Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her narrative songwriting, which often centers around her personal life, has received widespread critical plaudits and media coverage.
Born in West Reading, Pennsylvania, Swift relocated to Nashville, Tennessee in 2004 to pursue a career in country music. Her 2006 eponymous debut studio album was the longest-charting album of the 2000s on the Billboard 200. Its third single, "Our Song", made her the youngest person to single-handedly write and perform a number-one song on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. Swift's second studio album, Fearless (2008), expands on country pop styles and won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Buoyed by the success of crossover singles "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me", Fearless was certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Speak Now (2010), her third studio album, blends country pop with rock sensibility and spawned the top-10 singles "Mine" and "Back to December".
Swift's fourth studio album, Red (2012), experiments with various pop, rock, and electronic genres. It included the top-five singles "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", her first Billboard Hot 100 number-one hit, and "I Knew You Were Trouble". With her fifth studio album, 1989 (2014), she announced her full transition to pop. The synth-pop record made Swift the first female solo artist to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year twice and amassed three Billboard Hot 100 number-one hits—"Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood". She extended the electronic-pop sound on her next two studio albums: Reputation (2017), which incorporates elements of hip hop and featured the Billboard Hot 100 number-one single "Look What You Made Me Do", and Lover (2019), which was the world's best-selling studio album of 2019. Swift's indie folk and alternative rock eighth studio album, Folklore (2020), and its lead single, "Cardigan", made her the first act to debut atop both the Billboard 200 and Hot 100 simultaneously.
With sales of over 200 million records worldwide, Swift is one of the best-selling music artists of all time. Her accolades include ten Grammy Awards, an Emmy Award, and seven Guinness World Records; she is the most-awarded act and woman at the American Music Awards (29 wins) and Billboard Music Awards (23 wins), respectively. She has been included in multiple power rankings, such as Time's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world (2010, 2015 and 2019), Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time (2015), the Forbes Celebrity 100 (placing first in 2016 and 2019), and Billboard's Greatest of All Time Artists Chart (placing eighth). She was named Woman of the Decade (2010s) by Billboard and the Artist of the Decade (2010s) by the American Music Awards, and two of her albums have been listed in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2020).
