Taylor Swift has beaten world leaders – and Barbie – to be named Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2023, bucking a tradition that usually favours presidents and popes.

The pop star was named a week after music streaming platform Spotify announced she was its most-played artist.

Swift was picked from a group of nine finalists that included the King, Russian President Vladimir Putin and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman.

Time editor Sam Jacobs said in the significantly “dark” year that 2023 had been, Swift “found a way to transcend borders and be a source of light”.

“No one else on the planet today can move so many people so well,” he wrote.

“Achieving this feat is something we often chalk up to the alignments of planets and fates, but giving too much credit to the stars ignores her skill and her power.”

Marking the honour, Swift gave her first sit-down interview in four years and opened up to Time about her relationship with NFL player Travis Kelce, speaking about the romance for the first time.

Taylor recently sparked a media frenzy when she attended one of Kelce’s games in Kansas City to cheer him on.

“When you say a relationship is public, that means I’m going to see him do what he loves, we’re showing up for each other, other people are there and we don’t care,” she said.

“The opposite of that is you have to go to an extreme amount of effort to make sure no one knows that you’re seeing someone.

“We’re just proud of each other.”

Jacobs said the Person of the Year recognised the “individual who most shaped the headlines over the previous 12 months, for better or for worse”.

“The selections over the years have tended to follow certain patterns. The person chosen has typically been a ruler over traditional domains of power,” wrote Jacobs.

“He – and yes, usually it has been a ‘he’ – is very often a politician or a titan of industry. Fourteen US presidents, five leaders of Russia or the Soviet Union, and three popes have all been recognised.

“Yet the person whose singular influence was revealed throughout 2023 has held none of these roles – or anything remotely similar.”

Taylor Swift spoke about her romance with Travis Kelce for the first time. Photo: Getty

Swift’s year included the wildly popular Eras Tour and concert movie, the release of her re-imagined album named 1989 and her closely watched relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.

She is even the subject of college courses.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was Time‘s 2022 person of the year.

Swift brings her Eras Tour to Australia early in 2024. She plays three shows at the MCG in Melbourne from February 16-18, and four at Sydney’s Accor Stadium from February 23-26

-with AAP