2010. Taylor Swift won her first Grammy, for best album of the year for the second album of her young career, Fearless. In this opus, the song Forever & Always talked about her breakup with her boyfriend at the time. Fourteen years and eight albums later, the now global superstar has just released his new juggernaut, The Tortured Poets Departmentwhose title and at least three songs seem, according to the careful analysis of the swiftiesbeing direct references another of his exes.
Settle accounts with your elders boyfriends has become a tradition for “Tay Tay”. More than 30 songs on this theme have already been listed in the albums preceding the one released this Friday. Romantic disappointments that ultimately helped her build her musical empire: 170 million albums sold, a tour The Eras Tour record, and the first artist to become a billionaire solely from her musical income. It seems that sadness sells.
“We will identify with a dark and difficult life”
“We are no longer in the glorification of happiness, as in the decades 1960 to 1980. Now, what sells and resonates with consumers is sadness and nostalgia,” confirms Pierre-Louis Desprez, specialist in marketing within the Kaos firm. “Today, we start a career directly with ‘sadness'”, taking the example of Billie Eilish, whose first album contained singles with explicit titles like When the Party’s Over Or Bury a friend.
“Taylor Swift manages to be in tune with what’s happening in the world. We are witnessing a resurgence of a romantic spirit dating from the 19th century,” explains composer and musicologist Béatrice Thiriet. “With the multiple crises of our time, we project ourselves more easily into drama, heroism, social tragedy, because it resembles our world. We can’t imagine a story ending well and we will no longer identify with a character who has a dark and difficult life. »
“Women embrace sadness”
Syndrome of the time, the tortured Batman is much more popular than Superman, the more-than-perfect superhero. Declined in a feminine way, the concept even has its little name, “sad girl autumn”, of which Taylor Swift has become the most striking incarnation. Launched by American rapper Megan Thee Stallion, “sad girl autumn” invites us to move away from the cliché of the joyful, sunny woman with always positive emotions and to accept melancholy and sorrow. Seasonal depression, that is. The one that pushes us to drink hot chocolate in a checkered shirt under a blanket. And so “Tay Tay”, but also Billie Elish, Miley Cyrus and other breakup-that-ends-bad specialists allow themselves to sing their sorrows as much, if not more, than their joy.
So obviously, Yesterday from the Beatles to the entire discography of Ben Mazué, Dinos and Lewis Capaldi, humming about the despair of love does not appear to be particularly original. But a new phenomenon, “women are embracing sadness, a feeling that was almost forbidden to them,” enthuses Béatrice Thiriet. Or, very schematically, “ La vie en rose » for Edith Piaf and Do not leave me for Jacques Brel. Well aware of being the muse of this new movement, Taylor Swift even released one of her own hits, All Too Well, remastered in “Sad girl autumn” version.
“It is an emancipation for women to be able to appropriate and express themselves on the tragic side of life and society, because in sadness, there is a freedom, a wild, rebellious side, which has has long been confined to men, continues Béatrice Thiriet. If it is important to celebrate your own triumphs – “I can buy my own flowers” sings Miley Cyrus in her hit flowers –, it remains just as liberating to allow yourself the right to sorrow.
Comfort and “a crutch”
This capture of sadness also allows for greater generosity of words. ” THE lyrics by Taylor Swift, it’s poetry, she claims to be that way, continues Pierre-Louis Desprez. And a happy poet, we quickly got around to it, it smells like pine… You need sadness to be a poet. » And not just any sadness, develops the specialist: “by listening to Taylor Swift, we don’t want to commit suicide, we don’t come out sadder than before, it’s almost comforting nostalgia. It is a crutch for the fan, who tells himself that he is not alone in his pain and in his gloom. »
Our file on Taylor Swift
Because even when singing about her sadness, the superstar “is not weak and remains a heroine”, maintains Pierre-Louis Drespez. Society may evolve, but the storytelling of the American dream remains strong. “The story told through her discography is not that of a being broken by life, but of an irresistible rise to becoming this poet, an accomplishment. » “It’s all the more important since these are powerful women who are ‘sad girls’”, concludes Béatrice Thiriet. Taylor Swift can sing about both ex and complicated love life as being the person of the year according to Time Magazine or (perhaps) swing the next American presidential election in a single sentence. Sad girl And strong woman at a time.