Category: Fusion

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Taylor Swift from “teenage wunderkind” to “artist of the decade” (part 2)

During the last five years, Taylor Swift is pushing her musical boundaries (again). Part 2 of this post covers the period from 2020, during which four new albums saw the light of day and she was named ‘Person of the Year’ by Time magazine. In 2022, that accolade went to Volodymyr Zelensky.

The outbreak of the corona epidemic led to the cancellation of a planned tour in 2020, which suddenly gave her an unprecedented amount of time and rest. Nevertheless, 2020 proved to be her most successful year yet, both artistically and commercially. In the second half of 2020, she released two albums in quick succession unannounced: Folklore and evermore (written with lower case). She had read many books and was fascinated by the variety of human characters she encountered in them. She continues to write from the ‘me-person’, but many songs are about other people, fictional or existing. Her lyrics reach an even greater degree of self-awareness, introspection and poetic content. 

Folklore

At first, Listen to ‘Betty’ from the album ‘Folklore’, performed live at the Academy of Country Music Awards ceremony at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville. It is part of a ‘teenage love triangle’. In this song, Taylor (in the person of a 17-year-old James) apologises for how he cheated on Betty with an unnamed person, who ‘gets to talk’ in the song ‘August’.

You can find the lyrics of this song here

In another song “Cardigan”, Taylor sings from Betty’s perspective. Betty still hopes for the relationship with James to continue. 

You can find the lyrics to this song here

In the third song ‘August’, we hear the anonymous girl James was in a relationship with over the summer. She laments that James has ‘made up’ again with Betty. But she resignedly says: “You weren’t mine to lose.”

The recording of these songs comes from the ‘Folklore Long Pond Studio Sessions’ a music film that features all of Folklore’s songs. Taylor Swift wrote these with co-producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner because concerts were not possible in corona time. They also provide the accompaniment on these recordings. Other songs you should definitely listen to and read the lyrics. Here are four further examples: ‘The 1’, ‘Mirrorball’, ‘This is me trying’ and ‘Peace’.

Most critics called ‘Folklore’ the best album Taylor had made up to that point. The New York Times goes even further and considers this album the best thing the pandemic has produced. 

evermore

Amid euphoria, a few months later ‘evermore’ appeared unexpectedly, an album that was also very well received. It resembles ‘Folklore’. The character studies go a little deeper; Swift still fathoms human emotions around love, grief, marriage and infidelity from the ‘I’ position. Some songs have a clearer pop accent, with melodies that are easy on the ears. This includes the song ‘No body no crime‘ To the more ‘poppy’ songs, you could add ‘Karma’ and ‘Anti-hero’. I will present the the music video for the latter song later. 

‘evermore’ is also characterised by dreamy ballads. ‘Willow’, for instance, has that same subdued quality as most songs from ‘Folklore’. 

You can find the lyrics to this song here

Similar songs on ‘evermore’ are: ‘Champagne problems‘ ‘Coney  island’ and ‘Marjorie’, The latter song is about Taylor’s grandmother, the opera singer Marjorie Finlay. ‘Tolerate it’ is about relationships between young women and older men. The maker of this (unofficial) music film has provided the song with images from the Netflix series ‘The Crown’, specifically Charles and Diana.

Midnights

The albums Folklore and evermore were based on fictional narratives. She imposed emotions onto imagined characters and stories, which liberated her from tabloid attention. On 21 October 2022, the tenth album, Midnights, was released. It matches older albums like 1989 more than the two previous two. T, such as anxiety, insomnia, self-criticism, revenge and schizophrenia and but also confidence in herself. She deals with these themes in a more abstract way to enable the listeners to recognize their own emotions.

The album incorporates a restrained electropop and synth-pop sound with elements of hip hop, R&B, rather than from indie folk and ‘alternative rock, labels that graced the previous two albums. One commentator speaks of ‘chillout music’. Critics were again very positive because of the understated production and vocal style. They also praised the refinement of Swift’s writing. 

You can now listen to ‘Would’ve, could’ve, should’ve.

The lyrics of this song are here

In this song, she laments the relationship she had at the age of 19 with a ‘grown-up’ man, the way he treated her and the trauma she suffered as a result: “I damn sure never would’ve danced with the devil at 19 / And the God’s honest truth is that the pain was heaven / And now that I’m grown, I’m scared of ghosts.”

