Editor’s note:Arachnophonia (“Arachno” = spider / “-phonia” = sound) is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.
Finance bros and Swifties (Taylor Swift’s fans) usually don’t mix. One’s busy crying to heartbreak songs, the other’s checking the stock market a bit too much. But the book titled There’s Nothing Like This: The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift by Kevin Evers might just bring them together. It’s the rare book that proves that Taylor Swift is not just on top of the charts, but she is also running a billion-dollar brand.
The author Kevin Evers is an editor at Harvard Business Review and this book has been featured in Rolling Stone, People Magazine, US Weekly, USA Today, The Financial Times, and more. The book was named to the Financial Times “What to Read in 2025” list and was also named one of the “Thirty books we’re excited to read in the first half of 2025” by The Sydney Morning Herald.
There’s Nothing Like This unpacks the calculated plan behind Swift’s every move, from re-recording her albums to forming a direct relationship with her fans that beats any thriving company’s customer loyalty strategy. Her fans will love seeing how her methods fit into the business world and anyone interested in marketing or entrepreneurship will be surprised by her strategy.
This book connects two worlds: pop culture and business. It’s written in a way that is fun, easy to follow and you don’t have to have any prior knowledge of marketing to get it. Whether you are a Swiftie who wants to learn more about the behind the scenes of what she does or a finance bro who admires good and successful business strategies, this book shows that Taylor Swift’s success isn’t just luck, it’s a combination of smart moves and understanding of marketing. She truly is a mastermind.
Editor’s note:Arachnophonia (“Arachno” = spider / “-phonia” = sound) is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.
We’ve all had those moments scrolling through music news where we see yet another debate about cultural appropriation in music. When I found Amara Pope’s Racial and National Divides in R&B: Justin Bieber’s Participation in ‘Black Music’ as a White Canadian, I was immediately intrigued. I had wondered why comedian Druski described Justin Bieber’s vocal and creative direction on Swag II as sounding “Black.” I thought I was getting just another hot take on pop culture, but this monograph turned out to be far more thought-provoking than I expected.
In this journal article, PhD graduate in cultural studies, Amara Pope, takes a particularly interesting angle by focusing on Bieber’s Canadian roots. American culture has often categorized R&B as a genre reserved for Black American artists. Figures like Frank Ocean and Tyler, the Creator have spoken about how their racial and cultural identities shaped how their music was received and classified. For Justin Bieber, Pope makes a compelling case that his outsider status allows him to enter R&B spaces differently than white American artists typically do. She argued that it wasn’t just about him being white, but how his nationality and background shaped the unique trajectory of his career.
What I found most eye-opening was how Pope breaks down Bieber’s early collaborations with artists like Usher. She doesn’t simply label these collaborations as “good” or “bad”. Instead, she digs into what these partnerships mean and how they reflect bigger questions about who gets to make R&B music, a genre historically tied to Black American identity. This book made me see the YouTube covers Justin Bieber posted as a kid in a completely new way.
Pope also discusses how social media has changed everything. She argues that Bieber’s generation of artists “grew up with different rules about how you connect with audiences” and build authenticity online. This is something that transcends music and touches on issues like cancel culture and online identity, which many of us can relate to.
If you’ve ever found yourself in debates about cultural appropriation in music, this journal article will give you way better talking points than the usual Twitter arguments. Pope doesn’t pretend there are easy answers, but she gives you the tools to think about these issues more deeply, which is what I enjoyed most about this monograph.
Editor’s note:Arachnophonia (“Arachno” = spider / “-phonia” = sound) is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.
Using player pianos as a case study, Taylor examines, from an ethnomusicological perspective, how the means of reproducing music impact its dissemination. Building on Karl Marx’s concept of commodities, Taylor argues that the success of player pianos as the first commercially mass-produced products can be attributed to effective advertising strategies tailored to the societal norms of the time.
Taylor highlights the democratization of music access and the role of advertising in the reification of music. He observes the historical evolution of marketing tactics from the late 1880s to the early 1930s, a period considered the rise of popular culture, noting certain enduring strategies still relevant today. The ongoing commodification of music adapts to contemporary dynamics, influenced by the rise of artificial intelligence and online platforms. I highly recommend this article to anyone interested in learning about one of the many significant roles music plays in our lives!
Editor’s note:Arachnophonia is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.
This special edition of Arachnophonia features contributions from students in Dr. Joanna Love‘s MUS 235 class: “I Want My MTV: Music Video and the Transformation of the Music Industry.”
