Who is Taylor Alison Swift? The country music world knows her as an American country pop singer-songwriter and actress. In 2006, she released her debut single "Tim McGraw",
Did you know that Taylor Swift is the youngest artist to win album of the year?
then her self-titled debut album, which was subsequently certified multi-platinum by the Recording
Industry Association of America. In November 2008, Swift released her second album, Fearless. Fearless and Taylor Swift finished 2008 at number-three and number-six respectively, with sales of 2.1 and 1.5 million. Fearless has
topped the Billboard 200 in 11 non-consecutive weeks; no album has spent more time at No. 1 since 2000. Swift was named Artist of the Year by Billboard Magazine in 2009. Fearless won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2010.In 2008, her albums sold a combined four million copies, making her the best-selling musician of the year in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Forbes ranked Swift 2009's 69th-most powerful celebrity with earnings of $18 million. In January 2010 Nielsen SoundScan lists Swift as the top-selling digital artist in music history with over 24.3 million digital tracks sold. To date, she has sold over 10 million albums worldwide.
Early life
Swift was born December 13, 1989 and raised in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania as the first child and only daughter of Andrea, a homemaker, and Scott Swift, a stockbroker. She has a younger brother, Austin. When she was in fourth grade, Swift won a national poetry contest with a three-page poem entitled "Monster In My Closet".
At the age of 10, Swift began writing songs and singing them at karaoke contests, festivals, and fairs around her hometown. When she was 12 years old, she devoted an entire summer to writing a 350-page novel, which remains unpublished. Her first major show was a well-received performance at the Bloomsburg Fair. In 2008, she earned her high school diploma through homeschooling at the age of 18.Songwriting interest
Swift began learning to play guitar from a computer repairman who showed her how to play three chords. After learning those three chords, she wrote her first song, "Lucky You". She began writing songs regularly and used it as an outlet to help her with her pain from not fitting in at school. Other kids would react badly to her so she wrote songs about them.Early work
Swift's greatest musical influence is Shania Twain. Her other influences include LeAnn Rimes,
Tina Turner, Dolly Parton, and Swift's grandmother. Although her grandmother was a professional opera singer, Swift's tastes always leaned more toward country music. In her younger years, she developed a love for Patsy Cline and Dolly Parton. She also credits the Dixie Chicks for demonstrating the impact you can make by "stretching boundaries".At age 11, Swift made her first trip to Nashville, hoping to obtain a record deal by distributing a demo tape of her singing with karaoke songs. She gave a copy to every label in town, but was rejected.
After Swift returned to Pennsylvania, she was asked to sing at the U.S. Open tennis tournament, where her rendition of the national anthem received much attention. Swift started writing songs and playing 12-string guitar when she was 12. Swift began to regularly visit Nashville and wrote songs with local songwriters. By the time she was 14, her family decided to move to an outlying Nashville suburb.
When Swift was 15, she rejected RCA Records because the company wanted to keep her on an artist development deal. After performing at Nashville's songwriters' venue, The Bluebird Café, she caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, who signed her to his newly formed record label, Big Machine Records. At age 14, she became the youngest staff songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house.
Music career
2006–2008: Taylor Swift
Debuting high on the Billboard 200, the album sold 39,000 copies during its first week. It peaked at #1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums and #5 on the Billboard 200.Her debut album spent eight consecutive weeks at the top of the Top Country Albums charts and remained at the top for 24 out of 91 weeks. The only other country artists this decade to achieve the number-one sales position for 20 weeks or more are The Dixie Chicks and Carrie Underwood.The music video for "Tim McGraw" 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 May 15, 2007, Swift performed "Tim McGraw" at the Academy of Country Music Awards. 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.The second single from the Taylor Swift album, "Teardrops on My Guitar", was released February 24, 2007. In mid-2007, the song peaked at #2 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart and #33 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was re-released 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 was awarded Songwriter/Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Assn. Intl., making her the youngest artist ever to win the award.
