Blank space: how Taylor Swift – and an aching sense of loss – dominated music in 2023

Away from Swift’s joyous, record-breaking successes, the yr’s most acclaimed albums have been concerned with demise and absence

In fact, when pop music in 2023 involves be thought-about by historical past, it is going to in all probability simply be remembered because the Yr of Taylor Swift. It’s onerous to think about a moment in current pop historical past when a single artist has so dominated music gross sales and the media alike, definitely not a pop artist 17 years and 10 albums into her profession. At one juncture in July, she had 11 albums on the US chart, four of them in the Top 10, together with the No 1 slot; her present Eras tour is the first in history to surpass $1bn in revenue; the accompanying film is the highest-grossing concert film of all time.

In a function celebrating Swift being named Time magazine’s person of the year, she was described by singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers as “greater than Beatlemania and Thriller”. Vogue referred to as her “a fantasy of uninterrupted American progress”. One British tabloid newspaper lately employed a “renowned movie star psychic and wiccan priestess” to divine when Swift can be taking a break (it was unclear whether or not the famend movie star psychic was being encouraged to consult her tarot cards out of concern for the singer’s welfare or with a sure enough-already weariness).