The year in Taylor Swift, from The Eras Tour to 1989 (Taylor's Version) to Travis Kelce

Taylor Swift’s 2023 started off with a broken record, heralding what was to come for the rest of the year. On January 17, she surpassed her personal best of seven weeks at the top of the Billboard charts (for “Blank Space”) with “Anti-Hero,” which spent a total of eight weeks at No. 1. That same month, she released the self-directed “Lavender Haze” music video co-starring transgender model Laith Ashley. (In the spirit of the nonsensical amount of records Swift would break this year, note that “Lavender Haze” became her 27th top 10 hit on the Adult Pop Airplay Chart, tying Maroon 5 for the most top 10s of any artist in that category.)

Elsewhere, the United States Senate held a hearing to investigate the potential alleged monopoly over at Ticketmaster, prompted by the Eras Tour ticketing fiasco of 2022. The Judiciary Committee hearing was an excuse for government officials to make as many Swiftie references as possible. “To have a strong capitalist system, you have to have competition,” Senator Amy Klobuchar said in her opening statement. “You can’t have too much consolidation—something that, unfortunately for this country, as an ode to Taylor Swift, I will say, we know ‘all too well.’”

February was a relatively quiet month for Taylor Swift, meaning that the only notable event was casually winning another Grammy for “All Too Well: The Short Film” in the Best Music Video category. The ceremony, in which her 10-year old track “All Too Well” (well, the 10-minute “(Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault”) was nominated for Song of the Year, was Swift’s only public appearance that month.

Behind the scenes, though, she was preparing for the blockbuster Eras Tour: “Every day I would run on the treadmill, singing the entire set list out loud. Fast for fast songs, and a jog or a fast walk for slow songs,” she later told Time magazine. “Then I had three months of dance training, because I wanted to get it in my bones. I wanted to be so over-rehearsed that I could be silly with the fans, and not lose my train of thought.”

The training paid off, because The Eras Tour was an immediate sensation, as expected. Fans came flocking to see the show, and cities and stadiums sparked a new trend of making ostentatious displays to show obsequiousness to visiting royalty: opening tour stop Glendale, Arizona, for instance, changed its name to “Swift City” for the duration of her stay. Meanwhile, Swift had her own way of celebrating the start of tour by releasing four “From The Vault” tracks, which included reuniting long-defunct duo The Civil Wars on “Safe & Sound” and the previously unreleased “All Of The Girls You Loved Before.” To top off all that triumph, she became only the second person in history to have seven albums in the top 40 of the Billboard 200 charts at the same time. (The feat had only previously been accomplished by Whitney Houston in the immediate aftermath of her death.)

Meanwhile, Swifties prepared to take Ticketmaster to court themselves after rallying in the wake of the 2022’s ticket woes. “For me, I don’t care how long this takes, it can take forever if it has to,” plaintiff and fan Joe Akmakjian told The A.V. Club ahead of the hearing. “I just want to make sure that people are not getting away with harming the American consumer just because they want to and they can.”

While Taylor Swift got up to her typical stealthy antics (sneaking into the Eras Tour in a faux janitor’s cart, secretly filming a music video with her ex-boyfriend, etc.), she also continued a prolific run of releasing new music by collaborating with The National on “The Alcott” from their 2023 album First Two Pages Of Frankenstein. (The National’s Aaron Dessner is the “collaborator version of a soulmate” for Swift, as she put it when he performed with her during an Eras Tour stop.) Meanwhile, The Eras Tour continued with more cities bending the knee to conquering ruler Taylor Swift.

But the biggest story in April was the end of Swift’s six-year relationship with boyfriend Joe Alwyn. Midnights had already hinted at possible cracks in the couple’s relationship, as fans would obsessively reassess in the wake of the news. And though some Swifties would parasocially mourn the end of her long-term romance, the split marked a renaissance for Swift’s public persona that would last through the rest of the year.

The extent of Swiftiemania started becoming clear in May when fans sent a mysterious memoir to the top of the bestseller list completely sight unseen. (It turned out to be a memoir for BTS, not TS.) Things would only escalate as Swift had an extremely busy May, where her personal and professional accomplishments battled for dominance in the headlines. In one corner: the singer’s controversial rebound relationship with The 1975’s Matty Healy, which sent some Swifties into a tailspin. In the other corner: Midnights (From The Vault), which added to and in some ways refashioned the Midnights narrative, in addition to spawning a new collaboration with up-and-coming rapper Ice Spice on the “Karma” remix. (As it happens, Healy’s biggest scandal at the time had to do with racialized insults against Ice Spice on a podcast.) Then there was the announcement of the next re-recording, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), which was destined to take the world by storm.

In June, Swift’s short-lived relationship with Healy reportedly came to an end, but her pervasive cultural impact obviously did not. Anticipation for Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) continued to grow as the pop star announced new “From The Vault” tracks that included collaborations with Fall Out Boy and Eras Tour opener Hayley Williams of Paramore. Ahead of revisiting the Speak Now era, Swift attempted to temper Swifties’ bloodlust towards old boyfriends, especially given that fans had already put a target on the back of John Mayer, one of the presumed muses of that album. “I was hoping to ask you that as we lead up to this album coming out, I would love for that kindness and that gentleness to extend onto our internet activities. Right?” she said during her Minneapolis tour stop. Swift then added, “I’m 33 years old. I don’t care about anything that happened to me when I was 19, except the songs I wrote and the memories we made together.”

