the TrueFans AMP— Issue 125

In This Issue... about 16 pages (24ish minutes to read) You'll Get... 

• RECOMMENDS — The End of an Era (The Eras Tour Documentary Series on Disney+)

• Your BIZ — How to Play Taylor’s Game on Any Stage: Same Rules— No Matter the Size of the Room

• the Greatest Music Artists of All Time— Mariah Carey: Mastery, Longevity, and the Rewards of Excellence

in partnership with Terence Fisher and MusikSpace 

• a Coffee with Mariah Carey— an Imaginary Conversation with the Not-a-Diva Diva 

• PS from PS— It's (Always) the Season To Care

Here’s the playlist

• RECOMMENDS— The End of an Era (The Eras Tour Documentary Series)
— on Disney+

If you want a masterclass in what loving your craft, loving your people, and loving your fans actually looks like in the real world, stop what you’re doing and watch The End of an Era— the documentary series chronicling Taylor Swift’s historic The Eras Tour.

This isn’t a glossy victory lap.
It’s a backstage pass to one of the most complex, ambitious, high-stakes live productions ever mounted— and a deeply human portrait of how it was pulled off.

What becomes immediately clear is this: the Eras Tour wasn’t just big. It was architected Big!

Every moment you see on stage is the result of obsessive planning layered upon obsessive planning. Tech stacked on tech. Logistics piled on logistics. Rehearsals so deep they border on athletic training. Costume changes timed to the second. Set pieces moving like precision machinery. A traveling city of trucks, crews, dancers, musicians, engineers, designers, planners, fixers, thinkers, and doers— all moving as one.

This was complexity on top of complexity on top of COMPLEXITY.

And yet, at the center of it all, you don’t see a tyrant.
You see a leader.

What makes this series extraordinary isn’t just the scale— it’s the care. Taylor Swift is shown as intensely present, deeply engaged, and profoundly respectful of every person involved. She listens. She notices. She thanks people by name. She owns decisions. She pushes for excellence without crushing spirit.

And yes— the now-legendary detail: $100,000 bonuses to each truck driver. Let that land for a second...

That single act tells you almost everything you need to know.

This isn’t performative generosity. It’s structural. It’s values-based. It’s leadership rooted in recognition— the understanding that nothing this massive happens without thousands of people giving their absolute best.

The documentary also offers a rare look at what preparation really means at the highest level. Rehearsals aren’t casual run-throughs; they’re endurance tests. Decisions aren’t whimsical; they’re debated, refined, stress-tested. Creative partners aren’t interchangeable; they’re trusted collaborators who are loved, challenged, and respected.

And then... there are the fans.
Not as an abstract “audience,” but as a living, breathing community. The Eras Tour was built for them— across generations, across albums, across phases of life. The bracelet lights. The Easter eggs. The setlist arcs. The emotional pacing. The sense of shared belonging. This was fan-centric design at a level rarely seen.

Which is why, for us at the TrueFans AMP™, this series lands like a thunderbolt.

Because this is the proof of the truth: 

the TrueFans approach works. Big Time! Biggest Ever Time!

The truth that when you respect your fans, invest in your craft, honor your collaborators, and lead with care, the results aren’t just financial— they’re cultural. Enduring. Exponential.

Taylor Swift didn’t “scale” by chasing trends. She scaled by deepening relationships.
She didn’t build an empire by cutting corners. She built it by raising standards — and bringing everyone up with her.

The End of an Era is inspiring, humbling, and frankly a little overwhelming in the best way. It shows what’s possible when love for the work and love for people are not marketing slogans, but operating principles.

Watch it for the spectacle.
Watch it for the logistics.
Watch it for the leadership.
Watch it for the fans.

And if you’re a Music Artist, watch it to remember what this is all really about.
This is TrueFans thinking— at global stadium scale. 

__________  

from John: I am not a Swiftie. I don't think I have every listened to a Taylor song all through. Only clips from Miss Americana. After watching The End of an Era, during which I gasped, laughed, cried (not my norm) I am absolutely devoted to the woman. I am a TrueFan of Taylor Swift. Guess I've got to get a bracelet. ❤️

• Your BIZ— How to Play Taylor’s Game on Any Stage: Same Rules— No Matter the Size of the Room

Watching The End of an Era isn’t just entertaining— it’s hugely instructive.

Yes, the Eras Tour is a once-in-a-generation spectacle. Yes, the scale is astronomical. And yes, most Music Artists reading this will never command a traveling city of trucks, stages, dancers, and wristbands that light up entire stadiums.

But here’s the important part:

What made the Eras Tour work is not the money.
It’s thoughts.

And that thinking is available to every Music Artist— even the one who can only afford a $10 bill for the person who drove them and their amp to the gig.

