2023 INTERNATIONAL ALBUM OF THE YEAR I Taylor Swift | | The JUNO Awards

Taylor Swift is that rarest of pop phenomena: a superstar who managed to completely cross over from country to the mainstream. Others have performed similar moves — notably, Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson both became enduring pop culture icons based on their 1970s work — but Swift shed her country roots like they were a second skin; it was a necessary molting to reveal she was perhaps the sharpest, savviest populist singer/songwriter of her generation, one who could harness the zeitgeist, make it personal and, just as impressively, perform the reverse.