I watched "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour"
This is a review of the outfits worn by the microphones in the concert.
Teju Cole wrote in Open City that “the sufferers of (paranoid schizophrenia) were good storytellers because they engaged in world building. Within the parameters of their own realities, these worlds were remarkably consistent: they only looked crazy from the outside.” While Taylor Swift’s strength as an artist is the honesty of her songwriting, her strength as a demagogue is her extreme dedication to worldbuilding. This woman is, and I say this as a fan of her music, possessed by delusions of grandeur recalling those of a paranoid schizophrenic. The Eras show (and the accompanying release of the concert film, on her birthday, to stream for $19.89), along with other bits like the Midnights micro-universe of special editions and a Kabbalah of Swiftian Easter eggs, are just some of the components of her oligarchical mythmaking.
Taylor, perhaps befitting of anybody subject to the developmentally crystallizing effect of achieving superstardom in adolescence, seems to genuinely favor an aesthetic that combines Christian Louboutin with what the majorette of a high school marching band might be required to wear. She has no idea how cringe her “who, me?” (her own words mouthed to an audience of 70,000) act is, and if anybody in her entourage gave her this feedback, they were probably fired after getting their part of a famous $55 million in bonuses. But I am not here to discuss Taylor Swift’s concert outfits. I am here to talk about what the microphones wore.
Called upon to elevate a complement of bedazzled bodysuits, Junior Miss pantyhose, and limp bangs, the microphones’ toiling wardrobe is the real MVP of Eras1. The set list opens with the Lover album, or as we are entreated to call it by the megachurch of Taylor, the Lover [E]ra. The microphone wears pastel multicolor ombre, wisely eschewing a redundance of rhinestones. Fearless is next, and the microphone dons monochromatic black to form a sharp visual contrast with Taylor’s gold dress in a callback to her 2006 “Picture to Burn” look.2
In the next era, evermore, the microphone is a sort of shabby-chic sponge-painted rust color, complementing a moss-covered concert grand piano. Then it is swapped for a clip-on setup so that we can watch Taylor Swift set a table and crawl around on top of it for “tolerate it”. For Reputation, the microphone is decked head to toe in black rhinestones and accessorized with an oxblood snake, in keeping with Taylor lore. Her dancers, dressed to represent each of her hits made under Big Machine, are locked in individual little plexiglass boxes fighting to get free, a spectacle with the accessibility of a nation-state’s propaganda project.
The Speak Now set is brief, and the microphone is simple. From there we go into Red. The microphone is covered in bright red glitter. Taylor gives her hat to Bianka Bryant in a show of localist pandering (this is being filmed in LA) that overestimates her creative ownership over the concept of a black fedora. She changes into a red glitter bodysuit topped with a floor length red glitter coat and picks up a guitar covered in red glitter. The red glitter microphone is placed onto a stand that also wears head to toe red glitter for “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)”, a recording that does for my inner (Straight) (Rich) (White) woman what “You’re On Your Own Kid” does for Stevie Nicks, but there is too much red glitter in this live performance and it is distracting me from the possibility of feeling moved.
folklore is next, and the microphone for this era is a monochromatic glossy brown, clutched by Taylor Swift sitting on the roof of a whole ass house. She unironically declares herself “a lonely millennial woman covered in cat hair”, then ends the act with a big dramatic sigh at the end of “my tears ricochet”. This woman will literally never forgive Scott Borchetta for selling her masters, and the relentlessness of her affected victimhood over being dealt a workplace setback a few years ago is making her paradoxically more and less relatable to me.
The 1989 era brings us another ombre microphone look sans sparkles. Then Taylor announces the acoustic set. The microphone is dressed down as Taylor plays “Our Song” on an acoustic guitar and “You’re On Your Own Kid” on an upright piano. For the final act, Midnights, the microphone opts for a matte navy blue, a counterpoint to the multiple sequined bodysuit/boots/outerwear combos that conclude this last Era.
The scope of the show exceeds that of a tour embarked upon simply to stay relevant or make one billion dollars. The plain conceit is autohagiography. Taylor has taken things way past the time-tested formula of marrying a confessional country-like songwriting approach to the egomania of pop music. She has developed schizophrenia-level skills of storytelling/worldbuilding and amassed the resources to cultivate a following that cling to the folie a deux with religious fervor. The Eras tour marks the consolidation phase of Taylor Swift myth making. There are two more (Taylor’s Version) re-recordings to go, and who knows what comes after that. A Swiftie rapture? A civilization-ending proxy war?3 This woman thinks she invented the hand heart, and she is going to be around for a long, long, time.
I still can’t not pronounce it “E-RAS” or not think of the Expedited Recovery After Surgery pathway and/or the Electronic Residency Application Service®; how do I sue her for emotional distress?
RIP homophobic version of this song, which the Taylor Ministry of Truth has scrubbed from the recorded universe and now exists only in fan deep cuts
besides the NFL, which she has already captured
Watched the Eras tour last week - the first time I had ever watched Taylor Swift. Am convinced a civilization ending proxy war is fully within her control.
“ But I am not here to discuss Taylor Swift’s concert outfits. I am here to talk about what the microphones wore” I died