As big as Taylor Swift’s 2023 was, this year is shaping up to be just as notable. The 34-year-old became the first artist to win Album of the Year four times at the 2024 Grammy Awards, setting a new record in the category. Swift accomplished the historic feat with her most recent album Midnights (2022), along with earlier releases Fearless (2008), 1989 (2014), and folklore (2020).
“I would love to tell you that this is the best moment of my life, but I feel this happy when I finish a song, or when I crack the code to a bridge that I love, or when I’m shot-listing a music video, or when I’m rehearsing with my dancers or my band or getting ready to go to Tokyo to play a show,” the pop star said during her acceptance speech at the February 4 ceremony. “All I want to do is keep being able to do this.”
It wasn’t the only big news from Swift of the night. While onstage collecting the Best Pop Vocal Album for Midnights, the singer surprised fans by announcing a new album: The Tortured Poets Department.
“My brand new album comes out April 19. It’s called The Tortured Poets Department,” Swift said. She immediately posted the news on her social media accounts, including photos of what could be the new album’s cover as well as a short note that concludes “All’s fair in love and poetry... Sincerely, The Chairman of The Tortured Poets Department.”
Swift restarts her already record-breaking Eras Tour in Tokyo on February 7. Before the concert series is scheduled to wrap in December, she will perform in 16 countries, including a handful of dates in the United States. Fans continue to speculate on whether she will be able to attend the 2024 Super Bowl on February 11 to watch her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, and the Kansas City Chiefs take on the San Francisco 49ers.
Who Is Taylor Swift?
Musician Taylor Swift began earning renown as a country singer by age 16. Early hits like “Love Story” and “You Belong With Me” appealed to country and pop fans alike and helped fuel the multiplatinum success of her albums, including the award-winning Fearless. Now a pop megastar with 14 Grammys to her name, she is the first artist to win Album of the Year four times. Named Time’s 2023 Person of the Year, Swift is currently performing on her record-breaking Eras Tour and is dating professional football player Travis Kelce. The “Shake It Off” and “Anti-Hero” singer plans to release her new album, The Tortured Poets Department, in April 2024.
Where Is Taylor Swift From?
Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, in Reading, Pennsylvania. Swift spent her early years with her parents, Scott and Andrea, and brother, Austin, on the family’s Christmas tree farm in nearby Wyomissing. “I had the most magical childhood, running free and going anywhere I wanted to in my head,” she told Rolling Stone. She learned to ride horses and even competed for a time, but a greater passion soon took root.
Swift followed in the musical footsteps of her grandmother Marjorie Finlay, who was a professional opera singer. By age 10, Swift was singing at a variety of local events, including fairs and contests. She sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” at a Philadelphia 76ers basketball game at age 11 and began writing her own songs and learning guitar at 12 years old. Her early music idols included Shania Twain and The Chicks.
To pursue her music career, Swift often visited Nashville, Tennessee, the country music capital. There, she cowrote songs and tried to land a recording contract. Noting her dedication, her family moved to nearby Hendersonville when she was 13 in an attempt to further young Swift’s career. She attended Hendersonville High School before finishing out her education through the home schooling program of Aaron Academy, a private Christian school, once her musical career took off.
Music Career
One of today’s biggest pop stars, Swift has worked her way from performing at local venues in Tennessee to commanding stadiums full of Swifties—her adoring fans—on international tours. A stellar performance at The Bluebird Café in Nashville helped her get a contract with Scott Borchetta’s Big Machine Records at age 14.
She spent her early career as a country musician, and her first single, “Tim McGraw,” was named after one of the genre’s biggest stars. The 2006 song, which she wrote in her freshman year math class, became a Top 10 hit on Billboard’s country chart, quickly launching Swift into the spotlight. McGraw and fellow country music singer Faith Hill even brought Swift on their Soul2Soul tour the next year as an opening act. Reminiscing on the tour years later, McGraw told ET Canada, “Faith and I both knew that there was no stopping her. She’s a special talent.”
It wasn’t long before Swift began receiving critical praise for her work. The teenager won the Horizon Award from the Country Music Association (CMA) and the Academy of Country Music (ACM) Award for Top New Female Vocalist in 2007. The next year, she was nominated for Best New Artist at the Grammys. She became the youngest artist to win the Grammy for Album of the Year, for Fearless in 2010.
The country music darling eventually began experimenting with genre. With her fifth album, 1989, she decisively reintroduced herself as a pop musician. Her new sound excited fans, and the 2014 release is one of her most successful to date, spending 11 weeks atop the Billboard 200 and selling more than 1.2 million copies in its first week.
