Taylor Swift followers in Melbourne, Australia take photographs of tickets to a live performance through the singer’s record-breaking Eras Tour in 2024.
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This essay first appeared within the NPR Music publication. Enroll for early entry to articles like this one, Tiny Desk exclusives, listening suggestions and extra.
Final week, as I mindlessly scrolled by means of the feeds on my telephone, I got here throughout one thing that raised my eyebrows. The pleasantly time-sucking information abstract web site Research Finds provided me an article titled “Live performance Ticket Economics: The Surprising Quantities Followers Are Paying for Stay Songs in 2025.” This aggregated article highlighted a not-very-rigorous examine by the web service GIGACalculator appraising the value of reveals by mega-mainstream artists, damaged down into value per music. Lana Del Rey was the priciest get as a result of her reveals are quick — underneath 90 minutes — and her songs are lengthy. “Followers shell out a staggering $16.02 per music they hear,” the web site reported.
Recognizing the overall fluff of such analyses, I used to be nonetheless struck by what this measure of musical worth steered. The examine, comparable to it’s, pinpoints it because the variety of acquainted songs delivered. This mathematical strategy belies any notion of the live performance as an expertise whose rewards may not be quantifiable — as an opportunity to be round different followers, immerse in no matter story a favourite artist is telling by means of a specific tour and easily benefit from the vibes generated by being within the room with a beloved artist. It is music as diet, with an emphasis on protein.
Distinction this by-the-numbers breakdown with an precise live performance expertise I had final week. The legendary singer-songwriter Paul Simon was midway by means of the primary of three nights at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium when drummer Matt Chamberlain settled into the sunshine Jamaican rhythm of Simon’s 1977 hit “Slip Slidin’ Away.” The viewers, which had sat quietly for half one of many program — a full efficiency of Simon’s pretty, shifting however not very catchy latest music suite Seven Psalms — was clearly itching to attach with a well-recognized melody, and by the music’s second refrain was becoming a member of in a sing-along. Then, earlier than the refrain’s third line, the raised voices pale out.
Simon hadn’t made any silencing gestures; to me it appeared that his followers had seemingly made a silent mutual determination that what the artist wanted at that second was their consideration, not their raised voices. The respectfully receptive temper remained till late within the set, when Simon provided a string of hits that no fan might resist — “Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard” was made for listeners to try to attain that falsetto excessive word on “Ro-o-sie!” within the refrain. This was music as communion, a present given by an artist and returned by means of an viewers’s delicate response.
I supply these two tales to focus on the contrasting conceptions of what constitutes fandom in 2025. Within the first case, the fan is a buyer searching for one of the best deal. Within the second, she is a patron, supporting a inventive favourite not solely with cash however by means of sustained consideration and care. Each phrases stick the artist inside a considerably servile place, delivering items, however the latter feels extra genteel and presumably extra sustaining. “Buyer” implies a one-way relationship, with the artist forged as a vendor; “patron” suggests an ongoing connection by means of which a fan ardently helps an artist for a time or over an entire profession.
Beatles followers ready for a glimpse of the band exterior a tv studio in Teddington, close to London, in 1964.
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There’s an fascinating debate within the library world about such definitions and the way they have an effect on interactions inside that area. “Patron” is extra conventional and, research have proven, most well-liked by older library goers; some librarians, nonetheless, recoil from its historic implications, which place the patron above those that serve them. “Buyer” feels casual and proper to guests underneath 35, however professionals fear that its use might undermine values like privateness and mental freedom by suggesting libraries reply to market calls for. Over time librarians have steered different phrases: person, consumer, customer, member. None describe all of the methods individuals interact with libraries — some with nice loyalty, others solely when needed, most in several methods at completely different factors of their lives. A younger mom could consider herself as a patron when she brings her children to story time each Friday and spends 50 {dollars} at her department’s annual ebook sale, whereas a neighborhood whose pc is on the fritz and who must fill out a type could strictly stay a buyer.
This detour into Library World (considered one of my favourite locations!) sheds fascinating mild on what the time period “fandom” would possibly comprise. It is turn out to be central to most discussions of twenty first century music tradition, following the shift within the leisure financial system from a reasonably standard trade mannequin to a extra service-based one. Within the period of bodily recordings, a set schedule decided releases and excursions and artists might stay considerably faraway from their audiences past the live performance corridor and thoroughly managed public appearances.
