News Analysis India

Tag: Taylor Swift

  • Taylor Swift creates history as female artist with most No. 1 albums 

    By Associated Press

    LOS ANGELES: Congratulations are in order for Taylor Swift and her loyal fans, known as Swifties. The pop star officially has more No. 1 albums than any woman in history.

    “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)”, released earlier this month, is the third in her endeavor to re-record her first six albums, instigated by music manager Scooter Braun’s sale of her early catalog. It has officially debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, becoming her 12th album to reach the top spot.

    Previously, Barbra Streisand held the record, with 11 No. 1 albums.

    Swift ties Drake’s record of 12 No. 1 records, but sits just behind Jay-Z, who has 14 No. 1 albums to his name, and the Beatles, who have 19.

    In addition to hitting this incredible milestone, Swift has 2023’s biggest album release to date, with 716,000 equivalent album units, according to Luminate. An impressive 506,600 are in traditional album sales (a combination of 410,000 physical and 96,600 digital sales.)

    With those figures, Swift has dethroned country singer Morgan Wallen, whose album “One Thing at a Time” sold 501,000 units in its first week.

    LOS ANGELES: Congratulations are in order for Taylor Swift and her loyal fans, known as Swifties. The pop star officially has more No. 1 albums than any woman in history.

    “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)”, released earlier this month, is the third in her endeavor to re-record her first six albums, instigated by music manager Scooter Braun’s sale of her early catalog. It has officially debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, becoming her 12th album to reach the top spot.

    Previously, Barbra Streisand held the record, with 11 No. 1 albums.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    Swift ties Drake’s record of 12 No. 1 records, but sits just behind Jay-Z, who has 14 No. 1 albums to his name, and the Beatles, who have 19.

    In addition to hitting this incredible milestone, Swift has 2023’s biggest album release to date, with 716,000 equivalent album units, according to Luminate. An impressive 506,600 are in traditional album sales (a combination of 410,000 physical and 96,600 digital sales.)

    With those figures, Swift has dethroned country singer Morgan Wallen, whose album “One Thing at a Time” sold 501,000 units in its first week.

  • ‘Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)’ is here. Here’s how to reconsider Taylor Swift’s transformative album

    By Associated Press

    LOS ANGELES: In 2010, newly anointed as a Grammy winner, Taylor Swift released “Speak Now,” her third studio album and her first without a single songwriting collaboration.

    Her 2006 self-titled debut and 2008’s “Fearless” had inspired both acclaim and criticism for her bold bridges and keen lyricism — these are masterful country-pop songs, critics argued, but surely a teen idol wasn’t responsible for them. Swift proved her detractors wrong on “Speak Now,” an album that arrived just before her pivot from country’s youngest hope to pop’s freshest voice.

    The album served as a close document of her nascent fame and future career ambitions, and now, 13 years on, it’s back. “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)”, released Friday, is the third release of the six albums Swift plans to re-record. The Taylor’s Version albums, instigated by music manager Scooter Braun’s sale of her early catalog, represent Swift’s effort to control her own songs and how they’re used — a fitting ethos for “Speak Now,” a record built exclusively of her own voice.

    In preparation for “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version),” The Associated Press reached out to Taylor Swift scholars to discuss all the ways listeners can and should think about the release.

    Adolescence to adulthood

    Before “Speak Now” became “Speak Now,” the working title was “Enchanted,” named after the power ballad of the same name. The mythology ( folklore,anyone? ) behind the shift is that Swift’s label president at the time, Big Machine Records CEO Scott Borchetta, told her to move on from whimsy and fairytale iconography — she was entering her 20s and this LP warranted a more mature title.

    Transition creates an interesting framework for thinking about this album: Written largely between the ages of 18 and 20, released when she turned 21, “Speak Now” is a collection of songs on a precipice — of adulthood, of fame, of declaring ownership but still concerned with the subject matters that concern a young adult. There are crushes (“Superman,” “Sparks Fly”) and bittersweet breakups (“Back to December,” “If This Was a Movie”), alike.

    “You hear a youngness when you listen to these songs,” says musicologist Lily Hirsch, author of “Can’t Stop the Grrrls: Confronting Sexist Labels in Music from Ariana Grande to Yoko Ono.” “It’s all about these romantic relationships. The world hinges on all of that, which is so typical of that age. So, it is interesting hear the re-recordings bring a more mature voice to those earlier preoccupations.”

    Elizabeth Scala teaches a course on Taylor Swift’s songbook at the University of Texas at Austin as an introduction to literary studies and research methods.

    “I think ‘Speak Now’ is still in the vein of ‘I don’t have enough life experience at my ripe age of 18 to give you a fully autobiographical anything, but I’m going to use what I read and what I know from other people,’” she says of the songs’ lyrical content, which still manage to “make really beautiful, coherent things out of the messiness and inaccuracy of our memories.”

    In conversation with critics and celebrity

    Coming a year after Kanye West interrupted her acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, “Speak Now” is the moment in Swift’s career where she began to use her celebrity as a mirror to her interior life.

    “Mean,” a takedown of a rock critic, becomes a banjo-led treatise on antagonism of any kind; the blues-y “Dear John” centers on a young woman’s tumultuous relationship with an older man.

