𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥, 𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘯, 𝘢 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵

welcome to mastermind, book 1 of the behind the mask series!

in this series, i will be analyzing the meaning, themes, etc of different songs, books, movies, etc

in mastermind, i will be analyzing all of taylor swift's albums and songs, in order of release

please keep in mind this is simply MY interpretation of her songs and albums, so if you have your own thoughts or opinions, do share them in the comments, nicely!

enjoy! <3

- elyna

𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐰𝐢𝐟𝐭

Taylor Alison Swift, born 13 December 1989, has been the top female artist for more than a decade, after debuting in 2006 at 16. She has been going strong in her music career for the past 16 years (as of 2022), with 10 studio albums and 2 re-recordings. She has also acted in several movies, and won many awards, including but not limited to 3 Grammys for album of the year and several VMAs.

She debuted at 16 in 2006, under Big Machine Records, with her self-titled country album, Taylor Swift, released on the 24th of October. Her lead single, Tim McGraw, was released June 19, 2006. In 2007, she won "Award-Winning Songs" at the BMI Country Awards for Tim McGraw, followed by the "Horizon Award" at the Country Music Association Awards for Taylor Swift. She also won "Breakthrough Video of the Year" at the CMT Music Awards, and "Songwriter-Artist of the Year" at the Nashville Songwriter Awards.

In 2008, Taylor released her sophomore album, Fearless, on the 11th of November. She won "Female Vocalist of the Year" at the Academy of Country Music Awards, "Favorite Country Female Artist" at the American Music Award. And then, with Fearless, Taylor went on to win 6 awards at the Grammys, including an Album Of the Year, making her the youngest artist to win Album Of the Year. Fearless also got six platinum singles. She won Best Video by a Female Artist at the VMAs in 2009, but the stage was stormed by Kanye West, making it an event that would forever live in VMAs infamy.

On October 24, 2010, Speak Now was released, winning an American Music Award for Favorite Country Album, and a Billboard Music Award for Top Country Album.

2011 marked Taylor's first Billboard Woman of the Year Award. 

And in 2012, Taylor released Red, the album containing the fan favorite All Too Well, then only 5 minutes. Red's lead singles We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, Begin Again, I Knew You Were Trouble, and Red all peaked inside the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. Although Red was nominated at the Grammys, it did not win. However, Taylor was not deterred, and still continued with great success. 

And that streak of success was continued when 1989 was released in 2014, making it Taylor's first official 'pop' album. 1989 went on to win "Best Pop Vocal Album" at the Grammys, as well as  her second Album of the Year.

She embarked on the 1989 world tour in 2015, a tour spanning 85 shows! However, nothing good would last forever. In 2016, Kanye West released his song, Famous, containing the lyrics "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/I made that bitch famous", and reigniting the infamous feud between Kanye West and Taylor Swift. 

Taylor went into seclusion, and nobody physically saw her for a year. However, she reemerged in 2017, musical guns blazing with lead single "Look What You Made Me Do" released on August 24, and followed by the album, Reputation, on the 10th of November, 2017. Taylor won "Favorite Pop Album" at the AMAs and "Top Selling Album" at the Billboard Music Awards for Reputation.

In 2018, Taylor embarked on the Reputation stadium tour - her first full stadium tour - starting on the 8th of May, 2018 in Glendale, Arizona, and ending in Tokyo on November 21, spanning 53 shows. The Reputation Stadium Tour broke the record for the highest-grossing tour in U.S. history and being the highest-netting tour in 2018, with $345 million, and breaking her previous record with the 1989 world tour. Because, of course, in true Taylor fashion, she has to out-do herself! 

And... of course, as usually, Taylor is faced with more drama, this time in the form of her recording label. With her 6-album contract with Big Red Machine ended, Taylor wanted to buy her masters from them, so she could fully own them. However, Big Red Machine had other ideas, wanting her to sign on for another 6 albums, and for every album she gives them, she'll earn one of her old ones back. Taylor declined, and Big Red Machine sold her albums to Scooter Braun. And so, Taylor has to start re-recording..

