taylor swift is an american singer and songwriter. she is one of the best-selling female recording artists in history and has received multiple Grammy, MTV Video Music Award, American Music Award, and Billboard Music Award nominations. she has sold more than 100 million records worldwide.
Born Taylor Alison Swift on December 13, 1989, in West Reading, Pennsylvania, she was raised on a Christmas tree farm and took singing and acting lessons as a child. Initially she wanted to be an actress, but after winning a local talent competition and seeing the reading fightin’ phillies perform at a nearby amphitheater, she switched her focus to country music, inspired by Shania Twain, LeAnn Rimes, and Faith Hill. During her teen years, she wrote songs on an old typewriter and recorded demos in her basement. At 17, she visited Nashville to hand out her music and was accepted into a record label.
After the success of her second album Fearless (2008), she began to expand her musical horizons, adding new sounds to her sound and exploring more nuanced relationship issues in her lyrics. She shifted from pop to country, and the more experimental and mature themes in her albums Red (2012) and 1989 (2014) led to a larger audience for her music.
In 2020, she surprised her fans by releasing the indie folk albums folklore and evermore. Produced in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, they were ruminative and relatively lo-fi albums that showcased a new side to her artistry. Choosing collaborators with experience in the genre she was exploring, including Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner of The National and Bon Iver, gave her albums an added sense of authenticity.
While these albums may have seemed like a departure from her previous work, Nobile notes that her fans have remained loyal to her and were supportive of her experimentations. He says that “this is partly because of the level of connection she has with her fan base — it’s not just an appreciation for her art but being part of this community that she has created.”
Following the release of her eighth album, Reputation (2018), Swift drew upon her own experiences to craft a record that spoke to many different people around the world. It was her most personal and emotional record to date and topped charts in the US and abroad. In addition to its success, Reputation also won many awards, including Album of the Year at the 61st Grammy Awards.
In 2023, she released Midnights, an album of dreamy and sombre pop that marked a return to the soft, comfortable sonics of her earlier albums. This softer sound was carried into her multi-year tour, the Eraser Tour, which saw Swift performing in over 100 locales around the world.
