Geography Is Taylor Swift: The Biggest Star In The World

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Taylor Swift is a global star and, in 2023, she lit the world on fire with her Eras Tour. This gives her a unique geography that few other people, evenm other globally prominent stars, have. In this episode, we track Taylor's history, where she's bought houses, how she became a global star, and all of the geography that underpins her every step of the way.

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Jeff, what is your favorite TaylorSwift song? So this is going to
unfortunately maybe showcase that I'm not thebiggest Taylor Swift fan, and I hope,
I hope listeners know that. IWell, while I'm not a big
fan of hers the music, necessarily, I do like some songs and where

(00:26):
you get those to those in asecond? Yeah, I do really respect
her as an artist. I thinkshe's done some really incredible things and I
think, I mean, there's noway you can deny it. She is
probably absolutely the biggest music star atthe moment, maybe the biggest celebrity of
anybody. I'm having trouble. Ithink I have a bigger star at the
moment. Yeah, certainly in twentytwenty four. Obviously, these things come

(00:49):
and go, right, it wasn'tthat long ago that Beyonce was the biggest
star, and it wasn't that longago that Michael Jackson was the biggest star
of Madonna and all these other people. But getting back to Taylor Swift,
I would say that I actually havetwo favorite songs, and this is you
know again kind of again highlight youknow my you know, made my inexperience
with her a little bit The firstis going to be Shaken Off, which
is I think one of her classicsongs. To me, it's just it's

(01:12):
really fun, it's really bubbly.It is, you know, just kind
of like a song you can sortof like turn on and just sort of
makes you a little happy and sortof like puts you in sort of a
an uplifted mood. I'm sure there'sa lot of people rolling their eyes,
and that's okay, maybe not oneof the songs that people would often go
to necessarily. I like it.I think it's a great song. I

(01:34):
think it's fun. See here here'smy second song, my second song,
And this is not necessarily for thesong itself, although I do think it's
a really good song, but it'sfor the music video, and it's it's
called Lover. And if you've everseen this music video, it basically it's
it's about her being in a relationshipwith somebody. I'm not exactly sure who
it is or if it's supposed tobe anybody necessarily, but it sort of

(01:55):
pairs different moods with areas of ahouse and it goes with very strong color
themes. And I really like musicvideos or really anything that really graphs onto
color themes and sort of matches differentthings, you know, based on you
If you're in a red room,what is that? What is that showing?
So it's monochromatic kind of elements toit. It's well, it's very

(02:16):
bright and colorful, right, butvery monochromatic in that. Yeah, each
room is going to be like there'sthe red room and there's you know,
some some sort of it's going throughsome part of this song. It's very
cool, very cool, so cool. Those are my two Hunter What do
you got? I was going tosay we are never ever getting back together
because I think it's kind of it'sa fun song. It's kind of amusing.

(02:37):
I think that's a pretty good one, you know. Now playing a
favorite song from somebody who has somany is tough. But from the latest
album, not the one that's aboutto drop, but the from Midnights Antihero
I thought was pretty decent. Ienjoyed listening to that. Listener if you
haven't figured it out yet, todaywe're focusing on geography. Is Taylor Swift
full name Taylor Allison Swift. Idon't think the Allison gets used very much.

(03:00):
I don't think so either. Iactually before I started looking this up
a little bit. Obviously, Hunter, you're leading this episode, so I
didn't do too much research, butI wanted to check one thing, which
was is Taylor Swift a screen nameor is it a her born name?
And surprisingly I thought it was herborn name, which is kind of amazing

(03:22):
because Taylor Swift is a really goodname for this industry, right, absolutely,
yeah, No, that's her actualname, it turns out. Yeah,
speaking of names, you know,the media often refers to her simply
as Taylor or sometimes it's Taylor Swift, like always just saying the first and
the last name. I think whenyou're known by one name, it means
you're a pretty big star, right. I mean there's stars like Madonna and

(03:46):
Sting and Bono who we don't reallyknow their last name, so we have
to use that name prince. ButI think Taylor gets that so well.
We can refer to her by herfirst last name. Maybe we'll try to
do her first name, mostly becausethat's I hear her reference to the most.
She was Time Magazine's twenty twenty threePerson of the Year. I don't
know if you remember that that wasjust a year. You remember that,

(04:08):
I mean she had incredible twenty twentythree, absolutely, and you know that
means that she's got this incredible influenceand it's hard to sort of understate that,
I think at the moment. Soif you're listening to this on drop
Day on Friday, which is Aprilnineteenth, her new album, The Tortured
Poet's Department will be released. Thiswas announced at the Grammys by her during
her acceptance speech for Album of theYear, which is a pretty savvy media

(04:30):
moment right there. This will beTaylor's fifteenth studio album if you include the
four re recorded albums the Taylor versionof Fearless, Red Speak Now in nineteen
eighty nine. But more about thata little bit later. I do want
to mention about the new album though, that Taylor released the track list of
album of the album in February,and two of the songs are explicitly geographical,

(04:54):
so track so track number five isso Long London, which is undoubtedly
a breakup difference. And people whoare listening who know Taylor Swift know exactly
who is being referenced here. ForTaylor Swift fans, for Swifties, you
know, hopefully you'll learn a fewnew things here we trying to do this
from a geographical perspective, but I'mnot sure there's necessarily a whole lot we

(05:14):
can teach people who who've read somuch about her, but we'll take a
different angle and for people who don'tknow her that well that this might be
a good introduction. The second oneis track number eight called Florida with three
exclamation points. It might also bea breakup song. But I did notice
that there is University of Miami thisfall will be offering a class entitled the
Mastermind of the Taylor Swift Brand,So there are college courses that are center

(05:41):
on her, as you know,an example of something a larger phenomenon.
I'd really like to get a holdof that syllabus myself and see what it's
all about. And Jeff, we'venever done an episode about a single individual
before. No, this is thisis the very first one. I think
that's definitely worth calling out. Iwas thinking about this a little bit heading
into today's sort of courting session,and I think in some ways, listener,

(06:02):
if you've listened to any of ourof our company episodes, I think
this is going to be kind ofsimilar, because I mean, Taylor Swift
is a person, but she isshe's also an industry at this point,
right, she's a brand as Yeah, she's and she's a brand. Right,
this is there's there's a lot ofI think there's gonna be a lot
of similar sort of geographies that wethat sort of get attached to Taylor that

(06:25):
would also you get attached to Legoor Nintendo or Ikia, all all episodes
that we've done. That's right.So we haven't done a person, but
we've done something maybe a little bitsimilar. If this goes well, we'll
do another person. If it doesn't, maybe this will be the last one.
You know, But she that we'vechosen her, I think suggests that
she's got incredible fame and influence,and that's one of the reasons we want

(06:45):
to sort of investigate the situation here. Her biggest fans are famously called Swifties.
Not too many musicians have an audiencenamed after them. It occurs to
me, I mean one that comesto mind, or dead Heads for the
Grateful Dead. I don't know ifyou're thinking of any other. I'm sure
there are others out there. Yeah, yeah, there's I know for Beyonce,
there's the Beehive okay, and thenthere's for Lady Gaga. I believe
they call themselves a little monster.Yeah, so this this is out there,

(07:10):
but this, you know, theyhaven't chosen one of those off off
name things. This is just takingthe name and branding yourself that way.
And one thing that the tailors thatTaylor Swift and the Dead have in common
is that they tour relentlessly, likethe Dead used to tour relentlessly. And
Taylor Swift she she tours, youknow, fairly often to support her her

(07:34):
very fast pace of album releases aswell. But the geography of Taylor Swift,
the geography of someone, what couldthat possibly mean? I guess if
I had to try and answer thatquestion, I think so much of of
who we are, you know,I think speaking, you know, sort