    “Insults are everywhere in music, and men don’t get the same flak for it,” Hirsch says, in reference to “Dear John” and “Mean.” “There’s this idea that women especially are supposed to take the high road, turn the other cheek and all of that, and men can get away with the low road, and they certainly do in music. It’s a kind of double standard. Women are labeled ‘catty’ when confronting bad behavior, like in ‘Dear John.’”

    A common pastime among Swift fans is to unearth the identities of her songs’ subjects. But, to Scala, “the most boring way to think about Taylor Swift is in terms of her biography.”

    At a recent stop of her Eras Tour in Minneapolis, Swift seemed to agree, playing “Dear John” live for the first time in 11 years after delivering this introduction:

    “I’m 33 years old. I don’t care about anything that happened to me when I was 19 except the songs I wrote and the memories we made together. So what I’m trying to tell you is, I’m not putting this album out so you should feel the need to defend me on the internet against someone you think I might have written a song about 14 billion years ago.”

    Scala sees a throughline between this album and its successors, with “Dear John” as a precursor to “All Too Well” and “Mean” as prescient to “Blank Space” a song that parodies how she’s been portrayed in the media.

    Revisionist history

    Much online chatter surrounding the re-recording of “Speak Now” has centered on “Better Than Revenge,” a pop-punk song that takes aim at another woman instead of the man that wronged them both. It takes both sonic and thematic cues from Paramore’s 2007 pop-rock hit “Misery Business,” a similar song about the same subject. (In fact, on “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version),” Paramore singer Hayley Williams lends vocals to a “vault” song, “Castles Crumbling.”)

    In the original chorus of “Better Than Revenge,” Swift sings, “She’s an actress / She’s better known for the things she does on the mattress,” a rare lyrical misstep in a career underscored by poetic turns of phrases (in the opener “Mine,” she sings “You made a rebel of a careless man’s careful daughter”). In her 2023 “Better Than Revenge” version, the lyric becomes “He was a moth to the flame / She was holding the matches.”

    “If we think about 2010, slut-shaming rhetoric certainly existed in movies and shows. She’s certainly not the only one who has done this at that time,” Hirsch argues, quick to point out that Swift has also been the target of sexist vitriol.

    Swift’s alteration of the song in her re-recording follows a lineage of other pop stars doing the same. Lizzo and Beyonce recently changed lyrics to songs deemed offensive. Weird Al no longer performs his Michael Jackson parodies. And because Swift hasn’t performed “Better Than Revenge” live for well over a decade, she hasn’t needed to confront this particular song, in this particular way.

    “We are willing to replace the old version with Taylor’s Versions because they are exact replicas, as much as they can be,” Scala argues. “If she does something different, it becomes a different song.” A different song, this time, owned by Swift.

    Art evolves with me

    “From a literary historian’s point of view, when you first hear ‘Speak Now,’ you could only look at her career up to that point: It meant something in her creative timeline,” says Scala. “And now we have the rest of her career to compare it to, so it’s hard to listen to the record the same way. You can compare it to the older recording, but its deeper and richer.”

    Technology has changed from 2010. So has Swift: Her voice has matured, no longer possessing the sweet self-restraint that colored her earliest releases.

    Each release comes with a few “From the Vault” tracks, unreleased songs from each album’s period reimagined for the current moment. They, too, give a fuller picture.

    An exercise in artistic autonomy

    Beyond all of the music and cultural considerations, the fact is: Taylor Swift is re-recording this album to own her work, like she is doing with so many of her records — but this is the only album in her discography that is entirely self-penned, the one celebrated for its dismissals of exploitative male characters and poetic embrace of girlhood.

    In fact, it’s hard not to think of “Could’ve, Would’ve, Should’ve” from her 2022 LP, ” Midnights,” where Swift sings “Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first,” as a self-reflection of her “Speak Now” self. That track is a creative reclamation of the teen who wrote “Dear John” as an adult; “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” is the literal reclamation.

    “Owning these masters, she decided to take back that control,” Hirsch says. “I love what it communicates: that we all have power, we don’t have to just sit back and take these situations, especially when it concerns our own voice.”

    LOS ANGELES: In 2010, newly anointed as a Grammy winner, Taylor Swift released “Speak Now,” her third studio album and her first without a single songwriting collaboration.

    Her 2006 self-titled debut and 2008’s “Fearless” had inspired both acclaim and criticism for her bold bridges and keen lyricism — these are masterful country-pop songs, critics argued, but surely a teen idol wasn’t responsible for them. Swift proved her detractors wrong on “Speak Now,” an album that arrived just before her pivot from country’s youngest hope to pop’s freshest voice.

    The album served as a close document of her nascent fame and future career ambitions, and now, 13 years on, it’s back. “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)”, released Friday, is the third release of the six albums Swift plans to re-record. The Taylor’s Version albums, instigated by music manager Scooter Braun’s sale of her early catalog, represent Swift’s effort to control her own songs and how they’re used — a fitting ethos for “Speak Now,” a record built exclusively of her own voice.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2′); });

    In preparation for “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version),” The Associated Press reached out to Taylor Swift scholars to discuss all the ways listeners can and should think about the release.

    Adolescence to adulthood

    Before “Speak Now” became “Speak Now,” the working title was “Enchanted,” named after the power ballad of the same name. The mythology ( folklore,anyone? ) behind the shift is that Swift’s label president at the time, Big Machine Records CEO Scott Borchetta, told her to move on from whimsy and fairytale iconography — she was entering her 20s and this LP warranted a more mature title.

