Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her artistry, songwriting, and entrepreneurship have influenced the music industry and popular culture. A subject of widespread public interest, Swift is an advocate of artists' rights and has had a political impact.
Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, in West Reading, Pennsylvania. She is named after the singer-songwriter James Taylor. Her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, is a former stockbroker for Merrill Lynch; her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (née Finlay), worked for a time as a mutual fund marketing executive. Her younger brother, Austin, is an actor. Swift's maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay (née Moehlenkamp), was an opera singer, whose singing in church became one of Swift's earliest memories of music that shaped her career. Swift's mother is of Scottish and German descent, and her father is of Scottish and English descent with distant Italian ancestry.
Swift was 2023's most streamed artist on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music; and the first act to place number one on the year-end Billboard top artists list in three different decades (2009, 2015 and 2023). She had five out of the 10 best-selling albums of 2023 in the US, a record since Luminate began tracking US music sales in 1991. Besides music, Swift had a supporting role in the period comedy film Amsterdam (2022) and began writing an original script for her directorial feature film debut with Searchlight Pictures.
At 11, Swift traveled to Nashville with her mother to visit record labels and submit demo tapes of Dolly Parton and Dixie Chicks karaoke covers. She was rejected by all the labels, which led her to focus on songwriting. She started learning the guitar at 12 with the help of Ronnie Cremer, a computer repairman and local musician who also assisted Swift with writing an original song. In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with the talent manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch and had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, 13-year-old Swift was given an artist development deal and began to travel regularly to Nashville with her mother. To help Swift break into the country music scene, her father transferred to Merrill Lynch's Nashville office when she was 14 years old, and the family relocated to Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift attended Hendersonville High School before transferring to Aaron Academy after two years, which better accommodated her touring schedule through homeschooling. She graduated one year early.
At an industry showcase at Nashville's Bluebird Cafe in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a DreamWorks Records executive who was preparing to form an independent record label, Big Machine Records. She had first met Borchetta in 2004. She was one of Big Machine's first signings, and her father purchased a three-percent stake in the company for an estimated $120,000. She began working on her eponymous debut album with Nathan Chapman. Swift wrote or co-wrote all album tracks, and co-writers included Rose, Robert Ellis Orrall, Brian Maher, and Angelo Petraglia. Released in October 2006, Taylor Swift peaked at number five on the US Billboard 200, on which it spent 157 weeks—the longest stay on the chart by any release in the US in the 2000s decade. Swift became the first female country music artist to write or co-write every track on a US platinum-certified debut album.
Swift began professional songwriting at age 14. She signed with Big Machine Records in 2005 and achieved prominence as a country pop singer with the albums Taylor Swift (2006) and Fearless (2008). Their singles "Teardrops on My Guitar", "Love Story", and "You Belong with Me" were crossover successes on country and pop radio formats and brought Swift mainstream fame. She experimented with rock and electronic styles on her next albums, Speak Now (2010) and Red (2012), respectively, with the latter featuring her first Billboard Hot 100 number-one single, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together". Swift recalibrated her image from country to pop with 1989 (2014), a synth-pop album containing the chart-topping songs "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood". Media scrutiny inspired the hip-hop-influenced Reputation (2017) and its number-one single "Look What You Made Me Do".
Following "Tim McGraw", four more singles were released throughout 2007 and 2008: "Teardrops on My Guitar", "Our Song", "Picture to Burn" and "Should've Said No". All appeared on Billboard's Hot Country Songs, with "Our Song" and "Should've Said No" reaching number one. "Our Song" made Swift the youngest person to single-handedly write and sing a Hot Country Songs number-one single, and "Teardrops on My Guitar" was Swift's breakthrough single on mainstream radio and charts. Swift released two EPs, The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection in October 2007 and Beautiful Eyes in July 2008. She promoted her debut album extensively as the opening act for other country musicians' tours in 2006 and 2007, including those by George Strait, Brad Paisley, and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.
Big Machine Records was still in its infancy during the June 2006 release of the lead single, "Tim McGraw", which Swift and her mother helped promote by packaging and sending copies of the CD single to country radio stations. As there was not enough furniture at the label yet, they would sit on the floor to do so. She spent much of 2006 promoting Taylor Swift with a radio tour and television appearances; she opened for Rascal Flatts on select dates during their 2006 tour, as a replacement for Eric Church. Borchetta said that although record industry peers initially disapproved of his signing a 15-year-old singer-songwriter, Swift tapped into a previously unknown market—teenage girls who listen to country music.
