Taylor Swift was 16 when she released her debut album

The self-titled country album hinted at what would come later

While Taylor Swift eventually crossed over to pop, a Pitchfork review of her first release hints at the ingredients that would fuel Taylor’s rapid ascent and help her connect with fans, including songs with catchy melodies, relatable themes, and deeply personal lyrics that reflect her experiences as a young woman.

Taylor Swift is one of the world's most successful artists

Swift is one of the best-selling musicians of all time. She has sold more than 200 million records and won multiple Grammy Awards. Known for her storytelling and ability to reinvent her music, she’s expanded her career from country roots to global pop stardom.

Taylor Swift's songwriting resonated with teenage girls around the world

One fan recalls that the themes of Swift's early songs included hope, betrayal, and a sense of being unremarkable but wanting to be special. She argues that these themes were especially powerful to young girls, regardless of where they were from.

Taylor Swift frequently reinvents herself musically

Swift began her career as a country music artist, morphed into a pop singer, and from there experimented with everything from dance to anthemic pop-rock to a more indie singer-songwriter sound. Her introspective 2020 album “Folklore” offered melancholic tunes to accompany the uncertain times of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Watch Taylor Swift write a song

Taylor Swift is one of the most famous and successful entertainers of the modern era, whose music wins fans and Grammy awards, and secures billions of streams on Spotify. In this clip from the Netflix documentary Miss Americana, Taylor lets cameras film her in the process of writing a song.

Taylor Swift was the first artist to occupy all of Billboard's Top 10

Swift's 2022 release "Midnights" led to an unprecedented feat: For the first time in Billboard history, the entire top 10 of the Hot 100 was occupied by the same artist. Two years later, "The Tortured Poets Department" would occupy the first 14 slots on the chart.

'The Life of a Showgirl' was Swift's 15th chart-topping album

That places her second on Billboard's all-time list, though streaming has significantly changed how "sales" are interpreted. Prior to the shift to digital music, Billboard's album chart relied solely on sales of physical units. Since 2014, the chart has also considered streams from services like Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube.

Taylor Swift outsmarted her label by re-recording her albums

After Taylor Swift lost the rights to her songs, she lost control over what she could and couldn't do with them. Aware of her fan base, she re-recorded them, encouraged fans to listen only to her new versions, and improved the production quality, creating new hits out of existing songs.

Taylor Swift's life took a turn after controversies with Kanye West

In this Rolling Stone magazine interview, the singer opens up about everything from her creative process and the personal nature of her songwriting to the challenges of fame—and the decision to re-record her earlier albums to regain control of her work.

Taylor Swift became more outspoken about her politics in the late 2010s

Vocally supporting LGBTQ+ rights, speaking out against racial inequality, and endorsing presidential candidates are more recent features of Taylor Swift's career. She first broke her political silence around the 2018 midterm elections.

Parton released her first recording at age 13

The song was written at the age of 11 with the assistance of her uncle, Bill Owens, and was released by Goldband Records in 1959, when she was 13. The rockabilly song doesn’t sound much like the country music that would make Parton famous in the next decade, but it does hint at the power of her voice.

Taylor Swift fans are called 'Swifties'

Taylor Swift has a massive worldwide fanbase. Interacting with fellow so-called “Swifties” is part of what keeps her fans engaged. An interview with a 21-year-old fan who runs an influential Taylor fan account on X (formerly Twitter) talks about what it’s like to connect with fellow fans and their experiences.

A comprehensive understanding of Taylor Swift

The podcast Every Single Album: Taylor Swift on The Ringer covers everything you need to know about Swift's vast and successful music career. From changes in her voice over the years to the popularity of her album re-recordings, the hosts of this show offer a comprehensive understanding of Taylor Swift's impact and her evolution over time.

Country's popularity skyrocketed in the 21st century

Thanks to the crossover success of '90s artists like Garth Brooks and Shania Twain, country music found a larger audience. By the 2000s, the genre was more popular than ever, at times accounting for nearly a quarter of the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

How Taylor Swift is related to poet Emily Dickinson

In 2024, genealogy site Ancestry.com claimed that the pop star and the poet were descended from a 17th-century English immigrant, Swift's ninth great-grandfather and Dickinson's sixth great-grandfather. That would make Swift and Dickinson sixth cousins, three times removed.

Billie Eilish broke records at the 2020 Grammys

Alternative pop star Billie Eilish had a fascinating rise to fame. She cemented her album "When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?" in Grammys history by becoming the first woman and youngest person to win all the Big Four awards in the same night.

