Can someone explain to me what makes Taylor Swift so popular?
I don't get it. Her music is sometimes catchy but otherwise unremarkable, from the songs I've heard. How does she break all these records and accumulate so much fame and wealth?
She's pretty, but a lot of singer songwriters are, especially those with makeup and costume people, a support staff.
Is there something else to her that people like?
I'm confused about what makes her so apparently unique or phenomenal.
Update: there are so many things that make swift unique or phenomenal.
I've received tons of great answers from people that have helped me understand, like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle, many factors that makes swift different and consequently more successful than her peers.
Clever lyrics, top-tier production, sharing autobiographical and emotional points in her life very directly, apparent honesty with few or no public blemishes, creating a community of fans through Easter eggs and house parties and unconventional, but always personal methods, an early start supported by wealthy parents, she keeps winning against abusers, and her music itself is popular and fun.
Those are just a few of the puzzle pieces contributed here, and a dive into this post is a pretty good explanation of many of the factors that must be contributing to her phenomenal success and recognition, that set her apart from other pop stars, even pop stars who were phenoms in their own right.
This is a very educational post, thank you to everyone who has contributed.
Because she has been writing songs since she was a teen. Her gift for songwriting is undeniable. It has always been easy for her. She said she can write a song in 20 minutes.
Everything else has been developed over the years from being a regular awkward teenager to a performer at little league ball parks, into a beautiful woman on the international stage.
Right wingers resent powerful women and that she has become.
They think a woman’s talent can’t be real that “some man” must have put them there and it blows their fucking minds.
So there’s that.
I suspect that's why it's so easy to pull the half second glances in all of her music videos, that she actually believes in what she's singing.
There's also a kind of " I can't believe I'm here" drive to all of her performances, although it is odd that she's so often has multiple hers inside one video.
But is this an expression of her naivity and therefore childlike belief in anything she comes up with and sings until a couple years later?
Also, do you know how much of her catalog is personally written and how much of it is supplemented by songwriters?