Not everything about her music changed, though. Personal experiences, including her romantic relationships, continue to fuel Swift’s songwriting. “I’m enthralled by relationships, and I love the drama in them, but that’s usually where it lives,” Swift told Rolling Stone in 2009, maintaining “I’m not a dramatic person.” Hardly the first musician to utilize this practice, the pop star usually doesn’t reveal who her song subjects are, unless they are family or friends. Instead, her loyal fans obsess over easter eggs in her lyrics and music videos to pinpoint a likely person.
Since March 2023, Swift has been performing on her headline-grabbing Eras Tour. It marks her sixth international tour, having first headlined her own concert series after the release of her award-winning sophomore album, Fearless. When presale tickets for the Eras Tour went live in November 2022, so many fans attempted to snag their seats that Ticketmaster canceled the general sale, leading to a congressional hearing about the debacle. Already one of the highest-grossing touring musicians as of July 2022, Swift has earned more than $1 billion on the Eras Tour so far—surpassing Elton John’s record-setting farewell tour that spanned five years. The Eras Tour wraps in December 2024 after dozens more concerts, mostly abroad.
Swift’s successes in 2023 also include the release of the 1989 (Taylor’s Version) album and the record-setting concert film Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, two more No. 1 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, tying with Drake as the artist with the most Billboard Music Awards in history, dethroning Bad Bunny as Spotify’s most streamed artist of the year, and achieving billionaire status. All that culminated in Time naming her its 2023 Person of the Year. Swift is the fifth woman to receive the honor.
Early in 2024, Swift became the first artist to win the Grammy for Album of the Year four times, further cementing her place in the history books.
How Many Grammys Does Taylor Swift Have?
Swift has won 14 Grammy Awards out of 52 nominations.
She was first nominated in 2008 for Best New Artist. Although Amy Winehouse claimed the honor, 20-year-old Swift lived up to her promising career start by collecting four Grammys the next year. Fearless won Album of the Year and Best Country Album, and “White Horse” was named Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance in 2009.
Swift has now won Album of the Year four times: for Fearless, 1989, folklore, and Midnights. She is the only artist to have accomplished this feat, setting the record in 2024. Midnights also won the award for Best Pop Vocal Album this year.
Even so, Swift has never won the top song honor of Song of the Year, though she has received a record seven nominations in the category. As for Best Country Song, the artist has won twice in five nominations; “Mean” earned the trophy the year after “White Horse” did.
The singer-songwriter has won a host of other accolades, including nine CMA Awards and eight ACM Awards. Both country music organizations have twice named her Entertainer of the Year. Since her first in 2009, Swift has taken home 23 Video Music Awards, second only to Beyoncé. Billboard named her Woman of the Year in 2012, one of Swift’s 29 awards from the publication.
In December 2023, Swift notched another first when she received her first Golden Globe Award nomination for Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour. Her concert film competed in but didn’t win Cinematic and Box Office Achievement at the January 2024 ceremony.
Hit Songs
Ever since her first single, “Tim McGraw,” in 2006, Swift’s music has found a home on the Billboard charts. As of February 5, 2024, she has had 232 songs grace the mainstream Hot 100. That includes 11 No. 1 hits and a record-setting 49 songs in the top 10; no woman has had more top 10 hits, and Swift only trails Drake among all artists. She also holds nine No. 1 Hot Country Songs, including “Our Song” and “Should’ve Said No.”
“Fearless” debuted at No. 9 on the mainstream chart in November 2008, marking Swift’s first top 10 song. Her first chart-topper was roughly four years away. That came in September 2012 with Grammy-nominated “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” Her other No 1. songs include:
- “Shake It Off”
- “Blank Space”
- “Bad Blood”
- “Look What You Made Me Do”
- “Cardigan”
- “Willow”
- “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)”
- “Anti-Hero”
- “Cruel Summer”
- “Is It Over Now? (Taylor’s Version) [From The Vault]”
At 10 minutes, 13 seconds, “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)” is the longest No. 1 hit in history. “Shake It Off” is Swift’s only diamond-certified song, having sold the equivalent of 10 million copies.
Albums
To date, Swift has released 18 albums, including 10 original studio albums, four rereleases, and four live albums. Excluding those live recordings, every album since her sophomore effort, Fearless, has nabbed the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 for at least one week. In December 2023, she became the first living artist to have five albums rank among the chart’s top 10 simultaneously.
Her first album came in 2006 with Taylor Swift, and her most recent all-new music is on 2022’s Midnights. Her latest rerecorded album, 1989 (Taylor’s Version), debuted in October 2023. Swift will release a new album, The Tortured Poets Department, on April 19, 2024.
