Taylor

Taylor Swift was a rarity in pop: she is the only celebrity to have transitioned from the traditional to the mainstream and become an international icon of pop culture. Swift left her country roots like they were a second skin revealing that she was arguably the smartest pop-oriented singer/songwriter of her time, one who could harness the mood of the moment and personalize it and equally impressively do in the opposite direction. This was evident from her first songs, especially on the neo homage towards Tim McGraw. On her album Fearless (2008) Swift revealed a singer/songwriter who was beginning to know her. Fearless wound up having considerable appeal not just within the U.S. where it racked seven platinum singles due to the Top Ten hits Love Story and Belong with Me Belong with Me but throughout the globe, performing especially well within the U.K. Canada and Australia. Swift's second album Speak Now, released almost two years after the previous one, built on this success. It helped propel Swift to the heights of fame. With her subsequent three albums, Red (2012) 1989 (2004) and Reputation (2017), her popularity increased and she found herself in a music scene where it was clear that she deserved to be. Although she slowed down her strategy with 2020's stripped down sibling releases folklore and Evermore she remained atop the world of pop, a position that she maintained through re-recordings from her older catalogs as well as Midnights which was her top-charting synthesizer 2022 collection.