(audience applauds)

Whew!

This is sort of a, it's not a short speech.

So just, I don't want this to slip and break

'cause it's very important to me.

- I got it.

- Thank you so much.

(audience laughs)

She's so supportive, we all need someone like that.

(laughs)

I'm Taylor, good evening.

I wanna first thank Billboard from the bottom of my heart

for this honor, for--

Whoa, this is going great so far.

(audience laughs)

Excellent, okay.

I wanna say thank you so much to Billboard

for giving me this honor,

for naming me as their Woman of the Decade.

So what does it mean to be the woman of this decade?

Well, it means I've seen a lot.

When this decade began I was 20 years old

and I had put out my self-titled debut album when I was 16,

and then the album that would become my breakthrough album,

which was called Fearless.

And I saw that there was a world of music

and experience beyond country music

that I was really curious about.

I saw pop stations send my songs Love Story

and You Belong With Me to number one for the first time.

And I saw that as a female in this industry,

some people will always have slight reservations about you.

Whether you deserve to be there, whether your male producer

or co-writer is the reason for your success,

or whether it was a savvy record label.

It wasn't.

(audience laughs)

I saw that people love to explain away a woman's success

in the music industry, and I saw something in me change

due to this realization.

This was the decade when I became a mirror

for my detractors.

Whatever they decided I couldn't do is exactly what I did.

- [Audience Member] Woo!

- Oh, I'll take it. (applauding)

Thanks!

Whatever they criticized about me

became material for musical satires

or inspirational anthems,

and the best lyrical examples I can think of

are songs like Mean, Shake It Off, and Blank Space.

Basically if people had something to say about me,

I usually said something back in my own way.

And this reflect dictated more than just my lyrics.

When Fearless did win Album of the Year at the Grammys

and I did become the youngest solo artist to ever win

the award, with that win came criticism and backlash

in 2010 that I'd never experienced before

as a young new artist.

All of a sudden people had doubts about my singing voice,

was it strong enough, was I a little bit pitchy?

All of a sudden they weren't sure if I was the one

writing the songs because sometimes in the past

I had had co-writers in the room.

At that time I couldn't understand

why this wave of harsh criticism had hit me so hard.

I believe a popular headline back then was,

A Swift Backlash, which is clever, you gotta give it to 'em.

(audience laughs)

And now I realize that this is just what happens

to a woman in music if she achieves success or power

beyond people's comfort level.

I now have come to expect that with good news

comes some sort of pushback.

But I didn't know that then.

So then I decided that I would be the only songwriter

on my third album, Speak Now,

and that I would tour constantly,

work on my vocals every day,

and perfect my stamina in a live show.

I decided I would be what they said I couldn't be.

I didn't know then that soon enough

people would decide on something else

I wasn't quite doing right, and then the circle

would keep going on and on and rolling along

and I would keep accommodating, over-correcting,

in an effort to appease my critics.

They're saying I'm dating too much in my 20s?

Okay, I'll stop, I'll just be single.

For years.

(audience laughs)

Now they're saying my album Red

is filled with too many breakup songs?

Okay, okay, I'll make one about moving to New York

and deciding that really my life is more fun

with just my friends.

Oh, they're saying my music is changing too much

for me to stay in country music?

All right.

Okay, here's an entire genre shift

and a pop album called 1989.

- [Audience Member] Woo!

- Ah! (applauding)

You heard it?

Sick!

Now it's that I'm showing you too many pictures

of me with my friends, okay, I can stop doing that too.

Now I'm actually a calculated manipulator

rather than a smart businesswoman?

Okay, I'll disappear from public view for years.

Now I'm being cast a villain to you?

Okay, here's an album called Reputation

and there are lots of snakes everywhere.

In the last 10 years I have watched

as women in this industry are criticized

and measured up to each other and picked at

for their bodies, their romantic lives, their fashion,

or have you ever heard someone say about a male artist,

I really like his songs but I don't know what it is,

there's just something about him I don't like?

No!

That criticism is reserved for us!

But you know, I've learned that the difference

between those who can continue to create in that climate

usually comes down to this.

Who lets that scrutiny break them

and who just keeps making art.

I've watched as one of my favorite artists of this decade,

Lana Del Rey, was ruthly criticized--

Yes!

