It’s been quite the year for Taylor Swift. More accurately, it’s been an impressive last few months. The singer/songwriter got engaged to Travis Kelce and released her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, at the beginning of the month. It predictably sold a ton of copies, setting records and further cementing Swift’s status as the leader of an impossibly large fanbase. That fanbase showed up and showed out at her recent tour, the Eras Tour, which is now set to get a behind-the-scenes docuseries.

Taylor Swift Announces Docuseries for Legendary Eras Tour

The Eras Tour, which is officially over and done now, was one of the biggest and most successful music tours of all time. Fans showed up in droves at every single stop Taylor Swift made, singing along with songs from every one of her albums for several hours into the night. For two reasons, it’s very unsurprising that there’s a docuseries coming up, as Swift confirmed it this morning.

She said in the promo for the series via Yahoo!, “People like to talk about phenomenons almost as if it was pieces falling into place, as if it just happened. The Eras Tour wasn’t when all the pieces fell into place. This tour was just when every single one of us who had done so much work, pushing, inch by inch, to where we all clicked together. The only thing left is to close the book.”

The series is set to release on December 12 on Disney+. This is not a surprise whatsoever. For starters, it’s the most successful tour ever, and there’s endless footage and behind-the-scenes access and content that was already recorded. That would ultimately go to waste, and there’s certainly a demand for this.

Secondly, though, Swift is all about making money. She’s become a billionaire through her music, but it’s savvy capitalist practices that have really driven that up. If there’s an opportunity to provide a product for anyone, Swift will usually take it, and I say that as someone who’s long been a huge fan of hers. It’s maybe a little disappointing, but that’s the capitalist world we live in and Swift arguably runs in a way.

The Eras Tour Docuseries Reflects a Troubling Trend

If you’re not a devoted fan of Taylor Swift’s music, then you probably think she’s not all that good and that her fans are mindless devotees who don’t know good music. That’s far from the case, although the recent reception of The Life of a Showgirl has given those haters an opportunity to take a victory lap. I am a big fan of Swift and her work, but this is the first time I’ve been thoroughly disappointed by an album. She missed the mark badly, and while it’s not accurate to say, “See? I always knew she was bad,” it is fair to say that this time, she was bad.

All of this is happening recently, though. Her songwriting has been on a bit of a decline. Midnights was solid, Tortured Poets Department was worse, and The Life of a Showgirl is just not very good at all. But in that same time frame, her net worth has steadily risen, catapulting her into that rarefied billionaire air. There’s probably a direct correlation with the net worth increase and the art quality decrease.

The Eras Tour series is coming with a concert film of the final show of the tour. There was already a tour movie, though. And there’s been an album release movie that took over theaters, pushing excellent films like One Battle After Another, which ironically is a movie Swift is currently loving herself, out of showtimes. What purpose does all of this serve? Why does she put out 100 album variants, a docuseries, a second concert film, and a release party at the theater? Money.

It’s disingenuous to say Swift has always been this way. As someone who’s followed along for a very long time, this has not been the case up until a few years ago I can confirm. The person who wrote this is me trying and the last great american dynasty wasn’t as concerned with money as the person who wrote Father Figure and Wood.

There’s a cautionary tale in there about how money corrupts, and it has even trickled down to the songwriting now. She’s been all about vinyl variants and extra goodies for her fans to buy for a while, and slowly but surely, her writing has suffered for it. It’s a shame, really. The claim that she was one of the world’s best lyricists was maybe slightly exaggerated, but now it’s pretty far from the truth.

Conclusion

While it does represent a sad state of affairs for Taylor Swift now, it will be fascinating to see the backstage look at the biggest music tour ever. Those who were in attendance know how impressive it was and how much work it took, but those who weren’t interested can now have the chance to see what all the fuss was about.