Taylor Swift is a name not unknown in the media, since 2006 she has taken the world by storm with her music, with the release of her debut self-titled album 'Taylor Swift'. Whilst her discography spans over multiple genres, she began her career within the genre of country, yet as her fanbase grew and she gained more attention than ever, she moved over and into the mainstream pop culture. It's no doubt she's been in the eyes of the media for a very long time, being a renowned singer-songwriter at the age of 16, however throughout her fame she's always been represented as different types of 'it' person.
During her earlier years, Taylor Swift was branded as 'America's Sweetheart' for her country songs about true love and being the socially ideal beauty standard of America - she appeared in several magazines, but particularly quite a lot in vogue. VOGUE wanted to stick to the image many fans had of Swift, deciding to portray her in the same light she was being perceived in but with their own twist! The tagline 'A cool new look for America's Sweetheart' represents Taylor Swift still as the 'it' girl of America, but very subtly crossing over into new territory where she was viewed as the girl others wanted to be. She had been portrayed as innocent by the media in previous years since the beginning of her career and now Swift was now turning into icon. This tagline is also accompanied by another which reads, 'Update Your Style for Spring', going hand in hand with the fact Taylor Swift was the role model celebrity for many fans; the person they wished to be. In this particular cover of VOGUE, a Spring edition, Swift can be seen wearing a yellow sundress and a large sunhat. This wasn't unlike her usual fashion, in which she stuck to the typical clothing of the country folk; however, her eyes had been darkened considerably (a much-loved 2000's trend) which told die-hard Swifties a new era of Taylor Swift was approaching. Whilst the artist herself didn't have at all much involvement in the magazine shooting for VOGUE, Swift took advantage of the way the media wanted to style her, using it in her own way to stay relevant.
With the ever-growing fame that seemed to surround Taylor Swift from the moment she began crossing over into pop-culture, scandals have always surrounded her. Her love life has always been a very large spectacle within the media, mainly due to her tendency to date Hollywood stars, however after each and every relationship it seems like Swift is always the one being demonised. Tabloid magazines have always adored making Taylor Swift seem as though she's lonely or unlovable, even suggesting at times she is psychotic, which Swift has expressed several times makes her uncomfortable especially since she her music is sometimes continually ignored in favour of gossiping about her ex-lovers, having no control over these presentations of herself from the media. In this specific cover of US Weekly, the tagline reads, 'Why She Can't Find Love.' which is just one of the many scandalous tabloids villainising Swift for simply having relationships that work out - these tabloids are interesting because only a few years beforehand they were adamant on showing Taylor Swift off to be innocent, capitalising on the title of 'America's Sweetheart'. US Weekly uses the term 'hopeless romantic' to describe Swift, implying to their readership that Swift idealises the concept of love and that is why her relationships never work out. US Weekly released this article in November of 2012, nine months after VOGUE released their issue in which Swift covered the front page, and yet the two representations of her could not differ more from one another.
One thing Swift has always had a say in is her own music, proving she's her own person who wants to take back misrepresentations from the media to create her own powerful female singer-songwriter role model, as proven by her recent on-going lawsuit against her old record label company. In 2008, Swift released 'Fearless' to show the world she was an independent female celebrity, not just a scared teenage girl who had gotten lucky, and in late 2021 Swift released 'Fearless (Taylor's Version)'. The two albums had no noticeable differences on them, besides the since greater vocal range on the later release, yet what those two albums represented was remarkable. In the first release, Swift was showing the world what she was made of and in her later release she was also doing that, showing that even after years of being mistreated she still wasn't going to be knocked down. The covers of both albums vary, despite seeming so similar in terms of pose, it could be perceived that the two albums are oppositions of one another. The later of the two released shows her own maturity, alongside the freedom of gaining control of her own music, and the side-by-side comparison of the two hit albums is fascinating.
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