Taylor Swift facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Taylor Swift
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Swift in 2023
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Taylor Alison Swift
December 13, 1989 |
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| Years active | 2003–present |
| Organization | Taylor Swift Productions |
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| Awards | Full list |
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| Origin | Nashville, Tennessee, US |
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Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Known for her biographical songwriting, artistic reinventions, and cultural impact, Swift is a leading figure in popular music and the subject of widespread public interest.
Swift signed to Big Machine Records in 2005 starting as a country singer with the albums Taylor Swift (2006) and Fearless (2008). Her singles "Teardrops on My Guitar", "Love Story", and "You Belong with Me" found crossover success on country and pop radio formats. She experimented with rock on Speak Now (2010) and electronic on Red (2012), later recalibrating her image from country to pop with the synth-pop album 1989 (2014); the ensuing media scrutiny inspired the hip-hop-imbued Reputation (2017). The albums contained the Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", "Bad Blood" and "Look What You Made Me Do".
Shifting to Republic Records in 2018, Swift released the electropop album Lover (2019) and the autobiographical documentary Miss Americana (2020), explored indie folk styles in the 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, and subdued pop genres on Midnights (2022) and The Tortured Poets Department (2024). She began re-recording her Big Machine albums as Taylor's Version since 2021, due to an ownership dispute with the label. Through the 2020s, she garnered the US number one songs "Cardigan", "Willow", "All Too Well", "Anti-Hero", "Cruel Summer", "Is It Over Now?", and "Fortnight". Her sixth concert tour, the Eras Tour (2023–2024), and its accompanying concert film are respectively the highest-grossing tour and concert film of all time.
With 200 million units sold worldwide, Swift is one of the world's best-selling music artists, with a record seven albums that sold over one million copies first-week. She is the highest-grossing female touring act, the first billionaire with music as primary income, and the world's richest female musician. She has been listed amongst history's greatest artists by publications such as Rolling Stone, Billboard and Forbes, as well as the only individual from the arts to have been named the Time Person of the Year (2023). Her accolades include 14 Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, 40 American Music Awards, 39 Billboard Music Awards, and 30 MTV Video Music Awards; she has won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year and the IFPI Global Recording Artist of the Year at least four times each. Swift is an advocate of artists' rights and women's empowerment. Her fans are known as Swifties.
Contents
Life and career
Early life
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, was a stockbroker for Merrill Lynch, and her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (née Finlay), worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Swift's younger brother, Austin, is an actor. Their 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 is of Scottish, English, and German descent, with distant Italian and Irish ancestry.
Swift spent her early years on a Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania that her father had purchased from one of his clients, and she spent her summers at her family's vacation home in Stone Harbor, New Jersey, where she occasionally performed acoustic songs at a local coffee shop. She is a Christian and attended preschool and kindergarten at a Montessori school run by the Bernardine Sisters of St. Francis before transferring to the Wyndcroft School. When her family moved to Wyomissing, she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School. As a child, she performed in Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions and traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Her early love for country music was influenced by Shania Twain, Patsy Cline, LeAnn Rimes, and the Dixie Chicks, and she spent weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, she became determined to pursue a country-music career in Nashville, Tennessee.
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.
2004–2008: Career beginnings and first album
In Nashville, Swift worked with experienced Music Row songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally, and the Warren Brothers and formed a lasting working relationship with Liz Rose. They began meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school. Rose called the sessions "some of the easiest I've ever done. Basically, I was just her editor. She'd write about what happened in school that day. She had such a clear vision of what she was trying to say. And she'd come in with the most incredible hooks." Swift became the youngest artist signed by Sony/ATV Tree Music Publishing, but left then BMG-owned RCA Records (later bought by Sony Music) at the age of 14 due to the label's lack of care and them "cut[ting] other people's stuff". She was also concerned that development deals can shelve artists and recalled: "I genuinely felt that I was running out of time. I wanted to capture these years of my life on an album while they still represented what I was going through."
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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 platinum-certified debut album.
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. 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.
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.
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.
2008–2010: Fearless
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 bestselling 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.
"You Belong with Me" won Best Female Video at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. Her acceptance speech was interrupted by the rapper Kanye West, an incident that became the subject of controversy and widespread media coverage. That year, Swift won five American Music Awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Billboard named her the 2009 Artist of the Year. She won Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year for "Love Story" at the 2009 CMT Music Awards, where she made a parody video of the song with rapper T-Pain called "Thug Story". At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Fearless was named Album of the Year and Best Country Album, and "White Horse" won Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. At the 2009 Country Music Association Awards, Swift won Album of the Year for Fearless and was named Entertainer of the Year, the youngest person to win the honor.
