Taylor Swift Is Billboard’s Top Artist of 2023

Keith Caulfield
·3 min read
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Taylor Swift triumphs atop Billboard’s 2023 year-end Top Artists chart, following her domination across both the Billboard 200 albums and Billboard Hot 100 songs chart this year.

Swift was previously the year-end top artist in 2015 and 2009, making her the first act to finish as the year-end No. 1 artist at least once in three different decades (the 2000s, ‘10s and ‘20s). Plus, she’s just the second act to be the year-end top artist three times, following Adele, in 2016, 2012 and 2011 (dating to the category’s 1981 inception).

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Remarkably, she’s ranked among the Top Artists year-end top 10 in 14 of the last 16 years, including the last six in a row.

Explore All of Billboard’s 2023 Year-End Charts

Further demonstrating Swift’s sustained success on Billboard’s charts, the 14-year span from her first win as top artist in 2009 to her third in 2023 is the longest of any act. Previously, Swift and Usher were tied with the longest span of year-end victories, with six years between Swift’s first and second coronations as Top Artists (2009-15) and Usher’s pair of wins (1998-2004).

During the 2023 chart year, Swift logged 13 albums on the weekly Billboard 200 chart, including two that spent time at No. 1: her 2022 release Midnights and her third re-recorded album, 2023’s Speak Now (Taylor’s Version). The former finishes as the No. 2 title on the year-end Billboard 200 Albums recap. Meanwhile, her 2019 release Lover is No. 9. The latter, along with her catalog of albums, flourished in 2023 concurrent with her massive career-spanning The Eras Tour concert trek. In total on the year-end Billboard 200 Albums roundup, Swift is at Nos. 2 (Midnights), 9 (Lover), 11 (Speak Now [Taylor’s Version]), 12 (Folklore), 16 (1989), 17 (Red [Taylor’s Version]), 21 (Reputation), 29 (Evermore), 43 (Fearless [Taylor’s Version]) and 115 (Speak Now). Swift is also the year’s top finisher on the Billboard 200 Artists roundup.

On the weekly Hot 100 chart, Swift logged 44 songs during the 2023 chart year. On the year-end Hot 100 Songs ranking, she’s at Nos. 4 (“Anti-Hero”), 18 (“Cruel Summer”), 27 (“Karma,” featuring Ice Spice) and 32 (“Lavender Haze”).

Swift is the overall top female artist for a seventh year, while Morgan Wallen is the top male artist for the first time (No. 2 on the overall Top Artists list). Wallen also claims the year-end No. 1 on the Billboard 200 Albums recap with his 2023 release One Thing at a Time, which spent 16 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the weekly Billboard 200. The album’s crossover hit “Last Night” crowns the year-end Hot 100 Songs recap. It’s the first time that the same artist has led both the year-end Billboard 200 and Hot 100 tallies since Adele in 2011 (with 21 and “Rolling In the Deep,” respectively).

Wallen’s previous year-end Billboard 200 Albums champ, Dangerous: The Double Album, which topped the recap in 2021, is No. 5 on the 2023 list, after ranking at No. 3 in 2022. It’s the first title to spend three years, consecutive or otherwise, in the year-end Billboard 200 Albums top 10 since the soundtrack to The Sound of Music (1965-67).

Regional Mexican band Fuerza Regida is the top duo/group of 2023 – the first time an act that primarily records in Spanish has achieved the feat. (They are No. 38 on the overall Top Artists recap.) During the chart year, the act placed eight titles on the weekly Hot 100 and a pair of albums on the Billboard 200. Zach Bryan is the year’s top new artist (No. 6 on the overall Top Artists list), having scored his first No. 1s on both the weekly Billboard 200 (with his-self titled set) and Hot 100 (“I Remember Everything,” featuring Kacey Musgraves).

Billboard’s year-end music recaps represent aggregated metrics for each artist, title, label and music contributor on the weekly charts from Nov. 19, 2022, through Oct. 21, 2023. Rankings for Luminate-based recaps reflect equivalent album units, airplay, sales or streaming during the weeks that the titles appeared on a respective chart during the tracking year. Any activity registered before or after a title’s chart run isn’t considered in these rankings. That methodology detail, and the November-October time period, account for some of the difference between these lists and the calendar-year recaps that are independently compiled by Luminate. The Top Artists and Top New Artists categories ranks the best-performing overall acts, and new acts, of the year based on activity on the Billboard 200 albums and Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, as well as Billboard Boxscore (touring) data, for the 2023 tracking period.

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