Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter Named BMI Pop Songwriters of the Year 2026

Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter both walked away from the 2026 BMI Pop Awards as co-recipients of BMI Pop Songwriter of the Year, honored for each writing six of the most-performed songs in the U.S. over the past year. The ceremony took place May 12 at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills.

For Swift, this marks her third consecutive win and sixth career BMI Pop Songwriter of the Year title. Her qualifying tracks included "But Daddy I Love Him," "Florida!!!", "Guilty as Sin?", "My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys," "So Long, London," and "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived." She now holds 53 BMI Pop Awards total, a number that speaks for itself.

For Carpenter, it was a first-time win, and a well-earned one. Her award-winning songs, including "Bed Chem," "Busy Woman," "Good Graces," "Juno," "Manchild," and "Taste," bring her lifetime BMI Award total to 11. In an acceptance video, she said songwriting "has been the biggest gift to me," pointing to storytelling as a practice that continues to teach her about herself and other people. That kind of perspective is exactly what separates writers who last from writers who trend.

What the 2026 BMI Pop Awards Mean for Working Songwriters

Kendrick Lamar's "luther" took BMI Pop Song of the Year, a track co-written with six credited collaborators including SZA, Sounwave, Sam Dew, and others. The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 13 consecutive weeks and won the Grammy for Record of the Year. Worth noting: six songwriters got BMI recognition for that record. Publishing splits matter. Co-writing relationships matter. BMI recognition is not just a trophy, it is documentation of your catalog's commercial reach.

Sony Music Publishing was named Publisher of the Year, representing 24 of the year's most-performed songs. That list included tracks from Kendrick Lamar, Lady Gaga, Teddy Swims, and Rosé, among others. The breadth of that catalog shows how a strong publishing partner can position a songwriter across multiple formats and audiences.

The awards also spotlighted 32 first-time BMI Pop Award winners. That group included Gigi Perez for "Sailor Song," Addison Rae for co-writing and performing "Diet Pepsi," Ravyn Lenae for "Love Me Not," and Philip Lawrence for co-writing "APT" by Rosé and Bruno Mars. These are not overnight stories. They are writers and artists who have been building toward this kind of recognition through consistent output.

If you are an independent artist writing your own material, the BMI awards are a direct signal of what the industry tracks: performance data. The most-performed songs across radio, streaming, and sync are what earn recognition here. Getting your music into regular rotation, whether through playlist placement, sync licensing, or live performance, is the path. Registering your songs properly with a PRO like BMI or ASCAP is the foundation.

If you are at the stage where you are ready to share your music with a wider audience, you can [submit your music here](/submit) and get it in front of people who are paying attention to what is next.