She is a supporter of the arts. A benefactor of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Swift has donated $75,000 to Nashville's Hendersonville High School to help refurbish the school auditorium, $4 million to build a new education center at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, $60,000 to the music departments of six US colleges, and $100,000 to the Nashville Symphony. Also a promoter of children's literacy, she has donated money and books to schools around the country. In 2007, Swift partnered with the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police to launch a campaign to protect children from online predators. She has donated items to several charities for auction, including the UNICEF Tap Project and MusiCares. As recipient of the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year in 2011, Swift donated $25,000 to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Tennessee. In 2012, Swift participated in the Stand Up to Cancer telethon, performing the charity single "Ronan", which she wrote in memory of a four-year-old boy who died of neuroblastoma. She has also donated $100,000 to the V Foundation for Cancer Research and $50,000 to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Swift has encouraged young people to volunteer in their local communities as part of Global Youth Service Day.
Swift won multiple accolades for Taylor Swift. She was one of the recipients of the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist of the Year in 2007, becoming the youngest person given the title. She also won the Country Music Association's Horizon Award for Best New Artist, the Academy of Country Music Awards' Top New Female Vocalist, and the American Music Awards' Favorite Country Female Artist honor. She was also nominated for Best New Artist at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards. In 2008, she opened for Rascal Flatts again and briefly dated the singer Joe Jonas.
Swift's second studio album, Fearless, was released in November 2008 in North America, and in March 2009 in other markets. On the Billboard 200, Fearless spent 11 weeks at number one, becoming Swift's first chart topper and the longest-running number-one female country album. It was the best-selling album of 2009 in the US. Its lead single, "Love Story", was her first number one in Australia and the first country song to top Billboard's Pop Songs chart, and its third single, "You Belong with Me", was the first country song to top Billboard's all-genre Radio Songs chart. Three other singles were released in 2008–2010: "White Horse", "Fifteen", and "Fearless". All five singles were Hot Country Songs top-10 entries, with "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me" topping the chart. In 2009, Swift toured as an opening act for Keith Urban and embarked on her first headlining tour, the Fearless Tour.
Swift is known for her philanthropic efforts. She ranked first on DoSomething's 2015 "Gone Good" list, having received the Star of Compassion from the Tennessee Disaster Services and the Big Help Award from the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards for her "dedication to helping others" and "inspiring others through action". She donated $100,000 to the Red Cross to help the victims of the Iowa flood of 2008. In 2009, she sang at BBC's Children in Need concert and raised £13,000 for the cause. Swift has performed at charity relief events, including Sydney's Sound Relief concert. In response to the May 2010 Tennessee floods, Swift donated $500,000. In 2011, Swift used a dress rehearsal of her Speak Now tour as a benefit concert for victims of recent tornadoes in the US, raising more than $750,000. In 2016, she donated $1 million to Louisiana flood relief efforts and $100,000 to the Dolly Parton Fire Fund. Swift donated to food banks after Hurricane Harvey struck Houston in 2017 and at every stop of the Eras Tour in 2023; she also directly employed local businesses throughout the tour and gave $55 million in bonus payments to her entire crew. Swift donated $1 million for Tennessee tornado relief in 2020 and again in 2023. In February 2024, she donated $100,000 to the family of a woman who died in a shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl parade.
Throughout 2009, Swift featured on and wrote other musicians' releases. She featured on "Half of My Heart" by John Mayer, whom she was romantically linked with in late 2009. She wrote "Best Days of Your Life" for Kellie Pickler, co-wrote and featured on Boys Like Girls' "Two Is Better Than One, and wrote two songs—"You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home" and "Crazier"—for the soundtrack of Hannah Montana: The Movie, in which she had a cameo appearance. She wrote and recorded "Today Was a Fairytale" for the soundtrack of Valentine's Day (2010), in which she had her acting debut. "Today Was a Fairytale" was her first number-one single on the Canadian Hot 100. While shooting Valentine's Day in October 2009, Swift dated co-star Taylor Lautner. On television, she made her debut as a rebellious teenager in an CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode and hosted and performed as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live; she was the first host ever to write their own opening monologue.