Other songs from this album include ‘Karma’ and Bejuweled, a paraphrase of the Cinderella fairy tale. Worth mentioning is the ballad ‘You’re losing me’. Many saw in it the foreshadowing of the end of her six-year relationship with English actor Jo Alwyn. Furthermore, you should definitely listen to ‘Sweet  nothing’, about the periods of peace Swift experiences in her own home, ‘Maroon‘, a song about missed opportunities and ‘Midnight rain’ in which Swift muses on how things would have been different if she had not chosen her career first and foremost with a previous love. 

The song “You’re on your own, kid” from Midnights describes the insecurities young adults face when they have to build a position, face relationships and see friends go their own way too: “Summer went away / Still the yearning stays / I play it cool with the best of them / I wait patiently / He’s gonna notice me / It’s ok, we’re the best of friends”.

You can find the lyrics to this song here

Midnights was her fifth album to open atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of over one million copies, and its tracks, led by the single “Anti-Hero“, made Swift the first artist to monopolize the top 10 of the Hot 100.

Midnights is her the most commercially successful album too. Spotify reports never had so many albums have been streamed in one day, and it was the first time in history that Billboard’s entire top ten consisted of Swift’s songs.

The tortured poets department

Swift’s 11th album was released unexpectedly on April 19, 2024. She had been working on it in secret during the ‘Eras Tour’. She referred at the album as a ‘lifeline’, with introspective songs that depict emotional tumult, with self-awareness, mourning, anger, humor, and delusion as dominant themes. Swift wrote and produced the album with Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner.

The album broke numerous commercial records, including the highest single-day and single-week streams for an album on Spotify. It became the world’s best-selling album of 2024. ‘Fortnight’ was the highest rating single, co-written by Post Malone.

Listen to Fortnight here.

From a musical point of view, a variety of musical styles can be recognized, like minimalist synth-pop, chamber pop, and folk-pop effort with country and rock stylings. Fortnight is exemplary for synth-pop. The songs that are co-written and co-produced by Aron Dessner feature acoustic arrangements, driven by piano and strings, evoking folk-pop arrangements, compared to Swift’s 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore. Listen for example to ‘So high school’ en ‘Who is afraid of little old me’

Comments were polarized. Critics praised her songwriting for emotional resonance and wit, but others found the album lacking profundity. Stepwise, the favorable reviews grew in number. Paul Bridgewater saw the album as Swift’s “most cohesive body” finding the music sophisticated and the lyricism symbolic. Multiple reviews complimented the album’s heavy, unfiltered emotion.

Other activities

In 2023 Taylor Swift embarked on her sixth world tour. It lasted until the end of 2024 and includes 150 performances. In each show, she has been singing 40 songs taken from each of her 10 and in 2024 11 albums. Each album represents a period (‘era’), hence the name ‘Eras tour’.

Taylor wrote the song ‘Beautifull ghosts’ (2019) together with Andre Lloyd Webber for the film ‘Cats’, in which, incidentally, she had a role herself. You can watch a film clip in which Francesca Hayward performs the song as a frightened young cat. This clip is subtitled so you can easily follow the lyrics. On the music video below Taylor sings the song herself.

You can find the lyrics to this song here

For another film ‘Where the Crawdads sing’, she wrote the song “Carolina” (2022) You can also watch the music video below. Lyrics and composition are widely praised for being completely in tune and contributing to the atmosphere the film wants to create. Taylor’s unusually dreamy voice also fits perfectly with this.

Swift emphasizes visuals as a key creative component of her music-making process. Her production company, ‘Taylor Swift Productions’, is credited with producing all visual media. Swift debuted as a filmmaker with All Too Well: The Short Film, which made her the first artist to win the Grammy Award for Best Music Video as a solo director.[

Talyor Swift as a person

Taylor’s songs tell more about her as a person than you know from many people around you.  Still, if you want to know more about her and the thousands of articles about her in tabloids do not appeal, read Sam Lanski’s essay, written in response to the fact that Time magazine named her person of the year 2023. You find it here. Time described Swift as the first Person of the Year to be recognized for “achievement in the arts“. 

Relations

The relationship between Taylor Swift and American football player Travis Kelce seems to be stable and the two seems to be happy. Their public appearances together are less frequent, but when they do appear, their bond is clear and reinforces the image of a serious and long-term commitment.

