Rebuilding Rob

I’m going to sound like an old man yelling at the clouds, or then guy telling the neighbor kids to “get off my lawn” but I have to vent…

This past week Time magazine named Taylor Swift its annual “Person of the Year”. While her Eras tour was the biggest American music story in 2023, I have to ask the writers of Time…

Why???

This is no offense meant to T Swift herself. In fact I will give her her flowers. You would had to have been living under a rock if you didn’t hear about her US concert tour this summer. Chances are, you, someone you know or at least someone you know of went to one of her shows. By all accounts, it was a great show.

It was reported that Swift was performing 3-hour sets every night of the tour. In my concert-going experience, if you get a 90 minute set from the headlining act, you’re getting your money’s worth. Two hours is truly impressive. The only other artist I know who also did 3 hour sets was Prince, and he’s the GOAT. So my hat is off to Ms. Swift for that.

On a deeply personal note, I admit that the song “Style” is one of my guiltiest pleasures of the last 10 years…

I also understand that Swift paid a combined total of over $55 million in bonuses to every single person who worked on the crew for her US tour alone. As I understand it, every truck driver on the tour received a $100,000 BONUS for their work. I don’t know another performer who has given their crew anywhere near that level of bonus pay. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention her absolutely brilliant multi-year plan to regain some of the rights to her earlier works by re-recording her entire catalog.

These are all great accomplishments. But does any of this make her “Person of the Year” worthy? According to the 2002 Time book Person of the Year: 75th anniversary Celebration, the purpose of this accolade is to feature

 "a person, a group, idea, or object that "for better or for worse... has done the most to influence the events of the year"

Keep in mind this it a title that, for the vast majority of its history, has been bestowed upon 14 different US presidents and dozens of other world leaders; political, social and scientific figure-heads. Hell even some truly bad people – Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, Ayatollah Khomeini, Vladimir Putin and Henry Kissinger – have received this title for the role – despicable though it was – that they played in world affairs!

Is Taylor Swift really in that league? As an English teacher, I’m all about the arts. I sincerely believe that the written word, art and music have the power to change the world. I loved Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and the idea that Wyld Stallyns music would unite the people of our world. I happen to think that Coca Cola’s “I’d like to teach the world to sing” ad is the greatest television commercial of all time. But I don’t believe that a music catalog built upon catchy tunes about somebody’s famous ex-boyfriends has done that. Certainly not yet. Travis Kelcie, there is a thinly-veiled song about your future break-up just waiting to be written about you too.

But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the 1989 album has the power inspire Vladimir Putin to call off the Russian troops invading Ukraine. Perhaps their is some deeper meaning to the album Red that will bring about and end to the centuries-long Arab-Israeli conflict and achieve a permanent peace in the Middle East. There’s always a chance that Taylor has yet to write her Sgt. Pepper… but I seriously doubt it.

Be better, Time magazine.

END OF RANT

This topic has already garnered a lot of opinion in my other social media, so I’d love to her your take on the matter! Feel free to like, comment and follow below…

• Rob’s Retro Movie Review: This is Spinal Tap (1984) – The Movie That Scaled to Eleven
• A Death in the Family (And My Disposable Income): My Life in Comics
• The Supporting Cast: Navigating the Eras of Male Friendship
• Life is What Happens: A Look Back at My Non-Existent 2025 Vision
• The Moment I Walked Inside a Hallmark Movie

the article “It’s a Swiftie World” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob.