00:02Taylor Swift in 2019. What you haven't heard about her bold new album and her groundbreaking
00:08role on the big screen. I came right off of a stadium tour and went right into rehearsals.
00:13Plus, Taylor on a mission inside her finished feud with Katy Perry, the battle over her huge
00:18hits, and her stand in the fight for equality. Now, The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard News
00:23take a look at the queen of pop's whirlwind year. She exists in some other plane most of the time,
00:27like superstars want to be superstars, and then there's Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift is one of the
00:31biggest pop stars in the world, with 10 Grammys and five number one albums. She's the first artist
00:37in history to have four albums all debut and a million copies sold in their first week.
00:42So the big question, can she do it again with her new album, Lover?
00:53There is so much pressure, I think, that people might be putting on her right now because her
00:57last four albums all started with selling more than a million copies in their first week.
01:01So people are thinking, can she do it again? I think the thing to remember is, if she doesn't
01:06sell a million, I don't think people should think that it's a failure or that it's a disappointment.
01:11It's a very different marketplace than it has been for her last four albums.
01:15It's changing so rapidly to a streaming world, and it's really, really hard to accomplish that.
01:21So if she falls short, it's not because there's been any diminishment and excitement for her.
01:26It's simply because of the changing dynamics of how the record industry works.
01:30So for her to be able to pull that off would be like a monumental feat, but if anyone can
01:34do it, it might be Taylor.
01:36This time around, Taylor has upped her album game, offering fans serious incentives to
01:40buy her new record.
01:41So for Reputation, in Taylor's last album, she had two different kind of magazine
01:45booklet things that she sold at Target. Each one was different, so if you were really a big
01:49fan, you would want to buy both copies. Now she's kind of taken that a step further, and in some
01:54ways kind of followed BTS' lead, where she has four different sort of book things that she's
02:02released or she'll release through Target. It's very collectible. I'm going to go out on a limb
02:06and say she'll probably debut at number one. How big will it be? Your guess is as good as mine,
02:12but I'm assuming it'll be a sizable number. Probably will be yet another blockbuster for
02:17Taylor Swift because that's what she does. She puts out blockbuster albums.
02:21Lover marks Taylor's first album under her new deal with her public records, and it showcases
02:26the first time she's taken an overtly public stance on issues she cares about, like equality.
02:31She's always been supportive of the LGBTQ community. I think this took it to a whole new
02:40level though. It's like, I am Taylor Swift and I am super supportive of the gay community, and you
02:46might not have realized that before because I didn't speak about it, but if you were paying attention,
02:50you saw who my friends were. You knew that this is always who I was, but now I'm just going
02:54to announce
02:55it. I just think it was a really cool thing that she did. Some people gave her flack for that,
03:00thinking that it was somehow opportunistic in some capacity, but I think it's really hard to
03:04kind of diminish what she did. You had this huge platform and you took a stand and you said what
03:11you believed in. Isn't that a good thing? Laverne Cox, one of the stars featured in the video,
03:15recently opened up to The Hollywood Reporter about what it means to have Taylor Swift as an LGBTQ plus
03:20ally. The response to the You Need to Calm Down video, both positive, negative, and you know,
03:27somewhere in between, made me think about how far we still have to come. And I'm so grateful that
03:33Taylor, at this point in her life, has very intentionally decided to be of service to our
03:40community and to the world in this way. The You Need to Calm Down video's star-studded cast also
03:45includes someone Taylor once had bad blood with, Katy Perry.
03:53They're dressed as fast food and they're hugging and like, it's done. It made sense in the context of
04:00the video because while it is about pride and the LGBTQ community, it's also about stop pinning all
04:07the pop star girls against each other and here's me and Katy and everybody's cool. But while Taylor
04:12ended one feud this year, a brand new battle began, one the singer-songwriter called her worst case
04:18scenario. It was announced that Scooter Braun and his Ithaca Holdings had purchased Scott Borchetta's
04:23Big Machine label group and the deal included Taylor Swift's catalog, including her first six studio albums.
04:30And Taylor came out really vocally against Scooter buying Big Machine records. It was a massive debate
04:39that it sparked and people came out on all sides. Almost immediately, a number of celebrities were
04:44either team Taylor or team Scooter. But I think what it really showed was that Taylor is not afraid at
04:50this point to speak up about anything as long as, you know, it's protecting what she believes in and
04:55what she values. Now as Taylor Swift moves on from the drama with a new album on her new label,
05:00she's also moving on to the big screen with a standout role in the movie Cats. I've always brought
05:06that sort of narrative element to my live shows. I think this is a big movie for Taylor Swift because
05:11it could bring her to a new audience that doesn't know her from her music and it will be a
05:18stepping
05:18stone if it's successful into more substantive roles. And it makes all the sense in the world considering
05:23who she is as a performer and then her love of cats, which is well documented. It's like,
05:30it's kind of the perfect, the perfect way for her to, you know, become like a big screen star.
05:43And while Taylor has done some acting in the past with films like Valentine's Day and The Giver,
05:48Cats marks a major step up. So this is probably the first time for Taylor with Cats that she's going
05:54to
05:54be in like a marquee movie where she's like as big of a face of it as all the other
06:00cast members.
06:02It's really going to put herself out there because the success or failure of the movie will kind of
06:08like hang on her a lot too, which that's never been the case for a TV show or a movie
06:13that she's done
06:13previously. You know, there was a lot of like response to the trailer being just sort of insane,
06:19but like in like a crazy over the top way. I mean, it was the hate watch of the summer.
06:24Everybody watched it. Everybody made fun of it and everybody acknowledged that it would probably make
06:30a billion dollars. I think the Cats people are going to have the last laugh on this one. But could
06:35the success of Cats put Taylor on the same track as fellow pop star Lady Gaga, who stunned audiences in
06:41a star is born. You know, artists like Madonna and Lady Gaga transitioned from being pop superstar diva
06:47to big screen diva. And you know, that worked. It worked in a lot of ways for both of them.
06:52Obviously it worked gangbusters for Gaga. She got an Academy Award nomination for a star is born.
06:56To become a star on the level of, you know, real movie stars, you've got to do something surprising.
07:02If she wants to be taken seriously as an actor, she needs to do something outside her comfort zone
07:06and really surprise people and say, wow, this is something that we would not have expected from
07:11Taylor Swift. You know, something where you really just go for it. And if you succeed,
07:16people will really reward you for it. It's like a perfect launching pad to get to like
07:21someplace sort of like Lady Gaga went with a star is born that I feel like Taylor needs to find
07:26something
07:26like that to dig into, which I mean, those are like once in a lifetime roles, but I'm sure she's
07:30looking
07:31since it's something she's interested in. So I think that she could 100% get to that place where
07:37Gaga got with a star is born. She just needs like this perfect vehicle to come along for her.
07:42I mean, Taylor is in such a unique place right now. She can kind of do whatever the heck she
07:47wants.
07:47So it'll be really, really fascinating to see where her story goes next from the big screen to the top
07:53of the charts to taking a stand for what she believes in. No matter where Taylor goes from here,
07:58one thing's for sure. She'll do it with her loyal fan base of Swifties by her side.
08:02For The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard News, I'm Tiffany Taylor.
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