The Memoir Of Ms. Butterfly

Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Recognized for her songwriting, musical versatility, artistic reinventions, and influence on the music industry, she is a prominent cultural figure of the 21st century. 

Swift began songwriting professionally at age 14 and signed with Big Machine Records in 2005 to become a country musician. Under Big Machine, she released four studio albums to country radio, starting with her self-titled album (2006). Her next record, Fearless (2008), explored country pop, and its singles “Love Story” and “You Belong with Me” catapulted her to mainstream fame. Speak Now (2010) incorporated rock influences, and Red (2012) experimented with electronic elements and featured Swift’s first Billboard Hot 100 number-one song, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” She forwent her country image with 1989 (2014), a synth-pop album supported by chart-topping pieces “Shake It Off,” “Blank Space,” and “Bad Blood.” Media scrutiny inspired her next album, the hip-hop-flavored Reputation (2017), and it’s number-one single, “Look What You Made Me Do”.

After signing a new contract with Republic Records in 2018, Swift released her seventh album, Lover (2019), and autobiographical documentary, Miss Americana (2020). She embraced indie folk and alternative rock on her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore and explored chill-out styles on Midnights (2022). The albums broke multifarious records, led by the respective number-one singles “Cardigan,” “Willow,” and “Anti-Hero.” After a dispute with Big Machine showed Swift to re-record her back catalog, she released two re-recorded albums, Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version), in 2021; the latter’s “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” became the longest song to top the Hot 100. Swift has directed music videos and films such as All Too Well: The Short Film (2021) and played supporting roles in others.

Having sold over 200 million records, Swift is one of the best-selling musicians, the most streamed woman on Spotify, and the only act to have five albums open with over one million copies sold in the U.S. She has been featured in critical listicles such as Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time, Billboard’s Greatest of All Time Artists, the Time 100, and Forbes Celebrity 100. Among her accolades are 12 Grammy Awards, including three Album of the Year wins; a Primetime Emmy Award; 40 American Music Awards; 29 Billboard Music Awards; 12 Country Music Association Awards; three IFPI Global Recording Artist of the Year awards; and 98 Guinness World Records. Honored with titles such as Artist of the Decade and Woman of the Decade, Swift advocates for artists’ rights and women’s empowerment.

Swift became interested in musical theater at age nine and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music, inspired by Shania Twain’s songs, which made her “want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything.” She spent weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt she needed to move to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a music career. At age eleven, she traveled with her mother to visit Nashville record labels and submitted demo tapes of Dolly Parton and The Dixie Chicks’ karaoke covers. She was rejected, however, because “everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking, I must figure out how to be different.”

When Swift was 12, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her to play guitar. “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Cremer helped with her first songwriting effort, leading her to write “Lucky You.” In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based talent manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their “Rising Stars” campaign, included an original song on a Maybelline compilation CD and attended meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift, then 13 years old, was given an artist development deal and began frequent trips to Nashville with her mother. To help Swift enter the country music scene, her father transferred to Merrill Lynch’s Nashville office when she was 14, and the family relocated to Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift initially attended Hendersonville High School before moving to the Aaron Academy after two years, which better suited her touring schedule through homeschooling. She graduated one year early.

In Nashville, Swift worked with experienced Music Row songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally, and the Warren Brothers and formed a lasting working relationship with Liz Rose. They began meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school. Rose thought the sessions were “some of the easiest I’ve ever done. Basically, I was just her editor. She’d write about what happened in school that day. She had such a clear vision of what she was trying to say. And she’d come in with the most incredible hooks.” Swift became the youngest artist signed by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house but left the Sony-owned RCA Records at the age of 14 due to the label’s lack of care and then “cut[ting] other people’s stuff.” She was also concerned that development deals may shelve artists and recalled: “I genuinely felt that I was running out of time. I wanted to capture these years of my life on an album while they still represented what I was going through.

At an industry showcase at Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a DreamWorks Records executive preparing to form an independent record label, Big Machine Records. She had first met Borchetta in 2004. She was one of Big Machine’s first signings, and her father purchased a three-percent stake in the company for an estimated $120,000. She began working on her eponymous debut album with producer Nathan Chapman, with whom she felt she had the right “chemistry.” Swift wrote three of the album’s songs alone and co-wrote the remaining eight with Rose, Robert Ellis Orrall, Brian Maher, and Angelo Petraglia. Taylor Swift was released on October 24, 2006. Country Weekly critic Chris Neal deemed Swift better than previous aspiring teenage country singers because of her “honesty, intelligence, and idealism.” The album peaked at number five on the U.S. Billboard 200, where it spent 157 weeks—the most extended stay on the chart by any release in the U.S. in the 2000s decade. It made Swift the first female country music artist to write or co-write every track on a U.S. platinum-certified debut album.

Swift opening for Brad Paisley in 2007. She opened tours for other country musicians in 2007 and 2008 to promote her first album.

