TAYLOR Swift's billion-dollar Eras tour chugged along like the global juggernaut it is, captivating Swifties as if she's the second coming of the Beatles.
On music streaming sites, her songs have logged between 330 million and 1.86 billion counts, mind-boggling numbers that reflect Swift's pop culture stranglehold.
These figures correspond with her private life and her management's marketing acuity, especially after she started dating an American football player. People paid up to US$4,000 for the resale of her concert ticket.
That adoration also translates into political clout: she can move mountains of votes for candidates in November's United States general election.
Therefore, this next statement will infuriate Swifties: musically though, as a critic puts it, Swift is "highly overrated', her songs "bland and soulless, lacking originality, (and filled with) shallow lyrics with the same four rhymes shining through".
While we aren't stupefied by the hysterics surrounding her and her tour, her economic weight is something else, particularly why she bypassed Malaysia for her concerts when Malaysia was in pole position to snag at least a concert.
Really? Not according to Deputy Youth and Sports Minister Adam Adli Abd Halim, who clarified that Swift's concert was never offered to the government under a joint contract with local and international promoters.
Adam debunked reports that Malaysia got first crack at Swift because the contract signed in 2023 only backed overall venue management.
That was why the Singapore government paid her a US$2 million to US$3 million concession per show to collar her six-night gig.
Other Southeast Asian nations hoping to cash in were floored by Singapore's chutzpah, complaining that the republic's manoeuvre "isn't what good neighbours do".
Still, the government wouldn't have intervened, this being a private enterprise and Swift did indicate Malaysia as a good concert option.
Promoters' organising costs would've been astronomical too but tempered by the exponential economic spillover, reported to benefit Singapore by US$375 million.
Other nations have begun to appreciate Singapore's audacity, though it'll be tough for them to copy the precedent the next time Swift, or someone of her stature, visits the region.
As for Malaysia's bridesmaid position, it's a despairing cliché: while the populace hankered for a Swift concert, any big-name concerts, even those with progressive views, will be affected by noisy dogmatism. But the government did smother the opposition in greenlighting Coldplay's concert.
That's why it is disingenuous for Bersatu to demand that the government answer for Malaysia's "failure" to secure a Swift concert. Apart from censuring Singapore, they should also turn to themselves, rather than their ally Pas, for the answer.
