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Taylor Swift Honored With BMI’s Taylor Swift Award

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 06:08 PST, May 13, 2016

Taylor Swift is the winner of the inaugural Taylor Swift award, according to BBC News. The 26-year-old “Shake It Off” singer was given the prize in her own name at the BMI Pop Awards on Wednesday.

Taylor Swift had her “artistic talent and influence” recognized at the awards event held in Los Angeles. In her acceptance speech, the “Blank Space” singer admitted that if the BMI, Broadcast Music, Inc, decided to give the Taylor Swift Award to someone else, she would be “kind of bummed about it.”

Taylor Swift now joins pop legend Michael Jackson, who, before this year’s awards ceremony, had been the only artist to have a BMI award created in his name. The BMI created an award in Jackson’s name back in 1990.

The BMI assesses the success of the songs played on radio and television and received royalties on behalf of writers and publishers. This year’s BMI awards celebrated the writers and publishers of the most popular pop songs of the past year. In fact, Taylor Swift had four of those popular songs this year.

Taylor Swift’s singles “Blank Space,” “Bad Blood,” “Wildest Dreams,” and “Style,” all of which are from the singer’s 1989 album, earned her the pop songwriter of the year award at the BMIs. In her acceptance speech, the singer admitted that she is so passionate about writing music that it even interrupts her daily life.

“My favorite part is when I’m in the middle of a conversation with my friends and my eyes glaze over and I awkwardly run over to a corner.”

Barbara Cane, the vice president of BMI, earlier explained why they decided to create the Taylor Swift Award, saying that the “Bad Blood” singer “transformed pop culture.” In fact, according to Cane, Swift transformed pop culture not only thanks to her music but also thanks to supporting other pop artists as well as urging streaming services to pay musicians fairly.

“She has had a profound impact, not only musically, but also through her personal conviction and commitment to create a standard that values and respects music for everyone.”

Cane even went as far as calling Taylor Swift “unique and special,” so that’s why they decided to award the singer with the honor. Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson’s hit song “Uptown Funk” was honored as Pop Song of the Year at the BMIs, while Cynthia Weil received the BMI Icon Award.

Taylor Swift fans can sleep tight now, as there is one less controversy to worry about. Chloë Grace Moretz, who made headlines due to her rather harsh comments about “squads” earlier this year, explained she meant no harm toward Swift, according to Entertainment Weekly.

The thing is that the term “squad” is widely associated with Taylor Swift, and when Moretz said she didn’t like the word “squad,” the pop icon’s fans went nuts. But there is nothing to worry about as the actress explained to Andy Cohen on Monday’s Watch What Happens Live what she actually wanted to say about “squads.”

“What I said was I don’t like the word squad because it does create exclusivity. But it was never against Taylor, and it was never against her squad.”

Moretz also complained that the media used her quotes about squads out of context because social media likes turning women against women, and it has been a common practice for years. But when Cohen asked whether Moretz was ever invited to be part of Taylor Swift’s squad, the actress said it was never about Swift.

“They just enjoyed turning Taylor against me, because it creates good headlines.”

[Photo by Mark Davis/Getty Images]

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