(07:55):
of like you know, what Iknow, and sort of how I situate
myself in the world. So muchof who I am is situated in a
place, right I. I doa geography podcast, I have a geography
channel on YouTube where I talk alot about the world. But I inevitably
we always, you know, focuson a little bit somehow Oregon or Portland,

(08:16):
because for me, that's it's soit's so tied to who I am,
and I think as we're doing thisepisode, there's probably going to be
at least a hint of that.Where Taylor Swift is a person, she
has an original home, which Ibelieve is Nashville. But please correct me
if I'm wrong. You'll find outin a moment. Yeah, okay,
Well, if it's Nashville, thengreat, But let's say it is Nashville,

(08:39):
like I'm You know that that's goingto tie so much into who she
is and how she sort of relatesand sees the world, right, because
that's what establishes our original sort ofyou know, sense of place. Yeah,
absolutely, sense a place has alot to do with it. I
mean, what we're talking about rightnow is cultural geography, and you and
I think probably identify pretty strongly ascultural geographers. The concept of place is

(09:01):
central to geography. For me personally, it's the core of my teaching and
my research. And you know,it's not that a place determines a person
or their culture or their outlook,but places can be sometimes very influential on
how people see the world and howthey develop over the years. And that's
not to say everyone from a particularplace is the same or has the same

(09:22):
outlook, but rather that place hasinfluenced people in many ways, and knowing
where someone is from and where someonehas lived can often provide interesting and important
context for understanding people. So forpeople who might know Taylor Swift really well,
you know, we'll be tracking someof the places where she's lived and
some of the albums that have comeout at that time. So it might
be interesting to reflect upon what youknow about these albums and how the place

(09:46):
that she was centered in at thattime may have come into play in some
way. You know, if wewere to simply list the accomplishments, records,
and awards earned by Taylor Swift,we'd need probably a two or three
part episode listing them. Wow,she's got fourteen Grammys, four Grammys for
Album of the Year, which ismore than anybody else, the most albums

(10:07):
to debut at number one on theBillboard Charts. This surpasses Elvis Presley,
who previously held that record. Thelist goes on and on. So we'll
highlight some of these things, butyou know, we, as usual,
we can't be comprehensive in that becausewe have a finite amount of time.
We have to talk about our themehere today. But to that end,
a few thoughts in terminology that relateto the popularity of music. Throughout the

(10:28):
episode, we'll refer once in awhile to the Billboard Hot one hundred and
the Billboard Top two hundred. Sobefore, before I did all this research,
I didn't really know the difference,Jeff, do you know, I
have no idea? No, Imean I've heard the Billboard. I didn't
know there was a Hot and atop. I thought they were all just
just just the Billboard, and Ithought it was just a song came out,

(10:54):
how many people were listening to it? The most people were listening to
it, then it's number one forthat week? Am I right close to
that? So there's been a changein the last few years, which is
kind of a geographical change. Soit turns out that the Billboard Hot one
hundred refers to the top one hundredsongs in the United States, and that
changes weekly. The Billboard Top twohundred includes the top two hundred albums,

(11:18):
not songs, but albums across theworld, so that's a global metal.
They only started doing that, Ithink in twenty twenty. Billboard latch the
sort of top two hundred where itwas this global thing. The Hot one
hundred, which is the US centeredone, includes sales both digital and physical,
streaming, and radio airplay all inthe United States. The Billboard Top

(11:39):
two hundred does not include radio airplaybecause it's harder to track that and standardize
that globally, so there's a littlebit of a difference there. As of
December sixth of last year, twentytwenty three, and I think this still
holds, although this will probably notbe true in a week. Taylor Swift
has eleven songs that top the BillboardHot one hundred, and that puts her
tide with Whitney Houston for the eighthmost number one songs on the list.

(12:03):
You know, through the career ofthe artist. Jeff Wow, tell me
who is number one on that list? I would I would guess Michael Jackson.
I don't know if that's if that'sright, but Michael Jackson to me
is the in terms of stardom aat sort of any given time period,
it's sort of the closest parallel.Michael Jackson was any it was all anybody

(12:28):
could talk about, and sort ofthat hit the period of time where he
was at his peak I think thatkind of feels like where Taylor is.
Yeah, for you and I both, Michael Jackson was the big star and
he was definitely I mean I wasin junior high or something like that,
maybe or maybe not. I wasan elementary school when Thriller came out,
and that was just a massive album. It turns out that that Michael Jackson

(12:50):
has tied for fourth on this list. Oh wow, the top the most
number one hits in the history ofBillboard. I have no idea. I
have no idea who it could evenpossibly be. Don't think it's anybody who
you know? Oh do I?Yeah? Man? Yeah, it hit
me with it. It's the Beatles. Oh my god, it's the Beatles.

(13:11):
I should have guessed that. Idon't know. It's not you at
that, but they did pretty wellin the United States. I think it's
fair. Yeah. The Beatles havetwenty number one hits. That's more than
anybody else, more one more thanthe number two on the list, Mariah
Carey. Oh really won, that'sright. Rihanna has fourteen, So Michael
Jackson has thirteen, which ties himwith Drake, who has thirteen as well.

(13:37):
Madonna and the Supremes are tied forsix with twelve apiece and I mentioned
Whitney Houston Taylor Swift at eleven,and then Janet Jackson and Stevie Wonder have
ten. Wow. So I youknow, the chances are that Taylor Swift
climbs up this list a few notchesin a week or two because she's about
to release a new album. AndI wouldn't be surprised of a couple of

(14:00):
those songs chart immediately very high.Speaking of number one hits, and we're
talking about the geography of Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift have albums that have hit
number one in the United States,Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland,
the United Kingdom, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Denmark. And
Midnight's the most recent album hit numberone in each of these countries. So

(14:24):
she has previous number one hits fromother albums, but all those countries her
latest album hit number one. It'sa remarkable it is interesting. It's interesting
looking at this list though, becauseI think it's showing a certainly a English
centered sort of worldview. Right thetop one is the United States, Australia,
Canada, New Zealand, Ireland,United Kingdom. Those are all English,

(14:48):
English, predominantly English people, notonly predominantly large speaking right majority English,
or even Norway, Sweden and Denmarkhave a lot of English speakers,
right true, I was just inNorway. Well now it's a couple of
years ago, but there's no issuegetting around and speaking English to people basically
wherever you go. Yep, it'svery easy. So I think the only

(15:11):
one that sort of stands a partof is Spain, where there's still a
lot of English speakers, but it'snot I wouldn't say it's a majority of
Spanish is still absolutely the dominant languagethere. But I think it's just showing
that the Taylor Swift is gravitating towardsan English speaking audience rather than perhaps something
that's a little bit more global,which maybe people would expect some you know,

(15:33):
well, you know Korea or Indonesiaor you know where these other places.
Right. Well, we can expandthis a little bit by looking at
the places where Taylor Swift has performed, and I think she's done over a
thousand shows or something like that,seven hundred and fifty nine of them approximately
in the United States. So Ihave the approximate order for some of them

(15:54):
in the last five. I'm notsure where they fall in the order,
but it's the United States, theUnited Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Japan,
Singapore, France, Brazil, Germany, New Zealand, China, Ireland,
Mexico, Argentina, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Philippines, Belgium,

(16:15):
Bahamas, Hong Kong, Indonesia,South Korea, Malaysia, Norway, Argentina,
Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, andPortugal. So these are all the
countries where she's performed. That isa dizzying arrays a long list place.
I mean, I know there area lot of artists who tour a law
and you know, there may besome artists out there who have toured more

(16:36):
further afield than this, but it'sstill an impressive list, I think if
you think about that, So there'sthat much demand for seeing her live in
all of these places. In otherwords, you know, it's it's interesting
to me. I think what's missinghere is is someplace in India. I'm
kind of surprised, kind of surprisedby that. Also, maybe China,
but I know China can get alittle bit more strict around sort of what

