Taylor Swift’s business smarts are something most people don’t even see – her new album is rumored to be about the 6-year relationship she just ended, but she threw a curveball bent and wrote it mostly about a 2 month relationship instead… and I’m seeing a much more genius reason than anyone is saying.

She created a whole new story for a relationship that supposedly started a decade ago, and to me, this looks doubly so.

1) she wanted to show the audience that she didn’t just jump into a relationship with a creepy guy right after a breakup for no good reason – it was clear that the feelings were there all along.
but, 2)… she has created a whole new lens through which to look at her entire musical catalog – at least from the last 10 years.
Why this genius?

Because now millions of Swifties are going through every song and lyric from the last decade, listening to her old music, helping her break even more records – LIKE she’s traveling and performing her old music there. This would make her the most-streamed artist globally across all platforms, and keep her songs on all charts.

On the new album, she created countless parallels and storylines between her new songs and her old songs – and also Matty Healy’s (2 month old guy).
To the point that anyone who listens to this guy’s music can now only hear it through the lens she created.

I don’t even remember the last time we saw such power in the music (or any) space, and here’s why it’s really not a fair comparison to any other music space. No other artist compares to Taylor.

Whether it concerns their numbers, or their lyrics.
Her new album, which she clearly didn’t even write for the critics, but for herself to heal, debuted with 314.5 MILLION streams in ONE DAY – for context, the second most-streamed is Beyonce’s, with “only” 76.6 million.

Her tour will likely surpass the 2 billion mark – the second most successful tour in history is Elton John’s Yellow Brick Road tour, which earned $939 million.
At this point, Taylor is in a league of her own and this likely won’t change for a while.
It’s crazy, for an artist with almost 20 years in the profession.

Personally, I love Taylor for her storytelling and lyrics (I love an artist who writes their own lyrics and has full creative direction), because it’s unmatched – but I won’t lie, the cleverness Her business is a close second for me. There’s a lot to learn there if you pay attention and let go of any bias you might have about the 34-year-old woman currently on top of the world, living rent-free in everyone’s mind.

One of the branding tactics that helped her reach this level of success was building brand relevance – something she has focused on since day one, which she maintains to this day. Now, through different strategies.

One is the way she writes her songs, in ways that don’t explicitly share details about her life, but rather create stories that are applicable to 90% of the people listening.
Another thing she always does is interact with fans on social networks (especially footage on tik tok and Instagram) – liking posts, commenting.
She also once invited fans to her home for listening parties of an upcoming album. All of this culminated in a woman who has now built a BILLION dollar brand, but is still seen as relevant by most of her fans.

It’s a fascinating case study.
I’m running a Secret Session on 13 branding lessons we can all learn from Tayor Swift and apply to our own brands/businesses – save your spot here (FREE!) :
This is open to you even if you have no business! You’ll love the examples and learning.

PS: the new album, The Tortured Poets Department is very heroic, please listen. Poetry 😻 Personally I love songs that aren’t even about relationships. Younger me is my favorite, followed by Clara Bow, which is quite haunting.