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From her Reputation era to the misogyny-laced judgment she faced as a young starlet on the dating scene, Taylor Swift‘s journey to becoming a pop mega star wasn’t all roses. It might be hard to relate the image of a defeated singer to the power symbol of confidence and victory winning hard at life right now, but there were times when even Taylor felt all was over in her life.
Back in 2023, when she was picked to be TIME‘s Person of the Year among the famous changemakers that year, it was partially because of the music industry drama that had inspired her to be more outspoken. When music manager Scooter Braun of Ithaca Holdings got the rights to Swift’s recording masters in 2019, Swift reacted dramatically. Perhaps due to Braun’s relationship with Kanye West at the time of the sale, or a general dislike of the infamous manager, Swift was knocked down by the sale. She believed the masters were purchased for “nefarious reasons” and felt “powerless” to respond, she told TIME.
“I was so knocked on my ass by the sale of my music, and to whom it was sold,” she said in 2023. “I was like, ‘Oh, they got me beat now.” But she devised a plan while working on sister albums Folklore and Evermore — which ironically would become two of her most acclaimed albums, partly thanks to their vulnerability when addressing the loss of the masters. Swift decided to rerecord all her albums prior to Lover, her first album under her new, and current, label Republic.
“I’d run into Kelly Clarkson and she would go, ‘Just redo it,’” Swift said. And so she got to work, creating subtly different tracks with improved vocals, rerecorded instrumentals, and some slight production alterations to fit Swift’s modern sonic sensibilities. “It’s all in how you deal with loss,” she explained, “I respond to extreme pain with defiance.”
Snakegate
It wasn’t the first time Swift had to hunker down and decide how to move forward after a public defeat. After all, Swifties remember the Reputation years, when the artist decided to lean into the insults, beef with West and his then-wife Kim Kardashian, and a changing tide in sentiment towards her in the media.
It all started with West using a likeness of Swift in the “Famous” music video… a nude likeness. He claimed she gave consent after forgiving him for the infamous VMA incident all those years ago. West also used the lyric “I made that b*tch famous.” Swift was reportedly unhappy with the music video and the insinuation West’s embarrassing outburst at the VMAs had an impact on her career trajectory. Back and forth happened in and out of the public sphere, before West and Kardashian dropped a bomb that would turn the internet against Swift for years.
When the unhappy couple released a recording of a phone call with Swift, they claimed she could be heard permitting to be a part of West’s creative vision. Swift to this day denies knowing what that vision would entail, and that she would never say yes to the look-alike featured in the video. Regardless of who was telling the truth, it wasn’t long before #TaylorSwiftIsASnake trended on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“I’ve also learned there’s no point in actively trying to quote unquote defeat your enemies,” Swift added in her TIME interview. “Trash takes itself out every single time.” Instead of continuing the public warfare, she released Reputation, which rebranded Swift as a reborn, edgier version of herself. The album was dripping in black aesthetics, used snake imagery in promotional material and the concert stage production, and saw her turn to a different sound — a tone that had only been teased in the likes of 1989‘s “Blank Space.”
She disappeared off the face of the Earth after that era concluded. But while in hiding, she arguably made her two best albums, which would have never come to be had Swift not decided to retreat for a while for her own sanity. If we can learn anything from this drama, it’s that beauty can come from pain. And, of course, karma is her boyfriend.