Let’s pull this apart.

At the center of everything revealed in the documentary is Taylor Swift— not as a brand, not as a machine, but as a human being who cares. Deeply. Relentlessly. Systemically.

She cares about the work.
She cares about the people doing the work.
She cares about the people receiving the work.

That’s the blueprint.
Not the budget.

Lesson #1: Care Is Scalable— Neglect Is Not
Taylor Swift didn’t become generous after she got successful. The generosity is what made the success sustainable.

You may not have $100,000 bonuses to hand out. But you do have the ability to say thank you— sincerely. To learn names. To notice effort. To acknowledge contribution. To treat the person helping you load out as a partner, not a convenience.

Fans can feel care.
Crews can feel care.
Collaborators can feel care.

And when they feel it, they give more than what’s required.

That’s not sentimentality. That’s operations.

Lesson #2: Excellence Is a Decision, Not a Line Item
The documentary makes something crystal clear: nothing about the Eras Tour is casual.

Every transition is rehearsed. Every detail is considered. Every creative choice is pressure-tested. Excellence is not assumed— it’s all engineered.

You may not have a lighting director or a choreography team. But you do have choices.

You can rehearse one more time.
You can tune your instrument properly.
You can show up prepared instead of hoping it’ll “work itself out.”
You can care about your soundcheck, your set flow, your endings, your beginnings.

Excellence isn’t about perfection.

It’s about respect— for the art, the audience, for the moment, for the opportunity.

Lesson #3: Fans Are Not a Metric— They’re the Mission
What’s most striking in The End of an Era is how central the fans are to every decision. Not as data points. Not as demographics. As people.

The bracelets.
The Easter eggs.
The eras themselves.
The emotional pacing of the show.

This isn’t marketing. It’s relationship by design.

And here’s the good news: most Music Artists have more access to their fans than Taylor Swift ever could.

You can reply.
You can remember names.
You can thank people personally.
You can create moments that feel seen and shared.

TrueFans aren’t built at scale first.

They’re built one person at a time— and then they scale themselves.

Lesson #4: Leadership Is How You Show Up When No One Is Applauding
Backstage, Taylor Swift isn’t coasting. She’s paying attention— fiercely. Asking questions. Making decisions. Owning outcomes.

Leadership isn’t volume.
It isn’t dominance.
It isn’t control.
It’s responsibility.

Even if your “team” is one other person and a borrowed van, leadership still matters. How you speak. How you handle stress. How you deal with mistakes. How you treat people when things go wrong.

Those moments are remembered far longer than the show itself.

Lesson #5: Money Follows Meaning— Not the Other Way Around
The Eras Tour didn’t succeed because it was expensive.
It was expensive because it was worth it.

People didn’t show up because of hype alone. They showed up because of trust— built over years of consistency, care, honesty, and connection.

This is the long game.
And it’s the same game whether you’re playing clubs or stadiums.

If you build meaning, money can follow.
If you chase money without meaning, fans eventually leave.

The TrueFans Takeaway (Without Calling It That)
You don’t need Taylor Swift’s resources to learn from Taylor Swift’s approach.
You need:

• care over convenience
• excellence over excuses
• people over transactions
• relationships over reach

Do that— genuinely, consistently, imperfectly— and you’re already playing the same game.
Just on a different stage.

And who knows… stages have a way of growing when love is doing the building and the booking. ❤️

• Greatest Music Artists of All Time— Mariah Carey: Mastery, Longevity, and the Rewards of Excellence

“She’s a once-in-a-generation voice— but more importantly, she’s a once-in-a-generation Songwriter.”
— Quincy Jones

For more than three decades, Mariah Carey has existed in a category so singular it often obscures the truth: she isn’t just one of the most successful music artists of all time— she is one of the most complete.

Songwriter. Vocalist. Producer. Arranger. Architect of her own catalog.

And yet, for years, the conversation stalled at octaves and whistles, as if technical brilliance were the whole story. It isn’t. Mariah Carey’s greatness is not simply that she can sing— it’s that she knows what to sing, why, and how to make it last.

Few artists have ever combined commercial dominance, songwriting authorship, vocal innovation, and cultural permanence the way she has.

The Voice That Changed the Standard
Let’s acknowledge the obvious— then move past it.

Mariah Carey’s voice didn’t just extend the range of popular singing; it recalibrated expectations. Five octaves. Whistle register brought into the mainstream. Power, agility, softness, control.

“Mariah is a singer’s singer. She has that gift— and she uses it musically.”
— Aretha Franklin

But what truly separates her is choice. Carey doesn’t sing to demonstrate ability— she sings to serve emotion. Listen closely and you’ll hear restraint as often as fireworks.

