The Microsoft of Musicians: Taylor Swift

No, you’re not imagining it: Taylor Swift really is everywhere right now. From radio airwaves to streaming services, social media to news outlets and now even the sidelines of football fields, there genuinely is no escaping her presence. But with one artist dominating public attention (and spending) to this degree, is there space left for anyone else?

You don’t have to like Taylor Swift or her music to be able to appreciate that she is currently the poster child for winner-takes-most economics. To give you some perspective on her dominance, consider this stat: in 2023, 1 in every 78 US-based audio streams was a Taylor Swift song. Keep in mind that streaming is based on the choice of the listener, not the radio DJ forced to play the latest pop.

She claimed 1.28% of the US streaming market in 2023, which doesn’t sound that impressive until you consider that entire genres of music like Classical and Jazz only made up 0.8% and 0.9% respectively. Even the Children’s streaming genre, fueled by parents having to play Baby Shark 15 times a day to placate their demanding toddlers, could only claim 1.1% of the total streaming market.

So yes, Tay-Tay is doing just fine, thank you very much. But what is it about her and her music that has singled her out from millions of professional musicians worldwide – not to mention every amateur garage-band, viral talent-show contestant and high-school virtuoso in the world? Why do some musicians get a minute in the limelight, while Taylor Swift gets almost two decades?

What makes her the Microsoft of Musicians?

One of a million girls next door

Almost anything or anyone has the potential to evolve into a brand – like a blonde, guitar-playing American girl. Just like household brands Nike and Google, Taylor Swift’s brand strength is the result of smart marketing and knowing how to sell a product.

To be fair, her backstory definitely helped to shape the lore: after growing up on a Christmas tree farm (yes, really) in Pennsylvania, a 13-year-old Swift expressed an interest in country music and subsequently became the catalyst for her entire family moving to Nashville to get her closer to the wellspring of the genre. She describes one of her earliest introductions to music as hearing her opera-singer grandmother singing in church (cue the beam of golden light coming through the stained glass window). The fact that her entire childhood sounds like a Hallmark movie waiting to happen is only underlined by the fact that Taylor Alison Swift is her real name, even though it sounds exactly like the kind of pretty pseudonym a pop princess would choose.

So she’s pretty, talented and she has an interesting backstory – but then again, so do hundreds of other musicians. This brings us back to the original question of Taylor’s rocket-fuelled career.

Taylor currently occupies one of the top positions in music, which is a career avenue notorious for its winner-takes-most approach. In a winner-takes-most market, the top performers seize a significant portion of the available rewards, leaving little for the rest of the competitors. This dynamic exacerbates wealth disparities, as a small elite accrues a growing share of income that would otherwise benefit a broader segment of the population.

Then there’s also the Matthew Effect to consider. No, Matthew isn’t one of Taylor’s many prominent exes – the Matthew Effect is the tendency of individuals to accrue social or economic success in proportion to their initial level of popularity, friends, and wealth. The term was coined by sociologists Robert K. Merton and Harriet Zuckerman in 1968. This phenomenon can be primarily attributed to preferential attachment, where wealth or credit is allocated based on existing holdings.

In other words, according to the Matthew Effect, lower-ranked individuals face escalating challenges in augmenting their assets due to limited resources to invest over time. Conversely, higher-ranked individuals find it easier to maintain their substantial holdings because they possess greater resources to invest.

That sounds a bit like Taylor’s reign, doesn’t it? She accumulates new fans through a fiercely loyal existing fanbase, and she is able to pour almost endless resources into extravagant tours, album launches and more. Newer or lesser-known musicians face a much steeper uphill battle to getting an album sold than Taylor does, in the same way that a locally-made sport shoe brand would have a hard time competing with Nike.

In her money Era

As of October 2023, Taylor Swift is the first billionaire in history to have accumulated their fortune solely from a career as a musician.

She has released a new album every two years since 2006 (with the exception of Reputation, which was released three years after its predecessor, 1989). She doubled down during the pandemic, which is why 2020 saw the release of two “sister albums”, Folklore and Evermore, in the same year.

This excludes the “Taylor’s Version” albums, which are four of her early albums that she re-recorded between 2021 and 2023 in order to own her masters, following a dispute over ownership with record label Big Machine Records in 2019. Six of her 14 albums have opened with over one million sales in the first week. What’s that quote from Steve Jobs about real artists shipping?

With that much material to draw from, it makes sense that Taylor was able to create one of the biggest retrospective shows in the history of live performance in the form of her Eras Tour. Spanning 152 shows across five continents, the tour kicked off on March 17, 2023, in Glendale, Arizona, United States, and is scheduled to wrap up on December 8, 2024, in Vancouver, Canada. Though currently only halfway, the Eras Tour has already left an indelible mark on global culture, achieving the milestone of surpassing $1 billion in revenue, thus solidifying its status as the highest-grossing tour in history.

The Microsoft of Musicians

When we see a business like Nike at the top of its industry, we are quick to recall its humble beginnings in Phil Knight’s garage, and just as quick to applaud the hard work, strategic prowess and marketing successes that allowed it to ascend to its position. When we talk about Microsoft, we are impressed by the consistent evolution of the company to stay at the very top of its game. But for some reason, when we see remarkable success in a single person, we want to start talking about luck, chance and having “it”.

The key to understanding Taylor Swift’s success is to think of her as a business, not a person. There is no magic stick that selected Taylor Swift as the artist of the century, thereby distinguishing her from every other guitar-playing girl to ever come out of Nashville. Just like Phil Knight took a risk when he imported that first batch of Onitsuka Tigers into the United States, Taylor’s parents took a risk by moving their family to another state in order to support her interest in music. Just as the team at Nike grew their operation through smart partnerships with suppliers and distributors, Taylor connected with agents, record labels, writers and engineers who aligned with her vision and the unique sound she wanted to produce.

Yes, it may be true that there isn’t much space at the top of the music market, and Taylor’s massive success thus far is certainly helping to bring in new opportunities on a regular basis. But let’s not gloss over the fact that she climbed this ladder through regular album releases, clever marketing, and an extremely well-managed brand.

A nice name and a cute backstory will get you a head start in the music industry. But just like everywhere else, the ones right at the top are the ones who work the hardest off the initial platform of luck.

About the author:

Dominique Olivier is a fine arts graduate who recently learnt what HEPS means. Although she’s really enjoying learning about the markets, she still doesn’t regret studying art instead.

She brings her love of storytelling and trivia to Ghost Mail, with The Finance Ghost adding a sprinkling of investment knowledge to her work.

Dominique is a freelance writer at Wordy Girl Writes and can be reached on LinkedIn here.