Taylor Swift Declares Victory Over Her Haters at the Rose Bowl

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Rants and Raves

9 min readMay 20, 2018

With an array of negative press threatening her reputation, the megastar singer-songwriter defiantly set out on an enormous stadium tour. At Friday night’s show in Pasadena she established herself as one of the finest pop performers of her time with a near-perfect musical spectacle.

After her dynamite opening set had been performed at the Rose Bowl this past Friday, Taylor Swift took a moment to thank her fans in Southern California. She reminisced about the first show she played there, at the legendary Whisky a Go Go on the Sunset Strip. She was 16 at the time and estimates that approximately 43 people showed up to see her do a brief set of four self-penned country songs. Fast forward a dozen years and here she is headlining the Rose Bowl in front of an estimated 60,000 fans.

Taylor Swift’s Career: A Brief Retrospective

Whatever your feelings about Taylor Swift are — and many have very strong feelings about her artistry, her persona, and her love life — it’s impossible to deny how singular her rise has been over the past 12 years. A few months after her set at Whisky a Go Go she released her self-titled debut, which hit #1 on the country charts, sold nearly 6 million copies in the U.S., spawned hits like “Teardrops on My Guitar” and “Tim McGraw,” and garnered her a Best New Artist Grammy nomination (she lost, understandably, to the late great Amy Winehouse). Two years later she released Fearless, which hit #1 on the all genre charts, was certified diamond (for units of up 10 million having been shipped to retailers), spawned her first major crossover hits “You Belong With Me” and “Love Story,” and won her four Grammys, including Album of the Year.

In 2010, her growing success led Taylor to start infusing more elements of pop music into her work with Speak Now, another Grammy nominated mega-seller with career highlights like “Back to December” and “Mean.” Then in 2012 came the pop-dominant “Red,” which sold 1.21 million copies in its first week (at the time the second biggest opening week ever for a female musician), scored a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year, and spawned her first #1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 (“We Are Never Getting Back Together.”) The collection also featured two of her best songs, the heartbreaking breakup ballad “All Too Well” and the dubstep-infused banger “I Knew You Were Trouble.”

She fully embraced pop music with her 2014 juggernaut “1989” (named for the year of her birth, in case any of us had forgotten how much success she achieved so young.) The album broke her own sales milestone set by her previous album (she sold 1.29 million copies of the album in its first 7 days of release in the U.S. alone), spawned 3 #1 hits (“Shake It Off,” “Blank Space,” and “Bad Blood”) as well as two additional Top 10 hits (“Style” and “Wildest Dreams.”) The critically revered album won her the Grammy for Album of the Year, making her the first woman in history to win the award twice. The album was supported by an astonishingly successful tour (aptly titled The 1989 World Tour.) In seven short months, the tour played 85 shows across 4 continents to an audience of 2.28 million people and grossed an astonishing $250 million. By the end of 2015, only the likes of Adele and Beyonce could lay claim to being as big a contemporary pop star as Taylor Swift.

The reputation Era

Also by the end of 2015, backlash was brewing against Taylor. High profile feuds with celebrities like Kanye West and Katy Perry were getting more press than her music and threatening her reputation as one of “America’s Sweethearts.” Her advocacy for the right of artists to own their creative properties had many labeling her a greedy trouble maker. Her string of abruptly-ended relationships with high profile men had the tabloids labeling her a “heartbreaker” at best, “crazy” at worst. And her full embrace of pop music had many groaning that she had “sold out” and abandoned her country roots.

All of these criticism came to a head when she released her 6th studio album, reputation, last fall. Multiple songs on the album, particularly its lead single “Look What You Made Me Do,” showed Taylor as utterly defiant. She fully embraced all the nicknames and criticisms, sending them up in a music video for the lead single that is filled with more references to her biography and career than even the biggest Taylor Swift superfan could ever decode. And, as is usually the case when a powerful women stands strong and defiant in the face of criticism, she was heavily derided for it.

Nevertheless, reputation became a substantial hit. It sold 1.22 million copies in its opening week, making her the first artist in history to have three albums sell over a million copies in their opening week. (It is extra impressive that she did this in an era when record sales are at an all time low.) The lead single hit #1 and stayed there for three weeks. And while the album nor the lead single earned the same level of passionate praise from music critics as her prior two albums, it received its fair share of positive reviews and has a designation of “generally favorable reviews” from Metacritic. Despite the relatively lukewarm response to the album, she planned a huge stadium tour that itself was greeted with criticism due to its ticketing model. Nevertheless, being a fan of the artist and having been mightily impressed by her San Diego show from The 1989 World Tour, I got tickets.

