There’s Nothing Like This: The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift

This is a “business biography” of Taylor Swift. It looks at her career through a business lens, ignoring her personal life, and anything that happened before she broke out in Nashville 20-some-odd years ago.

The book works through all her albums, and all the major events of her career. It discusses the highs and lows of her record sales, her awards, and her business decisions. In particular, it goes into depth about her leaving Big Machine and that company then selling her masters to Scooter Braun. I have a pretty good understanding of that whole mess now.

It was written by an editor at the Harvard Business Review, and it purports to examine her career from the standpoint of marketing and start-ups – what decisions did she make that got her were she is now?

Honestly, that part is a little forced. The author keeps trying to imply that all her decisions where thought out in advance and are representative of larger business concepts, but I just wasn’t buying that. I feel like Taylor kinda does what she wants, and it’s worked out, when it could have just as easily gone the other way.

In his attempt to retrofit some grand strategy, some of the references he pulls in are inadvertently funny. I promise you that Paul Graham from Y Combinator never thought he would be quoted in a book about Taylor Swift.

Despite some of the weird business stuff, it’s still quite a good book. I liked that fact that it mostly ignores her personal life, except when that intersects with her business life – like the Kanye mess at the VMAs, for example. There was some blowback there that had business implications.

Additionally, despite the Taylor focus, it’s a good look at the music business in general. Good read.

Book Info