The reign of Taylor Swift continues. She’s been a dominant force essentially from the moment she stepped on the scene, but the last two-plus years have been a particularly hot streak with three critically acclaimed original releases and two blockbuster re-recordings of prior albums. This incredible success story was reflected at last night’s American Music Awards, where Swift swept six out of the six categories she was nominated for and extended her lead as the most-awarded person in AMAs history with 40 wins.
Throughout the night, Swift picked up trophies for favorite music video (for All Too Well: The Short Film), favorite female pop artist, favorite female country artist, and both favorite pop album and favorite country album for Red (Taylor’s Version). (If the latter seems like a bit of a cheat to you, well, remember that these are fan-voted awards.) The singer also took home the top prize for Artist of the Year.
“You know in the past few years, I have released more music than I did in the entire decade preceding that,” she said in the speech for that award. “And I really feel like that’s down to the fact that you, the fans, made it clear that you wanted to hear lots of music that I would make.”
“You encouraged me, and so, I found that the more music I made and the more music that I put out, the happier I was, the more I kept that channel open and just kept creating, kept making things,” Swift continued. “And the more that happened, the more you guys were like yay, keep doing it, and the happier I was, so I have the fans to thank, essentially, for my happiness, and I love you more than I can say.”
“I cannot express how unbelievable it is to me that I still get to do this, and that you still care, so thank you—underlined with 13 exclamation points,” she said. “I don’t know what to say. I love you.”