Artisticy

Swift’s passion for writing and composing is clear in the 2020 Netflix documentary Miss Americana. We see images of a young girl who wants to become a singer. The dream came true. In 2011, Swift told The New Yorker that she considers herself to be first and foremost a songwriter. ‘I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across”. Unlike a lot of modern pop, her songs tell stories in succinct and emotive ways. Fans of Swift see her as a woman whose songwriting reflects their concerns. She writes about the anticipation and disappointments of romantic love, emphasising the intensity of the female experience. Nevertheless, humour and self-mockery are always present. Take, for instance, the song ‘Anti-Hero’ from the album Midnights. It is an absurdist clip in which Taylor juggles her own guises. The song depicts all her weaknesses, fears, self-hatred and the idea that her life is out of control.

You can find the lyrics to this song here

She’s the first woman solo artist to win the ‘Album of the Year Grammy’ four times, with each win coming in a different musical genre. It’s a credit to Swift’s masterful songwriting, as it demonstrates her ability to adapt her craft for different audiences. When it comes to mainstream music, Swift is widely regarded as one of the most talented and engaging performers on the scene. Her showmanship and stage presence are often praised.

Assets

As of June 2025, Forbes estimates her net worth at $1.4 – 1.6 billion, making her the richest female musician in the world. She achieved this status solely based on her songs and performances, which earned her widespread acclaim and recognition. On Spotify, she is the only female act to amass 100 billion streams, the only artist to have received more than 250 million and 350 million streams in one day (260 million on October 27, 2023, and 380 million on April 19, 2024), and was the first female act to reach 100 million monthly listeners.

Approximately 6–7% of Swift’s total net assets is represented by the $100 million she has donated in cases of natural disasters and supporting social and educational initiatives. 

Political impact 

Swift has positioned herself politically only recently, with her stance on issues such as gender equality and climate change. Initially, this was reflected in her support for women’s rights and civil rights in general. Secondly, she also pledged herself to the Democratic Party. This put her position within the conservative country and western establishment on edge.  It is widely believed that if Swift had done this earlier, Hillary Clinton would have become president. A survey conducted by the weekly magazine Newsweek in January found that 18 percent of American voters are more likely to vote for a presidential candidate if they have Swift’s support.

Impact on the music industry

Swift has been instrumental in changing the business game for musicians. She’s taken on record labels and streaming services. She is advocating for better deals for artists.

She has successfully used her massive number of downloads on Spotify and Apple Music to push both companies to improve the remuneration of young artists. At one point, she initiated a boycott of both streaming companies.

She used her influence with politicians to pass legislation that prevents companies like Ticketmaster from abusing artists’ popularity to drive up prices.

Finally, she has stopped investors (private equity) from enriching themselves by trading the master recording of her albums. She achieved this by re-recording each of her first six albums (‘Taylor’s Version’). As for the later albums, she had already negotiated ownership over the master recordings. This did not hurt her financially.  She recently repurchased the original master recordings too.

Becoming a victim herself

Her personal life and career have been subject to intense misogyny and “slut-shaming”, as well as rampant media scrutiny and tabloid speculation. Swift has also been a victim of numerous house break-ins and stalkers, some of whom were armed.

Each step Swift takes is under public scrutiny. Her private jet use has also been criticised for its carbon emissions. In 2023, Swift’s spokesperson announced that she had purchased more than double the required carbon credits to offset all tour travel and personal flights.

Though Swift has never spoken officially on the topic of mental health, she has written many lyrics that suggest the impact of her public expositor on her mental health and subsequent alcohol use.

Academic recognition

Time described Swift as the first ‘Person of the Year’ to be recognised for “achievement in the arts”, and she received an ‘Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts’ degree from New York University, where she also served as its commencement speaker on May 18, 2022.

In 2022, New York University’s Clive Davis Institute announced a course focused on Swift, which was to be taught by Rolling Stone’s Brittany Spanos. Swift was also awarded an honorary doctorate in fine arts, in recognition of her status as “one of the most prolific and celebrated artists of her generation”.

Journalists, politicians and scholars have devoted considerable attention to Taylor Swift’s lyrics and music, conducting research and offering insights. Swift, according to Vox, appeals to the feelings of the millennial generation in a way that Bruce Springsteen did to the baby boomers. She connects ethnic, cultural and national differences and is of great significance for women’s empowerment.

Well, the story about Taylor Swift is far from over, is it? 

