The showgirl era
Taylor Swift’s album, The Life of a Showgirl, was released October 3, 2025. While the album’s critical reception has been mixed – with reviews ranging from a flop to a masterpiece – the album is all but guaranteed to hold the number one spot in music charts across the world thanks to a carefully plotted marketing campaign.
Swift is a global phenomenon, and she is the subject of many researchers, music executives and musicians alike, exploring the social science of her success. It appears we have to think of pop artists like brands. They are corporations. Swift herself owns and runs a label (separate from her own recording career). Just like any other global brand like Nike, Apple, Coca-Cola, an important aspect of her work is marketing her brand and establish tie-ins and partnerships with other products.
And her influence extends far beyond music. Her recent multi-year Eras Tour employed around 10,000 temporary workers. Her company handed out a reported $197 Million in bonuses to cast and crew on Eras Tour, which grossed more than $2 billion.
As one of many examples of Swift’s influence: At her recent engagement announcement, Swift wore a black-and-white striped silk-blend dress from Polo Ralph Lauren. It sold out shortly after the announcement.
As of 2025, Swift is the highest-grossing live music artist, the wealthiest female musician, and one of the best-selling music artists of all time.
Marketing an album release
One of the researchers of the Swift phenomenon is Annayah Prosser, an assistant professor in Marketing, Business and Society at the University of Bath. She highlights some of the tactics of the Swift album release procedures.
As a marketing tactic, Swift has been criticized for releasing several limited editions of each album. The Life of a Showgirl has been no exception in its release schedule.
At time of writing, over 24 different versions of the CD and vinyl have been released. These include different color vinyls, different cover images, signed editions and, most recently, CDs with unique tracks that are not available on streaming platforms.
This marketing strategy is a powerful tool for chart success, where every album purchased (regardless of the format or cover image) is valued.
Many of these editions are released online in timed drops on Swift’s official website. They’re only available for 48 hours, or until stock runs out. This leads to a feeling of scarcity among fans, which encourages them to make impulsive purchase decisions for fear of missing out on their favorite variant.
Research has shown that neurodivergent fans are likely to experience stress and anxiety around marketing strategies similar to this. There is a thriving secondary market for these exclusive editions, and scalpers (resellers who legally buy up products and then resell them at an inflated cost) know that keen fans will pay above the recommended retail price for these editions. This encourages over-consumption and many fans may spend more money than they expect to on the new album.
Manipulating charts by offering multiple exclusive album editions is not an option that many less powerful artists have. Vinyl pressings, in particular, are extremely expensive, and not all artists can afford to do large vinyl runs, let alone with multiple variants.
Regardless of the financial drain on fans, these coercive marketing strategies currently are a driving tactic for her chart success.
It is extremely difficult for any artist to compete with such a strong industry force. Swift’s fans combined consumer spending is enough to wipe out most of her competition whenever she chooses to release her albums.
The Fate of Ophelia.
Unusually in the pop music industry, Swift’s albums do not often feature a lead single, released before the album. Many other artists use this lead single to promote their albums, and to give listeners a taste of what is to come. Swift’s releases are instead kept under sworn secrecy, with all pre-release information coming directly from the singer’s team.
While for many other artists not having a lead single may be a negative, for Swift this adds layers of mystery to her releases. It also means that everyone hears the tracks at the same time, leaving little opportunity for music aficionados to provide reviews that, among other effects, could dissuade fans from purchasing.
These embargoes have negative impacts for smaller businesses. Some independent record stores hope to host midnight launch parties had to cancel these when it became clear album shipments might not arrive on time. Nonetheless, this strategy allows Swift to control the narrative around her releases entirely, enticing fans with sneak-previews and puzzles to uncover before the release that keeps social media hype high.
Over release weekend, many fans attended Swift’s official album launch party, screened in cinemas internationally. These parties featured a sneak-peek of the upcoming music video for the album’s first track, The Fate of Ophelia, alongside behind-the-scenes commentary from Swift herself. Fans who attended these launch parties were able to see the video before anyone else.
As well as providing another avenue to advertise the album, the limited-time cinema release party creates an exclusive opportunity for Swifties to connect and celebrate the album together. The Eras Tour showed just how important it is for fans to connect with each other around these kinds of events.
At an appearance at a late night television show, just a day after the launch, both Swift and host Jimmy Fallon expressed surprise to hear the audience (primarily teenage girls) singing the songs, having memorized the lyrics of the new material already.
Where once these release parties may have been organized informally among friend groups, Swift has now transformed them into another opportunity for income and generating social media hype.
Unsurprisingly, given these tactics, many artists choose not to release music around Swift album release dates. Those artists who historically have deigned to compete, even weeks after the original release, have had their chart threatened by the release of yet more exclusive editions. For example, the release of three further exclusive editions of The Tortured Poets Department knocked singer Billie Eilish off of the charts last year, five weeks after Swift’s album’s initial release.
Off the chart’s success?
In the United States, the album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 4 million equivalent album units, marking the largest first-week total since 1991 and breaking the record previously held by Adele’s 25 album. This debut also made it Swift’s 15th No. 1 album on the Billboard 200, surpassing Drake and Jay-Z for the most No. 1 albums by a solo artist. The album’s second week at No. 1 saw 338,000 equivalent album units earned, down 92% from its debut, but still the fifth-largest second week of 2025.
The album has been certified platinum in multiple countries, including the United Kingdom, Spain, and New Zealand. In Asia, China and the Philippines are leading the engagement metrics.
Perhaps the only ‘miss’ of the marketing campaign is the release date of the album. This will be the first time since 2006 that Taylor Swift isn’t eligible for the (2026) Grammys as they missed the cut-off date of 30 August 2025.
Pop music trends
Swift’s fans combined consumer spending is enough to wipe out most of her competition in terms of financial success, whenever she chooses to release her albums.
This album roll out poses questions about the state of the music industry today. What do artists owe their fans? Is this business model sustainable? Should consumers be protected from these new forms of market exploitation? What would a fairer way of engaging in the music business look like?
Researchers, across the fields of business and society, macro-marketing and corporate social responsibility, have been considering these complex questions for decades. Fans, researchers, artists and executives look at this phenomenon and together will be determining the fate of the popular music industry and fairness of the competition within it.