(17:00):
China is on the list. OhChina, Oh, China is on the
list. It is okay, Sothen just India, right, right,
because it's got more people than inplace else on the planet. It's a
huge, huge, huge population growingsort of wealth based, right. That's
there's a lot more money generally.That's not That's not to say it's spread
out equally, of course, butgenerally, you know, people are getting

(17:22):
wealthier there. It is. Soit's just it just makes it a little
bit surprising to me that it's notthere. And so I don't know,
Taylor Swift, maybe it's maybe it'sthere for you, or I could be
wrong. Is the other thing here, which is also a distinct possibility.
I mean I I kind of gleanedthis together from a number of different sources.
So I apologize to anybody who wentto see a show in India that

(17:42):
did exist if I didn't know aboutit. Yeah, sorry about that.
I hope there's a Swifty out therewho chimes in and confirms or or or
denies or yeah, yeah, that'sthat's likely to happen, I think.
So. You know, one ofthe countries on this list is Singapore,
and there's an interesting story about that. For the Eras tour, which is
the most recent tour, which Ithink is still going on. Taylor Swift

(18:06):
agreed to an exclusive deal with thegovernment of Singapore that she would perform six
concerts in Singapore and no other SoutheastAsian countries, so they sort of got,
you know, the idea is topromote tourism because there's so many people
want to do this and that wouldmaybe be a piece of that. The
Singapore government subsidized the concerts at thetune of two to three million dollars per

(18:26):
show for six shows in exchange fornot playing anywhere else in Southeast Asia,
and the deal was paid through theSingapore Government's fund for Tourism. That's interesting.
What what what I would be curiousto know. I don't know if
we have this information, but whatSingapore counts as Southeast Asia because that that
can I've seen those those those borderschange depending on sort of what's being discussed.

(18:52):
Who's talking about what this kind ofstuff. I'm guessing it's the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations, the EconomicBlock, I'm guessing that's what the determination
is. So that wouldn't include Japanobviously, which is not part of Southeast
Asia anyways, or China or Korea, South Korea, those countries wouldn't be
included. But that's a good question. I'm not exactly sure, but I

(19:12):
think it's the Asian countries. Anotherside note, which is maybe not too
much of a side note, whichmight give us a little bit more perspective
here is that Taylor's mother, AndreaTaylor and Andrea Finlay at the time,
grew up in Singapore and her TaylorTaylor grandmother was an opera singer who sang
in Singapore. So she maybe predisposedto this because she's got a family connection

(19:36):
to that place. Very very interesting. I wonder if she still has family
there. I'm not sure if shedoes. My guess is no. But
again, I think to every questionwe ask rhetorically here, some listener probably
has the answer. I think probablyso talking about these concerts and these tours,

(19:56):
the Aras tour grossed over a billiondollars. I think no other tour
in history has done that before.This is a top grossing tour in history,
over a billion dollars. And thatbrings us to the fact that Taylor
Swift is also just this year Forbes, who tracks this kind of Thing has
put Taylor Swift on their list ofglobal billionaires. So, according to Forbes,

(20:19):
her approximate net worth is one pointone billion dollars, And say,
why what's that one point what's pointone? Right? Point one is a
million dollars in this case, right, So I guess it's easy to round
down and say a billion. Ifyou have a billion, is that is
that one million dollars? Or isthat one hundred million dollars one point one

(20:41):
billion? Wouldn't that be maybe?Can you fact? Yeah, I think
that'd be one. You'll check itout. I'm sure I did. I
thought I checked it out. It'snot my strong point. I think it's
a million regardless, when you haveso much money that you can shave off
a million or ten million, ora hundred million and it be basically the

(21:02):
same. That's that's so this makesher tied for the two thousand, five
hundred and forty fifth richest person inthe world. I think what's most surprising
about that that little factor right there, is that there are over two thousand,
five hundred billionaires in the world,right, which I feel like not
that long ago there was like onehundred and say at one point there was

(21:23):
nobody. In fact, there's twothousand, six hundred and ninety two billionaires
as of earlier this year. That'sa lot of billionaires. That's that's a
bunch, but that's also I mean, there are eight billion people on the
world and we're talking about under threethousands, so it's a lot that is
true and it's a little at thesame time. The other thing that's really

(21:44):
impressive about the statistic for Taylor Swiftthough, however, is that you know,
a lot of other celebrities, includingmusicians, do a lot of spokesperson
work right there, advertising for otherbrands and this kind of thing, and
Taylor Swift doesn't do much of that, and her wealth largely comes from income
related to her music, the albums, the tours, and the streaming,

(22:07):
So that's pretty impressive as well.I think, oh, it's very impressive.
I mean, and I've heard thingsabout, you know, this last
tour, how for just people whowere like assisting with her concerts in some
way, like she would give prettyyou know, elaborate gifts and bonuses to
which which I think is great,right, It's showing that she respects the

(22:29):
people who were or were actually helpingher put on these shows, and that
she recognized that she's not doing itall herself, which I, unfortunately I
think is kind of rare. Itperhaps is. I mean, I know,
you know, I guess neither ofus work in the industry and haven't
met this kind of situation. ButI have to believe that that's not super
common. And the other thing is, I think her shows are like two
and a half hours long. Imean, that's that's an impressive set,

(22:52):
two and a half hours. Noteverybody does that. Yeah, again,
another similarity with The Grateful Dead.Perhaps there's a lot more to say,
and we'll get into it, butwe have to take a short break first,

(23:14):
and we're back. This is geographyis everything we're talking about Taylor Swift.
We're not talking about math, orwe did try to talk about math,
but I did so incorrectly. Jeff, bring us up to speed.
Yeah, so she is worth onepoint one billion dollar one point one billion
dollars, which has one billion,one hundred million dollars, so she's she's
actually a hundred million dollars. Yeah, So she's she's she's she's ten percent

(23:37):
of the way to two billion dollars, to a two billionaire. And this
is why I'm not cut out tohave a lot of money. I think
I couldn't keep the numbers straight.I think this would be a problem.
Let's let's rejoin our geography of TaylorSwift by talking about some of the places
that she's lived, and let's goway back to where she was born.
So Taylor Swift was born in aplace called West red Heading, Pennsylvania,

(24:00):
in nineteen eighty nine. As youmight guess, because that's the name of
one ever I would have guests nineteeneighty nine. Yep, I would not
have guest Pennsylvania ever. So thiswas and West Reading in the area there
was originally home to the Lenape people, also known as the Delaware. West
Reading is a borough in Berks Countyand is about sixty two miles northwest of

(24:22):
Philadelphia. That helps you situate it. West Redding had a population in twenty
twenty of four five hundred and fiftythree people, so it's a small place.
It'ser point six square miles. However, West Reading is across the Showykill
River from Reading, which is thefourth largest city in Pennsylvania after Philadelphia,
Pittsburgh and Allentown, and the GreaterReading area has about four hundred and twenty

(24:45):
thousand residents, So that's situating wherethis person is from. If you don't
live near Pennsylvania, but you've heardof Reading before, it might be because
the Reading Railroad and the game Monopolywas named after an actual railwa road company
in Reading, Pennsylvania. That's aninteresting fun fact, right, little side
fact there. Taylor grew up ona Christmas tree farm. Interesting, it's

(25:10):
kind of fun. Okay, yeah, yeah, that's kind of fun.
And apparently at age nine, Isaw it from a couple of places that
she began taking vocal and acting lessonsin New York City, So you know,
she sticks to two miles northwest ofPhiladelphia. New York's not too much
further. Things are kind of closeon the East Coast, but that's still
not super close to home. Soyou know, you're if your parents are
taking you to vocal lessons in NewYork at the age of nine, you're

