Reports Say Taylor Swift Won’t Perform at 2024 Grammys: Billboard’s Greatest Pop Star of the Year Usually Does

Media reports today that Taylor Swift won’t perform on the 2024 Grammy telecast, which is set for Sunday (Feb. 4), are a big blow to the Recording Academy, CBS and Swift’s many fans. Swift’s apparent decision also runs counter to the usual pattern when an artist dominates a year the way Swift owned 2023.

Swift dominance over last year’s pop scene was confirmed when she was declared Billboard’s Greatest Pop Star of 2023 in December. Since the turn of the century, the vast majority of artists who received that accolade have performed on the Grammy telecast just a month or two later.

That stands to reason. The music business loves winners – and the artists who dominate the year are usually nominated for top-tier Grammys. And those nominees are usually invited to perform on the show. And those artists usually, but not always, accept those invitations. A Grammy performance when you’re at the pinnacle of your success is something to go in the time capsule (known as YouTube) to be played pretty much forever.

But Swift will be content to sit in the audience at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Sunday to be on hand to accept a trophy should one or more come her way. Jennifer Lopez, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran and Drake also did not perform on the Grammy telecasts that followed their chart-crowning years. Some may not have been asked. Others may have declined. Sheeran had performed his nominated hit “Shape of You” on the telecast the previous year, when it was a brand-new single.

Billboard explained the concept behind the Greatest Pop Star of the Year project when it was launched in 2020. “Mostly, we’re looking for the pop star that best defines each year; the one whose impact was most deeply felt across the most spaces. … It’s not just hit singles and bestselling albums. It’s music videos, it’s live performances, it’s image, it’s headlines and controversy and cultural impact and overall ubiquity. It’s the answer to the question, ‘Could you have lived through this year without having an opinion on this artist?’”

The project retroactively went back to 1981, the year of MTV’s launch, but we’ll just take it back to the turn of the century. Here are the artists who were declared Billboard’s Greatest Pop Star of the Year from 1999 to the present and whether or not they performed on the next Grammy telecast.