Taylor Swift, one of the biggest pop stars on the planet, says hasn’t been asked for an autograph in years.
“There are a few things I have witnessed becoming obsolete in the past few years, the first being autographs,” she wrote for the Wall Street Journal. “I haven’t been asked for an autograph since the invention of the iPhone with a front-facing camera. The only memento “kids these days” want is a selfie”.
Swift was asked to comment of the future of music and offered some thought-provoking and articulate points.
About the future of the album she said, “In mentioning album sales, I’d like to point out that people are still buying albums, but now they’re buying just a few of them. They are buying only the ones that hit them like an arrow through the heart or have made them feel strong or allowed them to feel like they really aren’t alone in feeling so alone. It isn’t as easy today as it was 20 years ago to have a multiplatinum-selling album, and as artists, that should challenge and motivate us”.
Swift also commented on new artist potential to have a lifelong careers via fanbase that sticks with them a lifetime. “There are always going to be those artists who break through on an emotional level and end up in people’s lives forever,” she said. “The way I see it, fans view music the way they view their relationships. Some music is just for fun, a passing fling (the ones they dance to at clubs and parties for a month while the song is a huge radio hit, that they will soon forget they ever danced to). Some songs and albums represent seasons of our lives, like relationships that we hold dear in our memories but had their time and place in the past”.
However some things she says will never change. “There will always be an increasing fixation on the private lives of musicians, especially the younger ones<” she said. “Artists who were at their commercial peak in the '70s, '80s and '90s tell me, "It was never this crazy for us back then!" And I suspect I'll be saying that same thing to younger artists someday (God help them)”. The complete Taylor Swift reflection on the future of the music industry can be found at The Wall Street Journal.
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