With a prolific musical output, a remarkably bankable tour and a name that is headline catnip, it is no surprise that Time magazine has declared 2023 the year of Taylor Swift.
In its annual issue honoring a Person of the Year — a nearly century-old designation whose recipients include Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Martin Luther King Jr and climate activist Greta Thunberg — the magazine called music’s reigning deity a “rare person who is both the writer and hero of her own story.”
Nearly two decades into her career the 33-year-old’s star simply keeps rising: Swift is smashing industry records, and her conversation-commanding “Eras” tour is set to bring in an estimated US$2 billion in revenue — and become the first tour to cross the symbolic US$1-billion mark.
Photo: Time, via AFP
With hundreds of millions of social media followers and a staunchly loyal fan base, she can move any dial with the tiniest of efforts.
“Taylor Swift found a way to transcend borders and be a source of light,” Time editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs wrote in a statement. “Much of what Swift accomplished in 2023 exists beyond measurement.”
“She mapped her journey and shared the results with the world: she committed to validating the dreams, feelings and experiences of people, especially women, who felt overlooked and regularly underestimated,” he wrote.
By some estimates her sprawling empire is worth more than US$1 billion, and the massive US$92.8 million opening this fall of her tour-documenting film is but another jewel on the artist’s crown.
Advance ticket sales for the movie topped US$100 million worldwide, theater operator AMC said, making it the best-selling feature-length concert film in history.
Swift’s blossoming romance with Kansas City Chiefs football player Travis Kelce has also brought the US National Football League a whole new wave of fans, as her hundreds of millions of social media followers track the couple’s every move.
It is not new for Swift, who since her teenage years has seen her dating life broadcast to the world.
“There’s a camera, like, a half-mile away, and you don’t know where it is, and you have no idea when the camera is putting you in the broadcast, so I don’t know if I’m being shown 17 times or once,” she said of the current frenzy around her game-day appearances.
“I’m just there to support Travis,” she said. “I have no awareness of if I’m being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads and Chads.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including