Lana Del Rey offers an idea on Taylor Swift’s success
When it comes to success, Taylor Swift "wants it more than anyone." No really, she does.
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From the time of Fearless (and the infamous Kanye West interruption), Taylor Swift was a massive phenomenon. She’s reached levels of visibility, acclaim, and cultural ubiquity that are frankly unfathomable. As inescapable as she is, it’s also impossible to escape discourse about her life and success. Does she deserve it? How did she achieve it? Can it be replicated? What is it about her? And what is it about this moment that has brought her to a peak that few, if any, other artists have ever achieved?
BBC News sought out some other singers to pontificate on these questions, including Raye, who called Swift a “powerhouse” and “one of those rare timeless artists who gets it right every time” while K.T. Tunstall observed that “She’s got the resilience and the chutzpah to be the boss of an enormous machine”. But it’s Lana Del Rey, Swift’s friend and collaborator, who has the most simple but telling answer of all: “She wants it. She’s told me so many times that she wants it more than anyone. And how amazing—she’s getting exactly what she wants,” Del Rey said. “She’s driven, and I think it’s really paid off.”
The old dictum “you’ve got to want it” in terms of achieving goals is typically so generic as to be functionally meaningless, but when it comes to Swift, entire universes are contained in that simple sentence. Famously, she convinced her parents to move to Nashville to help launch her career when she was just a kid, and she spent her pre-teen years running into record labels and dropping off a demo she made of herself singing karaoke music. Lots of artists have self-made origin stories, but few have maintained the ruthless, unflagging determination required to rise to the ranks of the biggest pop stars in the world and stay there.
In the years since finally being plucked out of Nashville-transplant obscurity, Swift has wrested control of her music, her brand, and her business. She’s brushed off criticisms of her “power moves” as misogynistic dreck (If she was a male artist, “They’d say I hustled/Put in the work/They wouldn’t shake their heads and question how much of this I deserve,” she sings on the speculative Lover track “The Man”). She’s shrewdly harnessed her political power when it works for her career, softening the self-serving nature of her stances with vulnerable and poetic confessions of her own overthinking, mastermind ways (“Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism/Like some kind of congressman?” she admits on “Anti-Hero”). She’s cultivated a fanbase of deeply invested devotees that will rally around her at the smallest perceived slight. She overcame so-called cancellation and won over skeptics with an unceasing wave of work that’s both fresh and familiar. Her nostalgic album re-recording project is just one example of the fact that no one alive knows how to marry music as both art and business better than Taylor Swift.
On the Tortured Poets Department track “The Prophecy,” Swift sings that she “Don’t want money/Just someone who wants my company.” Maybe money is meaningless to her, but status is clearly important. Otherwise, why else would she keep up the relentless grind? From the 3-hour-a-night 150+ date Eras Tour to recording a 30+ track album to selling endless variants, she never stops hustling in order to stay on top of the charts and on top of the pop pyramid. When her pedestal briefly wobbled in 2016, Swift treated it as a full career death; she has built her life around being the best of the best (and for her, perhaps, that’s associated with being universally beloved).
The present tense is the important part of Del Rey’s quote—not that Swift wanted it more than anyone else and got it, but that she still wants it more than anyone else and will fight to keep it. Success seems to be Swift’s core obsession, and she’s really, really good at it. If she wanted to retire and spend the rest of her life quietly with someone who just wants her company, she could do so right now and never have to work again a day in her life. But more than anyone else, Swift wants it: the success, the acclaim, the fans, the fame. “And how amazing—she’s getting exactly what she wants.”
46 Comments
It doesn’t hurt that she’s an insanely talented song writer and can actually sing without a ridiculous amount of autotune. I don’t doubt her drive at all, but she does have pure talent that the vast majority of people in her business don’t have. Other artists need gimmicks to sell themselves. She just needs a stage.
Yeah, and she can play her own instruments. All she needs is an acoustic guitar and she can entertain us. No need for fireworks or rooms full of producers. She’s also relatable. She sings about being unpopular, hurt, and/or unlucky in love. we’ve all been there. She’s been all those things and we can feel it.
LMAO no need for fireworks? the reason the eras tour is so successful is because it is such a spectacle. god you swifties are worse than marvel bros for slurping up any gruel your gods will throw at you.
I like gruel.
hard to argue with that!
