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Swift, of course, was a mere 16 years old when she made that “Tim McGraw” debut, defying a few basic tenets in the process. She insisted on writing her own songs, mining real-life experiences and worming her way into a format that was historically viewed as a place where adults sang grown-up songs for other adults. She had her battles. Radio research — particularly in the early years — showed males in the upper demos were chilly. But teenage girls loved her. She became a bonding element for those girls and their mothers, and — boom! — a country star was born. In fact, the country landscape is much different today, thanks in part to Swift and her insistence on following a game plan that many considered unorthodox.

• The audience grew younger. While country radio has long embraced a wide 25-54 demographic as its target audience, it historically skewed toward the 35-plus segment. Music Row has wanted to lower the median age since at least the early 1980s, but it never has been more successful than during Swift’s rise. One could argue, in fact, that the bro-country fad — which temporarily brought in a ton of 25-34 listeners — might not have occurred if Swift hadn’t shown that younger listeners were open to country.

• Young women felt they had a voice. The number of females on the country chart tailed off in recent years, an ironic development since Swift inspired so many younger women to put their inner world to music. Kelsea Ballerini is the most obvious success story, though some of the other contenders tried to duplicate Swift’s approach instead of using it as a guide.

• The two-year album cycle became more of an industry standard. In 2006, the typical country act cranked out a new album every 12-18 months. Swift has followed a 24-month cycle like clockwork, putting out a new project in a late-October/early-November window every even-numbered year. Wait times still vary, but two years looks more like the industry norm than it did before.

• Country music now thinks globally. As a genre that’s native to the United States, it was natural to consider America’s borders as the limit for country. Some previous acts, such as Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton, thought outside the box, but no one chased international territories more aggressively than Swift, who even started a world tour in Singapore — hardly a bastion of country heritage.

• Leaving the format no longer carries the stigma it once did. Strident country fans are angry about the direction of modern country, but recent Country Music Association research reaffirms what radio has known for a while: The genre’s listeners engage in multiple formats. Where country radio once turned its back on artists who “left the format” — Gary Morris took on an operatic part in Les Miserables, and Restless Heart dared to release a pop-only single; both saw their country careers dive — Swift was forthcoming about making a pop album with 1989. Radio is different now, too. In the pre-consolidation era, country programmers felt abandoned when a country artist targeted a different audience. Now, the PD for a radio cluster simply finds Swift moving from the country brand to another station in their portfolio. Swift hasn’t tried to return to country, though many expect she eventually will, and it appears to many that the door remains open to her.