Taylor Swift’s highly-anticipated 11th album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” is officially out. The record comes at a career high for Swift, who is the biggest pop star on the planet right now. Her last original album, “Midnights,” was a huge success and broke all types of records. Among those, it brought Swift a fourth Album of the Year Grammy win — the most for any artist — and a second win for Best Pop Vocal Album. This time around, with Swift still being as hot as ever with the general public, what can she possibly achieve next at the Grammys?
Fifth Album of the Year win
Perhaps most obviously, Swift is looking at a possible fifth win in the Album of the Year category, which would extend her record among performers and make her just the second person ever to earn that many Album of the Year wins, after engineer Serban Ghenea; he worked on “Tortured Poets” too, so a fifth win for her would also be a record-extending sixth win for him. Even if she doesn’t win, Swift will likely break another record: most Album of the Year nominations for a female artist. Right now she’s tied with Barbra Streisand at six. Unless this new album is a serious career-killing mess (which it’s not, judging from the reviews), Swift will easily break this tie with the queen of divas.
Most Best Pop Vocal Album wins ever
Right now, Swift is tied with Kelly Clarkson and Adele for the most Best Pop Vocal Album wins ever, with two each. That would change if Swift manages to win a third trophy for “Tortured Poets,” which is certainly a possibility. She will face strong competition this year, though, from previous category winners like Ariana Grande (“Eternal Sunshine“), Dua Lipa (“Radical Optimism”), and Billie Eilish (“Hit Me Hard and Soft“), all looking to win their second trophy in the category.
Pop voters do tend to shy away from giving people multiple wins in this category — it took Swift a while to get her second — but what works in her favor is that that logic also applies to the other big contenders this year. In the end, someone will probably end up repeating, so why not choose the biggest pop star of all? A third win would be a huge get for Swift, who despite her historic Album of the Year achievements does have kind of a mediocre track record with pop voters. Swift only has those two album wins in the field, so being able to outdo pop favorites like Clarkson and Adele for the most Pop Vocal Album victories would definitely be a sign of growing support from this segment of the recording academy.
Most Best Pop Duo/Group Performance nominations by a solo artist
Swift has three nominations for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, tying her with Christina Aguilera, Tony Bennett, Justin Bieber, BTS, Ariana Grande, and Lady Gaga for the third most ever. If she gets another nomination, whether it is for “Fortnight” with Post Malone or “Florida” with Florence and the Machine, she’ll break the tie and become the second most nominated artist in the category, tying with Maroon 5. Furthermore, she’ll be the solo artist with the most nominations in the category, as the only other artists with more noms than her right now are bands: Maroon 5 (four) and Coldplay (five). And who knows, with the amount of music Swift seems to drop every few months, maybe she’ll break the overall record before too long.
Most Best Music Video wins by an artist
To date, no performer has achieved three wins for Best Music Video. The only ones who have achieved that many are director Mark Romanek and producer Nathan Scherrer, who are the category’s all-time top winners. However, that could change with “The Tortured Poets Department,” which has already produced one video for the aforementioned “Fortnight.” Her last video for a lead single, “Anti-Hero,” swept the MTV Video Music Awards including the prestigious Best Director and Video of the Year prizes. It was blocked at the Grammys, however, likely by the nomination review committee, since that category is one of the few that is still decided by a judging panel. That said, if Swift delivers another classic, it’s going to be hard to deny her. And if she does win, she’ll be the first performer with three trophies in the race, besting other double champs like Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, and The Beatles.
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