7 Ways Taylor Swift Dominated 2023: A Fearless Year, Revisited
It’s undeniable: 2023 was the year of Taylor Swift. The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter came back stronger than a 90s trend, owning the zeitgeist with a record-smashing tour, new albums and a concert film that threatened to upend decades of Hollywood precedent. But there’s more.
It all started with the release of “Midnights,” Swift’s 10th album, in October 2022. First single “Anti-Hero” grew and grew and eventually dominated radio for an entire calendar year, all the while Swift plotted her stadium tour, “The Eras Tour,” which literally boosted the economy. Swift was everywhere. Even reality-competition series “Dancing With the Stars” and “The Voice” hosted their own Swift-themed nights to get in on the action, and the NFL co-opted her Taylor’s Version trademark for goodness’ sake!
Swift also notched two more rerecorded albums this year in her journey to reclaim the rights to her songwriting.
Read on for the magical main character moments of Taylor Swift in 2023:
The Eras Tour
Swift’s most ambitious tour to date kicked off March 17, 2023 in Glendale, Arizona. The three-hour-plus performance featured songs from all 10 of her albums starting with “Lover” and an epic stage entrance set to “Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince,” gliding goldenly into “Fearless,” then “evermore,” “reputation,” “Speak Now,” “Red,” “folklore,” “1989” and finally “Midnights.” Each album got a brand new set, costume change and aesthetic — an “era” if you will.
In between “1989” and “Midnights,” Swift treated each night’s audience to a set of surprise acoustic songs — one on the guitar and one on the piano — which she tried not to repeat unless she flubbed lyrics, which may or may not have been intentional. The uniqueness of the acoustic set was a brilliant “jukebox”-like notion that ensured that even though The Eras Tour is a carefully calculated machine, each audience would get two specials songs just for them.
As of early December, The Eras Tour crossed the billion dollar threshold, breaking multiple records in the process in addition to grossing the same amount of money made by Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” (2023) at the box office. She surpassed Elton John’s “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” tour in total gross, and her Eras stadium tour became the fastest to gross a billion dollars, beating Elton John’s record, which took several years, in eight months. She played 60 shows to his 328.
And then there’s the economic impact. The Fed reported that Swift had a significant impact on the U.S. economy, and research firm QuestionPro said she drove an estimated $4.6 billion in consumer spending in 2023.
Let’s not forget, too, that Swift released four songs — including brand new “All of the Girls You’ve Loved Before” — just before the Eras Tour dropped, not to mention all the (Taylor’s Version) vault tracks that were released over the course of 2023. But we’ll get to that in a moment.
The Travis Kelce of It All
Let’s get this part straight — Travis scored Taylor, not the other way around. The Kansas City Chiefs tight end revealed in July that he was unable to present Swift with a friendship bracelet — as is the custom at her concerts — with his number on it after seeing her perform in Kansas City, Missouri at Arrowhead Stadium. Which number (his jersey number or phone number)? Not entirely clear, but Kelce didn’t get to meet Swift and give her the jewelry.
Fast forward to Sept. 24, when Swift showed up to the Chiefs game against the Chicago Bears, sitting in Kelce’s box next to his mother Donna. The cameras panned to the singer several times throughout the telecast, and ratings don’t disprove that she has brought even more viewership to Chiefs NFL games (her second appearance drove the highest viewership since the Super Bowl).
Since September, the singer has attended six Chiefs games — three home and three away.
The two are an item, and very publicly so, which contrasts strongly with her previous relationship of over six years with actor Joe Alwyn. News of their breakup landed in April.
The PDA-filled joy of Swift and Kelce’s relationship can best be summed up by the Eras Tour performance attended by Kelce, in which Swift changed the lyrics to “Karma” to “Karma is the guy on the Chiefs, coming straight home to me.”
“Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)”
Several months into her Eras stadium tour, Swift revealed that “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” would be her next rerecorded album, releasing the record on July 7. Taylor Lautner, who is believed to have inspired “Back to December” had nothing to worry about with the rerecorded “Speak Now” album, and he even starred in the “I Can See You (From the Vault)” music video alongside Joey King and Presley Cash.
