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Is the year of Taylor Swift over now? Not yet.

Time Magazine named Swift its person of the year on Wednesday, a week after Spotify announced she was the most-played artist on the streaming platform.

Time’s person of the year, Taylor Swift.Credit: Getty Images

Swift was picked from a group of nine finalists that included Barbie, King Charles III and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, among others.

“While her popularity has grown across the decades, this was the year that Swift, 33, achieved a kind of nuclear fusion: shooting art and commerce together to release an energy of historic force,” Time wrote.

“Swift’s accomplishments as an artist – culturally, critically, and commercially – are so legion that to recount them seems almost beside the point.”

Sam Jacobs, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, told NBC’s Today program on Wednesday morning that Swift was “bringing light to the world”.

“Picking one person who represents the 8 billion people on the planet is no easy task,” he said.

“We picked a choice that represents joy. She was like weather – she was everywhere.”

Swift’s year included her wildly popular Eras tour and concert movie, the release of her rerecorded 1989 album and her closely watched relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. She’s now even the subject of university courses and research.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was Time’s 2022 person of the year. Elon Musk won the accolade in 2021.

Time’s person of the year is given to “the individual, group, or concept that has had the most influence on the world throughout the previous 12 months.”

It started as a marketing campaign for the magazine in 1920s and won traction for its often bold selections.

AP

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