(25:33):
showing some promise, it would see, and yeah, my parents have some
fame. My geography of the EastCoast is a little, you know,
not not super precise, but Iknow, for example, Philadelphia is what
two and a half hours drive fromNew York City, so probably less.
Yeah, probably a little bit less. And may let's say two hours no

(25:55):
matter how you cut it, youknow it maybe maybe Allentown or is only
an hour and a half away.That's still a long drive to take your
child, your nine year old,and you're probably in the night right because
it's New York City. So yeah, that's a day. So yep.
However, Taylor and her family movedto a wile Missing, Pennsylvania, also
in Birks Country, which is acounty which is about a mile and a

(26:18):
half from West Reading a while Missingis a Lenape word. The population of
while Missing at the time that sheprobably around the time that she lived there
was ten four hundred and sixty one. Of course, she's still in the
Greater Redding area and during this timeshe focuses on country music. Her inspirations
include Shania Twain, who's a countrycrossover star from Ontario, Canada and I

(26:41):
think always lived in Canada. AndFaith Hill as well, who was from
Mississippi and moved to Nashville at theage of nineteen. So these are two
of the people that influenced her grandmotheras well, who's an opera singer and
others of course as well, butthese are two of the names that come
up. At about the age oftwelve, Taylor learned to play guitar from
somebody named Ronnie Carter who was acomputer repairman and a musician, and the

(27:03):
very first song she wrote was calledLucky You, foreshadowing I am. I
know, right, I'm impressed byreally anybody who can write a song,
but a twelve year old who canwrite a song, that's very impressive to
me. I can't write any sortof music. I am music. I'm
musically challenged. Yeah. I wasin a band in my twenties and we

(27:29):
wrote music, but you know,we didn't chart or anything like that.
You know, we weren't really outto make it or anything. And it's
yeah, it's not easy. Intwo thousand, let's see two thousand and
three, she modeled for Abercrombie andFitch and one of her songs was included
in the Abercrombie and Fitch compilation album, which started to give her x exposure
to record labels, and so herfamily made a big decision in two thousand

(27:53):
and three, which was to moveto the Nashville area. So I knew
she was tied to Nashville. Iknew she's very tied to Nashville. So
Taylor and her family moved to alake front house in Hendersonville, Tennessee,
which is about eighteen miles northeast ofNashville, which is the capital of Tennessee.
And I believe the house was probablyon Old Hickory Lake, which was

(28:15):
formed by a dam completed in nineteenfifty four. A shout out to our
dam's episode, and the family relocatedbecause they wanted to support her musical career,
and she was fourteen year olds yearsold at the time, so they're
all in. In twenty twenty,the population of Hendersonville was shy of sixty
two thousand, the tenth largest cityin Tennessee. Again very close to Nashville,

(28:40):
and there are many famous people fromthere, many famous music stars including
Johnny and June Carter, Cash,Roy Orbison, Barbara Mandrel, Connie Smith,
Conway Twitty, the Oakridge Boys,and Kelly Clarkson all famous former residents
or current residents of Hendersonville. SoI think it's a place where people who

(29:00):
want to get away from the citya tiny bit live. They don't want
to have access to Nashville. Itis funny because Nashville has such a strong
relation with country music in a waythat I can't really think. Well,
I guess so the only other parallelI can think of off the top of
my head would be Memphis, Tennesseewith blues music. Okay, but I

(29:22):
can't really think of a lot ofcities that have such an identifier that's tied
to a genre of music. There'snot in my in my head, there's
not a rock and roll city.There's not necessarily a rap city or a
hip hop city. There's parts,there's places right Los Angeles or the Bronx
in New York City. There's there'sthat, but nothing quite like I would

(29:44):
say Nashville is to country music.This is a pretty strong connection, although
I will say Nashville is also connectedto other forms of music. It's one
of the places where rock and rolldeveloped. Bluegrass music is conflated sometimes with
Nashville. And then you know,if we're talking about New Orleans and jazz,
and then too, you know that'sthe origin kind of area. And

(30:07):
then Chicago is well known for itsjazz. Maybe we can point to a
few other places, but I thinkyou're right Nashville has as a special place
when it comes to music, andso let's talk a little bit about that,
like how did this happen? Howdoes this It's one of the nicknames
of Nashville is music City, soit's not only the sort of capital of
country music, but it's music city. How do you get to do that?
Like, how does Nashville get todo that? I did want to

(30:30):
mention that, of course, NativeAmericans lived in Middle Tennessee for over fourteen
thousand years, so I want toinclude some of that history here. Circa
one thousand Mississippian peoples lived on thatsite that later became Nashville. By the
late sixteen hundred, the Shawnee establishedtrading posts at the site of the city,
and in the mid nineteen seventy seventeenhundreds, excuse me, there was

(30:52):
a small Cherokee village there which waseither abandoned or something happened when white fur
trappers and hunters began to visit thearea more frequently. And on this note,
the last thing I'll say is thatthe forced relocation of Native Americans from
the southern part of the United Statesto Oklahoma, known as the Trail of
Tears, which was nineteen thirty eightthirty nine, or maybe it was thirty

(31:12):
seven thirty eight, passed through Nashvilleas well, So there's some rich history
there that pre date all of thisstuff that we're about to talk about.
But music has been prominent in Nashvillebefore country music became a discernible genre.
And here's one, I think reallyinteresting example that relates to Fisk University,
which opened in Nashville in eighteen sixtysix. Eighteen sixty six. Fisk was

(31:37):
and is open has always been opento young men and women irrespective of skin
color, and was founded for theeducation of college aged people freed from enslavement.
So that's a strong cultural institution thathas been there. And there's a
group of singers called the Fisk JubileeSingers that were an African American a cappella
ensemble that in the early years performedtradition spiritual songs and they started to tour

(32:02):
different parts of the United States toraise money for the university. They became
very popular and then toured Europe.In eighteen seventy three, the fifth Jubilee
Singers performed for Queen Victoria of Englandand she is rumored to have remarked to
the group, you must come fromthe music City. Now this is not

(32:22):
where the nickname music City comes from. But I guess Queen Victoria saw it
coming or something like that. ButI guess, well, you come from
the music city. You know,the music is so rich. I would
hazard a guess that what was thiseighteen seventy three or something like that.
That's right, you know, it'sa communications technology that talking about. If

(32:43):
the Queen of England, who atthat point in time is a very powerful
person in the world, knows thatyou're from a place called music City,
that is probably you probably are MusicCity. Well yeah, well that's exactly
I mean. The thing is,I don't think it was called that at
the time, but she was probablyso captivated by the music that wherever these
people are from, that's the musiccity, which is foreshadowing impressive sort of

(33:09):
what Nashville is going to become ifwe skip ahead a little bit. Nashville
would go on to become a veryimportant site for music, including country,
bluegrass, rock and roll. Imentioned that, and let's also say that
country is not one style of music. There are many branches of country music
which have developed for well over onehundred years, so it's really more of
an umbrella term. These styles ofcountry music developed from other various musical traditions,

(33:36):
but is generally regarded as originating inthe southern part of the United States
and the southwestern part of the UnitedStates. Music predates the nineteen twenties,
but it was in the nineteen twentiesthat was the early days of music recording
that country became introduced to a muchwider audiences as promoted as music from the
southern United States. So related tothat, the renowned Grandled Opry opened as

(34:00):
the WSN which is a radio stationbarn Dance in nineteen twenty five, changing
its name to Grand Old Opry twoyears later. And this is a radio
show. It's the longest running broadcastin US history. It's still showing and
the show is part of probably whatearned Nashville the title of music City.
The show broadcast from various locations overthe years, including very famously the Ryman

