No singer-songwriter in history (male or female) has matched the accomplishments of Taylor Swift. Billy Joel said Taylor Swift is like her generation’s Beatles. It sounded like an exaggeration when he said it, but he may be right…or at least not crazy.
Swift has a total of 11 #1 albums, and she’s only 33. Once artists break through, they almost always have the greatest success of their careers in the first five years. After that, their recordings start to sell less (and stream less), even if they’re still major concert draws. Yet Taylor Swift has sustained her career, and is at her peak 17 years after she started.
Like Elton John, Carole King, and Brian Wilson, Taylor Swift often uses co-writers. For example, on two of her best albums, Folklore and Evermore, many of the songs were co-written by Aaron Dessner. During the time of COVID in 2020, Dessner would send instrumental “song starters” to Swift. She would then write the melody and lyrics to go along with the chord progressions. It’s basically the same way guitarist Mike Campbell provided chords and riffs for Tom Petty for some songs, like “Running Down A Dream”. Taylor Swift has also written enough songs all by herself to fill five albums.
The women singer-songwriters of the classic era of the 1970’s…like Carole King, Carly Simon, and Joni Mitchell…wrote some historically great songs, but they never had to also be able to sing them while performing major dance choreography. Sure, other female Pop stars do choreography, but their careers have not kept up with the accomplishments of Taylor Swift. In just the last three years, she’s had five #1 albums. No other singer-songwriter has done that. She also has won the Grammy for Album Of The Year a record three times.
Of course Swift also grabs a guitar or sits at a piano and delivers performances in the classic singer-songwriter style.
In a recent poll, Taylor Swift was liked by 53-percent of Americans. That’s a major accomplishment in these days of scattered media and niche music. On an international level, Taylor Swift was the Global Recording Artist of the Year for 2022. The IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) gave the award to Swift for having the most global sales and streaming. She’s earned the award a record three times in the ten years of its existence. In other years, she’s placed second twice, and third twice. She also currently has 10 albums in the Top 200, a feat accomplished by The Beatles and three other artists.
When Taylor Swift released her 2022 album, Midnights, she became the first artist to have all of the Top 10 Billboard singles at the same time. Unlike the old days when artists would only release one or two singles at a time, in a streaming world album tracks are considered singles as the albums are played on the services. The most notable aspect is that no other singles were able to keep Taylor’s 10 songs from taking over.
And Taylor Swift is setting new records for live performances. Despite some problems with Ticketmaster, she sold more tickets in one day than any other artist in history. Her “Eras Tour” started with two sold out shows at a 70,000 seat stadium in Arizona. Unbelievably, Swift performs 44 songs during a show that lasts over 3-hours. Bruce Springsteen comes to mind as someone who’s done shows that long, minus all the choreography and stage production.
Let’s hope Taylor Swift can keep up the pace for her 52 scheduled stadium concerts in the U.S. Then, it’s expected the tour will continue in the U.K. and Europe.
Whew!