The International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has named Taylor Swift as the world’s most popular music artist last year.

The IFPI citation is based on statistics including physical record sales, music downloads, and number of streaming instances. Taylor Swift topped all statistics even without her music on Spotify, notes BBC.

Taylor Swift removed her entire back catalogue in November last year from Spotify, a music-streaming service, and said that she does not want to contribute her life’s work to an experiment.

The “Blank Space” singer also said that the site does not fairly compensate the writers, producers, artists, and creators of music. She added that she was open-minded about a lot of things but having her music on Spotify just did not feel right for her.

The British-Irish boy band One Direction was at second spot after lording over the top spot in 2013. The group has been in the IFPI list for the last three years and they were in fact, the only UK artists who were on the list in 2013.

Ed Sheeran rounded up the top three in the IFPI list. His second album titled “X” shot up to No 1 both in the US and UK charts last year.

A record-breaking fifth album

What’s really surprising about Taylor Swift’s surging popularity last year is the fact that she only launched her fifth studio album titled “1989” on October 27, 2014.

That means that she had barely a little over two months to catch up in terms of record sales, music downloads and streaming compared to those who already have their music officially out in the early part of last year.

Taylor Swift’s “1989” eventually went on to debut at the top spot of the US Billboard chart and also became her second No. 1 album in the UK.

Before her album was officially launched, analysts have projected that “1989” will sell about 650,000 copies on its opening week. But Taylor Swift’s immense popularity and the growing number of Swifties the world over proved the analysts wrong as the album sold 1.2 million copies in its first seven days.

“1989” actually made it to the list of the all-time record for first week album sales, landing on No. 3, and next only to Eminem and Britney Spears.

But her sales record for “1989” also gave Taylor Swift the recognition as the only music artist to have three albums sell more than one million copies in the first week after their official release.

Taylor Swift is actually one of the eight new entries in the IFPI’s Top 10 roster. She is scheduled to perform at Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Norwich towards the latter part of 2015.

Others who made it to the list are Coldplay at No. 4, AC/DC at No. 5, Michael Jackson at No. 6, Pink Floyd at No. 7, Sam Smith at No. 8, Katy Perry at No. 9, and Beyonce at No. 10.