To understand the importance of Prince’s CD album, or CDs in general, during the 1980s one must take a step back and look at the differences between our modes of listening to music today as opposed to the 1980s. In the 2000s CDs began to be phased out of popularity due to the improved technology that came about to form Itunes. This decade has seen an even bigger change transitioning from the Itunes format of music listening to streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music, and Soundcloud. The concept of paying a monthly fee to gain access to a massive music library had not even come to fruition as a concept back in the 80s.
Created in 1982, CDs were the easiest method to listen to music to during that era. CDs were the most compact and easiest to transport at the time and as long as someone had a CD player or a car stereo then the stage was set. Getting a new CD in the 80s would be comparable to taking a kid to the candy store or getting a new video game in the modern era. I was never able to really experience the true atmosphere of a music store where shelves were lined with records and CDs as seen in movies like Wayne’s World but it appears to be very similar to going to the video store back in the 2000s to get the latest movie that had come out.
Music store in the 1980s
Since CDs were commonplace at the time and hundreds were displayed next to each other on shelves, it was also important that the cover art of the CD case and the design of the CD were eye-catching and could convince someone to purchase the album. Designed by art director Laura LiPuma and photographed by Ed Thrasher and Stuart Douglas Watson, Purple Rain’s album art has since become iconic and has been especially useful in defining an identity for the city of Minneapolis (where Prince was born and raised). The picture of Prince sitting on his purple motorcycle clad in his quintessential purple suit with smoke billowing out behind him is only further emphasized by the words “Purple Rain: Prince and the Revolution” in thick purple letters. This is also symbolic in the sense that this was the first time Prince included his band, “the Revolution,” in the album art. The photo is lined on both sides by beautiful flowers which can be tied back into the perception of androgyny in his music and fashion. The inside flap of the case is made up entirely of these flowers and their petals. The album art breathes mysteriousness and insinuates that seeing this movie will give you the full “Prince experience” in regard to his musical and acting abilities. The effects of this album art can still be felt in popular culture today with the city of Minneapolis “adopting” purple as their color and even blanketing the city in purple during the halftime performance at the Super Bowl last year after Prince passed away in 2016. In addition to this the basketball team located in the city, the Minnesota Timberwolves, have also created Purple Rain-inspired jerseys for this upcoming season.
The city of Minneapolis lit up in purple during the Super Bowl, Feb. 4, 2018
The album art of Purple Rain has also been differently portrayed by other artists using its major themes and elements. In 2016, hip-hop artist Future dropped an appropriately titled mixtape named Purple Reign, where the cover art to the album draws off of Prince’s style with the title of the mixtape in thick purple letters and a near dark background.
Future: Purple Reign mixtape art 2016
As far as relevance I wanted to research a topic for this assignment that was fascinating to me and the success of soundtrack albums in music especially piqued my interest after having watched the movie Purple Rain for class in early October. Overall, this CD album art was useful for the movie because it was an excellent marketing tool for Prince. As discussed previously, the compactness of CDs made it the most popular mode to listen to music with in the 1980s. With over 25 million copies sold worldwide, this can be translated as 25 million advertisements for a movie in marketing terms. The album art not only represented the contents (songs) inside the CD case but also signified the opportunity to see a good movie. The movie Purple Rain cost $7 million to make and achieved box office sales of $70.2 million while Prince took home the Academy Award for best original score. It was Prince’s entrance into the film industry and he went on to further direct, compose, and act in other classics such as Under the Cherry Moon and Graffiti Bridge.
The album art of Purple Rain also represents the precedent that Prince helped set that a soundtrack album can produce quality music. Until Purple Rain came out there was no real popularity in soundtrack albums besides other classic movies like Grease and Saturday Night Fever in the late 1970s. Since then there has been an explosion in popularity with soundtrack album especially within the last 20 years. Marshall Mathers, aka Eminem or The Real Slim Shady, put together a highly successful soundtrack album for his 2002 biopic 8 Mile. His song “Lose Yourself,” which is played in the ending scene as Eminem walks away down the street after winning the final battle, became a hit sensation and is often seen as one of his best pieces of work if not the best. Recently, “See You Again” by Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth from the movie Furious 7 (Fast and Furious movie franchise) set streaming records for most streams in a week and in a day in 2015.
In summation Purple Rain and its album art helped usher in the popularity of soundtrack albums, give an identity to the city of Minneapolis, and promote Prince’s now classic movie Purple Rain.
