'Light Source': Time magazine names Taylor Swift Person of the Year

American singer Taylor Swift was named person of the year by the magazine Time. She beat out other contenders, including Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, OpenAI founder Sam Altman, Great Britain's King Charles III, Barbie and participants in the actors' and screenwriters' strikes in Hollywood.

Photo: IStock

Over her 17-year career, Swift, who turns 34 next week, has released 12 number one albums in the US (Billboard 200) and won numerous Grammys and other awards. She went from country singer to pop star, recording two indie albums along the way.

In 2022, Swift began performing concerts for the first time since the pandemic - her large-scale world tour Eras Tour brought her the status of a billionaire, reports with the BBC.

On the subject: Macaulay Culkin receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Time journalists write that the person of the year most often becomes representatives of traditional spheres of power. “He—and yes, it was usually a ‘he’—was very often a politician or a titan of industry,” the authors admit.

However, the man whose extraordinary influence was visible throughout 2023 did not occupy such a position.

“Every year has light and darkness; a significant portion of 2023 was darkness. In a divided world where too many institutions are failing, Taylor Swift has found a way to transcend boundaries and become a source of light,” the magazine article said.

Time calls Swift's life story a tale of redemption, with the protagonist finding new happiness through hardship.

“Over the past 20 years, I have been praised and demoted by public opinion so many times,” says the singer. “They gave me the crown, and then they took it away.”

“This feels like the breakthrough moment in my career at 33,” she says. “And for the first time in my life, I was mentally strong enough to accept everything that came with it.”

She told the magazine she feels "the proudest and happiest I've ever been."

Time presented three covers with the artist, on one of which Swift poses with one of her three pets - the cat Benjamin Button (the singer has two more cats - Meredith Gray and Olivia Benson). Benjamin showed up at Swift's after filming the video for the song Me! , where, according to the plot, Taylor’s lover offers her a kitten instead of an engagement ring as a sign of reconciliation.

Read Taylor Swift's full Person of the Year interview (featuring Benjamin Button, the cat) https://t.co/RgVoNa85kz pic.twitter.com/5nhQS2nTUP

- TIME (@TIME) December 6, 2023

Why Taylor Swift

Already a superstar until 2023, her career has reached new heights thanks to the Eras Tour, which sees the singer performing her 45-song set every night.

The Eras Tour concerts last more than three hours and include tracks from almost all of the singer's albums. About 2024 performances are due to take place before the end of 150; tickets for them are in great demand among fans from all over the world. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly asked the star to include his country on the tour.

Demand for tickets was so high that Ticketmaster's website crashed, prompting the U.S. Senate to hold a hearing into its business practices.

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When the tour began in the summer, ticketless fans gathered in parking lots to listen to the music. In Seattle, her concerts caused seismic activity equivalent to a 2,3 magnitude earthquake.

The singer also admitted to the magazine that her 180-minute concerts often left her feeling physically exhausted. After a series of performances, “I don’t get out of bed except to get food, take it back to bed and eat it there,” she said.

“I can barely speak because I’ve already sung three concerts in a row. Every time I take a step, my feet crunch, crunch, crunch from dancing in heels,” the singer told the magazine.

She achieved creative success with pandemic-era albums Folklore and Evermore. Showcasing a more organic indie-folk approach than the country-pop that made her famous, the records put her generational songwriting talent on full display.

In addition to her tour, Swift also released the best-selling record of 2023, a re-recording of her decade-old 1989 album.

Incredibly, she also owns the second and third most popular albums of the year in America: "Midnights" and "Speak Now (Taylor's Version)." They eclipsed the records of Drake, Olivia Rodrigo and Ed Sheeran.

Her other achievements this year include:

• The Eras tour film became the biggest concert film of all time, grossing $249 million worldwide.
• Swift became the first living artist to have five albums simultaneously reach the US top 10: 1989, Midnights, Folklore, Lover and Speak Now.
• She broke the record for most number one albums by a woman in US chart history with 13 in total, surpassing Barbra Streisand.
• Swift became the first songwriter to receive seven Grammy Award nominations for Song of the Year, beating out Sir Paul McCartney and Lionel Richie.
• With eight sold-outs at Wembley Stadium, Swift equaled the UK tour record held by Take That.
  Thanks to her tour, Swift was named the most streamed artist in the history of Spotify and Apple Music.

Last month, business publication Bloomberg declared the star a billionaire. It estimated her fortune at $1,1 billion.
Only three other musicians have reached billionaire status: Rihanna, Beyoncé and Jay-Z.

However, Swift is the first to reach this milestone based solely on music, as her rivals' fortunes include businesses in fashion, beauty products and hi-fi equipment.

Swift is currently on hiatus ahead of launching the Asian and Australian legs of her Eras tour in February.

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She is also currently re-recording her albums, the rights to which she lost after a conflict with her former label. After the release of the albums 1989 (Taylor's Version) and Speak Now (Taylor's Version), compositions from there again took first place on the charts around the world.

Her decision to remake all of her first six albums came after her old label Big Machine sold her master tapes to music mogul Scooter Braun in 2019. He later sold them to an investment company.

In an interview with Time, she said she was initially put off by the idea, proposed by her father and fellow pop star Kelly Clarkson.

"I looked at them and thought, 'How can I do this?' No one wants to redo your homework if the wind blew away your notebooks on the way to school,” she said.

Ultimately, she continued the project as an act of rebellion.

“It's all about how you deal with loss,” she says. “I respond to severe pain with defiance.”

Swift also directed several of her videos, which are usually filled with a large number of “Easter eggs” - references to past or future songs and albums that fans are happy to unravel.

The star also spoke about her blossoming romance with American football star Travis Kelce, reports with the BBC. The couple made headlines in September when Swift was spotted with mother Kelsey at one of his games.

“By the time I went to that first game, we were a couple,” she explained, adding that they first met over the summer.

“I think some people think they saw our first date at this game. We were never psychotic enough to start a first date like that,” she says.

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