Swift and her fans were both quite young when they first saw each other, she an angel-faced teenager with curls and big dreams that spilled over into both songs and posts, they a pack of mostly adolescent girls who pored over her interviews, replayed her vlogs long before “vlogging” was even a thing and started picking up guitars at higher rates to emulate their beloved heroine. The details of her origin story are now common knowledge — she was born Dec. 13, 1989 to Scott and Andrea Swift, raised on a Christmas tree farm in Wyomissing, and did you know her lucky number is 13? — but they used to make up the sacred web of knowledge held dear by her earliest admirers. To them, the tale of what happened next is also etched into memory like a Bible passage: She moved as a teenager to Nashville to pursue a country music career, scored a publishing deal while still a student at Hendersonville High School and later got her big break when Scott Borchetta discovered her at the Bluebird Café and signed her to his infant label Big Machine Records.  

With the first quarter of the 21st century coming to a close, Billboard has spent the last few months counting down picks for the 25 greatest pop stars of the last 25 years. You can see the stars who have made our list so far — and now, we examine the century in Taylor Swift, who took pop stardom to places we hadn’t previously thought possible.

It’s amusing to think back on Taylor Swift at age 17, staring straight into Tim McGraw’s soul at the 2007 ACM Awards while performing her debut single – which just so happened to be named after him. 

Spirited and deeply promising as a songwriter, it was clear that Taylor was bursting at the seams with talent and ambition – fully capable, in theory, of reaching the greatest heights a career in the music business could offer. But the audacity she demonstrated has proven she also had the sheer nerve she’d need to actually get there. 

She is the only person to ever win album of the year at the Grammys four times. She has the second-most Billboard Hot 100 entries of all time (only Drake has more) and ties with Jay-Z for second-most No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 (bested only by The Beatles). She is one of the most impressive touring artists of the past quarter-century. She’s a billionaire, the only female artist to become one predominantly through music alone. She is the most famous woman in the world.