(Paris) Count on her to make Europe dance as well as bring tears to its eyes: American megastar Taylor Swift is giving Paris on Thursday, before Lyon, Madrid, London and Munich, the start of her record-breaking tour of the Old continent.
The Eras Tour, which began in March 2023 in the United States, became at the end of last year the first tour in history to sell more than a billion dollars in tickets. A figure that is expected to more than double by the time it expires in Canada in December.
This precise 3h20 show, which the singer has already brought across the Americas, Asia and Australia, retraced the ten albums up until then (since Taylor Swift in 2006) which propelled her from a rising star in American country to the biggest international pop star, with 110 million monthly listeners on Spotify (compared to 70 for Beyoncé or Dua Lipa).
In mid-April, the 34-year-old singer released her 11e opus, The Tortured Poets Department. Sold 1.4 million copies on its first day, it became the most listened to upon its launch on Spotify, with a billion streams in five days. And despite mixed reviews, the British music magazine NME calling it a “rare misstep.”
“Will she dedicate an entire section of the concert to this album or just play a few songs? », asks Glenys Johnson, author of Taylor Swift, the story of a fashion icon (ed. Place des Victoires), in the name of the “Swifties”, the nickname of the singer’s fans.
“Deepest Emotions”
According to Satu Hämeenaho-Fox, author of Into the Taylor-Verse, at the heart of Taylor Swift’s universe (Gallimard Jeunesse), the tall blonde with blue eyes, with the claimed image of an average American, has built her success on the “shared language of female youth”.
“There is something in his music that captures the adolescent desire to see one’s life begin, the aspiration for a more poetic existence, charged with passion, danger and love,” describes Hämeenaho-Fox to AFP.
PHOTO ROBYN BECK, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Taylor Swift
For 17 years the artist has been singing about her joys and sorrows, especially from the heart, “her audience has grown up with her. The feelings it conveys have become more complex. […] It creates space for the deepest emotions that we sometimes feel like we’re not allowed to feel.”
Fan since Midnights, whose electro-pop sounds have caught the ear of the general public beyond the United States in 2022, Soukeyna, 16, admires a “very complete artist (who) writes all her texts” at a Stakhanovist rhythm (four albums between 2019 and 2022). “You really have to listen to the lyrics and understand them because it’s something unique,” she pleads.
The young girl from Marmande, who will attend the concert on Sunday with her older sister, also appreciates “the feeling of being part of a community”: “I have the impression that everyone is very caring. Everyone is singing, we’re exchanging bracelets, it looks amazing. »
The star, personality of the year 2023 according to the magazine Timealso takes the greatest care of the “Swifties”, going so far as to invite them to her home or offer them gifts.
Economic impact
During each of the four Parisian concerts, until Sunday, there will be nearly 42,000 fans at Paris La Défense Arena, including 20% Americans and 10% Europeans, according to figures communicated by the performance hall to the ‘AFP.
To get their ticket, after long hours of waiting in line, they spent 180 euros on average, specifies Bathilde Lorenzetti, vice-president of Paris La Défense Arena. And they don’t plan to stop there: the venue, which had a preview of the queues during Japanese shows, has exceptionally doubled the sales points for derivative products.
Her sixth tour will then take the former America’s Little Bride, who took a stand against Trumpism in 2018, to Sweden, Portugal, Spain, Lyon (June 2-3), the United Kingdom, Ireland , the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Poland and Austria.
Each time with a considerable impact expected on the local economy. Various studies estimate the impact in the United States at between 5 and 10 billion dollars.