Her third song off her debut album, "Our Song" spent six weeks at #1 on
the Country charts, peaked at #16 on the Billboard Hot 100, and rose to #24 on the Billboard Pop 100. Swift recorded a holiday album, Sounds of the Season: The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection, which was released exclusively at Target in late 2007. 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 and soon peaked at #3 on the Billboard Country chart in spring 2008."Should've Said No" became
Swift's second #1 single. In Summer 2008, Swift released Beautiful Eyes, an EP sold exclusively at Wal-Mart. In its first week of release, the album sold 45,000 copies, debuting at #1 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart and #9 on the Billboard 200. With her self-titled debut album sitting at #2 during the same week, Swift became the first artist since 1997 to hold the Top 2 positions of the Top Country Albums chart.2008–2009: Fearless
Swift's latest studio album, Fearless, was released in the United States on November 11, 2008. The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart. Its sales of 592,304 were the highest debut of any country artist in 2008. This is also the largest opening U.S. sales week in 2008 by a female artist in all genres of music, and the fourth biggest overall behind Lil Wayne, AC/DC and Coldplay. Its lead single "Love Story" became a hit on both the country and pop charts. During the first week of release, more than 129,000 of Swift's sales were sold digitally. This gives Swift the best online start for any country album in history. It also makes Swift the fourth biggest week for a digital album since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking them in 2004. Through its eighth week of release, Fearless has sold more than 338,467 paid downloads, making it the bestselling country album in digital history. In second place is Swift's debut Taylor Swift with sales of 236,046 downloads as of April 18, 2009.In its debut week, seven songs in total on Fearless were charted on Billboard Hot 100, tying Swift with Miley Cyrus for the most by a female artist in a single week. With "White Horse" charted at #13, this gave Swift her sixth top 20 debut of 2008, a calendar year record for any artist in the history of the Billboard Hot 100. Of the 13 tracks on Fearless, 11 have already spent time on the Hot 100. "Change", a song from the album, was selected as part of a soundtrack supporting Team USA's efforts in the 2008 Summer Olympics. The song was also featured as part of the soundtrack of NBC's broadcast package of the Olympics.
The second single from Fearless, "White Horse", was released on December 8, 2008. The music video for the song premiered on CMT on February 7, 2009. Though it missed the #1 spot on Billboard's Hot Country Songs as of the week April 11, 2009, "White Horse" claimed the #1 spot atop the USA Today/Country Aircheck chart (powered by Mediabase) in that week."Forever & Always", another song from the album, was based on Swift's relationship with singer Joe Jonas.
She was the first artist in the history of Nielsen SoundScan to have two different albums in the Top 10 on the year end album chart. It also was the first album by a female artist in country music history to log eight weeks at #1 on The Billboard 200. In mid-January 2009, Swift became the first country artist to top the 2 million mark in paid downloads with three different songs.
Swift is Billboard's Top Country Artist and Hot Country Songwriter of 2008; she is also country music's best-selling artist of 2008. Swift ranked seventh on Nielsen SoundScan Canada's top-10 selling artists across all genres in 2008. Fearless and Taylor Swift took the #1 and #2 slots on 2008 Year-End Canadian Country Albums Chart. Swift sang the Star-Spangled Banner at game three of the World Series in Philadelphia on October 25, 2008.
In January 2009, Swift announced her North American Fearless Tour planned for 52 cities in 38 states and provinces in the US and Canada over the span of 6 months. The tour kicked off April 23 in Evansville, Indiana. In the same month, Swift made her first musical guest appearance on Saturday Night Live. On February 8, 2009, Swift performed her song "Fifteen" with Miley Cyrus at the 51st Grammy Awards.
As of the week ending February 8, 2009, Swift's single "Love Story" became the country song with the most paid downloads in history. Since the release of Swift's second album, Fearless, she has released one new song "Crazier" for the soundtrack of the feature film Hannah Montana: The Movie. At the 44th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards, Swift picked up Album of the Year honors as a performer and producer for Fearless.
On April 28, 2009, Swift gave a free, private concert to students at Bishop Ireton High School, a
small Catholic school in Alexandria, Virginia after the school won a national "TXT 2 WIN" contest from Verizon Wireless. The students sent over 19,000 text messages to Verizon during a roughly one month long contest. Swift played for about an hour during the school's field day, an annual day-long recess with games and activities. On October 8, 2009 Swift's official website announced that her sold-out Fearless Tour would return to North America for 37 additional dates in 2010.On November 11, 2009 Swift became the youngest artist ever to win Country Music Association Award for Entertainer of the year, and is one of only six women to win Country Music Association's highest honor.
On the chart week of November 14, 2009, Swift set a record for the most songs on the Billboard Hot 100 by a female artist at the same time with eight singles from the re-release of her 2008 album Fearless namely five debut new songs in the top 30: "Jump Then Fall" at #10, "Untouchable" at #19, "The Other Side of the Door" at #22, "Superstar" at #27 and "Come in With the Rain" at #30 and three already-charted songs that were released as singles — "You Belong with Me" (#14), "Forever & Always" which re-entered the chart at #34, and "Fifteen" (#46). In addition, the song "Two Is Better Than One" by Boys Like Girls which features Swift, debuted at #80 in the same issue. This gives Swift six debuts in one week, the biggest number of debuts by any female artist of all time. It also lifts the number of her simultaneously-charting songs to nine, setting another record for the biggest number of charting songs by the same female artist in the same week. When "Fifteen" reached #38 on the chart week of November 21, 2009, Swift became the female artist with the most Top 40 singles this decade, surpassing Beyoncé. "Fifteen" became Swift's twentieth Top 40 single overall. "Two Is Better Than One" by Boys Like Girls and John Mayer's "Half of My Heart" both featured Swift, peaking at #40 and #25 respectively. The two songs are her 21st and 22nd Top 40 singles.
