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Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, Explained

"Look What You Made Me Do" wasn't just a song title - it was a warning to the music industry.

December 20, 2024

👋 Hello to our Musicboard Members. You asked for it… and we listened. Welcome to Discover Music - the brand new weekly newsletter from Musicboard. We will keep you up-to-date on what’s happening in the industry and help you discover new songs. Without further ado… let’s dive in 🌊

đź’‹ "You stole my masters? That's cute." Watch how Taylor Swift turned her biggest setback into the most amazing comeback ever - complete with friendship bracelets, easter eggs, and enough power to crash Ticketmaster.

Read time: 5 minutes | 1,201 words

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FEATURE

đź‘‘ The Eras Tour: When Marketing Met Mass Hysteria

The greatest marketing story in music history started with Scooter Braun stealing her masters and ended with Taylor Swift stealing the entire economy.

Remember when Eminem wrote "Stan" about a crazy-obsessed fan? Little did he know he was naming a whole culture that Taylor Swift would one day turn into her personal economic empire. While Em was warning us about “Stan Culture,” Taylor was taking notes and thinking "but what if we added friendship bracelets?"

The Villain Origin Story That Wasn't

Picture it: 2019. Scooter Braun just bought Taylor's masters, and the music industry is thinking "career setback." Taylor's thinking "challenge accepted."

While everyone's busy writing think pieces about the drama, she's quietly plotting the biggest chess game the music industry has ever seen.

See, most artists would have taken the L. Maybe written a sad song about it. Not Taylor. She looked at the whole music industry and said "Okay, bet. Watch this."

  1. The Mastermind Era Begins

What looked like a career crisis became the blueprint for the biggest tour in history.

First came the re-recordings, but this wasn't just about owning her music - it was about rewriting the rules of the game. Each release was a masterclass in marketing:

Fearless (Taylor's Version) drops in April 2021. The industry's like "cute, but who's gonna buy songs they already own?" The answer? Everybody. Every single person. Because Taylor didn't just re-record songs - she turned them into events.

  • Drops in November 2021 and breaks Spotify records

  • "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)" becomes a whole cultural moment

  • Drops a short film starring Sadie Sink and Dylan O'Brien

  • Takes over SNL with the longest musical performance in show history

  • Jake Gyllenhaal probably wishes he'd just returned the scarf

  • Suddenly 2012 songs are trending higher than 2021 releases

The Easter Egg Economy Emerges

While other artists were doing basic Instagram drops, Taylor's playing 4D chess. Every TikTok becomes a CIA briefing.

Fans are analyzing her outfit colors, counting words in Instagram captions, and creating actual spreadsheets to track clues. The craziest part? They were right. Every. Single. Time.

  1. The Midnights Masterstroke

October 2022: Taylor drops Midnights and changes the game again.

This is where the master plan starts revealing itself. Midnights isn't just an album - it's the foundation for what's coming. Takes all 10 top Billboard spots like it's casual. "Anti-Hero" becomes the longest-running female #1 of 2022. But Taylor's just warming up.

Two weeks later? The tour announcement drops. And this is when we realize - every single thing she's done for the past three years was building to this moment. The re-recordings kept fans engaged. Midnights proved her power. And now? Now it's time for the knockout punch.

The Day Ticketmaster Died

November 2022: 14 million people try to buy tickets at once. Ticketmaster's servers look at the traffic and choose death. The FBI's cybersecurity team is probably like "nah that's just the Swifties." Congress gets involved. The New York Times is writing think pieces. And Taylor? Taylor's watching her master plan unfold perfectly.

  1. The Economic Takeover

While everyone was tracking ticket sales, Taylor was orchestrating a full cultural reset.

The first 53 shows casually drop $700 million. That's $13-14 million PER NIGHT. But the genius part? The tour becomes its own economy:

  • Cities literally rename themselves when she arrives

  • Hotels create "Swift packages" for traveling fans

  • Airlines add flights named after her songs

  • Local businesses start selling friendship bracelet supplies like they're gold dealers

Meanwhile, she's still dropping albums mid-tour like they're casual tweets:

The movie? Another casual $200 million. AMC's like "wait, concert films can do that?"

  1. The Cultural Revolution

Taylor didn't just break records - she created new categories of success. Every concert becomes a three-hour masterclass in building community:

  • Livestreaming surprise songs to create an interactive experience

  • Friendship bracelets create a whole trading economy

  • Era-specific outfits spawn entire TikTok fashion trends

  • That "Midnight Rain" into "Look What You Made Me Do" transition? People are writing thesis papers about it

By 2024, the numbers are beyond mathematics:

  • 7 million+ tickets worldwide (that's a small country of Swifties)

  • $2 billion+ in tour revenue (just from tickets, bestie)

  • The Fed citing her in economic reports

  • Economists creating new terms just to track her impact

The Finale (For Now)

This wasn't just another tour - this was Taylor Swift turning "look what you made me do" into "look what I made you do." She took a career crisis and turned it into the blueprint for modern entertainment.

Sometimes, even economists can't explain Swiftonomics. But one thing's clear - while everyone was playing checkers, Taylor was composing an economic symphony. And she made all of us sing along (and somewhere, in a server room at Ticketmaster, a computer is still trying to process what happened). đź‘‘

SONG OF THE WEEK

📀 “Holy Ground” from Taylor Swift

According to scientific data, this is Taylor’s most underrated song:

"Holy Ground" is critically acclaimed (ranking in the top third of Taylor's songs) but significantly understreamed — both compared to other Red tracks and songs from nearby albums — making it statistically her most underrated track.

  • the song's streaming numbers against other Red tracks (15% below average)

  • its streams compared to songs from neighboring albums (63% below average), and…

  • its critical rankings from major music publications (63% above average).

This combination of high critical praise but relatively low streaming numbers gave it the highest "underrated score" of any Taylor Swift song, at 141 points.

On the Boards: “Holy Ground” currently has a 4/5 rating. Make sure to leave your review here.

Honorable Mentions:

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