The secret of Taylor Swift isn’t music, it’s storytelling!

Following the North American singer’s visit to Brazil, amid all the controversies surrounding her name and after being named Person of the Year by Time Magazine, I stopped to ponder what makes me and millions around the world follow the blonde, and the conclusion is that it’s not just the music that ensures her resounding success.

Don’t get me wrong, I consider her an excellent singer and I really like her work. But what ensures that she is always the center of conversations is the narrative she tells, whether in her compositions, but especially around her life and career.

Recently, after earning the Spotify Artist of the Year title, she released a song on the streaming platform called “You’re Losing Me,” which fans suggest is about her six-year relationship with Joe Alwyn. The song’s lyrics speak of a relationship growing cold because one party seems not to fight for its success.

If the song, released in May only in physical media, had already caused much discussion among fans, the narrative gained another chapter. The singer’s friend and producer, Jack Antonoff, revealed that the song was composed in 2021, a period when Taylor and Joe were still together. This was enough for fans to theorize about the entire latest album, trying to piece together clues revealing more about everything that happened.

And it’s always like this with anything Taylor does. She has mastered controlling the narrative around her, even when everything seems out of her control. She turns everything into clues, into songs and music videos. She doesn’t need to speak openly about anything, just keeps engagement on social networks active in an almost organic way. And as she herself said in an interview, she plans everything well in advance.

Having control over what the media has access to about her life, when, how, and how her work as a singer is delivered ensures that no release is just that. Her easter eggs in all the products of her art build an imaginary around who Taylor Swift is.

In the end, this is the work of a screenwriter, a writer, isn’t it? Deciding what is relevant to the narrative, how it should be presented, and at what moment ensures audience involvement. That is the main art of Taylor Swift.