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.
2010–2014: Speak Now and Red
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).
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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".
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.
Swift continued writing songs for films and featuring on other artists' releases. On the soundtrack album to The Hunger Games (2012), Swift wrote and recorded "Eyes Open" and "Safe & Sound"; the latter of which was co-written with the Civil Wars and T-Bone Burnett. "Safe & Sound" won the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media. She wrote and produced "Sweeter than Fiction" with Jack Antonoff for the soundtrack to One Chance (2013). Swift featured on B.o.B's "Both of Us" (2012) and provided vocals for Tim McGraw's "Highway Don't Care" (2013), also featuring Keith Urban. She was a voice actress in The Lorax (2012), made a cameo in the sitcom New Girl (2013), and had a supporting role in the dystopian film The Giver (2014). From 2010 to 2013, Swift was romantically involved with the actor Jake Gyllenhaal, the political heir Conor Kennedy, and the singer Harry Styles.
2014–2018: 1989 and Reputation
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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.
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.
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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. ..... 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.
..... 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).
At the 2018 American Music Awards, Swift won four awards, which made her accumulate 23 trophies in total and become the AMAs' most awarded female musician, surpassing Whitney Houston. The same year, she embarked on her Reputation Stadium Tour, which became the highest-grossing North American concert tour in history and grossed $345.7 million worldwide.
2018–2021: Lover, Folklore, and Evermore
In November 2018, Swift signed a new deal with Universal Music Group, which promoted her subsequent albums under Republic Records' imprint. The contract included a provision for Swift to maintain ownership of her masters. In addition, in the event that Universal sold any part of its stake in Spotify, it agreed to distribute a non-recoupable portion of the proceeds among its artists.
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 bestselling album in the US and bestselling 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.
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 for the Big Machine-owned masters.
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 bestselling 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".
According to Billboard, Swift was the highest-paid musician in the US and highest-paid solo musician worldwide of 2020. Folklore made Swift the first woman to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year three times, winning the category at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards (2021). At the American Music Awards, Swift won three awards including Artist of the Year for a third record time (2020) and Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist and Favorite Pop/Rock Album (2021). Swift played Bombalurina in the film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats (2019), for which she co-wrote and recorded the Golden Globe-nominated original song "Beautiful Ghosts". The documentary Miss Americana, which chronicled parts of Swift's life and career, premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.
2021–2023: Re-recordings and Midnights
Swift's re-recordings of her first six studio albums began with Fearless (Taylor's Version) and Red (Taylor's Version), which were released in April and November 2021. Both peaked atop the Billboard 200, and the former was the first re-recorded album to do so. Fearless (Taylor's Version) was preceded by "Love Story (Taylor's Version)", which made Swift the second artist after Dolly Parton to have both the original and re-recorded versions of a song reach number one on Hot Country Songs. Red (Taylor's Version) was supported by "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)", which became the longest song in history to top the Hot 100.
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.
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. During this period, Swift won three Grammy Awards: Best Music Video for All Too Well: The Short Film and Best Pop Vocal Album and Album of the Year for Midnights. Swift became the first artist to win Album of the Year four times in Grammy history.
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.
In 2023, Swift was the 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.
Artistry
Musical styles
Swift's early musical influences were 1990s female country musicians such as Shania Twain, Faith Hill, LeAnn Rimes, and the Dixie Chicks, and Keith Urban's country crossover sounds incorporating rock, pop, and blues. She self-identified as a country musician and achieved prominence as a country pop singer with her first four studio albums, from Taylor Swift to Red. The albums feature country signifiers such as banjo, six-string banjo, mandolin, fiddle, and a slight vocal twang, in addition to pop melodies and rock influences; Speak Now draws on rock styles such as pop rock, pop-punk, and 1980s arena rock. Critics argued that country was an indicator of Swift's narrative songwriting rather than musical direction and accused her of causing mainstream country music to stray from its roots.
After the critical debate around Red's eclectic pop, rock, and electronic styles, Swift chose 1980s synth-pop as a defining sound of her recalibrated pop artistry and image, inspired by the music of Phil Collins, Annie Lennox, Peter Gabriel, and Madonna. 1989, the first album in this direction, incorporates electronic arrangements consisting of dense synthesizers and drum machines. Swift expanded on the electronic production on her next albums; Reputation consists of hip hop, R&B, and EDM influences; and Lover features eclectic elements from country, pop-punk, and folk rock. When Swift embraced a pop identity, rockist critics regarded her move as an erosion of her country music songwriting authenticity, but others regarded it as necessary for Swift's artistic evolution and defended her as a pioneer of poptimism.