Fearless was the best-selling album of 2009 in the US with more than 3.2 millions copies sold in that year. Swift claimed both the #1 and #2 positions atop Nielsen's BDS Top 10 Most Played Songs chart (all genres), with "You Belong With Me" and "Love Story," respectively. She also topped the all format 2009 Top 10 Artist Airplay chart with over 1.29 million song detections, and the Top 10 Artist Internet Streams chart with more than 46 million song plays.
MTV VMA incident
For more details on this topic, see 2009 MTV Video Music Awards#Kanye West controversy and debated incidents.
Scheduled to perform on September 13, 2009, Swift attended the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. This was her first VMA performance, where she became the first country music artist to win an MTV Video Music Award. During the show, as Swift was on stage accepting the award for Best Female Video for "You Belong with Me," singer/rapper Kanye West came on stage and took the microphone from Swift, saying that Beyoncé's video for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", nominated for the same award, was "one of the best videos of all time," an action that caused the many audience members to boo West. He handed the microphone back to a stunned and reportedly upset Swift, who did not finish her acceptance speech. When Beyoncé later won the award for Best Video of the Year for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", she called Swift up on stage so that she could finish her acceptance speech.Following the awards show, West apologized for his verbal outburst in a blog entry (which was subsequently removed). He was criticized by various celebrities for the outburst, and even by President Barack Obama in an "off the record" comment. He later posted a second apology on his blog and made his first public apology one day after incident on the debut episode of The Jay Leno Show.
On September 15, 2009, Swift talked about the matter on The View, where she said she was at first excited to see West on stage and then disappointed once he acted out. She said West had not spoken to her following the incident. Following her appearance on The View, West contacted her to apologize personally; Swift said she accepted his apology.
2010–present: Film debut and upcoming third studio album
In February 2010, Swift is set to bring her Fearless Tour to 5 cities in Australia. Opening acts will include Gloriana.Swift is currently recording songs for her third album, to be released in late 2010.
Swift released the track "Today Was a Fairytale" as a digital download on iTunes on January 19, 2010. The song was featured on the soundtrack for the film Valentine's Day, in which she made her feature-film acting debut. The song debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at No.2, becoming her sixth Top 10 and 23rd Top 40 single on that chart. According to Nielsen SoundScan, with sales of "Today Was a Fairytale" more than 325,000 in its first week, Swift has broken the record for first-week download sales by a female artist. The song also debuted at number one on the Canadian Hot 100, making it Swift's first number one hit in Canada.
Songwriting style
Swift's lyrics are highly autobiographical; she has said that "If you listen to my albums, it’s like reading my diary." For instance the song "Forever & Always" was inspired by her relationship with Joe Jonas, while the song "Hey Stephen" was written about a guy who opened some shows for her. "Fifteen" was written about her freshman year of high school. It has been said that her lyrics "can be tinged with acid: the quiet loner girl getting one over on the cheerleaders, or a caustic payback for the boy who dumped her." She's also indicated that she tries to write so her fans can relate to the lyrics, saying "My goal is to never write songs that my fans can't relate to."The intensely personal nature of the songs has drawn her the most attention. Swift once said, "I thought people might find them hard to relate to, but it turned out that the more personal my songs were, the more closely people could relate to them."
The autobiographical nature of her songs has led some fans to research the songs' origins. Swift once said, "Every single one of the guys that I’ve written songs about has been tracked down on MySpace by my fans." The New York Times described Swift as "one of pop's finest songwriters, country’s foremost pragmatist and more in touch with her inner life than most adults".
