Taylor Swift Says She’s Helped ‘More Than 20’ New Artists During ‘Their First Wave of Bad Press’
Taylor Swift has had her fair share of bad press over the years. But now she’s using her experiences with the media — both good and bad — to help other artists who are just starting out in their careers.
The “Lover” singer who released her seventh studio album of the same name in Aug. 2019 opened up about lending support to new artists in the music industry when they experience bad press during an interview with Billboard published on Dec. 11, 2019. The soon-to-be-30-year-old — Dec. 13, 2019, marks the start of a new decade in her life — revealed she’s received not one but 20 calls from artists looking for advice on how to navigate the media when they’re under fire.
Swift says she’s always willing to talk to new artists
Here’s how the topic came about. Billboard asked Swift who she had been talking about in previous 2019 interviews when she said things like “They’ve wanted to see this” and “They hated me for this.”
Swift answered the question, saying, “It’s sort of an amalgamation of all of it. People who aren’t active fans of your music, who like one song but love to hear who has been canceled on Twitter.”
She continued, saying, “I’ve had several upheavals of somehow not being what I should be. And this happens to women in music way more than men.”
She went on to say, “That’s why I get so many phone calls from new artists out of the blue — like, ‘Hey, I’m getting my first wave of bad press, I’m freaking out, can I talk to you?’ And the answer is always yes!”
Swift then revealed it has happened on many occasions: ”I’m talking about more than 20 people who have randomly reached out to me.”
Getting all those phone calls doesn’t bother her in the slightest. She’s actually flattered by them. “I take it as a compliment because it means that they see what has happened over the course of my career, over and over again,” she explained.
Swift didn’t ‘really’ have anyone to reach out to
The 10-time Grammy winner went on to say she didn’t “really” have more experienced musicians she could call for advice because she moved around in “different neighborhoods of music.”
However, country music proved to be different.
“I had so many mentors in country music,” she said. “Faith Hill was wonderful. She would reach out to me and invite me over and take me on tour, and I knew that I could talk to her.”
Swift started out in the genre and then transitioned to pop music. In a new space in the music industry, she noticed people weren’t as ready to offer guidance to others.
“Crossing over to pop is a completely different world,” Swift said. “Country music is a real community, and in pop I didn’t see that community as much.”
But there’s a shift happening.
“Now there is a bit of one between the girls in pop — we all have each other’s numbers and text each other — but when I first started out in pop it was very much you versus you versus you,” she explained. “We didn’t have a network, which is weird because we can help each other through these moments when you just feel completely isolated.”
Swift released a new holiday song, “Christmas Tree Farm,” on Dec. 6, 2019, and is set to go on a festival tour for her Lover album.
