
| 1:13.2 | to revisit my conversation from earlier this year with a Sunday Times staff writer and hardcore Swifty Charlotte Ivers. |
| 1:21.0 | You're listening to Stories of Our Times from the Times and the Sunday Times. I'm Manvine Rana. |
| 1:27.3 | Today, a retrospective, |
| 1:30.0 | how Taylor Swift became the voice of a generation. |
| 1:38.2 | My name is Charlotte Ivers. |
| 1:39.9 | I'm a columnist for the Sunday Times, |
| 1:41.8 | and I'm also Times Radio's political correspondent. And a secret Swifty. Would we say secret? I'm not sure we'd say secret. I think it's... Very public. Very public. Very public. I wrote about Taylor Swift a few weeks ago for the paper and they brought it up when I went on question time. Everyone was being introduced. You know, this is the shadow secretary of state for XYZ. And then it was his Charlotte Ivers. is the political correspondent for Times Radio. She also contributes to the new statesman and writes about other things for the Sunday Times, such as why millennials like her have never been cool and the genius of Taylor Swift. It's now been on primetime BBC. It's now part of the CV. |
| 2:19.6 | I want to say nation's foremost Taylor Swift expert, but there are about 500,000 people who |
... |
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