At this time, “all the time on” artists should be much more conscious of their followers’ needs. This implies offering extra music, but additionally many different technique of consumption and interplay, from VIP live performance experiences to TikTok movies, particular merch strains, and, for an growing variety of artists, OnlyFans or Patreon accounts that grant direct entry. A lot commentary exists on the ever-growing energy of the fan, however I am eager about how followers negotiate this partly actual, partly imagined surge in affect, and what it means for artists at a second when their function in society has by no means been much less clear.
Making use of the phrases of the library debate to music fandom, I can see pluses and minuses for each. Let’s simply deal with “buyer” and “patron” proper now. For many of latest historical past, followers have primarily been prospects — extremely invested ones, however prospects nonetheless. They purchased data, went to reveals, wore their bands’ t-shirts — however, remoted occurrences like Beatlemania apart, did not anticipate to have precise relationships with the artists whose music they cherished.
This was manageable, however the wall that the system created brought on some issues. It enclosed high artists inside a bubble accessible solely to the chosen few; that is how groupies turned a phenomenon and an unofficial music-business “security valve,” an antidote to the loneliness of the highway that forged girls (and a few younger males) as helpmeets and playthings. (In 1973, Brian Eno known as the provision of groupies “bone remedy,” including, “They fulfill a necessity and are used and are helpful.”) Moreover, the buyer mannequin supplied little sustenance for much less mainstream artists, who needed to both depend on the communal spirit of their subcultural scenes, like people or punk, or battle in a bizarre zone the place the promise of extra all the time beckoned however materials comforts have been few.
Because the music trade bought bloated, then retracted, then bought bloated once more, these subcultures helped rather a lot — I am fascinated with the “get within the van” spirit of indie rock, which broke down the wall of glamor round music stardom as bands took to crashing in followers’ residing rooms on self-booked excursions and leaping into mosh pits throughout reveals. In such circles, followers turned patrons, they usually stay so for teams nonetheless touring after a long time; the new meal they as soon as purchased your favourite indie band after a present would possibly now be a subscription to the band’s Patreon or Substack.
In 2019, a fan embraces a billboard-sized picture of BTS exterior the stadium the place the group performed the ultimate live performance in its world tour.
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As soon as the Internet got here to dominate our day by day lives and bodily media began to recede as a moneymaker, patronage took over. Feeling comparatively pure for grassroots and mid-level artists who’d already relied on the sustenance of fan loyalty, it posed fascinating challenges to musicians who ascended to the mainstream. The wave of teenage acts within the early 2000s have been the primary to go digital, chatting on specifically designated bulletin boards, however they weren’t totally interactive. Taylor Swift modified that. She gamified the connection whereas additionally nodding backward to The Beatles, who’d perfected the artwork of the meet-and-greet a long time earlier; her 2014 cookie-baking marketing campaign will go down in historical past as a paradigm shifter.
Swift’s cultivation of her followers was the brand new mannequin, and flipped the patronage idea on its historicized head: She was the royal granting visitations to her topics and the commissioned artist hiding easter eggs in her songs for them to search out. The Okay-Pop wave of the mid-2010s perfected Swift’s strikes as BTS and different teams constructed complete on-line worlds round their personae and invited followers in, actually, establishing non-public chatrooms and different on-line environments the place (it appeared at the least) artists talked on to their followers. Round this time, the sociological time period “parasocial relationship” turned commonplace, up to date from its first use, describing imagined connections viewers fashioned with tv present characters, to embody the numerous methods followers work together with — or appear to work together with — the artists they love.
Inside this evolution, a latent function for followers who cared sufficient to be patrons emerged: that of the advocate. The much-trumpeted energy of present fandom is generally associated to this function. Followers coordinate to assist their favourite artists rating excessive on the Billboard charts and outsell their rivals in tour tickets, to win awards and intensify their media presence. Establishments and firms have responded to this shift within the ecosystem. The Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame, for instance, launched a “fan vote” class on its poll in 2013. 11 out of the 13 winners of that fan vote have made it into the Corridor since then.
Advocacy and patronage have now blended collectively, particularly with regards to artists who aren’t within the celebrity one per cent, as fandom has been imbued with a robust sense of mission. For musicians exterior the mainstream, platforms like Patreon, Bandcamp, Cameo and GoFundme have turn out to be important sources of earnings. Particularly when musicians share their vulnerabilities — their sicknesses, their monetary issues, the crises attributable to a van getting stolen or a band member’s visa being denied — interplay on these platforms invitations followers to point out up as supporters, providing not solely monetary assist however publicity and even one thing extra, like writing a letter to a congressional consultant.