Swift’s second studio album, Fearless, was released on November 11, 2008, in North America, and in March 2009, in other markets. Critics lauded Swift’s honest and vulnerable songwriting compared to other teenage singers. Five singles were released in 2008 through 2009: “Love Story,” “White Horse,” “You Belong with Me,” “Fifteen,” and “Fearless.” “Love Story,” the lead single, peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Australia. It was the first country song to top Billboard’s Pop Songs chart. “You Belong with Me” was the album’s highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number two, and was the first country song to top Billboard’s all-genre Radio Songs chart. All five singles were Hot Country Songs top-10 entries, with “Love Story” and “You Belong with Me” topping the chart. Fearless became her first number-one album on the Billboard 200 and 2009’s top-selling album in the U.S. The Fearless Tour, Swift’s first headlining concert tour, grossed over $63 million. Journey to Fearless, a three-part documentary miniseries, aired on television and was later released on DVD and Blu-ray. Swift also performed as a supporting act for Keith Urban’s Escape Together World Tour in 2009.

In 2009, the music video for “You Belong with Me” was named Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards. Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper Kanye West, an incident that became the subject of controversy, widespread media attention, and many Internet memes. That year she won five American Music Awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Billboard named her 2009’s Artist of the Year. The album ranked 99 on NPR’s 2017 list of the 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women. She won Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year for “Love Story” at the 2009 CMT Music Awards, where she made a parody video of the song with rapper T-Pain called “Thug Story.” At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Fearless was named Album of the Year and Best Country Album, and “White Horse” won Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. Swift was the youngest Artist to win Album of the Year. At the 2009 Country Music Association Awards, Swift won Album of the Year for Fearless and was named Entertainer of the Year, the youngest person to win the honor.

Swift featured on John Mayer’s single “Half of My Heart” and Boys Like Girls’ single “Two Is Better Than One,” which she co-wrote. She co-wrote and recorded “Best Days of Your Life” with Kellie Pickler and co-wrote two songs for Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack—”You’ll Always Find Your Way Back Home” and “Crazier.” She contributed two songs to the Valentine’s Day soundtrack, including the single “Today Was a Fairytale,” which was her first number-one on the Canadian Hot 100 and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. While shooting her film debut Valentine’s Day, in October 2009, Swift dated co-star Taylor Lautner. In 2009, she made her television debut as a rebellious teenager in a CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode.[100] She hosted and performed as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live; she was the first host to write their own opening monologue.

In August 2010, Swift released “Mine,” the lead single from her third studio album, Speak Now. It entered the Hot 100 at number three. Swift wrote the album alone and co-produced every track. Speak Now, released on October 25, 2010, debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of one million copies. It became the fastest-selling digital album by a female artist, with 278,000 downloads in a week, earning Swift an entry in the 2010 Guinness World Records. Critics appreciated Swift’s grown-up perspectives; Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone wrote, “In a mere four years, the 20-year-old Nashville firecracker has put her name on three dozen or so of the smartest songs released by anyone in pop, rock or country. The songs “Mine,” “Back to December,” “Mean,” “The Story of Us,” “Sparks Fly,” and “Ours” were released as singles, with the latter two reaching number one. “Back to December” and “Mean” peaked in the top ten in Canada. She briefly dated actor Jake Gyllenhaal in 2010.

At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012, Swift won Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance for “Mean,” which she performed during the ceremony. Swift won other awards for Speak Now, including Songwriter/Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association (2010 and 2011), Woman of the Year by Billboard (2011), and Entertainer of the Year by the Academy of Country Music (2011 and 2012) and the Country Music Association in 2011. At the American Music Awards 2011, Swift won Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Rolling Stone placed Speak Now at number 45 in its 2012 list of the “50 Best Female Albums of All Time”, writing: “She might get played on the country station, but she’s one of the few genuine rock stars we’ve got these days, with a flawless ear for what makes a song click.

The Speak Now World Tour ran from February 2011 to March 2012 and grossed over $123 million, followed by its live album, Speak Now World Tour: Live. She contributed two original songs to The Hunger Games soundtrack album: “Safe & Sound,” co-written and recorded with the Civil Wars and T-Bone Burnett, and “Eyes Open.” “Safe & Sound” won the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. Swift featured on B.o.B’s single “Both of Us,” released in May 2012. Swift dated Conor Kennedy that year.

In August 2012, Swift released “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” the lead single from her fourth studio album, Red. It became her first number one in the U.S. and New Zealand and reached the top slot on iTunes’ digital song sales chart 50 minutes after its release, earning the Fastest Selling Single in Digital History Guinness World Record. Other singles released from the album include “Begin Again,” “I Knew You Were Trouble,” “22”, “Everything Has Changed,” “The Last Time,” and “Red.” “I Knew You Were Trouble” reached the top five on charts in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, the U.K., and the U.S. Three singles, “Begin Again,” “22”, and “Red,” reached the top 20 in the U.S. Red was released on October 22, 2012. On Red, Swift worked with longtime collaborators Nathan Chapman and Liz Rose and new producers such as Max Martin and Shellback. The album incorporated many pop and rock styles, including heartland rock, dubstep, and dance-pop. Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times said Swift “strives for something much more grand and accomplished” with Red. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies, making Swift the first female to have two million-selling album openings—a Guinness World Record Red was Swift’s first number-one album in the U.K.

Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Recognized for her songwriting, musical versatility, artistic reinventions, and influence on the music industry, she is a prominent cultural figure of the 21st century.
Swift began songwriting professionally at age 14 and signed with Big Machine Records in 2005 to become a country musician. Under Big Machine, she released four studio albums to country radio, starting with her self-titled album (2006). Her next record, Fearless (2008), explored country pop, and its singles “Love Story” and “You Belong with Me” catapulted her to mainstream fame. Speak Now (2010) incorporated rock influences, and Red (2012) experimented with electronic elements and featured Swift’s first Billboard Hot 100 number-one song, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” She forwent her country image with 1989 (2014), a synth-pop album supported by chart-topping pieces “Shake It Off,” “Blank Space,” and “Bad Blood.” Media scrutiny inspired her next album, the hip-hop-flavored Reputation (2017), and it’s number-one single, “Look What You Made Me Do”.

After signing a new contract with Republic Records in 2018, Swift released her seventh album, Lover (2019), and autobiographical documentary, Miss Americana (2020). She embraced indie folk and alternative rock on her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore and explored chill-out styles on Midnights (2022). The albums broke multifarious records, led by the respective number-one singles “Cardigan,” “Willow,” and “Anti-Hero.” After a dispute with Big Machine showed Swift to re-record her back catalog, she released two re-recorded albums, Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version), in 2021; the latter’s “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” became the longest song to top the Hot 100. Swift has directed music videos and films such as All Too Well: The Short Film (2021) and played supporting roles in others.

Having sold over 200 million records, Swift is one of the best-selling musicians, the most streamed woman on Spotify, and the only act to have five albums open with over one million copies sold in the U.S. She has been featured in critical listicles such as Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time, Billboard’s Greatest of All Time Artists, the Time 100, and Forbes Celebrity 100. Among her accolades are 12 Grammy Awards, including three Album of the Year wins; a Primetime Emmy Award; 40 American Music Awards; 29 Billboard Music Awards; 12 Country Music Association Awards; three IFPI Global Recording Artist of the Year awards; and 98 Guinness World Records. Honored with titles such as Artist of the Decade and Woman of the Decade, Swift advocates for artists’ rights and women’s empowerment.

Swift became interested in musical theater at age nine and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music, inspired by Shania Twain’s songs, which made her “want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything.” She spent weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt she needed to move to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a music career. At age eleven, she traveled with her mother to visit Nashville record labels and submitted demo tapes of Dolly Parton and The Dixie Chicks’ karaoke covers. She was rejected, however, because “everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking, I must figure out how to be different.”
When Swift was 12, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her to play guitar. “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Cremer helped with her first songwriting effort, leading her to write “Lucky You.” In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based talent manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their “Rising Stars” campaign, included an original song on a Maybelline compilation CD and attended meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift, then 13 years old, was given an artist development deal and began frequent trips to Nashville with her mother. To help Swift enter the country music scene, her father transferred to Merrill Lynch’s Nashville office when she was 14, and the family relocated to Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift initially attended Hendersonville High School before moving to the Aaron Academy after two years, which better suited her touring schedule through homeschooling. She graduated one year early.

In Nashville, Swift worked with experienced Music Row songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally, and the Warren Brothers and formed a lasting working relationship with Liz Rose. They began meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school. Rose thought the sessions were “some of the easiest I’ve ever done. Basically, I was just her editor. She’d write about what happened in school that day. She had such a clear vision of what she was trying to say. And she’d come in with the most incredible hooks.” Swift became the youngest artist signed by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house but left the Sony-owned RCA Records at the age of 14 due to the label’s lack of care and then “cut[ting] other people’s stuff.” She was also concerned that development deals may shelve artists and recalled: “I genuinely felt that I was running out of time. I wanted to capture these years of my life on an album while they still represented what I was going through.

At an industry showcase at Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a DreamWorks Records executive preparing to form an independent record label, Big Machine Records.

She had first met Borchetta in 2004. She was one of Big Machine’s first signings, and her father purchased a three-percent stake in the company for an estimated $120,000.

She began working on her eponymous debut album with producer Nathan Chapman, with whom she felt she had the right “chemistry.” Swift wrote three of the album’s songs alone and co-wrote the remaining eight with Rose, Robert Ellis Orrall, Brian Maher, and Angelo Petraglia. Taylor Swift was released on October 24, 2006.

Country Weekly critic Chris Neal deemed Swift better than previous aspiring teenage country singers because of her “honesty, intelligence, and idealism.

” The album peaked at number five on the U.S. Billboard 200, where it spent 157 weeks—the most extended stay on the chart by any release in the U.S. in the 2000s decade.

It made Swift the first female country music artist to write or co-write every track on a U.S. platinum-certified debut album.
Swift opening for Brad Paisley in 2007. She opened tours for other country musicians in 2007 and 2008 to promote her first album.

Swift’s second studio album, Fearless, was released on November 11, 2008, in North America, and in March 2009, in other markets. Critics lauded Swift’s honest and vulnerable songwriting compared to other teenage singers. Five singles were released in 2008 through 2009: “Love Story,” “White Horse,” “You Belong with Me,” “Fifteen,” and “Fearless.” “Love Story,” the lead single, peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Australia.