Swift has appeared in various power listings. Time included her on its annual list of the 100 most influential people in 2010, 2015, and 2019. She was one of the "Silence Breakers" that the magazine spotlighted as Person of the Year in 2017 for speaking up about sexual assault, and received the honor again in 2023 for her cultural domination that year. Time described Swift as the first Person of the Year to be recognized for "achievement in the arts", as well as the first woman to be recognized and appear on a Person of the Year cover more than once. In 2014, she was named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in the music category and again in 2017 in its "All-Star Alumni" category. Swift became the youngest woman to be included on Forbes' list of the 100 most powerful women in 2015, ranked at number 64. In 2023, she was ranked by Forbes as the fifth-most powerful woman in the world, the first entertainer to place in the top five. Swift received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from New York University and served as its commencement speaker on May 18, 2022.
Swift's third studio album, Speak Now, was released in October 2010. Written solely by Swift, the album debuted the Billboard 200 with over one million US copies sold first week and became the fastest-selling digital album by a female artist. Speak Now was supported by six singles: "Mine", "Back to December", "Mean", "The Story of Us", "Sparks Fly", and "Ours". "Mine" peaked at number three and was the highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, the first three singles reached the top 10 in Canada, and the last two reached number one on Hot Country Songs. Swift promoted Speak Now with the Speak Now World Tour from February 2011 to March 2012 and the live album Speak Now World Tour – Live.
At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012, Swift performed "Mean", which won Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance. She was named Songwriter/Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association (2010 and 2011), Woman of the Year by Billboard (2011), and Entertainer of the Year by the Academy of Country Music (2011 and 2012) and the Country Music Association in 2011. At the American Music Awards of 2011, Swift won Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Rolling Stone named Speak Now on its list of "50 Best Female Albums of All Time" (2012).
In The New Yorker in 2011, Swift said she identifies as a songwriter first: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across". Her personal experiences were a common inspiration for her early songs, which helped her navigate life. Her "diaristic" technique began with identifying an emotion, followed by a corresponding melody. On her first three studio albums, love, heartbreak, and insecurities, from an adolescent perspective, were dominant themes. She delved into the tumult of toxic relationships on Red, and embraced nostalgia and post-romance positivity on 1989. Reputation was inspired by the downsides of Swift's fame, and Lover detailed her realization of the "full spectrum of love". Other themes in Swift's music include family dynamics, friendship, alienation, self-awareness, and tackling vitriol, especially sexism.
Swift emphasizes visuals as a key creative component of her music-making process. She has collaborated with different directors to produce her music videos, and over time she has become more involved with writing and directing. She developed the concept and treatment for "Mean" in 2011 and co-directed the music video for "Mine" with Roman White the year before. In an interview, White said that Swift "was keenly involved in writing the treatment, casting and wardrobe. And she stayed for both the 15-hour shooting days, even when she wasn't in the scenes."
Red and its single "Begin Again" received three nominations at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards (2014). Swift received American Music Awards for Best Female Country Artist in 2012, Artist of the Year in 2013, and the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist Award for the fifth and sixth consecutive years. At the 2014 Country Music Association Awards, Swift was honored with the Pinnacle Award, making her the second recipient in history after Garth Brooks. The Red Tour ran from March 2013 to June 2014 and became the highest-grossing country tour upon completion.
Red, Swift's fourth studio album, was released in October 2012. On Red, Swift worked with Chapman and new producers including Max Martin, Shellback, Dan Wilson, Jeff Bhasker, Dann Huff, and Butch Walker, resulting in a genre-spanning record that incorporated eclectic styles of pop and rock such as Britrock, dubstep, and dance-pop. The album opened at number one on the Billboard 200 with 1.21 million sales and was Swift's first number-one album in the UK. Its lead single, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", was her first number one on the Billboard Hot 100, and its third single, "I Knew You Were Trouble", reached the top five on charts worldwide. Other singles from Red were "Begin Again", "22", "Everything Has Changed", "The Last Time", and "Red".