Acting career
She started her acting career as a teen, playing a small role in Larry Schwarz's Thumb Wrestling Federation as Pei Pei The Purple Panda. In 2008, Swift made her acting debut in Brad Paisley's music video "Online". In that same year Swift filmed a documentary for MTV entitled MTV's Once Upon a Prom and a documentary with Def Leppard for CMT entitled CMT Crossroads, which premiered on November 7, 2008. Swift collaborated with the Jonas Brothers in their 3D Concert Film, Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience. The film was released on February 27, 2009 in North America and brought in $12.7 million on its opening weekend. Swift made her primetime television acting debut on CBS's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Turn, Turn, Turn on March 5, 2009 in the U.S. and Canada. The episode was watched by 20.8 million viewers. Swift made a cameo appearance in Kellie Pickler's music video "Best Days of Your Life". Swift also appeared in Hannah Montana: The Movie credited as "woman singing in the barn". The film was released on April 10, 2009 in North America. The television show Dateline NBC showcased an hour on Swift on May 31, 2009. The episode titled Dateline NBC: On Tour With Taylor Swift included scenes from her tour bus, concert footage, and rehearsals. Taylor both hosted and performed as the musical guest for the November 7, 2009 episode of Saturday Night Live.In 2010, Swift made her feature film acting debut as Felicia in the film Valentine's Day.Philanthropy
On September 21, 2007, Swift helped launch a campaign to protect children from online predators. She has teamed up with Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen to combat internet sex crimes. The year-long campaign, in partnership with the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police, will distribute Internet safety information and materials to parents and students across the state. In early 2008, Swift donated the pink Chevy pick-up truck given to her by her record label to the children’s charity, the Victory Junction Gang; in June, 2008, Swift donated all the proceeds from her merchandise sales at the 2008 Country Music Festival to Red Cross, the Nashville Area Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund and the National American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund.
Swift donated $100,000 to the Red Cross in Cedar Rapids, Iowa to help the victims of the Iowa flood of 2008. Swift has teamed up with Sound Matters to make listeners aware of listening "responsibly". Swift supports @15, a teen-led social change platform underwritten by Best Buy to give teens opportunities to direct the company's philanthropy through the newly-created @15 Fund. Swift's song, "Fifteen", is featured in this campaign. Swift lent her support to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal by joining the lineup at Sydney's Sound Relief concert, reportedly making the biggest contribution of any artist playing at Sound Relief to the Australian Red Cross. Swift donated her prom dress, which raised $1,200 for charity, to DonateMyDress.org.On November 20, 2009 after a live performance on BBC's Children in Need night Swift announced to Sir Terry Wogan she would donate £13,000 of her own money to the cause.
On December 13th, Swift's own birthday, she donated $250,000 to various schools around the country which she either attended or been involved with. Taylor Swift has donated a pair of her shoes - a gently-worn pair of black Betsey Johnson heels with her autograph on the sole - to the Wish Upon a Hero Foundation's Hero in Heels fundraiser for auction to raise money to benefit women with cancer.
In response to the May 2010 Tennessee floods, Swift donated $500,000 during a flood relief telethon hosted by WSMV, a Nashville television station.
Public image and other work
Swift has been featured on the cover of a number of magazines. She has been a cover girl for
Blender, for which she was one of two country artists during the magazine’s fifteen year run to be a cover subject. She was included in People's annual "100 Most Beautiful People" 2008, 2009, and 2010 lists. Additionally, she was named number fifty-seven on Maxim's sexiest women of 2008, number fifty on the 2009 list and number thirty-one on the 2010 list. CosmoGirl voted Swift as the "2008 Girl of the Year". Swift was named by Rolling Stone magazine as one of "The RS 100: Agents of Change".] She was nominated as a candidate for TIME's "2009 The Time 100 Finalists" list, which is determined by online voting. PEOPLE magazine named Swift one of 25 Most Intriguing People of 2009.Jakks Pacific released a celebrity doll of Swift in late 2008. Taylor Swift is the face of L.E.I. Jeans (Life
Energy Intelligence) since 2008. Swift and the L.e.i. Clothing Line made a deal to create a line based on Swift's style of dressing. It will appear in Wal-Mart in the coming months. However, Swift said she does not want to be called a designer. Instead, she says she will inspire the clothing company's dress line based on her own style. "I don't look at it like I'm branching out as a designer... It's not the Taylor Swift designer line." In 2009, Swift became the National Hockey League's newest celebrity spokesperson. She appears in commercials for the Nashville Predators.Personal life
In 2008, Swift was in a relationship with pop singer Joe Jonas which ended in November of that year. Swift indicated that her heartbreak song "Forever & Always" on her album Fearless was inspired by Jonas.
Discography
Main article: Taylor Swift discography
- Albums
- Taylor Swift (2006)
- Beautiful Eyes (2008)
- Beautiful Eyes (2008)
- Fearless (2008)
- TBA (2010)
- EPs
- Video albums
Filmography
| Year | Film | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience | Herself | Cameo |
| CSI: Crime Scene Investigation | Haley Jones | Episode: "Turn, Turn, Turn" | |
| Hannah Montana: The Movie | Girl Singing at the Barn | Cameo | |
| Saturday Night Live | Herself | Host/Musical Guest | |
| 2010 | Valentine's Day | Felicia | Movie acting debut |