It was the first country song to top Billboard’s Pop Songs chart. “You Belong with Me” was the album’s highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number two, and was the first country song to top Billboard’s all-genre Radio Songs chart. All five singles were Hot Country Songs top-10 entries, with “Love Story” and “You Belong with Me” topping the chart. Fearless became her first number-one album on the Billboard 200 and 2009’s top-selling album in the U.S. The Fearless Tour, Swift’s first headlining concert tour, grossed over $63 million. Journey to Fearless, a three-part documentary miniseries, aired on television and was later released on DVD and Blu-ray. Swift also performed as a supporting act for Keith Urban’s Escape Together World Tour in 2009.
In 2009, the music video for “You Belong with Me” was named Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards. Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper Kanye West, an incident that became the subject of controversy, widespread media attention, and many Internet memes. That year she won five American Music Awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Billboard named her 2009’s Artist of the Year. The album ranked 99 on NPR’s 2017 list of the 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women. She won Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year for “Love Story” at the 2009 CMT Music Awards, where she made a parody video of the song with rapper T-Pain called “Thug Story.” At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Fearless was named Album of the Year and Best Country Album, and “White Horse” won Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. Swift was the youngest Artist to win Album of the Year. At the 2009 Country Music Association Awards, Swift won Album of the Year for Fearless and was named Entertainer of the Year, the youngest person to win the honor.

Swift featured on John Mayer’s single “Half of My Heart” and Boys Like Girls’ single “Two Is Better Than One,” which she co-wrote. She co-wrote and recorded “Best Days of Your Life” with Kellie Pickler and co-wrote two songs for Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack—”You’ll Always Find Your Way Back Home” and “Crazier.

” She contributed two songs to the Valentine’s Day soundtrack, including the single “Today Was a Fairytale,” which was her first number-one on the Canadian Hot 100 and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100.

While shooting her film debut Valentine’s Day, in October 2009, Swift dated co-star Taylor Lautner. In 2009, she made her television debut as a rebellious teenager in a CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode.[100] She hosted and performed as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live; she was the first host to write their own opening monologue.

In August 2010, Swift released “Mine,” the lead single from her third studio album, Speak Now. It entered the Hot 100 at number three. Swift wrote the album alone and co-produced every track. Speak Now, released on October 25, 2010, debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of one million copies.

It became the fastest-selling digital album by a female artist, with 278,000 downloads in a week, earning Swift an entry in the 2010 Guinness World Records.

Critics appreciated Swift’s grown-up perspectives; Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone wrote, “In a mere four years, the 20-year-old Nashville firecracker has put her name on three dozen or so of the smartest songs released by anyone in pop, rock or country.

The songs “Mine,” “Back to December,” “Mean,” “The Story of Us,” “Sparks Fly,” and “Ours” were released as singles, with the latter two reaching number one. “Back to December” and “Mean” peaked in the top ten in Canada. She briefly dated actor Jake Gyllenhaal in 2010.
At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012, Swift won Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance for “Mean,” which she performed during the ceremony.

Swift won other awards for Speak Now, including Songwriter/Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association (2010 and 2011), Woman of the Year by Billboard (2011), and Entertainer of the Year by the Academy of Country Music (2011 and 2012) and the Country Music Association in 2011.

At the American Music Awards 2011, Swift won Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Rolling Stone placed Speak Now at number 45 in its 2012 list of the “50 Best Female Albums of All Time”, writing: “She might get played on the country station, but she’s one of the few genuine rock stars we’ve got these days, with a flawless ear for what makes a song click.

The Speak Now World Tour ran from February 2011 to March 2012 and grossed over $123 million, followed by its live album, Speak Now World Tour: Live. She contributed two original songs to The Hunger Games soundtrack album: “Safe & Sound,” co-written and recorded with the Civil Wars and T-Bone Burnett, and “Eyes Open.” “Safe & Sound” won the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. Swift featured on B.o.B’s single “Both of Us,” released in May 2012. Swift dated Conor Kennedy that year.

In August 2012, Swift released “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” the lead single from her fourth studio album, Red. It became her first number one in the U.S. and New Zealand and reached the top slot on iTunes’ digital song sales chart 50 minutes after its release, earning the Fastest Selling Single in Digital History Guinness World Record. Other singles released from the album include “Begin Again,” “I Knew You Were Trouble,” “22”, “Everything Has Changed,” “The Last Time,” and “Red.” “I Knew You Were Trouble” reached the top five on charts in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, the U.K., and the U.S. Three singles, “Begin Again,” “22”, and “Red,” reached the top 20 in the U.S. Red was released on October 22, 2012.

On Red, Swift worked with longtime collaborators Nathan Chapman and Liz Rose and new producers such as Max Martin and Shellback. The album incorporated many pop and rock styles, including heartland rock, dubstep, and dance-pop.

Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times said Swift “strives for something much more grand and accomplished” with Red. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies, making Swift the first female to have two million-selling album openings—a Guinness World Record Red was Swift’s first number-one album in the U.K.
Taylor Swift is already one of the highest-paid entertainers in the world, but now her Eras Tour could be the highest-grossing tour of all time, earning a record-setting $1 billion in sales.
Swift’s stadium concert tour — which features sprawling 40-song sets with elaborate staging, choreography, and over a dozen costume changes — is expected to eclipse Elton John’s farewell tour in terms of gross revenue for tickets, merchandise, and sponsorships, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

How much Swift’s tour has earned is still being determined, as it has yet to report nightly grosses to Billboard Boxscore, which tracks concert tour data.
Last December, Billboard estimated that Swift’s tour would gross $590 million based on 52 tour dates. But with recently added concerts in Latin America, Asia, Australia, and Europe through 2024, the tour has at least 106 dates for now.
This suggests that over $1 billion in total gross revenue is likely. According to concert data tracker Pollstar, another estimate has Swift taking in a total of $1.4 billion in gross income with the added dates.
Have any other artists come close to that amount? Here’s a look at the 10 highest-grossing concert tours based on Billboard Boxscore’s most recent data as of April 20, 2023.