Swift has been credited with making a profound impact on the music industry, popular culture and the economy. She dominates cultural conversations, which has led publications to describe her as a cultural "vitality" or zeitgeist. Her music, life and public image are points of attention in global celebrity culture. Initially a teen idol, she has been referred to as a pop icon; publications describe her immense popularity and longevity as unwitnessed since the 20th century. In 2013, New York magazine's Jody Rosen dubbed Swift the "world's biggest pop star" and opined that the trajectory of her stardom has defied established patterns. Rosen added that Swift "falls between genres, eras, demographics, paradigms, trends", leaving her contemporaries "vying for second place". Critics regard Swift as a rare yet successful combination of the pop star and singer-songwriter archetypes.
Swift has endorsed many brands and businesses, having launched clothing lines with L.E.I. and Stella McCartney, designed American Greetings cards and Jakks Pacific dolls, released a number of fragrances with Elizabeth Arden, and signed multi-year deals with AT&T and Capital One. She was a spokesperson for the National Hockey League's Nashville Predators and Sony Cyber-shot digital cameras, and became the global ambassador for New York City in 2014 and Record Store Day in 2022.
Swift was named Billboard's Woman of the Year in 2014, becoming the first artist to win the award twice. At the 2014 American Music Awards, Swift received the inaugural Dick Clark Award for Excellence. On her 25th birthday in 2014, the Grammy Museum at L.A. Live opened an exhibit in her honor in Los Angeles that ran until October 4, 2015. In 2015, Swift won the Brit Award for International Female Solo Artist. "Bad Blood" won Video of the Year and Best Collaboration at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. At the 58th Grammy Awards (2016), 1989 won Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album, making Swift the first woman to win Album of the Year twice.
In March 2014, Swift began living in New York City, which she credited as a creative influence on her fifth studio album, 1989. She described 1989 as her first "official pop album" and produced it with Jack Antonoff, Max Martin, Shellback, Imogen Heap, Ryan Tedder, and Ali Payami. Released in October 2014, the album opened atop the Billboard 200 with 1.28 million copies sold. Its singles "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood" reached number one in Australia, Canada, and the US, with the first two making Swift the first woman to replace herself at the Hot 100 top spot. Other singles include "Style", "Wildest Dreams", "Out of the Woods", and "New Romantics". The 1989 World Tour (2015) was the highest-grossing tour of the year with $250 million in total revenue.
After publishing an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal stressing the importance of albums as a creative medium for artists, in November 2014, Swift removed her catalog from ad-supported, free music streaming platforms such as Spotify. In a June 2015 open letter, Swift criticized Apple Music for not offering royalties to artists during its free three-month trial period and threatened to withdraw her music from the platform, which prompted Apple Inc. to announce that it would pay artists during the free trial period. Swift then agreed to keep 1989 and her catalog on Apple Music. Big Machine Records returned Swift's catalog to Spotify among other free streaming platforms in June 2017.
From 2014 to 2018, Swift collaborated with director Joseph Kahn on eight music videos—four each from her albums 1989 and Reputation. Kahn has praised Swift's involvement. She worked with American Express for the "Blank Space" music video (which Kahn directed), and served as an executive producer for the interactive app AMEX Unstaged: Taylor Swift Experience, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Interactive Program in 2015. Swift produced the music video for "Bad Blood" and won a Grammy Award for Best Music Video in 2016.
Swift's discography is a "critically hailed songbook", as per Time's Sam Lansky. She has won 14 Grammy Awards (including four for Album of the Year—the most won by an artist), an Emmy Award, 40 American Music Awards (the most won by an artist), 39 Billboard Music Awards (the most won by an artist—tying with Drake), 118 Guinness World Records, 23 MTV Video Music Awards (including four Video of the Year wins—the most by an act), 12 Country Music Association Awards (including the Pinnacle Award), eight Academy of Country Music Awards, and two Brit Awards. As a songwriter, she has been honored by the Nashville Songwriters Association, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the National Music Publishers' Association and was the youngest person on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time in 2015. At the 64th BMI Awards in 2016, Swift was the first woman to be honored with an award named after its recipient.
