Taylor Swift lied.
Yes, 5,000 days after “Begin Again”’s success, 14-time Grammy-winning pop megastar Taylor Swift has, via the “Toy Story” soundtrack hit "I Knew It, I Knew You,” gotten back together with the top of country’s radio charts.
In the current TikTok-driven, ubiquitously perpetual-feeling media marketplace, Taylor Swift last hit the top of the country radio charts what feels like almost 200 years ago.
Presumably, given this context, the work of Kelsea Ballerini, Miranda Lambert, and Maren Morris each feels about half a century old, though nowhere near that long in the tooth in real time.
Streaming’s hyper-warp of the post-COVID age has caught every star that the industry has made since quarantine ended — including about two dozen country chart-toppers — in an insane vortex where genre has disappeared, replaced by mass-marketed instant virality.
Thus, put Lainey Wilson’s Charlie 1 Horse cowgirl hat on top of Ella Langley’s bangs. They’re fused next to Jelly Roll and Teddy Swims’ face tattoos on Shaboozey’s snarling face, sharing the same stage as Luke Combs’ long-necked ice-cold beer being double-fisted with Morgan Wallen’s bourbon, as Zach Bryan sings “I Remember Everything” with Kacey Musgraves. Do note, of course, the multi-man choir of BTS, Benson Boone, and Alex Warren singing along behind all of this.
Into this mess comes Taylor Swift, successfully weaving Randy Newman’s songwriting alongside her own hall-of-fame-level craft. Sometimes a song is bigger than a song — this is one of those cases.
Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” could stick at pop’s No. 1 position for somewhere between 25 and 36 weeks. Add together “Choosin’ Texas” with Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” and Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song,” and that equals a full calendar year of country music by people who, it feels like, almost two lifetimes in the genre’s history, were marginalized from having importance.
Clearly, things have changed.
But, in some strange way that honors a recall to the “second hundred years” of country’s bizarrely altered history sort of way, the last needle-moving chart-topper the country music industry created before an executive called women “tomatoes” in the metaphorical salad comprising the genre’s radio format in 2015 has returned, needed to somehow define it against what pop’s monoculture has stolen from the format.
Conan O'Brien, Scarlett Spears, Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Greta Lee and Taylor Swift attend the Toy Story 5 Los Angeles World Premiere at Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California on June 09, 2026. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for for TAS Rights Management)
Stolen? Yes, stolen. Genius steals, of course. And crafting a style and sound that commoditizes it as it controls pop culture and music for three-quarters of the year, is nothing short of genius.
There’s a world that says that Beyoncé’s 2024-released “Cowboy Carter” was an attempt at the same thing. That’s not exactly correct. Queen Bey put in a mighty effort and literally dug through centuries of America’s most troubled history to successfully retrofit musical history to some moment where Lesley Riddle and A.P. Carter shake hands. The latter doesn’t just take the songs that the former knew. Instead, it’s almost as if, like Billy Preston performing with The Beatles on the sessions for their 1969 “Let It Be” album, he’s there, playing on “The Cannonball.”
Instead, in a recent radio interview on American Country Countdown, Swift noted the following about her process:
"When I realized that we were gonna have the opportunity to write a song for 'Toy Story,' it really hit me the weight of this, like how lucky we were to get to sort of take up what Randy Newman has created and continue that legacy," Swift said.
"I just thought we're gonna take these beautiful, you know, tapestries of musical art he's created, brushstroke by brushstroke, and we're gonna try to create something that would go in that collection," she said. "That you could hopefully, like, hang next to those paintings on the wall if we were talking about paintings. And so we try to channel what, you know, what would Randy do?" Swift said. "That took us to a very different place musically."
Taylor Swift attends the Songwriters Hall of Fame 55th Annual Induction and Awards Gala at Marriott Marquis Hotel on June 11, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)
Given the context of the modern era, Taylor Swift’s country return makes the genre feel like a metaphorical yet still very real 300 years old in a time frame that is literally only a century old. Couple that with a combined 50 years of mainstream country and hip-hop history, more powerfully and intentionally intertwined.
It's a stunning moment of incalculable commercial and creative possibility.
In the end, Taylor Swift’s latest country chart success is more than a nostalgic return—it’s a testament to the genre’s evolving boundaries and pop’s magnetic pull. As artists blur lines and audiences embrace reinvention, Swift’s presence marks both a reckoning with country’s storied past and an embrace of its limitless future.