    Transition creates an interesting framework for thinking about this album: Written largely between the ages of 18 and 20, released when she turned 21, “Speak Now” is a collection of songs on a precipice — of adulthood, of fame, of declaring ownership but still concerned with the subject matters that concern a young adult. There are crushes (“Superman,” “Sparks Fly”) and bittersweet breakups (“Back to December,” “If This Was a Movie”), alike.

    “You hear a youngness when you listen to these songs,” says musicologist Lily Hirsch, author of “Can’t Stop the Grrrls: Confronting Sexist Labels in Music from Ariana Grande to Yoko Ono.” “It’s all about these romantic relationships. The world hinges on all of that, which is so typical of that age. So, it is interesting hear the re-recordings bring a more mature voice to those earlier preoccupations.”

    Elizabeth Scala teaches a course on Taylor Swift’s songbook at the University of Texas at Austin as an introduction to literary studies and research methods.

    “I think ‘Speak Now’ is still in the vein of ‘I don’t have enough life experience at my ripe age of 18 to give you a fully autobiographical anything, but I’m going to use what I read and what I know from other people,’” she says of the songs’ lyrical content, which still manage to “make really beautiful, coherent things out of the messiness and inaccuracy of our memories.”

    In conversation with critics and celebrity

    Coming a year after Kanye West interrupted her acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, “Speak Now” is the moment in Swift’s career where she began to use her celebrity as a mirror to her interior life.

    “Mean,” a takedown of a rock critic, becomes a banjo-led treatise on antagonism of any kind; the blues-y “Dear John” centers on a young woman’s tumultuous relationship with an older man.

    “Insults are everywhere in music, and men don’t get the same flak for it,” Hirsch says, in reference to “Dear John” and “Mean.” “There’s this idea that women especially are supposed to take the high road, turn the other cheek and all of that, and men can get away with the low road, and they certainly do in music. It’s a kind of double standard. Women are labeled ‘catty’ when confronting bad behavior, like in ‘Dear John.’”

    A common pastime among Swift fans is to unearth the identities of her songs’ subjects. But, to Scala, “the most boring way to think about Taylor Swift is in terms of her biography.”

    At a recent stop of her Eras Tour in Minneapolis, Swift seemed to agree, playing “Dear John” live for the first time in 11 years after delivering this introduction:

    “I’m 33 years old. I don’t care about anything that happened to me when I was 19 except the songs I wrote and the memories we made together. So what I’m trying to tell you is, I’m not putting this album out so you should feel the need to defend me on the internet against someone you think I might have written a song about 14 billion years ago.”

    Scala sees a throughline between this album and its successors, with “Dear John” as a precursor to “All Too Well” and “Mean” as prescient to “Blank Space” a song that parodies how she’s been portrayed in the media.

    Revisionist history

    Much online chatter surrounding the re-recording of “Speak Now” has centered on “Better Than Revenge,” a pop-punk song that takes aim at another woman instead of the man that wronged them both. It takes both sonic and thematic cues from Paramore’s 2007 pop-rock hit “Misery Business,” a similar song about the same subject. (In fact, on “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version),” Paramore singer Hayley Williams lends vocals to a “vault” song, “Castles Crumbling.”)

    In the original chorus of “Better Than Revenge,” Swift sings, “She’s an actress / She’s better known for the things she does on the mattress,” a rare lyrical misstep in a career underscored by poetic turns of phrases (in the opener “Mine,” she sings “You made a rebel of a careless man’s careful daughter”). In her 2023 “Better Than Revenge” version, the lyric becomes “He was a moth to the flame / She was holding the matches.”

    “If we think about 2010, slut-shaming rhetoric certainly existed in movies and shows. She’s certainly not the only one who has done this at that time,” Hirsch argues, quick to point out that Swift has also been the target of sexist vitriol.

    Swift’s alteration of the song in her re-recording follows a lineage of other pop stars doing the same. Lizzo and Beyonce recently changed lyrics to songs deemed offensive. Weird Al no longer performs his Michael Jackson parodies. And because Swift hasn’t performed “Better Than Revenge” live for well over a decade, she hasn’t needed to confront this particular song, in this particular way.

    “We are willing to replace the old version with Taylor’s Versions because they are exact replicas, as much as they can be,” Scala argues. “If she does something different, it becomes a different song.” A different song, this time, owned by Swift.

    Art evolves with me

    “From a literary historian’s point of view, when you first hear ‘Speak Now,’ you could only look at her career up to that point: It meant something in her creative timeline,” says Scala. “And now we have the rest of her career to compare it to, so it’s hard to listen to the record the same way. You can compare it to the older recording, but its deeper and richer.”

    Technology has changed from 2010. So has Swift: Her voice has matured, no longer possessing the sweet self-restraint that colored her earliest releases.

    Each release comes with a few “From the Vault” tracks, unreleased songs from each album’s period reimagined for the current moment. They, too, give a fuller picture.

    An exercise in artistic autonomy

    Beyond all of the music and cultural considerations, the fact is: Taylor Swift is re-recording this album to own her work, like she is doing with so many of her records — but this is the only album in her discography that is entirely self-penned, the one celebrated for its dismissals of exploitative male characters and poetic embrace of girlhood.

    In fact, it’s hard not to think of “Could’ve, Would’ve, Should’ve” from her 2022 LP, ” Midnights,” where Swift sings “Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first,” as a self-reflection of her “Speak Now” self. That track is a creative reclamation of the teen who wrote “Dear John” as an adult; “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” is the literal reclamation.

