Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter share BMI honour
Taylor Swift and Ms Sabrina Carpenter were jointly named Pop Songwriter of the Year at the 2026 BMI Pop Awards on Tuesday night, a rare shared win that recognised both artists for some of the most-played songs across radio and streaming over the past year. The award adds to Swift’s longstanding BMI record while marking a first career win in the category for Carpenter.
On its official site, BMI said its pop honours recognise “most performed” songs based on plays across terrestrial radio, satellite radio and digital streaming services, the metric used for the award.
Swift’s cited songs were drawn from The Tortured Poets Society, including “Florida!!!” and “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived”, while Carpenter was honoured for six tracks: “Bed Chem”, “Busy Woman”, “Juno”, “Manchild”, “Taste” and “Good Graces”. In an acceptance video, Carpenter said she felt “privileged” to tell stories through music and compared songwriting to “being in a relationship that continues to charm you and surprise you and humble you”.
The same BMI event also named “luther” by Mr Kendrick Lamar and Ms SZA as Pop Song of the Year, while other honourees included songs by Mr Ed Sheeran, Ms Lady Gaga, Mr Justin Bieber and others. The BMI recognition comes during another busy period for Swift, who has also been in the headlines for legal matters, including when she reportedly called a ‘Showgirl’ lawsuit ‘absurd’ in a new legal filing.
The dual win underlines the scale of both artists’ commercial reach over the past year, with BMI’s performance data positioning their recent writing credits among the most widely heard pop songs across multiple platforms.
