The Guardian intervju med Taylor
Taylor Swift: "Sexy?, not on my radar!"
She’s gone from ringletted country artist to feminist role model and the world’s most charming pop star. As she returns with her catchiest material yet, she talks awards-ceremony etiquette, autobiographical lyrics and why she puts nice before naughtyIn Manhattan’s chi-chi Sant Ambroeus restaurant, the pair of smartly dressed women at the next table are making not-so-surreptitious “eek” faces at each other, having clocked that their neighbour for lunch is Taylor Swift. And that’s nothing compared to the commotion gathering outside: wherever Taylor Swift dines, a swarm of fans and paparazzi soon forms on the pavement.
This is normal life for the biggest force in pop right now, a global superstar whose songs soundtrack lives, whose tours sell out stadiums in seconds, and whose every facial expression generates a million tweets. Taylor Swift in 2014 is an extraordinary phenomenon. She began as a ringletted country singer, teenage sweetheart of the American heartland, but between 2006’s eponymous first album and now she’s become the kind of culturally titanic figure adored as much by gnarly rock critics as teenage girls, feminist intellectuals and, well, pretty much all of emotionally sentient humankind. Unlike Beyoncé with her indomitable run-the-world warrior-queen stylings, or Nicki Minaj, with her cartoonified, amplified self and pantheon of alter egos, there is very little image-making going on with Taylor Swift, pop star. Instead, it’s her “realness” that’s made her; as well as, of course, some clever choices and heavy doses of charisma and songwriting talent. She is, as her friend the teenage media magnate Tavi Gevinson put it, nothing less than “BFF to planet Earth”. Which, for one thing, entails talking to planet Earth at a moderate volume.
“When I’m doing a concert, it’s not like, ‘WHAT’S UP LONDONNNNN!’ I pretty much just speak at this level,” she says. As a result, her stadium shows have the confessional good feeling of mass sleepovers and she communicates with her vast audiences “as if I’m talking to them across the dinner table”.
Swift releases an album every two years without fail, which means it’s time for a follow-up to 2012’s Red. We meet in the week before she announces new album 1989 and its lead single, Shake It Off, a breezy, uptempo number about ignoring the haters. She explains: “In the last couple of years I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that anyone can say anything about me and call TMZ or Radar Online or something, and it will be an international headline. You can either go crazy and let it make you bitter and make you not trust people, and become really secluded or rebellious against the whole system. Or you can just shake it off and figure that as long as you’re having more fun than anyone else, what does it matter what anyone else thinks? Because I’ve wanted this life since I was a kid.”
- Alla negativa, opassande eller som i någon form attackerar Taylor, TSS eller läsare tas omedelbart bort.
- Intresserad av länkbyten? Kontakta TSS via mejl: taylorswiftsweden@hotmail.com.
- Det här är ingen plats för ovårdat språk - vi har unga läsare.
- Vi stödjer heller inte diskriminering, påhopp eller hat mot övriga kändisar och personer.
- Vill du tipsa om någon nyhet du sett som vi missat? Släng iväg en kommentar!
- Kommentera inte med länkar till olagligt läckt musik, film eller liknande. De kommer tas bort.
- Från och med Juni 2012 kan vi svara på era kommentarer här på TSS. Om du har frågor angående Taylor kan du alltså lämna en kommentar på sidan eller mejla oss på taylorswiftsweden@hotmail.com.
- Taylor kan inte svara på kommentarer då detta inte är hennes officiella sida.
- Vi är fyra tjejer som kämpar med att hålla hemsidan uppdaterad för er. Vi är alla studenter och gör vårt bästa. Tiden räcker inte alltid till och vi ber om ursäkt om uppdateringen inte alltid är på topp. Vi hoppas ni har förstående över detta!
Taylor är aktuell med den nya parfymen Incredible Things. Parfymen finns sedand den 1/12 -14 på Kicks. Ni kan även hitta de tidigare parfymerna Wonderstruck, Wonderstruck Enchanted och Taylor by Taylor Swift hos ett antal återförsäljare runt om i landet.
