Taylor Swift
American singer-songwriter

It’s been a week now since Taylor Swift swooped into town for a pair of shows at U.S. Bank Stadium that drew about 128,000 fans and all but dominated local media for days.

And yet, still, I hear people who dismiss her. She’s just for teen girls. She’s not talented. She’s a fraud. And so on.

I’ve been writing professionally about music for 28 years now and I’ve covered teen pop concerts since the days of ‘N Sync. I’ve seen it all, including that time when I went to a Kidz Bop concert alone and endured icy stares the entire show. But I’ve never seen anything like the 33-year-old Taylor Swift.

For those still unconvinced, hear me out.

She’s a talented songwriter
Swift learned to play the guitar when she was 12 and, soon after, began writing her own songs, inspired by the likes of Shania Twain and Dolly Parton. She convinced her parents to move to Nashville, where she worked with experienced songwriters to hone her craft, including Liz Rose, who once described the pair’s after-school writing sessions as “some of the easiest I’ve ever done. Basically, I was just her editor. She’d write about what happened in school that day. She had such a clear vision of what she was trying to say. And she’d come in with the most incredible hooks.”

From the start, Swift wrote about her life and her passions in a way that connected with her peers like few other musicians. She also wasn’t afraid to evolve. After issuing three multi-platinum albums and 17 hit singles in the country genre, Swift began exploring other sounds with 2012’s “Red,” which in turn expanded her audience and helped turn her into a worldwide star.

It seemed like she might have peaked after 2019’s somewhat tepid “Lover,” but she surprised everyone by taking a pandemic-inspired turn into indie-folk with her 2020 albums “Folklore” and “Evermore,” and worked with unlikely collaborators like the National’s Aaron Dessner and Justin “Bon Iver” Vernon. She has a reputation for using her romantic relationships as song fodder, but in 2020 she looked outside her own life for lyrical inspiration.

While she does the majority of her writing with partners, she wrote her third album, 2010’s “Speak Now,” entirely on her own. Her “(Taylor’s Version)” take on the record is due out Friday. (More on her re-recordings in a bit.)

She knows what it’s like to be a fan
Swift’s debut single, 2006’s “Tim McGraw,” was inspired by her love of a Tim McGraw song. She knows what it’s like to be the one staring up at the stage.