No matter how high your defenses, I guarantee you’ll find at least one that breaks them down. I count at least fifteen stone-cold classics in her discography. (A carpetbagger from the Pennsylvania suburbs, she became an expert code-switcher early in her career and never looked back.) And when it comes to writing instantly memorable pop songs, her only peers are a few anonymous Swedish guys, none of whom perform their own stuff. She may not have the raw vocal power of some of her competitors, but what she lacks in Mariah-level range she makes up for in versatility and personality. The passage of time hits you like a brick.Įven with the widespread critical embrace of poptimism there are still those who see Swift as just another industry widget, a Miley or Katy with the tuner set to “girl with a guitar.” If this list does anything, I hope it convinces you that, underneath all the think pieces, exes, and feuds, she is one of our era’s great singer-songwriters. Returning to them every few years, as I have since writing this list, is a strangely melancholy experience. Listen to too many and you might ache again at the nagging feeling that those stories of yours have all been a bit uneventful and drab by comparison. Which is why, whether you’re a casual listener who bops along to the radio hits, or one of those die-hards who takes her every utterance as a modern Rosetta Stone, it’s easy to feel like you know Swift on a personal level. Listen to her songs and you’ll ache at the resemblance to the most dramatic moments in your own private history. There have been wobbles, most notably in 2016-17, but on the whole she has retained a command of her star image rivaled only by Beyonce and Bowie. As a celebrity, Swift’s most remarkable gift is her ability to keep art and commerce, public life and private life, operating in lockstep. “Like so many millennials born into the upper middle class, Swift has benefited from the demise of the concept of selling out,” Time noted in 2014. The Swift we hear on her albums is a thin-skinned, bighearted obsessive, prone to introspection, with a penchant for romantic moments huge and small. Though the sound of her music has evolved since her debut, the voice at the heart of it has stayed consistent. To chart her journey - from the country romance of her teens, to the imperial pop of her twenties, to the ambivalent ruminations of her thirties - is to follow a generation coming of age. Meaning that, for millions of listeners, she is not just another pop star she is someone they have grown up with, and who has grown up with them. She is also in 61st place on Forbes' America's Self-Made Women list.įorbes estimates Taylor's net worth to be $550 million and Bey's net worth to be $450 million.Taylor Swift was born in December 1989, near the peak of the Millennial Baby Boom, and has been famous since she was 16. That makes her the most nominated female artist in Grammy history.

The outlet also made note of Taylor's Eras Tour wreaking havoc on Ticketmaster, which ' members of Congress to question the company's hold on concert sales.' She also finished in 48th place on Forbes' Self-Made Women roundup.īey comes in right after Taylor on this year's list, with Forbes hailing the nine Grammy nominations she earned this year, which brings her lifetime total to 88 nods. Rihanna is also 21st on Forbes' list of America's Self-Made Women.Ĭoming in 79th place is Taylor, with the outlet saluting her recent accolade of being the first and only artist to occupy Billboard's entire top 10 on its Hot 100 songs chart after she released her Midnights album. Similarly, her Savage x Fenty lingerie line surpassed $1 billion in valuation last year.

The outlet notes that in 2020, Fenty generated $550 million in revenue. Rihanna leads the trio in 73rd place, with her Fenty Beauty cosmetics line boosting her net worth to a whopping $1.4 billion. All three have made the World's 100 Most Powerful Women list. Rihanna, Taylor Swift and Beyoncé are juggernauts in the music industry, but Forbes says they are more powerful than that.

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