Her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore explore alternative and indie styles of rock and folk, and both incorporate a subtle, stripped-back soundscape with orchestration, synthesizers, and drum pads. The latter experiments with varied song structures, asymmetric time signatures, and diverse instruments. Critics deemed the indie styles a mature representation of Swift's artistry as a singer-songwriter. Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department both incorporate a minimalist, subdued synth-pop sound, making use of analog synthesizers, sustained bass notes, and simple drum machine patterns.
With continuous musical reinventions, Swift was described by Time and the BBC as a musical "chameleon". Jody Rosen commented that by originating her career in Nashville, Swift made a "bait-and-switch maneuver, planting roots in loamy country soil, then pivoting to pop". Clash wrote that she has the versatility to "no longer [...] be defined by any genre or sound label". According to Ann Powers, Swift's sound is genre-agnostic, blending and "reconfiguring" elements of country, R&B, indie pop, and hip hop.
Voice
Swift possesses a mezzo-soprano vocal range and a generally soft and breathy timbre that Rolling Stone deemed versatile. Reviews of Swift's early country albums criticized her vocals as weak and strained compared to those of other female country singers. Despite the criticism, most reviewers appreciated that Swift refrained from correcting her pitch with Auto-Tune and how she prioritized "intimacy over power and nuance" to communicate the messages of her songs with her audience—a style that has been described as conversational. According to Powers, Swift's defining vocal feature was her attention to detail to convey an exact feeling—"the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow".
On Red and 1989, Swift's vocals are electronically processed to accompany the pop production. Her voice on Reputation and Midnights incorporates hip-hop and R&B influences that result in a near-rap delivery which emphasizes rhythm and cadence over melody. She uses her lower register vocals extensively in "Cardigan" and both her lower and upper registers in Evermore; the musicologist Alyssa Barca described her timbre in the upper register as "breathy and bright" and the lower register as "full and dark".
Reviews in The New York Times, Variety and The Atlantic were more appreciative of Swift's vocals in her later albums. She ranked 102nd on Rolling Stone's 2023 list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time: "A decade ago, including her on this list would have been a controversial move, but recent releases like Folklore, Evermore, and Midnights officially settled the argument." Laura Snapes of The Guardian said that Swift's "vocal directness" enables her to express wide-ranging feelings, highlighting some trademarks such as "yo-yoing vocal yelp" and "climactic, processed cri de coeur". Amanda Petrusich praised how the clarity and tone of Swift's live vocals accentuate her lyrics.
Songwriting
Swift's fascination with songwriting began in her childhood. She credited her mother with igniting confidence and early songwriting interests by helping her prepare for class presentations. She enjoyed Disney film soundtracks and would make up lyrics once she had run out of words singing them. Her lyrical influences include female country songwriters such as Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, and Dolly Parton; 1990s songwriters such as Melissa Etheridge, Sarah McLachlan, and Alanis Morissette; Joni Mitchell; and Fall Out Boy. She listed Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Emmylou Harris, and Kris Kristofferson as career role models, citing their both evolving and consistent songwriting outputs. Her literary influences include the authors William Shakespeare, Nathaniel Hawthorne, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the poets William Wordsworth, Robert Frost, and Emily Dickinson; the last of whom was a distant cousin of Swift.
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. She often references or draws inspiration from historical events and figures.
Swift's confessional lyrics received positive reviews from critics, who highlighted their vivid details and emotional engagement, which they found uncommon in pop music, although some perceived her as a fragile, juvenile artist, a label she has consistently challenged. Critics also praised her melodic compositions; Rolling Stone described Swift as "a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture". NPR dubbed Swift "a master of the vernacular in her lyrics", remarking that her songs offer emotional engagement because "the wit and clarity of her arrangements turn them from standard fare to heartfelt disclosures". Despite the positive reception, The New Yorker stated she was generally portrayed "more as a skilled technician than as a Dylanesque visionary". Tabloid media often speculated and linked the subjects of her songs with her ex-lovers, a practice reviewers and Swift herself criticized as sexist. Aside from clues in album liner notes, Swift avoided talking about the subjects of her songs.
On her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, Swift was inspired by escapism and romanticism to explore fictional narratives. She imposed emotions onto imagined characters and story arcs, which liberated her from tabloid attention and suggested new paths for her artistry. Swift explained that she welcomed the new songwriting direction after she stopped worrying about commercial success. According to Spin, she explored complex emotions with "precision and devastation" on Evermore. Consequence stated her 2020 albums convinced skeptics of her songwriting prowess, noting her transformation from "teenage wunderkind to a confident and careful adult".
