The 1000th post: What have we learned so far?

Hello Taylor Nation,

Here at the Swift Agency, still one guy who… ok let’s be honest I didn’t expect to get to one thousand posts… with a readership. I did expect the numbers to go down after the Speak Now Tour was over, but with so many news and rumors floating around I still find a niche for this blog. The most important reason is I still like writing it.

After one thousand posts, what have I learn? Well…

I’ve learned that getting an interview with the Sparkly Dressed is close to impossible. She’s booked solid all the time. She’s always doing something or going somewhere, so chances for improvisation are few and far between. That doesn’t mean she’s stressed. To use her own expression, “my life is busy, but not hard.”

The Agency band members are very close to a family, and they’ll always be nice to you when they can, however remember this is their job – they can’t break the rules for you and they can only do or say so much. There’s a saying I’ve heard a few times that goes: “If you treat someone like a celebrity, don’t be surprised if they act like one.” It’s just like meeting anybody else. Just be yourself and be kind.

I don’t want to sound like a Mr. Know-It-All but… there’s a lot of banter and kidding around that people don’t get and never will. I remember on an early review of the Fearless Tour, I once mentioned Grant said he had come out to meet me because I was dressed in a suit. When I mentioned that in a blog, I heard back from people in Taylor Connect that I was boasting that the entire Agency came out just to see me. No, I was not boasting and I know Grant wasn’t being serious. Nowadays, I just don’t tell you about that kind of banter anymore because I know it gets misunderstood pretty easily.

People like pictures and I’m happy to provide them, but I like to put a little bit of a crowbar separation between a picture that has a source (photographer, news agency or source website) and pictures obtained from family/friends that are only accessible via privacy settings. Case and point, you managed to get a friend of Taylor’s team in Facebook and suddenly you have access to all this private pictures – I would consider it a bit intrusive to publish those in a post.I try to bring you news that have a source and pictures with the credit given to the photographer. Regarding pictures, I have a disclaimer for using commercial stuff based on the license for fair use for purposes of commentary and news reporting. To further demonstrate this, I don’t receive a single dime when you visit this site and any external links come from WordPress.com. As a matter of fact, it costs me money: I pay for the domain and recently had to up the storage space. You can even subscribe to this site to get email updates and it won’t cost you a dime.

Although I try to keep standards regarding what I report on and how I report it, I don’t believe myself better than other pages that don’t bother with the stuff. I am not judging them. However, I do make an issue out of celebrity gossip sites that make money out of making stories up or misreporting the news to get views. I just don’t buy into that stuff.

That being said, I’m often on the fence if it turns out that I’m doing Rumor Control because if I have to mention where the rumor comes from – which means that I could be directing traffic to them. I trust you’ll know I’m not recommending them.

The mythic fourth album… There’s way too many questions regarding it, but very little answers. We know it’s going to be October, 2012. We guess she’s probably do something during the release week that might involve New York, Los Angeles or both based on the release week that Speak Now had. We’ve heard from Scott Borchetta regarding plans for doing something in 2013 CMA Fest as well as a tour based around this album. There are no specifics. If I knew them, I’d tell you. For sure. Honest.

I like doing Review Corners about other artists’ work and Showcases to shine the light on them. Some are often overlooked and others I just think they are just too cool to ignore. It’s not that I think that I’m doing them a huge service, I don’t have that large of a readership – but they’re really cool readers so I’d like them to know. I do have my favorites such as Mallary Hope (hey Mal, that album ready yet?) and The Civil Wars, but I’m not afraid to highlight other people as well. I prefer to do this out of my own initiative, though (no blog requests, please!).

This has nothing to do with anything, but I want Tay to walk into the Country Music Hall of Fame and ask for her sparkly guitar back soon. She’s going to need it again.

And there’s no Ninja Department. See, I’ll demonstrate by putting this piece of cake on the table and… oops, it’s gone. Hmm.

Coming up in the Calendar!

• June 27: B.o.B premieres his video for Both Of Us featuring Taylor Swift on MTV.
• July 2: James Taylor performs at Tanglewood with a surprise and possibly Sparkly Dressed guest.
• July 22: The Teen Choice Awards 2012 air live (8:00-10:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed) on FOX. Taylor Swift is nominated for Choice Female Artist, Choice Single by a Female Artist for Eyes Open, Choice Female Country Artist and Choice Country Song for Sparks Fly. You can vote here.

(Sources: TheSwiftAgency.com)