Taylor Swift performed four songs at Saturday's Academy Museum Gala in Los Angeles, including the first live performance of 'The Fate of Ophelia,' in front of nearly 200 celebrities, according to Page Six. The sixth annual Academy Museum of Motion Pictures fundraiser was billed as a 'celebration of the cinematic arts.'
The Academy Museum is six years old, and it still can't throw a fundraiser without borrowing the biggest pop star on earth. That's not a problem for the museum. That's the business model. A gala is a press release with a coat check: black-tie room, red carpet, one charity, one headliner, and a donor list that reads like a guest book.
Swift gets a first live performance of a new song in a room full of the industry, plus 114 photographs of her walking in a blue dress. The museum gets the headline 'Swift performs at gala.' The donors get a story for the next board meeting. It's a three-way trade where nobody buys anything.
The setlist tells the whole story: new song debut for the cameras, then old hits for the room, then a mashup for the fans. It's not a concert, it's a PowerPoint with a guitar. Four songs, about six minutes of real performance, the rest is atmosphere.
Someday the museum will be established enough not to need a headliner. That day won't come before the 2040s. Until then the gala is a subscription service that costs one Swift set per year.
YOUR TURN: Does a pop star need a museum to matter, or does the museum need the pop star?
Comments (1)