The success of Swift’s tour is not surprising. When tickets first went on sale in November 2022, Ticketmaster’s website crashed from all the traffic. During the first day of ticket sales, the Eras Tour sold over 2.4 million tickets, the most sold by an artist in a single day, according to Ticketmaster.
Tickets for the Eras Tour range from $50 to $899 for the most expensive VIP package. However, tickets are much pricier in the resale market, as even the cheapest seats cost $1,000, according to Axios.
Including other expenses like clothing, hotel accommodations, and travel arrangements, concert-goers spend $1,300 on average to attend the tour, according to a recent survey by QuestionPro, a research company. Based on the survey’s findings, total spending on Taylor Swift’s term in 2023 is expected to be around $5 billion. That’s larger than the gross domestic product of 50 countries, according to Billboard.

A baby wanted to see all the hype around Taylor Swift’s reputation.
Swift fan Tori Hedges went into labor “not even 20 minutes after (Taylor) got off the stage when we were leaving” the Eras Tour stop in Cincinnati, Ohio, she told WBTV on Tuesday.
The “Karma” singer performed in Cincinnati on Friday and Saturday, although it’s unclear which show Hedges attended.
Hedges revealed that her expected due date was weeks after Swift’s concert, so she figured attending would be fine. “We were just happy we could get down there and go, hoping that I would be able to make it, and luckily was able to make it for the most part,” the new mom said.

As Hedges and her friend were leaving the venue, she said, “That’s when I was like, ‘I think, I think I got to go to the bathroom.’”
“When my friend realized what was happening, she started freaking out and grabbed whoever the first person she could find outside of the bathroom,” she recalled. The Good Samaritan called 911 after discovering Hedges was in labor. Hedges described the Swift concert as “very, very awesome,” adding that the night now has extra significance. People say I started my new era as a mother, so leave the Eras Tour and enter my new one,” she said.

During Saturday’s show in Cincinnati, Swift stunned concert-goers with three surprise songs.
The first song was “Ivy” from the “Evermore” album, with Cincinnati native and founder of The National, Aaron Dessner.
“I, in recent years, met a collaborator I really like …,” Swift said, with the crowd drowning out part of her introduction. “It’s the craziest, most wonderful thing that he came into my life. He happens to be from Cincinnati, Ohio.”

Taylor Swift rewards fans with 44 Songs Eras Tour Opener: Inside her triumphant return
She then brought singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams to the stage for a rendition of Abrams’ “I Miss You, I’m Sorry.” Swift moved up the show by an hour because of the weather forecast, which cut Abrams’ opening act from the lineup.
She performed “Call It What You Want” from “Reputation” for the third song on the piano.

Taylor Swift is already one of the highest-paid entertainers in the world, but now her Eras Tour could be the highest-grossing tour of all time, earning a record-setting $1 billion in sales.

Swift’s stadium concert tour — which features sprawling 40-song sets with elaborate staging, choreography, and over a dozen costume changes — is expected to eclipse Elton John’s farewell tour in terms of gross revenue for tickets, merchandise, and sponsorships, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

How much Swift’s tour has earned is still being determined, as it has yet to report nightly grosses to Billboard Boxscore, which tracks concert tour data.

Last December, Billboard estimated that Swift’s tour would gross $590 million based on 52 tour dates. But with recently added concerts in Latin America, Asia, Australia, and Europe through 2024, the tour has at least 106 dates for now.

This suggests that over $1 billion in total gross revenue is likely. According to concert data tracker Pollstar, another estimate has Swift taking in a total of $1.4 billion in gross income with the added dates.

Have any other artists come close to that amount? Here’s a look at the 10 highest-grossing concert tours based on Billboard Boxscore’s most recent data as of April 20, 2023.

The success of Swift’s tour is not surprising. When tickets first went on sale in November 2022, Ticketmaster’s website crashed from all the traffic. During the first day of ticket sales, the Eras Tour sold over 2.4 million tickets, the most sold by an artist in a single day, according to Ticketmaster.

Tickets for the Eras Tour range from $50 to $899 for the most expensive VIP package. However, tickets are much pricier in the resale market, as even the cheapest seats cost $1,000, according to Axios.

Including other expenses like clothing, hotel accommodations, and travel arrangements, concert-goers spend $1,300 on average to attend the tour, according to a recent survey by QuestionPro, a research company. Based on the survey’s findings, total spending on Taylor Swift’s term in 2023 is expected to be around $5 billion. That’s larger than the gross domestic product of 50 countries, according to Billboard.

A baby wanted to see all the hype around Taylor Swift’s reputation.

