I'm not a real fan of Miss Swift. I think hers is at best a modest talent. But what she is, is an ICON; an utterly charismatic leader of taste for those who are into pop music today. What is interesting, in this regard, is that she -along with her sister canaries Lorde and Lana Del Rey, are all nudging pop in a slightly new direction. It's my perception that Pop since the Beatles has generally slid downhill in the direction on one hand of children's playground music (remember "Bouncy, Bouncy bally, or "My mother gave me fifty cents") and on the other toward the preliterate chants of societies on the order or the Melanesian Island music. Neither of these branches, however interesting to the musicologist, possesses any musical or lyric complexity. That is in keeping with the ever descending age level of the listener-consumers, and the general suspicion of sophistication that began with the counter culture. If your motto is "Don't listen to anybody over 30" you have cast off the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Duke Ellington and their kin.
The motto seems to have been if the music was too complicated for you or anyone to play in the garage, it wasn't to be trusted. Only Willie Nelson remembered for us that tunes like Stardust had something to offer.
There has been no chromatic music (with sharps and flats) , involved harmonic structure (progressions beyond the simple 1-4-5 chords of the Blues); no lyrics approaching serious poetry for over half a century.
I'm not going to cite tracks here. My intuition is that in her presentation as a stage performer, her public 'personal' life and in her music she represents a turn toward a more musically and lyrically sophisticated pop music. I may put too much into it a a harbinger, but, my goodness, buying a house on Watch hill! That is such class. She is no revolutionary. If she suddenly started singing Harold Arlen she'd lose her audience. Yet if she -and her sister canaries keep it up she may gain a following I'm rooting for her!