Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American country music artist who began her career as a teenager. Signed to the independent Big Machine Records label in 2006, she made her debut on the Billboard country charts with the release of her debut single "Tim McGraw". This song, which peaked at #6, was the first of five singles from her self-titled debut, which was released in late 2006 and re-issued in 2007, and has been certified 3Ă— Multi-Platinum by the RIAA. Following "Tim McGraw" were the #2 "Teardrops on My Guitar", the six-week Number One "Our Song", the #3 "Picture to Burn" and another Number One in "Should've Said No". All five singles from her debut were Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, as was her song "Change" from the AT&T TEAM USA Soundtrack. Her second album, Fearless, was released on November 11, and its lead-off single "Love Story" has become her highest Hot 100 hit.
Early life
Taylor Swift was born in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania and lives with her parents, Scott and Andrea, and her brother, Austin,1 now in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift's influences include her grandmother and LeAnn Rimes.2 Although her grandmother was a professional opera singer,3 Taylor's tastes always ran more toward country and she developed a love for Patsy Cline and Dolly Parton at an early age.4 She also credits the Dixie Chicks and Shania Twain for demonstrating how much impact can be made by "stretching boundaries".5 At the age of ten, Swift began to perform around her home town, Wyomissing, singing at karaoke contests, festivals, and fairs, and also started writing songs. Her first exposure to the music business consisted of recording demo tapes at a studio. At age eleven, Swift made her first trip to Nashville in hopes of obtaining a record deal by handing out a demo tape she had made of her singing along to karaoke songs. She boldly handed this tape to receptionists at every label on Music Row.2 Swift faced much rejection, not just from record labels, but also from her peers. When asked how she was able to handle such hurtful rejection from record labels, she responded saying that it wasn't nearly as painful as the rejection she received from the kids around her. One of the first songs she wrote, The Outside, was her expression of feeling that rejection. After Swift returned to Pennsylvania, she was asked to sing at the U.S. Open tennis tournament; her rendition of the national anthem completely moved the crowd. Swift signed to a record label at the age of thirteen, but walked away because it "wasn't where she wanted to be."citation needed
Swift began to regularly visit Nashville, where, at age twelve, she wrote songs with local songwriters. Eventually, her family decided to move to an outlying Nashville suburb.6 Taylor Swift performed at Nashville's premier songwriters' café, The Bluebird Café, catching the attention of Scott Borchetta who signed her to his newly-formed record label, Big Machine Records.
Swift plays a Taylor Grand Auditorium acoustic guitar made of koa wood.
Music career
2006—2008: Debut album Taylor Swift
Swift's first single, "Tim McGraw", was released to radio in Summer of 2006 and on October 24, 2006, her self-titled album was released. Swift wrote or co-wrote all of the songs on the album, which debuted at #19 on the Billboard 200 and sold more than 61,000 during its first week. It later peaked at #1 at Billboard Top Country Albums and #5 at Billboard 200. It also spent eight consecutive weeks at the top of the Top Country Albums charts, and has since sold over 3 million copies.7 Swift has surpassed the 20 million mark for music streams on MySpace. She is currently ranked at 15 for the most MySpace visits for all genres of music, and is MySpace's current top-ranking Country artist.8
Taylor Swift performing in 2007.
Regarding "Tim McGraw", Swift said, "I wrote the song in my freshman year of high school. I was dating a guy who was about to go off to college. I knew we were going to break up so I started thinking of all the things that I knew would remind him of me. Surprisingly, the first thing that came to mind was that my favorite country artist is Tim McGraw."9 "Tim McGraw" peaked at #6 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts for the week of January 27, 2007. The song's music video set a record by appearing for 30 consecutive weeks on GAC's fan-voted weekly Top 20 music countdown show,10 and reached number one on CMT's video charts. The video also won Swift an award for Breakthrough Video of the Year at the 2007 CMT Music Awards. Her pursuit of country music stardom was the subject of "GAC Short Cuts", a part-documentary, part-music-video series airing since the summer of 2006 on the country music channel.