Swift dated the DJ Calvin Harris from March 2015 to June 2016. They co-wrote the song "This Is What You Came For", featuring vocals from Rihanna; Swift was initially credited under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg. She recorded "I Don't Wanna Live Forever" with Zayn Malik for the soundtrack to Fifty Shades Darker (2017) and won a Country Music Association Award for Song of the Year with "Better Man", which she wrote for the band Little Big Town. In April 2016, Kanye West released the single "Famous", in which he references Swift in the line, "I made that bitch famous." Swift criticized West and said she never consented to the lyric, but West claimed that he had received her approval and his then-wife Kim Kardashian released video clips of Swift and West discussing the song amicably over the phone. The controversy made Swift a subject of an online "cancel" movement. In late 2016, after briefly dating Tom Hiddleston, Swift began a six-year relationship with Joe Alwyn and retreated herself from the public spotlight.
Swift's net worth is estimated by Forbes and Bloomberg News at $1.1 billion as of October 2023, making her the first musician to achieve billionaire status "solely based on her songs and performances". Forbes named her the annual top-earning female musician in 2016, 2019, 2021, and 2022. She was the highest-paid celebrity of 2016 with $170 million—a feat recognized by the Guinness World Records as the highest annual earnings ever for a female musician, which she herself surpassed with $185 million in 2019. Overall, Forbes listed Swift as the highest-paid female artist of the 2010s, earning $825 million. She has also developed a real estate portfolio worth $150 million as of 2023, with properties in Nashville; Tribeca, Manhattan; Los Angeles (Samuel Goldwyn Estate); and Rhode Island (High Watch).
In August 2017, Swift successfully countersued David Mueller, a former radio jockey for KYGO-FM, who sued her for damages from loss of employment. Four years earlier, she informed Mueller's bosses that he had sexually assaulted her by groping her at an event. The public controversies influenced Swift's sixth studio album, Reputation, which explored the impact of her fame and musically incorporated electropop with urban styles of hip hop and R&B. Released in November 2017, Reputation opened atop the Billboard 200 with 1.21 million US sales and topped the charts in the UK, Australia, and Canada. The album's lead single, "Look What You Made Me Do", was Swift's first UK number-one single and topped charts in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the US. Its singles "...Ready for It?", "End Game", and "Delicate" were released to pop radio. Reputation was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album. Swift featured on the country duo Sugarland's "Babe" (2018).
After signing with Republic Records in 2018, Swift released the eclectic pop album Lover (2019) and the autobiographical documentary Miss Americana (2020). She explored indie folk styles on the 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, subdued electropop on Midnights (2022), and re-recorded four albums subtitled Taylor's Version after a dispute with Big Machine. These albums spawned the number-one songs "Cruel Summer", "Cardigan", "Willow", "Anti-Hero", "All Too Well", and "Is It Over Now?". Her Eras Tour (2023–2024) and its accompanying concert film became the highest-grossing tour and concert film of all time, respectively. Swift has directed videos and films such as Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020) and All Too Well: The Short Film (2021).
Swift donated to fellow singer-songwriter Kesha to help with her legal battles against Dr. Luke and to actress Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift donated to the World Health Organization and Feeding America, and supported independent record stores. Swift performed "Soon You'll Get Better" on the One World: Together At Home television special, a benefit concert curated by Lady Gaga for Global Citizen to raise funds for the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. In 2018 and 2021, Swift donated to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. She has made donations to her fans several times for their medical or academic expenses.
While promoting Lover in 2019, Swift became embroiled in a public dispute with the talent manager Scooter Braun after he purchased Big Machine Records, including the masters of her albums that the label had released. Swift said she had been trying to buy the masters, but Big Machine would only allow her to do so if she exchanged one new album for each older one under a new contract, which she refused to sign. In November 2020, Swift began re-recording her back catalog, which enabled her to own the new masters and the licensing of her songs for commercial use, substituting the Big Machine-owned masters.
Swift's first album with Republic Records, Lover, was released in August 2019. She produced the album with Antonoff, Louis Bell, Frank Dukes, and Joel Little. Lover peaked atop the charts of such territories as Australia, Canada, Ireland, Mexico, Norway, Sweden, the UK, and the US. The album spawned five singles: "Me!", "You Need to Calm Down", "Lover", "The Man", and "Cruel Summer"; the first two singles peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100, and the lattermost single became a resurgent success in 2023, reaching number one. Lover was 2019's best-selling album in the US and best-selling album by a solo artist worldwide. The album and its singles earned three nominations at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2020. At the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, Swift won three awards including Video of the Year for "You Need to Calm Down", becoming the first female and second artist overall to win the category for a self-directed video.