That’s musicianship.

As Stevie Wonder once said:

“Great singers aren’t just heard— they’re felt. Mariah feels.”

The Songwriter People Forget to Credit
Here’s the part history is still catching up to.

Mariah Carey is a primary Songwriter or co-writer on nearly every song she ever released. 

That includes the hits. The deep cuts. The standards. The ones people assume were “given” to her. They weren’t.

From early ballads like Vision of Love to genre-blending tracks like Fantasy and Honey, Carey helped write the melodic and emotional DNA of modern pop and R&B.

And then there’s All I Want for Christmas Is You— a song we’ll return to, because it belongs in a class of its own.

Hits, Records, and the Weight of Consistency
Nineteen Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 singles.
More than 200 million records sold worldwide.
Every album from her debut through Daydream hitting No. 1.

Those numbers are staggering— but what matters more is how she achieved them. Mariah Carey didn’t chase trends. She anticipated them. She fused pop, R&B, gospel, hip-hop, and soul before “genre-fluid” was a buzzword. Her collaborations with artists like Ol’ Dirty Bastard weren’t marketing stunts— they were signals.

She understood culture early. And she trusted her instincts.

Reinvention Without Erasure
Careers this long usually fracture.
Carey’s didn’t.

When the industry tried to frame her as fragile, she leaned into strength. When pop moved toward hip-hop influence, she embraced it without abandoning melody. When public narratives turned cruel, she disappeared— then returned on her own terms.

The Emancipation of Mimi wasn’t a comeback. It was a recalibration.

“She didn’t chase relevance— she reclaimed authorship.”
— Alicia Keys

Few artists survive reinvention without losing identity. Carey didn’t survive it— she mastered it.

The Christmas Song That Became a Standard
It’s impossible to talk about Mariah Carey without talking about All I Want for Christmas Is You— not because it’s seasonal, but because it’s historic.

She didn’t write a novelty song. She wrote a timeless love song dressed in holiday imagery. Strip away the sleigh bells and the song still works.

That’s why it returns to No. 1 every year.
That’s why it outperforms contemporary releases.
That’s why it joined the canon of true standards.

As Elton John put it:

“Writing a song that becomes a standard is the hardest thing there is. Mariah did it— and made it look effortless.”

Influence You Can Hear Everywhere
Listen to today’s vocalists— pop, R&B, gospel-inflected singers— and you’ll hear echoes of Mariah Carey everywhere.

Not imitation, but permission.

Permission to explore range.
Permission to blend softness and power.
Permission to write personal songs that still dominate radio.

Artists from Beyoncé to Ariana Grande to Jennifer Hudson have acknowledged her influence— not just vocally, but artistically.

“She understands melody the way great Songwriters do. That’s why her songs last.”
— Smokey Robinson

Legacy Beyond the Numbers
Greatness isn’t longevity alone. It’s lasting resonance.

Mariah Carey’s songs aren’t museum pieces— they’re alive. They’re re-covered, re-interpreted, re-entered into culture year after year.

She didn’t just define an era. She helped define what popular music could sound like— emotionally, technically, and commercially.

And perhaps most importantly, she maintained authorship of her voice— literally and figuratively— in an industry that often tries to separate singers from their songs.

That’s not just success.
That’s mastery.

Why Mariah Carey Belongs in the Greatest Conversation
The greatest Music Artists aren’t measured solely by range, or hits, or chart records.
They’re measured by what changes after they arrive.

After Mariah Carey, voices were freer.
After Mariah Carey, songwriting by pop vocalists was taken more seriously.
After Mariah Carey, a Christmas song written in the ’90s could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with songs written a century earlier.

That’s not just greatness.
That’s permanence.

“She’s incredibly talented. A great Singer and a great Songwriter— that combination is rare.”
— Paul McCartney

in partnership with Terence Fisher and MusikSpace

• a Coffee with Mariah Carey— an imaginary conversation with the not-a-diva Diva. by John Fogg

the AMP: Thanks for doing this. No agenda. No promo. Just… coffee.

Mariah: I like that already.

the AMP: Let’s start here— people still use the word diva about you. What do they miss?
Mariah: Precision. Discipline. Standards.
People hear “diva” and think attitude. What they’re really seeing is boundaries. When your instrument lives inside your body, you don’t get to be casual about it. You protect it. You honor it. Or you lose it.

the AMP: Your voice is arguably the most studied instrument in popular music. What did it cost you to keep it?
Mariah: Everything costs something.
Rest costs invitations.
Practice costs comfort.
Saying no costs approval.
But losing your instrument costs your soul.

So I chose carefully.

the AMP: A lot of artists think excellence is about talent. You seem to treat it like a responsibility.
Mariah: Talent is the invitation. Responsibility is the RSVP.