Swift even turned her July 7 show of The Eras Tour in Kansas City into an album release party, debuting the music video and bringing Lautner, King and Cash onstage. But “Speak Now” was only the first of two rerecorded albums that would send fans into a tizzy in 2023.
“The Summer I Turned Pretty” Season 2
The Prime Video series “The Summer I Turned Pretty” is no stranger to Taylor Swift, as creator/author Jenny Han is a known Swiftie and pulled various songs into the first season of the show. But Swift dominated Season 2 as well, which dropped this summer and included songs from “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), “folklore,” “Midnights” and “Reputation.”
The majority of ballads and softer songs fit right into the scenes they accompany, from the multiple beach scenes — first soundtracked by “Invisible String” and then “Snow on the Beach (feat. Lana Del Ray)” between Belly (Lola Tung) and Conrad (Christopher Briney), to the pool scene with Jeremiah that was tracked to Jenny Han’s favorite Taylor Swift song and the first to be debuted early from “Reputation (Taylor’s Version)” — “Delicate (Taylor’s Version).”
“1989” (Taylor’s Version)”
Next in the reclamation of her stolen master rights to six of her studio albums came Taylor’s Version of “1989.” The singer dropped the news and release date for her fifth album on the final night of the United States leg of the Eras Tour at Sofi Stadium on Oct. 9. The singer debuted new blue outfits throughout her concert during the “Speak Now,” “folklore” and “1989” sets of the show, officially debuting the new album’s artwork after she played the two acoustic surprise songs.
Swift dropped the vault track title “Slut!” at the concert and the other four song titles after an intensive Google search for the album title and over 33 million puzzles for viewers to solve to “unlock” the rest of the “1989” vault. Strategists pointed out that this clever move by Swift was replacing negative search history associated with her first iteration of “1989” with more positive results, especially with the term “slut.”
“1989 (Taylor’s Version)” was released on Oct. 27 and kept Swift in the zeitgeist through the rest of the year with earworm vault tracks to accompany her Album of the Year-winning record.
“Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” Movie
On Aug. 31, Swift announced that her “Eras Tour” movie would hit theaters October 13. The release date for her almost three-hour concert documentary scared away several other films to other weekends, but the biggest news was that the Eras Tour movie wasn’t being released by a studio or streamer, but by Swift herself with the help of AMC Theaters.
She teamed up directly with AMC Theaters to distribute the film instead of pairing up with a traditional studio, ultimately grossing over $250 million to become the highest-grossing concert film of all time.
Fans turned the film’s release into a fully fledged event, dressing up and dancing and singing in the aisles.
The star-studded premiere at The Grove in Los Angeles boasted supportive Swifties dressed in colorful costumes as well as Beyoncé, whose “Renaissance” concert film came out in December. Beyoncé later invited Swift to the premiere of “Renaissance” in London in a show of solidarity between the two songstresses.
Many argued that Swift boosted the box office in a slower season, and the move made the concert itself more accessible to those who couldn’t attend in person. The footage, directed by Sam Wrench (“Billie Eilish: Live at the O2”) and captured during Swift’s L.A. shows, gave all viewers a front-row seat.
TIME’s 2023 Person of the Year
Swift sealed the deal of a banner year with her selection as Time’s 2023 Person of the Year, the first entertainer to grace the cover solo. She brought her cat to the cover photo shoot, and she gave major reputation vibes by dressing in all-black outfits.
But in her cover story, Swift also looked back on 2023 with the maturity of someone who’s been through the wringer. “I’ve been raised up and down the flagpole of public opinion so many times in the last 20 years,” she said. “I’ve been given a tiara, then had it taken away.”
She’s finding her self-worth in how she feels about her accomplishments. And she feels damn good about 2023.
“This is the proudest and happiest I’ve ever felt, and the most creatively fulfilled and free I’ve ever been.”
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