“The Reputation Stadium Tour”: Review

The May 18th, 2018 performance of The Reputation Studio Tour marked Swift’s first appearance at the legendary Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California (it has been in operation since 1922, is the 17th largest stadium in the world, and is the site of the famous New Year’s parade). Upon coming into the stadium, fans knew they were in for a spectacle given the sheer massiveness of the main stage and the two satellite stages.

Things kicked off right at the listed start time of 7 P.M. with two fairy well known and highly talented opening acts. First, 25-year-old English singer-songwriter Charli XCX took the stage and did an energetic 7-song set that included hits like “Boom Clap,” “I Love It” (which she recorded with Icona Pop), and “Fancy” (which she recorded with Iggy Azalea). Then the stage was turned over to 21-year-old Cuban singer-songwriter Camila Cabello, who recently scored a #1 album and #1 single on the Billboard chart with her self-titled debut and its lead single “Havana.” Her 9-song set, highlighted by hits like “Never Be the Same,” “I’m Into It,” and “Havana,” proved that she’s the real deal — a vocal powerhouse with a charming stage presence and a knack for writing catchy pop songs.

Then it was time for Taylor. She warmed up the crowd with two high energy anthems by other female singer-songwriters that exemplified the theme of being unjustly vilified in the press (Mariah Carey’s “Obsessed” and Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation.”) The lights promptly dimmed and there was a humorous introductory video that contained a collection of various tabloid rumors and criticisms that have been lobbed at her in recent years. Then the stage opened up and Taylor and her dancers came out for a rousing rendition of reputation’s second single “…Ready For It?”.

What followed was a nearly two hour, twenty-song spectacle that never flagged in terms of energy or fan engagement. The well cultivated setlist unsurprisingly focused heavily on reputation (she played all but one of the songs on the album — “So It Goes”) but also included cuts from each of her previous 5 albums. One of the best moments of the night was when she did a medley of 1989’s “Style” and two mega-hits from Fearless — “You Belong With Me” and “Love Story.” She also did two impressive mashups where she took recent pop hits and interwove previous country hits into them. It was a clever move as it not only updated past so that they felt fresh for the audience, but also served as a reminder that “the old Taylor” and “the New Taylor” really aren’t that different after all. And she was utterly electrifying during her renditions of her latest album’s two best songs, “I Did Something Bad” and “Don’t Blame Me.”

The show itself was a spectacle of the highest order. It featured about a dozen dancers, two gigantic screens filled with special effects, flame throwers, fireworks, and two devices that aerially transported her across the stadium and back. But it wasn’t all razzle dazzle. There were intimate moments, most notably when she went to the satellite stages and sang “Dancing with My Hands Tied” and “Red” with just her guitar and when she sat down at the piano for a long talk with the audience followed by a lovely mashup of “New Year’s Day” and “Long Live.” In typical Taylor fashion there were also surprise celebrity appearances. Red hot comedienne Tiffany Haddish appeared in a hilarious video segment, opening acts Charli XCX and Camila Cabello joined Taylor for “Shake It Off,” and 19-year-old Canadian singer-songwriter Shawn Mendes made a surprise appearance to a duet of his 2017 hit “Nothing Holding Me Back.”

But visual effects and surprise guests aside, what made the show work so well was Taylor herself. Since seeing her in San Diego 3 years ago, she has grown leaps and bounds as a performer. More specifically, she has grown from a performer that despite her talent seemed somewhat out of place on such a large stage to one who can command a football stadium with ease. Although vocal range has never been and never will be her strong suit, she is stronger than ever and more willing to confidently belt. (And although she sometimes let the background singers dominate, no obvious lip syncing was ever apparent.) Although she will never rival Beyonce or Justin Timberlake with her dance moves, she now moves with competence and grace. Her chats with the audience may still be cheesy, but they are more honest and self-aware. And her creative control of nearly every aspect of the whole spectacle is readily apparent. Everything that occurred at the Rose Bowl last Friday night was authentically and unapologetically her.

Grade: A-