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Miles Davis (The development of Jazz 10/11)

Miles Dewey Davis III was born on 26 May 1926 in Alton (Illinois, U.S.). He died on 28 September 1991 in Santa Monica (California, U.S.). He grew up affluent; his mother was a violinist and his father a dentist. 

Davis has been attracted to blues, big bands and gospel from an early age. At nine, he became his first trumpet. Elwood Buchanan taught him to play on it. Davis later spoke of it as the “biggest influence on my life”. Buchanan stressed the importance of playing without vibrato, against the fashion of the time, which he continued all his life.

1940s

At the age of 15, Davis goes to high school and joins a marching band, led by his music teacher Buchanan. He also plays in small ensembles. He eagerly studies music theory and learns to read scores. 

Under pressure from his mother, who felt he should finish school first, he turned down the offer to join the Tiny Bradshaw band. Shortly afterwards, he plays as a substitute in the Billie Eckstine Band, in which Art Blakey, Dizzie Gillespie and Charlie Parker also play. After this experience, Davis decides to move to New York “where the action is”. He is admitted to the Juilliard School of Music but does not finish his education to pursue music full-time. He plays in several bands, including the Charlie Parker quintet. Here he regularly plays with Gillespie and Mingus. In one of the songs ‘Now’s the Time’, he plays a solo that anticipates what would become ‘cool jazz’.

Recordings during this period include ‘Half Nelson‘ (1947) and ‘Sippin’  at Bells‘ (1947). 

In August 1948, Davis, along with Mulligan, Roach, Lewis and others, form a nine-member band (nonet), seeking a musical alternative to bebop. Eventually, nine songs were recorded and released as singles. It was not until 1957 that these were compiled into the album ‘Birth of the Cool’, which has a previously unprecedented orchestral timbre. 

1950s

After returning from a stay in Paris, Davis became depressed and he found himself out of work. He was not yet 24 and became addicted to heroin, which did not help his playing. He eventually got to grips with his addiction and recorded two albums: ‘Miles Davis Quartet’ (1953) and ‘Miles Davis Volume 2′ (1956). More albums followed and they portray his transition from cool jazz to hard bop. Hard bop is more focused on harmony and melody and regularly uses popular songs as a starting point for improvisation. ‘Walkin” is the first album representative of this genre. You can see a recording from this album here:

Miles’ performance at the Newport Jazz Festival in July 1955, along with Monk and Mulligan, brought back public interest in his work. The Miles Davis Quintet, which now included John Coltrane, released four albums in the second half of the 1950s, recorded in two marathon sessions in 1956.  ‘Cookin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet’ (1957), ‘Relaxin’  with the Miles DDavis Quintet1958), ‘Workin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet’(1960) and ‘Steamin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet‘. Watch a recording of ‘When I fall in Love’ from the latter album

Davis travelled to Paris several times, including recording the soundtrack to ‘Ascenseur pour l’échafaud‘ (1958, with director Louis Malle).

Tired of all performances and travel, Davis was ready for a new project. He aspires to a job at a university to combine his theoretical knowledge and his skills as a performer. But it becomes a project with Canadian-American composer, pianist and arranger Gil Evans. Between 1957 and 1962, the two make five albums that differ greatly from Davis’s oeuvre up to that point. 

On Miles Ahead (1957), Davis plays on flugelhorn “The Maids of Cadiz” by Léo Delibes, the first time Davis recorded ‘classical music’. You can listen to a recording of this song played by Gil Evans’ big band here (2018). 

Porgy and Bess (1959), one of the albums made with Gil Evans, contains arrangements of pieces from George Gershwin’s opera.  Sketches of Spain (1960) features music by Joaquín Rodrigo and Manuel de Falla and compositions by Evans. The album was a great success; it sold more than 120,000 copies in the US alone. On this album, you can listen to, among others, Davis’s version of the Concerto d ‘Aranjuez.

The duo’s last album is Quiet Nights (1963), a collection of bossa nova songs that, incidentally, was released against Davis’ and Evans’ wishes.

The box set Miles Davis & Gil Evans: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings (1996) won the 1997 Grammy Award for ‘Best Historical Album’ and ‘Best Album Notes’. It is gift with which to please many a music lover.