    “Owning these masters, she decided to take back that control,” Hirsch says. “I love what it communicates: that we all have power, we don’t have to just sit back and take these situations, especially when it concerns our own voice.”

  • Taylor Swift gets personal invite from Canadian PM, Thai President after her tour skips their countries

    By Online Desk

    CHENNAI: On Wednesday, Taylor Swift surprised fans by releasing an updated schedule for her European leg of the Eras Tour. This came after the international schedule of the tour had been released a month earlier.

    However, Swifties from several parts of the world were sad since their country didn’t make it to the list.

    Surprisingly, these included some political figures who slid into the Grammy winning singer’s Twitter to invite her to perform in their countries.

    The Presidents of Thailand and Chile, the Prime Minister of Canada and the mayor of Budapest are among those to have requested Swift to tour in their countries. 

    Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to Twitter to personally invite the pop star to perform in Canada. Commenting under her tweet on the updated schedule, Trudeau wrote,  “It’s me, hi. I know places in Canada would love to have you. So, don’t make it another cruel summer. We hope to see you soon.”

    It’s me, hi. I know places in Canada would love to have you. So, don’t make it another cruel summer. We hope to see you soon.
    — Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) July 6, 2023
    Similarly, the newly elected Thailand President and leader of the Move Forward Party Pita Limjaroenrat retweeted Taylor’s tweet with an invitation to perform in the Asian country. “Hey Taylor! Big fan of yours. Btw, Thailand is back on track to be fully democratic after you had to cancel last time due to the coup. The Thai people have spoken via the election and we all look forward to welcoming you to this beautiful nation of ours! Do come and I’ll be singing Lavender Haze with you!- Tim,” he tweeted.

    Hey Taylor! Big fan of yours. Btw, Thailand is back on track to be fully democratic after you had to cancel last time due to the coup. The Thai people have spoken via the election and we all look forward to welcoming you to this beautiful nation of ours!Do come and I’ll be… https://t.co/ypox90kRpL
    — Pita Limjaroenrat (@Pita_MFP) July 6, 2023
    Back in June, Matt Jeneroux, an MP from Alberta in Canada, filed an “official grievance” with the House of Commons after Swift’s tour did not include Canada. His letter mentioned how Swift not including Canada in her tour would affect the country economically. 

    “Not only is this leaving Canadian fans without the opportunity to see her tour, but it is also leaving Canada out of the economic opportunities her shows generate. It is estimated that these shows could generate $4.6 billion for local economies. Fans just don’t simply attend concerts, they spend money at local businesses including hotels, restaurants and shops,” he added.

    Meanwhile, as per reports, the American music sensation has already made more than $300 million from the first 22 dates of her Eras tour. 

    CHENNAI: On Wednesday, Taylor Swift surprised fans by releasing an updated schedule for her European leg of the Eras Tour. This came after the international schedule of the tour had been released a month earlier.

    However, Swifties from several parts of the world were sad since their country didn’t make it to the list.

    Surprisingly, these included some political figures who slid into the Grammy winning singer’s Twitter to invite her to perform in their countries.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    The Presidents of Thailand and Chile, the Prime Minister of Canada and the mayor of Budapest are among those to have requested Swift to tour in their countries. 

    Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to Twitter to personally invite the pop star to perform in Canada. Commenting under her tweet on the updated schedule, Trudeau wrote,  “It’s me, hi. I know places in Canada would love to have you. So, don’t make it another cruel summer. We hope to see you soon.”

    It’s me, hi. I know places in Canada would love to have you. So, don’t make it another cruel summer. We hope to see you soon.
    — Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) July 6, 2023
    Similarly, the newly elected Thailand President and leader of the Move Forward Party Pita Limjaroenrat retweeted Taylor’s tweet with an invitation to perform in the Asian country. “Hey Taylor! Big fan of yours. Btw, Thailand is back on track to be fully democratic after you had to cancel last time due to the coup. The Thai people have spoken via the election and we all look forward to welcoming you to this beautiful nation of ours! Do come and I’ll be singing Lavender Haze with you!- Tim,” he tweeted.

    Hey Taylor! Big fan of yours. Btw, Thailand is back on track to be fully democratic after you had to cancel last time due to the coup. The Thai people have spoken via the election and we all look forward to welcoming you to this beautiful nation of ours!
    Do come and I’ll be… https://t.co/ypox90kRpL
    — Pita Limjaroenrat (@Pita_MFP) July 6, 2023
    Back in June, Matt Jeneroux, an MP from Alberta in Canada, filed an “official grievance” with the House of Commons after Swift’s tour did not include Canada. His letter mentioned how Swift not including Canada in her tour would affect the country economically. 

    “Not only is this leaving Canadian fans without the opportunity to see her tour, but it is also leaving Canada out of the economic opportunities her shows generate. It is estimated that these shows could generate $4.6 billion for local economies. Fans just don’t simply attend concerts, they spend money at local businesses including hotels, restaurants and shops,” he added.

    Meanwhile, as per reports, the American music sensation has already made more than $300 million from the first 22 dates of her Eras tour. 

  • ‘I’m totally fine, it was my fault completely’: Taylor Swift after fans spot her hand injury

    By ANI

    LOS ANGELES: Taylor Swift took to social media claiming she was “totally fine” after fans noticed the singer performing with an open wound during her show in Houston, Texas recently.

