Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift is one of the biggest musical phenomena of the 2000s. Over the course of her career she has managed to bring her original country style into the pop mainstream, giving it a personal touch and winning over mass audiences. Born on December 13, 1989 in Pennsylvania (USA), she showed a keen interest in music as early as age 9. At 14 she was writing songs and entering numerous local talent contests, soon signing her first deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing. During an evening at the Bluebird Cafe, she was spotted by Scott Borchetta, who signed her in 2005 to Big Machine to work on her debut album. Taylor Swift was already a phenomenon on MySpace, the online music platform hugely popular at the time: leveraging that fanbase, her self-titled debut gained visibility thanks to songs like "Tim McGraw," "Teardrops On My Guitar" and "Our Song," which became huge hits not just on the country charts but on the pop charts as well.

In 2008, her second album, “Fearless”, was certified Gold in its first week of release; in the United States it went on to earn six platinum certifications, helped along by the pull of hits like “Love Story” and “You Belong With Me”. Shortly after, she performed in the UK, Canada, Australia, and at the 2009 MTV Music Awards.

In October 2010 came “Speak Now”, which cemented the singer's place among global superstars. Her success proved unstoppable, and in 2011 she released her first live album, “World Tour Live: Speak Now”, while beginning work on her fourth album, which leaned decisively into pop, aided by collaborations with Dan Wilson, Butch Walker and Britney Spears's producer, Max Martin. Out of this came “We Are Never Getting Back Together”, the lead single from “Red”, released in 2012, which sold over a million copies in its first week: an impressive result given the deep crisis the record industry was facing at the time. The album was certified quadruple platinum in the United States.

In 2013 came the world tour, while Taylor racked up further hits with “I Knew You Were Trouble”, “22” and, in August 2014, “Shake it Off”, which hit number 1 on the day of its release. In 2014, the American singer released another record-breaking album, “1989”, the third consecutive album to sell a million copies in its first week. The world tour ran through Asia, North America and Europe during 2015: a triumphant run that culminated in three Grammy Awards in 2016 - Album of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Album, and Best Music Video for “Bad Blood”.

“Reputation”, Taylor Swift's sixth album, was preceded by the single “Look What You Made Me Do”, another chart-topper straight out of the gate. In November 2018, the American artist signed with major label Universal, for whom she released the new album “Lover”, which, propelled by the singles “Me!” and “You Need To Calm Down”, earned three nominations at the 62nd Grammy Awards. Plans to bring “Lover” on a world tour, however, were derailed by the pandemic. During this period of pause, Taylor Swift co-wrote several tracks with Aaron Dessner of the National, Bon Iver and Jack Antonoff. The result was the album “Folklore”, featuring 16 new tracks plus a bonus track, “The Lakes”, included on the deluxe edition. Acclaimed by both fans and critics, the album sold over two million copies in its first week and became the singer's seventh record to reach number 1 on the Billboard 200. With a total of 97.87 million streams, Taylor Swift was crowned the most-streamed popstar of all of 2020 in a single day.

In 2020, the story of the Swift phenomenon was told in “Miss Americana”, the Netflix documentary that stands as a tribute to the journey of the young singer-songwriter, by then a beloved icon the world over. Following the release of “Evermore”, the twin album to “Folklore”, at the end of 2020, in 2021 the singer from Pennsylvania returned to pure country with “Fearless (Taylor's Version)”, which racked up 50 million streams on its release day. The album is a re-recording of her second record, originally released in 2009, and it immediately shot to the top of charts around the world, from the UK to New Zealand, while debuting in the Top 5 in Belgium, Norway and the Netherlands.

In October 2022 came “Midnights”, the hugely anticipated tenth album from the singer-songwriter from West Reading. Produced alongside the Midas-touched Jack Antonoff, with contributions from, among others, Lana Del Rey and Zoë Kravitz, the album gathers the stories of 13 sleepless nights, one for each track. Just hours after the new record's release, Taylor Swift also announced a deluxe version, “Midnights (3am Edition)”, featuring 7 additional unreleased tracks. The album's lead single was “Anti-hero”, whose video was written and directed by Swift herself. According to Forbes, with estimated earnings of 92 million dollars, Swift was confirmed for the third year running as the highest-paid female musician in the world, and for the second year as the only woman in the top 10 of music earners overall.

On March 17, 2023, her sixth tour, The Eras Tour, kicked off in Glendale; it would see her perform a total of 90 stadium shows across the United States, with its European leg including two dates in Italy, scheduled for Milan's San Siro stadium on July 13 and 14, 2024. On May 5, 2023, during the first stop in Nashville, came the announcement of the re-recording of her third album: “Speak Now (Taylor's Version)”. Released on July 7, 2023, it includes 22 tracks, 6 of them previously unreleased.

On October 27 came “1989 (Taylor's Version)”, which became Swift's best-selling album in the US in its first week, breaking her own previous record, set by the original “1989”. It had been eight years, since Adele's “25”, since an album had sold so many copies in its first week of release.

The re-recording of “1989” went to number one virtually everywhere in the world, and thanks to the streaming numbers logged on release day, Taylor Swift became the most-streamed artist in a single day in the history of the Spotify platform. The Taylor's Version of “1989” also became the most-streamed album in a single day of 2023, wresting the record away from “Midnights”.

Taylor Swift confirms herself as a chameleonic artist, able to morph from country queen to aggressive teenager in the style of Avril Lavigne, from femme fatale à la Lana Del Rey to ultra-(synth-)pop champion chasing the records of Adele or Lady Gaga, all the way to serving as the female alter ego of Matt Berninger.

Meanwhile, her unstoppable global success continues apace: in the first week of December 2023 she became the first living artist to place five albums simultaneously in the US Top Ten (one of them at number 1 and another at number 3…). Before her, only Prince had managed such a feat, in the days following his death. On December 6, 2023, came another remarkable honor: the prestigious Time magazine put her on its cover, naming her “Person of the Year”. It marked the first time this had happened for a figure from the world of entertainment.

On February 5, 2024, Taylor Swift won two Grammy Awards for “Midnights”, in the categories of “Album Of The Year” and “Best Pop Vocal Album”. Swift thus became the first artist in Grammy history to win the top prize, Album of the Year, four times, following her previous wins for “Fearless”, “1989” and “Folklore”. During the ceremony, on the stage of the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, Taylor surprised everyone by announcing the release of her eleventh album, “The Tortured Poets Department”, set for release on April 19.

(Claudio Lancia and Claudio Fabretti)

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