Swift fan Tori Hedges went into labor “not even 20 minutes after (Taylor) got off the stage when we were leaving” the Eras Tour stop in Cincinnati, Ohio, she told WBTV on Tuesday.

The “Karma” singer performed in Cincinnati on Friday and Saturday, although it’s unclear which show Hedges attended.

Hedges revealed that her expected due date was weeks after Swift’s concert, so she figured attending would be fine. “We were just happy we could get down there and go, hoping that I would be able to make it, and luckily was able to make it for the most part,” the new mom said.

As Hedges and her friend were leaving the venue, she said, “That’s when I was like, ‘I think, I think I got to go to the bathroom.’”

Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Recognized for her songwriting, musical versatility, artistic reinventions, and influence on the music industry, she is a prominent cultural figure of the 21st century. 

Swift began songwriting professionally at age 14 and signed with Big Machine Records in 2005 to become a country musician. Under Big Machine, she released four studio albums to country radio, starting with her self-titled album (2006).

Her next record, Fearless (2008), explored country pop, and its singles “Love Story” and “You Belong with Me” catapulted her to mainstream fame.

 Speak Now (2010) incorporated rock influences, and Red (2012) experimented with electronic elements and featured Swift’s first Billboard Hot 100 number-one song, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.

” She forwent her country image with 1989 (2014), a synth-pop album supported by chart-topping pieces “Shake It Off,” “Blank Space,” and “Bad Blood.” Media scrutiny inspired her next album, the hip-hop-flavored Reputation (2017), and it’s number-one single, “Look What You Made Me Do”.

After signing a new contract with Republic Records in 2018, Swift released her seventh album, Lover (2019), and autobiographical documentary, Miss Americana (2020). She embraced indie folk and alternative rock on her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore and explored chill-out styles on Midnights (2022). The albums broke multifarious records, led by the respective number-one singles “Cardigan,” “Willow,” and “Anti-Hero.” After a dispute with Big Machine showed Swift to re-record her back catalog, she released two re-recorded albums, Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version), in 2021; the latter’s “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” became the longest song to top the Hot 100. Swift has directed music videos and films such as All Too Well: The Short Film (2021) and played supporting roles in others.

Having sold over 200 million records, Swift is one of the best-selling musicians, the most streamed woman on Spotify, and the only act to have five albums open with over one million copies sold in the U.S. She has been featured in critical listicles such as Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time, Billboard’s Greatest of All Time Artists, the Time 100, and Forbes Celebrity 100. Among her accolades are 12 Grammy Awards, including three Album of the Year wins; a Primetime Emmy Award; 40 American Music Awards; 29 Billboard Music Awards; 12 Country Music Association Awards; three IFPI Global Recording Artist of the Year awards; and 98 Guinness World Records. Honored with titles such as Artist of the Decade and Woman of the Decade, Swift advocates for artists’ rights and women’s empowerment.

Swift became interested in musical theater at age nine and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions. She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. Swift later shifted her focus toward country music, inspired by Shania Twain’s songs, which made her “want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything.” She spent weekends performing at local festivals and events. After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt she needed to move to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a music career. At age eleven, she traveled with her mother to visit Nashville record labels and submitted demo tapes of Dolly Parton and The Dixie Chicks’ karaoke covers. She was rejected, however, because “everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking, I must figure out how to be different.”

When Swift was 12, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her to play guitar. “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Cremer helped with her first songwriting effort, leading her to write “Lucky You.” In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based talent manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their “Rising Stars” campaign, included an original song on a Maybelline compilation CD and attended meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift, then 13 years old, was given an artist development deal and began frequent trips to Nashville with her mother. To help Swift enter the country music scene, her father transferred to Merrill Lynch’s Nashville office when she was 14, and the family relocated to Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift initially attended Hendersonville High School before moving to the Aaron Academy after two years, which better suited her touring schedule through homeschooling. She graduated one year early.

In Nashville, Swift worked with experienced Music Row songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally, and the Warren Brothers and formed a lasting working relationship with Liz Rose. They began meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school. Rose thought the sessions were “some of the easiest I’ve ever done. Basically, I was just her editor. She’d write about what happened in school that day. She had such a clear vision of what she was trying to say. And she’d come in with the most incredible hooks.” Swift became the youngest artist signed by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house but left the Sony-owned RCA Records at the age of 14 due to the label’s lack of care and then “cut[ting] other people’s stuff.” She was also concerned that development deals may shelve artists and recalled: “I genuinely felt that I was running out of time. I wanted to capture these years of my life on an album while they still represented what I was going through.

At an industry showcase at Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a DreamWorks Records executive preparing to form an independent record label, Big Machine Records. She had first met Borchetta in 2004. She was one of Big Machine’s first signings, and her father purchased a three-percent stake in the company for an estimated $120,000. She began working on her eponymous debut album with producer Nathan Chapman, with whom she felt she had the right “chemistry.” Swift wrote three of the album’s songs alone and co-wrote the remaining eight with Rose, Robert Ellis Orrall, Brian Maher, and Angelo Petraglia. Taylor Swift was released on October 24, 2006. Country Weekly critic Chris Neal deemed Swift better than previous aspiring teenage country singers because of her “honesty, intelligence, and idealism.” The album peaked at number five on the U.S. Billboard 200, where it spent 157 weeks—the most extended stay on the chart by any release in the U.S. in the 2000s decade. It made Swift the first female country music artist to write or co-write every track on a U.S. platinum-certified debut album.

