The Style singer was announced as the winner of the men's magazine annual poll, which ranks the achievements of successful (and, inevitably, attractive) famous women.

As part of the honour, Swift appears on the cover of the June-July issue of Maxim.

The 25-year-old poses with wet hair and neutral make-up, while wearing a netted top.

Swift told Maxim the award was an "incredible compliment".

"It really feels like a wonderful celebration of my favourite year," she said.

"Every one of these kinds of whims and ideas came to fruition. The videos, I'm proud of those; I'm proud of the tour, I'm proud of the way this has all happened. In the midst of all that, this is really nice."

Previous Hot 100 stars include Eva Longoria (who topped the list in 2005 and 2006), Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and last year's No.1, Candice Swanepoel, who is a colleague of Swift's BFF Victoria's Secret angel Karlie Kloss.

It has been a big week in the land of Swift.

On Sunday night, she took our eight categories at the Billboard Music Awards, more than any other artist.

At the awards, the singer debuted the music video for Bad Blood, which is the latest single off her multi-platinum 1989 album.

She also attracted a great deal of attention for debuting her widely rumoured romance with British DJ Calvin Harris.

The past year has seen a definite shift in Swift's brand. While the American singer was once associated with a string of short-term romances, she is now better known for her high-profile female friends.

Speaking to Time in November, Swift explained the reasoning behind her new friendship circle.

"I surround myself with smart, beautiful, passionate, driven, ambitious women," she said.

"Other women who are killing it should motivate you, thrill you, challenge you and inspire you, rather than threaten you and make you feel like you're immediately being compared to them."

In her interview with Maxim, the singer has addressed her feelings towards feminism, saying she finds herself identifying more strongly with the movement as she gets older.

"I didn't see myself being held back until I was a woman. Or the double standards in headlines, the double standards in the way stories are told, the double standards in the way things are perceived," she said.

"A man writing about his feelings from a vulnerable place is brave; a woman writing about her feelings from a vulnerable place is oversharing​ or whining. Misogyny is ingrained in people from the time they are born. So to me, feminism is probably the most important movement that you could embrace, because it's just basically another word for equality."