Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American
country pop[1] singer-songwriter,
musician and
actress.
In 2006, she released her debut single "
Tim McGraw", then her
self-titled debut album, which was subsequently certified
multi-platinum by the
Recording Industry Association of America and was nominated for the
Best New Artist award at
50th Grammy Awards. In November 2008, Swift released her second album,
Fearless, and the recording earned Swift four
Grammy Awards, including the
Album of the Year, at the
52nd Grammy Awards.
Fearless and
Taylor Swift finished 2008 at number-three and number-six respectively, with sales of 2.1 and 1.5 million.
[5] Fearless topped the
Billboard 200 for 11 non-consecutive weeks;
[6] no album has spent more time at No. 1 since 2000. Swift was named
Artist of the Year by
Billboard Magazine in 2009.
[7] Swift released her third album
Speak Now on October 25, 2010 which sold 1,047,000 copies in its first week.
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
[8] and 2010's 12th-most powerful celebrity with earnings of $45 million.
[9] Swift was ranked the 38th Best Artist of the 2000–10 decade by
Billboard.
[10] In January 2010
Nielsen SoundScan listed Swift as the most commercially successful country (or country/pop crossover) artist in music history with over 33 million digital tracks sold.
[11] As of February 2011
[update], she has sold over 19 million albums and 33 million singles worldwide.
[12]
Swift was born on December 13, 1989 to Andrea Gardner (
née Finlay), a
homemaker, and Scott Kingsley Swift, a
stockbroker. She was born and raised in
Wyomissing,
Pennsylvania. Her maternal grandmother, Majorie Finlay, was an
opera singer.
[13][14] Swift has a younger brother, Austin.
[15]
When she was in fourth grade, she won a national poetry contest with a three-page poem entitled "Monster In My Closet".
[14][16] When Swift was 10, a computer repairman showed her how to play three chords on a guitar, sparking her interest in learning the instrument. Afterwards, she wrote her first song, "Lucky You".
[17] She began writing songs regularly and used it as an outlet to help her with her pain from not fitting in at school. She was a victim of
bullying, and often wrote songs to express her emotions.
[18] Swift also started performing at
karaoke contests, festivals, and fairs around her hometown. When she was 12, she devoted an entire summer to writing a 350-page novel, which remains unpublished.
[19] Her first major show was a well-received performance at the
Bloomsburg Fair.
[20] Swift attended
Hendersonville High School but was subsequently homeschooled for her junior and senior years. In 2008, she earned her high-school diploma.
[21]
Swift's greatest musical influence is
Shania Twain.
[22] Her other influences include
LeAnn Rimes,
Tina Turner,
Dolly Parton, and her grandmother. Although her grandmother was a professional opera singer,
[23] Swift's tastes always leaned more toward country music. In her younger years, she developed a love for
Patsy Cline and Dolly Parton.
[24] She also credits the
Dixie Chicks for demonstrating the impact you can make by "stretching boundaries".
[25]
Music career
2000–05: Musical beginnings
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,
[26] but was rejected.
[27] 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.
[28] 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.
[29]
When Swift was 15, she rejected
RCA Records because the company wanted to keep her on an
artist development deal.
[30] After performing at Nashville's songwriters' venue,
The Bluebird Café, she caught the attention of Scott Borchetta,
[31] 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.
[32]
2006–10: Taylor Swift, Fearless, and 2009 MTV VMA incident
Swift released her debut single, "
Tim McGraw", in mid-2006, reaching #6 on
Billboard magazine's
Hot Country Songs chart.
[34] Her
self-titled debut album was later released on October 24, 2006.
[35] Debuting high on the
Billboard 200, the album sold 39,000 copies during its first week.
[36] It peaked at #1 on the Billboard
Top Country Albums and #5 on the
Billboard 200.
[37] Her debut album spent eight consecutive weeks at the top of the
Top Country Albums charts
[38] and remained at the top for 24 out of 91 weeks.
