At LAT, "Taylor Swift connects with fans via 'secret sessions,' media blitz":
One of the brilliant aspects of Taylor Swift's rise to pop stardom is the way she's managed to convince millions of fans, the majority of whom are women her age or younger, that she's one of them.More, "Taylor Swift loses mind, smashes, slashes in new 'Blank Space' clip."
It's central to the message of her new album's first single, "Shake It Off." The song's Mark Romanek-directed video paints Swift as out of her element in various clichéd, pop video settings: as a dysfunctional Lady Gaga-esque performance artist; trapped in a Miley Cyrus-like twerk-off; flailing as a ballerina — only to find her mojo working as part of a group of ordinary people — non-professional actors that Swift again helped select through social media. The video has racked up almost 200 million views in the matter of a few weeks.
"Shake It Off" echoes previous hits including "You Belong With Me" and "Mean": At heart Swift identifies as a nerd — and a proud one at that — a stance that works in her favor as she strives to give voice in many of her songs to the unhip and socially awkward.
Never mind that Swift is a multimillion-selling recording artist who writes, performs and often produces monstrously successful hit singles and albums. She's also one of the few pop culture figures who can score the cover of Elle, People and Rolling Stone magazines while presiding over a multimillion-dollar music empire.
"Taylor's got many, many good things going for her," said Tony Pace, chief marketing officer for Subway restaurants, one of several major corporate alliances Swift is exploiting to promote the new album. "She's astute about social media and she's a very serious and committed artist."
To be sure, Swift has no shortage of haters. Her relatively thin voice is technically no match for powerhouses like Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood, and anonymous Internet commenters toss out barbs for the perceived trail of A-list broken hearts she's left behind (and perhaps tapped for songwriting inspiration), including musician John Mayer, actors Jake Gyllenhaal and Taylor Lautner, and One Direction heartthrob Harry Styles.
One of the new album's sassiest tracks, "Blank Space," was sparked by what was being written about her in the tabloids.
In the song, she brags that "I've got a long list of ex-lovers / They'll all tell you I'm insane / Looking at that face / You look like my next mistake."
"I pride myself on being self-aware," she told her living-room audience. "But I've also noticed there's this drastic fictionalization of my personal life in the press.
"They'll write that I'm needy, that I push people away then pull them back," she said. "I found all this fascinating. So I thought, 'What if I were this girl — this damaged starlet thing? I'm going to write a song as if I were her.'
"I started writing [it] as a joke," she said, "but it ended up being everyone's favorite."
