Taylor Swift and Beyoncé have won Grammys, broken streaming records, and sold out stadiums across every continent — but on Thursday, they both received a different kind of recognition entirely. The Library of Congress announced that Swift’s 2014 album 1989 and Beyoncé’s 2008 single “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)” will join the National Recording Registry, along with 23 other recordings — marking the first time either artist has been inducted.
The Registry’s 2026 class brings its total inventory to 700 titles, spanning 70 years of recorded sound — from Spike Jones And His City Slickers’ 1944 big band novelty track all the way to 1989, the most recent album on the list.
1989 marked Swift’s dramatic pivot away from country into pure pop territory, and her conviction about that creative leap was total. “A big goal of mine was to make this album very sonically cohesive,” she told CBS This Morning at the time of its release. It went on to win Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album at the Grammys.
The rest of the 2026 class is genuinely stacked. Also inducted: Weezer’s self-titled debut The Blue Album, The Go-Go’s Beauty and the Beat, Rosanne Cash’s The Wheel, Chaka Khan’s “I Feel for You,” Ray Charles’ Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, and the original cast album of Chicago. The Doom video game soundtrack will also join, becoming only the third instance of video game music to be included in the registry.
The 2026 selections also mark the first time a father and daughter have both been included — Johnny Cash’s At Folsom Prison joined in 2003, and this year his daughter Rosanne Cash’s album The Wheel follows him in. “The sweep and diversity of the class beautifully captures the scope of the American experience as we celebrate our nation’s 250th anniversary,” said Robbin Ahrold, chair of the National Recording Preservation Board.
