How did she do it?  

How could it be? 

Tell me how —HOW— does the most famous popstar in the World right now keep anything secret? 

I get it. It’s not a nuclear code. It’s not a secret access key for a banking system that would make a keen hacker trillions of dollars in an instant. But that Taylor Swift, in the digital age, with however many hundreds of millions of fans Worldwide following her every move, can press a button and drop 15 songs, having secretly recorded them and prepared them to be published simultaneously on streaming platforms around the World, tells you one thing: Taylor Swift’s lawyers really know how to write an iron-clad NDA. 

Is Taylor Swift worth the hype? 

I’m not a Swiftie, per se. I didn’t go to Australia for the Eras tour. But I also hate it when people sneer at other people’s music tastes. Music tastes are so subjective. Who am I to say that what I’m listening to is any better or worse than what you prefer?  

Any reasonable person cannot say that Taylor Swift is not two things: an incredibly talented songwriter, and an incredibly hard worker.  

Taylor’s been teasing something new. She’s made mysterious social media posts. Finally, yesterday, all was revealed: The Tortured Poets Department, a surprise double album. As the internet melted down with reactions and analysis, I searched the 31 songs on Spotify and cranked up the beats. 

It was good. It was fine. Personally, I still prefer her early stuff. But even though I couldn’t name the ex-boyfriends most of the songs are apparently about, I enjoyed listening to the lyrics and found myself gently tapping along as I fixed dinner.  

And I’m noticing this weird phenomenon with Taylor Swift. Even though I’m ambivalent to her music, like an ocean current, I find myself still getting swept along in the hype. 

I get it. I think we all do. We all have an artist for whom at some point in our lives we’ve been desperate for any flicker of something new: a magazine cover, a single, an album, a World Tour. For me, for about five years, it was Kanye West. For you, someone else, I’m sure. It’s the Beatlemania thing. There is something primal, something is our cells, a zeal, some magic, some uniquely human quality that loves to be caught up in the fever of a crowd, to share in the collective idolising of that little dot under the brights on stage. 

It doesn’t happen with authors or artists. The closest you might get is Lionel Messi on a football pitch. And although I wouldn’t call myself a Swiftie. I’m here for the Swiftie hype.  

But is she worth it? A miserable sod might suggest no one’s worth it.  

But given she has built one of the largest and most influential fan bases in the history of music, she has produced the highest-grossing tour of all time, she’s the first musician to become a billionaire solely from writing and performing, and she’s shattering all manner of streaming records, I’m gonna side with the wisdom of the Swiftie crowds.  

Is Taylor Swift worth the hype? Of course she’s worth the hype!