When Beyoncé had a last name

Before she was the mononymous superstar, Beyoncé Knowles was one-fourth of Destiny’s Child, the biggest girl group of the 2000s. This oral history of the group’s early days delves into their first hit and why two members were suddenly dismissed after the release of the group’s second album. Read it here.

'Carrie' kick-started a wildly successful career

King has published more than 60 novels—along with dozens of novellas, hundreds of short stories, and several collections of nonfiction—and has sold over 400 million books. This 2024 interview finds him reflecting on his debut novel, and breakthrough hit, "Carrie," and the wild success that followed.

The band 'The Bangles' was initially named 'The Bangs'

Legal troubles forced the band to change their name. See a slew of other music facts, like how Taylor Swift's "All Too Well (Taylor's Version) is the longest song to reach number one on the US singles chart. The song is over 10 minutes long, and surpassed Don McLean's "American Pie."

How Apple's GarageBand changed music

Apple's preinstalled, easy-to-use software GarageBand was first released in 2004. Since then, it's changed the way artists write and record music. The program's accessibility and ease of use have allowed beginner artists to experiment and find their voice, while major artists like Rihanna, Grimes, and Bjork have used the program to record hit singles and perform live. This article from the Red Bull Music Academy explains how the basic interface reshaped an industry.

Greta Thunberg addressed Davos at 16 years old

In 2019, 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg took the Davos stage to sharply criticize global leaders for failing to act on climate change, warning that incremental promises were meaningless without immediate, systemic action.

The hypercompetitive world of becoming a K-pop star

K-pop, a global $8B industry, rose from its 1990s regional roots to worldwide fame thanks to hits like “Gangnam Style.” Trainees endure years of intense training in performance and media skills, with only 4% to 5% debuting.

In 2004, he starred in a Victoria's Secret ad

You read that right. By 2004, Dylan was already known as a wild card, but even his most ardent devotees were confused by the sight of their artistic hero, by then in his 60s, appearing in a lingerie commercial. Was it a cynical cash grab or just another example of Dylan’s never-ending meta-commentary on stardom?

The song 'Born to Run' took six months to record

Springsteen's early records were commercial flops, leading Columbia to offer the songwriter an ultimatum: He would deliver a hit single or be dropped by the label. He delivered what they wanted with "Born to Run," but sessions for the song lasted half a year. Embed: Podcast

Whitney Wolfe Herd is considered the youngest self-made female billionaire

Whitney Wolfe Herd founded dating app Bumble in her 20s after cofounding Tinder. She was inspired to create Bumble partly due to an experience she had with female friends who made fun of her for making the first move with a man she went on a date with.

In preparation for this weekend's Eurovision finale, which is something like the World Cup of pop music, here's a young Céline Dion performing (for Switzerland?) at the 1988 competition.

The Beatles' US label rejected the band's first two singles, 'Please Please Me' and 'From Me to You,' with one executive calling the band 'dead in the water.'

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

Roughly 43 million US borrowers owe roughly $1.7T in student debt, the second-largest source of consumer debt behind mortgages.

One of the most famous portraits ever taken is 'Afghan Girl' (1984) by Steve McCurry, yet the subject Sharbat Gula went much of her life without being identified or benefitting from the image's success.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

Brandi Chastain, the star of the 1999 US victory over China in the 1999 Women's World Cup, was a last-second choice to take the penalty kick that sealed the victory.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

The first steps to rebuilding your credit score include getting to know exactly what's on your credit report and figuring out how far you are from the '700 club,' or 'good score' range.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

Meet the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence—most of whom didn't put pen to paper until August 2, 1776—and see their original signatures.

American short story writer Flannery O'Connor raised 40 peacocks, which became potent symbols for her fiction's elegant violence

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

Stars appear to twinkle because turbulence in the motion of molecules in Earth's atmosphere causes light to bend and wiggle rapidly on its way to the surface—a phenomenon called scintillation.

The first horror movie is believed to be George Méliès' 1986 short 'The Haunted Castle,' which pioneered the use of special effects

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.

A pickleball's loud 'pop' sound can reach 120 decibels, which is equivalent to a hammer hitting a nail

About 12.5% of US adults experience a phobia in their lifetime, a diagnosis that hinges on the intense fear interfering with daily life and persisting for at least six months.

See a ranking of the best (and worst) Federal Reserve Chairs since 1914 out of the 16 men and women who have held the office since.