(man mumbles)

Yeah.

(applauding) Thank you.

We have similar tastes, I like it.

She was ruthlessly criticized in her early career

and then slowly but surely she turned into, in my opinion,

the most influential artist in pop.

Her vocal stylings, her lyrics, her aesthetics,

they've been echoed and repurposed in every corner of music,

and this year her incredible album

is nominated for Album of the Year at the Grammys

because she just kept making art.

And that example should inspire all of us,

that the only way forward is forward motion.

That we shouldn't let obstacles like criticism

slow down the creative forces that drive us.

And I see that fire in the newer faces in our music industry

whose work I absolutely love.

I see it in Lizzo, Rosalia, Tayla Parx,

Hayley Kiyoko, King Princess, Camila Cabello, Halsey,

Megan Thee Stallion, Princess Nokia, Nina Nesbitt,

Sigrid, Normani, H.E.R., Maggie Rogers, Becky G,

Dua Lipa, Ella Mai, Billie Eilish.

(audience cheers)

And so many other amazing women

who are making music right now.

Female artists in music have dominated this decade

in growth, streaming, record and ticket sales,

and critical acclaim.

So why are we doing so well?

Because we have to grow fast.

We have to work this hard,

we have to prove that we deserve this,

and we have to top our last achievements.

Women in music, onstage or behind the scenes,

are not allowed to coast.

We are held at a higher,

sometimes impossible-feeling standard.

And it seems that my fellow female artists

have taken this challenge and they have accepted it.

It seems like the pressure that could have crushed us

made us into diamonds instead.

And what didn't kill us actually did make us stronger.

But we need to keep advocating for women

in the recording studios, behind the mixing board,

in A and R meetings, because rather than fighting

to be taken seriously in their fields,

these women are still struggling

to even have a chance to be in the room.

(audience applauds)

We now find ourselves fully immersed

in a vast frontier that wasn't around last decade,

and that is the streaming world.

In music, we're always walking hand-in-hand with technology,

and sometimes that is so awesome,

like how now we're able to just drop a song

that we made yesterday.

I've spoken out in the past about the future

of revenue flow for creators and the songwriters

and producers who are being left behind

due to these rapid shifts and changes.

I still don't think that record contracts

or producers agreements have fully caught up,

and I hope that in the next decade,

we can keep searching for the right solution

for producers, songwriters, and creators.

Don't you?

(audience applauds)

Lately there's been a new shift that has affected me

personally and that I feel is a potentially harmful force

in our industry, and as your resident loud person,

I feel the need to bring it up.

And that is the unregulated world of private equity

coming in and buying up our music as if it is real estate.

As if it's an app or a shoe line.

This just happened to me without my approval,

consultation, or consent.

After I was denied the chance to purchase my music outright,

my entire catalog was sold

to Scooter Braun's Ithaca Holdings

in a deal that I'm told was funded

by the Soros Family, 23 Capital, and the Carlyle Group.

Yet to this day none of these investors

have ever bothered to contact me or my team directly.

To perform their due diligence on their investment.

On their investment in me.

To ask how I might feel about the new owner of my art.

The music I wrote.

The videos I created.

Photos of me, my handwriting, my album designs.

And of course Scooter never contacted me or my team

to discuss it prior to the sale

or even when it was announced.

I'm fairly certain he knew exactly

how I would feel about it though.

And let me just say that the definition

of the toxic male privilege in our industry

is people saying, but he's always been nice to me,

when I'm raising valid concerns about artists

and their rights to own their music.

And of course he's nice to you.

If you're in this room, you have something he needs.

The fact is that private equity

is what enabled this man to think,

according to his own social media post,

that he could buy me.

But I'm obviously not going willingly.

Yet the most amazing thing was to discover

that it would be the women in our industry

who would have my back and show me the most vocal support

at one of the most difficult times,

and I will never, ever forget it.

Like, ever.

(cheers) (applauds)

But to conclude, I will say that in 10 years

I've seen forward steps in our industry,

in our awareness, our inclusion,

our ability to start calling out unfairness and misconduct.

I've seen the advent of social media,

the way it can boost the breakthrough of emerging artists

and I've seen fans become more engaged and supportive

than ever before.

I've leaned on that support

and it has kept me in a place where no matter what,