The Internet’s extremely personalised platforms take parasocial relationships into a brand new realm; the road between an actual interplay and an imaginary one can turn out to be blurred. My colleague Isabella Gomez Sarmiento’s latest piece on musicians turning to the gentle porn-leaning platform OnlyFans reveals each how issues have modified and the way, for ladies artists, particularly, all of it feels acquainted. She quotes the great people musician Lizzie No, whose OnlyFans choices have ranged from the mildly erotic to the satisfyingly emotional. “I am studying rather a lot about what persons are prepared to pay for and what individuals take into account to be beneficial, which is definitely actually stunning,” No informed Gomez Sarmiento. “It has been extremely empowering to have the ability to monetize that digital intimacy that folks have been taking without spending a dime for a very long time.”
That is new territory for fandom. The encroachment of the parasocial on each stage and side of music tradition calls for a robust consideration of what is moral. Newly minted stars like Chappell Roan have expressed exhaustion on the stage of entry followers appear to demand, even asking, at instances, that their champions lay off. Kelsea Ballerini’s music is unusually confessional for a mainstream nation artist, and she or he has been open about her troublesome divorce from fellow musician Morgan Evans. On her present tour, nonetheless, she’s challenged followers who’ve screamed obscenities directed at Evans when she’s carried out songs about their breakup. “I sing the music for you now,” she stated to at least one crowd. “It is not about me anymore.”
An ethic of fandom would come with cultivating consciousness of what really helps an artist versus what feels good to a fan. Past that, I believe, it might contain followers educating themselves concerning the more and more exploitative economics of the music trade and imagining how musicians match inside society basically — as staff, residents, members of assorted intersectional communities, and other people with households, private and creative objectives, and emotional lives of their very own. Some people I do know are organizing alongside these strains proper now as the Fan Alliance, striving to attach the enjoyable of fandom to artist advocacy within the financial and political realms.
The reality is, most followers transfer among the many positions of buyer, fan and advocate over months or years of supporting favourite artists. A newly engaged fanatic could be a part of a web based Military or Hive; she would possibly turn out to be immersed, make mates there, even make it a middle of her life. Or she might get bored after just a few months and retreat into one thing extra like a buyer relationship. A musician’s publicly shared struggles usually encourage a wave of advocacy; quotidian wants that construct up over time, nonetheless, usually go unnoticed. A fan could really feel a heat glow after 50 {dollars} buys her a t-shirt at Tier 3 of a donation web page, but when she makes use of a streaming service to play the music she loves, she’s collaborating within the new financial system that truly makes artists needy.
Followers of Taylor Swift pose for a selfie in entrance of the “Swiftie Steps,” a mural created by the British artist Frank Types exterior Wembley Stadium, earlier than one of many London live shows throughout Swift’s Eras Tour in August 2024.
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For many followers, the choice to behave in a specific approach is emotional, not essentially grounded in a higher consciousness of the enterprise of music. But music conglomerates do modify to fandom’s altering nature. The stranglehold just a few superstars have over leisure media, dominating playlists, protection and particular appearances, is partly a response to extremely targeted fan tradition. Take into consideration how very energetic fan teams communicate up (and act) just for their explicit stars, usually actively partaking in imagined “wars” between high acts. When a fan perceives herself as deeply loyal to at least one artist, that may forestall her from paying a lot consideration to others. The one-time music client who listened to the radio and went to a file retailer to discover an array of choices turns into the stan who solely needs extra from her fave. That is not wholesome for the music financial system as an entire — and definitely not so for many working artists.
I considered this complicated net of meanings at that Paul Simon live performance, watching an artist who has achieved icon standing, but who nonetheless should ask for grace from his followers. At 83, Simon continues to be in a position to bust out some cautious dance strikes whereas performing “Graceland,” however his voice cracks every now and then, and most importantly, listening to loss has made it troublesome for him to listen to his musical collaborators onstage. One cause for the notably intense feeling of solidarity with him on the Ryman, I believe, was the band’s diligence; each member of this massive ensemble was doing his or her finest to create an area wherein Simon might thrive. These gamers have been performing, however they have been additionally exhibiting what collaboration can appear like at its most intent and least performative. That in itself requested loads of the viewers. Possibly that is why individuals took a breath earlier than they overpowered Simon with a singalong. And perhaps this acceptance of even a vastly well-known musician’s bodily being, that unavoidable openness to each love and hurt, is the beginning of a higher consciousness of how fandom can translate into precise neighborhood: not by means of shows of energy or the momentary of shared enthusiasm, however by means of care and respect.