[39] 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.
[40] The music video for "Tim McGraw" won Swift an award for Breakthrough Video of the Year at the 2007 CMT Music Awards.
[41] 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.
[42] 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.
[43] 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.
[44] 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.
Swift performing at
Yahoo HQ in 2007.
"Should've Said No" became Swift's second #1 single. In Summer 2008, Swift released
Beautiful Eyes, an EP sold exclusively at
Wal-Mart.
[45] 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.
[46] In October 2008, Swift performed a duet with best selling rock band
Def Leppard in a taped show in
Nashville, Tennessee, and their collaboration was up for both Performance of the Year and Wide Open Country Video of the Year at the
CMT Music Awards in 2009.
[47] Swift's second studio album,
Fearless, was released in the United States on November 11, 2008.
[48] 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.
[49] 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.
[50] It also makes Swift the fourth biggest week for a digital album since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking them in 2004.
[51] Through its eighth week of release,
Fearless has sold more than 338,467 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.
[52] 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.
[51] "Change", a song from the album, was selected as part of a soundtrack supporting Team USA's efforts in the
2008 Summer Olympics.
[53] The song was also featured as part of the soundtrack of
NBC's broadcast package of the Olympics. The lead single from the album, "Love Story", was released on September 12, 2008. The Fearless album includes the "Love Story" music video which is based on
Romeo and Juliet. The song has reached #2 on iTunes Store Top Downloaded Songs and #4 on the
Billboard Hot 100. Fifteen weeks after being added to pop radio, "
Love Story" also became the first country crossover recording to hit number one on the Nielsen BDS CHR/Top 40 chart in the 16-year-history of the list, as well as number one on the Mediabase Top 40 Chart.
[54] 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.
[55] "Forever & Always", another song from the album, was based on Swift's relationship with singer
Joe Jonas.
[56] 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.
[5] 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.
[57] Swift is
Billboard's Top Country Artist and Hot Country Songwriter of 2008; she is also country music's best-selling artist of 2008.
[58] 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.
[59] 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.
[60] The tour kicked off April 23 in
Evansville, Indiana. In the same month, Swift made her first musical guest appearance on
Saturday Night Live.
[61][62] 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.
[63][64] 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. Swift is the youngest artist in history to win the ACM
Album of the Year award. The Academy lauded her for career achievements including selling more albums in 2008 than any other artist in any genre of music, the breakthrough success of her debut album, and the worldwide crossover success of her #1 single "
Love Story". The Academy also cited Swift's contribution to helping country music attract a younger audience.
[65] As of late April 2009, Swift has sold more than 14 million downloads, as well as three Gold Mobile Ringtones.
[66] 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.
[67] 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.
West taking the microphone from Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.
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.
[68] 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.
[69][70] He handed the microphone back to a stunned and reportedly upset Swift, who did not finish her acceptance speech.
[69][71] 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.
[69][72] Following the awards show, West apologized for his verbal outburst in a blog entry (which was subsequently removed).
[69] He was criticized by various celebrities for the outburst,
[70][73][74][75][76] and even by
President Barack Obama in an "
off the record" comment.
[77][78][79][80] He later posted a second apology on his blog and made his first public apology one day after the incident on the debut episode of
The Jay Leno Show.
[70] 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.
[81][82] She said West had not spoken to her following the incident.
[82] Following her appearance on
The View, West contacted her to apologize personally; Swift said she accepted his apology.
[68][82] However, on November 8, 2010, in an interview with a Minnesota radio station, West seemed to recant a bit of his past apologies by attempting to describe the act at the 2009 awards show as "selfless" and downgrade the perception of disrespect it created.
[83][84]
Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards with her award.
On November 11, 2009, Swift became the youngest artist ever to win the
Country Music Association Award for Entertainer of the year, and is one of only six women to win the Country Music Association's highest honor.
[85] 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).
[86] 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.
[87] 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.
[88] "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.
[89]
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