taylor swift is a pop-music superstar who has crafted an illustrious career. Her music has traversed country, pop and adult alternative genres. Her Billboard Hot 100 record is unsurpassed, with 32 songs at the top of the charts, and her concert tours have sold over $2 billion in tickets. She has also written two best-selling books and starred in several movie roles. She is a role model for young women and has an enormous social media presence. Despite the many obstacles in her path, she continues to triumph.
Born in 1989, Taylor Swift grew up in West Reading, Pennsylvania, and began singing karaoke with friends as early as 10. She was inspired by watching biographies of Shania Twain, the Dixie Chicks and LeAnn Rimes, and decided to pursue a career in country music. In high school, she sang the National Anthem at a Philadelphia 76ers game and won local talent competitions. She took guitar lessons from a computer repairman and soon became proficient at writing lyrics and playing the guitar. She began auditioning for Nashville-based country music managers, and signed with Scott Borchetta’s Big Machine Records at the age of 14.
Her debut album Fearless was a huge success, spawning multiple hit singles and becoming the fastest-selling country album in history. Its second single, Teardrops on My Guitar, earned Taylor her first Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance, and the following year she won Song of the Year at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards for a collaboration with Colbie Caillat called “Love Story.”
Swift’s fourth studio album RED came out in 2012 and featured collaborators like Max Martin and Shellback, who would become her most prolific producers. The album was a commercial and critical smash, and its lead single, Look What You Made Me Do, set a record for the most views in 24 hours on YouTube. The accompanying Red Tour grossed over $150 million, making it the highest-grossing country tour of all time.
In 2019 Swift starred in the film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats, and released Lover, a song she described as a love letter to herself. In 2020, she surprised fans with the release of folk-inspired albums Folklore and Evermore. The former was a clear departure from her previous pop-inspired work, while the latter was an exercise in restraint and introspection.
In 2021, Swift re-released her back catalog in a series of re-recordings titled (Taylor’s Version). These re-recorded versions were an effort to regain control of her own legacy after her old manager Scooter Braun and the label Big Machine sold the rights to her early albums. This was a preemptive strike against streaming services that were undermining the way they paid artists. It worked, and Swift was able to reclaim her masters from Big Machine.
