She’s the love of our life, an alchemist who turns grief into gold, and one of the most impactful artists of all time. Taylor Swift has been in our lives for such a long time, but she still finds ways to impress us with every release, every concert, and every era! 2024 was another monumental year for the queen of our hearts, full of memories and new music we’ve had on repeat since release day. Let’s “capture it, remember it,” and recap some of our favorite memories from this year.
Her “Good Ideas And Power Moves”
Taylor is a true ‘Mastermind’ in the music industry, from her creative album rollouts that get millions of people tuned in, to the thought she puts into her songs and performances. And her year started with some pretty great recognition for that, ranking at #1 on the 2024 Billboard Power 100 list! The list celebrates people in the industry who truly change the game, and we can’t think of someone more qualified for that crown.
The best ideas are usually ones without industry precedent. The biggest crossroads moments of my career came down to sticking to my instincts when my ideas were looked at with skepticism. When someone says to me, ‘But that has never been done successfully before,’ it fires me up. We have to take strategic risks every day in this industry, but every once in a while, you have to really trust your gut and take a flying leap. My rerecordings are my favorite example of this, and I’m extremely grateful to my team and fans for taking that leap with me because it absolutely changed my life.
Taylor Swift to Billboard
‘Karma’ Is A History-Making GRAMMY Night
February 4th, 2024 is a date that will go down in Swiftie history for sure. Taylor closed out the Midnights era by winning Best Pop Vocal Album (her 13th GRAMMY) and Album Of The Year – which made her the first artist to win AOTY four times. And over the years, she’s won the prize with albums in multiple genres: country with Fearless, alternative with folklore, and pop with 1989 and Midnights. Name someone more versatile, we’ll wait!
GRAMMY night was our official goodbye to the Midnights chapter, but also our introduction to the next chapter. The whole fandom was holding our breaths when we saw Taylor show up to the ceremony wearing black and white, which have historically represented the reputation album. Pretty much everyone was expecting a reputation (Taylor’s Version) announcement, so we were beyond surprised when she announced her eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Department!
A Delivery From Our Chairwoman
On April 19th, Taylor released The Tortured Poets Department and it’s one of her most personal, vulnerable projects to date. The ones that get it, get it – the album explores topics like heartbreak, mental health, fame, and trauma in a beautifully haunting way. It also notably plays with the idea of muses, purposely blending the stories of two relationships and flipping everyone’s expectations of who the songs would be about to make a point about how people sensationalize artists’ personal lives.
An already-amazing album release became even more special at 2am Eastern time, when Taylor revealed that TTPD was a double album! The second half of the project, The Anthology, serves up even more mind-blowing tracks and some of our favorite Taylor songs ever. Some standouts include the Neverland-inspired ‘Peter,’ which parallels lyrics from ‘cardigan,’ and ‘The Manuscript,’ which draws from the Red (Taylor’s Version) era and how it helped Taylor heal from her past pain.
The Story Of ‘us.’
The Tortured Poets Department gave us one of our most-wanted Taylor collabs when Post Malone hopped on ‘Fortnight,’ but that’s not the only collab Taylor had up her sleeve this year! She joined Gracie Abrams (a certified Taydaughter who we love) on the stellar ‘us.,’ which describes the downfall of a relationship and the emotional aftermath of the breakup. Every lyric on this song leaves our jaws dropping, with one of our favorites being “what seemed like fate, give it ten months and you’ll be over it.” Do you think it’s a callback to the bridge of ‘Clean?’
Books And Black Dogs And Black Friday, Oh My!
Our one complaint about The Tortured Poets Department was that we didn’t get an initial drop of The Anthology in its physical form, and our one complaint about the Eras Tour was that it didn’t carry on Taylor’s tradition of releasing a tour photo book. But she more than made up for both of those things in November!
She teamed up with Target to release vinyl and CD copies of TTPD: The Anthology and a self-published book celebrating the Eras Tour, full of gorgeous concert photos and some behind-the-scenes looks at costumes and how the show worked. For example, did you know there’s actually a person driving the on-stage “Roomba” platform she sang ‘Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?’ and ‘Down Bad’ on?! Where can we send our resumes to have a niche job on her next tour?
“The end of an era, but the start of an age…”
We still haven’t fully processed it, but Taylor’s career-defining Eras Tour officially came to an end on December 8th. With 149 shows, over 10 million attendees, and over $2 billion in revenue, we know the magic of this tour will stay alive in Swifties and record books forever!
Taylor introduced a whole new version of the Eras show in May, incorporating The Tortured Poets Department for a set we’ll never forget. She performed ‘But Daddy I Love Him,’ ‘So High School,’ ‘Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?,’ ‘Down Bad,’ ‘Fortnight,’ ‘The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,’ and ‘I Can Do It With A Broken Heart,’ calling that part of the show Female Rage: The Musical. She also added ‘Florida!!!’ to the setlist for her Florida shows and a stop in London, even bringing Florence Welch out as a special guest!
The second half of the tour saw some changes to the surprise song section as well. Nearly every show wound up having mashups as guitar and piano surprise songs, which raised everyone’s chances of getting a surprise song from their favorite album at their show. And even if you didn’t attend in person, there was so much fun to be had as Taylor combined songs from different eras to tell new stories. Some of our favorite mashups included ‘loml’ x ‘White Horse,’ ‘Cornelia Street’ x ‘Maroon,’ and ‘My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys’ x ‘This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.’
We simply have to give a special shoutout to the final mashups of the tour, which Taylor specifically chose to play at the last show to summarize her feelings about this chapter of her life. On guitar, we got ‘A Place In This World’ x ‘New Romantics,’ which made us so emotional knowing she’s carved out her own incredible place in our lives while taking our hands and taking us dancing. And on piano, ‘Long Live’ x ‘New Year’s Day’ x ‘The Manuscript’ explored how the memories we’ve made together over the years have allowed Taylor to turn her pain into something beautiful, and to celebrate, “the story isn’t mine anymore.”
Wow, it’s been a huge year for Taylor and Swifties! What were your favorite memories and releases? Let us know in the comments below or hit us up on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!
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