Swift demonstrated this year that she is in a commercial league of her own with a historic album debut and the tour announcement that caused the most commotion in the last ten years.
Billboard is ranking the top 10 pop stars of 2022 throughout this week as part of our ongoing “Greatest Pop Star by Year” initiative, which we updated for this year. In the case of Taylor Swift, who debuted a little later than expected in the calendar but quickly made up for a lost time, the year is remembered at position three.
Taylor Swift started 2022 on a pretty low-key note, or at least as low-key as things could get for a worldwide superstar still at the height of her powers after back-to-back years of releasing two full-length records.
Let’s not forget the Virginia Tech researchers who solidified their status as Swifties in April by naming a new species of millipede “Nannaria Swiftie.” Yes, Damon, she writes her music. Other notable events include the first of two college courses named in her honour (one at NYU and the next at Texas), a fond reunion with one of her musical besties, and the first two colleges courses named in her honour. The singer/songwriter made her greatest public appearance of the year thus far in May when she spoke at the NYU commencement, pushing the Class of 2022 to maintain their passion despite their perceived coolness. Throughout the 20-minute pep session, she emphasised the importance of trying. Inefficiency is a myth.
Late spring and early summer saw the Swift cycle ramp up as the pop auteur made advancements in the TV and film industries, including three new soundtrack moments: The woodsy “Carolina” was written especially for the book-to-big-screen adaptation of Where the Crawdads Sing, and “Bad Blood (Taylor’s Version)” was pulled out of the kennel for DC League of Super-Pets. “This Love (Taylor’s Version)” was re-recorded for Netflix’s teen drama series The Summer I Turned Pretty. She also began a still-active film festival tour by promoting her independently produced short film All Too Well: The Short Film at the Tribeca Film Festival in June.
The Swift Calendar Year didn’t start until Aug. 28, so disregard everything you just learned about Taylor’s 2022 after we’ve reviewed the first eight months of our reigning 2021 Greatest Pop Star. She then appeared at the MTV Video Music Awards, a venue where she has garnered plenty of attention throughout her 16-year career, to not only accept the night’s top prize but also to reveal that she would be releasing a brand-new album titled Midnights in October. Fans had been speculating all year about which of her Big Machine albums she would revisit next (all indications pointed to either 2010’s Speak Now or 2014’s 1989 as the obvious options), never stopping to consider that they might receive an entirely new album in its place.
Swift then launched into her modern-day album promotion master class, aiming to reach every single member of the music-buying public. On September 21, TikTok song titles were revealed. On October 17, Midnight’s lyrics began to appear on billboards in cities including New York, London, and Sao Paolo, Brazil. On October 18, she started revealing five things via Spotify in daily doses that “kept me up at night and helped inspire the Midnights album.” Do you watch football, though, if you’re not on TikTok or Spotify and missed the international billboards? Swift’s final pre-release push was an album teaser that appeared during Thursday Night Football, hours before the album’s delivery.
With all of these teasers and previews, there was one thing that wasn’t revealed ahead of midnight on October 21: any music. No lead singles or music videos were published despite almost two months’ notice, which further increased the anticipation for the album. Like her most recent original albums, 2020’s Folklore and Evermore, would it be subtle and simple? Would it replicate the high-energy pop of the three previous songs, Lover from 2019 (pop), Reputation from 2017, and 1989 from 2014? Or would Swift be newly inspired by revisiting the young country singer behind 2008’s Fearless and 2012’s Red for her pair of 2021 re-recordings?
The genuine answer was all of the aforementioned. With songs that alternately sound dreamy (“Snow on the Beach” with Lana del Rey, “Sweet Nothing” recorded with partner Joe Alwyn), dancey (“Anti-Hero” and “Bejeweled”), and razor-sharp (“Vigilante Shit”), one could hear bits and pieces from all of Swift’s eras throughout the project. A large part of the familiarity may be traced to Jack Antonoff’s constant presence, who has been Swift’s collaborator since 1989 and was the only co-producer given credit for the 13 songs. The New York Times described Swift’s album as being “caught between yesterday and tomorrow” in the headline of its review, but it seems more appropriate to think of Midnights as a huge snowball that has all of Taylor’s previous albums rolled inside it while still appearing shiny and new on the outside.
