It was 10 years ago this week that 16-year-old Taylor Swift released her first ever single, “Tim McGraw.” It was a nice little song about an ex-boyfriend with whom she had bonded over the country legend of the same name’s music. While the song did quite well, no one would have guessed that it would have launched one of the most dominant careers in all of pop music. In the decade since that song’s release, Swift has become more and more popular, while also facing a lot of criticism along the way. With that in mind, let’s look at the various stages of her career since she released her debut single.
2006-08: Teenage country star with pop crossover appeal
When “Tim McGraw” hit the airwaves in the summer of ’06, it was a hit for obvious reasons. First off, most country music fans probably had their own memories of connecting with an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend to a Tim McGraw song, so there was an immediate connection. More importantly, there was a certain bit of teenage honesty to it. That rang true for most of the song’s on Swift’s self-titled debut, as follow-up singles like “Picture To Burn,” “Our Song,” and “Teardrops On My Guitar” continued to dominate country radio, with the latter becoming her first song to crossover in the pop world. At this point, Swift was still definitively country, but the potential for her to become a massive pop star was always readily evident.
2008-12 Pop star with a foot in the country world
When Swift’s second album, Fearless, came out in the fall of 2008, it was quite clear that she belonged to the pop world as much as she did to the country world. “Love Story” was a Top 40 smash, and it was utterly inescapable on both radio formats. Then, “You Belong With Me” was released as the second single, and it became an even bigger hit. In the late 2000s, Swift had become country music’s biggest star, and one of the most recognizable names in mainstream pop. Admittedly, country and pop had become a bit closer to each other over the course of the ’90s and 2000s, but no one was able to dominate both of them quite as thoroughly as Taylor.
2009-11 Lightning rod for controversy
For the first few years of her career, Taylor Swift couldn’t help but seem like the most inoffensive pop star in the world, as few had anything negative to say about her. However, dissent was growing, and eventually, the tide would turn on Swift quite rapidly.
Weirdly enough, the first moment in which the public opinion of Swift turned negative was probably Kanye’s infamous “I’mma let you finish!” moment at the 2009 VMAs. Initially, the public was extremely sympathetic to Swift, while West became a villain, but public sentiment would eventually start to tilt in the other direction. Sure, Kanye was being rude, but wasn’t the public overreacting? And could that overreaction have a bit to do with the respective races of West and Swift? Of course, none of that was really Swift’s fault, but what happened next angered people further: She won Album of The Year at the 2010 Grammys, beating out Lady Gaga and Beyonce, who many viewed as more deserving.
This was around the time Taylor Swift’s songs began to face a backlash from feminists. “You Belong With Me” was criticized for lyrics that were seen as slut-shaming, “Picture To Burn” was lambasted for the line where she threatens to tell her friends that her ex-boyfriend is gay. The song that received the most backlash, however, was “Fifteen,” for an admittedly unfortunate line in which Swift claims that her best friend gave “all she had” to a boy who broke her heart, referring to her virginity. The unfortunate implications of this lyric were all too clear. By the time 2010 rolled around, she was described as a “feminist’s nightmare.” Swift still courts controversy these days — see her feud with Nicki Minaj — but the feminist world was never more united against her than in the early 2010s.
2009-Present: Tabloid Icon
When the world hasn’t been obsessing over what her songs are or aren’t saying, they tend to focus on her high-profile relationships. Swift has been linked to Joe Jonas, Jake Gyllenhaal, John Mayer, Connor Kennedy, Harry Styles, Calvin Harris, and Tom Hiddleston. To be sure, Swift has often stoked the gossip by having us guess exactly who each song was about (note: “Dear John” is clearly about Mayer, while “We Are Never, Ever Getting Back Together” was likely about Gyllenhaal), but few people have dominated the tabloids quite like her. This is one the facet of her career that has been more or less consistent. One can only assume following her breakup with Harris, we’ll be hearing an EDM-tinged kiss-off.
2012-Present: Full-Blown Pop Superstar
When Swift released Red in 2012, it was a pivotal moment for her career. Her songwriting had become more mature, and she left behind the unfortunate trappings that led to her being the target of feminist ire. Additionally, she seemed to be less interested in country music than ever. There were a few country-fried songs on Red, most notably its title track, but the pop sound was more prominent, with “I Knew You Were Trouble” and “22,” lacking even the slightest hint of country. With her next album, 1989, she did away with country altogether, releasing an album that was 100% pop. The result was the biggest smash of her career; it spawned several hit singles, and won Swift her second Grammy for Album Of The Year. Oh, and Ryan Adams released a meticulous cover of the entire album!
Swift will always have her dissenters, but at this point, their voices are becoming softer and softer. Over the last decade, Swift has gradually become one of the biggest pop stars in the world, and she’s still only 26. Early concerns that she would never outgrow the songs-about-high-school-boys stage of her career have vanished, and it feels quite clear that she’ll be around for a long, long time.