People hear ease in the finished product and think it just “came out that way.” Ease is earned. Repetition. Listening back to things you don’t want to hear. Being honest with yourself when no one else is in the room.

That’s where excellence lives.

the AMP: You’ve outlasted eras. Formats. Industry cycles. How did you survive when others disappeared?
Mariah: I didn’t chase eras. I honored seasons.
There’s a difference.

If you’re always trying to sound current, you age fast. If you sound true, you become timeless. I trusted my instincts even when they weren’t fashionable. Especially then.

the AMP: Did it ever get lonely— being that precise, that committed?
Mariah: Of course.

Mastery is lonely sometimes. You’re saying no while others are saying yes. You’re going home while others are going out. You’re resting while others are networking.
But loneliness passes. Integrity stays.

the AMP: Fans adore you. Fiercely. What’s your relationship to them, really?
Mariah: Gratitude— without obligation.

I love my fans. I feel them. I respect them. But I don’t live for applause. That’s a dangerous place to live. Appreciation is healthy. Dependency is not.
The goal is connection— not consumption.

the AMP: There’s a moment every artist faces— when the industry pressures them to cheapen what they do. Did you feel that?
Mariah: Constantly.

Shorter songs. Easier notes. Faster turnaround. Less depth. More content.

Every time, I asked myself one question:

Will I be proud of this when no one’s clapping?

That answer saved me more than once.

the AMP: What would you say to the artist reading this who’s driving themselves to the gig and buying the coffee for the friend who carried their amp?
Mariah: Treat that moment like it matters— because it does.

Learn their name. Say thank you like you mean it. Rehearse like someone important is listening. Because someone is.

Scale doesn’t change principles. It only reveals whether you had them.

the AMP: Last question. If you could give one quiet piece of advice— not for success, but for longevity— what would it be?
Mariah: Don’t rush becoming yourself.

That’s the work.
Everything else is noise.

__________  

The coffee cools. No selfies. No signatures.
Just a woman who earned her voice— and never gave it away.

____________________

• PS from PS— It's (Always) the Season To Care 

There's a moment that keeps replaying in my mind from The End of an Era:

It's not the stadium lights or the elaborate stage changes. It's Taylor Swift, backstage, checking in with a crew member whose name she knows. A quiet exchange. A moment of recognition. Nothing filmed for effect. Just... caring.

I've been thinking about that a lot as we close out 2025.

For 40 years, I've watched this industry from almost every angle. The pirate radio ship off the British coast. The A&R desk at Decca. The festival stages. The indie label trenches. And now, building TrueFans from Tucson, trying to architect something that actually honors the people who make the music.

What strikes me about both Taylor and Mariah— beyond the obvious mastery— is that their excellence isn't performative. It's structural. It's who they are when nobody's watching. It's precision born from respect. Discipline rooted in love. Boundaries that protect the work itself.

And here's what I keep coming back to: 

That doesn't require their material resources. It requires their heart and mind.

When Mariah says "Will I be proud of this when no one's clapping?"— that's a question available to every Music Artist in every room. When Taylor treats truck drivers like essential partners rather than invisible labor— that's leadership available at any scale.

The game isn't rigged by budget. It's revealed by values.

This newsletter exists because I believe Music Artists deserve better than the extraction models that have dominated this industry for generations. But "better" isn't just about fairer revenue splits or more transparent contracts— though those matter deeply. "Better" is about remembering that care scales. That excellence is a decision you make in rehearsal, not just on stage. That your fans aren't metrics to manipulate but people to honor. That the person who helped you load out tonight might remember how you treated them long after they've forgotten what you played.

These aren't sentimental notions. They're operational principles.

And they work whether you're filling stadiums or playing to twelve people in a listening room.
__________ 

As we head into 2026, I wish every one of you reading this— artists, fans, collaborators, dreamers— a season of genuine rest and meaningful connection.

May you find the courage to be as precise with your boundaries as Mariah, as generous with your attention as Taylor, and as honest with yourself as both of them dare to be.

May you not rush becoming yourself.

And may you remember, especially in the quiet moments when no one's clapping, that the work you're doing matters— not because of the size of the room, but because of the size of your care.

Thank you for being part of this community. Thank you for believing that music can be made and shared differently. Thank you for choosing integrity over convenience, even when it's lonely.

Here's to a 2026 where we all play the same game—just on stages that keep growing because love is doing the building.

Happy Holidays and Holydays. 

Until we speak again...

Thanks for reading. Give us your feedback.

And PLEASE, if you've got any Singer Songwriter friends, pass the AMP on, because... It’s Time... for a Change. Big Time. Past Time...