On May 15, 2007, Swift performed "Tim McGraw" at the Academy of Country Music Awards. She sang the song to Tim McGraw in the audience, and introduced herself for the first time to him. Swift has been an opening act for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill on their Soul2Soul 2007 tour. She has opened in the past for George Strait, Brad Paisley and Rascal Flatts as well.11 On August 21, 2007, Swift performed live on the season finale of America's Got Talent.12
The second single from the Taylor Swift album, "Teardrops On My Guitar", was released February 24, 2007. The song was inspired by a true event during her time in high school in which she liked a boy named "Drew Hardwick". He only saw Swift as a friend and a go-to person for advice about his relationship with his girlfriend. She noted she heard "through the grapevine" that Drew is well aware the song was written about him.13 "Teardrops on My Guitar" originally made its peak positions in Summer 2007, peaking at #2 on the Billboard Country Chart and #33 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was re-released to the Hot 100 and Pop 100 in late 2007 with a Pop remix that brought "Teardrops on My Guitar" to #13 on the Hot 100 and #11 on the Pop 100.
In October 2007, Swift's songwriting peers at the Nashville Songwriters Association International honored her with their Songwriter/Artist of the Year Award, making her the youngest artist ever to win the award.14
On November 7, 2007, Swift won the 2007 CMA Horizon Award and also performed "Our Song", the third single from her album, which would go on to become her first #1 song the week of December 22, 2007, where it leaped up from the #6 spot. This was the biggest jump to Number One since January 1998, when Tim McGraw's "Just to See You Smile", also jumped from #6 to #1.15 "Our Song" spent six weeks at #1 on the Country charts and also peaked at #16 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #24 on the Billboard Pop 100.
Swift also recorded a holiday album, Sounds of the Season: The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection, that was released October 16, 2007, exclusively available at Target stores. The album, which was not as successful as her self-titled debut, featured both holiday classics such as "Last Christmas" and original songs written by Swift.
Swift was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award in the category of Best New Artist, but lost to Amy Winehouse. Swift's successful single, "Picture to Burn" was the fourth single from her debut album. The song debuted early in 2008 and peaked at #3 on the Billboard Country Chart in the spring of 2008.
Swift was cover girl of Seventeen in the June 2008 issue. She was also named number fifty-two on Maxim's sexiest women of '08.
Big Machine Records announced the release of "Should've Said No" on Monday, May 19. The song is the fifth and final single from Swift's debut album. She performed it on 43rd Annual Academy of Country Music Awards.16 The performance started off with her dressed in a hooded sweatshirt and jeans, but soon after a short black halter dress was revealed. In the last minute of the song, she went backstage to perform the final verse under a cascading waterfall. Swift had wanted to do that performance on stage with the water and the change of clothes since she was 10 years old.17 In 2008, Swift released Beautiful Eyes, an EP sold exclusively at Wal-Mart.18
In July 2008, Swift graduated from the Aaron Academy, a Christian school in Hendersonville, TN which offers a home schooling program.19 "Should've Said No" became her second Number One single for the chart dated August 23, 2008.
2008—present: Fearless
Swift's next studio album, Fearless, was released in the United States on November 11, 2008.20 The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart. Its sales of 592,000 was the best single week for any country album in a year, and six singles from the album debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week.21 "Change", a song from the album, was selected as part of a soundtrack supporting Team USA's efforts in the 2008 Summer Olympics.22 The song was also featured as part of the soundtrack of NBC's broadcast package of the Games. She also released the lead single from the album, "Love Story", on September 12, 2008. The song is accompanied by a music video that is based on Romeo and Juliet. The song has reached #2 on iTunes Store Top Downloaded Songs and #5 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Swift sang the Star-Spangled Banner at game three of the World Series in Philadelphia, October 25, 2008.