A supporter of the March for Our Lives movement and gun control reform in the US, Swift is a vocal critic of white supremacy, racism, and police brutality. Following the George Floyd protests, she donated to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Black Lives Matter movement, called for the removal of Confederate monuments in Tennessee, and advocated for Juneteenth to become a national holiday. In 2020, Swift urged her fans to check their voter registration ahead of elections, which resulted in 65,000 people registering to vote within one day of her post, and endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the US presidential election. She has openly criticized former president Donald Trump.
In February 2020, Swift signed a global publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group after her 16-year contract with Sony/ATV expired. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Swift surprise-released two "sister albums" that she recorded and produced with Antonoff and Aaron Dessner: Folklore in July and Evermore in December. Joe Alwyn co-wrote and co-produced a few songs under the pseudonym William Bowery. Both albums incorporated a muted indie folk and alternative rock production; each was supported by three singles catering to US pop, country, and triple A radio formats. The singles were "Cardigan", "Betty", and "Exile" from Folklore, and "Willow", "No Body, No Crime", and "Coney Island" from Evermore. Folklore was the best-selling album of 2020 in the US and, together with "Cardigan", made Swift the first artist to debut a US number-one album and a number-one song in the same week; she achieved the feat again with Evermore and "Willow".
Swift divides her writing into three types: "quill lyrics", songs rooted in antiquated poeticism; "fountain pen lyrics", based on modern and vivid storylines; and "glitter gel pen lyrics", which are lively and frivolous. Critics note the fifth track of every Swift album as the most "emotionally vulnerable" of the album. Awarding her with the Songwriter Icon Award in 2021, the National Music Publishers' Association remarked that "no one is more influential when it comes to writing music today". The Week deemed her the foremost female songwriter of modern times, and the Nashville Songwriters Association International named her Songwriter-Artist of the Decade in 2022. Swift has also published two original poems: "Why She Disappeared" and "If You're Anything Like Me".
According to Billboard, Swift was the top-earning solo artist in the US and the top-earning musician worldwide of 2021. She won six American Music Awards including Artist of the Year in 2022. At the MTV Video Music Awards, Swift won her third and fourth trophies for Video of the Year with All Too Well: The Short Film, her self-directed short film that accompanies "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)", in 2022 and "Anti-Hero" in 2023. At the Grammy Awards, All Too Well: The Short Film won Best Music Video at the 65th annual ceremony (2023) and Midnights won Best Pop Vocal Album and Swift's record fourth Album of the Year at the 66th annual ceremony. Swift became the artist with the most Album of the Year wins in Grammy history.
Swift identifies as a pro-choice feminist, and is a founding signatory of the Time's Up movement against sexual harassment. Specifically, she criticized the US Supreme Court's decision to end federal abortion rights in 2022. Swift also advocates for LGBT rights, and has called for the passing of the Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity. She performed during WorldPride NYC 2019 at the Stonewall Inn, a gay rights monument, and has donated to the LGBT organizations Tennessee Equality Project and GLAAD.
Swift's tenth studio album, Midnights, was released in October 2022. The album incorporates a restrained electropop and synth-pop sound with elements of hip hop, R&B, and electronica. In the US, Midnights was her fifth to open atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of over one million copies, and its tracks, led by the single "Anti-Hero", made Swift the first artist to monopolize the top 10 of the Hot 100. Globally, the album broke the record for the most single-day streams and most single-week streams on Spotify and peaked atop the charts of at least 14 countries. The album's two further singles, "Lavender Haze" and "Karma", both peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100.
In March 2023, Swift embarked on the Eras Tour, a retrospective tour covering all her studio albums. Media outlets extensively covered the tour's cultural and economic impact, and its US leg broke the record for the most tickets sold in a day. Ticketmaster received public and political criticisms for mishandling the tour's ticket sales. The Eras Tour became the highest-grossing tour in history, collecting over $1 billion. Its concert film, released to theaters worldwide on October 13, 2023, grossed over $250 million to become the highest-grossing concert film, and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Cinematic and Box Office Achievement. Swift's music releases, touring, and related activities culminated in an unprecedented height of popularity post-pandemic. Music Business Worldwide remarked that she entered a "new stratosphere of global career success" in 2023.
