Swift, Taylor (1989-…), is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. She became a pop music superstar during the first two decades of the 2000’s. She has won a number of Grammy Awards and other awards for her music. Her music also has set many sales records.
Taylor Alison Swift was born on Dec. 13, 1989, in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, near Reading. She learned to play guitar as a child. She began singing at local fairs and festivals at age 10. Before she was a teenager, Swift traveled regularly with her parents to Nashville, Tennessee, to perform and write songs with local songwriters. Nashville is the center of the country music industry. Swift gained attention at age 12 when she sang the United States national anthem at the US Open tennis tournament in New York City. When she was 14, she moved with her family to a suburb of Nashville.
Swift’s first single, “Tim McGraw,” from her first album, Taylor Swift (2006), became a hit. The album also included “Our Song,” Swift’s first number-one country hit on Billboard magazine’s “Hot Country Songs” chart.
Swift’s second album, Fearless (2008), became the best-selling album of 2009 in the United States. It produced several hits, including the number-one country singles “You Belong with Me” and “Love Story.” Swift won four Country Music Association awards for the album, including entertainer of the year. She became the youngest performer to win that award. Swift’s third album, Speak Now, released in 2010, also became a huge hit. The album produced a number of hit singles, including “Mine.”
With the release of her fifth album, 1989 (2014), Swift’s music became more pop-oriented. The album featured the hits “Shake It Off” and “Blank Space.” Also with the release of 1989, Swift became the first artist to have three albums that each sold a million or more copies in a week. Several of Swift’s songs have topped Billboard’s ranking for number of digital song sales in a week. Such songs have included “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” (2012), “Look What You Made Me Do” (2017), and “Cruel Summer” (2023).
Swift’s other albums include Red (2012), Reputation (2017), Lover (2019), Folklore and Evermore (both 2020), Midnights (2022), and The Tortured Poets Department (2024). A double-album edition of The Tortured Poets Department was released the same day as the standard album. It includes a second album, subtitled The Anthology.
In 2021, following a dispute regarding ownership of the master recordings of her first six studio albums, Swift announced that she would re-record the albums in a bid to regain ownership of them. That same year, she released Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version). In 2023, Swift released Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) and 1989 (Taylor’s Version). The re-recorded albums also included previously unreleased songs.
Swift made her motion-picture acting debut in the romantic comedy Valentine’s Day (2010). She provided the voice of a little girl named Audrey in the animated feature-length film Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax (2012). In addition, Swift starred in the motion-picture musical Cats (2019). The documentary film Miss Americana (2020) follows Swift over the course of several years of her career. The concert film Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (2023) features footage from three of Swift’s shows at SoFi Stadium near Los Angeles, California, during her hugely popular 2023 “Eras” tour.
