Taylor Swift is entering her conservative era

{"text":[[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":6.58,"text":"Taylor Swift’s success is metered via a set of breathless metrics. Her personal fortune is estimated to be $1.6bn. She’s achieved 12 number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100. She holds records for the most top-40, top-20, and top-10 debuts. The most successful female artist, the pop star has tectonic powers. According to seismologists at London’s UCL, she generated a reading of 0.8 on the Richter scale, the equivalent power of a harmless earthquake, at Wembley while performing on her Eras tour."}],[{"start":51.879999999999995,"text":"Her engagement to American football star Travis Kelce this week elicited another flood of numbers. “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,” she announced on Tuesday via Instagram. The pictures found the couple captured in an outlandishly abundant garden, surrounded by a billion blooms. They were frozen in the proposal moment, she crouched over Kelce wearing Ralph Lauren and Louis Vuitton; he kneeling, asking for her hand."}],[{"start":85.21,"text":"That post has been so far liked by 32mn people. Much speculation has followed about the engagement ring. Experts agree that it stars a “somewhere between” eight and 10 carat Old Mine Brilliant cut diamond: a fancy way of saying it’s an antique stone. Set in yellow gold, the ring is estimated to have cost between $500,000 to $1mn. All the better to set off the diamond-encrusted Cartier Santos Demoiselle Quartz watch that flashed upon her wrist."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

Can she play the cosy tradwife and still be the sexpot in a basque?

"}],[{"start":120.78999999999999,"text":"The engagement follows a series of Big Announcements from America’s sweetheart. The singer dropped news of a new album, coming out October 3, earlier this month. The Life of a Showgirl will see her reunited with super-producer Max Martin for a tidy album of “12 bangers”. Thank God. (The music critic of this paper told me, categorically, last year that he thought Swift’s Max Martin phase was over: that part of her was “done”. But just as I was resolved to endure her pseudy piano meanderings forever, she’s surprised us once again.)"}],[{"start":164.23,"text":"Speaking for nearly two hours on New Heights, the podcast Kelce co-hosts with his lookalikey brother Jason, Swift described the songs as being “melodies that were so infectious you’re almost angry”. With this album, she is embracing her success with untypically ungracious pride."}],[{"start":186.56,"text":"Showgirl is something she’s been wanting to do “for a long time”, which translates as about two minutes in most other people’s worlds. It seems only yesterday we were ploughing through her two-album opus The Tortured Poets Department, in which she roiled from the anguishes of heartbreak and the pain of being alone. One year later, she’s metamorphosed from a folksie singing nymph in a witch’s cape. In her place a rhinestone bustier-clad, feather boa’ed, all-singing, dancing queen."}],[{"start":219.55,"text":"Swift’s persona has always been wed to her artistic guises, through teen-country sweetheart, to pop minx, harlot and lovelorn bard. Now the forever singleton has said yes, her public and private personas will at last diverge."}],[{"start":238.20000000000002,"text":"The self-described “Childless Cat Lady” and patron saint of spinsters was once a feminist icon — she was insanely successful but her essential brand was relatable singleton. She is now leaning into her all-American greatness, an all-American football hero by her side. They are the ultimate power couple, big in stature, personality and style. (That said, I still find it hard not to snigger when I hear Kelce described as being the Kansas City Chiefs’ tight end.)"}],[{"start":275.53000000000003,"text":"For those used to her softer sensibilities, Taylor’s current lifestyle is giving Maga energy. It’s brazen, proud and 10-carat garish. It’s Ralph Lauren and USA. Of course, we know that she voted for Kamala Harris and is a longtime Democrat. But with this epoch — big game-going, New York ritzing, beer-chugging, cheerleading, girlfriending — she’s embracing a more traditional conservatism that will please her broader base. Even Trump, who once said “I can’t stand her” has now wished the couple “a lot of luck”."}],[{"start":315.97,"text":"As a brand move, marriage is risky. It’s a tightrope challenge for a female music star. What happens when you settle down? Even worse: if you have kids? Fans will tolerate almost any behaviour but sustaining them through your family era is a challenge few have overcome. Madonna’s marriage to Sean Penn produced True Blue, but her better work came post-divorce with Like a Prayer. Beyoncé became Mrs Carter and had Blue Ivy and others. She has undergone a career evolution and become a cowboy that has won her critical acclaim. But she’s never quite inspired the same fan ardour as she did in the last gasps of her Single Ladies phase. Rihanna is maintaining her cachet as a fashionista but she’s not making any tunes. We all know how it went down with Britney Spears."}],[{"start":377.91,"text":"Studies have found that employment rates among women after having children decrease from about 90 per cent to 75 per cent. And even though global pop icons are less vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the gender pay gap, they do risk sliding into the same cultural irrelevance."}],[{"start":402.54,"text":"This is an inevitable downside of female stardom — she may marry and consider mating but she must stay fuckable at all costs. Ever the master strategist, however, Swift seems to have planned well ahead. The English teacher may be in the rose garden but her Showgirl has ramped up the sex appeal. Hence the stream of titillating album teasers now landing, reminding us that she’s still hot stuff. See Swift lying in a bathtub, shot by master sextographers Mert and Marcus. See her splayed across a chair."}],[{"start":444.73,"text":"Will she be able to pull off the double act? Can she play the cosy tradwife and still be the sexpot in a basque? Can you enjoy two eras in a single moment? No doubt Swift will have a song for that."}],[{"start":466.65000000000003,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftmailbox.cn/album/a_1756430050_7632.mp3"}