In March 1959, Davis released ”Kind of Blue” which is often called his best album and one of the best albums in the history of jazz. By 2019, it had sold a total of 5 million copies. Songs include: ‘Freddy Freeloader’, ‘So What’ and ‘All Blues”. The latter song is played here by the Frankfurt Radio Big Band in 2020.

‘Kind of Blue’ departs from Davis’s earlier hardbop jazz style where improvisations are based on complex chord progressions. Instead, soloists improvise based on a predetermined ‘mode’, usually one or more of the seven classical scales, or a variation thereof. The aim of such a modal approach is to increase the freedom for soloists to shape an improvisation. Later, John Coltrane, among others, would also opt for this ‘modal approach’.

1960s

Miles continues to tour with his quintet during these years, which sees many personnel changes over the years. He also had to be hospitalised several times for hip fractures and a liver infection. His record sales dropped to a minimum. However, In the late 1960s he again record five new albums: ‘Miles smiles’ (1966), Sorcerer‘(1967), ‘Nefertiti‘(1967), ‘Miles in the sky’(1968) and ‘Filles de Kilimanjaro’(1968). During concerts, the band links songs together so that they flow into each other. Davis continued to do this until 1975.

In the last two albums, Davis switches partly to electric instruments, the beginning of his ‘fusion’ period.  Rock influences are now increasingly audible. ‘In a silent way’ (1969) is considered the first fusion album, and it prompted a lot of comments from jazz critics. Here you can listen and watch ‘In a silent way’ from the album of the same name.

1970s

‘Bitches Brew’ (1970) is another bestseller. By 2003, it had sold one million copies. The songs that make up the album were compiled and edited from separate recordings with technical aids. Miles Davis starts performing with ‘Bitches Brew’ in the support acts of rock bands such as those of Steve Miller and Neil Young. He also performs to an audience of 600,000 at The Island of Wight Festival. Again, critics follow him with suspicion. You can watch and listen to part of Bitches Brew here.

Davis became influenced by the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen; critics spoke of ‘space music’.  The album ‘On the corner’(1972) mixes this influence with funk. A series of albums with recordings of performances followed: ‘In concert’(1972), ‘Get up with it’(1974), Agharta (1974), Pangea (1976) and Dark Magnus (1977). Fans loved these albums; critics wiped the floor with them. They denounced Davis’s habit of playing with his back to the audience or looking at the ground during performances. He used alcohol, codeine and morphine to stay on his feet during these performances and had to be hospitalised repeatedly.

In 1975, Davis stops making music. In the following five years, he tries to put together a new band. Eventually, he managed to come back. He releases two new album ‘The man with too horn’(1981) and ‘We want Miles’ (1981), which earned him a Grammy Award for ‘Best Jazz Instrumental Performance By a Soloist’. 

It was only after he suffers a stroke that he distanced himself from the use of alcohol and drugs for the rest of his life, started drawing and living a healthy life. He now also plays ‘cover’ versions of pop songs, such as Cindy Lauper’s ‘Time After Time’. He swapped his funk-based style for a more melodic one. He also collaborated with a slew of other artists, such as Zucchero Fornaciari in a version of Dune Moss.

1990s

In 1991, at the Montreux jazz festival, Davis plays for the first time songs from the albums Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess and Sketches of Spain, which he had recorded with the recently deceased Gil Evans in the late 1950s, with an orchestra conducted by Quincy Jones. You can listen and watch their entire performance here. Davis’s occasionally weak playing was because he was seriously ill at the time of the concert.

At a grand concert in Paris attended by many colleagues, he receives the order “Chevalier of the Legion of Honour” from the hands of the French minister of culture, who called him the “Picasso of Jazz”. 

Back in the US, his latest album ‘Doo-Bop’ which would be released posthumously (1992), as well as Rubberband (2019). On 25 August, he performs publicly for the last time. A snippet of his last performance in Europe on 1 July 1991, the song ‘Human Nature’, can be seen here. 

In September, Miles dies of a series of complications.

Miles Davis is widely hailed as a pioneer of 20th-century jazz and his influence on the development of rock. The Guardian places him among the best jazz musicians ever. Davis was at the forefront of many innovations: ‘cool jazz’, ‘hard bop’, ‘fusion’ with rock, soul, funk and hip-hop. As such, his work is a sustained critique of bebop. He stretched the boundaries of jazz far and, in doing so, also inspired many musicians.

A two-hour-long documentary, ‘The Miles Davis Story’ won an international Emmy Award.