Taylor Swiftfelt the fatigue start to settle in at the end of her1989tour.
I think people might need a break from me.
At the beginning of that tour in May,1989had already been out for seven months.
Taylor Swift during her Eras Tour stop at BC Place in Vancouver on Dec. 6Kevin Winter/TAS24/Getty Images
Swift had three number one singles that spent a collective 12 weeks at Number One on theBillboardHot 100.
She was the most famous she had ever been, her pop songs indisputably great.
It wasnt just Swifts biggest live tour ever.
It wasthebiggest live tour ever, earning more than$2 billionin ticket sales.
But the term feels insignificant in the aftermath ofthe Eras Tour.
Can something so widespread be described as a phase?
The album itself spent four weeks at number one.
Nearly three million people attended the 53-dateReputationtour, which saw the musician selling out stadiums for the first time.
Still, that particular era felt more contained.
In hindsight, framing the album as a scathing revenge record did it a disservice.
The songs werent as culturally ubiquitous and Swift was notably disheartened whenReputationwas shut out of major Grammy Awards categories.
It seemed to take the Eras Tour for people to come around to it.
Recentering Swifts catalogue was perhaps the greatest triumph of the Eras Tour.
Over the duration of the tour, Swifts follower count on Instagram increased by more than 30 million users.
Its impossible to imagine the response to that record feeling as subdued as the original did.
The run consisted almost entirely of festival sets at staple events like Glastonbury and BST Hyde Park.
Four were headlining stadium shows, her first sinceReputation.
The demand that preceded the on-sale alone painted the live show as anevent of a lifetime.
She released an accompanying feature-length concert film first in theaters and later on Disney+.
Never had it been easier to access Swift on the basis of her artistry alone.
None of it was loud enough to penetrate the volume of the crowds.
This isnt a level that Swift has operated at before.
Its a tier of celebrity that instills a sense of permanence, one she cant move backwards from.
None of its songs, singles or otherwise, were as widely popular as herMidnightsrun.
She no longer has to break through to be the dominating force in pop.
The music is woven too deeply into the fabric of their being.
Her wins have become theirs and the Eras Tour is their biggest yet.
For them, it isnt a phase.
