TAYLOR SWIFT TALES * : BOOK REVIEW

 

'' Heartbreak Is the National Anthem : How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music ''. By Rob Sheffield.

Taylor Swift is a pop phenomenon so big, rich, prolific and long-reigning, she hardly needs defending. It's possible that I know too much about Taylor Swift. I know the words to all her singles and every name on her long list of ex-lovers.

FEARLESS. In '' Heartbreak Is The National Anthem : How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music,'' Rob Sheffield charts how Swift, who rose to fame writing songs for teenage girls [ when she was still one herself ], became ubiquitous - and he makes the case that even as her cultural dominance can work to obscure her skills, everything always leads back to her virtuosic writing.

Sheffield is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, where he publishes consistently glowing reviews of Swift's seemingly limitless offerings. Here he steps back to consider the roots of her appeal.

Swift has '' always had a unique flair for writing songs in which people hear themselves - her music keeps crossing generational and cultural boundaries, in ways that are often mystifying,'' he writes.

She makes her '' experiences public property, to the point where she makes the world think of her as a character.''

Swift's self-mythologizing stretches beyond her music to become a collaborative storytelling prompt, one that manages to absorb even her critics. As her superfans  brand themselves as ''Swifties'' and build an extended Taylorverse of analysis and intrigue on social media, they recruit her haters into their project, using them to cast their billionaire idol as a complex and scrappy protagonist.

A character becomes more interesting when she has challenges and flaws. 

'' Taylor's hubris, her way-too-muchness, her narcissism disguised as even more narcissism, her inability to Not Be Taylor for a microsecond - it's a lot,'' Sheffield writes.

'' You can't fully appreciate her without appreciating the wide range of visceral reactions she brings out in people.''

The World Students Society thanks Amanda Hess.