Taylor Swift Named The 2014 Billboard “Woman Of The Year”
Billboard, the leading global destination for charts, news, trends, and innovations in music, announced today that global superstar Taylor Swift will accept its 2014 Woman of the Year Award. Billboard will present the seven-time Grammy-winning artist with the award at the ninth annual Women in Music event, which takes place Dec. 12 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City, and is presented by American Express. The event marks the first time in Billboard history that an artist will be given the award a second time.
The Billboard Woman of the Year Award honors a female artist who has shaped and inspired the music industry with her success, leadership and innovation over the past twelve months. Past winners include Pink, Katy Perry, Fergie, and Beyonce. The event is held in conjunction with the much-anticipated publication of Billboard’s Women in Music Power Players list, which recognizes the top female music executives leading the industry with their artistic and business vision. Recipients of the Billboard Rising Star and Icon awards, as well as Breakthrough Artist of the Year and Country Artist of the Year, will be announced in coming weeks.
“As one of the most influential artists of her generation, Taylor Swift has seen incredible success on the Billboard charts,” said Janice Min, co-president and chief creative officer of Guggenheim Media’s Entertainment Group, which consists of Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter. “Over the course of her career, she’s charted 60 entries on the Billboard Hot 100 — the most of any female artist since her debut in 2006. We are tremendously excited to be honoring her as the 2014 Billboard Woman of the Year for the second time.”
Taylor Swift is a seven-time Grammy winner, and the youngest recipient in history of the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. She is the best-selling digital music artist of all time, and the only female artist in music history (and just the fourth artist ever) to twice have an album hit the 1 million first-week sales figure (2010’s Speak Now and 2012’s RED). Swift made her latest chart headlines when her newest single “Shake It Off,” became her second Billboard Hot 100 No. 1, reigning for two weeks in September, following her first chart topper “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” in 2012.
Swift, who holds the all-time revenue record for a single tour by a country artist, is the only female artist to collect five top 10 hit singles from each of her first two studio albums on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. She also holds the record for the most debuts inside the top 10 – a hefty 12 – by any artist in the history of the Hot 100. With 11 songs on the Nov. 13, 2010 Hot 100, she set the mark for the most titles charted simultaneously on the tally by a female artist. Swift’s latest album “1989” will be released on October 27, 2014.
“On behalf of American Express, I would like to congratulate Taylor Swift on this incredible honor,” said Deborah Curtis, vice president of entertainment and sports marketing at American Express. “We are proud to be a long-time partner of Taylor’s and are thrilled for her continued success and well-deserved recognition as Billboard’s Woman of the Year.”
Billboard has scored major news-generating covers recently, including Jennifer Lopez, Chris Brown, Shakira, Idina Menzel, Iggy Azalea, Pharrell Williams, Tom Petty, Mick Jagger, and Miranda Lambert. Hitting a record-setting number of 13 million monthly unique visitors to its website in August 2014, Billboard has seen a 55% year-over-year growth of its online readership. In the same month, Billboard surpassed 3 million followers on Facebook.
