Bonus tracks, new video, a Spotify crash: Swift’s ‘Midnights’ is full of surprises
The pop star-turned-filmmaker has a message for those who feel her music “wasn’t meant to be a movie.”
When Beyonce releases her new movie, 13, it will be one of the biggest releases of the year.
It’s expected to be a critical and commercial success, and there’s little question that it will sell well in the U.S. It’s been seen by more than 8.2 million people in its first week, the second biggest ever for a movie opening in the U.S.
There’s a reason for that. In the seven years since it first released, Swift has taken the music video game by storm.
Swift’s fans are legion. Her fans have come online to beg her to record a music video for nearly every track on her most recent seven albums. On Twitter, fans have begged her to turn her songs into videos – and, not surprisingly, Swift has obliged.
In the past, Swift has taken on projects that were far from her favorite ones, like an album of music from the ’80s (a project that’s now legendary) and a video to “You Belong with Me.” It was one of her most hated videos – people called it “gawky,” “embarrassing,” “tacky” and “cheesy.”
And then there’s Swift’s last major music video, to “You Are My Best Friend” last year. It took three months to shoot, cost $6 million and garnered an astounding 1.5 million views.
In the end, everyone loved the video, and Swift emerged from it like she had won the video game.
But she didn’t – not only did it not earn her money back, it didn’t even make her enough money to cover her production costs.
Instead, Swift took the money — $700,000, to be precise – and invested it into a music