(34:22):
Auditorium, and from nineteen seventy fourthey're playing in a place that's called the
Grand Old Opry House. And thebroadcast has long promoted country, bluegrass,
folk, and gospel music. Soyou know, it's interesting we're talking about
country and you're talking about how likecountry is. You know, there's a

(34:44):
lot of there's a lot of differentkinds of music that could be considered country,
right, And it is interesting becauseI think and perhaps this is just
stemming from a very specific time periodwhere I'm thinking of like the nineteen nineties
in my head, where country becamesynonymous with sort of this sort of pop
country sort of feel. It's likea guy singing about a beer in his

(35:05):
truck with a guitar, right,It's like this, it's very lively.
But there's also this other kind ofcountry that maybe maybe stems from Nashville.
But I'm thinking of like Woody Guthrieand sort of like some classic sort of
folk folk country songs that are alot more soulful in a lot of ways
that I think all just mesh togetherand you know, all equally have rights

(35:28):
to the name country. Well,there's many influences from lots of different places
and lots of different forms of music. You know, we can talk about
how it's changed over time, butthen there's also discrete movements that have been
in place for a long time.There's country and there's Western, which is
sometimes used to gather country and Westernmusic, but they're not exactly synonymous.

(35:51):
They're not exactly the same thing.The Western probably references the southwestern part of
the United States a little bit more. But there's a there's a subgenre of
country mumusic that is called the NashvilleSound, and that emerged from Nashville in
the nineteen fifties and was promoted bya number of record labels including RCA,
Victor Columbia, and Decca Records.And the Nashville Sound incorporates a more pop

(36:12):
like production process and veers a littlebit from honky tonk, which is characterized
by fiddles and steel guitar. Andthe steel guitar this is an interesting geographical
reference in country music. Was aninfluence from Hawaii from the slacky key guitar
and yeah, huh, very cool. This is a lot. By the
way, we have a whole upisode. We come back to country music and

(36:34):
do an episode or some other genresor perhaps so many genres. We've been
talking about doing that, but that'swhat I have for you now on country
music. The Country Music Hall ofFame is located in Nashville, for which
to tie it back to Taylor Swift. She'll be eligible for in twenty twenty
six. Oh, I have toimagine she's going to get in immediately.
It might be a first ballot typesituation. Yeah, yeah, I don't

(36:55):
know what their selection process is like, but I'm not things like that.
Yeah, sort of us you know, slam dunker, right, yeah,
yeah, if not in twenty six, twenty seven maybe, but yeah,
let's it probably happens right away.So back to Taylor Swift and Hendersonville in
the Nashville area. After a coupleof years in high school, she transfers
to a home schooling type academy becauseit fits her touring schedule better. So

(37:17):
she hasn't released an album, butshe's already touring. Taylor worked with Liz
Rose, a songwriter in Nashville,to develop her songwriting skills, and she
was signed at a very young ageat fourteen by Sony ATV or maybe even
before that, but left the companywhen she was fourteen. And so now
we're getting into a very important storythat we'll have reverberations a little bit later.

(37:40):
At a show in the well knownBluebird Cafe in Nashville, Taylor encountered
Scott Borchetta. He's a record exampleexecutive from DreamWorks Records, and when they
met, he was about to launchan independent label of his own, which
he did called Big Machine Records,and Taylor became one of the company's first
signings. And I guess her dadgot three percent of the company or something,

(38:04):
and she went on to record herfirst six albums with Big Machine.
The relationship with Taylor and Big Machinedid not end well, but more on
this later. The first album sherecorded four Big Machine was eponymous album Taylor
Swift. It was called and Shewas released when she was sixteen years old.
Her first single, Tim McGraw,co written by Liz Rose, dropped

(38:27):
in June two thousand and six andfollowed by the album releasing in October of
two thousand and six. This albumspent two hundred and seventy five weeks on
the Billboard two hundred. It tookfifty five weeks to break into the top
ten, and it peaked at numberfive. This, I believe, is
the only Taylor Swift album to notreach number one in the US Billboard two
hundred. I don't have any sortof information about this, but I have

(38:52):
to imagine though, as a sixteenyear old releasing her first album for to
you know, get to the youknow, was it the Noboard two hundred?
Yeah? Yeah, that's that's anincredible You gotta be okay with that,
right, Yeah? Yeah, Imean take yeah. I mean,
I'm not saying that she's she's disappointedby it, but it's definitely what one

(39:14):
of those things like take the wYeah, no, that made it top
five. That's amazing, right,It's like what, you know, most
people in their sixteen day maybe gettheir driver's license, you know. So
this is a bit more. Taylorwas an early pioneer of heavy promotion of
her music on MySpace, and sheno longer has her MySpace page, but
this is anybody. Yeah, notsure it's out there. I think it's

(39:37):
still out there, but maybe wecould check later. So this sort of
foreshadows her ability to promote her musicand brand through social media, which she
has done better than most, Ithink you could argue. In two thousand
and seven, she opened for BradPaisley and several other touring country artists.
In two thousand and seven, shebecame the youngest recipient of the BMI Songwriter

(39:58):
of the Year Award. She wonawards at the CMAS, the ACMs,
and the AMAS SO in two thousandand eight, she received a nomination for
the Best New Artist Grammy in twothousand and eight Best New Artist, She
did not win. Jeff who wonthat one? I have no idea who
would have won? Tough one.I'm one of those people who just don't

(40:19):
really follow music that much. Ilike music, I enjoy music a lot.
I'm just not following like who likethe Grammys, or like who has
the top album at any given time. It's just outside of my wheelhouse.
Well, let me ask you ifthis name rings a bell, Amy Winehouse.
Amy Winehouse does ring a bell?Yes, I know. She want
me artists that year, which wasokay, a solid choice, I think,

(40:39):
yeah, a solid choice. Yeah. Taylor's second album, Fearless,
came out in two thousand and eight, so just two years later. And
she's got this ability to put albumsout fairly rapidly, and that was a
few weeks before she turned nineteen.It debuted at number one on the Billboard
two hundred and I could say thisfor every other album I think she's recorded.

(41:00):
It became the top grossing album intwo thousand and nine, Her first
single, Fearless, reached number fouron the US Billboard Hot one hundred and
number one in Australia. The toursupporting Fearless was was Taylor's first as a
headliner and grossed over sixty three milliondollars. This is her second album and
she's nineteen years old. This isinteresting because I think there's this common refrain

(41:24):
I've heard from like the music industry. It's like you have a lifetime to
make your masterpiece, and then youhave a year to make to repeat it.
And so typically a band or anartist's second album is considered to be
worse, right because sophomore right,yeah, right, sophomore slump right.
And so this is interesting because itseems like, no, she just kept

(41:45):
going up. Yeah. That seemsto be the trajectory, as we'll continue
to find out here. In twothousand and nine, Taylor was Billboard's Female
Artist of the Year. Also intwo thousand and nine, she won the
award for the Best Female Video,and very famously, Kanye West rushed the
stage, took the microphone away,and told the audience that Beyonce had the

(42:08):
best video of all time. Alot of drama ensued, and this has
been a few that's been mended andunmended over time, but this brought a
lot of attention to the situation.Two thousand and nine a big year for
Taylor also because that year she boughta penthouse apartment in downtown Nashville near Music
Row for two million dollars at theage of twenty. She still still owns

(42:30):
this property, So I'm sure it'slovely. Yeah, I think it's I'm
likely very lovely. In twenty ten, Taylor won the Grammy for Album of
the Year. This is her secondalbum Album of the Year, along with
three other Grammys that year, andin doing so, Taylor became the youngest
person to ever win Album of theYear, but that title is now held
by Billie Eilish, So subsequently thatoh okay, yeah, yea right,

(42:53):
yeah, because Billy Eilish, shewhen she when she became famous, she
was pretty young too when she teenedher sort of may go yeah, yeah,
that's right. Taylor Swift co wrotesongs with other musicians that year,
including two for Disney's Hannah Montana.Jeff, do you know who Hannah Montana
is? I know it's Miley Cyrus. That's right, that's all it's about.