Swift opening for Brad Paisley in 2007. She opened tours for other country musicians in 2007 and 2008 to promote her first album.

Swift’s second studio album, Fearless, was released on November 11, 2008, in North America, and in March 2009, in other markets. Critics lauded Swift’s honest and vulnerable songwriting compared to other teenage singers. Five singles were released in 2008 through 2009: “Love Story,” “White Horse,” “You Belong with Me,” “Fifteen,” and “Fearless.” “Love Story,” the lead single, peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Australia. It was the first country song to top Billboard’s Pop Songs chart. “You Belong with Me” was the album’s highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number two, and was the first country song to top Billboard’s all-genre Radio Songs chart. All five singles were Hot Country Songs top-10 entries, with “Love Story” and “You Belong with Me” topping the chart. Fearless became her first number-one album on the Billboard 200 and 2009’s top-selling album in the U.S. The Fearless Tour, Swift’s first headlining concert tour, grossed over $63 million. Journey to Fearless, a three-part documentary miniseries, aired on television and was later released on DVD and Blu-ray. Swift also performed as a supporting act for Keith Urban’s Escape Together World Tour in 2009.

In 2009, the music video for “You Belong with Me” was named Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards. Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper Kanye West, an incident that became the subject of controversy, widespread media attention, and many Internet memes. That year she won five American Music Awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Billboard named her 2009’s Artist of the Year. The album ranked 99 on NPR’s 2017 list of the 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women. She won Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year for “Love Story” at the 2009 CMT Music Awards, where she made a parody video of the song with rapper T-Pain called “Thug Story.” At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Fearless was named Album of the Year and Best Country Album, and “White Horse” won Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. Swift was the youngest Artist to win Album of the Year. At the 2009 Country Music Association Awards, Swift won Album of the Year for Fearless and was named Entertainer of the Year, the youngest person to win the honor.

Swift featured on John Mayer’s single “Half of My Heart” and Boys Like Girls’ single “Two Is Better Than One,” which she co-wrote. She co-wrote and recorded “Best Days of Your Life” with Kellie Pickler and co-wrote two songs for Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack—”You’ll Always Find Your Way Back Home” and “Crazier.” She contributed two songs to the Valentine’s Day soundtrack, including the single “Today Was a Fairytale,” which was her first number-one on the Canadian Hot 100 and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. While shooting her film debut Valentine’s Day, in October 2009, Swift dated co-star Taylor Lautner. In 2009, she made her television debut as a rebellious teenager in a CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode.[100] She hosted and performed as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live; she was the first host to write their own opening monologue.

In August 2010, Swift released “Mine,” the lead single from her third studio album, Speak Now. It entered the Hot 100 at number three. Swift wrote the album alone and co-produced every track. Speak Now, released on October 25, 2010, debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of one million copies. It became the fastest-selling digital album by a female artist, with 278,000 downloads in a week, earning Swift an entry in the 2010 Guinness World Records. Critics appreciated Swift’s grown-up perspectives; Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone wrote, “In a mere four years, the 20-year-old Nashville firecracker has put her name on three dozen or so of the smartest songs released by anyone in pop, rock or country. The songs “Mine,” “Back to December,” “Mean,” “The Story of Us,” “Sparks Fly,” and “Ours” were released as singles, with the latter two reaching number one. “Back to December” and “Mean” peaked in the top ten in Canada. She briefly dated actor Jake Gyllenhaal in 2010.

At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012, Swift won Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance for “Mean,” which she performed during the ceremony. Swift won other awards for Speak Now, including Songwriter/Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association (2010 and 2011), Woman of the Year by Billboard (2011), and Entertainer of the Year by the Academy of Country Music (2011 and 2012) and the Country Music Association in 2011. At the American Music Awards 2011, Swift won Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album. Rolling Stone placed Speak Now at number 45 in its 2012 list of the “50 Best Female Albums of All Time”, writing: “She might get played on the country station, but she’s one of the few genuine rock stars we’ve got these days, with a flawless ear for what makes a song click.

The Speak Now World Tour ran from February 2011 to March 2012 and grossed over $123 million, followed by its live album, Speak Now World Tour: Live. She contributed two original songs to The Hunger Games soundtrack album: “Safe & Sound,” co-written and recorded with the Civil Wars and T-Bone Burnett, and “Eyes Open.” “Safe & Sound” won the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. Swift featured on B.o.B’s single “Both of Us,” released in May 2012. Swift dated Conor Kennedy that year.

In August 2012, Swift released “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” the lead single from her fourth studio album, Red. It became her first number one in the U.S. and New Zealand and reached the top slot on iTunes’ digital song sales chart 50 minutes after its release, earning the Fastest Selling Single in Digital History Guinness World Record. Other singles released from the album include “Begin Again,” “I Knew You Were Trouble,” “22”, “Everything Has Changed,” “The Last Time,” and “Red.” “I Knew You Were Trouble” reached the top five on charts in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, the U.K., and the U.S. Three singles, “Begin Again,” “22”, and “Red,” reached the top 20 in the U.S. Red was released on October 22, 2012. On Red, Swift worked with longtime collaborators Nathan Chapman and Liz Rose and new producers such as Max Martin and Shellback. The album incorporated many pop and rock styles, including heartland rock, dubstep, and dance-pop. Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times said Swift “strives for something much more grand and accomplished” with Red. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies, making Swift the first female to have two million-selling album openings—a Guinness World Record Red was Swift’s first number-one album in the U.K.