But not yet, because in 2019, Taylor released Lover, starting with her lead singles You Need To Calm Down and Me! and marking Taylor bringing her political views into public sight, with You Need To Calm Down also being a rally for LGBTQ+ equality.

Taylor also won Billboard Woman of the Decade in 2019, and gave an equal part moving and inspiring speech. 

In the beginning of 2020, Miss Americana was released, a film about Taylor and her career as the music industry.

As Taylor prepared to embark on Lover Fest, tragedy struck with COVID in 2020. However, during a year of lockdown, Taylor was more productive than some people during their whole lives, literally DROPPING folklore on the 24th of July, 2020, after announcing it barely 16 hours before. This was followed in the same fashion, with sister album, evermore, on the 11th of December, 2020.

With folklore, Taylor won her third Album of the Year at the Grammys, making her one of the few artists who have won Album of the Year 3 times, and the first and only female artist to do so. 

Thus begins the era of re-recordings. On 9 April, 2021, Fearless (Taylor's Version) was released, marking the beginning of Taylor's re-recordings, with 6 tracks From the Vault. Soon after, Red (Taylor's Version) was released, on the 12th of November, 2021, sporting 30 tracks, and the widely sought after All Too Well (Taylor's Version) (10 Minute Version). 

With Red (Taylor's Version) and All Too Well (Taylor's Version) (10 Minute Version), known as ATWTVTMV or ATWTMV, came a 15-minute short film for ATWTMV, and in recent history at the VMAs, Taylor won Video of the Year for the third time, making history as the first and only artist to have won it thrice, with All Too Well: The Short Film, on August 29, 2022. While accepting her award, Taylor also broke the game-changing news...

Taylor's 10th studio album, Midnights, would be released at midnight, October 21st, 2022!

Following the announcement came chaos with Taylor's tiktok series, Midnights Mayhem With Me, and news of a long-awaited Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey collaboration for track 4 off of Midnights, Snow on the Beach. The Midnights tracklist also brought Taylor's first song with an explicit title - track 8, Vigilante Shit - as well as great shock to the swifties when we realized that Karma is REAL, with track 11, Karma!

Midnights was released at 12am EST on October 21, 2022. At 3am EST on the same day, Taylor dropped Midnights (3am version), featuring 8 surprise '3am tracks', bringing the album up to 20 tracks. The 3am tracks were, as Taylor described, reminiscent of Vault tracks, as Taylor shared 8 extra songs she had written in the process of creating Midnights, but had not made the 13 songs on the original album. 

As tons of swifties collective streamed Midnights at the same time, they crashed spotify for a while, but also gave Midnights the biggest album debut, most first day streams, and causing Midnights to break tons of records, even on the first day alone. Midnights broke the record for biggest single day streams for an album in Spotify history, and had the biggest debut after garnering 185.5 million streams on Spotify in its first 24 hours. All tracks from Midnights (standard) occupied the top 13 simultaneously on Global Spotify charts, 17 tracks from Midnights (3am version) occupied the top 20 simultaneously on US Spotify charts, and Midnights (standard) is the first album in history to have all of its tracks debut with over 9 million streams on Global Spotify. Anti-Hero is the all-time biggest single day streams of any song in US Spotify chart history, and Snow On the Beach breaks the record for biggest single day streams for an all female collaboration in Spotify history, with 15 million streams. It also has #1's in over 100 countries on Apple Music charts, #1 on iTunes in 80 countries, sold 500,000 copies in China, has over 250 million streams generated in its first 24 hours, is eligible for Gold in the United States, and is the album with the most songs occupying the top 15 simultaneously on US iTunes in history. 

Midnights is the best selling CD since reputation, topped the Billboard 200 with 1,578,000 units, of which 1.14 million were pure sales, and gathered 549.26 million streams in its first week. Taylor is now the only artist to have five albums debut with over 1 million units sold in their first week, and it sold 570,000 copies on vinyl, the biggest week for any album on vinyl since tracking began in 1991. She also became the first artist to occupy all 10 entries on the Billboard Hot 100 simultaneously in 1 week. Midnights has broken many records, and Taylor has also released multiple remixes of lead single, Anti-Hero.