(43:15):
All I know. I don't I'venever seen the show. I just
know it's Miley Cyrus. I thinkit was. We were sort of aged
out of that at the time thatit came out, so probably stung by
criticism that the popularity for her songsrelight it relied on co writers. Taylor
wrote this all seventeen tracks on herown independently for her third album, Speak
Now. She also co produced eachtrack, and Speak Now begins the movement

(43:38):
Taylor's transitioned to more of a popsound instead of a you know, a
primarily country sound, although the albumstill demonstrates the influence of country, and
the album did win Country Album ofthe Year. So the album is released,
goes to number one, sells amillion copies, and then in twenty
eleven, Taylor's swift purchases a GreekRevival mansion on six acres in the Northumberland

(44:02):
neighborhood of Nashville. I think shestill owns that as well, So she's
starting to develop her her fame,her accolades, and her real estate empire
as well. At this time,still very young, Oh boy, yeah,
still very young. I think it'stime for a quick break and then
we'll come and we'll talk more aboutthe geography of Taylor Swift. Great,

(44:25):
we will be right back, andwe're back. It's Geography is Everything podcast.
Geography is Taylor Swift. We haveno math corrections from the last segment
of the show, happily, unlesswe got something wrong, which we'll hear

(44:45):
about it later. But we're talkingabout Taylor Swift rapidly becoming very famous and
then expanding the places that she's touringtube then also places that she has home.
So in twenty eleven, Taylor boughta house in Beverly Hills are just
under four million dollars and subsequently boughtanother Beverly Hills home. Both of those
she sold in twenty eighteen. However, in twenty fifteen, Taylor bought an

(45:09):
estate in Beverly Hills that once belongedto movie producer Samuel Goldwyn who is the
g and mgm oh yeah, famoustroGoldwyn Meyer right right, yes, So
this is you know, one ofthe people who was a famous, famous
film producer, movie producer, andTaylor Swift bought his house for twenty five

(45:30):
million dollars. She still has thisThe house has been deemed a Historical Landmark
by the Beverly Hills Cultural Heritage Commission. Beverly Hills is a city that's completely
surrounded by LA and West Hollywood,which is itself surrounded by LA and Beverly
Hills. I would say, Jeff, that Beverly Hills is probably one of

(45:51):
the most well known, if notwell known, neighborhoods in the United States.
What do you think, Yeah,I would say it's definitely up there.
It certainly it's not and it's notjust well known. I mean there's
a lot of places that are reallywell known for a lot of different reasons.
But it's well known for a veryspecific thing, which is the the
neighborhood or city or whatever you wantto call it, home of of the

(46:13):
stars, the rich and famous moviestars, of actors, of musicians,
you all these very famous people.I'm probably directors as well, just very
famous people, right. I meanthat's sort of making it right. I
mean, it's like that's the pinnacle. I mean, there's other communities in
that area which are also very desirable, but Beverly Hills, like I may

(46:36):
have been there once driving through,but it's been in my geographic imagination for
most of my life. I feellike before I even went to California or
anything like that. And you're fromthere's a whole you're from the LA area,
right, I'm from the LA Area. I actually have never been to
Beverly Hills actually, like thinking aboutit. But what I was going to
say is, you know, atleast in my childhood, there was a

(46:58):
whole show about Hills which was FreshPrince of of Beverly Hills, right,
and it's it's it sort of glomsonto this idea that it's a very wealthy
place because he's going to live withhis relatives who are very wealthy. I
don't remember exactly why they're wealthy,but they're very wealthy. Well, and
even the zip code is famous becausethere was a show named after the zip

(47:20):
code. Oh wait, wait waitwait wait nine two wait I think it's
one two one. Oh there yougot yeah, yeah, right, So
I mean I don't know too manyzip codes, right, like even some
of the places I've lived, I'dhave to think about it for a while.
Beverly Hills had a population of thirtytwo thousand, so it's in a

(47:43):
huge metropolitan area, but a littleover thirty two and twenty twenty. It
was home to the Tongva or Gablenopeople before the area became part of Spain
and then Mexico, and then fortwenty five days in eighteen forty six,
the Republic of California, and thenthe United States. So that's one of
the homes. She also bought ahome for a very short period of time
in Hyannasport, Massachusetts, in twentytwelve, located right next to the Kennedy

(48:08):
compound. That was not an accident. There was a reason for that.
We don't have to go into thatreason necessarily in this broadcast, but she
sold it months later in twenty twelve. Her fourth album was released Read on
October twenty second. She was twentytwo at the time, and the album
incorporates more rock stylings, further solidifyingher crossover star status. Needless to say,

(48:29):
it debuted at number one in theUnited States, sold over one point
two million copies right away, andbecame her first number one album in the
United Kingdom, and that year shereceived the Country Music's Academy Pinnacle Awards.
So I think that when somebody crossesover, they start to get criticized oftentimes
sometimes by the core fan group ofthe original style of music. But she

(48:52):
was still getting accolades, still beingdecorated by the Country Music Academy as she
starts to cross over into sort ofdifferent genres of music. Right, there's
that there's that common refrain, andyou know, I, yeah, I
listened to a lot of punk music, and I've listened to a lot of
punk music as a kid. Butthere's like a common refrain of selling out
right. That's right, where youknow, a band makes it big and

(49:15):
they started to change their style toadapt to a wider based, wider audience.
It's totally acceptable now now that Ithink about it, and I'm not
an irrational teenager, but that ideaof like, oh you changed, you
change your music. I really likethe original. I've been here since the
beginning. You sold out right.I like the early stuff, right,
I mean, that's that's always thething, right, I prefer the early

(49:35):
stuff, all right, So alittle bit more here. In twenty thirteen,
Taylor bought an eight bedroom, elevenseven hundred square foot waterfront mansion in
the Watchhill neighborhood of Westerly, RhodeIsland, and at least one report suggests
that she just bought it in cash, and by cash I means, you
know, without financing. It's notlike she showed up with suitcases. But
you know, was able to buyit outright for over seventeen million dollars.

(50:00):
And apparently she threw some epic Fourthof July parties there, which may or
may not have been appreciated by theneighbors. But the home is referred to
by its former name the phone Ownerof the Holiday House in Taylor songs Taylor
Swift Song, The Last Great AmericanDynasty. So some of the places that
she lived are going to be evokedin her music. This is something you
would expect from musicians. Perhaps thissounds very Gatsby ish, you know,

(50:24):
I don't know if you've seen you'veread the book or seen the movie.
Right, it's like, has thismansion on well, not the lake,
but you know, on a shorelinerights throwing elaborate party. Yeah, yeah,
no, it's it's got that feelto it. I think you're right.
So let's then consider New York City. In twenty fourteen, Taylor moved
to New York City and began workon nineteen eighty nine, which was her

(50:45):
fifth album, In twenty fourteen,she purchased and then renovated two floor penthouse
in the Sugar Loaf Building in Tribecafor twenty million dollars. In twenty seventeen,
she bought another apartment I think nextdoor, as well as in nearby
town home, and they're all sortof connected. Now apparently I've read that
she probably spends more time living therethan anywhere else, although with her touring

(51:07):
schedule and her promotion, you know, promoting her work, she's probably all
over the place. As the Tribecahome was being renovated, however, Taylor
rented an apartment on Cornelia Street inthe West Village in Manhattan, and swifties
know quite well that Cornelia Street isthe name of a track on her album
Lover, which was leased in twentynineteen, and the song declares that she

(51:30):
would never walk Cornelia Street again.And this, of course is standing in
for something else. Places can becomesymbols or metaphors for other things that are
happening in people's lives, relationships withother people, this kind of stuff.
So she seems to do this alot right in her upcoming album that you
already talked about, you said,there's a couple of songs. One of

(51:50):
them's referencing London. London. I'massuming because she recently broke up with somebody
who lives in London. I'm noton time. That's love life, Yep,
that's it. Yeah. Well,actually, I actually kind of am
caught up on her love life becauseit's all anybody was talking about for the
last six months. But I wasn'tfamiliar with her previous love life. I
should say, Okay, yeah,no, that's true that the places do
come up in her music, andwe see this with other artists as well.