    “For those asking how I cut my hand,” Swift said in a tweet, “I’m totally fine and it was my fault completely — tripped on my dress hem and fell in the dark backstage while running to a quick change — braced my fall with my palm. It was all very Mercury in retrograde coded. Don’t worry about me I’m gooooood,” she added, blowing fans a kiss emoji.

    Just got to play 3 insane shows in Houston and I’m waking up smiling reminiscing about how much fun we all had. Loving this tour so much because of the passion these crowds put into it all – seriously can’t wait for PS for those asking how I cut my hand, I’m totally… pic.twitter.com/j3MK7twzdc
    — Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) April 24, 2023
    Swift has been making the most of her time on tour and ensuring fans that everything is good amid her recent split from Joe Alwyn, 32. While performing in Tampa on April 15, Swift gave a firm thumbs up to a fan holding a sign asking the songstress if she is OK, Page Six reported.

    Swift has also been making sure to fit in some quality time with her girl squad in between shows, making public appearances with Gigi Hadid, Blake Lively and the Haim sisters during an outing in New York City on April 20.

    LOS ANGELES: Taylor Swift took to social media claiming she was “totally fine” after fans noticed the singer performing with an open wound during her show in Houston, Texas recently.

    “For those asking how I cut my hand,” Swift said in a tweet, “I’m totally fine and it was my fault completely — tripped on my dress hem and fell in the dark backstage while running to a quick change — braced my fall with my palm. It was all very Mercury in retrograde coded. Don’t worry about me I’m gooooood,” she added, blowing fans a kiss emoji.

    Just got to play 3 insane shows in Houston and I’m waking up smiling reminiscing about how much fun we all had. Loving this tour so much because of the passion these crowds put into it all – seriously can’t wait for PS for those asking how I cut my hand, I’m totally… pic.twitter.com/j3MK7twzdcgoogletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });
    — Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) April 24, 2023
    Swift has been making the most of her time on tour and ensuring fans that everything is good amid her recent split from Joe Alwyn, 32. While performing in Tampa on April 15, Swift gave a firm thumbs up to a fan holding a sign asking the songstress if she is OK, Page Six reported.

    Swift has also been making sure to fit in some quality time with her girl squad in between shows, making public appearances with Gigi Hadid, Blake Lively and the Haim sisters during an outing in New York City on April 20.

  • Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn break up after six years: Report  

    Entertainment Tonight was the first to report the news. Taylor Swift and actor Joe Alwyn have broken up after six years together, CNN reports.

    A source close to Taylor confirmed the news to CNN saying “Taylor and Joe broke up a few weeks ago. They simply grew apart and plan to remain friends,” the reports said.

    CNN has reached out to Swift and Alwyn’s reps for comment. Entertainment Tonight was the first to report the news.

    Swift, who is currently on her “Eras Tour,” and Alwyn were first linked romantically in 2016.

    The Grammy-winner and Alwyn managed to keep their relationship mostly under wraps, but in true Taylor Swift style, the singer dropped some Easter eggs about Alwyn through her music along the way.

    In January, Swift revealed on her Instagram that “Lavender Haze,” a track from her 2022 album “Midnights,” is about Alwyn, saying when you’re in a lavender haze of love, “you’ll do anything to stay there and not let people bring you down off of that cloud.”

  • Selena Gomez steals the show at BFF Taylor Swift’s Eras tour

    By ANI

    LOS ANGELES: Singer Selena Gomez had a blast at bff Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour stop in Arlington, Texas.

    Selena attended the musical gala with her younger sister Gracie Elliot Teefey.

    Several images and videos from the event went viral in which the sisters are seen singing and dancing.

    Gomez also took to Instagram and showered love on her bestie.

    Taylor Swift gives her “22” hat to Selena Gomez’s sister, Gracie, and Gracie gives Taylor a friendship bracelet in return. pic.twitter.com/6uyKVkbA4a
    — Pop Crave (@PopCrave) April 2, 2023
    “Thank you bestie for having me and my sissy transport into your mystical, euphoric and special world. Proud to know you! love you forever and always,” she wrote.

    One clip showed Gomez seemingly getting emotional while she smiled and applauded in cadence with the thousands of other fans who showed up to support Swift.

    Gomez appeared to get emotional while applauding her friend.

    “Thank you bestie for having me and my sissy transport into your mystical, euphoric and special world. Proud to know you! love you forever and always” – @selenagomez via Instagram #TSTheErasTour pic.twitter.com/Y3cJAJaVDD
    — Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (@TSTheErasTour) April 2, 2023
    Swift and Gomez have been best friends ever since they met in 2008 while Gomez was dating Nick Jonas and Swift was seeing his brother Joe Jonas, Page Six reported.

    The two have since shared several milestones together, with Gomez recently calling Swift her “only [real] friend in the industry.”

    Selena Gomez jamming out to Love Story at Taylor Swift’s Era’s Tour tonight in Arlington, Texas!pic.twitter.com/Ke2qM8Z3Dg
    — Selena Gomez Source (@GomezSource2) April 2, 2023
    “I never fit in with a cool group of girls that were celebrities. My only friend in the industry really is Taylor [Swift], so I remember feeling like I didn’t belong,” Gomez said in a November 2022 interview with Rolling Stone.

