Taylor Swift 073

Taylor Swift 073

Look closer for eight lyrics and two song titles: Country Pop “Hey Isn’t this easy?” (You Belong with Me); “We were both young when I first saw you” (Love Story); Hip Hop “I don’t trust nobody and nobody trusts me” (Look What You Made Me Do); Electronic Rock “We are never ever, ever, ever, ever getting back together” (We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together); Synth Pop “Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, baby!” (Shake It Off); “’Cause darling I’m a nightmare dressed like a daydream” (Blank Space); “Band Aids don’t fix bullet holes” (Bad Blood); Indie Folk Cardigan; Alternative Rock “Life was a willow and it bent right to your wind.” (Willow); Chill Out Anti-Hero.

The story: 

Taylor Alison Swift was born December 13, 1989. An American singer-songwriter, recognized for her songwriting, musical versatility, artistic reinventions, and influence on the music industry, she is a prominent cultural figure of the 21st century. Swift began songwriting professionally at age 14. Signing with Big Machine Records in 2005, she released six studio albums, four to country radio, her self-titled album (2006), Fearless (2008), explored country pop. The singles “Love Story” and “You Belong with Me” catapulted her to mainstream fame. Speak Now (2010) incorporated rock influences, and Red (2012) experimented with electronic elements and featured Swift’s first Billboard Hot 100 number-one song, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”. She forwent her country image with 1989 (2014), a synth-pop album supported by chart-topping songs “Shake It Off”, “Blank Space”, and “Bad Blood”. Media scrutiny inspired her next album, the hip-hop-flavored Reputation (2017), and its number-one single “Look What You Made Me Do”.

After signing a new contract with Republic Records in 2018, Swift released her seventh album, Lover (2019), and autobiographical documentary, Miss Americana (2020). She embraced indie folk and alternative rock on her 2020 albums Folkloreand Evermore and explored chill-out styles on Midnights (2022). These broke multifarious records, led by number-one singles “Cardigan”, “Willow”, and “Anti-Hero”. A dispute with Big Machine led Swift to re-record her first six albums, having launched three of them from 2021 to 2023, including Red (Taylor’s Version), whose track “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” the longest song to top the Hot 100.

Having sold over 200 million records, Swift is one of the best-selling musicians, the most streamed woman on Spotify, and the only act to have five albums open with over one million copies sold in the US. She has been featured in critical listicles such as Rolling Stone‘s 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time, Billboard‘s Greatest of All Time Artists, the Time 100, and Forbes Celebrity 100. Among her accolades are 12 Grammy Awards, including three Album of the Year wins; a Primetime Emmy Award; 40 American Music Awards; 29 Billboard Music Awards; 12 Country Music Association Awards; three IFPI Global Recording Artist of the Year awards; and 98 Guinness World Records. Honored with titles such as Artist of the Decade and Woman of the Decade, Swift is an advocate for artists’ rights and women’s empowerment.

-credit Wikipedia

Taylor Swift just made Billboard history, again

Drop everything now: Taylor Swift just made history as the first woman, 3^rd artist ever, to have four Top 10 albums at the same time.

Swift is rerecording her first six albums to regain artistic and financial control of her work. The third of those, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), debuted in the top spot, marking Swift’s 12^th No. 1, pushing her past Barbra Streisand for most chart-toppers by a female artist.

Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) features six previously unreleased songs, launched with the year’s biggest week for any album and joins three of Swift’s other albums: 2022’s Midnights; 2020’s Folklore; and 2019’s Lover, all Top 10, 5^th, 10^th and 7^th.

“She is the first living act to have four albums top 10 since April 2, 1966, when Herb Alpert, an American trumpeter did it.

Prince had 5 in the Top 10 — The Very Best of Prince, the Purple Rain soundtrack, The Hits/The B-Sides, Ultimate and 1999, in mid-May 2016, three weeks after his death.

This isn’t Taylor’s first Billboard record of note. She was the first artist to sweep the entire Top 10 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in October of 2022. That was days after the release of Midnights. Swift hasn’t commented publicly on this latest pair of milestones. She has posted on social media about the significance of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), written between ages of 18 and 20 rerecorded at 32, tweeting “singing those words in a stadium full of people who helped me get my music back” was “unfathomably special to me.”

-credit Rachel Treisman – NPR.com July 17, 2023

The artwork: 

First print of this illustration will be sold in a silent auction for a non-profit. For info contact lisafromlsu@gmail.com

Digital Print on Archival Matte – Original illustration done in graphite and the following Prisma Colors: Crimson for the album, “Red” and for the song, Bad Blood;Copenhagen Blue compensation for Country Music fans; Indigo Blue for the album, “Midnights”; Light Aqua, Parma Violet and Goldenrod as compliment colors.

Artist: Tobin Bortner of Bastrop, Texas – drawing done in September of 2023 – ©Tobin Signs/Look Closer Illustrations 
DERIVATIVE Work – photo sources: face and hair from “images2_fanpop_com – Taylor-Swift-demi-lovato-and-taylor-swift-11142684-1920-1200”; heart-shaped hands from “hotcelebrityemmastone_4.bp.blogspot_com – Taylor Swift new Wallpaper 2012 03”

What you get:
$40 (36.95 + 3.05 tax)
11 x 14 Print Package with Authenticity Sheet
signed and numbered (run of 60)
Domestic Priority Mail $8 (shipping included)