Taylor Swift

Biography: (2014-Present) 1989

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2014–present: 1989

In March 2014, Swift relocated to New York City. Around this time, she was working on her fifth studio album, 1989, with writers Antonoff, Martin, Shellback, Imogen Heap, Ryan Tedder, and Ali Payami. She promoted the album through various campaigns, including inviting fans to secret album-listening sessions, called the "1989 Secret Sessions". Credited as her "first documented, official pop album", it marks a departure from her previous country albums. The album was released on October 27, 2014 to positive reviews.

1989 sold 1.28 million copies in the US during the first week of release and debuted atop the Billboard 200—this made Swift the first act to have three albums sell more than one million copies in their opening release week, for which she earned a Guinness World Record. As of February 2015, 1989 had sold over 8.6 million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Shake It Off", was released in August 2014 and debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Others included two number-one singles—"Blank Space" and "Bad Blood" (featuring Kendrick Lamar)—as well as the top-ten entries "Style" and "Wildest Dreams", and the singles "Out of the Woods" and "New Romantics". "Shake It Off", "Blank Space", and "Bad Blood" also topped the charts in Australia and Canada. The music video for "Blank Space" briefly became the fastest video to reach one billion views on Vevo. "Blank Space" and the video for "Bad Blood" won four accolades at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards, with the latter winning for Video of the Year and Best Collaboration. Swift's headlining tour, the 1989 World Tour, running from May to December 2015, grossed over $250 million, and became one of the highest grossing tours of all time.

Swift was named Billboard's Woman of the Year in 2014, becoming the first artist to win the award twice. Also that year, she received the Dick Clark Award for Excellence at the American Music Awards. In 2015, "Shake It Off" was nominated for three Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year and Swift won the Brit Award for International Female Solo Artist. The singer was one of eight artists to receive a 50th Anniversary Milestone Award at the 2015 Academy of Country Music Awards. In 2016, Swift won three Grammy Awards for 1989—Album of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Album, and Best Music Video for "Bad Blood". She became the first woman, and fifth act overall, to win the first of these twice.

Prior to 1989's release, Swift stressed the importance of albums to artists and fans. In November 2014, she removed her entire catalog from Spotify, arguing that the streaming company's ad-supported, free service undermined the premium service, which provides higher royalties for songwriters. In June 2015, Swift criticized Apple Music in an open letter for not offering royalties to artists during the streaming service's free three-month trial period and stated that she would pull 1989 from the catalog. The following day, Apple announced that it would pay artists during the free trial period, and Swift agreed to stream 1989 on the streaming service. Swift's intellectual property rights management and holding company, TAS Rights Management, filed for 73 trademarks related to the singer and the 1989 era memes.

In 2015, Swift performed "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Shake It Off" with Paul McCartney at the Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special after-party, and joined Kenny Chesney to sing "Big Star" on the opening night of his Big Revival Tour in Nashville. In March 2015, Swift started dating Scottish DJ and record producer Calvin Harris. By June 2015, the duo were ranked as the highest-paid celebrity couple over the past year by Forbes with combined earnings of over $146 million. In August, Swift addressed her mother's cancer diagnosis, and encouraged others to get a medical checkup. Before Swift and Harris announced the end of their relationship in June 2016, the two co-wrote his song "This Is What You Came For", for which she was initially credited under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg. In October, she penned Little Big Town's "Better Man" for their seventh album, The Breaker. Two months later, Swift and Zayn Malik released a single together called "I Don't Wanna Live Forever", for the soundtrack of the film Fifty Shades Darker (2017), which reached number one in Sweden.