Few artists within the historical past of pop music have had a yr like Taylor Swift. The singer, who turns 35 in the present day, began off 2024 as probably the most distinguished spectator on the Tremendous Bowl, the place Travis Kelce and the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs delivered on a romcom ending. Her blockbuster Eras Tour, showcasing 18-plus years of music over a staggering 3.5 hours, continued 2023’s run as pop’s fundamental story abroad and have become the best-selling music tour in historical past. Her eleventh studio album, the Tortured Poets Division, might have been a misfire with critics (myself included), however nonetheless broke streaming data and dominated the charts; she was Spotify’s most-streamed artist globally this yr. The Eras Tour wrapped final weekend in Vancouver with greater than $2bn in ticket gross sales from greater than 10 million attendees – greater than double the subsequent all-time highest-grossing tour, in solely 149 reveals.
In brief, Swift is working in exceedingly uncommon firm, at a scale unimaginable to most artists. Her closest pop peer is arguably Beyoncé, whose solely commonplace and level of comparability is herself. (Each additionally, notably, hardly ever grant interviews.) Which raises the query: after a outstanding run of each ubiquity and good press, after the genuinely mind-boggling and commerce-shifting success of the Eras Tour, what subsequent?
At the beginning, at the least in response to an “unique” supply at Individuals, is relaxation, and having fun with the vacations along with her boyfriend/Eras tour staple Travis Kelce. And past that, a query of the place to go if you’re already on the high, particularly as Swift’s golden period was additionally a banner yr for a brand new, youthful wave of feminine artists raised on her music, together with Chappell Roan and Eras Tour openers Sabrina Carpenter and Gracie Abrams.
Earlier than the all-consuming Eras Tour, Swift indicated a pivot towards movie, having bought an authentic script to Searchlight Photos in 2022, which she can also be anticipated to direct. Particulars of the movie have been stored tightly below wraps, aside from it being an “thrilling and new inventive journey”, in response to Searchlight heads David Greenbaum and Matthew Greenfield.
Swift has beforehand directed or co-directed 13 music movies and All Too Properly: The Quick Movie, a 15-minute prolonged music video remedy starring Sadie Sink and Dylan O’Brien. The brief movie garnered some awards season recognition, with Swift expressing an curiosity in increasing her repertoire as a director. “I feel that I’m at a spot now the place the subsequent child step isn’t a child step. It could be committing to creating a movie,” she mentioned throughout a dialogue on the 2022 Toronto Movie Competition, during which she additionally mentioned she needed to inform “human tales about human emotion” going to a “extra comedic, irreverent place”.
Swift would comply with an extended line of pop stars who moved to movie after success within the music enterprise – notably of their 30s. Girl Gaga was nominated for an Oscar in 2019 for A Star Is Born. Each Selena Gomez and Ariana Grande are in awards competition this yr for his or her performances in Emilia Pérez and Depraved, respectively. Charli xcx, Swift’s former tour opener (in 2018, for Fame) whose mainstream takeover with Brat summer season was arguably the pop story of the yr, has publicly introduced her intention to step again from music and deal with performing, with a number of roles on the calendar. (“It’s a knife if you’re lastly on high, ’trigger logically the subsequent step is that they need to see you fall to the underside,” she and Grande sing on the remix of Sympathy Is a Knife, a monitor initially considered about Swift that was redone following Brat’s success; the business is small and anxious.)
It’s too quickly to inform whether or not Swift, who has all the time emphasised storytelling as the middle of her profession, can even search to seem in entrance of the digicam. Sometimes – as a lot as “typical” exists within the rarefied world of pop – artists looking for a subsequent step from music or the grind of touring transfer to residencies (suppose Adele’s keep in Vegas), behind-the-scenes mentorship or prolonged hiatus. However Swift is famously productive – she has launched 5 studio albums in as a few years – so there’s additionally the potential for extra new music. Swifties have made a cottage business out of studying the “clues” for the fan-coveted re-recordings of Fame and Swift’s 2006 debut album, dates for which have but to be introduced.
Swift has stored plans near her chest, a part of a longstanding effort to shock followers. None of them would begrudge her break day. However she, by her personal admission, likes to work. “I’m happier after I’m making issues extra usually,” she informed Martin McDonagh throughout a Administrators on Administrators chat two years in the past. So whereas her subsequent step is anybody’s guess, finest to wager on one thing.
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