(52:14):
But it's interesting to consider, allright. I think Lover in particular
references the experiences and that she hadliving in Manhattan at that time, and
so people who know the album reallywell will probably be able to confirm this,
but also might think about how thatfigures into how these songs played out.
Three tracks from from nineteen eighty nine. The album hit number one in

(52:36):
the United States, Canada and Australia, and those were shaken off Blank Space
and Bad Blood. The album hasmore electronic influences, which is and so
nineteen eighty ninety sometimes considered her firstpurely pop album. Of course you know,
this is a matter of opinion.So at that time, twenty nineteen,
Taylor enters into a public dispute withthat label, Big Machine Records,

(53:00):
over her attempts to buy the mastersof her previous album. So the masters
are the original recordings, and mostcontracts stipulate that it's the record company that
gets to control the copyright and getsto control that. And she's she wanted
them back, she wanted to havethem. She tried to buy them back,

(53:21):
but her all her efforts from ScottBorchetta refused to sell who she met
in that cafe all those years ago. So Big Machine, along with all
of Taylor's masters, were sold torecord execu Scooter Braun, and he's an
entrepreneur in many different ways. Intwenty nineteen, one of Braun's clients,
however, was Kanye West. Otherclients include Justin Biever and formerly Ariana Grande

(53:45):
was with him. So, youknow, she's got this public dispute with
Kanye West, and the person whomanages him basically buys the rights to all
her music, you know, thefirst six albums, and then subsequently those
masters were sold for an enormous amountof money to Shamrock holdings. So the

(54:07):
contract that Taylor sligned with Universal gaveher complete control over her song copyrights and
the recordings and the masters. Mostartists aren't really able to negotiate an agreement
such as this. I know thatthere's some examples of this. Daft Punk,
I think, is pretty famous forkeeping control of all their music.
But this gives her more control overher work, but also affords her greater

(54:30):
earnings for her music as well.So she's like, I'm doing the work
here, I should be the onewho's benefiting from this the most. So
in twenty twenty, Taylor begins rerecording those first six albums to gain control
of her own work, and theseare the ones that are referred to as
Taylor's version. So she's still makingnew albums, but she's starting to record
the old ones again, and she'sdoing that by changing some of the lyrics,

(54:52):
changing a few aspects of the music. The arrangements are largely the same,
instrumentation may change a little bit alongwith the vocals, and this is
something that these kinds of contracts havelong been in effect, but now that
this has become so public, Ithink some musicians are trying to gain more

(55:14):
control over their own music and theircopyright with various degrees of success. But
this is this has always been athing, but you know, Taylor Swift
kind of brought it to a verylarge audience that this is what's going on,
and you know, staked her claimon that this is this is not
the way it should operate. Soin twenty twenty, what were you doing

(55:34):
in July twenty twenty, Well,I wasn't doing anything right, That's like
most people. Nobody was doing it. Nobody was doing anything except Taylor Swift,
who released her eighth album called Folklore, which she recorded in that Beverly
Hills estate, the Goldwyn Estate.The album came out, you know,
in that summer. It won Grammyof the Year, so that was her
third album of the year. Andthen later that year she released another album

(55:59):
called which is her ninth album,which also debated debuted at number one.
So with the rest of us,we're kind of sorting out what to do.
She probably had recorded this before,but she came out with two albums
in twenty twenty, and during thistime or the following year twenty twenty,
Taylor rented to town home in London'sPromise Hill area. This also is a

(56:21):
place that she doesn't have anymore,and I think is also related to a
very famous relationship that she previously hadas well. In twenty twenty one,
she starts recording her first albums,starting with Fearless, which are the re
recordings. In these recordings, she'sreleasing new tracks, so tracks from the
vault, right, tracks that shehad recorded and hadn't used for those albums

(56:42):
or potentially other albums, And sothe new albums are not just the songs
aren't slightly different, but there's newmusic attached to them. And each of
these Taylor version albums, even thoughthey've been out before, are debuting at
number one in the Billboard charts becausepeople want the new music, they want
the new arrangements, and they wantto support her and her version of the

(57:05):
album as opposed to the ones thatwere owned by a big machine and sold
off subsequently. You know, Imean, most of what I have here
is that she comes out with morealbums and they become number one, right.
So the most recent of those,if you're listening to this before April
nineteenth, was Midnight's, her eleventhstraight Billboard number one, and that's when
she Woul launched the Eras Tour,which she's talking, you know, she's

(57:28):
playing music from her various albums,and it becomes the first concert tour in
history to gross over a billion dollars. It's a lot of money. It's
a lot of money. And Iyou know, I remember when there was
a scramble to get sort of tickets, and I think now there's a whole
thing. I think maybe the DOJis looking into ticket masts her over something.

(57:50):
I don't I'm talking sort of abovewhat I what I know a little
bit here, but I know there'ssomething going on. Yeah, I think
that she and other artists as well, we're not happy with the way that
scalpers could pick up a lot ofthose tickets and then sell them pretty quickly
and make a giant profit off ofthem. I think the way it works
now for not only for Taylor Swift, but for some of the other big

(58:10):
stars of the day, Olivia Rodrigoand others, that the album, the
tickets go on sale, but thenyou can't transfer them until seventy two hours
before the show. So you canresell them, but you can't until right
before the show. And so I'msure people still are making money off of

(58:30):
that kind of thing. And alsoyou have to enter a lottery to be
able to buy the tickets. Andso if you're on probably some kind of
mailing list or some kind of fansite that it's directly related to the artists
like Taylor Swift, then you getinformation on how to order it, like
in a pre sale type situation,and you get a number, and first

(58:53):
of all, you lottery for theright to be in line, and then
on that day that they released thetickets, you're suddenly given a number that
and you have to previously have acode in order to enable this, and
that number is where you are inline in order to buy tickets. And

(59:14):
so once your number is up,then you go into the stadium and you
scramble to buy tickets, but otherpeople are buying tickets at the same time,
so it's very challenging to You mighthave gotten a block of tickets and
by the time you go to pay, they're already taken. So I guess
it's better, right than making ticketsavailable and then being able to resell them
the next day. But it's stilla highly competitive situation to get tickets to

(59:37):
large star concerts. Absolutely, yeah, so I just remember, like you
know, during the height of allof that going on, I had a
number of friends who are flying aroundthe country, which sort of comes with
its own interesting geography, right.It's like I had friends who are here
in Portland. Obviously, she didn'tplay here in Portland, but she played

(59:59):
up and se doesn't play important.But I had friends who couldn't get the
Seattle tickets, but they could getlike, I don't know, New York,
or they could get Miami, orthey could get Dallas, and so
they were There's all these people flyingcrisscrossing the country to see Taylor Swift play
in stadiums thousands of miles away fromtheir home, which is just it's so
fascinating how it all worked. Thetickets become available for particular cities on a

(01:00:22):
particular day, and then they sellout, and then another city tickets become
available. I think the way itmight work now is that you can only
register for one city, so youhave to sort of roll the dice on
that. However, I'm not comprehensivelyknowledgeable about the situation. So I know
people go to multiple concerts and there'sthere's different ways to get tickets, but

(01:00:45):
I think it's it's changed a littlebit because of I think in large part
because of the scramble for tickets tosee tam or Swift well, and there
was also some really fun statistics thatcame out. You know, now that
we can look back on this periodof time, I think it was sort
of summerish last year. I don'tknow exactly when with the with the beginning
and end dates where, but nowwe can look back and we can sort

(01:01:07):
of see, Oh, Taylor Swiftwas almost she was like bringing up the
economy and every place she played inright there was there was noticeable economic because
there's influx because people are not justcoming from around the area or the state,
they're flying in from other places.Yeah, it's like this bump that
you would see for playoff games forthe for a sport or something like that.

