This podcast episode is part of the Billboard editorial staff’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2025 list. Find our accompanying Taylor Swift essay here, and all the rest of our essays and podcasts related to the list here.
In 2025, Taylor Swift proved once again to be in a class of her own in terms of commercial dominance and world-stopping cultural impact. She was absent for much of the calendar, as she recharged following the game-changing nearly-two-year-trek of the Eras Tour, but made her presence felt very quickly upon her return. From her reacquisition of the masters to her early recordings, to her surprise appearance on then-boyfriend Travis Kelce’s New Heights podcast, to her Instagram engagement caption quoted round the world, to the record-breaking release week of her 12th album The Life of a Showgirl, nobody had moments that took over the discussion in 2025 quite like Taylor Swift.
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This Greatest Pop Stars of 2025 episode of the Greatest Pop Stars podcast looks at how Taylor Swift ended up at No. 2 on our list — thanks to a year where she overshadowed the entire rest of the pop world for months at a time. Today, Billboard‘s Denise Warner joins host Andrew Unterberger to relive Taylor Swift’s abbreviated-but-still-historic 2025 campaign, where she introduced a number of new eternal moments to her already-overwhelming legacy, and put up numbers the likes of which we’d never seen before. (You can also find Denise’s essay on Swift’s year here.)
Over our two-plus-hour-long discussion — a few minutes longer than Swift’s New Heights appearance even — we attempt to answer all the more pressing questions around Taylor Swift’s 2025: Was her 2025 as exciting as her 2023? Which Taylor’s Versions are we still going back to even post-masters-reacquisition? Did we ever believe Swift’s love of sourdough baking to be code for a Super Bowl halftime performance? Was the online backlash to Showgirl fair or misguided? How the hell did she manage over FOUR MILLION units in that album’s first week? And perhaps most importantly: Does that number, and Taylor Swift’s dominance in general, mean that it’s ridiculous to have her anywhere but No. 1 on this list?
Check it out above, along with a YouTube playlist of some of the greatest moments of Taylor Swift’s 2025 — all of which are discussed on the pod — and subscribe to the Greatest Pop Stars podcast on Apple Music or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts) for complete podcast coverage of this year’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2025 list!
And as we say in every one of these GPS podcast posts — if you have the time and money to spare, please consider donating to any of these causes in the fight for trans rights:
Transgender Law Center
Trans Lifeline
Destination Tomorrow
Gender-Affirming Care Fundraising on GoFundMe
Also, please consider giving your local congresspeople a call in support of trans rights, with contact information you can find on 5Calls.org.
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