Ep. 135: Taylor Swift – Top 5 Songs

April 28, 2024 Peter Jans

Intro

Hello and Welcome to this episode of the podcast, "The Mnemonic Tree", where we add a single mnemonic leaf to our Tree of Knowledge.

I’m Jans your Mnemonic Man and today's episode will be on the phenom Taylor Swift. Growing up on a Christmas Tree farm in Reading, Pennsylvania Taylor Swift was somehow destined for fame moving to Nashville, Tennessee when she was just 14 to pursue a career in country music. While country music got her started, she then transitioned into pop and also explored with a range of other genres. This continued success propelled her into super stardom selling out venues all over the world.

Along with this she has also dipped her toe into acting, with roles in the movies "Valentine's Day" and "The Giver."

Now, recently in Australia we have just witnessed a case of “Hurricane Swift” where she turned our country and economy upside down playing in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. In Melbourne she played to a total of 288,000 fans over three nights at our colosseum the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground). Apparently, the Friday show was the biggest of her career to date playing to a total of 96,000 fans.

Now, I didn’t get a chance to go see Taylor Swift, however I ended buying a Taylor Swift comb as a memento of the event, and while I don’t use the comb, it’s definitely my closest brush with fame!

She continues to churn out the songs, tour the world, and break countless records, but also gives back generously to the community and many charity organisations.

Today’s mnemonic will be on Taylor Swift’s top five songs.

So, with no further ado, we will begin with a summary from Wikipedia.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Taylor_Swift_at_the_2023_MTV_Video_Music_Awards_(3).png

Wikipedia Summary

Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. A subject of widespread public interest, she has influenced the music industry and popular culture through her artistry, especially in songwriting, and entrepreneurship. She is an advocate of artists' rights and women's empowerment.

Swift began professional songwriting at age 14. She signed with Big Machine Records in 2005 and achieved prominence as a country pop singer with the albums Taylor Swift (2006) and Fearless (2008). Their singles "Teardrops on My Guitar", "Love Story", and "You Belong with Me" were crossover successes on country and pop radio formats and brought Swift mainstream fame. She experimented with rock and electronic styles on her next albums, Speak Now (2010) and Red (2012), respectively, with the latter featuring her first Billboard Hot 100 number-one single, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together". Swift recalibrated her image from country to pop with 1989 (2014), a synth-pop album containing the chart-topping songs "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood". Media scrutiny inspired the hip-hop-influenced Reputation (2017) and its number-one single "Look What You Made Me Do".

After signing with Republic Records in 2018, Swift released the eclectic pop album Lover (2019) and the autobiographical documentary Miss Americana (2020). She explored indie folk styles on the 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, subdued electropop on Midnights (2022), and re-recorded four albums subtitled Taylor's Version[a] after a dispute with Big Machine. These albums spawned the number-one songs "Cruel Summer", "Cardigan", "Willow", "Anti-Hero", "All Too Well", and "Is It Over Now?". Her Eras Tour (2023–2024) and its accompanying concert film became the highest-grossing tour and concert film of all time, respectively. Swift has directed videos and films such as Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020) and All Too Well: The Short Film (2021).

Swift is one of the world's best-selling artists, with 200 million records sold worldwide as of 2019. She is the most-streamed artist on Spotify, the highest-grossing female touring act, and the first billionaire with music as the main source of income. Six of her albums have opened with over one million sales in a week. The 2023 Time Person of the Year, Swift has appeared on lists such as Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time, Billboard's Greatest of All Time Artists, and Forbes' World's 100 Most Powerful Women. Her accolades include 14 Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, 40 American Music Awards, 39 Billboard Music Awards, and 23 MTV Video Music Awards; she has won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, the MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year, and the IFPI Global Recording Artist of the Year a record four times each.

Extracted from: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Swift]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Taylor_Swift_-_Speak_Now_World_Tour_Sydney_2012.jpg

Mnemonic

Taylor Swift – Top 5 Songs Mnemonic – ELLAS

(Picture Taylor Swift’s middle name which is Alison but her close friends truncate it and call her by the nickname Ellas)

1. Enchanted

2. Lover

3. Love Story

4. Anti-Hero

5. Shake it Off

Five Fun Facts

1. Taylor Swift was named after another famous musician James Taylor. Her mum was a big fan of James Taylor and also thought a gender-neutral name would help her career one day. And, yes Taylor and Swift have performed together a handful of times.

2. Taylor Swift has released ten studio albums. They are called in order: Taylor Swift (2006), Fearless (2008), Speak Now (2010), Red (2012), 1989 (2014), Reputation (2017), Lover (2019), Folklore (2020), Evermore (2020), and Midnights (2022).

3. Taylor Swift has won an incredible 11 Grammys. She is the only woman solo artist to win the Grammy for Album of The Year three times for her solo albums.

4. Taylor Swift has smashed all types of records. 118 of these records (as of 2024) are Guinness World Records. Some of these include:

· Fastest Selling Single in Digital History for ‘We Are Never Getting Back Together’

· Most US No. 1 albums by a female artist

· Most US singles chart entries by a female

· Most streamed albums on Spotify in 24 hours

· And; most debuts at No. 1 on the US Albums Chart by a female

5. Taylor Swift has a massive 57.3 million subscribers on YouTube. Now just to give you an idea of how many that is; it is 57,299,741 more than me. So, if everyone could get onto YouTube and subscribe, not because you like the podcast, just out of pure sympathy!

6. Not only is Taylor Swift extremely talented but one of the most generous and charitable people on the planet. She has funded music departments at schools, children’s literacy with money and books, the music education centre at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, donated to cancer research, food banks, and countless other charities.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Air_Asia_Taylor_Swift_logojet.jpg

Three Question Quiz

Q.1. What are Taylor Swift fans called?

Q.2. Name one of the songs that Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran performed together?

Q.3. Where was Taylor Swift born?

Bonus Q. What is Taylor Swift’s longest song title?

Bonus Q. What was Taylor Swift’s first single?

Mnemonic Recap

Taylor Swift – Top 5 Songs Mnemonic – ELLAS

(Picture Taylor Swift’s middle name which is Alison but her close friends truncated it and call her by the nickname Ellas)

1. Enchanted

2. Lover