Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: A Celebration of Taylor Swift's Musical Journey, Cultural Impact, and Reinvention of Pop Music for Swifties by a Swiftie

Taylor Alison Swift (b. 1989), is an American singer-songwriter, widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the twenty-first century. Born in Pennsylvania, the daughter of a stockbroker and mutual fund marketing executive, she spent her early childhood on a Christmas tree farm that her father had purchased from a client. Although neither of her parents were professional musicians, Swift was heavily impacted by her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, who was a successful opera singer and television personality.

Swift fell in love with country music at a young age and was encouraged to pursue her career as a country singer after writing letters to one of her idols, LeAnn Rimes, and learning that Rimes had in fact read them. Her family moved to the Nashville area when Swift was fourteen in order to gain access to better career opportunities for her. Andrea Swift, Taylor’s mother, insisted that her daughter earn her own opportunities, and would drive her around to different record label offices, waiting outside while Taylor went in to hand-deliver her demos to the receptionists. Eventually, Swift began to gain traction as a high-schooler, and released her first album at the age of sixteen. Her first lead single, “Tim McGraw” became a big hit on the charts, and the Recording Academy of America certified it double platinum. Since then, she has had twelve number one songs on the Billboard Hot 100 and has won numerous awards, including fourteen Grammy Awards. Sheffield tracks the explosive trajectory of her career in meticulous detail throughout Heartbreak.

As of 2024, Swift has released eleven original albums: Taylor Swift (2006), Fearless (2008), Speak Now (2010), Red (2012), 1989 (2014), Reputation (2017), Lover (2019), Folklore (2020), Evermore (2020), Midnights (2022), and The Tortured Poets Department (2024). She has also rerecorded Fearless, Red, Speak Now, and 1989, with plans to rerecord Taylor Swift and Reputation. Her “Taylor’s Version” rerecords project is a response to the 2019 acquisition of the masters for her first six albums by Scooter Braun from Big Machine Records, a transaction which Swift asserts she was not informed of ahead of time, despite having spent years attempting to acquire the masters.

In 2005, Taylor Swift became the first signed artist with Big Machine Records, a record label newly founded by Scott Borchetta. A former racecar driver and executive at the Nashville division of DreamWorks Records, Borchetta discovered Swift when she performed in a showcase at Nashville’s hallowed Bluebird Café. Sheffield recounts how vocally thankful Swift was towards Borchetta in the early days of her career. In her Fearless Notes, Swift wrote “Scott Borchetta, thank you for believing in me since I was 14, and still trying to straighten my hair. You’re family” (30). This brief note provides insight into the closeness of Swift and Borchetta’s relationship in its earliest stages, when Swift was very young and needed supportive guidance to navigate the industry.

Swift’s contract with Big Machine ended in 2017 after the release of her sixth album, Reputation. This marked the fulfillment of her 2006 contract with the label, which promised ownership of Swift’s first six albums to Big Machine, without the opportunity for Swift to purchase her masters until all six releases had occurred. Unbeknownst to Swift, Big Machine executives had been in talks to sell the masters to a third party, and Big Machine was ultimately purchased by Scooter Braun’s investment firm, Ithaca Holdings, along with the masters themselves. This deal upset Swift and inspired her to rerecord the six albums in order to regain control of her own music. Amid the controversy, Borchetta claimed that “Taylor had every chance in the world to own not just her master recordings, but every video, photograph, everything associated to her career. She chose to leave” (Scott Borchetta, “So, It’s Time for Some Truth,” Big Machine Label Group, 2019). Swift vehemently denied this claim, and was open about how the sale soured her relationship with Borchetta, writing, “Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words ‘Scooter Braun’ escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to. He knew what he was doing; they both did. Controlling a woman who didn’t want to be associated with them. In perpetuity” (Taylor Swift via Tumblr, June 30th, 2019). In a book that addresses the issues of autonomy that Swift and other women in the music industry face, Borchetta’s authority over the trajectory of Swift’s career and control over her profits epitomizes the misogynistic power dynamic that favors male record executives over their female signatories.

Samuel “Scooter” Braun (b. 1981) is an American record executive and talent manager, most famous for his management of big-name artists like Kanye West and Ariana Grande. He is also credited with discovering Justin Bieber in 2008. Braun grew up in Connecticut in a Conservative Jewish household. His management career began while he was attending Emory University, when he began organizing high-profile parties, including afterparties for tours featuring Ludacris, Eminem, and Britney Spears.

In 2019, Braun’s investment firm purchased Big Machine Records, a deal which included the rights to the masters of Taylor Swift’s first six albums. Swift was incensed that she had not been offered the chance to purchase her own masters before the deal occurred. But she was particularly dismayed that the masters were being sold to Braun in light of his association with Kanye West. Braun managed West at the time of the notorious 2016 release of his song, “Famous,” which contains the controversial lines,

I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex

Why? I made that bitch famous

(Goddamn!)

I made that bitch famous.

Adding insult to injury, the song’s music video featured a group of lifelike wax figures depicting celebrities naked in bed together, including one of Swift. Following Braun’s acquisition of Big Machine Records, Swift denounced his involvement with the song and video, writing in a post on Tumblr, “His client, Kanye West, organized a revenge porn music video which strips my body naked. Now Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy. Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it” (Taylor Swift via Tumblr). Braun thus emerges as one of the primary antagonists in Swift’s career-long mission to achieve total autonomy, though as Sheffield notes, the massive success of her “Taylor’s Version” project has firmly outshined the initial controversy that inspired it.