Taylor Swift is already one of the highest-paid entertainers in the world, but now her Eras Tour could be the highest-grossing tour of all time, earning a record-setting $1 billion in sales.

Swift’s stadium concert tour — which features sprawling 40-song sets with elaborate staging, choreography, and over a dozen costume changes — is expected to eclipse Elton John’s farewell tour in terms of gross revenue for tickets, merchandise, and sponsorships, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

How much Swift’s tour has earned is still being determined, as it has yet to report nightly grosses to Billboard Boxscore, which tracks concert tour data.

Last December, Billboard estimated that Swift’s tour would gross $590 million based on 52 tour dates. But with recently added concerts in Latin America, Asia, Australia, and Europe through 2024, the tour has at least 106 dates for now.

This suggests that over $1 billion in total gross revenue is likely. According to concert data tracker Pollstar, another estimate has Swift taking in a total of $1.4 billion in gross income with the added dates.

Have any other artists come close to that amount? Here’s a look at the 10 highest-grossing concert tours based on Billboard Boxscore’s most recent data as of April 20, 2023.

The success of Swift’s tour is not surprising. When tickets first went on sale in November 2022, Ticketmaster’s website crashed from all the traffic. During the first day of ticket sales, the Eras Tour sold over 2.4 million tickets, the most sold by an artist in a single day, according to Ticketmaster.

Tickets for the Eras Tour range from $50 to $899 for the most expensive VIP package. However, tickets are much pricier in the resale market, as even the cheapest seats cost $1,000, according to Axios.

Including other expenses like clothing, hotel accommodations, and travel arrangements, concert-goers spend $1,300 on average to attend the tour, according to a recent survey by QuestionPro, a research company. Based on the survey’s findings, total spending on Taylor Swift’s term in 2023 is expected to be around $5 billion. That’s larger than the gross domestic product of 50 countries, according to Billboard.

A baby wanted to see all the hype around Taylor Swift’s reputation.

Swift fan Tori Hedges went into labor “not even 20 minutes after (Taylor) got off the stage when we were leaving” the Eras Tour stop in Cincinnati, Ohio, she told WBTV on Tuesday.

The “Karma” singer performed in Cincinnati on Friday and Saturday, although it’s unclear which show Hedges attended.

Hedges revealed that her expected due date was weeks after Swift’s concert, so she figured attending would be fine. “We were just happy we could get down there and go, hoping that I would be able to make it, and luckily was able to make it for the most part,” the new mom said.

As Hedges and her friend were leaving the venue, she said, “That’s when I was like, ‘I think, I think I got to go to the bathroom.’”

“When my friend realized what was happening, she started freaking out and grabbed whoever the first person she could find outside of the bathroom,” she recalled. The Good Samaritan called 911 after discovering Hedges was in labor. Hedges described the Swift concert as “very, very awesome,” adding that the night now has extra significance. People say I started my new era as a mother, so leave the Eras Tour and enter my new one,” she said.

During Saturday’s show in Cincinnati, Swift stunned concert-goers with three surprise songs.

The first song was “Ivy” from the “Evermore” album, with Cincinnati native and founder of The National, Aaron Dessner.

“I, in recent years, met a collaborator I really like …,” Swift said, with the crowd drowning out part of her introduction. “It’s the craziest, most wonderful thing that he came into my life. He happens to be from Cincinnati, Ohio.”

Taylor Swift rewards fans with 44 Songs Eras Tour Opener: Inside her triumphant return

She then brought singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams to the stage for a rendition of Abrams’ “I Miss You, I’m Sorry.” Swift moved up the show by an hour because of the weather forecast, which cut Abrams’ opening act from the lineup.

She performed “Call It What You Want” from “Reputation” for the third song on the piano.

“When my friend realized what was happening, she started freaking out and grabbed whoever the first person she could find outside of the bathroom,” she recalled.

The Good Samaritan called 911 after discovering Hedges was in labor. Hedges described the Swift concert as “very, very awesome,” adding that the night now has extra significance. People say I started my new era as a mother, so leave the Eras Tour and enter my new one,” she said.

During Saturday’s show in Cincinnati, Swift stunned concert-goers with three surprise songs.

The first song was “Ivy” from the “Evermore” album, with Cincinnati native and founder of The National, Aaron Dessner.

“I, in recent years, met a collaborator I really like …,” Swift said, with the crowd drowning out part of her introduction. “It’s the craziest, most wonderful thing that he came into my life. He happens to be from Cincinnati, Ohio.”

Taylor Swift rewards fans with 44 Songs Eras Tour Opener: Inside her triumphant return

She then brought singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams to the stage for a rendition of Abrams’ “I Miss You, I’m Sorry.” Swift moved up the show by an hour because of the weather forecast, which cut Abrams’ opening act from the lineup.

She performed “Call It What You Want” from “Reputation” for the third song on the piano.