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Spanish Fan Shows Off His Taylor Swift 'Sanctuary' Before Madrid Gig

Roberto Santos, 55, a Spanish superfan who is part of a select list of fans who receives exclusive gifts from the pop icon, poses in his "Taylor Swift shrine" in his home in Madrid, Spain, May 21, 2024. REUTERS/Juan Medina
Roberto Santos, 55, a Spanish superfan who is part of a select list of fans who receives exclusive gifts from the pop icon, poses in his "Taylor Swift shrine" in his home in Madrid, Spain, May 21, 2024. REUTERS/Juan Medina
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Spanish Fan Shows Off His Taylor Swift 'Sanctuary' Before Madrid Gig

Roberto Santos, 55, a Spanish superfan who is part of a select list of fans who receives exclusive gifts from the pop icon, poses in his "Taylor Swift shrine" in his home in Madrid, Spain, May 21, 2024. REUTERS/Juan Medina
Roberto Santos, 55, a Spanish superfan who is part of a select list of fans who receives exclusive gifts from the pop icon, poses in his "Taylor Swift shrine" in his home in Madrid, Spain, May 21, 2024. REUTERS/Juan Medina

Roberto Santos, 55, stands out among other "Swifties" for his decades-long devotion to American pop icon Taylor Swift and a plethora of gifts the Spaniard has received from her team in recognition of that - enough to fill up an apartment room he calls a sanctuary.
As Swift, 34, was preparing to play her Eras Tour gigs in Madrid on Wednesday and Thursday, Santos, who runs a dental prosthetics lab in Spain's capital, solemnly displayed the items, including Swift's limited-edition platinum disk award, signed photos, recordings, and sneakers bearing both their names, said Reuters.
"Sometimes I wake up at night, turn on the light and look a little, and say to myself: 'What are you doing?'... I just look, it gives me calm, and I go back to sleep," Santos said in an interview.
"For me she means everything; I've been following her since before 2011... I had the gut feeling that she was going to be big. If I had the same intuition with the lottery, I'd be rich," Santos said.
He said going to see her perform in Dublin in 2018 made him the only person to have traveled twice from Spain for a Swift show. Her management team then added Santos and his wife Inmaculada to an exclusive fan list, and sent them gifts and invitations, including an all-paid trip to Los Angeles last year, Santos said.
"If I was 18 or 20, I imagine I could go a bit crazy... but now everything feels more mature and calm," said Santos, who has Swift-themed tattoos on his arms and ankle.
He has yet to meet her in person. A planned meeting in Oslo was canceled due to the pandemic.
Santos is particularly thankful to Swift and her team for thinking about older fans, and for "the values she has transmitted" through her art.
Swift's record-breaking Eras Tour has boosted local economies. In Madrid, hotel occupancy rates have climbed to 90% on average for the concert dates.

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Music Streams Hit Nearly 5 Trillion in 2024. Women Pop Performers Lead the Charge in the US

Sabrina Carpenter appears at the Time100 Next event in New York on Oct. 9, 2024, left, Billie Eilish appears at the 66th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Feb. 4, 2024, center, and Taylor Swift appears at the MTV Video Music Awards in Elmont, N.Y., on Sept. 11, 2024. (AP Photo)
Sabrina Carpenter appears at the Time100 Next event in New York on Oct. 9, 2024, left, Billie Eilish appears at the 66th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Feb. 4, 2024, center, and Taylor Swift appears at the MTV Video Music Awards in Elmont, N.Y., on Sept. 11, 2024. (AP Photo)
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Music Streams Hit Nearly 5 Trillion in 2024. Women Pop Performers Lead the Charge in the US

Sabrina Carpenter appears at the Time100 Next event in New York on Oct. 9, 2024, left, Billie Eilish appears at the 66th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Feb. 4, 2024, center, and Taylor Swift appears at the MTV Video Music Awards in Elmont, N.Y., on Sept. 11, 2024. (AP Photo)
Sabrina Carpenter appears at the Time100 Next event in New York on Oct. 9, 2024, left, Billie Eilish appears at the 66th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Feb. 4, 2024, center, and Taylor Swift appears at the MTV Video Music Awards in Elmont, N.Y., on Sept. 11, 2024. (AP Photo)

More music, more listeners, no problems.

The global music industry hit 4.8 trillion streams in 2024, a new single-year record, Luminate’s 2024 Year-End Report found. That’s up 14% from 2023, which held the previous record.

If you streamed a lot more music in 2024 — and in particular, a lot of women pop performers — you are not alone.

In the US, on-demand audio streams grew at a rate of 6.4%, totaling 1.4 trillion.

Contemporary music is fueling the growth. The overwhelming majority of US plays – 79.5% — were from songs released in 2010 or later. Songs released between 2020 and 2024 accounted for nearly half of all streams.

And Taylor Swift, 2024's most-streamed songwriter worldwide, is only partially responsible.

Pop rules Midway through 2024, Luminate determined that Latin music had become the fastest growing streaming genre in the United States — up 15.1% from summer 2023 — followed by pop, rock and country.

A lot can change in half a year, because now pop leads, followed by rock and Latin.

“We saw some interesting trends within the US,” said Jaime Marconette, Luminate’s vice president of music insights and industry relations.

"Latin was the fastest-growing US streaming genre in the first half of the year based on growth of genre streaming share. However, due to a shift of streaming activity in the second half of the year, pop took the No. 1 spot ... Female solo artists led this surge in pop consumption, as streams of their music were responsible for nearly two-thirds of all audio streams amongst the top 100 pop artists in the US”

The shift is led by six women who dominated pop’s streams in the US:

1. Taylor Swift with 12.8 billion streams

2. Billie Eilish with 4.46 billion

3. Sabrina Carpenter with 3.71 billion

4. Ariana Grande with 3.12 billion

5. Olivia Rodrigo with 2.76 billion

6. Chappell Roan with 2.49 billion

That’s at least partially reflected in the top 10 global streaming songs as well:

1. Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things”

2. Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso"

3. Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Father"

4. Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control”

5. Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars,” “Die with a Smile"

6. FloyyMenor, “Gata Only”

7. Shaboozey, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”

8. Hozier, “Too Sweet”

9. Taylor Swift, “Cruel Summer”

10. Sabrina Carpenter, “Please Please Please”

Regional Mexican music continues to grow Even if pop has replaced Latin music as the fastest growing streaming genre in the US, the music is not slowing down in popularity. In 2024, regional Mexican music overtook Latin pop as the largest Latin subgenre in the US.

“Latin still grew by both volume and its share of total US audio streaming during the course of 2024,” Marconette said. “When looking at Latin subgenre activity, Regional Mexican dominated in terms of growth.”

Regional Mexican music — a catchall term that encompasses mariachi, banda, corridos, norteño, sierreño and other genres — has become a global phenomenon over the last few years, topping music charts and reaching new audiences as it crosses borders.

The genre reached 28.57 billion streams in 2024, followed by Latin pop with 24.09 billion.

Rap and R&B are forever Pop rules, but just like 2023, when it comes to overall music streaming in the US, R&B and hip-hop still lead, accounting for more than one in every four streams stateside.

In 2024: Rap and R&B accounted for 341.63 billion on-demand audio streams, followed by rock with 234.22 billion, pop with 165.49 billion, country with 117.58 billion and Latin with 113.02 billion.