Capital Pictures/Capital Pictures/Sipa USAIn between looking picture-perfect and throwing adorable parties for her famous friends, Taylor Swift managed to pen a convincing argument as to why the music business—in the face of pirating, digital downloads, online streaming and declining album sales—isn't entirely a lost cause.
And yes, the pop-country superstar weaves a love story throughout.
"Before I tell you my thoughts on the matter, you should know that you're reading the opinion of an enthusiastic optimist: one of the few living souls in the music industry who still believes that the music industry is not dying...it's just coming alive," Swift writes in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published online Monday.
While she acknowledges that all of the above factors are contributing to an unfamiliar landscape for longtime recording artists, what is growing in its place isn't the worst thing, because now fans "are buying only the [albums] that hit them like an arrow through the heart or have made them feel strong or allowed them to feel like they really aren't alone in feeling so alone."
Case in point: Swift's platinum album sales and rabid fan base that seeks solace in her ripped-from-her-diary songs.
"There are always going to be those artists who break through on an emotional level and end up in people's lives forever," she continues. "The way I see it, fans view music the way they view their relationships. Some music is just for fun, a passing fling (the ones they dance to at clubs and parties for a month while the song is a huge radio hit, that they will soon forget they ever danced to). Some songs and albums represent seasons of our lives, like relationships that we hold dear in our memories but had their time and place in the past."
Indeed, Swift's breakthrough hit was the unassuming breakup tune "Tim McGraw," about a long-gone relationship whose memory is triggered by the strains of a song by the titular country superstar.
"However, some artists will be like finding 'the one,'" she writes. "We will cherish every album they put out until they retire and we will play their music for our children and grandchildren. As an artist, this is the dream bond we hope to establish with our fans. I think the future still holds the possibility for this kind of bond, the one my father has with the Beach Boys and the one my mother has with Carly Simon."
Also from her own personal experience as a country crossover star with 41.7 million Twitter followers, Swift notes that strictly defined musical genres are "fading into the gray" and that social media will increasingly dictate the order of the day.
"In the future, artists will get record deals because they have fans—not the other way around," she writes.
"I predict that some things will never change," Swift concludes.
"There will always be an increasing fixation on the private lives of musicians, especially the younger ones. Artists who were at their commercial peak in the '70s, '80s and '90s tell me, 'It was never this crazy for us back then!' And I suspect I'll be saying that same thing to younger artists someday (God help them). There continues to be a bad girl vs. good girl/clean-cut vs. sexy debate, and for as long as those labels exist, I just hope there will be contenders on both sides. Everyone needs someone to relate to."
And, true to form, the 24-year-old singer and aspiring domestic goddess signs off with, "And I'd also like a nice garden."