The Harvard Business Review is publishing an in-depth, all encompassing book on Taylor Swift’s business acumen perusing her power moves as a fearless leader since she was 13 years old.
Author Kevin Evers came up with the idea in early 2022 and finished two years later.
“The more I researched her, the more impressed I became,” he says over Zoom from his New York home.
Evers writes in his book, “There’s Nothing Like This,” her success didn’t happen overnight — or by happenstance. A determined, pavement-pounding 13-year-old used her charm, sass, confidence and innate talents to set the foundation of a long-standing career. He notes she once told a veteran songwriter, “I’m not sure my demographic would say something like that.” She told her record label she would stay hours after meet-and-greets and shake hands with 100,000 fans. She used Myspace and vlogging to her advantage.
“It was not a shoo-in for her to be successful,” Evers says. “If anything, it’s actually unbelievable that she found success in country music at the time.”
Era-by-era, Evers takes readers through the time period of each album, cataloging the challenges Swift faced and putting her work into context. Take her debut album.
Long live the Eras Tour with our enchanting book
He writes country music “became dominated by male artists in Stetson hats and trucker caps, making it particularly challenging for female singers like Swift to break through.”
Swift met Scott Borchetta, a Universal Music executive planning to leave and start his own label Big Machine. Borchetta promised her a record deal but asked her to wait a year. She agreed, and the two grew each other’s brands for six eras. Then in 2017, Swift wanted control of her masters and Borchetta wanted to keep the market value of his business owed in part to her discography.
“Giving up Swift’s masters meant giving up the thing that made Big Machine most valuable,” Evers writes, “like putting land up for sale but telling buyers they can’t have the mansion on it.”
No one had ever rerecorded all of their masters. Swift took the risk, and her decision paid dividends. Although Evers likens Swift’s success to Beatlemania, Evers would argue the pop star has had a steeper hill to climb.
“There’s a lot of parallels between what the Beatles did, but I will say you can’t necessarily compare the two,” he explains. “The Beatles were operating in a monoculture, and the industry that Swift has been operating in has gone through radical disruptions and changes.”
Those disruptions include navigating digital and streaming, and jumping genres while staying true to herself.
“I would put her at the top of the music pantheon because of that,” Evers says. “It’s almost like comparing quarterbacks from different eras.”
The senior editor at Harvard Business Review pored over legal documents, articles and books to compile research. The millennial dad wrote alongside Swift’s record-shattering Eras Tour, attending two of the shows with his daughter Maisie.
“I could see my daughter’s fandom grow and her love of Taylor Swift grow, and I understood how [Swift] engages with fans,” he says. “I understand how she forges personal relationships, seeing it in my daughter’s eyes.”
When asked to sum up Swift’s career in one word, Evers says “antifragility.”
“Resilience is a great word,” he says. “When I think of resiliency, I think of something that can withstand pressure. Antifragility is almost a step above. Not only can I withstand that stuff, but I can actually grow stronger from those things.”
Swift went full pop with “1989.” She bounced back from public cancellation in 2016 with “Reputation.” She showed off her literary prowess in “Folklore” and “Evermore.” And she rerecorded her masters. Evers documents it all and spells out how the “unicorn” kept rising to the top.
The title “There’s Nothing Like This” is a nod to her song “Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince.”
“I thought it needed to be a lyric,” Evers says. “It had to thematically fit the book, and I think ‘There’s Nothing Like This’ hits the nail on the head for a generational artist. There will be no other Taylor Swift.”
Order the book here.
Don’t miss any Taylor Swift news; sign up for the free, weekly newsletter This Swift Beat.
Follow Bryan West, the USA TODAY Network’s Taylor Swift reporter, on Instagram, TikTok and X as @BryanWestTV.
Leave a Reply