Journalists have described Swift as one of the best live performers. Often praised for her showmanship and stage presence, Swift commands large audiences, without having to rely on dance like her contemporaries do. According to V magazine's Greg Krelenstein, she possesses "a rare gift of turning a stadium spectacle into an intimate setting", irrespective of whether she is "plucking a guitar or leading an army of dancers". In a 2008 review of Swift's early performances, Sasha Frere-Jones of The New Yorker called Swift a "preternaturally skilled" entertainer with a vibrant stage presence, adding "she returned the crowd's energy with the professionalism she has shown since the age of fourteen." In 2023, Adrian Horton of The Guardian noted her "seemingly endless stamina" on the Eras Tour, and i critic Ilana Kaplan called her showmanship "unparalleled".
Swift began dating the football player Travis Kelce in 2023. In January 2024, AI-generated fake pornographic images portraying Swift were posted to X (formerly Twitter) and spread to other social media platforms, spurring criticism and demands for legal reform. At the 66th Grammy Awards, Swift announced her eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, set for release on April 19, 2024.
Swift's private jet use has drawn scrutiny for its carbon emissions. In 2023, a spokesperson for Swift stated that she had purchased more than double the required carbon credits to offset all tour travel and personal flights. In December 2023, Swift's lawyers sent a cease and desist letter to American programmer Jack Sweeney over tracking her private jet, alleging stalking and safety risks; media outlets have reported that the information posted by Sweeney is a synthesis of publicly available data. In February 2024, it was reported that Swift had sold one of her two private jets.
Swift's next two re-recorded albums, Speak Now (Taylor's Version) and 1989 (Taylor's Version), were released in July and October 2023. The former made Swift the woman with the most number-one albums (12) in Billboard 200 history, surpassing Barbra Streisand, and the latter was her sixth album to sell one million copies in a single week in the US, claiming her career's largest album sales week. 1989 (Taylor's Version)'s single "Is It Over Now?" peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Swift featured on Big Red Machine's "Renegade" and "Birch" (2021), Haim's "Gasoline" (2021), Ed Sheeran's "The Joker and the Queen" (2022), and the National's "The Alcott" (2023). For the soundtrack of Where the Crawdads Sing (2022), she wrote and recorded "Carolina", which received nominations for Best Original Song at the Golden Globes and Best Song Written for Visual Media at the Grammy Awards.
Commercially, from available data, Swift has amassed over 50 million album sales and 150 million single sales as of 2019, and 114 million units globally, including 78 billion streams as of 2021. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry ranked her as the Global Recording Artist of the Year for a record four times (2014, 2019, 2022, and 2023). Swift has the most number-one albums in the United Kingdom and Ireland for a female artist this millennium, earned the highest income for an artist on Chinese digital music platforms (RMB 159,000,000 as of 2021), and is the first artist to occupy the entire top five of the Australian albums chart. Swift remains the world's highest-grossing female touring act ever, with cumulative ticket sales at $1.96 billion as of November 2023, per Pollstar. The Eras Tour is the highest-grossing tour of all time and the first to surpass $1 billion in revenue. Beginning with Fearless, each of her studio albums have opened with over one million global units. Swift is the most-streamed act on Spotify and the most-streamed female artist on Apple Music. On Spotify, she is the only artist to have received more than 250 million streams in one day (260 million on October 27, 2023) and the only female act to reach 100 million monthly listeners. The most entries and the most simultaneous entries for an artist on the Billboard Global 200, with 143 and 31 songs, respectively, are among her feats.
Media outlets describe Swift as a savvy businesswoman; in 2024, she topped Billboard's annual Power 100 ranking of the top music industry executives. Swift is known for her traditional album rollouts, consisting of a variety of promotional activities that Rolling Stone termed as an inescapable "multimedia bonanza". Easter eggs and cryptic teasers became a common practice in contemporary pop music because of Swift. Publications describe her discography as a music "universe" subject to analyses by fans, critics and journalists. Swift maintains an active presence on social media and a close relationship with fans, to which many journalists attribute her success. Her in-house management team is called 13 Management.