I don’t understand why she gets so much praise for writing her own songs and playing an instrument. That’s lierally just the minimum requirement to be a professional musician.
I think the issue is there are men who see women going crazy for her and without doing any research into her performing they automatically role their eyes and assume a woman can’t be that big of a music draw. It’s just ignorant bored husbands. No news here.
lmao this is crazy.
Why does AV Club think people come here for music news?
Why would they think “Lana Del Rey’s opinion” qualifies as “music news”?
Stfu
no
What does the “A” stand for?
Aardvark!
But also as fun as your comment is I should point out that AV refers to “audio visual” of one thing not “audio and also video”. It refers to moving pictures with sound.
Amazing
Antidisestablishmentarianism?
I assume you come here to get your ass wiped
Yes, I’m sure her success was 100% because of hard work and not because of her appearance, natural talent, and/or millionaire parents funding the beginning of her career.
Remember, folks: her dad profited off the US housing collapse and helped cause the GFC.Wonder how many artists we lost because they were made homeless.
Good point, we should definitely stop listening to Taylor Swift because her father profited off of the housing collapse. Makes complete sense.You know it’s gotten retarded when the dorks are trying to cancel people on things their PARENTS did.
Hey can you kill yourself now?
No, but you’re welcome to since you’re clearly projecting your own self-hatred onto me 🙂
Who are you disagreeing with? Not the author.
I know. This is Kinja. Disagreeing with the author is illegal.
lol do you enjoy holding this much anger toward someone you’ll never meet?
No, do you?
lol wow you sound insecure hahahahahaha
Whatever helps you masturbate nerd
Don’t kink shame me, bigot.
words to live by
Here’s another secret: She’s White. Imagine telling artists like Suzi Analogue or Celeste that they just “don’t want it enough”. Ridiculous.
I never heard of either of them, though I did check out a bit on YouTube, and while I don’t disagree, and Swift started in Country so being white DID help. But lets be honest, making it as a musician is equal part talent and luck, Bieber became Bieber because someone stumbled across him singing on YouTube. While I am not a fan of Swift’s music, I am an EDM and metal head, it’s hard to argue almost anyone puts in the amount of work she does. Did she get lucky, sure, and ANY artist that makes it big got lucky, but girl puts in WORK. Just the supposed workout she does/did to get ready for her tour, I don’t think there is an artist in ANY genre could do that.
Yeah maybe, but the optics of Swift’s dad being a multi-millionaire and her mom being a fucking marketing manager certainly work against the idea that Swift’s career was earned solely from talent.Not to mention this is coming from an even less-deserving nepo baby in Lana Del Ray, who had to buy her music career twice before it took off.
i recall destiny’s child being put to run on a treadmill, singing their tunes, in heels.
Beyonce is the hardest worker in the industry. I doubt if Swift’s father was as difficult a task-master and stage dad as Beyonce’s father was. She had to work hard, make her own luck and be consistently fabulous. She also experiments. You won’t see Swift doing much of that.
Women have to work twice a hard to get half as much. The fractions are even more daunting for Black women in the industry.
Pointless race-baiting is fun… “SHE’S WHITE!!!!”
She’s not the only white female singer. Also ew don’t capitalize “white” dude *shivers*
I love when people either capitalize “white” or write “woke” in quotations. It’s a quick way of telling me you’re an idiot and I don’t need to consider your opinion.
u mean like u just did?
To all the men who “can’t stand Taylor Swift” or w.e. that take is…. she’s an amazing lyricist and musician. That’s it. Accept it regardless of whether you think it’s “girl music”, it’s still valid.
There isn’t a secret she’s just really good.
Ehhh, is she though? Her music is fine for what it is, but it’s inoffensive and doesn’t innovate in any way. I hoestly think her popularity comes from branding. Carly Rae Jepsen’s music is far more interesting, and her hooks are way catchier.
Her music isn’t for me. It’s bland and weirdly a-tonal and she’s one-note. I don’t see a lot of growth; her songs are for love-lorn teens and young women. As a woman I support women artists, but I don’t love all of them. Her persona is bigger than her talent, but then that’s how one collects fans and stays famous.
LMAO OF COURSE you like CRJ. Fucking dork LOL
Amazing musician? Hmmmm. No.
Fun fact I just discovered. I grew up about 4 miles from where she grew up.Well, about 20 years earlier, but yeah.