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 media coverage. Born in West Reading, Pennsylvania, Swift relocated to Nashville, Tennessee in 2004 to pursue a career in country music. At age 14, she became the youngest artist signed by the Sony/ATV Music publishing house, and at age 15, she signed her first record deal. 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 Country Airplay chart. Swift's breakthrough second studio album, Fearless (2008), won four Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, and was certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America. It yielded the Billboard Hot 100 top-five singles "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me".
Swift's third studio album, Speak Now (2010), spawned the two-time Grammy Award-winning single "Mean". Her cross-genre fourth studio album, Red (2012), earned Swift her first Billboard Hot 100 number-one single, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together". Swift fully transitioned to pop music on her next studio album, 1989 (2014), which made her the first solo female artist to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year twice. The album included three Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles, "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood". Preceded by her fifth U.S. number-one single "Look What You Made Me Do", Swift's sixth studio album, Reputation (2017), made her the first artist in history to have four albums each sell over one million copies in their opening week in the U.S. Its follow-up, Lover (2019), was the world’s best-selling studio album of 2019. Swift eschewed pop for indie folk and alternative rock on her eighth studio album, Folklore (2020); the album and its lead single, "Cardigan", made Swift the first artist to have an album and a single debut at number one on the Billboard 200 and Hot 100 simultaneously.
Having sold over 50 million albums and 150 million singles 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.