Philanthropy
On September 21, 2007, Swift launched a campaign to protect children from online predators.23 Swift has teamed up with Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen to combat internet sex crimes.23
The year-long campaign, launched in partnership with the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police, will distribute Internet safety information and materials to parents and students across the state.23
Personal life
Swift confirmed in a 2008 interview with Ellen DeGeneres on her talk show that she had dated singer Joe Jonas and that he "dumped her over the phone in 27 seconds."24 They supposedly broke up because Joe cheated on Swift with Camilla Belle.25 However on November 14, 2008, Jonas stated in a MySpace blog on the Jonas Brothers official Myspace that, "I never cheated on a girlfriend. It might make someone feel better to assume or imply I have been unfaithful but it is simply not true" and that, "For those who have expressed concern over the '27 second' phone call. I called to discuss feelings with the other person. Those feelings were obviously not well received. I did not end the conversation. Someone else did." This post has since been removed.26 Swift wrote the song "Forever & Always" about Joe Jonas, and the song appeared on her album, Fearless. 27 It was the last song that she had recorded, and it was a last minute addition to her album, making it 13 songs total. 13 is also Swift's "lucky number". 28
Discography
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- Albums
- EPs
Filmography
Awards and nominations
References
- ^ Taylor Swift Biography | TVGuide.com
- ^ a b Life in the Swift Lane
- ^ Taylor Swift Biography at GAC
- ^ Taylor Swift at Ask Men.com
- ^ McCafferty, Dennis (2008-04-13). "Taylor's swift rise", USA WEEKEND.
- ^ "Taylor Swift biography at Allmusic". Retrieved on 2007-04-30.
- ^ Billboard.com - Charts - Albums - Top Country Albums
- ^ Taylor Swift reaches No. 1 on the Top Country Albums chart
- ^ Taylor Swift at Ask Men.com
- ^ Taylor Swift at Beasley Performing Arts Coliseum
- ^ Taylor Swift Joins Tim McGraw, Faith Hill on Tour
- ^ Taylor Swift performs on "America's Got Talent"
- ^ YouTube - Taylor Swift on The Bus
- ^ Cooper, Peter; Aronin, Ivan (2007-10-15). "It's writers' turn to be honored for songs", The Tennessean. Retrieved on 24 November 2007.
- ^ Cohen, Jonathan (2007-12-13). "Keys Still The "One" Atop Billboard Charts". Billboard.com. Retrieved on 2008-06-13.
- ^ Taylor Swift offers new single to radio, ACMs
- ^ Taylor Swift Interview, ACMs
- ^ "Wal-Mart "Eyes" New Taylor Swift Project". Great American Country. Retrieved on 2008-07-24.
- ^ "Swift receives her high school diploma, in mail". Embarq Holdings Company (2008-07-26). Retrieved on 2008-07-27.
- ^ "Coming attractions: Not all boys make Taylor Swift cry". USA Today. Retrieved on 2008-08-07.
- ^ | Taylor Swift Soars to No. 1
- ^ "Taylor Swift offers "Change" for Olympics, wins Teen Choice award". Country Standard Time. Retrieved on 2008-08-07.
- ^ a b c Taylor Swift Warns Kids About Internet Crime
- ^ Taylor Swift on KiisFM
- ^ Taylor Swift on Joe Jonas: "We Don't Talk"
- ^ [1]
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMouCSGVhOs
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMouCSGVhOs
- ^ Once Upon A Prom | Reality Television Show Cast, Episode Guides, Trailers, Aftershow & Previews | MTV
- ^ Taylor Swift to Appear in Hannah Montana Movie - The Hannah Montana Movie, Movie News, Taylor Swift : People.com
- ^ http://abc.go.com/amavote/index?pn=index&cateId=144475
External links
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No free downloads - support Taylor and buy the song or CD!!
#10 - Most Viewed (Today) - Musicians
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The amazing new Our song music video from Taylor Swift
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