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. Fans noticed that the fifth track of every Swift album was 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".
Critics have analyzed the distinctive qualities and thematic depth in Swift's songwriting. Critic Kitty Empire opined in 2024 that Swift is "a profoundly old-fashioned artist", whose songs "tell a story, in succinct, emotive ways that often scan meticulously" unlike most pop music of the time; Empire attributed it to Swift's country beginnings. Swift's bridges are often noted as one of the best aspects of her songs, earning her the title "Queen of Bridges" from Time. Mojo dubbed her "a sharp narrator with a gift for the extended metaphor". Academics have variably described her as a poet laureate, philosopher, and bard.
Performances
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Swift commands large audiences on stage, captivating them through emotional storytelling and vocal delivery rather than relying on elaborate choreography. 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's concert productions have been characterized by elaborate Broadway theatricality and high technology, and her performances frequently incorporate a live band, with whom she has played and toured since 2007. Swift also often accompanies herself with musical instruments such as electric guitar; acoustic guitar; piano; and sometimes twelve-string guitar, six-string banjo, or ukulele. Interacting frequently with the audience, her solo acoustic performances are considered intimate and emotionally resonant, complementing her story-based lyrics and fan connection. Lydia Burgham of The Spinoff opined that this intimacy remains "integral to her singer-songwriter origins". Chris Willman of Variety called Swift "pop's most approachable superstar", and the 21st century's most popular performer.
Video and film
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."
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.
Her production company, Taylor Swift Productions, is credited with producing all of her visual media, starting with the 2018 concert documentary Reputation Stadium Tour. She continued to co-direct music videos for the Lover singles "Me!" with Dave Meyers, and "You Need to Calm Down" (also serving as a co-executive producer) and "Lover" with Drew Kirsch, but first ventured into sole direction with the video for "The Man" (which won her the MTV Video Music Award for Best Direction). After Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, Swift debuted as a filmmaker with All Too Well: The Short Film, which made her the first artist to win the Grammy Award for Best Music Video as a sole director. Swift has cited Chloé Zhao, Greta Gerwig, Nora Ephron, Guillermo del Toro, John Cassavetes, and Noah Baumbach as filmmaking influences.
Accolades and achievements
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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, 30 MTV Video Music Awards (including five 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.
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 UK and Ireland for a female artist this millennium, earned the highest income for an artist on Chinese digital music platforms (CN¥ 159,000,000 as of 2021), and is the first artist to occupy the entire top five of the Australian albums chart and the top ten of the country's singles 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 and 350 million streams in one day (260 million on October 27, 2023, and 380 million on April 19, 2024) and was the first female act to reach 100 million monthly listeners. The most entries and the most simultaneous entries (175 and 34 songs), and most number-ones (5) for a soloist on the Billboard Global 200, are among her feats. Swift is the first and only artist to occupy the top nine spots on the Global 200. She has the most entries (154), top-ten songs (20), and number-ones (3) among solo acts on the Global 200 Excl. US.
In the US, Swift has sold over 37.3 million albums as of 2019, when Billboard placed her eighth on its Greatest of All Time Artists Chart. Twelve of her songs have topped the Billboard Hot 100. She is the longest-reigning and the first act to spend at least 100 weeks atop the Billboard Artist 100 (120 weeks); the soloist with the most cumulative weeks atop and in the top ten of the Billboard 200 (84 and 425); the woman with the most Billboard 200 number-ones (14), Hot 100 entries (total and single-week: 264 and 32), number-one debuts (7), top-ten songs (59), top-five songs (36), Streaming Songs chart-toppers (9), and weeks atop the Top Country Albums chart (101); and the act with the most number-one songs on Pop Airplay (13) and Digital Songs (29). Swift is the first woman to simultaneously chart five albums in the top 10 and eleven albums on the entire Billboard 200; and the first act to occupy the top four spots and chart seven albums in the top 10 on the Top Album Sales chart. She is the second highest-certified female digital singles artist (and fifth overall) in the US, with 137.5 million total units certified by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and the first woman to have both an album (Fearless) and a song ("Shake It Off") certified Diamond. Swift is the only artist in Luminate history to have seven albums sell over a million copies in a week.
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. ..... 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.
Cultural status
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 enormous 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's fans are known as Swifties. Billboard noted only few artists have had her chart success, critical acclaim, and fan support. Swift's million-selling albums are considered an anomaly in the streaming-dominated industry following the end of the album era in the 2010s. Economist Alan Krueger described Swift as an "economic genius".