    Gomez even came to Swift’s defense after a resurfaced video of Hailey Bieber gagging upon hearing Swift’s name during a public appearance went viral. “So sorry, my best friend is and continues to be one of the best in the game,” she commented in February.

    LOS ANGELES: Singer Selena Gomez had a blast at bff Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour stop in Arlington, Texas.

    Selena attended the musical gala with her younger sister Gracie Elliot Teefey.

    Several images and videos from the event went viral in which the sisters are seen singing and dancing.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    Gomez also took to Instagram and showered love on her bestie.

    Taylor Swift gives her “22” hat to Selena Gomez’s sister, Gracie, and Gracie gives Taylor a friendship bracelet in return. pic.twitter.com/6uyKVkbA4a
    — Pop Crave (@PopCrave) April 2, 2023
    “Thank you bestie for having me and my sissy transport into your mystical, euphoric and special world. Proud to know you! love you forever and always,” she wrote.

    One clip showed Gomez seemingly getting emotional while she smiled and applauded in cadence with the thousands of other fans who showed up to support Swift.

    Gomez appeared to get emotional while applauding her friend.

    “Thank you bestie for having me and my sissy transport into your mystical, euphoric and special world. Proud to know you! love you forever and always” – @selenagomez via Instagram #TSTheErasTour pic.twitter.com/Y3cJAJaVDD
    — Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (@TSTheErasTour) April 2, 2023
    Swift and Gomez have been best friends ever since they met in 2008 while Gomez was dating Nick Jonas and Swift was seeing his brother Joe Jonas, Page Six reported.

    The two have since shared several milestones together, with Gomez recently calling Swift her “only [real] friend in the industry.”

    Selena Gomez jamming out to Love Story at Taylor Swift’s Era’s Tour tonight in Arlington, Texas!pic.twitter.com/Ke2qM8Z3Dg
    — Selena Gomez Source (@GomezSource2) April 2, 2023
    “I never fit in with a cool group of girls that were celebrities. My only friend in the industry really is Taylor [Swift], so I remember feeling like I didn’t belong,” Gomez said in a November 2022 interview with Rolling Stone.

    Gomez even came to Swift’s defense after a resurfaced video of Hailey Bieber gagging upon hearing Swift’s name during a public appearance went viral. “So sorry, my best friend is and continues to be one of the best in the game,” she commented in February.

  • Lady Gaga, Rihanna earn best original song Oscar nominations

    By Associated Press

    LOS ANGELES: Lady Gaga and Rihanna earned Oscar nominations Tuesday in a best original song category that found Taylor Swift left out.

    Gaga was nominated for “Hold My Hand” from “Top Gun: Maverick,” while Rihanna became a first-time nominee through “Lift Me Up,” a song from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” The music superstars will compete at the 2023 Academy Awards in March.

    Swift’s “Carolina” from “Where the Crawdads Sing” failed to get a nomination in the category. The song was considered an Oscar hopeful after receiving nominations for other awards including the Golden Globes.

    Gaga co-wrote the “Top Gun” song with BloodPop, the uber-talented producer-songwriter who has created songs for several big names including Madonna, Britney Spears and Justin Bieber. It’s the fourth nomination for Gaga, who won an Oscar in 2019 for “Shallow” with Bradley Cooper.

    Rihanna made her long-waited return to music with a major splash on the ballad “Lift Me Up,” which was written as a tribute to the late “Black Panther” star Chadwick Boseman, who died from cancer in 2020. She created the song with Tems, the film’s director Ryan Coogler and composer Ludwig Göransson, who took home an Oscar four years ago for his work on the first “Black Panther” film.

    “This song touched a lot of people,” Göransson said. “That’s one of the beautiful things you can do when you write music. There are times when music has a life outside of the film. It lives on. It’s beautiful to see how it connects with people.”

    Diane Warren received her 14th Oscar nomination through her song “Applause” from “Tell It Like a Woman.” The prolific songwriter was recognized with an honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards last year.

    “It’s amazing to be appreciated by my peers again,” said Warren, who stayed up all night at a pizza party with friends while waiting for nominations, just as she did last year. “I never take the nominations for granted.”

    Other best original song nominees are M.M. Keeravaani’s “Naatu Naatu” from “RRR,” which was written by Chandrabose, and “This is a Life” from “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” The latter track was created by Mitski, David Byrne and Ryan Lott, who along with his band Son Lux was also nominated for best original score.

    “I feel like I’m on top of the world. This is the best feeling,” said Keeravaani, who added that he wasn’t surprised with the nomination because he was “very confident in his work.”

    Keeravaani said he hopes his nomination through the Oscars’ platform can highlight other artists from India.

    “It’s important so that more and more music and talented artists from my country can have a chance to get this kind of recognition, so that the world embraces India music more than ever,” he said.

    LOS ANGELES: Lady Gaga and Rihanna earned Oscar nominations Tuesday in a best original song category that found Taylor Swift left out.

    Gaga was nominated for “Hold My Hand” from “Top Gun: Maverick,” while Rihanna became a first-time nominee through “Lift Me Up,” a song from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” The music superstars will compete at the 2023 Academy Awards in March.

    Swift’s “Carolina” from “Where the Crawdads Sing” failed to get a nomination in the category. The song was considered an Oscar hopeful after receiving nominations for other awards including the Golden Globes.

