A shrewd, strategic businesswoman, Taylor Swift has deftly traversed country, pop, adult alternative and more genres, adding a series of Billboard Hot 100 hit singles to her tally. In 2021, she bucked the trend of shorter attention spans in pop music, by scoring the longest No. 1 single in chart history with an updated version of her enduring fan favorite, “All Too Well.” She has become one of the most successful female artists of her generation, earning 23 AMA awards and holding the record for the most wins at the annual ceremony.
Born Taylor Alison Swift in 1989 in West Reading, Pennsylvania, she moved to Nashville with her family when she was 11, where she began writing songs and performing on the local scene. At a music industry showcase in 2005, she caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a former Dreamworks Records executive who was creating his own independent label, Big Machine Records. He signed her, and she soon started releasing albums.
After the release of her first two albums, she began branching out with collaborations, including writing songs for the Disney Channel TV series Hannah Montana and writing 2 tracks for the soundtrack to the film Valentine’s Day. She also recorded the song “Our Song” for the 2008 movie Fearless, becoming the youngest person to write and sing a number-one country song. The album was a multiplatinum success, and it propelled her to superstardom.
In 2010, she was named the RIAA’s female artist of the year, and by 2012 had sold more than 23 million albums in the US. In the same year she released her third studio album, Red, which incorporated a more pop-influenced sound and spawned the top-ten singles “Blank Space” and “Shake It Off.”
Following her appearance in the 2013 film The Hunger Games, she took on acting roles with small parts in 13 Going On 30 and The Spectacular Now, before starring as Audrey in the animated Dr. Seuss movie The Lorax. She returned to the music world in 2020 with the surprise release of folklore, an album that was critically lauded for its restraint and introspection.
The album featured several collaborations, with the likes of Bon Iver, The Civil Wars, Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner from The National appearing on tracks. In the same year, she made a rare public apology for her treatment of a journalist, and ended her hiatus from social media. She has since been active in philanthropy, giving more than $2 billion to charity in the US alone. She has also released a re-recording of her fourth studio album, Reputation, in 2021. This deluxe edition included six previously unreleased songs and was a protest of her former record label’s sale to Scooter Braun, who she accused of mistreating her. The album was a massive success and earned Taylor her sixth Grammy award.
