Critics are always bellyaching about the death of the monoculture— we no longer consume the same cultural objects at the same time or in the same way, and as a result we feel disconnected, adrift, lost. The mind-boggling inescapability of Taylor Swift’s latest endeavor—a sixty-date stadium romp known as the Eras Tour—offers one enormous exception. The tour recaps all ten of Swift’s studio albums, presenting each as an epoch, with its own elaborate sets, costumes, and vibes. (The scope of the show reinforces the hysterical demands on twenty-first-century pop stars: be something new every time you show up, or don’t show up at all.) Swift cancelled her previous tour, in 2020; the sweeping concept of this one, combined with the long delay to see her live again, guaranteed that the demand for tickets would be preposterously high. Ticketmaster bungled the rollout so badly that the company received a public talking-to from Swift herself. Not long afterward, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing to investigate whether Live Nation Entertainment, which owns both Ticketmaster and many major concert venues, has an illegal monopoly. The tour, which concludes in November, could, by some foggy estimates, make Swift a billionaire.
Denne historien er fra June 19, 2023-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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Denne historien er fra June 19, 2023-utgaven av The New Yorker.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.
LIFE ADVICE WITH ANIMAL ANALOGIES
Go with the flow like a dead fish.
CONNOISSEUR OF CHAOS
The masterly musical as mblages of Charles Ives
BEAUTIFUL DREAMERS
How the Brothers Grimm sought to awaken a nation.
THE ARTIFICIAL STATE
A different kind of machine politics.
THE HONEST ISLAND GREG JACKSON
Craint did not know when he had come to the island or why he had come.
THE SHIPWRECK DETECTIVE
Nigel Pickford has spent a lifetime searching for sunken treasure-without leaving dry land.
THE HOME FRONT
Some Americans are preparing for a second civil war.
SYRIA'S EMPIRE OF SPEED
Bashar al-Assad's regime is now a narco-state reliant on sales of amphetamines.
TUCKER EVERLASTING
Trump's favorite pundit takes his show on the road.