    Gaga co-wrote the “Top Gun” song with BloodPop, the uber-talented producer-songwriter who has created songs for several big names including Madonna, Britney Spears and Justin Bieber. It’s the fourth nomination for Gaga, who won an Oscar in 2019 for “Shallow” with Bradley Cooper.

    Rihanna made her long-waited return to music with a major splash on the ballad “Lift Me Up,” which was written as a tribute to the late “Black Panther” star Chadwick Boseman, who died from cancer in 2020. She created the song with Tems, the film’s director Ryan Coogler and composer Ludwig Göransson, who took home an Oscar four years ago for his work on the first “Black Panther” film.

    “This song touched a lot of people,” Göransson said. “That’s one of the beautiful things you can do when you write music. There are times when music has a life outside of the film. It lives on. It’s beautiful to see how it connects with people.”

    Diane Warren received her 14th Oscar nomination through her song “Applause” from “Tell It Like a Woman.” The prolific songwriter was recognized with an honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards last year.

    “It’s amazing to be appreciated by my peers again,” said Warren, who stayed up all night at a pizza party with friends while waiting for nominations, just as she did last year. “I never take the nominations for granted.”

    Other best original song nominees are M.M. Keeravaani’s “Naatu Naatu” from “RRR,” which was written by Chandrabose, and “This is a Life” from “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” The latter track was created by Mitski, David Byrne and Ryan Lott, who along with his band Son Lux was also nominated for best original score.

    “I feel like I’m on top of the world. This is the best feeling,” said Keeravaani, who added that he wasn’t surprised with the nomination because he was “very confident in his work.”

    Keeravaani said he hopes his nomination through the Oscars’ platform can highlight other artists from India.

    “It’s important so that more and more music and talented artists from my country can have a chance to get this kind of recognition, so that the world embraces India music more than ever,” he said.

  • Singer Taylor Swift to make directorial debut with her original script

    By IANS

    LOS ANGELES:  Singer-songwriter-hitmaker Taylor Swift is set to leave the audience ‘enchanted’ (pun intended) with her foray into feature filmmaking.

    She has written an original script, which will be produced by the Oscar-winning studio behind ‘Nomadland’ and ‘The Shape of Water’, reports Variety. Other key details, like a plot and casting, are being kept under wraps until a later date, but landing the project from one of the world’s most successful musicians is a coup.

    “Taylor is a once-in-a-generation artist and storyteller. It is a genuine joy and privilege to collaborate with her as she embarks on this exciting and new creative journey,” said Searchlight presidents David Greenbaum and Matthew Greenfield.

    According to Variety, Swift recently became the only solo artist ever to be honoured with two best direction awards at the MTV VMAs for her work on ‘All Too Well: The Short Film’ and ‘The Man’. Swift is an 11-time Grammy winner and the only female artist to win album of the year on three different occasions. In October, Swift released ‘Midnights’, her 10th studio album.

    The 14-minute production of ‘All Too Well: The Short Film’, which Swift wrote and directed, screened at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival.

    Swift has also acted on screen, appearing in ‘Valentine’s Day’, ‘Cats’ and, this year, in David O. Russell’s ‘Amsterdam’. The latter two films were notorious bombs, but Swift only had small roles in them.

    LOS ANGELES:  Singer-songwriter-hitmaker Taylor Swift is set to leave the audience ‘enchanted’ (pun intended) with her foray into feature filmmaking.

    She has written an original script, which will be produced by the Oscar-winning studio behind ‘Nomadland’ and ‘The Shape of Water’, reports Variety. Other key details, like a plot and casting, are being kept under wraps until a later date, but landing the project from one of the world’s most successful musicians is a coup.

    “Taylor is a once-in-a-generation artist and storyteller. It is a genuine joy and privilege to collaborate with her as she embarks on this exciting and new creative journey,” said Searchlight presidents David Greenbaum and Matthew Greenfield.

    According to Variety, Swift recently became the only solo artist ever to be honoured with two best direction awards at the MTV VMAs for her work on ‘All Too Well: The Short Film’ and ‘The Man’. Swift is an 11-time Grammy winner and the only female artist to win album of the year on three different occasions. In October, Swift released ‘Midnights’, her 10th studio album.

    The 14-minute production of ‘All Too Well: The Short Film’, which Swift wrote and directed, screened at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival.

    Swift has also acted on screen, appearing in ‘Valentine’s Day’, ‘Cats’ and, this year, in David O. Russell’s ‘Amsterdam’. The latter two films were notorious bombs, but Swift only had small roles in them.

  • Taylor Swift angry for fans in Ticketmaster meltdown

    By PTI

    NEW YORK: Swifties, your girl has spoke on the Ticketmaster meltdown. Taylor Swift posted a story Friday on Instagram expressing her anger and frustration over the hours spent by fans trying to buy tickets for her tour next year.

    “I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could,” she wrote.

    “It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them.

    Of those who lost out, Swift said she hopes to provide more opportunities for us to all get-together and sing these songs.

    Fans trying to scoop up tickets Tuesday in a pre-sale for Swift’s The Eras tour were met by massive delays and error messages that Ticketmaster blamed on bots and historically unprecedented demand.

    It was the most tickets sold on the platform in a single day, the company said in a statement.

    A general public sale scheduled for Friday was cancelled the day before. Some fans wondered why Swift hadn’t spoken out sooner.

    On Instagram, the pop star didn’t address timing but said she has trust issues when it comes to her fans’ experience, trying to keep many elements of her career in-house.