Swift then surprised her fans with the 20-song 3 AM Edition album just three hours after the standard album’s release, continuing the snowball effect. This time, she collaborated with her other go-to producer, Aaron Dessner, on six of the seven tracks. The buzziest bonus track is “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve,” which fans speculate is about her brief relationship with John Mayer and their 13-year age gap. Fans were thrilled to have even more lyrics to decode and soundscapes to live in after listening to the 44-minute original at least four times since midnight. Swifties had yet another fresh release to devour five hours later: On October 21, at 8 a.m. ET, the “Anti-Hero” music video, the first of numerous Midnight Music Movie teasers teased in the Thursday Night Football teaser, was released. It shows the pop star attending her funeral while Mike Birbiglia, John Early, and Mary Elizabeth Ellis play her adult children. That wasn’t the only music video released during release week: The video for “Bejeweled,” which features Laura Dern and Haim as the evil stepmother and stepsisters in Swift’s original Cinderella tale, debuted on October 24.
Even by Swift’s high standards, all of this is a lot to accomplish, but the all-out effort paid off handsomely when Midnights moved 1.578 million equivalent album units in its first week and 1.14 million traditional album sales, making it the biggest week for any album since Adele’s 25 in 2015 and Taylor Swift’s reputation in 2017. The album comfortably topped the Billboard 200, and on the Billboard Hot 100, anchored by the number-one song “Anti-Hero,” Swift made history by holding all ten positions for the first time. All 20 of the album’s tracks also made the list.
Swift has fought off some pretty tough competition on the charts in a month or so since the release of Midnights; the catchy “Anti-Hero” beat out brand-new tracks from Drake and Rihanna to hold strong at No. 1 on the Hot 100 for six weeks, only to lose the position to Mariah Carey’s perennial Christmas chart-topper this week. She received an early sales boost from several “Anti-Hero” remixes, one of which included Antonoff’s band, Bleachers. Drake seemed to be aware of his Republic labelmate’s aggressive tactics when he re-posted the Hot 100 top 10 the week after his joint album with 21 Savage, Her Loss, debuted on the chart, covering over Swift’s No. 1 position with emojis.
With the Nov. 1 announcement of the Eras Tour, Swift’s first full tour in nearly five years, which is aiming to encompass all the work she’s published in the past decade and a half, 2023 is shaping up to be even more historic than this year, which has been another monumental one for Swift. Ticketmaster, which is currently being sued by irate Swifties who were locked out of the ticket-buying process and were even criticised by Swift herself, nearly went bankrupt (in both the short- and long-term senses) due to the tremendous demand to attend one of Taylor’s 52 gigs. She wrote on November 18 on Instagram, “It’s actually fantastic that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it irritates me because a lot of them feel like they went through many bear assaults to acquire them.” Following her campaigns to improve artist remuneration from Apple Music and give musicians ownership of master recordings, Swift’s next pet project might be to overhaul Ticketmaster.
Swift has several significant award events to attend the following year in addition to her tour and any Taylor Versions that may be in store for her. Swift has a chance to win her first Golden Globe in January (for the original song for “Carolina”) and could add four more Grammys to her 11 already in February, including one of the “Big Four” possibilities: song of the year for “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (The Short Film), which she won at the 2022 American Music Awards, MTV EMAs, and People’s Choice Awards. Swift was also named songwriter-artist of the decade at the Nashville Songwriter Awards. Her most recent side business is filmmaking. Swift is preparing to make her directorial debut with an untitled Searchlight Pictures project for which she developed the original story after gaining experience in the field with her music videos and All Too Well (The Short Film).
Given Swift’s incredible achievements in 2022, it may be difficult to imagine that she doesn’t repeat as Billboard’s Greatest Pop Star this year, but the most amazing thing is how much of her year was packed into these past few months. She appears to be prepared to reclaim the throne in 2023, based on what’s coming up. Remember what she advised the college kids: “Never be ashamed of trying.”