Meanwhile, this month saw one of many celebrated on-screen Swift moments: The Bear’s big “Love Story” scene in a fan-favorite episode that followed Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach). Other shows that would capitalize on Swiftiemania in 2023 include The Summer I Turned Pretty and The Buccaneers.

The release of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) was July’s biggest occurrence in Swiftiedom, if not the world over. The re-recording experiment continued to give Swift a chance not only to own her work, but in some cases to rewrite history (like changing a problematic slut-shaming lyric in “Better Than Revenge”). But the new “From The Vault” tracks showed how consistent Swift’s favorite themes and motifs have been for over a decade now, particularly when it comes to her own reputation. The album release obviously brought on a slew of additional broken records, some of them genuinely monumental (her 12th number one album made her the female artist with the most number ones in history) and others completely obscure (she became “the only act with nine different albums to sell at least a half-million copies in a single week”). The reclaimed era was punctuated by another Swift-directed music video about reclaiming her Eras: the “I Can See You” video notably stars her ex-boyfriend Taylor Lautner, subject of the Speak Now track “Back To December,” and Joey King and Presley Cash, stars of the “Mean” music video.

For those keeping track, July saw yet more Ticketmaster issues as Eras Tour tickets went on sale in Europe. Meanwhile, the U.S. leg of the Eras Tour continued to be the biggest event of the summer—a literal seismic occurrence. One notable attendee this month was Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, who later lamented a missed opportunity to give Swift a friendship bracelet with his phone number on it. Luckily, he later found a way to get in touch with her ...

“August” is now another concept that belongs to Taylor Swift, with her song of the same name growing even more in popularity ever since its release in 2020 on the folklore album. She further staked her claim by having another huge month professionally, bringing the Eras Tour to Los Angeles (and getting a lot of credit for treating her employees to big bonuses along the way). Her impact was so profound that local politicians were imploring her to postpone her shows in solidarity with the hotel workers’ strike.

Though Swift didn’t end up postponing, she did make headlines for announcing another re-recording, 1989 (Taylor’s Version). Fitting, because Swift’s increased levels of publicity and fame began to mirror that classic era wherein she first broke into pop music, though to even more extreme degrees of magnitude. She topped the list of nominees for the VMAs and announced Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour in partnership with AMC, a concert event that quickly smashed first-day advanced sales records and had other films so scared they shifted their premiere dates just to get out of the way.

And as an August post-script, Swift’s enemies continued to suffer as a flock of Scooter Braun clients reportedly parted ways with the infamous manager. Swift would refer to this as “trash taking itself out.”

In September, Taylor Swift expectedly swept the VMAs with nine wins (more than any other artist at the 2023 ceremony). After enjoying some classic awards show shenanigans (girl loves to dance), she went on to do some next-level promo by taking over all of Google and getting Swifties all over the world involved in cracking the 1989 “Vault.” This led to the unveiling of a “From The Vault” tracklist that Swift claimed was her favorite of all the re-releases, including intriguing titles like “Suburban Legends” and “Slut!”

But what most excited Swifties this month was the singer stepping out with football player Travis Kelce, who had previously expressed an interest in her on his podcast. Apparently, shooting your shot pays off. And Swift showing up to watch him play payed off for both of them, as the NFL provided Eras Tour concert film promo and her presence provided promotional opportunity for pretty much everything else, including, bizarrely, “ketchup and seemingly ranch,” a meme that took on an entire life of its own. The relationship was instantly a cultural sensation, and even Kelce’s mother later commented on how beneficial it was for people to cash in on the overwhelming coverage.

While Swift’s newfound football fandom continued to make headlines, anticipation for Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour concert film manifested in more than $100 million in advance ticket sales. The film ended up releasing early and had a star-studded premiere that included an appearance by Swift’s only rival for Queen of Summer 2023, Beyoncé, whose own concert film would follow in Swift’s footsteps two months later by releasing directly through AMC. Swift’s film was a critical and commercial success, as is Swift’s wont.

But Taylor Swift is never one to rest on her laurels, so she continued to work extra hard throughout the month, putting in appearances at Saturday Night Live and making a last push to put “Cruel Summer”—a song that was released three years earlier as a mere album cut—at the top of the charts. (Unsurprisingly, she succeeded.) As if that wasn’t enough, October also saw the release of 1989 (Taylor’s Version), exactly nine years after the release of the original 1989. And, by the way, she became a billionaire to boot.

Taylor Swift ushered in November by tidily surpassing the original 1989 sales with 1989 (Taylor’s Version). She easily picked up six Grammy nominations, and now has the most-ever nominations in the Song of the Year category (thanks, “Anti-Hero”!). Should Midnights take home Album of the Year, she’ll become the first artist in history to win the award four times. Swift celebrated these milestones by taking the Eras Tour to South America, where she became quite literally as big as Jesus. Tragically, her Brazilian tour stop was overshadowed by the death of a fan as local Swifties (and the performer herself) complained of extreme conditions in the stadium caused by a severe heatwave.

Nevertheless, the Swift train kept on moving. An extended Eras Tour concert film was announced, and the Grammy nominee closed out the month by attending the Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé premiere in London.

As a birthday present—and, frankly, an accurate read of culture writ large—Taylor Swift was named Time’s Person of the Year for 2023 in December. The resulting profile was not only a victory lap but another opportunity for Swift to rewrite her own narrative to suit her current purposes, whether in terms of her love life or her previous experiences with “cancelation.” 

As an added bonus, The Eras Tour (Extended Version) hit SVOD, capping off a year of win after win that frankly shows no sign of slowing in 2024. Swift celebrated by sharing concert footage of the Speak Now track “Long Live”—as in, long live the queen.