    “It’s really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse,” Swift said.

    In addition to Tuesday’s nightmare, Ticketmaster cited extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand as a reason for calling off Friday’s sale.

    Fresh off one of the biggest album launches of her career, Swift announced earlier this month that she was going on a new US stadium tour, with international dates to follow.

    Fans who received a special code after registering had exclusive access to buy tickets Tuesday. Those who didn’t score tickets were placed on a waiting list.

    The 52-date Eras Tour kicks off March 17 in Glendale, Arizona, and wraps up with five shows in Los Angeles ending August 9. It’s Swift’s first tour since 2018.

    NEW YORK: Swifties, your girl has spoke on the Ticketmaster meltdown. Taylor Swift posted a story Friday on Instagram expressing her anger and frustration over the hours spent by fans trying to buy tickets for her tour next year.

    “I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could,” she wrote.

    “It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them.

    Of those who lost out, Swift said she hopes to provide more opportunities for us to all get-together and sing these songs.

    Fans trying to scoop up tickets Tuesday in a pre-sale for Swift’s The Eras tour were met by massive delays and error messages that Ticketmaster blamed on bots and historically unprecedented demand.

    It was the most tickets sold on the platform in a single day, the company said in a statement.

    A general public sale scheduled for Friday was cancelled the day before. Some fans wondered why Swift hadn’t spoken out sooner.

    On Instagram, the pop star didn’t address timing but said she has trust issues when it comes to her fans’ experience, trying to keep many elements of her career in-house.

    “It’s really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse,” Swift said.

    In addition to Tuesday’s nightmare, Ticketmaster cited extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand as a reason for calling off Friday’s sale.

    Fresh off one of the biggest album launches of her career, Swift announced earlier this month that she was going on a new US stadium tour, with international dates to follow.

    Fans who received a special code after registering had exclusive access to buy tickets Tuesday. Those who didn’t score tickets were placed on a waiting list.

    The 52-date Eras Tour kicks off March 17 in Glendale, Arizona, and wraps up with five shows in Los Angeles ending August 9. It’s Swift’s first tour since 2018.

  • Taylor Swift’s tour tickets sale shelved due to insanely high demand

    By ANI

    LOS ANGELES: Pop icon Taylor Swift’s public ticket sales for her latest musical world tour are called off by Ticketmaster.

    According to a report by Variety, the ticket sale was set to take place today. However, it had to be cancelled, as per a tweet by the ticket distribution company.

    “Due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand, tomorrow’s public on-sale for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour has been cancelled.” Ticketmaster wrote, much to the dismay of fans.

    “so for people who didn’t get tickets, there are no tickets for them?!??” asked one user.

    Another user wrote, in a frustrated tone, “Your only job, quite literally the sole reason for your entire existence, is to sell tickets.”

    According to Variety, the decision to cancel the public on-sale of the tickets of Swift’s ‘The Eras Tour’ followed a week after the fiasco at their website during the pre-sale of the tickets.

    Ticketmaster’s website crashed because of the huge demand for tickets for the ‘All Too Well’ singer’s latest musical outing. Many fans had to wait for over 2 hours to have a chance at the tickets, while several others were simply sent to a waitlist.

    ‘There has been historically unprecedented demand’, Ticketmaster wrote in a long explanation shared on Twitter regarding the chaotic situation of the pre-sale. Subsequently, the pre-sale was rescheduled a day later to accommodate the sheer volume of requests for tickets.

    Not surprisingly, the ‘Love Story’ singer already made a record on Ticketmaster on November 15. With sales in excess of 2 million on November 15, Swift became the artist with the largest number of tickets sold in a single day, as per Variety.

    The resounding success Swift’s latest album ‘Midnights’ had in October perhaps signalled the upcoming stampede of fans wanting to see the singer on tour.

    LOS ANGELES: Pop icon Taylor Swift’s public ticket sales for her latest musical world tour are called off by Ticketmaster.

    According to a report by Variety, the ticket sale was set to take place today. However, it had to be cancelled, as per a tweet by the ticket distribution company.

    “Due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand, tomorrow’s public on-sale for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour has been cancelled.” Ticketmaster wrote, much to the dismay of fans.

    “so for people who didn’t get tickets, there are no tickets for them?!??” asked one user.

    Another user wrote, in a frustrated tone, “Your only job, quite literally the sole reason for your entire existence, is to sell tickets.”

    According to Variety, the decision to cancel the public on-sale of the tickets of Swift’s ‘The Eras Tour’ followed a week after the fiasco at their website during the pre-sale of the tickets.

    Ticketmaster’s website crashed because of the huge demand for tickets for the ‘All Too Well’ singer’s latest musical outing. Many fans had to wait for over 2 hours to have a chance at the tickets, while several others were simply sent to a waitlist.

    ‘There has been historically unprecedented demand’, Ticketmaster wrote in a long explanation shared on Twitter regarding the chaotic situation of the pre-sale. Subsequently, the pre-sale was rescheduled a day later to accommodate the sheer volume of requests for tickets.

    Not surprisingly, the ‘Love Story’ singer already made a record on Ticketmaster on November 15. With sales in excess of 2 million on November 15, Swift became the artist with the largest number of tickets sold in a single day, as per Variety.

    The resounding success Swift’s latest album ‘Midnights’ had in October perhaps signalled the upcoming stampede of fans wanting to see the singer on tour.