Although labeled by the media in her early career as "America's Sweetheart" for her girl next door persona, Swift has been called by detractors "calculated" and manipulative of her image, a narrative bolstered by her 2016 dispute with West. ..... Swift has also been a victim of numerous house break-ins and stalkers, some of whom were armed.
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.
Legacy
Swift helped shape the modern country music scene, having extended her success beyond the Anglosphere, pioneered the use of the internet (Myspace) as a marketing tool, and introduced the genre to a younger generation. Country labels have since become interested in signing young singers who write their own music; her guitar performances contributed to the "Taylor Swift factor": a phenomenon to which an upsurge in guitar sales to women, a previously ignored demographic, is attributed.
According to Pitchfork, Swift changed the music landscape with her genre transitions, a discography that accommodates cultural shifts, and Billboard notes her ability to popularize any sound in mainstream music. Lyrically, in being personal and vulnerable in her songs, music journalist Nick Catucci opined Swift helped make space for later singers like Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, and Halsey to do the same. Scholars have highlighted the literary sensibility and poptimist implications of Swift. She has been credited with legitimizing and popularizing the concept of album "eras". Swift is a subject of academic study and scholarly media research. Various educational institutions offer courses on Swift in literary, cultural, and sociopolitical contexts.
Swift has influenced numerous music artists, and her albums have inspired a generation of singer-songwriters. Journalists praise her ability to reform industry practices, noting how her actions changed streaming policies, prompted awareness of intellectual property in new musicians, and reshaped ticketing models. Various sources deem Swift's music a paradigm representing the millennial generation; Vox called her the "millennial Bruce Springsteen", and The Times named her "the Bob Dylan of our age". Swift earned the title Woman of the Decade (2010s) from Billboard, Artist of the Decade (2010s) at the American Music Awards, and Global Icon at the Brit Awards for her impact. Senior artists such as Madonna, Stevie Nicks, Jon Bon Jovi, Dolly Parton, and Elton John have praised her musicianship. Carole King regards Swift as her "professional granddaughter" and thanked Swift for "carrying the torch forward". Springsteen called her a "tremendous" writer, while Billy Joel considered Swift the Beatles' successor. Britney Spears labeled Swift "the most iconic pop woman of our generation".
Entrepreneurship
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 analysis 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.
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.
Social activism
..... 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.
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. She has openly criticized former president Donald Trump. 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 2020 US presidential election. For the 2024 election, she endorsed Harris and Tim Walz.
Wealth and philanthropy
Swift became a billionaire in October 2023, becoming the world's first musician to achieve the status "solely based on her songs and performances". Forbes has estimated her net worth at $1.6 billion as of October 2024, making her the richest female musician in the world. Forbes had 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 Guinness World Records as the highest annual earnings ever for a female musician, which she herself surpassed with $185 million in 2019. Overall, Swift was listed as the Forbes 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 residential properties in Nashville, New York City, Los Angeles (Samuel Goldwyn Estate), and Rhode Island (High Watch).
Swift 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". Especially early in her career, Swift donated to various relief funds following natural disasters. In 2009, she donated $100,000 to the Red Cross to help the victims of the Iowa flood of 2008. The same year, she performed at Sydney's Sound Relief concert, which raised money for those impacted by bushfires and flooding. 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 response to the May 2010 Tennessee floods, she donated $500,000. In 2009, Swift sang at BBC's Children in Need concert and raised £13,000 for the cause. 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. Swift donated $1 million for Tennessee tornado relief in 2020 and again in 2023, as well as $5 million toward the reliefs efforts after Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton in 2024.
Swift has also donated to cancer research. 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, she 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. She has made donations to her fans several times for their medical or academic expenses. 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.
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.
She has also provided one-off donations. In 2007, she 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. Swift has also encouraged young people to volunteer in their local communities as part of Global Youth Service Day. Also a promoter of children's literacy, she has donated money and books to schools around the country. ..... 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 Eras Tour, Swift donated to food banks at every stop; she also directly employed local businesses throughout the tour and gave $55 million in bonus payments to her entire crew. 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.
Discography
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Studio albums
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Re-recorded albums
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Filmography
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Films |
Documentaries
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Tours
- Fearless Tour (2009–2010)
- Speak Now World Tour (2011–2012)
- The Red Tour (2013–2014)
- The 1989 World Tour (2015)
- Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)
- The Eras Tour (2023–2024)
See also
In Spanish: Taylor Swift para niños
- List of American Grammy Award winners and nominees
- List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
- List of most-followed Instagram accounts
- List of most-followed Twitter accounts
- List of most-subscribed YouTube channels
