Since releasing her debut album in 2006, she’s evolved from a teen country-styled singer/songwriter into a bright, shining beacon of pop music dominance who continues to break records nearly two decades into her career.
And now Taylor Swift has been named one of the 21st century’s top pop stars in a new ranking by Billboard. In fact, they put Swift just one spot away from the pinnacle.
That lofty ranking is no surprise, considering the array of accomplishments she’s notched during her 18 years in the spotlight, particularly of late when it seems she’s been omnipresent on both the pop charts and the public eye.
Since 2021, Swift has undertaken the task of re-recording her early albums after a failed attempt at procuring the master recordings for those sets. Her “Taylor’s Version” re-recordings, supplemented by new material on each release, have served to keep new material flowing in between each new album and helped make her the only living artist to place 11 albums simultaneously on Billboard’s Top 200 Albums listing.
And then there’s her record-breaking Eras Tour, which is about to wrap up for good after two years of blasting through previous box office high watermarks.
Even the NFL, America’s juggernaut pro sports league, isn’t averse to borrowing some of Swift’s shine when she attends her boyfriend Travis Kelce’s games, frequently showing her reactions in the luxury suite.
So the question becomes: If not Tay-Tay, then who ranks tops among artists in the 21st century? That honor goes to genre-defying cultural force: Beyoncé.
The former frontwoman of R&B group Destiny’s Child, Beyoncé successfully transitioned from one of the most prolific hitmaking groups of the late-90s/early-2000s into solo stardom in 2003 and hasn’t looked back.
All eight of her solo albums have hit #1 on the Billboard chart, and her most recent set Cowboy Carter found her successfully exploring the place country music the Texas native has in her musical DNA.
She was also the first female artist to hold down the top spots on both the singles and albums charts in the U.S and the U.K. simultaneously.
And the good news: whether you’re a fan of one, the other, or both, both women seem far from done.