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

Taylor Swift’s meteoric rise over the past almost two decades has been studied from a number of angles, but here, Evers (a Harvard Business Review editor) offers a unique perspective that treats Swift as a business entity as well as a creative one. The book is organized chronologically into nine distinct sections, each covering a particular period of Swift’s career, from her original RCA development deal at age 13 through the Eras tour and her latest releases. While Swift wasn’t studying these business school cases or strategies herself, Evers’s book highlights core business concepts to discuss her strategic decisions, from choosing cowriters and cultivating parasocial relationships with her fans via social media, to her reinventions with each new album and the negotiations over her masters and rerecordings. While Evers didn’t interview Swift for this work, his synthesis of original research, business analysis, and previous interviews to explore Swift’s position at the nexus of business, innovation, and creativity is excellent. Extensive footnotes and references complete the work.