(01:01:29):
That was That was exactly what Igona say. I I read something
to the effect of it was likeit was like a similar economic effect as
if the Super Bowl was happening ineach one of these cities consecutively week after
week. I'm not sure how muchthat actually tracks with the actual superle I
don't have that information, right,That was something I sort of read offhand

(01:01:50):
in some newspaper article about it,but I just thought it was interesting because
it's clearly it's become a huge driverto the to the point where I'm sure
Singapore saw this for example, Yeah, going back to when we about Singapore
was like, oh, no,we need to we need to lock this
down. That can't have her oppingover to Bangkok or or or wherever,

(01:02:10):
Manila or whatever, right because wecan we can have all that income here,
right, we can that audit tourismcan come here instead, and we'll
subsidize the situation, just to makesure. Very savvy. Taylor Swift in
twenty twenty four, which is thisyear, was awarded Album of the Year
for Midnight And this makes sure theonly person in the history of the Grammys
to win the award four times.So wow, that's impressive for her.

(01:02:35):
Beyond music star music superstardom, however, Taylor Swift has become a presence in
the political scene of the United Statesand perhaps beyond as well. Jeff,
you know anything about this kind ofa little bit, So I know there's
some more recent stuff which I'll talkedabout in the minute. I know,
you know, sort of around twentytwenty, she sort of broke her political
a political sort of stance. She'dhistorically been been very apolitical, and she's

(01:02:59):
sort of broken that. And Idon't think it was sort of overtly towards
sort of one party or the other. I think it was more just about
votes. You know, here's youknow, maybe talking about some broader key
issues or something like that. ButI know more recently she's gotten tied up
with oh, shoot, what's hisname, Travis kelce Travis kelcey. Thank

(01:03:21):
you A little embarrassing there. I'mnot I'm really not a football fan,
so I'm not. I'm not not. I'm not that embarrassed. But she
got she's now partnered with Travis Kelceyof the Kansas City team Chiefs, who
just won the stuper Bal and shewas on the field that won the Super
Bowl. And I know there's beena lot of people who are really quite
upset by that, by how shehas sort of taken over a little bit

(01:03:46):
of what the you know, theNFL sort of sees itself as. And
I think that's been very interesting towatch culturally happen. And I think that
happened, that's happening along very politicallines as well. So generally speaking,
I think people on the conservative sideof the political spectrum are probably a little
bit afraid of Taylor Swift because shehas incredible influence and she has you know,

(01:04:09):
who knows how many followers on socialmedia platforms, and she uses her
her fame and her platform in themedia somewhat recently to support LGBTQ plus rights
to promote voter registration, and fouryears ago she endorsed Joe Biden for president
as well. So there wasn't sortof an overt sort of political movement there,

(01:04:32):
and this is disturbing to a lotof people. I think it was
sort of overhyped a little bit thatyou know, football became about her that
it's not really the case, andthey would show her on the screen because
she's there and she's famous, she'ssupporting the person she's dating. It seems
reasonable that she would be there.But I think that attention made some people
upset and so became a political issueas well. Yeah. Yeah, it's

(01:04:58):
not unfortunately not all that surprising,right, you know, Yeah, but
it is what it is. Iguess nothing, once you're that popular,
you're not You're not going to escapebeing a political figure of some sort and
people are going to criticize you.There's nothing you can do that if you're
that phasize you no methody like you, and some people are going to focus
on that. You know, wecould go on and on. We kind

(01:05:20):
of have, and I think it'sbeen a pretty cool experience to use the
example of a person Taylor Swift inthis case, to talk about geographical things
and to sort of cast a geographicallens on things because it ties into lots
of different phenomenon cultural, economic,political phenomenon. Has We've been talking about
throughout the episode, But I guesswe'll have to leave it there for now.

(01:05:45):
That was a really fun episode,Hunter, I really enjoyed it.
I hopefully it does well. Hopefullypeople enjoy it, and then we can
do this about other other people,or other bands even or maybe even just
other music, right genres of music, because this is kind of we talked
a lot about country today too.Yeah. I think we should get into
it, talk more about music.I think people are interested in that,
and I think some people will listento the episode if only to pick out

(01:06:08):
all the things that we said thatwere wrong, of which they're probably welcoming
right, So you know that's fairto let me know how wrong we were.
Hopefully we were mostly right in anycase, I'm Hunter Shoby. I'm
a professor of geography at Portland StateUniversity. I have not taught a class
on Taylor Swift, but I'm nowthinking about it. I have. I'm

(01:06:29):
a co author of two books,including Portland isst a Cultural at Lists Upper
Left Cities, a Cultural atlass ofSan Francisco, Portland, and Seattle.
My co author is David Vannis,and I'm co host of this podcast with
you Jeff, Geography Is Everything.Yeah, my name is Jeff Gibson.
I'm the host of this podcast Geographyas Everything. But I'm also the host
of the YouTube channel Geography by Jeff, where you can go watch more episodes

(01:06:51):
about various aspects of geography. Gocheck it out. If you want to
find us. Over on substack,you can as Geography as every Thing dot
substack dot com. It's totally free. Just sign up. You get this
sort of sent to your email insteadof having to download it through a app
or what whatnot. Speaking of theapps and YouTube, if you're watching over
there, if you enjoyed what youlistened to you thought it was really fun.

(01:07:13):
You really enjoyed learning about Taylor Swiftand the geography underpinning her. Please
like and subscribe to us on YouTube, or if you're on one of the
apps, please rate and review us. It's always cool to see those come
in. I really appreciate seeing thosecome in. People are always really highly
complimentary, so that's always really cool. Next week, Hunner, we Are,
we Are. We don't have astar attached to attach the episode,
but we do have a fun episode. I think Okay is about the It's

(01:07:36):
it's all about the US national parks, really the national park system, why
they get chosen where they are,and potentially what some future national parks are
because there are some looming decisions tobe made, I think in the next
year or so, so it shouldbe really fun. There's different designations.
I'm sure we'll talk about sort ofyou get promoted then if you if you

(01:07:59):
really make you become a national park, if you're park, right, because
there's national parks, there's national monuments, as you know, there's all kinds
of different things, right, andand of course the National Park Service is
underneath its own umbrella within the interiorthe Department of the Interior, so it
becomes this whole, whole quagmire ofstuff. But everybody really loves national parks,
so I think it'll be really funto explore. And it's going to

(01:08:20):
pair with an episode I have onmy YouTube channel about Utah you're not at
all familiar with. Utah has fivenational parks, five of which all five
of which are are really stunning,and I believe rank at some of the
most well attended national parks in thecountry. And we're going to talk about
that too. What are the mostattended ones, because there's some fun ones

(01:08:41):
there too that I think a coupleof sleepers in there. To be surprised
that a couple of sleepers, yeah, a couple of sleepers, Yeah,
absolutely, the top one was verysurprising to me. All right, maybe
not surprised. I look forward toour conversation in a week. It'll be
very fun. So come back nextweek learn all about national parks and I
guess until then, we'll see younext time. Thank you for listening.